Opening the Spirit Medium

Opening the Spirit Medium

"Are they still chasing me? Why are these monsters clinging to me like death?"

Li Yi ran for his life, not daring to stop for even a moment.

He had discovered that on level ground, these spider-like humanoid monsters seemed to be moving even faster. At this rate, he had no chance of leaving the Danger Zone alive. He would be caught halfway there at the latest, and then he would still die.

"What should I do?"

Cold sweat poured down Li Yi's forehead as he quickly thought through his options again.

However, at that very moment.

Two figures suddenly dashed out from a nearby street. They seemed to be other cultivators participating in this operation, but for some reason, they were fleeing as well.

One of them seemed to notice Li Yi. After hesitating briefly, he immediately sprinted toward him.

"My name is He Jun. Who are you?" the cultivator shouted.

"He Jun?" Li Yi immediately remembered him. He Jun was a Spirit Medium Realm cultivator who had dealt with Brother Tao before.

"I'm Li Yi. Brother Tao mentioned you to me," he replied.

"Brother Tao? Since you know him, that's perfect. Join me, and we'll work together to deal with the thing behind us. Otherwise, none of us will have it easy. Don't worry—after we hunt that Fierce Beast, I'll give you a share of the benefits," He Jun said as he drew closer to Li Yi once more.

Only then did Li Yi notice a beast behind He Jun. It was growling as it chased after him.

So He Jun had run into danger as well.

"Li Yi, don't trust him! He doesn't want to join forces with you. He wants to lure that Fierce Beast onto you and use you to buy time for his escape. One of my colleagues was killed by him that way just now. I refuse to accept this! Even if I die, I'll drag him down with me. That's why I followed him all this way. I didn't want to sacrifice myself to lure that Fierce Beast away for him."

Suddenly, a cultivator behind He Jun spoke up in warning. He seemed to feel that he could no longer escape and did not want Li Yi to follow in their footsteps, so he exposed He Jun's sinister intentions before dying.

"What?" Li Yi was startled.

He Jun actually had such intentions. As expected, Earth Prisoners were born evil.

But—

Li Yi glanced back. It seemed that his side was even more dangerous.

Just as he thought this, a scream rang out.

That cultivator had run out of strength and been caught. In an instant, the Fierce Beast bit through his neck. Yet after killing one person, the beast did not stop to feast. Instead, it continued lunging toward He Jun.

"You really deserve to die. You're about to die, yet you still have so much to say," He Jun cursed furiously as he ran.

But He Jun soon realized that after hearing the warning, Li Yi had not turned around and fled. Instead, he was still running toward them, which immediately delighted him.

With another unlucky fool drawing the Fierce Beast's attention, he could definitely leave the Danger Zone alive.

But soon, He Jun's expression stiffened.

What was that?

Behind Li Yi, a group of gray-black humanoid monsters with eight arms sprouting from their bodies charged forward like spiders at an astonishing speed. Judging by their appearance, they seemed far more terrifying than the thing behind him.

"You little brat, don't come over here!"

He Jun shouted furiously as he hurriedly stopped, then immediately changed direction and fled.

"What did you say? I can't hear you."

Li Yi quickly closed in on He Jun. Since the other man had malicious intentions, Li Yi was no gentleman himself.

Let's see who ends up more unlucky.

"Come any closer, and I'll use my Gaze Strike to kill you," He Jun threatened.

"If I die, you'll be chased by two waves of monsters. If I stay alive, I can at least share some of the danger with you. If you're not afraid of dying, go ahead and attack," Li Yi said without the slightest fear, continuing to draw closer.

He Jun was furious, but he still restrained himself from attacking Li Yi. Li Yi was right: having one more living person here meant one more layer of safety.

If he were the only one left, the monsters would have no other choice and would all attack him.

Damn brat. He Jun cursed inwardly, able only to speed up and shake Li Yi off as much as possible.

But Li Yi's running speed was no slower than his. On top of that, He Jun had wasted time just now, so the distance between them rapidly shrank within moments.

Once he drew near He Jun, Li Yi could finally see what kind of Fierce Beast was chasing them. It was a starving tiger reduced to skin and bones, its fur almost entirely fallen out and its appearance hideous.

Yet this hideous evil tiger had killed two cultivators in succession and chased He Jun so relentlessly that he did not even dare look back.

It was definitely no ordinary tiger. It was probably a tiger that had embarked on cultivation.

Li Yi instinctively reached this conclusion.

"Get lost! Stop coming closer!" He Jun saw the crawling monsters and immediately felt his scalp go numb. He could not help cursing again.

"Why don't you get lost? You're blocking my escape route," Li Yi retorted without the slightest courtesy.

"I think you're tired of living. If you offend me, then even after we leave the Danger Zone, I'll make sure you can't get home alive," He Jun threatened again.

"Since you put it that way, then I'm coming over," Li Yi said, directly leading the group of monsters behind him toward He Jun.

When He Jun saw Li Yi really charging over, his face turned white with fright. Is this brat not afraid of the Biao behind him?

He had no choice but to change his route. He did not want to get entangled with the group of monsters behind Li Yi.

The two figures crossed paths.

In that instant, the Fierce Beasts hunting them also switched targets.

The spider-like strange creatures chased after He Jun, while the evil Biao roared and pounced toward Li Yi.

"Fuck your—"

When He Jun saw those monsters swinging several strange arms as they charged at him, he began cursing Li Yi's entire family.

"Stop cursing and save your strength for running."

Li Yi called back. His voice grew more and more distant until he vanished at the end of the street.

But he was not having an easy time either. An evil Biao was hot on his heels.

Fortunately, there was only one Fierce Beast. It was not as dangerous as the huge swarm of monsters from earlier.

Even so, he could not afford to underestimate it.

Li Yi still could not deal with this vicious creature, and his stamina was gradually failing him.

"Even if I shake off the monsters from before, I still won't be able to escape the Danger Zone with this Fierce Beast on my trail. I have to find somewhere to shake this thing off."

Li Yi suddenly remembered something.

When he had entered the Danger Zone with Brother Tao earlier, Brother Tao had taken a detour around a Ruined City along the way, saying that the place was haunted.

But Li Yi had not seen anything, because he had not activated his Spirit Medium.

"I don't have a Spirit Medium, so I can't see evil ghosts. That means it'll be harder for evil ghosts to target me. This is an opportunity. I can use the danger there to shake off the Fierce Beast behind me." Li Yi's eyes shifted as he recalled the time he had worked for Old Crow in the Ruined City.

That abandoned building had been haunted as well. But because he had been an ordinary person who could not see ghosts, the odds of being targeted by one had been very low.

Because of that, Li Yi had obtained half of a Knife Coin and gained a fragmentary strange artifact of his own.

Perhaps he could use the same trick again today.

Having thought of this—

Li Yi stopped hesitating. He took a shortcut and headed straight for the streets of that abandoned urban district.

After narrowly dodging several attacks from the Fierce Beast behind him, he charged straight into the dangerous area that Brother Tao had said was haunted.

Sure enough, his plan worked.

When Li Yi charged onto an empty street, the Fierce Beast suddenly stopped at the intersection behind him. It paced back and forth, refusing to set foot in this place. In the end, it could only roar furiously from a distance, watching helplessly as its nearly captured prey escaped.

The Biao was a species of tiger, and in ancient times, tigers were called Mountain Lords.

Thus, the Biao possessed the abilities of a Mountain Lord. Its eyes were naturally capable of seeing unclean things.

So, in the eyes of this evil Biao, the street where Li Yi stood was not empty at all. Instead, it was packed with all kinds of people, bustling like a marketplace.

Yet the entire marketplace was filled with a lifeless aura, exuding all kinds of ominousness and danger.

Even the famously ferocious Biao could only halt in place.

"I should count as having survived, right?"

Seeing that he was temporarily safe, Li Yi immediately let out a sigh of relief. His whole body felt weak, and he sat down on the curb to rest.

Recalling the events from earlier, he felt that they had been truly perilous and thrilling.

In just ten minutes, he had no idea how many times he had brushed past death.

His physical potential had erupted again and again.

This kind of life-and-death tempering could greatly accelerate a cultivator's evolution.

Li Yi only rested briefly before feeling much of his stamina return. His arm still ached, though. It seemed he had been injured while falling from the building. After examining himself, he discovered that his injuries went beyond that. Several places on his palms had been scraped raw, and a bloody claw mark had appeared on his back at some unknown point.

"This isn't somewhere I can stay for long. I have to leave immediately."

After catching his breath, he moved again, preparing to leave the area as quickly as possible.

He now felt that the surroundings were pitch-black and freezing cold, and they were unnaturally quiet. He could not hear the slightest sound.

This abnormality made Li Yi increasingly uneasy.

But as Li Yi hurried through the streets, he suddenly rubbed his eyes instinctively.

Then, a blurry figure appeared within his field of vision.

That figure was stiff and cold. It passed by in a sway like a Walking Corpse, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

"Was that an illusion?" Li Yi's heart jolted as a chill surged over him.

No, it wasn't an illusion.

He saw them again. Several floating figures passed by ahead of him. They wore shrouds resembling paper, and their faces were deathly pale, utterly devoid of blood. They were clearly not living people.

"Leave. Now."

Li Yi drew a deep breath. At that moment, he felt that even the air here was cold, and an indescribable chill filled his entire body.

Yet the farther forward he went, the more strange figures appeared in his line of sight.

At that moment, Li Yi seemed to realize what was happening.

He seemed to be activating his Spirit Medium.