Yang Jinyan clenched his fists to control his shaking hands. He had to stay calm. Liu Xing was working hard outside, though he hadn't said it directly, his chances of survival were actually quite low. He was both outnumbered and outmatched. Those weren't normal abominations—if abominations had sects, those would belong to the great sects.

He eased the door open and peered into the hallway. While he didn't know every corner of the castle—he'd never visited the kitchens, for instance—he knew the middle levels well enough. What he saw, however, bore no resemblance to the familiar white walls, marble floors, and golden pillars adorned with elaborate engravings and statues.

Instead, an aberration greeted his eyes. The floor had transformed into living pink flesh, and as his gaze traveled upward, he discovered every surface coated in the same organic material. The castle's interior had become something grotesque—as if they stood within a giant spirit beast's stomach.

An open doorway to his right led to the lesser ballroom, a space typically reserved for entertaining guests of moderate status. Usually spacious and empty when not in use, the room now displayed a horrifying transformation. Through the open doors, he saw thousands of octagonal shapes carved into the flesh-covered walls, each the size of a dinner plate. At the center of every octagon sat what looked like a meatball, the pattern reminiscent of a massive beehive filled with larvae.

To his left, the hallway split in two directions. Down one path, he spotted a massive worm, as large as a cow, spraying yellow liquid against the wall. Where the substance touched the fleshy surface, the tissue writhed and formed new octagons. The worm then shifted aside, allowing another worm to deposit their meatballs into the fresh cavities. The other path hosted the same grotesque scene, although there were twice as many worms.

This posed a significant problem. The left hallway was their intended route to the treasure room above, but worms blocked that hallway.

They needed another path.

Yang Jinyan's gaze returned to the right. While the lesser ballroom was infested with flesh-walls and meatballs, he knew it also contained several doors leading to the upper floors. Studying the room more carefully, he detected no presence of the worms inside. Yet rushing across the hallway would expose them to the creatures' sight, even with their presence thinned. Liu Xing had already warned him about the worms' speed and strength.

He closed the door silently and turned to address his group.

"We need to reach the ballroom, and here's how." He tapped the wall beside them. "Direct passage through the hallway is too dangerous, so we'll create our own path. Hong'er, what lies behind this wall?"

Hong'er closed her eyes, recalling the castle's layout. "A dining room. It connects to another hallway leading to the guest chambers, but doesn't directly access the ballroom."

Yang Jinyan nodded.

"Can anyone here create an opening silently?" He indicated the wall. The wall would be as hard as diamond, and while his own techniques could breach it, the noise would draw unwanted attention.

"I can." A man stepped forward, standing over two meters tall with stern features. Yang Jinyan recognized him as one of the late Elder Yang Tianyun's sons, though he couldn't recall the name.

"Then do it," he commanded.

The man positioned himself before the wall and extended both hands. A blade of fire materialized before his palms, spinning until it formed a drill of intense heat. Most of the Yang clan possessed fire resistance, their techniques and cultivation methods centered around flame, but even they felt the scorching temperature against their skin. Yang Jinyan noted this with brief appreciation before concern set in—if they could feel the heat, the abominations might sense it too, so he began to absorb the excess heat into his body.

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The tall cultivator acknowledged this assistance with a slight nod before pressing the fiery drill against the wall. Instead of the dreaded rumble of stone against fire, the wall melted silently, transforming into lava that Yang Jinyan immediately cooled into harmless pebbles.

"Faster," Yang Jinyan instructed quietly.

"Yes." The man increased the drill's rotation speed.

The process proved time-consuming. The wall, nearly three meters thick and reinforced with qi and formation arrays, resisted his efforts. But after five tense minutes, he managed to create a small opening. Yang Jinyan signaled the man to stop, then pressed close to examine his handiwork.

Through the hole, he confirmed Hong'er's assessment. It is a dining room. But this dining room had also succumbed to the same fleshy transformation. Octagonal patterns covered every surface—walls, floor, ceiling, and even the long dining table—each hosting one of those unsettling meatballs.

Each meatball emanated qi—some rivaling Core Splitting cultivators, others weaker, comparable to Lock Opening cultivators.

"Make the hole wider," Yang Jinyan said quietly.

The man at his side nodded. He reformed his fire drill, but instead of simply enlarging the hole, he began to carve horizontal lines, as if making a proper doorway.

"No need for anything big. A small gap we can slip through sideways will be enough," Yang Jinyan added.

The man acknowledged this with silent concentration. His technique, while impressive, revealed its limitations—the level of focus required made it impractical for combat.

Suddenly, the qi of the worms outside churned. Yang Jinyan's heart pounded against his ribs as he felt them rapidly approaching. Panic threatened to overwhelm him as an urgent question blazed through his mind: had they been discovered?

He glanced around, seeing how Hong'er and the others had gone pale with fear. When they looked to him for guidance, he forced his features into a mask of calm. Their visible relief told him he'd succeeded, though inside, his thoughts raced frantically.

If the abominations broke through the door, fighting was not a good option—even if he used all the talismans he had, they would die sooner or later. Retreat would take them further from the treasure room, wasting the precious time Liu Xing had bought them. They needed another solution, and quickly.

"Stop," he whispered to the man.

The cultivator, who was so focused on his task, only registered the overwhelming qi presence after he lowered his hands, and his face turned pale.

All twelve of them froze, becoming more lifeless than statues as the qi presences drew nearer. The pressure became suffocating when four abominations stopped directly outside their door.

Yang Jinyan silently prayed for them to move on. Instead, a heavy knock rattled the door, the sound echoing through the secret passage.

His throat tightened. The absurdity of a worm knocking momentarily distracted him from his fear. Why would it knock? And why so gently? Such creatures should have enough strength to shatter the door entirely. Another knock reverberated through the space. Yang Jinyan's eyes snapped to their unfinished doorway. Through it, he could see the dining room's octagonal nests with their ghastly contents. One meatball perched precariously in its nest several meters above the floor.

The third knock sent vibrations through the walls, causing the meatballs to tremble. The precarious one inched closer to the edge, like a person considering jumping off a bridge.

Yang Jinyan swallowed hard. If that meatball fell, would the sound draw the worms? There were no doors connecting the dining room to the hallway.

His mind raced through the possibilities: the sound would travel through their unfinished doorwand and lead the worms straight to them.

They needed to move. Now.

But before he could act—before he could even blink—another knock rattled the door. Time seemed to slow down. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he watched, wide-eyed and breathless, as that single meatball finally tipped over the edge, as if deliberately spelling their doom. The sound of its impact was surprisingly gentle, like a small vase falling onto a bearskin rug. But that soft thud could just as easily have been a killing blow.

Instantly, Yang Jinyan sucked in a sharp breath and his cheeks puffed. A split second later, a fireball materialized before his lips. With a forceful exhale, the projectile shot through the air and slammed into the wall like a meteor. Simultaneously, the still-trembling door exploded inward, accompanied by four piercing shrieks. The world seemed to slow down. He found himself staring into the face of a monstrous worm, the size of a cow. Its pink skin resembled raw, healing human flesh. The creature’s face was disturbingly humanoid, dominated by a bushy mustache and thick eyebrows. Its nose was the size of his fist, while its eyes were tiny, almost slits.

"Run!" The prince shouted.