After searching the area, Han Wu located Qin Shuang. She was boxed in by a large group of mummies. She sent out hundreds of Feather Darts to destroy them, but within moments, they were back to normal and continued the chase. They behaved as if they wouldn’t die until they devoured her.

More mummies gathered around her, and the pressure mounted. Han Wu arrived there just in time, pulled her onto his Firebat King, and flew them out of danger.

From the air, they saw that the pursuing mass of mummies stretched for hundreds of meters. There were too many of them! Qin Shuang felt that she had barely escaped death.

“These mummies are too hard to deal with. I can’t shake them off,” she said with a sigh. They reminded her of Han Wu’s ten Cockroaches with their tenacious regeneration, though the mummies seemed stronger. They regenerated without consuming anything and embodied extreme durability.

Han Wu nodded. “We need a way to kill them permanently. First, let’s find Sun Qingnian and the others.”

Using the compass, he visualized Sun Qingnian. The needle spun aimlessly, which meant Sun Qingnian was unlucky and hadn’t entered this secret realm in the first wave. The same result followed when he visualized Jin Tuantuan.

When he visualized Master Ou, the compass reacted. The needle steadied and pointed in a fixed location. He quickly spurred the Firebat King to fly in that direction.

Qin Shuang didn’t slack off either. She scanned the terrain below and committed it to memory, forming a rough map in her mind.

It didn’t take long for Han Wu to locate Master Ou. What puzzled them was how easily Master Ou was dispatching these mummies. Using the forging hammer as his Divine Weapon, he easily killed them. Master Ou had also collected enough of the strange metal that dropped from the slain mummies to form a fist-sized lump in his pocket.

“Master Ou, how did you kill them?” Han Wu asked urgently. If he could do the same, their situation would no longer be so dire.

Master Ou explained. At first, he had no effective method to deal with the mummies. Coincidentally, he noticed one of the mummies carrying a scythe.

After smashing the mummy, he seized its weapon. As a blacksmith, he recognized it as a sealed Divine Weapon that required energy to activate. He refined it with his energy and discovered that, even though it was only a Faith Divine Weapon, it could kill the mummies.

After that discovery, he gathered as many Divine Weapons as he could find in this secret realm, melted them down, and coated the metal onto his forging hammer. In this way, his forging hammer became a powerful weapon capable of permanently killing the mummies.

Qin Shuang and Han Wu were stunned. They quickly followed his example, gathering as many Divine Weapons as they could before refining them. Soon, they found that they could tear through the mummies that had been troubling them as easily as paper. Even so, their efficiency was low.

Han Wu noticed that the mummies dropped little orbs or flecks of a strange metal. No one knew its purpose, but since each mummy dropped some, it was most likely extremely important.

At that moment, he had an idea. What if I coat my Divine Weapon with this strange metal? Will something happen?

He decided to test it out and requested Master Ou to lend him the metal that he had collected.

Qin Shuang used her lightning to melt the metal, then dipped Han Wu’s smallest Divine Weapon, the Small Locust Blade, into it. Their supply was limited, so she only managed to coat three of Han Wu’s blades.

Han Wu controlled them and attacked the mummies. Although they didn’t die from a single strike, they weren’t healing either. He pressed the attack and finally pierced a mummy’s heart. This time, it died and turned to dust, leaving behind a small fleck of the strange metal.

“I did it!” he shouted excitedly. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Qin Shuang and Master Ou shared his excitement because their efficiency in harvesting the metal had just increased.

Through sustained effort, he killed the thousands of mummies surrounding them with his three Small Locust Blades. He then summoned the Glutton Locusts to collect the metal flecks.

Master Ou didn’t recognize the metal. Despite decades of experience as a blacksmith, he had never seen anything like it. The prospect of forging a Divine Weapon from it intrigued him. However, they had too little metal. Their entire stockpile would only yield at most half of a Small Locust Blade. They needed more.

They searched the buildings one by one and found many sealed Divine Weapons. Although their parameters were normal, they all shared the Repose effect, which was essential for harming and killing the mummies.

Drawing on his blacksmithing experience, Master Ou urged Han Wu to gather as many Divine Weapons as possible. By extracting the metal and coating their Divine Weapons, they wouldn’t be helpless against the mummies anymore.

The trio worked together to refine the Divine Weapons. The metal they obtained from them differed from the metal dropped by the mummies. It was silver.

After coating their Divine Weapons with it, a significant amount remained. Master Ou used the surplus, along with his forging hammer, to craft a brand new Divine Weapon on the spot. He forged a 1-Star God-grade short sword, and its Repose effect had reached God grade as well. At this point, it was the most effective weapon against the mummies.

The mummies struck by a Divine Weapon with a Common-grade Repose would suffer permanent wounds. Those struck by this short sword, even if it was only a stab, would explode into ash.

With their weapons upgraded, the three considered their next move. They continued searching the buildings and found scraps of books and scrolls that hinted at the ruined city’s past.

Master Ou pieced the different articles together and formed a plausible account. According to the texts, a plague had once swept through this region. Those infected gradually lost all bodily fluids until they became mummies.

The plague spread swiftly, infecting large numbers in a short time. To stop the plague, the region’s king gathered a lot of cultivators and eventually found a solution.

Using a special regional ore known as Ashsilver, they forged weapons capable of killing the infected and stopping the spread.

At first, the strategy worked, and the plague came under control. However, as more Ashsilver weapons were created, the forging process’s byproducts turned into another disaster. People got sick from the exposure, and those affected suddenly craved living flesh. The more they consumed, the stronger they became. Under the combined threat of the plague and the Ashsilver pollution, the kingdom fell into ruin.