CHAPTER 327 THE EVIL BATS

"I don't feel so good about this place. It's so eerie even in the day!" Kristen said in a worried voice, with

a concerned look on her face.

"Well, I've got used to it already. What did you think was in this place? None other than battlefields and

graveyards! There are spooky places everywhere. I've seen more than enough of them ever since we

set foot on this land," Tyson replied with a smile upon hearing Kristen's words. He tried to say it in a

humorous tone, hoping to lighten up the atmosphere a little bit.

But Kristen still pressed her lips together out of concern. "This place is different," she said in a serious

tone. "The places we've been to felt eerie because they were swarming with evil spirit. But this place is

not the same. If you hold your breath and focus on your senses, you will see that the evil spirit is not

the cause of the strange atmosphere. It feels like numerous ghosts have escaped from hell and

swarmed in this place, smothering the land with their resentment and hatred," Kristen murmured in a

low and deep voice, shuddering at what she just imagined.

"I agree with Kristen," Ricky chimed in. "She's right about this place. The eerie atmosphere here exists

and it truly is strange. It's not the kind of weak illusion that the evil spirit has created in the other places

we've been to. We need to be wary of things other than evil spirit from now on," Ricky warned, biting

his lip.

He was now feeling a strong sense of danger, which went high as it could the time he entered this

tomb. He didn't feel anything close to this before. Like what Kristen had pointed out, he knew for sure

that the creepy aura in this place had a different and much more terrifying source. Unlike Kristen

though, he knew exactly where it was coming from--the countless caves scattered throughout the

whole mountain range.

"Now that you guys mentioned it, I'm starting to feel the same way, too!" Tyson exclaimed. Hearing

Kristen and Ricky's words, the smile on Tyson's face disappeared. He stopped and focused on his

surroundings. It didn't take him much time to sense the difference. The tension and danger around this

area felt more real. owns this text.

But it seemed that they had no choice but to meet the potential dangers, for getting into those caves

was the only way they could move forward. They all had no other choice but to bite the bullet.

In fact, the whole mountain range looked like a giant trap. They couldn't see what was beyond it, nor

could they figure out how high the mountains were. So it was impossible for them to climb over it, or go

around it. Those caves seemed to be the only passages they could take to get through. Ricky guessed

that this might be the result of some kind of array.

To avoid hitting the array, they could only step back and walk inside the dark strange caves.

"Now we should decide which cave we want to enter," Ricky ordered, wearing a grave expression.

The other two nodded and followed. Then the three of them stepped inside the cave on the far end,

which had not been chosen by the other warriors.

The moment they were inside the cave, the creepy feeling they had on their skin intensified. The

strange sense worked together with the evil spirit, and weighed heavily on their bodies. To resist the

invisible two-fold oppression, they had to double their efforts to channel their spiritual energy and form

shields for more protection.

As they marched on, getting deeper and deeper into the cave, the air felt colder. Gradually, the strange

feeling of resentment and hatred grew stronger that it was impossible for them to ignore. Now they

could feel that the resentment and hatred were being released by dead beings.

The resentment in the air was powerful, and it almost threatened to attack and erode their minds.

Protected by his power of the three zones, Ricky did not fear the evil resentment. And since Tyson and

Kristen had reached the peak of ninth grade of Bone Reinforcement, they were very capable of fending

them off. So far, they were doing good.

But suddenly, a loud and horrible noise pierced through their minds!

It came out of nowhere after they had traveled a long distance into the cave. Ear-piercing, the waves of

sound intruded itself into their minds, making them nearly overpowered by dizziness.

The next instant, a sound of blazing fire arose! Ricky reacted quickly and activated the Heaven Melting

Fire without hesitation. The flames rushed up and turned into a fire cage which surrounded the three of

them in an instant. With the flames blocking the sound waves, they finally recovered from the dizziness

and managed to catch their breath. Ricky had accurately judged their situation. Since the power of the

Heaven Melting Fire was quite ferocious and aggressive, it was the right skill to defend themselves

from the attacks evolved from the creepy resentment.

So on the other side of the cage, the air was stirred by the Heaven Melting Fire and eventually, the

sounds revealed themselves as they were forced by the intense heat. Slowly, the three of them could

see that it was actually some strange black ripples that were buffeting the cage.

"Now this is truly unbelievable. I never knew that resentment could turn into this kind of harsh and

deadly sound!" Tyson said to himself, out of amazement and fear.

"Neither did I. We need to be more careful. It seems that we might get ourselves into more danger with

every step we take from here," Ricky reminded them most solemnly.

The fact was, they could simply hide in Ricky's Chaotic Fire Zone and finish this dangerous journey

safely. But they knew clearly that this was not the reason they all came here. They meant to face the

dangers head on and toughen themselves up in terms of both mind and strength. Because they knew

that to master great martial art skills, you needed to have the courage to step on dead bodies and go

against death, and most importantly, you must be able to face desperation without losing yourselves.

Ricky was especially well aware of this truth, for he had realized that he had become too dependent on

the power of his Chaotic Fire Zone since he had used it so very often recently. And this dependency

kept growing and he decided that he needed to take more control. This kind of bad thoughts would only

be their stumbling blocks on their way to greater achievements. So at this point, none of them

suggested that they should get in the Chaotic Fire Zone for safety.

Instead, they moved on under the protection of the Heaven Melting Fire together.

As they went deeper into the cave, Ricky's energy alone was no longer enough to sustain the fire cage

and resist the sound of resentment. Without hesitation, both Tyson and Kristen injected their energy

into Ricky's body to help him strengthen the cage. Working together was their best and only strategy

right now.

Fighting alongside one another, they had gone a long way and almost reached the heart of the cave

without even noticing it.

It was then that they had finally seen the real source of the resentment and hatred with their own eyes.

They were not any kind of ghosts that they had expected, but a large number of black bats, which were

hanging upside down row by row on the cave's ceiling.

This part of the cave was literally all covered by these bats, hindering the three of them from seeing

virtually anything even with the light of the Heaven Melting Fire shining sustainably.

They were of small sizes, but all had hideous faces. It was almost certain that they were the ones who

had been releasing the power of resentment and hatred through sound waves.

"I'm afraid that these bats are only apparitions, they don't have real physical bodies!" Kristen suddenly

pointed out.

There were trails of blood flowing slowly in Kristen's eyes. Apparently, she had again used the power of

her eyes to find out more about those bats.

"What? You mean they're no different from ghosts?" Both Ricky and Tyson were surprised to hear what

she said, so they asked in unison.

From what they could tell, the bats were just some kind of devil beasts made of flesh and blood. The

fact that they could produce strong evil spirit, resentment, and hatred like ghosts didn't make them look

like evil spirits anymore.

"I'm sure of that. By using the power of my eyes, I can see all the creatures whose levels are lower

than mine for what they truly are. So I'm pretty sure that these bats are not made of flesh and blood,

but are merely apparitions formed by evil spirit and resentment," Kristen explained further.

"It is just that the evil spirit and the resentment they release is so dense and thick that we were tricked

into thinking that the producers must be something concrete enough to be the source," she added.

"Formed by evil spirit and resentment?" Ricky repeated, lost in thought. "Now it seems to me that these

caves might be some sort of gathering place, where the ancient fighting creatures' souls linger after

they depart from the living world," he analyzed.

"As time passed, the souls were deserted and deteriorated into ghosts of resentment, and were further

poisoned by the evil spirit dwelling here. So it could be said that they are not indeed any kind of living

creatures now, but they can be seen as souls contaminated by resentment and evil," Ricky made his

conclusion.

"That's right. We should just call them evil bats then," Kristen nodded in agreement.

But the evil bats would not give them much time to figure out the whole situation. All of a sudden, loud

squeaks resounded throughout the entire cave, and the evil bats launched their attacks, moving

towards the three of them like a giant chunk of dark cloud.

At first, the evil bats kept flying around, seemingly afraid of Ricky's Heaven Melting Fire. But as more

and more of them got to the three warriors' sides, they formed a thick blanket and started to engulf the

fire. Soon, the three of them were slowly cornered into desperation.

Without any hesitation, Ricky and Tyson stepped forward and stood between the evil bats and Kristen.

After all, no gentlemen would let a lady face these disgusting and horrifying beings.

Ricky activated the four kinds of fire energy he held in his body at once and channeled them into his

fists. With every fist he swung, hundreds of evil bats were burned into ashes. Tyson, at the same time,

hardened his body with his spiritual energy. Once the process completed, forceful waves of power

constantly burst out from within him like ripples, making the whole space tremble with his immense

force. The power waves lashed out against the evil bats, and the latter were reduced to evil spirit and

resentment before they completely disappeared.

Surprisingly, when the evil bats died and their bodies were shattered, innumerable dots of black lights

escaped from them. The lights were rather weak, but shining together, they still attracted the three

warriors' attention. Like dandelions, they flew towards the depth of the cave until they were out of their

sight.

"If I'm not mistaken, those black lights must be the essence of the innate evil spirit. We can expect the

amount of if to be very large from the number of the evil bats that we just destroyed in here. What a pity

that they couldn't be of any use to us," Kristen said, as she stared at the black lights flying away.

"Damn it!" Tyson cursed as he fought the annoying evil bats. "If only they were the Skeleton Army! That

way, we can get a huge amount of essence of the innate spiritual energy, instead of this black rubbish!"

Tyson was really bummed by the thought of not getting any trophies from this fight.

"What a terrible deal! Now, I'm certain that this was a waste of time!" he went on to grumble.

"Stop complaining, Tyson. Just focus on killing these flies! We have to finish them off as quickly as

possible. It would take us a lifetime to wipe them out if we don't hurry up!" Ricky called out.

"That wouldn't be a problem!" Tyson could only nod and continue to fight the bats.

With his mind back on the battle, Tyson gathered up all his energy and pushed his body refining

process to its fullest potential. In an instant, every part of his body became as hard as steel, like silver

liquid steel was being poured into his body and making him invincible.

"Wall-crushing Arm!" Tyson bellowed. His fists were then wrapped up in silver energy and light. He then

flung them with extreme might on the walls on their sides.

The next thing they knew, the whole cave trembled violently. The stony walls thundered as the massive

energy waves from Tyson's fists traveled through the walls. The energy had further increased as the

cave and even the whole mountain resonated with Tyson's attack. Carried by the stony walls, the

energy waves rushed towards the depth of the cave at an extremely fast pace.