Chapter 113

Chapter 113

The Outer Elder, momentarily caught off guard, endured the full force of the group's attacks for several breaths.

Spells of various kinds erupted in dazzling displays, stirring up clouds of dust around the elder that soon enveloped him entirely.

You Nan remained cautious. He raised his sword again to land a finishing blow, but a powerful force gripped the tip of his blade, preventing him from advancing even an inch.

"He’s still alive!"

You Nan’s eyes widened, and he immediately shouted to the two Cultivators.

The two Cultivators didn't hold back either. They launched a combined strike, slicing downward from above. A fierce gust of wind scattered the dust, revealing the elder still standing firm.

The defensive treasure the elder wore had dimmed, and his robes were torn in several places.

Yet he himself remained unharmed, and most of the filth on his face had been wiped away.

Not only had he caught You Nan’s attack bare-handed, but he had also withstood the combined assault of two Golden Core stage cultivators.

The disciples watching from afar took a deep breath at the sight.

Was this still the same elder they knew?

As if sensing their gaze, the elder—still locked in a stalemate with You Nan—kept his body motionless but abruptly snapped his head around toward them. His eyes, now entirely black with no whites visible, fixed a deathly stare on the disciples.

The disciples’ hearts leaped into their throats, cold sweat breaking out on their backs.

Meeting the elder’s gaze felt like being targeted by a wild beast or some sinister entity.

"Run, run now!"

Someone shouted the words first, and soon others fled in a panic, abandoning their fellow sect members.

The remaining disciples, too weak to fight, didn’t dare stay any longer.

With others holding the elder back, this was their only chance to escape.

If they waited until the demon-controlled elder broke free from those three, it would be too late!

The commotion of their escape unfolded right in front of You Nan and the two Cultivators.

Their merciless retreat added immense pressure to You Nan and his companions.

"These people have no conscience! We helped them, and they turned tail and ran!" one of the cultivators fumed.

Did these disciples really think they could escape?

If they had joined forces to defeat the elder, there might have been a sliver of hope. But by running now, if You Nan and the others lost, these disciples would be the next to die!

You Nan gathered his focus. With swift decisiveness, he twisted his sword mid-air, breaking off the tip gripped by the elder’s hand, and retreated several steps. Together with the other two, he formed an encircling formation around the elder.

The elder ignored them, his head still turned toward the fleeing disciples.

As soon as You Nan steadied himself, two loud "thumps" echoed, and the elder vanished from sight, reappearing behind the escaping disciples.

He thrust his hand forward, swift and precise, aiming for their backs.

A piercing scream echoed through the sky as the captured disciple died instantly in the elder’s grasp.

The body rapidly withered, and the elder’s aura surged layer by layer.

The remaining disciples panicked even more. They drew their swords and leapt onto them, but one disciple hadn’t flown far when a powerful suction force pulled him back.

His face turned pale, tears streaming down instantly. He desperately burned his cultivation base to break free, but his resistance was meaningless before the elder.

The demonized elder splayed his fingers, and five disciples he targeted simultaneously fell from their flying swords like birds with broken wings.

Behind him, You Nan and the two cultivators closed in. Without even turning his head, the elder—now strengthened by absorbing vital energy—simply extended his other hand toward them lightly and shouted, "Break!"

The three were sent flying backward without even touching the edge of his robes.

The overwhelming pressure crashed onto You Nan, crushing his organs and bones. The pain blinded him momentarily, and a metallic taste of blood surged in his throat.

The other two cultivators were also outmatched, forced into retreat.

But their cultivation levels were higher than You Nan’s, so their injuries weren’t as severe. They caught You Nan as he fell mid-air, and the three looked toward the hellish scene ahead with despair in their eyes.

From the first moment the little child faced the demon, he knew he was no match.

.

The demon had been nourished by blood sacrifices and incense offerings accumulated over centuries—far beyond what a newly ascended wild deity like himself could contend with.

But the child refused to give up. He thought of the village children his age who played with him, the grandparents who cooked delicious meals for him, the craftsmen who told stories with endless chatter…

He remembered every villager who had ever offered him incense.

If he gave up now, if he died, everyone in the village would perish.

Gritting his teeth, the child accelerated, flying toward the deeper parts of the Great Xing Mountains. He remembered what the messenger uncle had told him about the directions to the Jin State and the Qin State.

Both states were plagued by Great Demons. His own power was too feeble; he could only resort to a desperate gambit—diverting the calamity eastward.

Since he couldn’t defeat the two demons, why not pit them against each other?

But the demon chasing him was faster, closing the distance between them rapidly.

His mind raced—this couldn’t go on!

If he was caught, he was done for.

The child hurriedly pulled out the divine statue he had secretly taken from around 007’s neck.

This was his last hope.

Clutching the statue of his father tightly with both small hands, he yelled desperately, "Dad! Dad! Save me! Wake up quickly! Little Daddy is waiting for you to rescue him!"

As he shouted and fled, his speed only increased.

He was like a gust of wind sweeping through the mountain forests.

In contrast, the demon barreled through recklessly, using its body to plow through towering trees that fell and snapped like paper, without slowing it down at all.

The child cried out for a long time without any sign of his father manifesting, wailing incessantly.

"Maybe I’m not using it right?" He lowered his head to fiddle with the statue, his body moving as if guided by another pair of eyes, swiftly dodging peaks and trees.

After a moment of thought, the child made a decision. From his inherited memories as a wild deity, he recalled a formation called the "Bloodline Tethering Art."

One can locate or awaken a relative through a drop of blood from his fingertip or heart.

Without hesitation, he bit his finger and smeared the blood from his fingertip onto the wooden statue's face. Then, he pulled out a few small flags he had tinkered with in his spare time from his pocket, swiftly setting them up while murmuring incantations under his breath.

The demon chasing him paid him no mind at all.

In the demon’s eyes, the little kid was nothing more than a small toy. The gap in their strength was vast; if it wished, it could crush this little ant with a single finger at any moment.

For now, it still felt like chasing the little kid, but after flying for a while longer, its patience gradually wore thin.

Cultivators fly extremely fast, covering several kilometers or more in a single breath.

Unknowingly, it had followed the little kid into the territory of the Qin State, with the "Bloodline Tethering Art" array just one step away from completion.

The little kid sensed something and raised his eyes to look ahead.

As soon as he entered Qin State, he saw the sky filled with dark clouds, with lightning flickering among them. Hidden within the cloud layers, he could vaguely make out the squirming figures of various defilement insects.

The little kid narrowed his eyes, then realized in shock that these were not dark clouds at all—they were clearly a "cloud" formed entirely of defilement insects.

The entire sky was filled with them!

Defilement insects appear during times of great calamity, formed from death qi, evil qi, resentment, fear, and other sinister thoughts.

When they reach a critical point and descend to the ground, they immediately bring about various terrifying disasters, such as plagues, cholera, floods, and famines, leaving the people in misery.

The ground below was covered in half-dried blood as far as the eye could see.

The land was cracked and dry, with deep fissures splitting the earth. The blood of long-dead corpses had flowed into these cracks, filling them completely.

The villagers at the foot of the mountain had been dead for a long time, their corpses turned bluish-purple, already showing signs of decay.

The blood across the entire land had also taken on a thick, brownish hue, indicating its age.

The massive number of corpses attracted swarms of flies and mosquitoes, and even the unrefined beasts from the mountains had come down to feed on them.

With every bite they took, the beasts accumulated more foul energy. Once they left, every step they took would indirectly spread disaster to other places.

The little kid’s eyelids twitched at the sight, and a surge of sorrow and helplessness welled up in his heart.

Soon, anger and grief reddened his eyes. These demons truly deserved to die!

A claw mark capable of tearing through space slashed toward him from behind. The little kid tensed up, his extreme vigilance allowing him to barely dodge it.

There was only a hair’s breadth between him and the massive claw mark.

Had he been even a moment slower, he would have been clawed.

Without another moment’s hesitation, the little kid activated the array and sprinted toward a specific direction.

That direction was precisely where the monster entering Qin State was located!

His sharp senses immediately caught the intense demonic energy.

The demon, now a step behind, entered the village at the foot of the Great Xing Mountain in Qin State.

The area was littered with corpses, but it paid them no mind.

Without even a glance, it fixed its sharp gaze in a specific direction.

It had sensed the presence of a competitor.

The demon flashed past the little kid, who immediately came to an abrupt halt, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

He stared in the direction where the demon had vanished, a sense of retroactive fear rising in his eyes.

He had thought his speed was sufficient to keep the demon at bay, but he had underestimated his opponent.

Fortunately, the demon had shown little interest in him during the chase, or he would never have escaped.

The little kid’s face turned pale.

He now deeply understood the gap between them as wide as a chasm.

The monsters of the Great Xing Mountain had been suppressed for centuries and had only recently regained their freedom. Of course, they sought revenge on the entire continent, to set the land ablaze with inextinguishable flames of war, reduce all living beings to suffering, and turn the world into their paradise.

The snake demon, fond of slaughter, slaughtered ruthlessly through the village at the foot of the mountain, leaving no survivors.

After recuperating and regaining strength there, it slowly advanced deeper into Qin State.

Wherever it went, even insects in the riverside grass, snakes, and wild rabbits succumbed to its poison, leaving the people in misery and extinguishing life for miles around.

Meanwhile, the deer yao of the Jin State had already reached the capital, killing every living thing that stood in its path.

It crushed them underhoof, sending people and animals flying in all directions.

The royal family had been slaughtered, and the Jin State was now entirely under its control.

The demon’s speed was undoubtedly extreme.

It followed the snake demon’s malicious aura until it found its target. At that moment, the snake demon was engaged in combat with the army sent by the Qin royal family.

This was already the sixth wave of soldiers dispatched, all of them ordinary humans.

All the Cultivators of the Qin royal family and military had been annihilated by the snake demon during the first and second waves.

The only ones left to resist were the human soldiers.

If even the Cultivator armies could not stop it, how could ordinary civilians hope to do so?

Yet even though they knew they were outmatched and would surely die, not a single one was willing to retreat.

They knew that if they took even one step back, their families would be the next to perish.

They had to stand their ground and block the attacks.

The snake demon dismissed these ants, but it did not simply wipe them out in one blow. Instead, it took its time torturing them, satisfying its thirst for blood.

One soldier, eyes red with fury, risked his life to thrust his sword at the snake demon’s body, only to hear a shrill clang. The snake’s scales showed not a single scratch, while the sword’s tip shattered.

Before he could retreat, a black shadow coiled around his body. The immense constricting force of the snake’s body crushed him, squeezing the life out of him amidst a bloody mess.

The other soldiers around the snake demon watched in despair.

None of their attacks had any effect on the snake demon. It simply shrugged off their assaults and tortured them one by one.

These onlookers endured immense mental anguish. They wanted to save their comrades but were powerless to do so.

The snake demon grinned, hissing at them, when suddenly it sensed something. It turned its head to look back but was a step too late—a gigantic spectral hand descended from the sky, crashing down toward it.

With a "bang," the snake demon was smashed into the ground, sending up a huge cloud of dust.

The soldiers on the battlefield were also caught up in it; many of them lost their lives before they even realized what had happened.

The little kid who had secretly followed from a distance winced at the sight.

Seeing that the snake demon had recovered and crawled out of the pit to tangle with the demon, with both sides too preoccupied to notice anything else, he immediately slipped onto the battlefield.

.

Da Wu felt as though he was about to die. His head was spinning, all his strength had drained away, and his body was nearly pancaked by the giant palm.

But he desperately didn’t want to die—he hadn’t yet lived to see the day the Qin State would triumph over the snake demon.

He didn’t want to die...

Da Wu struggled to blink slowly twice as his consciousness began to fade.

Suddenly, a warm surge flowed from his hand throughout his body, and a hushed, urgent voice reached his ears, "Don’t fall asleep! Wake up quickly!"

Da Wu felt a bit of strength return to his body, and his mind seemed to clear somewhat. His eyes, which had already closed, snapped open.

He blinked twice, and his vision cleared.

He saw a worried, youthful face appear before him.

A strange kid was holding his hand, and the life-restoring energy back to life was continuously flowing from the child into him.