Life-and-Death Breakthrough

The dense, flourishing forest,

Zhang Qingyuan turned into a fleeting afterimage,

Flickering repeatedly through the woods.

Within a few breaths,

He had already crossed several dozen zhang.

Chasing closely after the Spirit Devouring Rat,

Zhang Qingyuan delved deep into the mountains.

Following the traces revealed by the Manifestation Tracing Technique, Zhang Qingyuan pursued without relent, reaching these woods at least a dozen li away from Azure Mountain Town.

Only,

As he continued deeper,

A thread of hesitation

Rose within his heart.

He landed upon the branch of a big tree,

And stopped.

His gaze fixed on the traces that continued into the depths of the forest,

His brows furrowed slightly.

"Damn it, this has to be over a dozen li already! How can that Spirit Devouring Rat be so good at running?!"

Although within the Cloud Water Sect's sphere of influence,

The powerful Demonic Beasts had basically all been cleared away by the sect's stronger cultivators.

But deep within the deep mountains and old forests,

An accident might still occur!

"Forget it. It's only a Spirit Devouring Rat that Spirit Essence Realm Third/Fourth Level Cultivators can kill head-on. What danger could there be? Chase!"

Gritting his teeth,

Zhang Qingyuan still decided to continue the pursuit.

This was Zhang Qingyuan's first mission to kill a Demonic Beast. He had originally thought it would be easy to accomplish, yet after several days of futile effort and so many attempts, he did not want to give up just like that.

Perhaps there was also anger in his heart at having been toyed with by that Spirit Devouring Rat!

This time,

He had to catch that fellow!

His figure flashed,

And he accelerated even further!

However,

As he ventured deeper all the way,

Other than the increasingly faint traces of flour left on the ground by the Manifestation Tracing Technique, which continued stretching deeper into the forest,

Zhang Qingyuan discovered nothing.

Just as he was considering whether he should give up,

Before his eyes,

His vision suddenly brightened.

An open clearing appeared amid the trees.

The extending traces

Ended at the center of the clearing.

Had he found that Spirit Devouring Rat's lair?

Zhang Qingyuan's eyes lit up,

And he was about to leap down from the tree,

But at that moment,

He suddenly noticed

That the fallen leaves in the clearing were somewhat scattered, as though the Spirit Devouring Rat had struggled there.

At the same time,

The surrounding dead leaves and soil

Seemed to be stained with a little blood.

After landing on the ground,

His footsteps halted.

Zhang Qingyuan hesitated, his brows tightly knitted.

"Could it be that the Spirit Devouring Rat encountered some predator?"

He swept his gaze over the surroundings,

And something seemed amiss.

Back at the outskirts of the mountains,

There had been plenty of birdsong and insect chirping all around.

But here,

There was only deathly silence!

Apart from the wind rustling the leaves,

A silence as dead as death itself!

"Not good!"

All of a sudden,

His spiritual sense went wild with warning signs!

A danger that made his heart tremble in terror

Suddenly descended!

With no time to think,

Zhang Qingyuan abandoned all concern for appearances, throwing himself to the ground and rolling on the spot!

In that instant,

A black afterimage swept through the air, tearing it apart with a piercing shriek as it broke through the wind!

That terrifying black shadow

Carried a fierce gale,

Sweeping past his scalp and bringing with it a foul stench that made Zhang Qingyuan's scalp numb!

Bang!

Terrifying force erupted.

The attack missed. The afterimage, like an iron whip sweeping sideways, smashed into a big tree as thick as an embrace beside him. Qi burst outward in an instant, shattering the trunk into fragments that scattered like snowflakes!

And at this moment,

Zhang Qingyuan, who had rolled along the ground and staggered to his feet,

Finally saw the attacker clearly.

Blood-red vertical pupils,

Dark crimson scales,

A body nearly twenty meters long.

Its body flowed slowly out from the surrounding grass like running water, coiling upward. Its crimson snake pupils stared at Zhang Qingyuan in the distance as though he were prey!

The Crimson Fiend Yao Python!

And it was an adult Crimson Fiend Yao Python at that!

Zhang Qingyuan's pupils contracted.

Under the gaze of those snake eyes that seemed to be watching prey, his entire body stiffened. A chill rose from the soles of his feet, and the blood all over his body solidified!

According to the intelligence taught by the Cloud Water Sect,

An adult Crimson Fiend Yao Python

Usually possessed the strength of the Late Spirit Essence Realm.

Its Innate Spell allowed it to spew poisonous mist and control toxins.

Once bitten and poisoned, no cultivator below the True Essence Realm could withstand it!

At the same time,

Its innate ability was bodily entanglement.

Once caught within its coils,

Even a Spirit Essence Realm Ninth Level cultivator could not escape without special means and could only be strangled to death alive!

To deal with such a dangerous Demonic Beast,

It was generally recommended that at least three Spirit Essence Realm Eighth Level Cultivators join forces in order to kill it with the greatest chance of avoiding injury!

Recalling the descriptions in the sect's records,

Zhang Qingyuan's heart filled with boundless bitterness.

Why had such an extremely dangerous Demonic Beast as the Crimson Fiend Yao Python suddenly appeared during what was merely a mission to hunt a Spirit Devouring Rat? Zhang Qingyuan had no mind left to think about that.

Right now,

The urgent matter was

How to survive from the jaws of this Crimson Fiend Yao Python!

Zhang Qingyuan did not run.

He stood where he was,

Facing off at a distance against the Crimson Fiend Yao Python, whose coiled body rose nearly as high as a story.

Neither moved!

When facing an opponent of this caliber,

Running was the stupidest choice!

This Demonic Python could suddenly spray forward in motion, racing like the wind and swift as lightning. Probably the instant he turned to flee, he would fall into its jaws!

Facing this opponent head-on,

He still had a sliver of life and death!

Zhang Qingyuan did not move,

And neither did the Crimson Fiend Yao Python.

Time

Passed slowly.

It felt as though only an instant had gone by,

Yet also as though an entire year had passed!

Then suddenly,

The Crimson Fiend Yao Python moved!

It shot forward in an instant,

Like black lightning piercing the void. Countless air currents around it were stirred, as though a black, stinking demonic wind had been whipped up!

Its ferocious snake head opened wide,

Biting down toward Zhang Qingyuan!

Terrifying,

Horrifying!

Yet Zhang Qingyuan let out a slight breath of relief.

In this world,

The most threatening thing

Was always the next attack that had yet to be unleashed!

Zhang Qingyuan's mind had long since been wound taut. True Essence raced madly through the meridians inside his body, and his entire form immediately drifted away like clouds and mist, darting off to the side.

With a difference of only a hair's breadth, he avoided the enormous snake head that came crashing toward him!

He had dodged it!

Zhang Qingyuan relaxed inwardly.

Having evaded its full-force strike, whether he chose to flee or fight afterward would be far easier!

However,

Before he could rejoice for long,

A foul black mist

Was suddenly swept over by a demonic wind,

Instantly enveloping Zhang Qingyuan!

Poison mist!

The Crimson Fiend Yao Python's poison mist!

At that moment, Zhang Qingyuan's body was still mid-air, with nowhere to borrow force from, and the poison mist engulfed him head-on!

His head spun,

And the True Essence inside his body nearly erupted into chaos and collapsed.

"Not good!"

Feeling the dizziness within his mind, Zhang Qingyuan's expression changed drastically!

That earlier ambush,

It had been a feint,

while the poisonous mist and demonic wind stirred up by its innate yao art were the true trump card!

At some unknown moment,

streams of black air had already begun circling around the Crimson Fiend Yao Python,

drawing in the surrounding air

until it became viscous as flowing water.

Zhang Qingyuan had yet to recover from the dizziness of the poisonous mist

when he felt as though he had fallen into a mire,

unable to move even an inch!

Innate Ability!

Its enormous snake body

coiled through mid-air, wrapping Zhang Qingyuan round after round at its center!

Immense force contracted,

and even the surrounding currents of air seemed to become tangible ropes, tightening and crushing inward without cease!

"Ah!!!"

Zhang Qingyuan let out a miserable cry,

as though he could hear his own bones being crushed and broken. Pain as violent as suffocation surged into his mind, nearly scattering the few traces of consciousness he had left!

Once one was ensnared by the Crimson Fiend Demonic Snake,

without a companion's help or some special method, even a cultivator at the Spirit Essence Realm Ninth Layer would be strangled alive!

Was this the end?

Zhang Qingyuan's mind went blank, and he almost lost the ability to think.

It was as though he were about to sink into an endless abyss,

No,

Absolutely not!

I've cultivated immortality through hardship for three years, and I haven't even properly seen this world!

I refuse to accept this!

An incomparably intense desire to survive

suddenly rose from the depths of his heart!

The entire world

seemed to turn black and white.

The sensation of the snake's body coiling around him was reflected in his mind with unprecedented clarity!

There has to be a way!

There has to be!

The snake body,

the Demonic Power,

layer upon layer, coiled around his body, tightening and crushing without end.

The air

was thick as a tangible current of water,

making it hard to breathe!

At the moment death descended,

Zhang Qingyuan desperately sensed all of it,

and in his heart,

a sudden stirring arose,

and the difficult question that had gone unanswered for so long abruptly revealed a glimmer of spiritual mechanism!

Everything became clear!

Boom!!!

The True Essence inside his body

underwent an earth-shaking transformation!

At the same time,

within the Proficiency Panel in his mind,

lines of text rapidly emerged in the blank spaces:

[You encountered immense danger. At the critical juncture of a Life and Death Crisis, you gained an epiphany from the Crimson Fiend Yao Python's use of Demonic Power.]

[You comprehended the true meaning of the Water Essence Art. Your cultivation method Water Essence Art proficiency +1. Your cultivation method Water Essence Art has broken through! Your cultivation method Water Essence Art has advanced to the Fourth Layer.]

[Your Spirit Essence has gained the traits bestowed by the Fourth Layer of the Water Essence Art.]

[Cultivation Method: Water Essence Art (Fourth Layer: (0/10000),

Spirit Essence Traits: Soft, Tough

Note:

The highest good is like water; water benefits all things and does not contend.]

Zhang Qingyuan did not notice the changes on the panel in the slightest, nor did he have the energy to pay attention to them.

At the instant the Water Essence Art broke through,

the Spirit Essence all over his body

underwent a mysterious and profound transformation in an instant!

Following the insight gained in that split second between life and death,

Zhang Qingyuan controlled the True Essence inside his body, circling it around himself and enveloping his body within Spirit Essence!

Then,

the Crimson Fiend Yao Python, utterly confident in capturing its prey, having coiled layer upon layer to strangle away its prey's resistance and prepare to feast on it,

suddenly discovered that

the prey that had been Easy to Accomplish

had, in that instant, seemingly become a loach!

Whoosh!

In one sudden motion,

it actually slipped free

from its entanglement!

With its tiny brain capacity,

the Crimson Fiend Yao Python found it difficult to understand what had happened.

In a moment of stunned distraction,

it stood there dumbly.

(°ー°〃)

However,

while the Crimson Fiend Yao Python stood frozen there,

Zhang Qingyuan, who had just escaped death by a hair's breadth, would not simply do nothing.

True Qi circulated,

and he stepped on the snake's body, borrowing the force to leap into the air,

from below to above,

crossing several meters in a flash, leaving only an afterimage!

At the same time,

while he was still in mid-air,

the longsword in his palm trembled, flashing with a streak of silver light through the air!

At that moment,

the Spirit Essence of Zhang Qingyuan's Spirit Essence Realm Seventh Level

erupted with all its strength!

Layers upon layers of dense Fourth Layer Water Essence Art Spirit Essence clung to the longsword, causing the silver-white blade to ripple with misty white Sword Qi and faintly emit a sharp sonic boom!

Swish!

The longsword cut a fierce streak of lightning-like Sword Shadows through mid-air,

tearing apart the air

as dazzling white light flashed through the sky!

Vaguely,

a shrill, razor-sharp whistle rang out!

Rip!

As though tearing apart a piece of tattered silk,

the Sword Light swept upward,

and as Zhang Qingyuan stepped on the snake's body and spiraled into the sky, it whipped up a violent gale,

piercing through the neck of the Crimson Fiend Yao Python before it could recover its senses!

A spray of scorching hot blood rained down across the sky,

dyeing the surrounding earth red!

The Crimson Fiend Yao Python's head was severed from its neck,

and its head rolled to the ground like a blood-stained log, tumbling to one side and leaving behind a scarlet trail.

Inside the enormous snake head,

its ferocious jaws remained open,

its scarlet snake tongue still flickering in and out,

a horrifying sight,

yet it could no longer inflict even the slightest harm upon Zhang Qingyuan.

That coiled-up,

several-zhang-long snake body also fell limply to the ground.

It rolled without stop,

slapping against the earth,

and the violent tremors split the ground with crack after crack, kicking up billowing clouds of dust and smoke.

Zhang Qingyuan lightly sprang away,

spiraling through the air and becoming a phantom as he dodged the snake body's attacks, before landing outside the battlefield in a gust of wind.

Within the field,

the snake head gradually losing its vitality,

the constantly twisting snake body,

Zhang Qingyuan stood outside the field,

blankly Looking At everything before him,

the blood-stained longsword in his hand had already been corroded by more than half,

and behind his back,

he was completely soaked through with cold sweat!

His whole body looked as though he had just been fished out of an icy lake!