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After running approximately several hundred zhang1, the strength of the wind suddenly grew stronger. The black clouds that had spread in the sky finally started to release their raindrops. Accompanied by the sound of pitter patter, they began falling onto Xu ZiYan’s body.
Xu ZiYan’s heart tightened. He hadn’t expected the rainstorm to arrive this quickly. It actually came so much earlier than it did for the original Xu ZiYan.
The raindrops quickly soaked his clothes. The drenched fabric sticking to his body felt extremely uncomfortable, but at a time like this, he couldn’t be bothered by it.
Pursing his lips, Xu ZiYan began marching firmly toward the stone statue as he rapidly advanced forward. The falling raindrops began quickly congregating on the wasteland, making it seem like the vast wasteland had turned into a huge body of water.
The ground beneath his feet was soaked with rainwater, and a thick layer of mud stuck to his shoes. Xu ZiYan’s footsteps became increasingly heavier, but he just grit his teeth and increased his speed.
The raindrops became bigger. In the end, after Xu ZiYan crossed over a large area of mud, the drops turned into hard granules—— hail.
Xu ZiYan’s face turned expressionless. The rain and wind from before were merely a side dish to whet one’s appetite. From this moment onward, this spiritual array was going to expose its sinister teeth and claws.
Hailstones as big as a finger very quickly turned into hailstones as big as a fist. When something as heavy as that fell out of the sky, with the additional strength of the wind, they smashed into the ground and were embedded half an inch into the dirt.
Xu ZiYan decisively widened the area of his spiritual energy shield. The howling wind and hail were immediately isolated outside his shield. It made him feel a lot more relaxed.
The wasteland had already turned into a swamp, in which the gleaming surface made it simply impossible to see what was underneath the water.
Xu ZiYan began staggering forward, a deep step here and a shallow step there. However, he hadn’t even gone a hundred zhang before he exhausted all of his spiritual energy. His spiritual energy shield immediately collapsed, and those hailstones the size of a fist began hitting his body.
“F*ck, it hurts so much!” Xu ZiYan was smashed into a very miserable state, badly battered with a bloody nose and a swollen face.
He hadn’t expected the rainstorm and hail to use up his body’s spiritual energy this quickly. Right now, he could only endure and move forward with his will.
Xu ZiYan tried his utmost to protect his head because he no longer had the ability to care about the rest of his body. As he walked, he couldn’t help but enjoy himself despite his sufferings and muse: if someone took this fantasy array and brought it back to the modern times, they could probably create a 99% real virtual reality game with no problems, right?
After he once again walked another hundred zhang, the clouds in the sky began scattering as the fog dissipated as well. A light drizzle began to fall. When he saw the sunshine that was gradually peeking through the clouds, Xu ZiYan actually felt a bit reminiscent of his past life.
After the rain, the skies cleared. On top of the wasteland, plant sprouts began popping up. The caress of a cool breeze brushed past, and those plant sprouts immediately began growing. It hadn’t taken many breaths before the wasteland turned into a prairie.
Immediately, sirens began blaring out an alarm in Xu ZiYan’s heart. There wasn’t much spiritual energy left in his body. At a time like this, if some kind of enemy arrived, then his circumstances would truly be terrible.
Unfortunately, it was evident that whatever one feared would end up arriving. A black shadow flashed by, and Xu ZiYan immediately felt his cheek hurt. Using his finger to wipe the area, it came back covered in an extremely unsightly scarlet red.
He vigilantly surveyed his surroundings in all directions. Just now, he hadn’t even seen anything before he was attacked. If the enemy’s target had been his neck, then he might have collapsed on the ground already.
Flipping his hand over, he took out a dagger and leveled it in front of his chest to protect himself. Then, Xu ZiYan began slowly walking forward.
Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly glimpsed yet another black shadow. Thus, he began urgently striking out the dagger in his hand. After hearing a few sounds of clashing metal, the black shadow fell onto the ground.
Xu ZiYan picked it up and looked at it with rapt attention. So, it turned out that the thing that had attacked him was unexpectedly a light green dart. This dart was only around an inch in length, and the material it was made out of was neither gold nor wood. If one tried bending it with their fingers, it was actually quite flexible. In fact, it felt like it was made out of bone.
After casually throwing away the dart, Xu ZiYan suddenly realized that his fingers had touched something sticky. He rubbed his fingers as a smell that was slightly sour floated through the air.
A light green dart with a slightly sour smell……
Suddenly, Xu ZiYan’s complexion changed. He bounced off his feet, throwing his body forward in a fierce manner. Not long after he began speeding up, the densely-packed sounds of crying frogs began echoing from underneath the bushes.
“How unlucky! Why is it the Bone Arrow Frogs?” Xu ZiYan complained bitterly to himself. Bone Arrow Frogs were a type of demonic beast that could grow spurs similar to darts on its back——that’s right, they were exactly the things Xu ZiYan had just defended against with his dagger.
These Bone Arrow Frogs were only at the sixth layer of Qi Condensation Stage. With Xu ZiYan’s strength, eliminating them would only take a few minutes of work. Unfortunately, these demonic beasts were the typical case of demonic beasts that lived in a herd. The two Bone Arrow Frogs that had sneak-attacked him were none other than the ‘scouters’ for this herd.
Finding them signified that it wasn’t going to be long before he would be surrounded by a herd of Bone Arrow Frogs.
Even if they were only demonic beasts at the sixth layer of Qi Condensation Stage, it would be a huge inconvenience to Xu ZiYan once there were a hundred of them. Thus, he didn’t have the time to care whether or not there were other demonic beasts in the underbrush. No, he had no other choice but to sprint to the stone statue as if his life depended on it.
Fortunately, demonic beasts that liked living together in herds usually had strong exclusiveness. Since there was already a herd of Bone Arrow Frogs here, it could be assumed that the chances of encountering other demonic beasts had lowered significantly.
“Croak, croak, croak……”
The croaking sounds of frogs began floating over from both in front of and behind Xu ZiYan. When he heard the continuous waves of croaks, Xu ZiYan immediately felt his scalp going numb.
It was fortunate that he discovered them relatively early, hence their encirclement hadn’t yet formed yet. Otherwise, he had to kill them all before he could advance forward again.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The Bone Arrow Frogs that had caught up to him the earliest had already begun shooting the spurs on their backs. Xu ZiYan tried his best to dodge them, but he still got hit a few times.
Those sharp spurs embedded themselves into his body and hurt terribly, but Xu ZiYan could only endure with his entire will as he continued to run forward.
“Croak croak! Croak croak!” A Bone Arrow Frog with an exceptionally resonant voice jumped out of the underbrush in front of Xu ZiYan. Compared to the other Bone Arrow Frogs, its huge body was around the size of a soccer ball. The spurs on its back also gleamed with a cold light.
“Do you have to be this excessive?! Even the Frog King has appeared!” Xu ZiYan was practically at his wits’ end with his luck. The Bone Arrow Frog herd hunts almost all day long, but the Frog King only participates in one or two hunts out of ten. Xu ZiYan never would have expected to be unlucky enough to actually encounter the Frog King.
A Bone Arrow Frog King had cultivation at the eighth layer of Qi Condensation Stage. He wasn’t actually scared of it, but if he had to waste time dealing with the Frog King, it would be bad if the herd managed to catch up to them.
“Let’s stake it all!” Xu ZiYan grit his teeth and then milked out the remaining spiritual energy in his body. Rays of thunder began gathering at his fingertips before condensing into a deep violet ball of thunder. Flickering cracks and sparks echoed from the ball of thunder, making it appear to be extremely dangerous.
The Frog King seemed to also sense how the ball of thunder was extraordinary, so it didn’t intend to go head-to-head with it. Instead, it ordered some of the other Bone Arrow Frogs to pounce onto the ball of thunder. Then, it leapt to the side and hid itself.
Taking this opportunity, Xu ZiYan followed behind the ball of thunder and began rushing out. Using the time the Frog King used to hide away, he managed to slip away.
The purple ball of thunder smashed into three Bone Arrow Frogs. It created numerous black scorches on the ground, but those three Bone Arrow Frogs didn’t suffer heavy injuries. They were only repelled a few steps back with some minor wounds before they began chasing after Xu ZiYan again.
Appearance-wise, this ball of thunder seemed very ferocious. However, in reality, its destructive power……
The Frog King realized it had been duped. It immediately became enraged as it began croaking loudly. The Bone Arrow Frog herd surrounding him began responding in agreement before they headed toward Xu ZiYan one after another to encircle him.
While running, Xu ZiYan smiled bitterly. His spiritual energy had long been exhausted back when he was using the spiritual energy shield. The ball of thunder he had just created was something that only looked nice on the outside. At best, it could only be used to scare people.
He never expected the Frog King to have really been fooled. In fact, he was only able to run away because of that.
With a herd of angry Bone Arrow Frogs chasing him, Xu ZiYan could only flee haphazardly. Fortunately, the Bone Arrow Frogs didn’t have the best agility, or else his back wouldn’t be pierced with only three spurs right now. Instead, he would have long turned into a pin cushion……
After running a few hundred zhang, the end of the prairie could already be distantly seen. That huge stone statue was precisely situated at the edge of the prairie. Xu ZiYan felt pretty ecstatic, and his already extremely tired body actually felt a bit invigorated. Somehow, he managed to force himself to run to the edge of the prairie before entering the open space near the stone statue.
“Croak, croak!”
The angry herd of frogs had always been chasing him, and that Frog King was practically going to overtake him. However, the moment Xu ZiYan stepped into the range of the open space, the herd of frogs merely emitted a clamour of croaks before they stopped advancing forward.
The Frog King bellowed twice in rage, but in the end, it didn’t have the courage to enter the open space. It could only lead the herd of frogs away in anger.
Like a puddle of mud, Xu ZiYan collapsed onto the ground, his loud gasping comparable to the sound of the bellows.
After resting for a while and feeling as though he had recovered some of his strength, he crawled up to his feet from the ground before he began gradually approaching that stone statue.
From far away, he already thought that this statue’s loftiness had been out of the ordinary. Now that he had walked closer, he could better sense the imposing aura the stone statue emitted.
Xu ZiYan walked very slowly. While he walked, he also adjusted the rate of his breathing. Right now, he had long exhausted his physical strength, and he didn’t even have a trace of spiritual energy left in his body. Speaking of this, it was really strange. There wasn’t even half a drop of spiritual energy within this spiritual array. Even trying to meditate to recover some of his spiritual energy did absolutely nothing.
The more he approached the stone statue, the more he felt a type of hair-raising sensation. Xu ZiYan felt as if he was seeing picture after picture flash by his eyes, and these pictures seemed to be about a cultivator who carried a huge hatchet on his back and how he fought against bestial cultivators.
Fighting against Sea Dragons, exterminating the Flame Birds, subduing the Dark Foxes, this cultivator’s heaven-shaking spiritual energy wiped out countless high level bestial cultivators.
Merely watching those pictures made Xu ZiYan feel as if his blood was racing in excitement. He itched to charge into the far west right this moment and wage war against those bestial cultivators.
The reason for the war between humans and bestial cultivators had long changed from the original reason that had prompted the first war.
It’s just that, if one analyzed things from today’s standpoint, human cultivators required bestial cultivators’ inner cores to refine into medicinal pellets and spiritual artefacts. And at the same time, the flesh of humans was a huge supplement to bestial cultivators.
Both sides regarded each other as their prey. Thus, their war could only continue.
One of the pictures Xu ZiYan saw was that cultivator carrying a huge hatchet on his back and four other cultivators slaughtering several million bestial cultivators together. At the time, the scene had been incomparably cruel. The demonic beasts suffered huge damages, but the human cultivators also suffered huge casualties.
In that fight, they fought against the bestial cultivators until the bestial cultivators retreated in defeat. Only then did they succeed in striving to buy some time for the Xuan Yu region.
At the time, all of the righteous cultivation Sects and demonic Sects joined together to establish a defensive line at the far west under the lead of those five cultivators. At the defensive line, whether one was a righteous cultivator or a demonic arts cultivator didn’t matter, for they couldn’t fight against each other. In that place, their only enemies were the bestial cultivators and the demonic beasts. If someone dared to go against this rule, they would be hunted down and killed by both the righteous cultivators and the demonic arts cultivators.
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