Zhu Furong ran with his tail tucked between his legs. He ran as if his life depended on it.

Well it definitely does.

By now he was thinking as if he had to keep running for the rest of his life or till he became the food of this Cave Crocodile.

Looking at his miserable condition, even the gods felt sympathy. They sent a knight in white hanfu to help Zhu Furong escape this peril.

Knight Lin Kai!

As Zhu Furong was about to reach the cave entrance, suddenly Lin Kai appeared from the right cave tunnel. As you know this ruin is actually the fossil left after the excavation of the White Tiger bones, so there are split cave tunnels for the limbs and ribs.

As soon as Lin Kai walked out of the cave he saw Zhu Furong running towards him. Not understanding what was going on, he pulled out his sword. "Zuo Rong, what are you doing here?" He yelled.

Lin Kai suddenly felt enlightened. 'If I remember correctly, this bastard is good at finding treasures. He found quite a lot of good stuff last time. Maybe this time he came back to retrieve something secretly as it was impossible to do so before because of Young Master Xidi.' Realizing this, Lin Kai's expression changed to cruel. His greed easily took over his rationale.

He took a step forward to approaching Zhu Furong. "Zuo Rong! Hand over whatever treasures you have. Else, die!"

Looking at the threatening posture of Lin Kai, rather than getting scared, Zhu Furong felt relieved. He knows well what type of person Lin Kai is.

He took a sigh of relief. 'A scapegoat has appeared.'  Thinking this he dashed to Lin Kai with a bright smile on his face.

"Ah, Senior Brother Lin Kai, you look so handsome today~" "Junior Brother has found quite a treasure, please take a look." Saying this Zhu Furong pulled out the basketball sized pink, high grade Spirit Crystal.

Instantly Lin Kai's expression changed to shock. Greed filled his eyes. Even though he doesn't know what this pink rock is, his instincts are telling him it is definitely a rare treasure.

"Aha, what a nice brother you are. Quickly let me see what it is." Lin Kai called with excitement which soon turned into fear.

As Zhu Furong reached closer to him, so did the Cave Crocodile. Lin Kai could feel the ground under him slightly shaking.

Soon as Zhu Furong was about 40 meters away from him he saw the massive Crocodile about 10 meters further behind Zhu Furong.

"Zuo Rong you son of a bastard!" Lin Kai yelled with rage and he too started running without wasting any time.

There's no way Zhu Furong will let this scapegoat run away. He instantly took out a hard chunk of metal ore and threw it at Lin Kai's leg with all his might.

We shouldn't forget that Zhu Furong's battle prowess is equivalent to that of a peak Foundation Establishment rank Cultivator.

Even though protected with Essence Qi, Lin Kai's leg couldn't completely block off the momentum and destructive power of the metal ore.

With a pat, the metal ore hit Lin Kai's right calf. It didn't burst nor did his bone break, but the hit was hard enough to trip him over.

With a slam, Lin Kai fell face down on the floor hurting his nose. He groaned holding his nose with one hand and holding his calf with the other. Both were bleeding.

This brief moment was enough for Zhu Furong to catch up to Lin Kai.

"Senior Brother, please help you junior." Zhu Furong shouted while passing the fallen Lin Kai.

"You motherfucker Zuo Rong, I will murder you!" Lin Kai shouted while getting up, all enraged, taking heavy breaths.

Roar!

Seeing a prey in front of it, the Cave Crocodile roared with excitement.

Hearing this Lin Kai didn't even dare to turn back but resumed running again.

It was not the Crocodile chasing Lin Kai chasing Zhu Furong.

All three soon ran out of the cave into the forest. All ran at their top speed.

After running about 15 minutes, Lin Kai couldn't keep up his pace. He started to slow down a bit. He regretted not having extra legs. But what he regretted even more was that his running speed is the same as Zhu Furong.

In all this time, he couldn't catch up to him and now it seems he has gone even further.

"This bastard! He is only at early Foundation Establishment rank, how can he run faster than me? Is it some high grade maneuver technique? It definitely is." He shouted at the peak of his voice. "Stop Zuo Rong! Hand over your maneuver technique."

Zhu Furong almost tripped over hearing this. "How greedy is this bastard? We are in a life and death situation but all he thinks about is treasures." "I knew it when I saw him looting the Spatial Bags of the disciples the other day. This guy can even die for treasure." He mumbled.

Now the distance between the Cave Crocodile and Lin Kai was about 5 meters and the distance between Lin Kai and Zhu Furong was 20 meters.

After running for another ten minutes, Lin Kai couldn't take it any more. Utterly tired, he hit a tree root and fell down on his front.

The Cave Crocodile was soon over him.

"Aaaah! Save me..." Zhu Furong could clearly hear the cry of Lin Kai begging for help followed by a loud blast noise.

Zhu Furong couldn't help but look back as to what the noise was.

What he saw was a new world to him.

He saw Lin Kai covered in dust dragging his ass on the ground away from the Cave Crocodile while throwing swords, sabers, knives and many more different types of Artifacts after initiating their self-destruction feature. All the Artifacts he threw were rank 1 Artifacts mixed with some rank 2 artifacts here and there.

Within 5 minutes of time Lin Kai has thrown about a hundred Artifacts. If calculated, it would be about 15000 gold coins. After all, even the worst of rank 1 Artifact goes for at least 100 gold coins.

Zhu Furong didn't expect Lin Kai to be so rich. Even though he is the subordinate of a prince, 15000 gold is not something he should be holding. And what's more, Lin Kai is still pulling out Artifacts from his Space Ring.

The self-destruction of a rank 1 Artifact can seriously injure a Qi Condensation stage Cultivator and can harm an early Foundation Establishment rank Cultivator by quite a lot.

Looking at the amount of Artifacts Lin Kai was blasting, even Zhu Furong's hair stood up with fear. He couldn't help but swallow. "Siiii... Too frightening." Zhu Furong shivered.

One the other side the fight was still going on.

Cave Crocodile is a rank 7 Spiritual Beast, the blast from the rank 1 Artifacts is the same as an ant biting it.

You can ignore an ant but you can't ignore a colony of ants.

As the number of Artifacts increased, the Cave Crocodile could be seen suffering some damage. Its skin started bleeding lightly from here and there. And the shock from the constant blasts rendered it stunned for few seconds.

Lin Kai grabbed this chance to pull out some discs like Artifacts and threw them around the Cave Crocodile.

Zhu Furong couldn't help but take an interest in what Lin Kai is doing. He climbed up a tree to watch the show.

After setting up the disc like Artifacts, Lin Kai made a few hand seals. Soon the discs started glowing and some weird energy permeated throughout the surroundings and some sort of structures covered the Cave Crocodile.

Standing above the tree, even Zhu Furong felt some weird tingling inside him. He felt somewhat uncomfortable.

"A monster suppression array is mixed among those different arrays." Zhu Xingzuo commented.

"There are also some rank 2 and rank 3 attack and defense arrays set up." Zhu Xingzuo added.

"Rank 2 and rank 3? Aren't such arrays hard to find in the Lower Realm? And he has so many of them?" Zhu Furong wondered.

"It's hard to find high rank pills, medicinal liquids and artifacts because of the requirement of a high rank special fire and high rank skills and techniques." "But to set up an array, all you need are the right materials. There are requirements where you have to use refined materials, but those can be covered if you can find already refined materials." "Those Array Discs Lin Kai is using are rank 2 artifacts with rank 3 arrays inscribed on them. That's why not all of them are activated as a rank 3 array and most of them are restricted to rank 2." Zhu Xingzuo explained.

As soon as the explanation was over something even more interesting happened.

Lin Kai pulled out a set of four flags and placed them at the four corners surrounding the Cave Crocodile.

All of this setup was done within a minute and a half.

With a roar, the Crocodile started moving again.

Flustered, Lin Kai started bombarding the crocodile with Artifacts again.

Surprisingly this time the blast from the Artifacts didn't escape out of the special zone Lin Kai has created. Moreover the damage from the blast has increased by several folds.

With bright shining lights, several swords formed from the laying Array Discs and shot towards the crocodile. The swords broke right after touching the tough skin of the crocodile but it definitely did some damage.

Lin Kai kept bombarding the Cave Crocodile with rank 1 and 2 artifacts.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Die! Die Die!" He chanted while throwing the weapons.

With his rough hair and dirty outfit, he looks like a beggar throwing rocks.

Zhu Furong frowned looking at the drastic increase in firepower. Looking at the damage it would take about 300-500 Artifacts to kill the Cave Crocodile. Which before seemed impossible.

"These four flags look like rank 5 Artifacts with rank 5 damage increase array inscribed on them." Zhu Xingzuo spoke, somewhat uncertain.

"That's impossible!" Zhu Furong outright denied.

How can someone find such high rank arrays in the lower realm?

"What is impossible?" Zhu Xingzuo sounded dissatisfied with Zhu Furong's negligent behavior.

"You have a basketball sized high grade Spirit Crystal, there is a fossil cave of a high Cultivation rank White Tiger, you found an extremely rare Soul Lotus. If these are possible, why is Lin Kai finding some high rank Array Artifacts impossible?" Zhu Xingzuo asked with a sarcastic tone.

Zhu Furong was dumbfounded. He couldn't help but judge himself as an idiot.

"Ahem! My mistake." He blushed.

"Idiot." Zhu Xingzuo didn't let go of the chance to mock him.

Zhu Furong couldn't deny this time.

On the other side 15 minutes have passed since the start of the battle. Both the Cave Crocodile and Lin Kai look at the end of their ropes.

The back of the Cave Crocodile has almost split open from all those blasts. And Lin Kai seems to have exhausted all of his Essence Qi supplying the Artifacts and Arrays.

With several seal signs, Lin Kai disabled the arrays. He pulled out a shard sword and walked towards the groaning Cave Crocodile to deliver the finishing blow.

As soon as he was about to land the blow, the Cave Crocodile came back to life and jumped at him with all its might, with his maw wide open, aiming at Lin Kai's head.

"Aaaahh, Fuck!" Cursing with shock, Lin Kai dashed back with all his might only to plunge into a waiting sword.

Lin Kai groaned with pain. He looked at the blade extending through this chest  dripping fresh red blood.

With a surprised face he turned his head slowly to only meet the bright white teeth of Zhu Furong.

'Oof, so blinding.' He couldn't help but think.

"Hehe. Forgive me Senior Brother, but Junior Brother here is quite precautious." With a bright smile Zhu Furong pulled out the sword from Lin Kai's chest.

He wiped the blade with his fingers and rubbed the blood between his fingers.

He spoke while looking at it. "You would have definitely come looking for me later for tying you into this situation." "If I am not wrong, you would try to kill me for sure."

Zhu Furong stared at Lin Kai's hateful eyes. "So rather than waiting for my death, I should better take this chance to erase any future troubles." Zhu Furong gave a sweet smile.

After his arduous battle against the Cave Crocodile, Lin Kai is extremely exhausted, his eyes are already drooping. He doesn't even have energy to fight Zhu Furong. Helplessly he could only shake his head with a mocking smile.

"You know me quite well, hehe." He groaned in pain. "Ah, to die like this... My sins are really heavy." Lin Kai muttered. He then looked at Zhu Furong. "But you... You are quite vicious, contrary to your looks." He closed his eyes. "Hehehe, I like it. I like it." With a satisfied smile on his face, Lin Kai took his last breath standing still.

Zhu Furong rolled his eyes. "Acting like you are some patriarch of some noble clan taking his last breath after a battle. Fuck it!" 

After taking a look here and there, Zhu Furong collected all the items. He also looted the Space Ring of Lin Kai before burying his corpse.

As for the Cave Crocodile, it seems that the last attack on Lin Kai was its last attack before death.

Zhu Furong kindly collected its corpse as materials. The rank 7 monster core and blood essence is very useful for the current Zhu Furong.

The night has fallen by now, it's quite late for Zhu Furong to return to the sect. He decided to stay at an inn in some nearby village or town.

...

Inside the room of the inn. Zhu Furong sat in meditation to completely absorb the Soul Lotus he had consumed before. He could definitely feel his soul relaxing.

After two hours of meditation, Zhu Furong took out the loots to take a look.

Lin Kai has thrown more than 600 Artifacts on the Cave Crocodile. That's quite a lot. Leaving that aside there are still 100 Artifacts left in his space ring. Two swords, which re rank 2 Artifacts. In the lower realm, these are quite expensive.

Other than the Artifacts, there are those Array Discs, and four array flags. As Zhu Xingzuo has said, these are rank 5 Artifacts. From its construction and refining method used, it looks like something from the Upper Realm. So there is a high chance that someone from the Upper Realm came down to the Lower Realm. Well it's nothing new.

Even in his past life, Zhu Furong knew that it was possible to travel to the lower realms. Though your Cultivation rank will be restricted to the peak of the lower realm.

Zhu Furong regrets not thinking about this before and making a fool of himself in front of Zhu Xingzuo giving him a chance to mock him.

This Big Brother and Little Brother duo really loves to pull each other's legs.

There was nothing else much interesting in Lin Kai's space ring. A lot of gold coins and Spirit Crystals, some clothes and a few herbs and pills.

Zhu Furong arranged everything in order before putting them inside separate rings. He has amassed quite a few rings from all his endeavors as the Robinhood. Now he keeps materials distributed in different rings.

Among all these items a simple piece of parchment caught Zhu Furong's eyes. There are several parchments inside Lin Kai's ring but this exact one looks quite new.

Zhu Furong unrolled the parchment.

"Wow!" He exclaimed in shock.

Inside the parchment is inscribed the location of a rank 4 special fire. Totally unexpected. And the most unexpected thing is the location itself. It is the same Unknown Ruins. The exact location is the supposed left hind leg of the White Tiger.

Without wasting any more time Zhu Furong left the inn in the middle of the night. He rushed to the Unknown Ruins at full speed.

"Bad things always happen in pairs. But it seems sometimes good things also happen in two." "At least for me." Zhu Furong mumbled with joy while running.

The moon is shining bright and the stars are twinkling. It's a peaceful night.