In the great river, a huge water python had coiled around a giant river horse.
The thick and sturdy snake tightened its grip, desperately trying to strangle the giant river horse, which let out painful screams and struggled violently in the water.
An unidentified black shadow swiftly passed underwater, and the fearsome head of the water python emerged from the water. It opened its mouth and let out a silent roar, its bulky body constantly constricting. The seven orifices of the giant river horse began bleeding, staining a large area of water with blood.
On the riverbank, Wu Laoda, Luo Lin, and Ding Zai lay on the ground.
Wu Laoda's left shoulder was exposed, and blood continued to spill out.
Luo Lin and Ding Zai were both coughing up blood, continuously expelling dark, blackish blood. The toxicity had corroded their tracheas, and their chests made a wheezing sound every time they breathed.
Wu Tie landed heavily and stood about ten meters away, watching them.
The three of them looked at Wu Tie with unpleasant expressions, their gazes free of fear but filled with shame and a sense of not daring to face him.
After a moment of silence, Wu Tie took out a small animal skin pouch and threw it in front of Luo Lin. "It's effective for external and internal use. Give it a try? Wu Laoda, you've lost quite a bit of blood."
Inside the animal skin pouch were three vials used to store the Foundation-Building elixir, each filled with the white liquid from the crystal sphere.
This kind of liquid had excellent healing effects for external injuries and a strong detoxifying effect against various poisons. Several times, Wu Tie had relied on the crystal sphere's healing powers to escape danger when injured.
Biting his teeth, Luo Lin said word by word, "We have medicine."
Wu Laoda smiled bitterly on the side. "Lao San, don't worry about face. We usually keep the medicine well hidden. But now, we don't have any elixirs."
Casting a deep glance at Wu Tie, Wu Laoda said in a deep voice, "Thank you... for witnessing such a disgraceful scene."
Wu Tie opened his face mask, revealing his scalp covered in blisters caused by burns. He held a bottle and applied the white liquid to his scalp, enduring the pain and itching. "Disgrace? How could you think that? It's not your fault... something is wrong with the elixirs..."
The blisters on his scalp soon shriveled and fell off, leaving behind fresh flesh. Wu Tie's scalp became a mix of white and red.
It was clear that the medicine was working remarkably well.
Luo Lin picked up the animal skin pouch and took out a vial. He swallowed half of the white liquid in one gulp and took a deep breath. The stinging and itching sensation slid down from his throat to his abdomen, but it was immediately replaced by a refreshing and light feeling. Clearly, the white liquid had a powerful healing and detoxifying effect.
After personally experiencing the amazing effects of the white liquid, Luo Lin couldn't help but exclaim in admiration. He then gave Ding Zai half a vial and carefully applied layers of the white liquid onto Wu Laoda's wounds.
Wu Tie looked at Luo Lin's group, whose complexion had greatly improved, and asked in a deep voice, "Did you kill Feng Yu earlier? He was your comrade, after all."
Luo Lin's face turned icy cold, and he remained silent for a long time.
Wu Laoda looked at Wu Tie and said solemnly, "Our grudge with Shi Lingqing runs deep... If Feng Yu fell into her hands, who knows how much suffering he would have endured... Instead of living in agony and being used as bait against us, it's better to give him peace."
Before Wu Tie could further question, Luo Lin sneered, "Now you understand what kind of woman Shi Lingqing is? Do you still have a favorable impression of her? If we kill her, will you still help her?"
Wu Tie opened his mouth but couldn't say a word.
He couldn't answer Luo Lin's question because he himself didn't have a definite decision. So, he turned and left.
For the next few days, Wu Tie secluded himself in a wooden shed, absentmindedly playing with an unlucky little flying snake that had collided with his door. Every day, he manipulated the three-foot-long snake into countless peculiar poses.
Wu Laoda, Luo Lin, and Ding Zai's vitality was as resilient as cockroaches. They only rested for half a day before regaining their spirits.
The three of them left their temporary refuge and ran off somewhere.
Wu Tie speculated that they went to seek revenge on Shi Lingqing, but he didn't want to get involved. His mind was in disarray, with all sorts of strange thoughts growing like weeds, making him restless and unsure of how to handle them.
Especially because he dreamt of Shi Lingqing last night.
The dream was bizarre and ambiguous. He and Shi Lingqing had gone through some things that he couldn't remember upon waking up.
The only impression he had of the dream was that he abruptly woke up in a slight convulsion... something strange had happened.
In the corner of the wooden shed, the lid was violently lifted, and four metal spiders carried Lao Tie as they crawled up. The metal spiders carried Lao Tie, circled around Wu Tie three times, and then discharged an electric current from Lao Tie's sharp teeth, causing Wu Tie to scream in pain.
"Women, the most terrifying creatures in the world." Lao Tie exclaimed loudly. "Fortunately, I don't need women. I don't have this weakness... Yang Jian, and many others, all suffered because of women in the past."
"So, kid, how about it... what's your experience now?" Lao Tie laughed eerily.
"I can't put it into words." Wu Tie looked at Lao Tie honestly. "I don't know either. It feels uncomfortable, but also relaxed."
"It's all that Grey Master's fault." Lao Tie pointed out in an unkind manner. "He taught you too many useless things... weakness, uselessness, and even things that are too dangerous in this era."
"Apricot blossoms, spring rain... what kind of trash are those?" Bloodlust gleamed in Lao Tie's eyes as he looked at Wu Tie, saying solemnly, "Those sorrowful things. While they might be okay during peaceful times, now..."
"What should I do? What should I really do?" Wu Tie seemed to have grabbed hold of a sturdy tree trunk in a flood and anxiously asked Lao Tie for advice.
He admitted that the things Grey Master had taught him before seemed to be truly useless. Just like Grey Master had yearned for, that wonderful 'love' that had sparked the thoughts of Wu Tie and his three brothers... did the things between Shi Lingqing and Qiao happen 'because of love'?
Wu Tie wasn't sure.
The things that happened between Shi Lingqing and Qiao made Wu Tie feel dirty and disgusted.
"Hold on to your original intentions!" Lao Tie roared loudly. "Little novice, hold on to your original intentions...follow your most primal instincts. Hold onto your original intentions, then clench your fist, and with your fist, your blade, your gun...eliminate all targets that make your original intentions weak and confused!"
"This is a dark jungle...only the most powerful hunters have the qualifications to survive." Electric currents arched from Lao Tie's sharp teeth, striking Wu Tie and making him scream in torment.
"You've wasted several days of your life...even though you're still young, young people should waste their lives even less!" Lao Tie roared. "Little novice, do something meaningful. It doesn't matter what you do. Even if you go to a place with a broad view and fresh air, enjoying the scenery while peeing...run, move, let your young life come alive!"
"Get out of this damn wooden shed. Young people shouldn't be shut-ins."
"Run, move, do something...run...1-2-1...1-2-1...1-2-1...move!"
Wu Tie ran toward the exit of the wooden shed, and Lao Tie's eye emitted a fine red light that fiercely struck the tight-fitting armor covering Wu Tie's buttocks. A small circular area on the hard-to-pierce armor suddenly turned deep red, with the localized temperature rising rapidly like a branding iron.
With a painful howl, Wu Tie clutched his buttocks and leaped out, panting as he ran at his fastest speed.
After randomly running on the outside for a whole day, Wu Tie exhausted an enormous river horse, knocked out a water python, tied two black striped snakes into a beautiful bow, and hung a black widow spider onto a beautiful nightshade fern using its own silk...
After tossing and turning for a whole day, Wu Tie's stagnant mood eased more than nine-tenths.
Then he found Wu Laoda's group.
They were like three injured starving wolves, searching forward following faint traces on the ground.
Luo Lin and Ding Zai occasionally slashed through the mushroom grove and fern forest with their straight swords, making faint cracking sounds. Sometimes, there were arrows and flying knives that weakly flew out.
The entire path had been cleverly set with ambushes, as if someone had anticipated their arrival from this direction.
And Luo Lin and Ding Zai seemed to be extremely familiar with the opponent's techniques, easily dismantling all the traps along the way.
Only people who were the closest to each other would have such an effect.
Wu Tie silently followed behind them.
He hadn't decided who to help yet, but he wanted to see what the outcome would be.
As they advanced, Wu Tie was astonished to discover that they had arrived at the spot where four giant spiders and two giant beasts had perished.
Due to the self-destruction of one of the giant beasts, the area of stone columns covering dozens of square miles had sunk. Below this stone column forest was an enormous underground space about twenty meters thick. The giant beast's explosion had destabilized the rocks, causing the whole ground to collapse.
A cold wind continuously blew out from the depression spanning dozens of miles. Standing at the edge of the depression and looking down, one could see a depth of two to three hundred meters, with countless fractured stone columns lying in a chaotic mess on the ground, presenting a scene of devastation.
Luo Lin's group searched around the depression for a while before quickly finding a thick vine hanging down into the pit.
"They went down from here." Luo Lin looked at the marks left near the vine and said with certainty, "Qiao knows that their manpower on open ground is incapable of withstanding our assassination."
Wu Laoda smiled with a bit of coldness. "So, he chose to fight us here?"
Ding Zai also smiled, "This depression is too deep. Otherwise, we could have led a big guy over here like we did the other day, and it would've been enough to deal with them."
Meanwhile, Wu Tie stood about a hundred meters away, and their voices were loud enough for him to hear their conversation clearly.
Ding mentioned the events from a few days ago, and Wu Tie recalled the ordeal of being chased by the two giant beasts for hundreds of miles, almost letting out a scream of rage.
With a cold snort, Wu Tie glared at them and, in an instant, turned and jumped into the pit.
An invisible force field enveloped his body as he gracefully glided down, reaching the bottom after a few breaths.
"That kid!" Ding muttered with envy, "What kind of innate power does he have?"
Wu Laoda patted Ding's shoulder, saying in a deep voice, "What's the point of envying others? Be more careful and follow him down... Shi and Qiao must die."
Luo Lin added with a deep voice, "It's my debt to the brothers..."
Wu Laoda chuckled, his deep voice resounding, "No need for useless words, we're brothers... Hah, brothers!"
The three of them climbed down the vine.
Wu Tie had already forgotten about them. An invisible force field supported his body, and he moved even lighter as he quietly advanced.
As he walked, his fingers brushed over a rhombus-shaped pattern protruding from his chest.
The bleak white tight-fitting armor quietly changed color, from easily noticed bleak white to pitch black like the night. It didn't reflect any light, and the entire body of Wu Tie, which had turned jet-black, blended seamlessly into the darkness deep within the pit.
This area of the pit was roughly rectangular, twenty-odd miles long and ten-odd miles wide. Wu Tie spent two days searching within the underground space but couldn't find any trace of Shi Lingqing's group.
Clearly, they were hidden.
Wu Tie didn't know where they were hidden or what means they were preparing to deal with Luo Lin's group.
Wu Tie became even more cautious. He used the invisible force field to support his body, walking so lightly that he didn't touch the ground and made no sound.
The entire area had collapsed, and the pit was in a disastrous state. Whistling cold winds constantly blew out from cracks both big and small on the pit walls. Within two days, Wu Tie had searched all the areas within the pit except for the cracks on the walls.
Steadily approaching the cracks on the wall, Wu Tie suddenly stopped in his tracks.
From a large crack on the wall, cold wind constantly gushed out. Wu Tie's invisible force field also sensed the presence of someone moving.
What attracted Wu Tie's attention wasn't the lackeys of Shi Lingqing who were crawling among the rubble near the crack. It was a strange giant creature about thirty meters away inside the crack.
The creature was entirely a dismal white, obviously made of the same metal material as Lao Tie.
It had a wolf-like appearance, resembling the wolf head that Grey Master had spoken of and the heads of the Qing Lang Warriors and the Grey Wolf Warriors of the Wu family.
However, this creature had a transparent hole in the middle of its head, with some sparkling translucent liquid shimmering near the wound.
Clearly, this hole had dealt a fatal blow to the creature.
"What is... How could this creature be here?" Wu Tie suddenly heard Lao Tie's voice, startling him. The sudden voice almost made Wu Tie scream out, but he managed to suppress the sound just in time.
Startled, Wu Tie saw a palm-sized metal spider, rapidly running toward him from a hundred meters away, landing lightly on his shoulder after a few hops.
"This darn thing, how could it be here?" Lao Tie's voice came from the spinneret of the metal spider's abdomen.
"Dog?" Wu Tie suddenly remembered that Grey Master had mentioned a creature called a dog, which was extensively raised by ancient people.
"This darn thing... is actually an acquaintance of mine... How could it be here?" Lao Tie's voice was filled with inexplicable emotions. "Bring it back. Now, immediately, bring it back!"
(The end of this chapter)