Chapter 536: Chapter 536

"Nope," Han Yu muttered. "Definitely not fishing here."

As he continued down the bridge, he glanced once more at the crimson river below. It glowed faintly, almost beckoning him, as if the water itself was alive and aware. He shook his head and walked faster.

The Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect was starting to make less and less sense the more he saw of it.

Yet deep down, he could not help but feel a strange unease. Because beneath all the absurdity and madness, there was something terrifyingly organized about this place.

Every building, every structure, every flowing channel of red seemed to serve a purpose.

And that meant whatever they were planning next, it would not be random.

For now, however, Han Yu had a simpler goal... find the Fifth Rib Peak before someone realized he had no idea where it was.

All in all, Han Yu's grand adventure to find his own house began with confidence and ended with despair.

At first, he walked briskly, pretending he had a destination in mind. His hands were behind his back, posture dignified, expression calm, like a true member of the Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect who definitely knew where he lived.

Inside, however, his thoughts were less composed.

"Alright," he told himself, "Fifth Rib Peak. Can't be that hard to find. Just look for a mountain shaped like a rib, right?"

An hour later, he realized every single mountain around him looked like a rib. Or a fang. Or a claw. Apparently, the sect's architects had one guiding principle: if it doesn't look menacing, rebuild it until it does.

The first peak he reached towered high into the red mist, crowned with black pavilions and guarded by robed disciples radiating pressure like miniature volcanoes.

"Outer Court disciples are not permitted entry to the First Rib Peak," a guard barked the moment Han Yu got within fifty paces.

Han Yu blinked. "Ah… understood. Of course. Just… testing the concentration of qi in the air here. I heard its much better than other peaks." He gave a plausible excuse but that was not enough for the guard.

The guard gave him a look that screamed idiot, then turned away.

Han Yu retreated quickly, muttering, "Well, at least I know this one's the first. Only four more to go."

He had no idea those would be the most cursed words he would speak that day.

The Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect was enormous. Peaks stretched as far as the eye could see, divided by winding valleys and the great crimson rivers that branched through the land like veins of some colossal beast.

Even walking briskly, it took Han Yu nearly an hour to reach the next peak. Running would have been faster, but he quickly noticed that no one else was running. Every disciple walked calmly and deliberately, as if hurrying was an act of weakness.

So Han Yu walked. For hours...

He trudged across narrow bridges, through courtyards filled with ominous statues, and past entire battalions of disciples who he thought was sure gave him strange looks for being alone.

Occasionally, he would pass someone cultivating beside the road, surrounded by swirling blood mist, and pretend not to notice when they coughed up glowing crimson liquid that slithered back into their mouths.

After about six hours, he reached another mountain. The stone tablet at its base glowed faintly.

"Third Rib Peak," he read aloud.

Han Yu almost cried in joy. "Finally! If this is the third, the fourth must be close, and the fifth right after!"

The next peak he reached was not the fourth... It was the Thirtieth.

He stared at the glowing characters for a long time. "Wait. Thirtieth? Where did the other twenty-four go?"

A passing disciple overheard him and frowned. "What's the problem? The peaks are arranged according to the Founding Ancestor's sacred principles of inner resonance and blood rhythm. Of course, Thirtieth comes after Third. Everyone knows that."

Han Yu nodded slowly. "Right. Of course. Blood rhythm. I was just testing you." The most update n0vels are published on novel·fire·net

The man gave him a puzzled look before walking off.

"Blood rhythm my ass," Han Yu grumbled. "Do these people not know how counting works?"

By the tenth hour, he had discovered the Eleventh Rib Peak, the Twenty-Second Rib Peak, and something called the Half Rib Annex, which apparently existed because the original mountain had exploded due to some Elder's experiments centuries ago and no one bothered to rename it.

At one point, he tried to ask for directions again, phrasing his question carefully.

"Excuse me, senior brother," he said politely to a passing disciple. "If I were, say, hypothetically, looking for the Fifth Rib Peak, which direction might I—"

The man didn't even slow down. "You'd have to go through the Ninth Blood Corridor, pass the Sixth Western tributary Bridge, turn left at the Sanguine Bell, and cross the river where the eddies in the water make screams. You can't miss it."

Han Yu blinked several times. "You just described a nightmare."

But he thanked him anyway and walked off in the opposite direction.

At the twelfth hour, his feet hurt, his patience was thin, and his respect for sect geography had completely vanished.

He briefly fantasized about climbing the nearest tower, shouting: "Ju Fan, where the hell do you live?" and letting fate take its course.

Unfortunately, that would probably result in being decapitated for disrespecting the sect's sacred silence.

The sky above the sect darkened into shades of scarlet and violet, the moon, the real moon a blood-tinged crescent.

Han Yu's robes were dusty, and he was fairly certain he had walked in circles several times. He had seen so many identical bridges and red-leaved trees that he was beginning to suspect the sect was repeating itself like a cursed illusion.

But finally... miraculously, he spotted a familiar name carved into a weathered stone tablet.

"Third Rib Peak," it read again.

He stopped, frowning. "Wait… didn't I already see this one?"