Breaking Free, Part 1

The foul smell of blood rose up and dispersed the mist.

Zhang Rongfang's tall body also lost its balance under the impact of the huge airflow, flew backward, rolled several times on the ground, and fell into the stream.

Roar! At the location of the wooden house, countless drops of blood converged into a giant humanoid figure more than ten meters tall, roaring angrily to the sky.

Meanwhile, countless blue butterflies fluttered in from afar in the surrounding air.

Butterflies covered the Blood Giant in layers, devouring the blood while being overwhelmed and devoured by it.

Blood and blue alternated constantly on the giant's body.

The two are inextricably linked.

Xue Tong, standing a hundred meters away, stared in disbelief at the scene before him, utterly at a loss for words.

He didn't understand why this suddenly appearing god would fight with the Wish Woman.

And the fight was so fierce. But this suddenly appearing Secret God might be able to help. A glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes.

Having been trapped for so many years, if they could seize this opportunity to get out... Zhang Rongfang, who was standing up from the stream, was unharmed except for being a little dizzy at first.

Thick skin really comes in handy here. If it were someone else, their neck might have been broken from the violent impact.

He also saw the dramatic changes at the wooden house and was stunned.

"Is this God!?"

He once thought he lived in a martial arts era, but the scene before him made him doubt his own existence. "Don't be scared," Xue Tong said from the side.

His eyes were fixed on the battle situation not far away.

The blue butterfly and the Blood Giant constantly roared and flapped their wings in a cacophony of sounds.

"This place isn't actually reality." He turned his head and touched Zhang Rongfang.

"The environment shrouded in Mist of Doubt is different from the environment in which we live."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Rongfang felt a sudden heaviness throughout his body, as if he had become much heavier.

But immediately his blood and energy surged, dispelling that feeling.

"Hmm? Your physique... is a bit strange." Xue Tong narrowed his eyes. "Never mind, I was just telling you that they aren't as powerful as you see them. Let's not talk about that anymore. Now, while this Secret God you created is helping you, we must deal with the foundation of the Wish Woman here."

"How do we solve this? Can't the Blood God kill her?" Zhang Rongfang retorted. He quickly tilted his head, avoiding a mixture of butterflies and blood.

"Gods will not die," Xue Tong said earnestly. "Remember that."

He turned around, lightly touched the ground with his toes, and quickly walked towards the stream.

"Come with me."

With a few quick steps, he leaped lightly and plunged headfirst into the stream.

The stream wasn't deep, but when he jumped in, he was completely submerged, as if he had plunged into the deep sea and disappeared.

"??!" Zhang Rongfang turned around and glanced at the Blood God and the Wish Woman.

The number of butterflies increased, and the blood seemed endless; it was impossible to tell when the battle would end.

He looked again at the stream into which Xue Tong had jumped.

"This godforsaken place." This was his first encounter with the so-called god, and he absolutely did not want to encounter it a second time.

It's so annoying and sneaky.

Without hesitation, he took a few steps and leaped into the stream, just like Xue Tong.

Puff.

The sound of gurgling water filled my ears.

Numerous bubbles rose from around Zhang Rongfang, resembling a string of silver wind chimes.

He looked down.

Below the stream, the water was not shallow at all, but a vast expanse of deep blue.

He looked around.

Front, back, left, and right.

Every direction was a dark blue.

It was as if this jump truly plunged into the deep sea.

Zhang Rongfang looked down.

Deeper down, Xue Tong was waving to him from afar.

He immediately swam rapidly in that direction.

The two met up and dived together into the dark blue water.

One hundred meters, two hundred meters.

The water seemed to have no buoyancy, allowing them to sink continuously.

Finally.

The seabed slowly emerged.

Xue Tong swam to the bottom and dug through the white mud with his hands, revealing a pale red clock covered in peeling patches.

The clock face had turned yellowish-white, as if it had been exposed to the sun for a long time.

The hour and minute hands were still slowly turning, pointing to 11:11.

Xue Tong picked up the clock and went upstream.

Zhang Rongfang followed closely behind.

The two went up together.

In the dark blue water, faint shadows occasionally swam around.

I don't know if it's a fish or something else.

Whoosh!

It quickly surfaced.

Xue Tong placed the clock on the grass.

"This is the Wish Bell. Come, you break it! Only you can break it! I've seen it, I can't!" He took a step back and looked at Zhang Rongfang.

"Take advantage of the moment, Wish Woman is tied up and has no time to take care of this place, quick!"

"Are you sure, senior?" Zhang Rongfang asked in a deep voice.

"I'm sure, only you can do it. She must have ulterior motives towards you! Now I understand why the previous two methods didn't work."

"It's not that I'm wrong. It's just that she pays more attention to you than to me!" Xue Tong quickly replied.

"I want to know why?" Ever since Zhang Rongfang came in, he had felt like he was being led by the nose.

He was not really willing to break the bell at this moment.

"The Wish Bell is the vessel of the Wish Woman's true form. If you shatter it, she will no longer have a physical existence here! In the battle against the Secret God you brought, she will quickly fall into a disadvantageous position!" Xue Tong's expression was somewhat anxious.

"Hurry! If we're any slower, she'll find out and it'll be too late!"

Zhang Rongfang took a deep breath, opened the Attribute Panel, and looked at the Wish Bell.

The Intuition Warning in the Attribute Panel worked this time.

' Intuition Warning: This is a mysterious, broken clock. When its hands point to the two twelves, something bad might happen.'

"Break."

Zhang Rongfang paused.

Suddenly, he threw a punch, which hit the clock face squarely.

Bang!

The entire clock face was dented, twisted, and shattered, with a large hole torn inward.

The gears inside were squeezed by tremendous force, making countless clanging and snapping sounds.

"Is this alright?" Zhang Rongfang withdrew his hand. Suddenly, he felt something was amiss.

He turned his head and looked.

The Blood God and the Wish Woman, who were just locked in fierce combat, had already vanished.

The wooden house is still in the same place, and the grass still sways gently in the wind.

A Blood God Statue lay quietly on the ground beside the wooden house, motionless.

There were no Blood Giant, no blue butterflies, and no trace of the previous battle.

It was as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

"Senior Xue Tong?" Zhang Rongfang looked around.

There was no response.

Xue Tong seemed to have never appeared; there wasn't even a trace of his footprints on the grass.

Zhang Rongfang looked at the clock on the ground; it was a dilapidated-looking Western clock.

"No, the fog is gone too!"

He suddenly realized.

The surroundings were open and spacious, with the stream flowing behind them, its sound crisp and clear.

Everything An Ning and harmonious.

Zhang Rongfang paused for a moment, then quickly walked towards the wooden house.

He first stood in front of the door and picked up the Blood God Statue.

A clear crack appeared on the Statue, as if it had been forcibly crushed by some great force.

But the Statue's eyes remained kind and serene.

He let out a soft breath.

Zhang Rongfang put it back into his pocket.

Then I looked at the wooden house.

He reached out and gently touched the wooden house.

No response.

Then I stepped inside.

The room was quiet, and the tables and chairs Upper Capital covered with a thick layer of dust.

There were no White Dress Woman, only scattered pieces of wooden furniture with green shoots sprouting.

Moldy iron pots, windowsills covered in green moss, wardrobes stained with a lot of black, sticky stuff, and so on.

"I've figured it out, haven't I?" Zhang Rongfang seemed to understand something.

I recalled the records of Intuition Warning from the past.

He swung his hand back and struck the wooden wall of the cabin hard.

Bang! A large hole was torn in the wooden wall, wood flew everywhere, and the small house swayed as if it were about to collapse.

"Take the clock and go find your subordinates quickly!" Suddenly, a faint voice quietly entered Zhang Rongfang's ears.

The sound was like a hallucination, or perhaps the sound of the wind outside.

He couldn't hear very clearly.

Even though the voice wasn't Xue Tong's, Zhang Rongfang inexplicably felt convinced that it was him speaking.

Immediately, he picked up the grandfather clock and began to strike the wooden house repeatedly.

With a loud bang, the entire wooden house collapsed shortly afterward.

Zhang Rongfang then leaped into the depths of the canyon.

Without the fog, he was much faster.

Looking far ahead, Dark Light Vision can penetrate extremely far, allowing one to see over a thousand meters ahead.

Soon, he found Qing Su and the others lying motionless on the ground at the edge of a Woodland at the bottom of a valley.

This also includes Song Xinye and others who had previously gone missing.

However, half of them had already lost their breath forever.

Their bodies shrank, their flesh and blood withered, as if they had aged many years in an instant.

Zhang Rongfang sighed, helped up a corpse, and prepared to take them all out for a proper burial.

Suddenly his expression changed, and he slightly shook the corpse.

"The weight is wrong."

He reached out and squeezed the corpse's arm.

The bones had vanished. The hands were as soft and supple as squid or octopus.

Then pinch open the mouth.

All the teeth in his mouth had long since disappeared, leaving only a mouthful of black ash.

"Black ash." Zhang Rongfang recognized it at a glance. This black ash seemed to be exactly the same as the black ash that Silver Thread turned into after it died.

Hiss. Just as he was recognizing it, the black ash quickly evaporated and dissipated like water vapor, disappearing inexplicably.

"Really."

The others were given Awakening Pill and slowly regained consciousness.

"Sir, we..."

Qing Su rubbed her temples. In her last moments, all she remembered was seeing a large number of Black Bees approaching.

I can't remember anything else.

"You were almost finished! Everyone get up now, take the bodies, and get out of here!"

Zhang Rongfang said in a deep voice.

This time, he greatly underestimated the so-called God.

Thinking they could advance and retreat safely with their own strength and the Blood God Statue, the group was surprised to find that, upon seeing the half-dead corpses around them, their expressions changed drastically. They hurriedly got up, packed their belongings, and left with the bodies.

"Where is Song Xinye?" Zhang Rongfang suddenly asked.

"Sir, Song Xinye is gone too," an old hunter replied in a deep voice.