Countermeasure

(Free chapter)

Such accurate capture of the target happened because, at that very moment, a lamp lit up atop his crown.

To Yu Ci, this sensation was marvelous. With a single thought, his forehead suddenly grew hot, and light seemed to rise, igniting a lamp flame atop his head the size of a bean. It seemed as though a breath of wind could extinguish it, yet it still illuminated the void. The lamplight cast itself upon the target as if possessing spiritual awareness, and his entire body's qiji adjusted accordingly into a state of readiness. If he remained still, so be it; the moment he moved, it would be with the force of thunder.

The expressions on everyone opposite him changed.

The herb gatherers' expressions shifted not because of Yu Ci's suddenly changed attitude, but because they abruptly felt that the fair-faced fellow before them, whose skin was more delicate than a woman's, seemed to abruptly grow taller by a section the moment he turned around. His torso also expanded outward by a circle, as if he were stuffed full of air, so much that his refined face even became somewhat ferocious, and from this vantage point he loomed high, staring directly over.

Yet looking closer, the person was still that same person. He had not grown taller, nor had he grown stouter, and there was no fierce expression on his face. But the feeling that pierced through was one of incomparable ferocity.

Among the herb gatherers, the legs of a certain burly man suddenly turned to jelly, and he simply sat plop on the ground.

This person was the very one who had harbored malicious thoughts just moments before. He was quite short, tough, brave, and combative. Having just seized some benefits on the side, he feared that once the fair-faced Daoist opposite them departed, he would broadcast it everywhere and bring disaster upon their own clan. Thus, he had secretly drawn a blade, preparing to call upon his own brothers to rush up together and finish this person off.

Who would have thought that before he could make a move, the fair-faced Daoist suddenly turned around, his gaze nailing directly onto him. It was as sharp as a knife, carving right into his heart, making his entire chest feel scooped out hollow! Unable to catch his breath on the spot, he nearly passed out completely.

With their companion collapsing, the hearts of the remaining herb gatherers also jolted. At this moment, each person's true intentions showed: some directly drew swords and sabers, while others shuffled backward. Out of seven or eight men, there were seven or eight different reactions, and the atmosphere in the forest instantly stretched to the absolute breaking point, turning into utter chaos. Of course, that was only true for a few herb gatherers.

Watching the reaction of this mob of a rabble, Yu Ci could not help but laugh despite himself.

His mood was quite good. That glance was not something he did intentionally, but rather a spontaneous reaction of his spirit. The "lamp flame" that had just ignited was something he had never possessed during his previous cultivation, yet it was deeply connected to his spirit. Very likely, it was a unique transformation after communicating with the divine, and he would need to study it thoroughly in the future.

He kept a portion of his mind on guard, but he still needed to resolve the immediate problem first. There was no need to speak further; carrying the might of having scared one man paralyzed, he strode forward in the direction where the corpse lay. He walked straight up to the remains and crouched down to examine them.

None of the herb gatherers dared to make a rash move.

Seeing the condition of the corpse with his own eyes, even though Yu Ci considered himself quite courageous, the back of his neck still turned slightly cold. This person's face had already been smashed to a pulp, and not just the face—from the head down, there were not many intact bones in the entire upper body. A slight touch, together with skin and flesh, felt completely mushy, clearly having been beaten into this state by a overwhelmingly powerful external force.

From the posture of the corpse, he deduced that the man should have been blasted flying by a gigantic force, and he quickly found the direction from which the man had flown.

Looking over from his position, sure enough, a pine tree over there was snapped in half at the waist, though it was propped up by neighboring trees and had not completely fallen. Gazing through the gap of the broken tree deep into the forest, one could vaguely imagine how the person beside him had been beaten flying alive by a ferocious giant beast, snapped the pine tree, and finally tumbled down right here to draw his last breath.

At the same time, this resolved his earlier doubts. No wonder he had not discovered any traces of a fierce battle, and felt that the scent of the fierce beast lingered too sparsely here—it turned out this was not the primary battlefield; the real battlefield was still deep within the forest.

Yu Ci noted that location and lowered his head to look at the corpse once more. What drew his attention was that although the man's attire was already quite messy after the fierce battle and the rummaging of these herb gatherers, when he lightly pinched the corner of the garment, despite not knowing what the material was, he felt it was both soft and tough. It must have been quite valuable.

A person like this certainly did not look like someone out gathering herbs!

harboring this thought, Yu Ci successively lifted the corpse's hands. Just as he expected, on the index finger of the man's left hand worn a ring. At this moment, it had already slipped to the first joint; had he arrived just a little later, this ring would have already been the trophy of these herb gatherers.

Yu Ci removed it. There were no decorations on it, but the style and feel were extremely familiar. Indeed, this was a Storage Ring identical to the one on his own hand.

"Tsk, he really is a cultivator, sure enough."

Tossing the ring in his hand, he stood up and wanted to discuss the matter with the herb gatherers behind him. Who could have known that group of people was at the peak of tension? Seeing this, they assumed he was going to silence them, let out a collective shout, and fled scattering in all directions like frightened rats.

With the ring still resting in his palm, Yu Ci was left hanging right there.

Dazed for a moment, Yu Ci laughed dumbly. How did it end up looking like he was shaking people down on the road?

However, he did not care what kind of image he projected in the eyes of others. He immediately settled his thoughts and concentrated his attention on the ring. He wanted to see what kind of items were inside and whether there were any objects that could prove the deceased's identity.

As his thought stirred, that invisible "small hammer" already struck down.

There seemed to be a ringing sound like a "clang" in his mind, yet the "outer barrier" of the ring could not be smashed open at all! Yu Ci was taken aback. Gripping it tightly in his hand, he tried once more, but the result was identical.

"Fake? It doesn't look like it!" Yu Ci clearly sensed that there was a separate space within this ring, absolutely incomparable to ordinary objects. Yet on its outer layer, it seemed wrapped in a layer of light gauze and mist, blocking the sharpness of his spiritual sense and making it difficult to pierce through.

"It must have been placed under restrictions."

So-called restrictions were a type of passively triggered talisman mechanism attached to objects. Yu Ci was not completely ignorant of this technique. Back at the Twin Immortals Sect, he had seen both Purple Thunder and Crimson Yin use this method on secret chambers and important items, and he had also seen ill-fated wretches trigger the restrictions and die a most miserable death.

His memory of this miraculous means was quite profound.

Presently, the restrictions on the Storage Ring did not seem as dangerous as the ones the twin immortals had set up, but for the moment, Yu Ci could not find a way to open it.

"I might as well keep it for now." Yu Ci thought for a moment and temporarily put the ring away. What surprised him somewhat was that the Storage Ring could not enter a space of the same kind; he could only store it elsewhere.

Having finished all this, he walked slowly deep into the forest along the trajectory of the corpse's flight and the guidance of the beast's residual aura. Before long, he arrived at the battlefield inside.

The scene that met his eyes made him involuntarily widen his eyes, because what presented itself before him at this moment was a patch of glaring scorched earth.

This was true scorched earth. Across a ground spanning roughly an acre, no botanical life remained. All that was left were ashes that still retained warmth, and rocks half-exposed above the ground seemed to have been baked to a crisp, crumbling all over the place with a light touch. Right in the center of the scorched earth was a hemispherical depression. It was not very deep, yet along the edge of the depression, thousands of slender cracks were distributed in a radial pattern, with the longest cracks extending beyond the scorched earth and deep into the forest.

This was the source of the strong burnt odor outside.

Yu Ci walked over, first marveling at what kind of power could blast such a trace into the ground, and finding it even stranger that when the impact causing this situation had occurred on the mountain earlier, not the slightest sound was heard.

Soon, however, his eyes could no longer move away. On the ground at the edge of the depression, he saw very familiar pattern structures. Although they had been torn to pieces by thousands of cracks, he was certain that they were definitely talisman patterns, and moreover, they belonged to one of the categories of Demon Diagram Ghost Markings he knew.

The ground did not merely hold Demon Diagram Ghost Markings. After careful inspection, Yu Ci discovered that within a radius of about a zhang centered on the depression, the three major talisman pattern systems recounted in the Shangqing Juxuan Xing Shu Mi Shou Fu Jing—Cloud Seals and Thunder Scripts, Dragon Scripts and Phoenix Texts, and Demon Diagram Ghost Markings—could all be found in fragments nearby. Viewed from this angle, it rather resembled a huge jade talisman lying flat upon the ground.