Chapter 37
The ark was enormous, and when it crashed to the ground, it created a huge crater, causing a violent tremor that scattered birds and beasts from all around.
Those still on the ark used their spiritual power to protect themselves in time, thus avoiding injury.
"Is everything alright?"
After confirming that everyone was safe and sound, Liu Qingqing, as the team leader, took out a map to check their current location, and everyone followed her to take a look.
After a moment, Liu Qingqing put away the map, looked up calmly at everyone, and said, "Two pieces of news, one bad news and the other is also bad news."
Upon hearing this, everyone's faces fell.
"The first piece of bad news is that, based on the map's location and the time since we set off, we have now fallen into a misty forest. This place is home to a variety of monsters and is sparsely populated. More importantly, we are now close to the center of the misty forest."
"The central area is often the most dangerous area, so we need to bypass the center point and leave. We'll discuss the specific route later."
No one had any objections to this.
"Second piece of news." Liu Qingqing glanced at the shattered vehicle not far away: "Judging from the extent of the damage to the Ark, we can no longer use it. With our current resources, we are unable to repair it."
All news is bad news; no wonder they say no news is the best news.
With everyone looking distressed, Liu Qingqing continued, "Given the size of the Ark, I'm afraid all our spaces combined wouldn't be enough to contain it. So we need to find a way to inform the elders of the exact location here so they can come and retrieve the Ark."
As an important means of transportation for the sect, the wreckage of the Ark definitely needs to be recovered and rebuilt, and it is also necessary to find out who tampered with it.
The Ark is made of special materials, so its defensive capabilities should be very strong. The Huashan Sect only has two Arks, so they must be recovered.
Moreover, the ark shattered into pieces upon crashing, indicating that the person behind it not only tampered with the control room but also with the ark's physical structure, clearly intending to prevent them from reaching their destination.
Who on earth would do something so ruthless?
Fan Kaiyu excitedly shared his idea, raising his paw: "I just saw a few small sects marked on the map. We can ask them for help and see if there are any boundary markers nearby that we can use."
Teleportation arrays are usually set up in crowded places for teleportation; while boundary markers are set up in sparsely populated places and can only transmit sound or images.
Both require spirit stones to use.
Zhu Jianbai looked at him with an expression as if he were an idiot: "What help can those few impoverished sects offer? Besides, you have to give them benefits to ask for help. We can just contact the elders ourselves when we find out the location of the boundary marker."
Mo Qingyin agreed with Fan Kaiyu's suggestion: "We can ask them to help guide the elders; we still need to get going."
“These small sects in remote areas might only have one sect leader who is unwilling to leave. Moreover, we can’t guarantee that they won’t have any ulterior motives towards Fang Zhou while we are away,” Wang Jinyan said with a frown.
After all, most of the components in Ark are very valuable, and it's hard to guarantee that people won't be greedy.
After all, the threshold for opening a sect used to be low. As long as you showed spiritual power and registered with a name, you could become the head of a sect. Many independent cultivators who did not want to join a sect but wanted some of the benefits of a sect would pool their resources with a few friends. If that didn't work, they would pool their resources with themselves, and one person could be a sect.
Unlike now, with stricter vetting processes, new sects are becoming more and more standardized. After all, smaller sects don't have much influence, and only occasional sect benefits are needed. Therefore, the cultivation world of Qingyun Continent has become too lazy to manage them and has simply let them run wild.
"What do the others think?" Liu Qingqing didn't make a decision immediately, but discussed it with everyone.
"Senior Brother Wang's concerns are understandable, but there's no better way. We still need to keep going and can't linger here for too long. We'll give them a small portion of the spirit stones, and the rest will be given to the elders when they arrive. Hopefully, they won't be ungrateful."
Yu Liang, standing to the side, nodded in agreement.
The two were the top two leaders of the Discipline Hall, and He Si was also his captain in the Discipline Hall, so he naturally followed his captain's lead.
This suggestion is indeed good. Wen Wan, who was standing to the side, quietly took out the mechanical bird that Wu Sinian had given her and deliberately made a noise to attract everyone's attention. She thought to herself, "I didn't expect it to come in handy so soon."
The group looked at her, puzzled.
"This bird is called 'Flying Fast,' and it was given to me by my third senior brother to deliver messages."
Wen Wan slowly explained, "The Misty Forest is so vast. Even if the elders receive the message and come here, they will still need to spend a lot of time and energy to find the Ark's location. With Fei De Kuai here, the message can be taken back and the people can be brought here. Wouldn't that be more convenient and faster?"
"Can it work? The Ark can travel ten thousand miles a day, and this place is already very far from the Huashan Sect."
Not only Zhu Jianbai was skeptical, but everyone else looked at this ordinary-looking mechanical bird with distrust.
"Once its spiritual energy is exhausted, it will replenish itself. Once it has replenished, it will continue on its way. Given enough time, it will deliver the message."
"Aside from not being able to carry people, it might fly even faster than the Ark. However, it takes about fifteen minutes to replenish its spiritual energy each time."
After Wenwan finished explaining, everyone's eyes lit up when they saw Fei Dekuai: There's such a treasure?
"Junior Sister Wen, that's not right of you. Why didn't you bring out such a wonderful treasure sooner?" Fan Kaiyu took the flying car and held it in his hands like a precious gem.
With Fei Dekuai there, a major problem was solved. After setting up a barrier for the Ark, the group decided to bypass the central area of the Misty Forest and leave. As for their next plan after leaving, they would discuss it after they left.
"Everyone be careful. We're not familiar with this place, so please don't get separated," Liu Qingqing warned.
Only then did everyone have a chance to observe their surroundings. The trees around them were tall and twisted, their trunks covered with strange patterns that resembled painful, distorted human faces. Whenever the wind blew, all sorts of eerie and sinister sounds would emerge, some like the cries of infants, others like the roars of wild beasts. The sounds that came from all directions echoed in the silent forest, sending chills down everyone's spines.
Among the group, Fan Kaiyu, the most timid, trembled and clung tightly to the corner of his fellow disciple's robe. If it weren't for the difference between men and women, he probably would have clung to Mo Qingyin.
The others also kept a close watch on their surroundings to prevent any attacks from unknown monsters.
Fortunately, Liu Qingqing's map was a spiritual map. As long as spiritual power was input, it would display the location of the person, allowing everyone to safely bypass the depths of the forest.
"We've all been exhausted from traveling these past few days. Now that we've bypassed the depths of the Misty Forest, let's rest and recover our strength."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Liu Qingqing spoke, finally able to rest.
Despite being younger than them, Liu Qingqing had them completely under her thumb.
In order to get around the dangerous area as quickly as possible, they were not allowed to rest during the past few days of travel. If anyone slacked off, they would be met with menacing red-tasseled spears.
In these extraordinary times, no one wants to cause any trouble, and leaving as soon as possible is indeed the best course of action. Coupled with Liu Qingqing's intimidating presence, no one dares to complain. Now, they finally hear her say that they can rest.
The group found a relatively clean and comfortable spot. Fan Kaiyu didn't care about anything else. After being on tenterhooks for so many days, his cowardly and scared heart finally settled down, and he sat down on the ground without any regard for his image.
"Boom!" The loud noise was like a mountain forest collapsing.
Fan Kaiyu, who had just collapsed to the ground, was startled and jumped up, looking around in panic.
"I'll go check it out, don't follow me." Sensing a familiar presence, Wen Wan was surprised. Without thinking, she called out to her teammates and, before they could react, quickly walked towards the direction of the sound.
Liu Qingqing watched her departing figure, her brows furrowed, and instructed the remaining people, "You all wait here and don't wander off. I'll go and take a look."
After speaking, he quickly chased after Wen Wan in the direction she had left, leaving the remaining six people looking at each other in bewilderment.
With a gentle yet swift movement, she transformed into a swift gust of wind, rapidly traversing the forest.
She wasn't incapable of using the Swiftness spell, but she was too lazy to use it because it was too much trouble.
Liu Qingqing followed her with "difficulty," without making any effort to conceal her aura. Time was of the essence, and Wen Wan ignored her. The familiar aura ahead was becoming increasingly unstable, and she needed to get there as soon as possible.
...
The evil dragon's vertical pupils suddenly contracted, and with an increasingly violent roar, its blood-red maw opened, revealing its sharp teeth. With a furious roar, it roared at the cultivator on the ground.
The cultivators on the ground were clearly exhausted and barely managed to dodge the attack. Upon closer inspection, they would find that the evil dragon was also covered in wounds.
The two had been fighting for a long time, evenly matched, with neither gaining any advantage. However, it was clear that the human was about to run out of energy, while the evil dragon, apart from its numerous wounds, seemed to have more stamina.
If this drags on, human cultivators will only become the evil dragon's prey.
Lin Zhu, covered in wounds, began to have blurred vision. He had underestimated the evil dragon at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage.
Since he fell into demonic possession, his cultivation level has remained at the Nascent Soul stage.
Before falling into demonic possession, his cultivation progressed rapidly; after falling into demonic possession, his cultivation stagnated.
More importantly, it's because he doesn't want to cultivate using demonic methods, as that would affect his mind. This is also why he has been able to suppress demonic energy.
However, he was increasingly unable to suppress the chaotic state of the demonic energy within his body, which is why he couldn't wait to confront this evil dragon.
This evil dragon is called Qiuchi, a vicious beast that lives in the Misty Forest. It likes to inhabit dark swamps, and its wicked hobby is to collect the bones of various beasts it has devoured and build its lair.
The lair of the dragon was damp and cold, littered with bones and filled with the stench of decaying flesh. The harsher the environment, the more it liked it.
Its living habits make it the source of evil itself; the lair of the dragon is extremely corrosive, leaving no vegetation within a ten-mile radius.
Everything in the universe has its counterpart, and the dragon itself is a source of evil, while the dragon core is a pure substance. After being refined, it can purify demonic energy. One ordinary dragon core can be used to refine tens of thousands of purification pills, let alone the dragon core of this dragon at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, which must be of the highest quality.
Lin Zhu came specifically for this dragon core, but he underestimated this evil dragon. He thought that with his numerous magical treasures and his mid-stage Nascent Soul realm, he could outwit a peak Nascent Soul realm demon beast. However, the difference in strength was too great. After fighting for three days and three nights, he was about to be defeated due to exhaustion and become the evil dragon's meal and bones.
Exhausted, the evil dragon ceased its roaring attack and instead opened its bloody mouth to strike at Lin Zhu.
The viscous liquid dripping from the evil dragon's mouth was extremely poisonous, corroding the ground and emitting bubbles and acidic mist.
Faced with this gaping maw, Lin Zhu was powerless to escape and could only let himself be consumed by the demonic energy and the malevolent energy that had been suppressed for many years, hoping to gain a sliver of hope.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
