At a glance, the whole space seemed to tilt.
The forest shook, and trees came crashing down in every direction.
Countless demons and beasts let out shrill screams.
Stampedes broke out every moment.
The earth cracked, and the sky trembled.
The light seemed twisted and swallowed by an invisible force. The world before their eyes quickly faded, turning gray and deathly pale.
It was a scene of impending apocalypse.
Looking at the blood-spattered ground,
everyone's hearts lurched, and they couldn't help trembling with fear.
The dozen or so Beast Taming Mountain disciples were already badly wounded. Then disaster struck without warning, and their spirits completely collapsed.
Some even dropped straight to the ground, their eyes vacant.
"Run! Do you want to stay here and wait to die?" Liu Yanran was so furious her ears smoked.
The man didn't budge.
He couldn't run anymore.
The path ahead was blocked, and there was nowhere left to retreat.
He might as well wait to die.
At least he could die in comfort.
Elsewhere, the guards who had been chasing Liu Yanran and the others were in just as sorry a state. They ran about in every direction, and some even drew their swords and hacked wildly at their own people.
In an instant, countless lives were lost or injured.
The smile on Zhou Chen's face froze completely. His composure vanished, cold sweat beading on his back as he felt disaster could strike at any moment.
"No! I can't die here!"
"I'm the sect master of Beast Taming Mountain, one of the most esteemed men under heaven. I have all the riches and luxuries in the world waiting for me to enjoy. I can't die!"
"Useless trash! Imbeciles!"
Catching sight of his subordinates in chaos, even turning on one another, Zhou Chen burst into curses. "You dog slaves, can't you see your young master is injured? Get over here and protect me! Believe me, with one casual word, I'll have you all chopped up and fed to the dogs!"
Zhou Chen had started babbling, saying whatever came to mind.
When he met the strange looks in their eyes, his ferocious expression shifted. It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over his head, and terror slowly crept across his face.
He suddenly came to his senses.
And once he did, he began to fear.
"You're the piece of trash who made even being a dog miserable for me!"
Pffft!
Zhou Chen's eyes bulged. He slowly lowered his head and stared at the icy blade protruding from his chest, his eyes filled with intense resentment and unwillingness, before he fell to the ground.
A dignified Eighth Grade Realm expert, ambushed by a subordinate at the Sixth Grade Realm.
He hadn't even been able to fight back.
Just before he died, he suddenly realized something. From beginning to end, he had only ever been a nobody.
Even after using a secret art to forcibly raise his strength from the Subordinate Fifth Rank to the Eighth Grade Realm, he couldn't change his tragic fate.
He hadn't lived in splendor and glory.
Even in death, it wasn't the grand, heroic end he'd imagined.
His death had been utterly meaningless, utterly inexplicable.
Everything had turned out differently from what he had expected and hoped for.
Like a grain of sand falling into the sea, he hadn't stirred up the slightest ripple before the surging waves swallowed him whole.
Insignificant, leaving no trace.
The chaos continued.
The sounds of fighting and screams rose and fell.
"Ah! I'll fight you to the death, you beast!"
A burly swordsman, one of the pursuers and an Eighth Grade Realm cultivator, faced a massive rhinoceros demon beast and brought his blade down with all his might.
"Moo!"
The next instant, with a crack, the blade shattered and the man died.
His body, a lump of mangled flesh, fell from the air.
The rhinoceros demon barely even noticed, as though it had accidentally stepped on an ant along the road.
The rhinoceros fled wildly, its huge eyes filled with terror and despair, as if some terrifying being were chasing it from behind.
"Help!"
"Kill! Kill them!"
"No, don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!"
The screams echoed through the forest, rising and falling.
In just a few breaths, the Beast Taming Mountain rebels fleeing in panic were trampled by a horde of demons and beasts gone mad.
In an instant, casualties were catastrophic, and fewer than one in ten survived.
Even those who survived were almost all wounded, their faces deathly pale.
They had clearly suffered a terrible blow.
By contrast, Liu Yanran and the others from Beast Taming Mountain, who had sat down where they were, were safe and sound.
The endless tide of demons and beasts was focused only on escaping. How could it spare a thought for them?
The Beast Taming Mountain rebels had brought their fate on themselves, insisting the stampede was coming for them and fighting back with everything they had. That only roused the beasts to fury, leaving casualties everywhere.
The outcome was ironic.
The whole scene looked absurd.
The entire area fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
Once the tremors gradually subsided, the rebels began to notice something was wrong.
Some people's faces turned from green to red.
Others spat out a mouthful of blood and died on the spot.
They were literally angered to death!
Meanwhile, Liu Yanran and the others across from them were overjoyed, then shaken by a wave of lingering fear.
Everyone stared strangely at the fellow disciple who had stubbornly stayed on the ground, their eyes flickering.
They all cried out in their hearts, Holy crap!
If not for this guy, they would probably have died unjustly this time.
Some even secretly resolved that if they survived, they would make sure to get on good terms with him.
Whenever they faced something that came down to luck, they would let him go first.
If there was a cliff, they'd let him jump first.
Who knew? He might just find the cave dwelling and inheritance of some great senior.
Damn, his luck was downright heaven-defying!
Looking closely now, they saw that although he was covered in blood and looked rather wretched, he was actually the least injured among them, apart from being a little exhausted.
How was that fair?
If not for this, they really wouldn't have noticed how lucky this fellow, who usually barely registered, was.
No wonder Senior Brother Sun had stayed as steady as a mountain.
With a formidable enemy before him, demon beasts nearly shoving their claws in his face, he'd still looked utterly calm.
He must have been confident all along!
Truly impressive!
As expected of Senior Brother Sun. He was just too steady!
Even the man himself was stunned.
He couldn't help wondering:
Could I really be the legendary Child of Fortune?
Everyone made the most of the time to rest and recover.
Though they occasionally joked around, it was only to ease the tension. Their eyes stayed fixed on the other side.
The stampede had somehow gotten them out of trouble just now.
It had also inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.
Even so, the other side still had thirty or forty people left, far more than their own group.
If they fought, their chances of winning were slim.
Liu Yanran and the others understood this. Since their opponents weren't moving, they were happy to recover a little more strength.
The previous scene might have seemed long.
In reality, it had lasted only a few breaths.
There had been no time to recover from their injuries, at most enough to catch their breath.
Suddenly, a flash of killing intent flickered through the air.
"Watch out!"
Liu Yanran, the strongest among them, noticed something amiss first and shouted at once.
The only Eighth Grade Realm expert left on the other side had grabbed a sword lying on the ground and hurled it viciously toward them!
How powerful was the internal energy of an Eighth Grade Realm cultivator?
Even a pebble could hit as hard as an ordinary bullet.
A sword was even more unstoppable.
"Die!"
"That Zhou Chen brat is dead. As long as I kill you, I'll still have earned a great merit. From now on, I'll be the one calling the shots at Beast Taming Mountain!"
The burly man wore a savage expression and kept shouting, his voice thick with excitement!
"We can't stop it!"
Even with just one look from afar, Liu Yanran knew at once.
There was no way they could withstand the force of that strike.
Even though Liu Yanran herself was at the Seventh Grade Realm, she was seriously injured. If the blade so much as grazed her, she'd either die or be gravely wounded.
"Senior Brother Sun, dodge!"
The sword was closing in, its target clear.
Everyone realized at once that the target of this strike was none other than Senior Brother Sun, whom they'd just teased for his heaven-defying luck!
"It's over!"
Including Senior Brother Sun himself, everyone's hearts sank.
Even if Senior Brother Sun really did have heaven-defying luck, there was no way he could come through this strike unscathed.
Everyone shut their eyes, unable to bear the thought of seeing their fellow disciple cut down before them the next instant.