He was not killed by Gargoyle Rats but himself. He was bitten by a Gargoyle Rat to protect Jiang Qiling from getting hurt. When he made sure that he could not fight against the toxins, he exploded his own Soul Pond and died.
There were other six bodies, all contaminated with toxins. Two of them were killed by Jiang Hao and the other four exploded their own Soul Ponds. They would rather commit suicide than turn into a human rat, a dead man walking, a thing that would harm his own kind.
Jiang Qiling did make several moves. Eventually, she was too vulnerable in her soul since she released her Bloodline Skill for to many times. Jiang Hao ordered her to stop.
Jiang Hao had been taking care of Jiang Qiling. In order to prevent her from being bitten, he moved in front of her and he got bitten. In the end, he killed himself.
Jiang Qiling was sad. Her grandpa adored her since she was young. This time, she had secretly sneaked onto the Iron-armored Ship but her grandpa didn’t send her back. He allowed all her actions along the way. Nobody could foretell that Jiang Hao would die at the Gargoyle Mountain for Jiang Qiling.
She felt guilty. Her sorrow and regret were sincere. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as heavy rain poured down. A beautiful girl raised her head and shouted in pain with a dead body in her arms. It was stunning.
Lu Li rushed over without saying anything. Little White’s qi and energy had contained all the Gargoyle Rats. Realizing that suddenly there was no more Gargoyle Rats, Jiang Yan and the others sent surprised looks to Lu Li.
Jiang Qiling didn’t have much of a reaction when she saw it was Lu Li. However, she also realized that Lu Li was the reason those Gargoyle Rats stopped attacking. She stared at Lu Li and yelled, "Why aren’t you here earlier? If you had come faster, my grandpa wouldn’t have to die."
"I am doing you a favor by saving you but not saving you is not wrong, either!"
Lu Li coldly responded, using her own words. But he felt it was too cruel so he added, "Lady Qi, we can only come to you after we heard your voices. Or we would have never found you. I am so sorry for your lost."
Lu Li winked at Jiang Yan. The latter understood and he rushed over and knocked Jiang Qiling out. She was kind of insane already. Now that she was so upset, she might commit suicide if she remained conscious.
All the bodies were put away in Interspatial Rings to bring back for a proper funeral. There was no ventilation in the rings so the bodies would not perish so quickly.
None of the Gargoyle Rats could move under the control of Little White. Lu Li and the others quickly left. They found a small hill where they could rest for a bit.
Lu Li learned that another warrior of the Noble Lord Realm, Jiang Ming, was covering their retreat and he could not be contacted. He hadn’t caught up yet, which boded ill rather than well.
A warrior of the Eternal Realm with Jiang Yan subtly posed a question—if Lu Li could control the Gargoyle Rats, then why didn’t he do anything in the valley. If he did, there weren’t be so many casualties.
"Because Little White was not in the valley."
Lu Li threw this man a casual glance and explained. A glint of coldness appeared in Yu Huashen and Ming Yu’s eyes. Jiang Yan scolded the man and he apologized.
Lu Li didn’t mind it. He did not feel guilty that so many people had died. The Iron-armored Ship was not his. Instead, the Pavilion of Delicacy had the obligation to protect them since they had all paid Xuan Crystals.
Lu Li was not a god. He didn’t have the responsibility and duty to protect people. In this world, there were people dying at any moment. How many could he protect them all? How many could he save?
Rain kept pouring down. They silently sat in the rain for the whole night. It stopped raining at the break of dawn. Late in the morning, Lu Li and the others began to look for other survivors after eating something.
Jiang Qiling was still unconscious. What happened last night was too big a shock to her. Her mind and soul were impacted so she had been sleeping all this time.
Lu Li and the others found nearly 100 people after a day’s search. Altogether, there were less than 200 survivors. They had been looking for quite some time now so there couldn’t be many other survivors.
They camped during the night. In the middle of the night, Jiang Qiling finally woke up. This time, she didn’t cry or yell. After she asked about some questions, she hugged her knees and shed silent tears on her own. She cried for two hours before she passed out again.
The next day, they continued their search and found more than 10 people. They saw many human rats during these days and many corpses. Jiang Ming might be one of the bodies, or maybe not…
At night, Lu Li found a small valley. He decided to stay here. They had been looking for two days now. Those could not be found must be dead by now. It was meaningless to let so many people continue with the search and rescue.
Lu Li started to cultivate and consume Soul Crystals. Yu Huashen wandered around in nearby areas to collect more Purple Xuan Crystals and Soul Crystals. Ming Yu stayed to protect Lu Li, and Little White stayed as well.
Yu Huashen gave Lu Li another more than 3000 Soul Crystals, of which Lu Li had consumed hundreds. In total, he had more than 4000 Soul Crystals by now, enough for him to use for a long time.
Recently, the caves of ghosts had been erupting less frequently. However, the Gargoyle Mountain was a big place and the gravity here was still horrifying. It was not realistic to leave the Gargoyle Mountain by feet. This was a huge mountain that it would take Iron-armored Ship half a month to get out.
Jiang Yan would go out alone to wander around the next few days, trying to find other survivors or Jiang Ming. But every time he would come back with disappointment. There was no living people outside now.
Only less than 200 people survived out of the more than 1000. Jiang Hao died. Merely 60 Eternal Realm escorts of the Pavilion of Delicacy was kept alive. This was a catastrophe.
Jiang Qiling, surprisingly, had been acting very well. She had been staying in her own tent, no yelling, no crying, no meeting with other people. Lu Li was in no mood to take care of her. He focused on consuming Soul Crystals.
Five days after they camped in the valley, Lu Li suddenly opened his eyes, surprised. After constantly absorbing white energy, the silver dragon mark imparted a clip of the demon’s memory.
More importantly, in this clip, there was all the knowledge of the demon had on "Mirror Image Profound Meaning" and how it could be integrated with Apparition.
Lu Li was overjoyed. Profound Meaning was something that was could not be explained by words, but now that he had the complete memory about this, it was more possible for him to understand the Profound Meaning.
Lu Li had figured it out. It would be difficult to really learn this demon’s skill without understanding Mirror Image Profound Meaning. He had been consuming so many Soul Crystals just for this moment. He didn’t expect that the silver dragon mark would really give him part of the demon’s memory.
Lu Li cleared his mind and began to learn from the demon’s memory and tried to integrate with his Apparition so that he could finally manage to release that powerful skill.
That being said…
He had been cultivating only for half a day when he heard hurried footsteps outside his tent. Then an escort of the Pavilion of Delicacy shouted from outside, "Young Master Lu, Lady Qi is trying to kill herself. Third commander is asking for you."
"Kill herself?"
Lu Li opened his eyes. He was unwilling to go, but on second thoughts, he got up and went outside. He followed the escort to Jiang Qiling’s tent. There were already many people there.
Lu Li walked into her tent. Her face was pale as a piece of paper. She had cut her wrist. She put her wrist into a jar which contained Bloody Rose originally. Now the jar had blood in it and the blood was spilling over…
Jiang Qiling hadn’t passed out yet, but her eyes were blank, as if she had lost her soul.
…