Free Web NovelChapter 228: Chapter 222: Lotus Marsh, Half a Month Later
「Two months later.」
「Southwest Waters of East Lake.」
The violent fluctuations of Spiritual Qi still lingered. The surface of the lake was stained with blood, and several mangled corpses floated on the water.
Chu Mu stood on the water’s surface, his face pale as he panted for breath. His chest was a mess of torn flesh, soaked in blood. In one hand, he gripped a man by the neck, holding him up as casually as if he were carrying a duck.
Nearby, several bloody gashes made Wangcai’s enormous Demon Body look even more ferocious. Blood dripped from its wounds, staining a large patch of the water’s surface red.
"Eat this."
Chu Mu gritted his teeth and tossed out several Elixirs.
Wangcai’s tongue shot out, coiling around the Elixirs and swallowing them.
Chu Mu also took out a Healing Elixir and swallowed it. His gaze, fixed on the survivor in his grasp, held nothing but a bone-chilling cold.
It had been over a month since he completed his Artifact Refining plan and entered East Lake. For nearly that entire month, he had been hunted.
The cause of it all was quite simple.
After learning that the mysterious fog had appeared at East Lake, he had rushed over, only to find the surrounding area sealed off by the Longevity Sect and various other powers.
Disciples from the various Clans and the Longevity Sect were on patrol, strictly prohibiting any other Cultivators from approaching.
He had only observed from a distance, witnessing a few Loose Cultivators try to break through the blockade before being slaughtered. But for that, he was mistaken for an accomplice and besieged.
His Divine Soul Aura was forcibly exposed, and what followed... was one manhunt after another.
There were disciples from the Longevity Sect, scions of Clans, and even Loose Cultivators who seemed to pop up out of nowhere.
East Lake was vast, but the legend of the East Lake Secret Realm had spread throughout the Great Chu Cultivation Immortal World for so many years that the number of Cultivators searching for the mysterious fog was simply countless.
Besides, how could those who dared to come here be without a few tricks up their sleeves?
The temptation of fifteen thousand Spirit Stones and a Foundation Establishment Pill had been on full display over the past month...
...
"You bastard! The Clan won’t let you get away with this!"
The man’s face was flushed red as he cursed through gritted teeth.
Chu Mu simply ignored him and punched the man in the abdomen. A surge of Power and Magical Power eroded and directly shattered the man’s Dantian.
In that instant, the man’s entire Cultivation dissipated like a popped balloon, vanishing into thin air.
"You... I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!"
"You’re going to die! The Clan will make you wish you were dead!"
"AAAAAAAHHHHH..."
The man’s eyes looked like they would burst from their sockets as he stared at Chu Mu. If looks could kill, Chu Mu would have died a million times over.
Chu Mu remained indifferent. A dangerous glint appeared in his eyes as he looked at the survivor he had deliberately kept alive.
"What are you doing? You..."
The man seemed to sense something was wrong, but in the next second, Chu Mu’s other hand was already covering his head.
"Ah... AAAAAAHHHHH..."
The man howled in pain, his face a mask of despair.
Chu Mu’s expression was calm, his gaze apathetic. Magical Power and Divine Sense flowed from his hand, and wisps of black thread appeared beneath his palm.
After just a moment, he had forcibly ripped a complete Divine Soul out of the man’s physical body.
It was a cruel and bloody sight.
The Divine Soul survived. Within Chu Mu’s Divine Sense Perception, it screamed curses and begged for mercy, the man having already gone mad. Meanwhile, the body in his other hand was now lifeless.
CRACK...
He squeezed his fingertips, and with a crisp snap of bone, the man’s head lolled to the side. Chu Mu casually tossed the corpse away.
"ROAR!"
Wangcai acted in perfect concert. With a roar, its cavernous mouth caught the corpse Chu Mu had thrown, chewed a few times, and splattered blood onto the clear lake, staining it with yet more crimson.
The next second, a vast Divine Sense enveloped the wilting, frenzied mass of Divine Soul.
Soul Search!
The man’s agonized wails were endless, as if his Divine Soul were being subjected to death by a thousand cuts. Bit by bit, his memories were peeled away, reaching into their deepest recesses.
Countless fragmented memories flooded into Chu Mu’s mind, gradually forming a clear timeline of events.
But as he touched upon the core memories, he seemed to brush against some kind of taboo, and an ominous premonition suddenly welled up in his heart.
Without the slightest hesitation, his Divine Sense flared. In an instant, he hurled the Divine Soul, now devoid of consciousness and Spiritual Wisdom, several dozen meters away.
BANG!
With a deafening boom, the Divine Soul exploded. A streak of blood-red light flashed into existence and shot rapidly toward Chu Mu.
"ROAR!"
Wangcai roared and lunged forward.
Chu Mu instinctively conjured several Flame Barriers, but the streak of blood-red light completely ignored them.
"Sever!"
At the last moment, with no time to consider the consequences, Chu Mu bellowed. An invisible blade slashed down and, with surprising ease, the blood-red light that had treated his Magic barriers as nothing was annihilated.
"Whimper..."
Wangcai scrambled forward, whimpering with its head held high.
"It’s okay, it’s okay."
Chu Mu offered a few words of comfort, but his brow was furrowed with gravity.
’It ignored the Magic barriers...’
’That means ordinary defensive measures probably won’t be very effective.’ freewёbnoνel.com
’Is it a measure to prevent Soul Searches?’
Recalling the scene from just now, Chu Mu began to understand.
The man from before was probably a disciple of some Clan. He hadn’t really paid attention to which one.
And that streak of blood-red light had appeared when his Soul Search touched upon a core secret...
’A mark?’
Chu Mu was lost in thought. Then, with a wave of his hand, the various spoils of battle scattered on the lake’s surface floated up one by one and flew into his Storage Talisman.
"Let’s go. We don’t want to get tangled up with anyone else."
Chu Mu waved his hand and took a step. But instead of walking on the water, he plunged directly into it, sinking straight down until he was walking along the bottom of the lake.
He walked for over ten li before stopping in front of a cave formed by reefs.
Wangcai was already familiar with the route. It immediately darted into the reef cave, lay down, and seemed to fall asleep.
Chu Mu sat cross-legged in the cave, circulating his breath to assess his injuries. The benefits of Body Refining were undoubtedly clear.
With such wounds, an ordinary Cultivator would have been severely injured. But with his current Body Refining Cultivation, they were little more than superficial flesh wounds.
The only trouble was the lingering contamination of Magical Power in the wounds, but it was just that—a trouble.
He spent several hours circulating his breath and healing. Only then did he slowly open his eyes. The spoils of war were arrayed before him. After a habitual inventory, he put them away.
He looked down at his tattered Magic Robe. After observing it for a moment with his Divine Sense and confirming it was beyond repair, he took it off and changed into a gray, Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact robe from his spoils.
’So... they have a way to predict the approximate location of the fog’s appearance through the Cultivators who enter the Secret Realm?’
Chu Mu’s expression turned grave as he recalled the fragmented information from the Soul Search.
Although the man’s memories were incomplete and even contained a backlash-and-tracking mechanism when he delved into the ultimate secrets, the Soul Search had clearly yielded a good deal of information.
According to the man’s memories, he was a disciple from the Sun Family’s Direct Lineage and also a member of the... Law Enforcement Team, which had been temporarily formed by the various major powers because of the East Lake Secret Realm.
The main task of this Law Enforcement Team was to promptly seal off the relevant waters after the mysterious fog appeared to prevent outsiders from breaking in.
What he had seen and heard back then clearly confirmed this point.
But...
The man had been stationed as a Guardian at East Lake for nearly a year. Every time, before the mysterious fog appeared, the entire Law Enforcement Team would be deployed in advance to guard the relevant waters.
And afterward, the mysterious fog would always appear precisely in the area the Law Enforcement Team had sealed off.
This undoubtedly proved that the several major powers, led by the Longevity Sect, clearly had some method of knowing the time and location of the mysterious fog’s appearance in advance.
And that so-called joint Law Enforcement Team had a total of six Foundation Establishment Powerhouses and several hundred Qi Cultivation Realm Cultivators like the man.
The thought of this gave Chu Mu a headache.
’The Longevity Sect and those Clans... they’re truly pervasive, leaving no stone unturned...’
Six Foundation Establishment Powerhouses, and hundreds of Qi Cultivation Realm Cultivators.
’Such a force...’
A thousand thoughts surfaced in his mind as he pondered.
He wasn’t overly worried, however. Every time the mysterious fog appeared, it covered a vast area. Furthermore, according to the news he had gathered, the fog’s range expanded with each appearance.
Unless a Golden Core True Master was watching it around the clock, it would be impossible to completely guard a fog that spanned dozens, or even hundreds, of li.
The only concern was the risk of trying to force his way in.
After all, the man’s memory was very clear: the so-called joint Law Enforcement Team was overseen by six Foundation Establishment Powerhouses.
If he ran headfirst into a Foundation Establishment Powerhouse while trying to break through, he would truly be courting death.
After a moment of thought, he shifted his gaze to Wangcai, who was lying beside him, fast asleep.
After more than a month of slaughter, the one who had gained the most was clearly Wangcai.
In every battle, it had devoured several Cultivators. Under the tyrannical Refinement of its Demon Beast Bloodline, its Cultivation and Demon Body had been soaring.
It had reached Tier One Late Stage over half a month ago, and now its aura was already approaching Tier One Perfection.
As its Cultivation increased, its Demon Body grew larger and larger. Even lying down asleep, it resembled a small hill.
In the Qi Cultivation Realm, there was hardly any Cultivator who could afford to ignore such a Demon Beast.
In battle, it was clearly an extremely powerful asset to him at his current level.
Without Wangcai’s presence, he would have struggled to successfully turn the tables on his pursuers time and again during the past month’s manhunts.
He might even still be on the run; it was entirely possible he could have been undone by a simple mistake.
His gaze lingered for a moment on the gruesome wounds covering Wangcai’s body, and Chu Mu fell into contemplation.
In the man’s memory, the location of the next mysterious fog’s appearance was very clear.
The northwest of East Lake... Lotus Marsh. And the time... half a month from now.
"Lotus Marsh... half a month..."
Chu Mu murmured to himself, circulating his breath to heal. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
Ten days passed before a man and a beast finally emerged from the underwater cave.
They sped along the lake bottom, their direction of travel clearly northwest... toward Lotus Marsh.
...
