At This Moment, Only a Fight to the Death!

"What?" Qin Lang, who had been sitting on the ground resting, stood up abruptly and stared at Bu Lianshi in astonishment.

Before they had even entered the Hunting Grounds, Bu Lianshi had already proven her exceptional sensory abilities. If not for Lin Chuan's Byakugan, Bu Lianshi would surely have played a role beyond imagination during this assessment. Yet, at this moment, a single sentence from her sent Qin Lang's heart plummeting to the depths of despair!

Lin Chuan had not yet awakened!

Sitting cross-legged inside the cave, Lin Chuan was still cultivating with his eyes closed, completely unaware that danger was creeping closer with every passing second.

"What do we do? Their cultivation levels seem higher than ours, so I can sense them from a distance, but it won't be long before they reach this place!" Bu Lianshi was, after all, only an eight-year-old girl. With danger looming, she immediately panicked. Though she tried her best to remain calm, her slightly trembling hands betrayed the fear in her heart.

"Don't panic. Let's calm down first. Those people might not be heading for this place; they could just be passing by from a neighboring cave," Qin Lang said, taking a deep breath.

"You go to the cave entrance first and try to call out to Lin Chuan to see if you can wake him up. I'll go ahead and take a look!" After saying this, Qin Lang hurried toward the path from which Bu Lianshi had come.

Bu Lianshi clenched her fists and turned to run toward the cave where Lin Chuan was located.

"Brother Lin Chuan, twelve people are coming! We are in great danger. Can you move? We need to leave here temporarily!" Bu Lianshi lay at the cave entrance, struggling to resist the heat waves gushing out from within; sweat had already soaked through her clothes.

However, no matter how much Bu Lianshi shouted, Lin Chuan sat there motionless as if petrified, offering no response at all.

Suddenly, Bu Lianshi's expression changed again. "They're here. They really are heading straight for this place!"

Immediately after, Qin Lang's figure appeared at the end of the passage, running toward Bu Lianshi with a grim expression. As he ran, he cursed, "Damn it! Those people have clearly already passed the assessment. Why are they entering the Hunting Grounds before the time is up?!"

"The lowest cultivation among them is at the sixth level of the Qi Refining Stage, and there are even experts at the ninth level! How did they get in? Are the people from the Lin Clan eating dung?!"

If it were just the groups participating in this assessment, Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi might have been able to hold their ground for a while by relying on the terrain. But the cultivation levels of these people were completely beyond their capabilities. How were they supposed to fight this?

"The lowest is the sixth level of the Qi Refining Stage? That means they are heading straight for this Lava Cave!!" Hearing Qin Lang's curse, Bu Lianshi immediately realized that the goal of these people was this very cave, as only those at the sixth level of the Qi Refining Stage or higher could enter the cave briefly without being scorched.

"There's no other way. Lin Chuan won't wake up, so we have no choice but to hold our ground. We have no retreat left in this situation!" Qin Lang's face was filled with gloom, but even now, he had no intention of running away.

Throughout this journey, Lin Chuan had been looking after both of them. While shielding them from risks, he never forgot to find opportunities to improve their strength. The fact that they were able to break through a level of cultivation in just two or three days was entirely thanks to Lin Chuan.

Now that it was time for them to shield Lin Chuan from danger, even if it looked no different from throwing their lives away, he would not back down.

"Absolutely... absolutely... will not let the people I cherish... be harmed by others... even if I have to risk my life, I will never retreat..." Qin Lang muttered to himself, his expression more serious than it had ever been.

Standing to the side, Bu Lianshi looked back at the quietly sitting Lin Chuan, a faint smile appearing at the corners of her mouth. "Brother Lin Chuan... ever since that incident... you are the first person to give me a sense of security. Although your occasional smirk is quite unreliable, apart from you and Qin Lang... I have no other attachments in this world. If even you give up, then there is no reason for me to go on living!"

Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi exchanged a tacit look. There were no words of mutual encouragement, only the frantic circulation of spiritual energy within their bodies.

They both knew that at this moment, there was only a fight to the death!

Inside the cave, the quietly cultivating Lin Chuan was not as calm as he appeared. His heart was already churning with massive waves. He had discovered the tracks of those twelve people even earlier than Bu Lianshi. Although his eyes were closed, the 360-degree vision and one-kilometer range of his Byakugan served as his perimeter. Even while cultivating, he kept his Byakugan active, observing everything around him.

"Damn it! I spent a whole day and only refined half of the spiritual energy. Are you kidding me?! This god-forsaken Fruit of the God Tree just had to choose this place to absorb so many Crimson Flame Lotuses. Now I'm going to be killed by this thing!"

Lin Chuan cursed inwardly, but the spiritual energy filling his body was still vast, and he dared not move. Otherwise, if something went wrong, he would turn into a human bomb. Not only would he die, but Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi would surely be left without a corpse under his self-detonation.

"Now I can only hope that Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi leave here quickly. That way, even if I explode after taking action, I won't hurt them..."

However, just as Lin Chuan thought this, he saw Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi both begin to circulate their spiritual energy, blocking the only path leading to this cave.

To say he wasn't moved would be a lie. After all, few people would be willing to stand in front of their companions in such a situation; it was no different from seeking death. The twelve people coming were all cultivators at the sixth level of the Qi Refining Stage or higher, and the two of them were no match for them. Yet, even so, they had no intention of abandoning Lin Chuan and leaving alone. This felt extremely strange and deeply shocking to Lin Chuan, who had always been a loner.

"Someone is actually willing to risk their own life for my lowly existence! Is it worth it?" Lin Chuan gave a bitter smile. Upon arriving in this world, he had been prepared to remain a loner, to continue living in solitude—no attachments, no weaknesses, no flaws—all just to one day reach the absolute peak of this world.

But at this moment, he felt as if there were things in his life that needed his protection—a bond that could not be severed, a splash of color appearing in the gray. He hadn't expected this feeling to be surprisingly good.

"Since you are unwilling to leave, what reason do I have not to give it a try! For myself, and for you!"

"It's clearly too late to refine the spiritual energy now, so I'll just force all this energy into the 130 trillion cells of my body!" Lin Chuan whispered to himself, beginning to desperately squeeze the spiritual energy out of his Dantian and meridians, forcing it to disperse throughout his entire body.

The piercing pain was something Lin Chuan had never experienced before; it felt as if his entire body was being crushed and then reconstructed. The agony rolled over him like a mountain and a sea, but he did not stop. Instead, he accelerated the process, because he had no reason to give up—not with those two partners outside risking their lives for him.

He knew that at this moment, there was only a fight to the death!