"That's unbelievable!" Qi Li exclaimed, witnessing the mummified corpses reassemble into a new creature.

When she saw the large mummy reaching for her, she instinctively retreated. She didn't dare face such an opponent directly.

I'm so useless, she thought, reproaching herself. If my Floating Cloud Blade were as powerful as Su Xuan's, it would have sliced the mummies into dust, and they wouldn't have been able to reassemble. It seems I still have to rely on Su Xuan to solve this problem in the end.

"I'll handle it!" Su Xuan's battle intent surged as he swung his sword at the large mummy. But a sudden sense of alarm rose in his heart, and he subconsciously shouted to Qi Li, "Watch out behind you!"

"Behind me?" Qi Li froze for a moment, then looked back. The path they had come from was behind them, but there was nothing there.

But as she turned, her pupils suddenly contracted. Another large mummy stood behind her, its massive palm stretching toward her.

How can there be another one?

It all happened too suddenly. Completely unprepared, Qi Li was instantly caught in the large mummy's grasp.

ROAR!

The large mummy opened its terrifyingly wide mouth, intending to swallow her whole. At the brink of life and death, Qi Li didn't know why she wasn't afraid. Her arms were free, so she quickly mobilized all the qi in her body and unleashed the strongest sword strike she could muster at the mummy's neck.

A flash of sword light streaked across. The large mummy's head drooped, but it was still connected by skin and flesh; it hadn't fallen off.

Gritting her teeth, Qi Li swiftly slashed again.

THUD!

The mummy's heavy head smashed onto the floor.

Qi Li breathed a sigh of relief. She had resolved the crisis herself without making a complete fool of herself. She wanted to tell Su Xuan that just chopping off the large mummies' heads was the way to go—it seemed easy enough. But then she realized something was terribly wrong.

I cut off its head... so why hasn't it let go of me? Why is it still holding me so tightly?

What happened next sent a chill down her spine. Countless tendrils extended from the large mummy's severed neck, coiling around her body. With a fierce pull, they dragged her halfway into its neck cavity.

At a glance, it looked as if she had become the large mummy's new, very peculiar head.

Then, a terrifying black miasma of corpse energy seeped from the gap in the neck, enveloping her. Her gaze quickly turned vacant. She opened her mouth, wanting to cry out to Su Xuan for help, but the words that came out were not her own.

"Trespassers in the forbidden land must die!"

She had actually uttered such a sentence. Just before her consciousness faded, she cast one last look in Su Xuan's direction.

This... This is a bit too imaginative! Su Xuan's eyes widened when he saw Qi Li being used as the mummy's head. A headache was already starting to form. He glanced at the large mummy in front of him, then at the one with Qi Li as its head. Standing between the two behemoths, he looked incredibly small.

I don't know how to save her. She and the mummy are one now. If I kill it, will she die too? What on earth should I do?

ROAR!

The large mummy Su Xuan was facing let out a low roar and reached for him with its one remaining arm; the other had just been shattered by his sword.

What if... I become a head too?

A flash of inspiration struck Su Xuan. He allowed the mummy to grab him. Just as Qi Li had, he sliced off the mummy's head and waited for it... to make him its new head.

It worked exactly as he'd predicted. The large mummies all followed the same pattern. Tendrils extended from the severed neck, pulling half of Su Xuan's body into the cavity to serve as its head. Naturally, the same black corpse energy tried to invade Su Xuan's will.

But on this point, the large mummy failed.

Su Xuan's mental will had been strengthened ten times by the system. It was as immovable as a mountain and completely unaffected by the dark energy. He even used his formidable will to battle the mummy's consciousness within the black energy, suppressing it and successfully seizing control of the mummy's entire body. He could make the large mummy raise its arm or leg at will.

I keep my word, Su Xuan smiled to himself. When I said I'd become a head, I meant I would *be* its head! This was his plan all along. He believed that only by doing this would the other mummy lower its guard, giving him a chance to figure out how to rescue Qi Li.

"Protect the forbidden land!" the mummy using Qi Li as its head said through her mouth, seeing that Su Xuan had been successfully assimilated.

"Protect the forbidden land!" Su Xuan mimicked, playing along. "We can't let outsiders take even a single brick or tile from this place!"

The moment he finished speaking, the Qi Li-mummy glanced at him. It seemed to find his manner of speaking a bit odd, but it didn't spot anything unusual.

"Return!"

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

The Qi Li-mummy took large strides toward the depths of the corridor, entering the coffin chamber directly. Su Xuan followed behind. He stealthily raised his arm, tempted to try and pull Qi Li out, but he ultimately abandoned the idea when the mummy in front of him suddenly stopped and turned its head to look at him. When the mummy looked at him, it was really Qi Li's eyes looking at him.

"The medicinal wine is almost ready," the mummy said enigmatically. "Go drink!"

"Alright, let's drink!" Su Xuan replied, pretending to understand.

The mummy led Su Xuan forward, giving him an opportunity to scan the coffin chamber. The space was vast, over a thousand square meters, and filled with rockeries, artificial trees, and pavilions, like a miniature world. Right in the center stood a three-story pavilion, which, astonishingly, was also constructed from Moon Profound Stone. On the third floor, he could see a black coffin through an open window lattice.

Who is lying inside that coffin? he wondered. What kind of person could have afforded such a magnificent tomb?

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

As Su Xuan was lost in thought, the Qi Li-mummy stopped in front of several large vats. Faded red paper with the character for "Wine" was pasted on them, identifying them as wine vats.

With a grating sound, the Qi Li-mummy slid the stone seal off a vat and peered inside, clicking its tongue as if the wine within was unbearably tempting.

Su Xuan peeked into the vat as well, and his expression changed instantly. He saw Qi Qingshan.

Qi Qingshan was soaking motionlessly in the vat, his face twisted in agony. The qi from his body was constantly seeping out, dissipating into the liquid.

"What?!" Qi Qingshan's eyes suddenly bulged, the muscles on his face twitching violently. He saw his precious daughter transformed into the head of a giant mummy.

And the head of the other mummy... was Su Xuan!

"What happened to you two?" he yelled frantically. "Do you still recognize me?"

He received no answer. He twisted his body violently, trying to free himself from the vat. But then he froze, because he saw Su Xuan give him a strange wink.

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