Killing Time (2)

The moment he entered the forest and left the group of welcoming envoys far behind, Li Junshan released all four ordinary Xenomorphs that could not use magic. One moved ahead to clear the way, while the others guarded his flanks and rear as they dashed swiftly into the depths of the forest.

For now, Li Junshan had no plans to release the five Xenomorphs capable of spitting a little magic. After all, even when Xenomorphs recovered from injuries inside his spiritual space, it still took time.

If a Xenomorph was lightly wounded, it could recover in a day inside the spiritual space, while serious injuries took around three days when recovery was slow.

Those Xenomorph Eggs still haven't shown any movement. If I had a hundred Xenomorphs right now, why would I need to be this careful? I could just release a few dozen and let them hunt by instinct. Li Junshan thought to himself, lowering his body slightly over the Xenomorph's back.

Before long, night fell pitch-black as ink. To make matters worse, the sky was thick with dark clouds, without starlight or moonlight to be seen. Li Junshan strained his eyes as wide as he could, but visibility was only three or four meters. He had no choice but to order the Xenomorphs to slow down, relying on their keen senses as they advanced carefully.

Suddenly, Li Junshan sensed through his mental power that the Xenomorph in front had stopped. He hurriedly drew the somewhat spread-out Xenomorphs closer and slowly moved forward.

Only when he reached it did Li Junshan see a corpse lying on the ground. It was a middle-aged man, his throat cut open in a ghastly wound. His blood had long since run dry.

Li Junshan jumped down from the Xenomorph's back and carefully searched the man from head to toe, but he found nothing useful. It had probably been looted clean by whoever killed him long ago.

Climbing back onto the Xenomorph, Li Junshan prepared to move on under the Xenomorphs' protection.

All of a sudden, the Xenomorph three or four meters behind Li Junshan darted sharply to the side. At the same time, Boom! A massive earth-yellow stone dropped from the sky and smashed into the spot where that Xenomorph had just been standing.

There was someone in the treetops!

Li Junshan was startled. Just then, several more huge earth-yellow boulders dropped from above, crashing down with astonishing force toward where he stood.

"Whoosh..." The other three Xenomorphs and Li Junshan flashed away together, landing more than ten meters off. Boom! A series of tremendous impacts rang out, and the damp, soft ground of the forest was instantly smashed into deep craters.

It's an earth-element mage. As Li Junshan pondered, he ordered two Xenomorphs to climb up the trees. The trees in the forest had no telling how many years of growth behind them, with thick trunks and dense green foliage. Li Junshan planned to force the mage down from above.

The way the Xenomorphs climbed trees was strange. On the smooth trunks more than thirty meters tall, they lashed their tails upward, stabbing into the wood above to gain leverage, while their four limbs moved at high speed. In the blink of an eye, the two Xenomorphs vanished into the dense canopy.

Receiving the mental information fed back by the Xenomorphs from above, Li Junshan could not help but be stunned. The Xenomorphs had not found that mage up there.

Suddenly, Li Junshan felt a chill of terror. Before he could react, the Xenomorph beneath him let out a miserable cry. Pushing off the cartilage at the Xenomorph's side with the tips of his toes, Li Junshan's whole body shot toward the back of another Xenomorph nearby. Only then did he see a sharp stone spike suddenly jutting out of the ground, already piercing through the wounded Xenomorph's abdomen.

Sensing its pain through their mental connection, Li Junshan hurriedly sent that Xenomorph back to the spiritual space.

Without a sound, more than a dozen sharp stone spikes abruptly thrust up from the ground. Li Junshan directed the Xenomorphs to keep changing directions, turning into streaks of afterimages as he tried to disrupt the mage's line of sight.

"Shiu!" "Shiu!" "Shiu!" "Shiu!"...

Dozens of wind blades appeared around Li Junshan and the two Xenomorphs pressed close beside him. The trackless blades flew in from all kinds of bizarre angles.

A dual-element mage! Only then did Li Junshan understand why the two Xenomorphs that had climbed into the treetops had failed to find the mage. He must have used wind magic to change positions.

Even if Li Junshan did not understand magic, he could tell that being able to cast so many wind blades at once, with such strange and tricky trajectories, absolutely meant the man's rank was at least Magister.

His mind raced. Li Junshan commanded the Xenomorphs to leap upward at high speed, avoiding the wind blades that came whirling in. Even so, one Xenomorph was struck in the forelimb by a wind blade from a bizarre angle. Half its claw was sliced off, and green blood gushed out.

This guy really was difficult.

Li Junshan was secretly alarmed. His entire body suddenly moved. Gripping the rough bark of the tree trunk with both hands, his body, strengthened and transformed by Xenomorph genes, rapidly climbed up the trunk. In an instant, he disappeared into the dense leaves.

The other four Xenomorphs also climbed into the trees one after another, and the forest fell silent again.

Barry hid within the dense trees, feeling a chill in his heart. He almost could not believe it. After several attacks with his dual-element magic, not only had he failed to kill even one of that youth's magical beasts, he had instead forced the other side into hiding as well.

Barry was a mage from the Baolong Empire. More than that, he was a Magister with boundless prospects, born into a great clan of the Baolong Empire. To obtain the notice granting entry to Blood Canyon, the elders of his clan had expended no small amount of effort.

In truth, Barry himself was also very confident. Since entering this forest two days ago, he had already killed three people. One had been a high-level mage, and the other two had been Battle Masters.

During the day, Barry would not act. He understood perfectly well that an exposed mage was fragile. Only at night would he use wind magic to move stealthily and unseen.

From the moment Li Junshan appeared in this area, Barry, who had cast wind-element detection magic, had sensed him. Barry had even been so confident that he had not aimed the first Rockfall spell directly at Li Junshan, but had attacked his summoned beast instead. He wanted to use the sounds caused by battle to draw a few more people over, let them kill one another, then hide to the side and reap the benefits.

He had not expected that seemingly green youth to be so vigilant, and his summoned beasts were extraordinary as well.

Barry thought to himself and concealed himself even more carefully, watching the surrounding trunks with vigilance. Under his breath, he silently chanted a magic incantation and added a lightless wind shield around himself.

Barry liked assassinating others, but he loathed being watched from the shadows. Sometimes, he even felt he was more like an assassin than a mage.

The forest was deathly silent. After several days of slaughter, there was practically not a single magical beast left in this part of the forest. All that remained were cold corpses and fellow participants hidden in unknown corners.

The night was cool as water, heavy as ink.

Barry felt somewhat tense, and he disliked that feeling very much. Silently chanting a magic incantation, he quietly cast a wind-element detection spell. The wind elements in the air answered his magical summons and spread outward in all directions like a dense net.

All at once, a sudden gust whipped up. Barry's expression changed drastically. Before he could turn to look, a silent black blade sliced through the air with unstoppable force, broke through his wind shield, stabbed into his back, and burst straight out through his chest.

A slender hand reached over from behind Barry and covered his mouth in time, forcing his scream back down his throat.

In Barry's final glance, he saw a middle-aged man with high cheekbones wearing a silent yet cruel smile. Then he felt a chill at his heart as that black blade cut across his neck, and Barry instantly lost consciousness.

It was a man in black. He gently laid Barry's corpse on a thick branch and warily glanced around.

There was still a youth over there, along with several agile magical beasts.

The man in black knew that very well and did not dare grow careless. Biting the black blade between his teeth, he held his breath and hooked one hand around a thick branch. With a gentle swing of his body, he drifted soundlessly onto another tree right beside it.

No sooner had his feet landed than the man in black dropped forward into a crawl. Before he could move even half a step, his keen senses caught a faint disturbance in the air behind him. His scalp instantly went numb. With a strange twist of his body, he sprang several meters forward. With a toss of his mouth, the blade between his teeth fell into his right hand, and he slashed backward in the same motion.

Clang! The sound of metal striking metal rang out. The man in black felt his right hand go numb. At the same time, his keen senses made him snap his head up, and he saw a strange magical beast standing on the tree trunk in front of him. Its coldly gleaming tailbone had been deflected by him, and now its huge mouth was wide open, saliva dripping nonstop as its head stretched toward him.

The man in black's ferocity was fully displayed in that instant. His body whipped around, and he dropped straight toward the ground like a stone. The tailbones of the two Xenomorphs stabbing down from the trunk immediately struck empty air.

As he fell through midair, the man in black curled himself into a ball, then suddenly straightened. His hands hooked onto a branch, and like swinging on a swing, his body landed lightly on the tree trunk.

Pfft!

The man in black's top-tier acrobatic performance came to an end. His abdomen had been pierced by the tail spike of a Xenomorph that had been lying in wait on the tree trunk, and blood gushed out.

"Don't kill me." The man in black gripped the Xenomorph's tail spike where it had sunk into his abdomen, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth as he said urgently, "I can be your helper. We can stand together."

The answer he received was the Xenomorph's head. Under the man in black's terrified gaze, the Xenomorph opened its mouth and moved in front of him. Its powerful inner jaw snapped out, stabbing a large hole through the man in black's head and sending brain matter splattering everywhere.

Only after making sure there was no danger at all did Li Junshan step lightly out from the branch behind the Xenomorph, his heart still a little tense despite himself.

The Xenomorph had never managed to find where that mage was hiding. If that assassin had not suddenly made his move and the scent of blood had not drawn the Xenomorph's attention, it would still have been hard to say who would have won this battle.

That mage had been unlucky too. He had focused only on dealing with Li Junshan, yet he had not even noticed someone sneaking right up beside him.

Li Junshan took the black blade from the man in black's hand. The moment he held it, he felt an intense chill, and he nodded inwardly before tucking it at his waist. He had come prepared as well, but in the dark of night, this black blade that did not reflect light was far better than the weapon he had prepared himself.

At that moment, he noticed a ring on the man in black's hand. He took it off and had a look. Sure enough, it was made from the same material as his spatial ring—Seven-Degree Gold.

Li Junshan bent down and searched his corpse all over. In the end, he discovered another cord around the man's neck, with three spatial rings tied to it.

"Looks like he killed quite a few people," Li Junshan said to himself. Then he felt his way over to the mage's corpse and likewise found four spatial rings.

"Those who can come to Blood Canyon are all people with ability or status. Almost all of them have spatial rings." The corner of Li Junshan's mouth curled into a faint smile. He strung the eight spatial rings together with a cord and tied them around his own neck.

"If I got taken out by someone, then he'd strike it rich." Li Junshan patted the spatial rings hidden beneath his clothes.

He simply decided not to get down from the trees. Together with the four Xenomorphs, Li Junshan leaped and darted between the towering trees, running deeper into the forest.