Chapter 206 – Crocodile-like Beast
The moment Qinghan stepped into this mysterious cave, he felt the whole world begin to shiver. The scene changed into a boundless desert.
- Huhu! -
The whistling of wind made this desert look barren and uncivilized. The sand that had been rolled up by the fierce wind blurred Qinghan’s sight. The hot waves also twitched everything he saw.
However, Qinghan wasn’t surprised at all, for he had learned from Ye Ruoshui how weird this would be. The Puppet Trial was supposed to be made up of twelve caves, all formed by the mighty immortal with his heavenly technique. In each cave, there was a parallel small space, which contained a rich variety of different landscapes and demonic beasts. One had to find an exit channel in order to get out from this space. In such a danger-ridden space, there was a place relatively safe though – someplace in the vicinity of or roughly ten meters away from the exit.
“Oh, a demonic beast!”
Looking far away, Qinghan found, in the distance, a hundred-meter tall, three-horned ferocious demonic beast. This beast was terrifyingly large in size, and its scales were reflecting a golden luster. Some unknown sticky liquid was hanging from his sharp, long teeth.
“This demonic beast… it could be a super dangerous one.”
As a result, Qinghan tightened his vigilance, as he took out his dagger and unleashed much of his Battle Qi, ready to fight. Several minutes later, however, the yellow sand flew right through the body of the beast, and soon after that, this ferocious beast had disappeared all of a sudden.
“Eh? Was that beast just a shadow?”
Qinghan seemed to have figured out where this beast came from. Given the unique landscape and the flying sands all over the place, the whole space looked distorted. It was like a mirage that appeared for only a little while.
“Go!”
Without any hesitation, Qinghan walked ahead, because he had to find the exit before any danger occurred.
His cyan dagger cut through the air, in case to defend himself at any given time. Qinghan quickened his footsteps as he roamed around the desert.
The scorching hot waves were so unbearable that even the air in the surrounding felt like burning fire when breathed in. To Qinghan, he didn’t feel any of these negative consequences nevertheless. Ye Ruoshui had told him that he would be endowed with magical powers and enormous amounts of energy once he ate the seven spirit fruits. He also added that Qinghan didn’t have to eat nourishment in as long as three years. The outlandish landscape and devastating temperature, which could reach as high as forty or fifty degrees, didn’t deter Qinghan’s desire to explore it further.
The miraculous scene convinced Qinghan that the people who designed this place must have some celestial power.
Everything that happened in the Luo Shen Mountain, including the forbidden-entrance system, the ever-floating white fog, and the ever changing illusions… all provided evidence that this mountain wasn’t supposed to exist in a continent full of ordinary mortals.
Of course, Qinghan knew, as Ye Ruoshui beforehand explained to him, that this Luo Shen Mountain was actually a piece of work created by a super immortal dated back to the ancient times. Since this was invented by an immortal, everything that challenged people’s common knowledge seemed somewhat acceptable.
- Shu! -
Suddenly, a glaring light popped out from the ground, right in front of where Qinghan stood. Following the mysterious light, two streaks of yellowish shadows popped out, directly aiming at Qinghan.
Thanks to Qinghan’s tightened vigilance, he intuitively dodged by using his Mysterious Trace Step. Also, he pierced his dagger through the incoming yellowish shadows. The light on the edge of the dagger shimmered while colliding with the two shadows.
- Bang! -
As soon as the shadows met the dagger, they were both forced to fly back until they unanimously landed on the sand ground, and were disappearing. When Qinghan stepped closer to have a clear look of what these two shadows were, he only found half a scale-covered tail, while the other half was already in the ground.
“What kind of beast is this? A pangolin?”
Qinghan stood there frowning, and told himself to be aware of this mysterious beast, which was sure quite good at defense. These beasts could plunge into the ground whenever their life was threatened.
Qinghan kept standing at the spot observing, to ensure that these beasts wouldn’t come out to do harm to him again. After a little while, nothing happened, so he sighed and left.
The vastness of the desert made Qinghan believe that he would never be able to reach the exit. Furthermore, the flying sand in the air added difficulty to tell the directions. At last, Qinghan gave up identifying the right direction; instead, he walked randomly without any purpose.
After some while of walking, he stopped and hunkered on the ground. Half of his energy was spent on cultivation, while the other half on watching his surroundings, in case any unexpected danger occurred. In this way, his speed of cultivation was constrained, and the outcome was not satisfactory, but he had no better choice. He had to replenish the Battle Qi he had consumed. The fierce, life-threatening battle was yet to come, so he had to stock as much as Battle Qi as he possible could.
“Eh? What’s that?”
A couple of hours had past, now Qinghan arrived at a black terrace, at the top of which the exit was. The black terrace and the dark exit were so vividly exposed against the large background of the yellow desert.
Being encouraged by this new finding, Qinghan rushed to the terrace at his maximum speed. However… it only took a little while that the whole terrace disappeared all of a sudden, and the whole spot was finally replace by the yellow sand.
“Alas… another mirage!”
Qinghan was pissed off by this rollercoaster of feelings, first he was happy to find the exit but later only found it was nothing but another untouchable illusion.
- Shu! Shu! Shu! -
When Qinghan was cursing at the unreasonable design of the scene, an ear splitting noise emerged from the air. From all four direction, countless black shadows flashed out.
“Fuck, so many of them! Swirling Air Chop!”
To Qinghan’s astonishment, these shadowy beasts came in large numbers. He immediately used one of the Seven Techniques of the Ye Emperor as he attacked the swooping shadows. The dagger went through the shadows but they didn’t disappear as the previous ones.
Qinghan released more Battle Qi to form an armor, so that he could shield away the attacks from those beasts.
- Bang! -
- Ahhh! -
As Qinghan thrust shimmer-edged dagger into the shadowy beasts, he felt, at the same time, that his armor of Battle Qi was torn apart by the sharp claws of these unknown beasts. Some visible wounds could be found on his skin. Qinghan groaned in agony but he had to continue the battle at any expense.
Regardless of his bruises and injuries, he stared at the strange-looking beasts in front of him. As the battle went on, his wounds soon recovered after the white flow from his bronze ring permeated into the crevice of his skin. This miraculous moment was witnessed by all the four shadowy beasts that survived till this minute. Obviously, they were stunned to find this self-healing technique.
The appearance of these four beasts very much resembled the crocodiles Qinghan saw in his previous life. The difference was, their tails looked much shorter than real crocodiles, but their legs were quite long. The most distinguished part was their claws, for they were as sharp as the edge of a steel knife. What made their outlook funny was their pointy heads. But their bloodshot eyes and yellowish scales, which was a little darker than the color of the sand, made them looked ferocious.
“Soul Chaos! Breaking Ground Chop!”
Qinghan was desperate to end this battle as soon as possible, for he was afraid that the clamor here would only attract more beasts to come.
With the flashing of an exotic purple light, Qinghan held his dagger firmly, and spurted to the nearest crocodile-like beast…
