That sound lasted for a full half-minute.
Throughout the process, my mind was bombarded by one gruesome scene of cannibalism after another. Terrified, my legs went weak, and I nearly collapsed to the ground.
I figured there must be some deadly thing up ahead.
I didn't dare to keep walking forward.
"We need to go up and take a look," Old Pizi said. "Only by figuring out where the danger comes from can we avoid losing our lives in total ignorance!"
Being a complete novice at grave robbing who knew nothing at all, I had no choice but to listen to Old Pizi.
Although Lu Gouzi was a greedy bastard, he had plenty of nerve. Without hesitation, he held an iron shovel in one hand and raised a Black Donkey Hoof in the other as he walked forward.
I had no idea whether a Black Donkey Hoof would actually work if it ran into a Corpse King.
Still, it definitely helped boost our courage.
We walked through this stretch with extreme caution, our hearts kept hanging in our throats.
Although the sound had stopped, the stench of blood began to appear, growing thicker and thicker.
After walking about a few tens of meters, a blood-drenched human skeleton appeared before us.
I was so frightened I nearly passed out.
As for Old Pizi and Lu Gouzi, they had already squatted down to inspect it.
Mustering up my courage, I squatted down on the ground to look as well.
This skeleton looked as though the flesh had just been stripped away, emitting an extremely pungent smell of blood.
The skeleton wasn't clean; it was covered in dense patches of minced flesh the size of grains of rice. It was precisely because of this minced flesh that the entire skeleton looked blood-red, as if it had been dyed in blood—extraordinarily terrifying.
The bizarre thing was that on the ground surrounding the skeleton, there wasn't a single drop of blood.
It was as if the person's blood had been sucked dry before their flesh was stripped away.
In my mind, the terrifying scene of zombies sucking blood from the movies instantly flashed before my eyes.
Goosebumps broke out all over my body.
I subconsciously looked around in all directions, but didn't see any shadows.
Beside the skeleton, there were only some scraps of black-and-white cloth and a pair of sunglasses.
I could say with certainty that the dead person was definitely not the Dead Face we had pulled out of the giant tripod.
Instead, it looked like one of Master Huo's subordinates.
They were the ones who wore black suits and sunglasses.
And they all shaved their heads.
There was no hair next to the skeleton either, which seemed to corroborate this point.
I secretly knitted my brows.
Master Huo and his subordinates hadn't been crushed to death by the collapse of the fake tomb above; they had made it down here as well.
If we really ran into them, they would surely flay me alive and pull my tendons out.
"There are tiny marks on these bones, as if they were gnawed on by something extremely small in size!"
From the moment the screams were heard to when the sound stopped, it had been a mere few minutes.
"It looks like there are a lot of those things, so we must be careful!" Old Pizi analyzed with exceptional solemnity after examining the skeleton for a while.
"Old Pizi, it seems not only us and Dead Face are here—Master Huo's people have come too!" I reminded Old Pizi.
"Let's figure a way out of here first. Remember, without my permission, you are not to touch anything, and absolutely no greed!" Old Pizi glanced at Lu Gouzi and warned.
Actually, upon learning that Master Huo's people had also arrived, I suddenly didn't want to leave anymore.
I still hadn't figured out the cause of Old Bachelor Grandpa's death.
Yet this place was fraught with peril. Without Old Pizi and Lu Gouzi, I scarcely had any hope of survival, let alone getting revenge.
I had no choice but to listen to Old Pizi.
Old Pizi led us along this tomb tunnel, continuing forward.
We hadn't walked far before we saw that on both sides of the tomb tunnel, wax-sealed human heads had also appeared. Only, these heads were all hung on the walls; some had ferocious expressions, some had bulging eyes, and others had crisscrossing wounds on their faces—terrifying sights.
It felt just like stepping into a decapitation hell.
I kept feeling as though all the human heads were staring right at us.
Although I knew full well that these heads were likely fake, the fear in my heart was real and impossible to suppress.
Suddenly, we heard what sounded like footsteps ahead, and they were quite noisy, as if there were multiple people.
Old Pizi immediately led us to hide inside a side burial chamber nearby.
A moment later, we saw three people wearing black suits walk past the tomb tunnel.
They were also walking with extreme caution, holding firearms in their hands.
"Ah!"
One of them caught sight of the heads on the wall and let out a shriek of terror.
Bang!
Then he opened fire.
He shot one of the heads to pieces.
Just as I had anticipated, the head was indeed fake; after being blasted apart, a pool of pitch-black, sticky fluid trickled down the wall.
"This is bad, they've invited a catastrophe—something's going to happen!" Old Pizi said in a nearly imperceptible, urgent whisper.
"Squeak, squeak..."
Sure enough, a moment later, strange squeaking screeches rang out.
Following that, a massive swarm of pitch-black things came flying toward those three people.
Hiding in the dark, we didn't dare turn on our flashlights and could only rely on the beam of the flashlights from those three people to see.
We couldn't clearly make out what the swarm of black things flying past was at all.
However, those three people were quickly surrounded by the swarm of black creatures.
Immediately afterward, heart-rending screams echoed out.
Lasting merely a few minutes, the screams vanished.
The dark swarm of things also vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye.
Those three people were undoubtedly dead.
The three of us suppressed the terror in our hearts and cautiously crept forward.
The three people had turned into three blood-drenched skeletons, emitting an extremely pungent smell of blood.
From the onset of the danger to the tragic deaths of the three men, being gnawed down to skeletons, it had taken no more than three to five minutes from start to finish.
This was utterly terrifying!
"Look, what is this?!" Lu Gouzi suddenly pointed at the ground and shouted.
Old Pizi and I squatted down to look, and on the ground was actually a bat about the size of a palm.
It had been beaten to death by the three men in their panic.
The wings of this bat were actually blood-red.
It also had sharp fangs protruding from its mouth.
I suddenly recalled the demons that had appeared in the murals.
Wasn't this just a miniature version of those demons?
They were identical.
"It seems there is a huge swarm of man-eating bats in this tomb. Never touch those wax-sealed human heads again; the sticky fluid inside them is the key to luring out the bats!" Old Pizi said, looking at the pool of dripping sticky fluid on the wall and the three blood-drenched human skeletons on the ground.
These bats must have been raised by the tomb's occupant to protect the Ancient Tomb.
Earlier, when Lu Gouzi smashed the wax-sealed human head, had it not been for Old Pizi's quick reactions and prompt handling, the three of us likely would have been gnawed down to skeletons by the bats long ago.
"Let's go, hurry up and go!" Old Pizi urged us.
The three of us hurried outward in a panic, but we hadn't walked more than a few steps when I suddenly felt my foot go soft, followed by a bursting sensation—it felt just like stepping into a pile of dung.
Looking down, I saw I had crushed a dead bat underfoot.
A pool of black, viscous liquid splashed out from the bat's corpse.
"Squeak, squeak..."
Afterward, the strange screeches rang out.
A blanket of pitch-black bats, looking like a dark cloud, bore down on us from directly ahead.
"Damn it!" Lu Gouzi cursed in anxiety.
My legs went weak with fright as well.
In my heart, I knew we had stirred up a massive disaster this time and would likely lose our lives.