Lin Mu saw everything that happened with a cold expression on his face.
His eyes fists trembled lightly but he did not move. Instead, he looked towards the barrier that was trapping the man who was none other than Elder Liqiang.
"Hehehe! Seems like your stubbornness is still not broken." The old woman said as she waved her hand.
~shua~shua~shua~
With the wave of her hand a red energy manifested in the barrier's interior and spread into it before turning into several chains and whips.
~CLANG~
~WHACK~
The chains wrapped Elder Liqiang and pulled on his limbs, stringing him up like a dead animal carcass. The red whips then lashed on to this bare flesh, tearing it apart even more as the blood spurted out of it.
Elder Liqiang grunted in pain but did not cry out. He simply looked at the old woman in utter fury.
The whipping lasted for five minutes, after which Elder Liqiang had grown rather weary and his eyes were swollen.
"Will you speak now, little rat?" The old woman spoke.
"N-no…" Elder Liqiang muttered.
~BANG~
"What's that? I didn't hear you?" The Old Woman said out loud as another whip hit the back of the man.
~Hiss~
But he still did not speak.
"You know, the earlier you tell us where the Noon Grass sect is located, the earlier you will be able to face death. If not, I'll simply show you terrors you've never heard of," The old woman said in a cold tone.
But seeing that Elder Liqiang did not answer even now, the old woman simply harrumphed and turned to face the other men that were in the room.
"Hold him for the time being. Perhaps we might use him as the perfect sacrifice. His cultivation and soul should be enough to open up the fifth level of the ruins." The old woman ordered.
"Yes, chieftess!" The men replied.
"Mmm… also keep an eye out for the others. Our little carps are already here, ready to be caught. Make sure they don't get a whiff of anything." The old woman stated.
"We'll ensure nothing happens, Chieftess." One of the men replied.
"I'll be on the fourth floor working on the formation," The old woman said before leaving for the next floor.
Lin Mu followed her and soon found her entering one of the walls of the ruin. The wall spun open to show a stairwell, from where she descended. It closed behind her and Lin Mu continued staring at her for a few minutes.
"I'll show you…" he muttered before blinking to the men in the hall where elders Liqiang was caged.
The men seemed to be talking about something right now and Lin Mu decide to eavesdrop on them.
"… we should be done by tomorrow, right?"
"Perhaps… the formation arrays of the ruins while the same as our records have degraded a bit over time. If chieftess can get them repaired. We might not have to struggle the extra bit."
"But is it really true? Is there really the inheritance of an Immortal Ascension realm cultivator here?"
"Of course. Who do you think our Ku clan is? Ancestor Kushao was the top genius of his generation and managed to infiltrate the Great Zhou continent's people with his great intellect. He was our greatest spy and secretly killed so many experts back then.
He even bet his life on setting up the secret teleportation array here. This is the closest we've ever gotten to the Southern continent. This was the lifelong dream of our people and he was the man who put a lot of effort into making sure it came true."
Hearing the contents of their conversation, Lin Mu was astonished.
'What? Kushao is from the Northern Tribes?' Lin Mu was stunned.
He had never expected there to be this sort of a secret behind the ruins. All the information that they had about the man turned out to be false from the very root.
"Hmm… seems like this man Kushao managed to make an image as a reclusive expert in the Great Zhou Empire while he was a spy of the Northern tribes. I have to say that was a smart move.
People often respect cold and distant experts. That might have gotten him more reputation than expected." Xukong suddenly spoke.
"This has changed everything now, though. Everyone that entered the ruins has basically entered a massive trap. They have baited us all with the ruins." Lin Mu said.
While Lin Mu was conversing with senior Xukong, the men were also conversing amongst themselves. But now Lin Mu could tell that while these were all from the Northern Tribes, they weren't from the very same tribe, but from different ones.
The man who was answering the questions was from the Ku tribe and Kushao belonged to this tribe as well.
Lin Mu tried to recall the information about the Ku tribe, but could not come up with much. He had learned about several important tribes of the Northern continent, but the Ku clan wasn't particularly impressive or eye catching.
'The Ku clan was a participant of many wars and had several Dao Shell realm experts along with a few Dao Treading realm experts as well. They held some territory in the eastern side of the continent for a while as well before being pushed back.' This was the information that Lin Mu could remember about them.
"Seems like the entire Ku clan was keeping their true ability hidden. Their strongest expert was here acting as a spy…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.
This also made him wonder about the cultivation base of Kushao. From the conversation of the men, he knew that there was an Immortal Ascension realm cultivator's inheritance here. But he didn't know if it was Kushao's or someone else.
"How did Ancestor Kushao make this place, anyway? I don't think it would have been possible at that time with all the sect monitoring use of resources." One of the men asked.
"Haha, he didn't need to. He was smart enough to not do that. Instead, he found the tomb of an expert who had passed before that time and used that as an inheritance ground. Though he was sure that there was an immortal ascension realm experts remains here." The Ku clan man answered.
