Young Master Ning walked out and stood before all the captives.
"Everyone, the reason I've brought you all here today is to propose a partnership."
"In the mine tunnels behind me, there are many Primordial Spirit Fruit Trees. Deeper still, there's even a Golden Thread Primordial Spirit Fruit."
"Let's work together to retrieve the Primordial Spirit Fruits inside. I, Zhang Ning, guarantee that we only want the Golden Thread Primordial Spirit Fruit. The rest of the Primordial Spirit Fruits will be all yours."
"Of course, there is a small complication inside. We just need to take care of a few pesky Elemental Ore Rats."
Hearing this, everyone's faces drained of color in horror.
Anyone who frequented this Yuan Stone Ore Vein knew how terrifying the Elemental Ore Rats were.
That was no 'small complication'!
No one would be afraid of a few Elemental Ore Rats, but who could possibly stand against the overwhelming tide of them in the main tunnel?
Young Master Ning made it sound so nice, calling it a partnership.
In reality, he just wanted these low-level Martial Artists to act as his cannon fodder and human shields.
"I'm not going! Going into that mine is a death sentence!"
"The Primordial Spirit Fruits are great, but what's the use if you get them but don't live to enjoy them!"
Immediately, four people stood up, loudly protesting their refusal.
Young Master Ning smirked sinisterly and gave his two subordinates a look. "Da. Er."
Two exceptionally burly men, both over two meters tall, rushed into the crowd. Each wielded a massive Wolf Fang Club, and with a few swings, they smashed the upper bodies of the four who had stood up into a bloody pulp.
Bits of flesh, blood, and bone splattered everywhere.
After killing the four men, the two brutes let out excited roars. A terrifying, baleful aura instantly enveloped everyone present.
Martial Disciple Seventh Layer!
These two were the ones who had given Chu Qingyun that sense of danger earlier.
'Even I can't guarantee I could defeat a Martial Disciple of the Seventh Layer,' he thought. 'After all, the gap in Primordial Power is just too great.'
The overwhelming power and brutal methods instantly cowed everyone into submission.
Many people sighed, resigning themselves to their fate. They were outmatched; there was nothing more to be said.
And all of this drove home the sheer cruelty of the Martial World for Chu Qingyun.
Strength was the foundation of everything!
"Heh, it seems we had a bit of a disagreement."
"But it's no great matter. Now, I trust you will all cooperate obediently?"
Young Master Ning chuckled as if it weren't four people who had just died, but four flies.
He had planned to use these nearly two hundred people as cannon fodder from the beginning, so of course he didn't care about their lives.
Forced by Young Master Ning's henchmen, Chu Qingyun and the nearly two hundred others were all herded into the mine tunnel.
The moment he stepped inside, a message surfaced in Chu Qingyun's mind.
The devouring of the Assassin's Martial Soul was complete.
Now enhanced to 60%, his Devouring Martial Soul could devour another Martial Soul in less than a day.
This time, Chu Qingyun naturally chose to keep the Martial Soul.
Inside the dim mine tunnel, an inconspicuous shadow materialized in front of Chu Qingyun, unnoticed even by Chu Gang and Chu Yun standing right beside him.
After communing with it for a moment, Chu Qingyun learned the Martial Soul's details.
It was a Tier One Shadow Martial Soul, possessing the Soul Technique: Stealth.
Chu Qingyun didn't have to think hard to guess that the Assassin's ability to appear and disappear like a ghost in the darkness must have come from this very Soul Technique.
'With this Martial Soul, my chances of survival should be a little higher now,' Chu Qingyun sighed to himself.
Not far from the entrance was a stone ledge. Below it lay the main cavern, swarming with Elemental Ore Rats.
The small ledge couldn't possibly hold two hundred people. Soon, those at the front, hesitating to jump down, were being shoved from behind.
"Who's pushing me? Stop it! One more push and I'm gonna fall!"
"Don't look at me! I'm not the one pushing, someone's pushing me from behind!"
"Hey, in the back, stop pushing!"
"We can't stop! Those two from the Martial Disciple Seventh Layer are behind us, driving people forward with their Wolf Fang Clubs!"
The ledge instantly descended into chaos.
"Gang, Yun, listen. Whatever happens, stick close to me," Chu Qingyun said, one hand gripping the hilt of his sword.
Outside the mine, Young Master Ning waited for a moment, apparently dissatisfied with the dawdling inside.
"Let's go. We're going in too."
At his command, his henchmen also began to push their way into the mine.
A large group of Level 5 and Level 6 Martial Artists squeezed in, and the people at the front of the ledge were instantly shoved off.
As Young Master Ning's men pressed forward, more and more Martial Artists were pushed off the ledge.
The Elemental Ore Rats on the periphery were relatively weak.
There were few at even the Martial Disciple Ninth Layer; the vast majority were at the Seventh or Eighth Layer.
So, despite their vast numbers, they couldn't overwhelm the fallen Martial Artists, at least not at first.
A bloody battle erupted instantly.
Though none of them were above Level 4, nearly two hundred Martial Artists still represented a formidable force. They quickly established a foothold within the mine.
The low-level Elemental Ore Rats were cut down in swathes, tens of thousands dying in an instant.
Yet, the area covered by the Elemental Ore Rats in the mine didn't shrink in the slightest.
From the depths of the mine, more Elemental Ore Rats continuously swarmed in to take their place.
This was what made the Elemental Ore Rats truly terrifying—they were endless!
After the last of the captured Martial Artists had been pushed down, Young Master Ning and his men stood on the ledge, complacently watching the slaughter below.
"You know, I'm finding that just watching the show is quite entertaining."
"Next time, I'll invite Young Master Ma and Xiao De. We can round up more of this rabble for our amusement."
Young Master Ning's eyes were slightly bloodshot, stimulated by the overwhelming stench of blood rising from below. He spoke with a sinister grin.
"Ahem, Young Master Ning, we should probably make our move soon," one of his men advised. "It will be dangerous for us if this rabble is completely wiped out."
'If all the cannon fodder they'd captured died, then they would be the ones sent to their deaths at the front.'
"Fine. Let's go down."
Young Master Ning and his people also leaped down, falling in behind the large group that included Chu Qingyun.
The mine's area was limited, so Chu Qingyun's group formed a thick human wall, completely shielding Young Master Ning and his men from the Elemental Ore Rat Swarm.
"My Martial Artist brothers at the front! Hurry up and charge! You can't kill all the Elemental Ore Rats, you know,"
"Only by breaking through and taking the Golden Thread Primordial Spirit Fruit can we retreat!"
Young Master Ning yelled from the very back of the group.
The people at the front couldn't help but curse him and his eighteen generations of ancestors in their minds.
But he was also speaking the truth. Wasting their energy on the low-level rat swarm here was pointless. The only path to survival was to push forward.
It wasn't that they didn't want to turn back and fight for their lives. It was just that the vast majority had been scared witless by the two Martial Disciples of the Seventh Layer and were completely unable to organize themselves.
Chu Qingyun's group was positioned somewhere in the middle, not on the front lines.
In that short time, he had already used his Devouring Martial Soul to collect seventeen Martial Souls.
That meant seventeen Martial Artists had already died, devoured by the Elemental Ore Rats. Every last one of them had been gnawed clean to the bone.
The ferocious Elemental Ore Rats didn't even spare their own kind, let alone the human Martial Artists who had invaded their territory.