Even a dying Layer One cultivator would normally give off a trace of qi. The mirror would pick it up as a spark of amber. Pei Jing’s Five-Elemental Chaos Martial Root was drawn shut. It swallowed even the loose traces of qi in the air near him. His body lay slack and cold in the mud beneath the two-hundred-pound slab. The mirror had nothing to show.
Sun spat into the trench. It hit a broken tile inches from Pei Jing’s cheek. His open eye stayed fixed.
“Anything?” Yan called from the hall.
Sun kicked a loose piece of limestone down the bank. Muddy water splashed Pei Jing’s sleeve. “Three bodies and half a torso. One’s under a two-hundred-pound block with his back broken. They’re cold.”
“Leave them. Senior Brother Ling’s at the inner doors.”
Ling Feiyu stood before the bronze doors to the underground vault. The blast had sheared through the bolts that had held them closed for five hundred years and opened a narrow gap. Dry air smelled of old roots, parchment, and hardened earth marrow. Ling kept his eyes on the doors. The conscripts had done what he’d needed them for.
“Sun, Zhao, Chen. Shields up and take the lead. Keep five paces apart. Look for plates in the floor.”
