Even when I racked my immortal brain, there was nothing else I could think of besides one thing.

I cupped my hands around my mouth and amplified my voice so it shook the ground:

"STOP! EVERYONE, STOP RUNNING RIGHT NOW!"

And...

Nobody listened. They all kept screaming and scurrying further down the cave and away from the rapidly approaching, glowing scarlet light.

I huffed an exasperated breath, and this time I actually did a facepalm, continuing to run after them.

Okay, okay. I KNOW I'd just told these people to run for their lives and I wasn't looking all that credible as a professional immortal cultivator right now—but COME ON! They were just ignoring me completely now!

"STOP RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" I bellowed, chasing after the crowds. After hesitating, Xu Yun skidded to a stop, followed by a trembling Li Cheng.

The rest of the villagers kept on sprinting and howling like banshees.

"You! What d'you think you're doing?" one of them screeched back at me. "Are you crazy? If we stop—we'll get eaten!"

"Yeah! This immortal is really just a madwoman!"

"I'm not getting eaten by a big, creepy ol' demon for dinner! Not me! Not today!"

I chased after them, pulling Xu Yun and Li Cheng along. Behind us, I could feel the passageway rumbling more and more as Fong Jue ran closer and closer. The heavy, bitter smell of demonic qi was getting unbearable.

Without giving any warning, I threw out my hand.

"HOLD!"

Immediately, the Tangled Net of Ankles Technique was activated, and like a bunch of clumsy dominoes toppling over, all the villagers fell on top of one another in a pile. Cursing and yelping filled the cave, along with screeches of fear and fury.

"Who did that?"

"You, why did you trip me?"

"I didn't trip you, you asshole! You're the clumsy one here!"

Without a word, I threw Xu Yun and Li Cheng onto this writhing pile. Then I stood in front of the pile, placed both my hands on the ground, and gritted my teeth.

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"Immortal Laoshi Xia!" Xu Yun called, struggling as someone kicked him in the face. "What are you doing? Don't sacrifice yourself! The demon is coming!"

"C-C-Can someone just get us out of here..." Li Cheng stammered, sounding like he was on the verge of fainting.

"SHUT IT!" I bellowed, gritting my teeth so hard that my jaw ached. My hands began to heat up. I channeled an immense amount of qi to the tips of my fingers, sucking it viciously out of my central meridians and pushing it into my Yang Qiao meridians on my palms until my whole body started to sweat. I could feel my body temperature dropping, but there was no time.

My palms felt like they were on fire, and my vision started to spot with black. Shortness of breath, a pain in my chest—these were all symptoms of injured meridians, and they were piling on one after another. Still, I kept channeling qi while the villagers squabbled and Fong Jue rumbled closer and closer behind me.

At least, when Fong Jue appeared around the corner, flaming red and baring his long, white teeth, I looked up.

"Foolish immortal!" he rumbled, shaking the ground and causing the pile of villagers to scream again. "Have you caught these people for me to torture? Or have you all tripped in my dark cave?"

I grinned, still pressing my palms into the ground and probably looking super stupid.

"Sorry, Fong Jue. I was just getting ready to leave! See you in another thousand years! Or not. I hope not. But, you know, you never know, right?"

Fong Jue's eyes flashed like blood, and smoke rose from his nostrils.

"YOU—"

"FORM!"

With that, I activated the Terraforming technique.

There was a flash of blinding light, causing everyone to scream even more, if that was even possible. All of the qi built up in my fingers and palms exploded into the earth, sinking into it like a net of veins and taking hold of it. At the same time, it exploded back up my arms, connecting me to the net of earth below.

"RISE!"

This time, the whole mountain rumbled—for real. Not just a little wobbliness, not some far-away booms. This time, everything shook, and the earth reformed itself.

The circle of earth I was standing on along with the struggling, freaked out pile of villagers plus Xu Yun and Li Cheng, exploded upwards through the mountainous ceiling, carrying us away from Fong Jue and through miles and miles of rocks and earth.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" went the villagers.

"AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" I screamed, feeling something snap in my chest.

"RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!" went the earth.

"..." went Fong Jue, because he was already far behind—or below us, I should say.

We rushed upwards, and everything around us was obscured by disintegrating and reforming clouds of earth, pebbles, rocks, avalanches. The amount of qi it was taking right now to dig through the entirety of this mountain from the bottom up was killing me—and I don't mean that as a metaphor or whatever.

It was killing me.

My vision blurred. My mouth tasted like dirt. Gross! Not even nutritious or something. I think. Maybe dirt is nutritious? Anyways, it's not supposed to be in your mouth, and it doesn't taste good, so as I said: GROSS! My heartbeat was pounding in my ears, and I could tell it was getting slower, and slower...

At last, light appeared above, and we burst out of the ground in the middle of the village of Yingxuan Shan in a cloud of dirt and dust and pebbles and coughing people.

I sealed off the ground below us with the last bit of qi I could muster.

Then my knees turned into jelly, and I fell over.