The haunted house was just ahead, its mottled iron gate overgrown with weeds and vines.
Wang Kai stepped forward and swung his sharp Muramasa demon blade twice. The blade sliced through the weeds, severing only a few.
The weeds and vines here were several times thicker than those outside, and the thorns on the vines were as sharp as tiny blades.
"What the hell is this? It's too evil. Good thing I came prepared!"
Wang Kai grumbled, reaching into his backpack and pulling out a bottle. Ling Tian caught the strong smell of gasoline from it.
Wang Kai then took a wad of cotton gauze from his pocket, stuffed it into the bottle's opening, and ignited it with a lighter.
"Haha, taste this Molotov cocktail!"
Back in the day, the Soviet Union invented this crude incendiary device during World War II to stop invading tanks. It involved filling a bottle with gasoline, igniting it, and throwing it onto a tank. This was the Molotov cocktail.
The ignited bottle was immediately hurled at the courtyard gate. The gasoline spread, and flames engulfed the entire gate, beginning to burn.
It was already autumn, and the leaves were turning yellow. It was a dry season, yet Wang Kai wasn't worried about starting a forest fire.
Before they came, Old Master Wang had repeatedly instructed him that even if the haunted house was burned to the ground, Ling Tian must not be harmed.
Wang Kai felt the place was too strange, so he decided to set it on fire.
The flames spread rapidly, burning even faster than Wang Kai had imagined.
Ling Tian wasn't surprised by this phenomenon. Heavenly spiritual energy was also a potent accelerant. The alchemy used by some ancient cultivation sects involved using heavenly spiritual energy to fuel their fires.
The fire started at the courtyard gate and quickly ignited the wild grass within.
The raging fire stirred the air, making the flow of heavenly spiritual energy within the entire valley more chaotic and violent.
Within minutes, the flames reached the vicinity of the house. Just then, a large mass of black mist suddenly seeped out from the base and surroundings of the house.
Even through the sea of flames, Ling Tian and Wang Kai felt the bone-chilling cold emanating from the black mist.
The black mist swirled rapidly around the house, forming gusts of black wind that lunged towards the spreading flames.
Upon contact with the black mist, the flames immediately diminished or even extinguished.
The fire continued to burn, and the black mist continued to pour out for over ten minutes.
Finally, there was little black mist left, and the fire in the courtyard was halted. The weeds filling the courtyard had been reduced to ashes, with only a few faint embers still burning in scattered spots.
To Wang Kai and Ling Tian's surprise, the house, which had almost been swallowed by flames, appeared completely unharmed.
Wang Kai stared, dumbfounded, and asked, "Ling Tian, what was that?"
"Yin Sha that has accumulated over time. It's usually found in cemeteries or underground caves."
Ling Tian fell into thought. His master had told him that heavenly spiritual energy had attributes, and these attributes went far beyond the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
In dark, damp places, or places filled with resentment where heavenly spiritual energy could not flow easily, some heavenly spiritual energy would transform into dark-attribute heavenly spiritual energy.
This dark-attribute heavenly spiritual energy was Yin Sha.
Yin Sha was deadly poison to living beings. A healthy person, if brushed by this black mist, would likely fall seriously ill.
However, this substance was not entirely useless. For some, it was a good thing. For example, those who practiced with zombies or ghosts found Yin Sha to be a great supplement, capable of greatly increasing their power.
There were even some evil cultivators who absorbed Yin Sha into their bodies to practice their techniques, using this Yin Sha as a weapon to attack enemies.
The fire Wang Kai had set had inadvertently been useful, consuming a large amount of Yin Sha. However, what puzzled Ling Tian was that, under normal circumstances, such a massive quantity of Yin Sha should not appear in a place like this.
Typically, only ancient tombs thousands of years old, or mass graves where tens of thousands of people were buried, in areas rich with spiritual energy and sealed for many years, could produce such an abundance of Yin Sha.
Ling Tian had asked members of the Wang family beforehand. Some elders who had participated in the construction of this house said that beneath the house were ordinary rocks and soil, with no ancient tombs or anything of the sort.
The Wang Family Village area had no major tombs or battlefields for thousands of years.
This left only one explanation for the current situation: someone had set up a Yin Gathering Array within the house.
A Yin Gathering Array was a type of formation that gathered heavenly spiritual energy and converted formless or other-attribute heavenly spiritual energy into Yin Sha.
The heavenly spiritual energy in this valley was already abundant. When it was gathered and converted into Yin Sha through the Yin Gathering Array, it made sense.
"Brother Wang, let's discuss something."
"Go ahead, what is it?"
"With so much Yin Sha in this house, I fear the danger level here far exceeds our imagination.
You should wait for me outside. I'll go in alone!"
"Ling Tian, do you look down on me? How could I let you face such danger alone?
Besides, if something were to happen to you after I let you go in by yourself, how would I explain it to Miss Bing Xia and the Old Master!" Wang Kai said with some displeasure.
"Brother Wang, I don't look down on you at all. It's just that the enemies inside are not ordinary.
The 'dirty things' in the house are not something ordinary martial artists can deal with.
You are neither a Buddhist nor a Taoist, nor are you a cultivator..."
"Don't say another word, or don't blame me for falling out with you. We agreed on something, so don't go back on your word."
Ling Tian was helpless. Seeing Wang Kai's persistence, he had no choice but to agree. Thus, the two passed through the ash-covered courtyard and arrived at the house's door.
Wang Kai, holding his long saber, stepped forward and kicked the heavy wooden door.
"Bang!"
Perhaps due to disrepair, the lock on the door had rotted away. Wang Kai's kick was powerful, and the door was directly kicked open, swinging open to both sides.
Instantly, a gust of Yin wind rushed out from the house. The wind was so strong, it was like a force seven or eight gale.
Along with the strong wind came a sky full of dust and sand. These "dirty things" had accumulated in the house for over a decade and were instantly blown out.
And at this moment, it seemed as if human wails and screams were mixed within the gale.
The two quickly covered their eyes with their hands and turned their heads to the side, preventing themselves from being blinded. However, at that moment, several black shadows suddenly lunged out from the passage, directly crashing towards the two!