Elder Xing looked at Elder Baili and finally reached out to pat his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Still not finding any traces of his disciple, he was afraid it couldn’t be considered good news at this point. “How about we go back to the underground palace? We ought to wait for the next batch of their forces that will inevitably be sent and we might as well search for further clues while we wait. We were in a hurry to fight before so we didn’t actually check the place too closely. Maybe we missed something.”

Baili Chao sighed deeply and nodded. He knew that at this point in time, further hope was likely useless. What Elder Xing said was mostly just trying to appease him. There was no need though. While he hated that it had come to this, as a cultivator, he was still prepared to accept the truth. He had always known that there might be a day like this, after all.

He organized his own expression and then turned to Elder Fa and Elder Ximen, asking for their opinion. When they agreed, he waved for the disciples to follow them back through the array to the cave system and finally to the underground palace again to have another look around.

The mood of the disciples was also subdued by now. They had been in high spirits when they came, thinking that they could save their three seniors. But now, it seemed like that wouldn’t work out any longer. Some of the disciples were also injured from the previous fights, despite the fact that the Elders had done their best to shield them from the strongest opponents. Suddenly, the younger ones realized just how bad their situation really was. How could they still be as optimistic as before?

The Elders naturally noticed but there wasn’t much they could do. Telling them to cheer up would help little. Not in their current situation. They did have to snap them out of this though or it’d end in a downward spiral which might negatively affect them during the upcoming fight. They couldn’t risk that.

Baili Chao looked up at the ceiling of the underground palace, trying to calm down his own emotions. Right now, he was one of the two Elders in charge of the disciples from their sect. He couldn’t focus only on Zhi Guan being gone. No, he had to focus on the disciples still here, those he could still save.

He turned to them and gave them a serious look. “I know everyone is feeling anxious right now. We didn’t manage to find your seniors yet and we can’t be sure that we will. We’ll do another sweep of this building just to make sure but, after that, we’ll have to give up if no other clues are found. I know that is hard to accept but in cultivation, nothing is certain. In war, that is even less so the case.

“If they are indeed gone, your seniors would want you to continue to forge ahead, to pay attention to your safety as you fight for your future. They wouldn’t want to be what distracts you from having a clear goal in mind and courageously pursuing it. They wouldn’t want to be the reason any of you gets hurt. So you have to pull yourselves together and only focus on the task ahead: Look for clues again, regroup, and get ready to fight again. We only have this one chance. We can’t let anything else distract us, even if it is the lost lives of those we care for.”

The disciples lowered their heads, especially the younger ones clearly not yet ready to accept this. The older ones were more realistic. Most of them had seen a fellow disciple or two fall on missions while outside or even if they were not there, they would always hear stories about this or that cultivator who did not make it back. Their understanding of the reality of this path toward ascension was a lot clearer to them than it was to the younger ones.

Thankfully, with this kind of mixed group, these people could pull each other up when one of them was stumbling. Seeing that the Elder had already said what needed to be said, the older disciples took the lead to form into teams again and made the younger ones follow, encouraging them to take on the task ahead.

The Elders also followed quietly, keeping an eye on the overall situation at all times. As soon as they noticed anything, everyone would retreat to the middle of the building if possible to converge, allowing them to support each other in the fight that would inevitably follow. If they couldn’t, they’d try to hold their position until the others arrived to back them up. This seemed to be the safest way.

Searching the underground palace again, this time looking more for clues than people to fight, it naturally didn’t take long for someone to spot something out of the ordinary.

“There’s a body!” One of the disciples immediately yelled as soon as he noticed something lying beneath the bed. He didn’t wait for the others to react, crouched down, and pulled on the person’s arm, his fingers trembling. Their seniors had been undercover so chances were that they would be dressed like demonic practitioners. If this was one of them …

The body was pulled out from under the bed but the face looked unfamiliar. The disciple heaved a sigh of relief while the others crouched around, also visibly relaxing when they realized that they couldn’t recognize the person.

Elder Xing was the one accompanying this group and hurriedly rushed over when he heard someone yell. Seeing the situation, he wanted to send someone to inform Baili Chao but then hesitated. “Check further.” This wasn’t one of their people. In fact, it was likely this was the handiwork of Zhi Guan and the other two. But that didn’t mean that they hadn’t been dealt with similarly. He’d better have the disciples check thoroughly before he alarmed him.