Gu, Gu Immortal Master

The joy of escaping alive spread through the entire group at once.

From killing Senior Sister Zhang Yao to escaping the demon's den, only an hour or two had truly passed, yet to them, it had felt longer than years.

Because this Golden Core Immortal Sect had always been their nightmare, and nightmares always seemed especially long.

Standing at the exit, Gu Qingfeng and the other three were overwhelmed with the ecstasy of surviving a calamity, followed by an unprecedented stir in their hearts.

Qi Lingguang and Shen Yun were already crying.

Shen Yun in particular had thought many times that she was about to die. After all, half her Golden Core had been bitten away, and her injuries were far from light.

At times like this, people were already more prone to despair and giving up. What was more, their entire escape had indeed been painted in the colors of despair.

Luckily, she had not given up. She had endured!

Even more luckily, Gu Qingfeng and the others had not given up on her and had brought her out!

Especially the sight of Junior Brother Gu charging over in a blaze of golden light to save her—if not for the fact that he probably had no interest in her, she would likely have offered herself to him dozens of times over by now.

At this moment, the cave behind them had noticeably grown quieter.

Gu Qingfeng and the others could not help turning back for a look.

The corpses had not chased after them again. Roots hung from their bodies, making them look like prisoners shackled in chains.

They had been trapped in this Golden Core Immortal Sect while alive, harvested by the Golden Core Celestial Venerable. Even after death, they remained trapped beneath the tree of this immortal sect, their souls denied peace. It showed just how terrifying this place was.

Now, most of those corpses said nothing, merely staring at them with dead eyes.

Those gazes were like they were seeing them off to their funerals, deeply unsettling.

Some were still trying to make sounds, telling them to go back.

"Don't go."

"It'll be terrible if you leave."

"It's very good here. Don't be ungrateful."

But at that moment, two-and-a-half familiar voices rang out.

"Run! Run quickly!"

"The farther you run, the better!"

"Never come back!"

"Never let him find you!"

They were the voices of the three remaining senior guides.

The reason there was half a voice among them was because one of the seniors only had half a mouth left.

Those voices brimmed with longing for freedom, as though they wished to place every hope they had for freedom upon them.

The seniors told them to run, so they ran!

They ran with every ounce of strength they had!

They would never come back!

They would leave this nightmare forever and ever!

But Gu Qingfeng was an exception.

He was running too, running with all his might, yet he still wanted to return!

Once he had reversed the cost and mastered his divine art, he would definitely return and slaughter the Golden Core Celestial Venerable's entire household!

And he would thoroughly destroy that monstrous tree, freeing the corpses trapped within it.

Especially those seniors who had guided them!

They likely had only a thread of obsession left, without much awareness, but the emotions carried by that lingering obsession were real.

They had truly guided them. They truly wanted them to escape and obtain real freedom.

By then, the group had already run down the slope to the foot of the mountain.

When they looked back again, the exit of the Golden Core Immortal Sect was no longer visible, yet their hearts remained uneasy.

It had been their good fortune that the Golden Core Celestial Venerable had not been alerted and appeared. But what about after he emerged from seclusion?

It was still uncertain whether that heretical master would come looking for them.

Standing there, a trace of reverence also rose in Gu Qingfeng's heart.

What he revered was not the Golden Core Celestial Venerable within the mountain, but the mountain itself.

From here, the mountain looked far too towering and immense.

The place from which they had just escaped was clearly below the mountainside. Above the mountainside, the verdant slopes gave way to snowy peaks thrusting into the clouds, appearing incomparably magnificent and mysterious.

Gu Qingfeng had once suspected that the Golden Core Immortal Sect had hollowed out most of the mountain to make its territory. Clearly, he had vastly underestimated the mountain's scale.

Afterward, to avoid the possibility of the Golden Core Celestial Venerable tracking them by scent or similar traces, Gu Qingfeng and the others simply leaped into the river below the mountain and drifted downstream.

River water was best at washing away scents and trails.

The moment he entered the water, Gu Qingfeng felt a bone-piercing chill.

This rushing river was clearly formed from the melted snow of that snowy peak, icy enough to cut to the bone.

Gu Qingfeng was fine after circulating his Geng-Metal Power to resist it, but Qi Lingguang and the others shivered from the cold.

Still, the group persisted in drifting for a long distance before using their hands to fashion a wooden raft by the bank and continuing downstream...

Two days later, a bonfire burned in a patch of scrubland.

Gu Qingfeng and the others sat around the fire, feeling the warmth of flames again after so long.

For the past two days, they had kept drifting and traveling without pause, day and night alike.

They no longer remembered how far they had drifted or how many forks in the river they had passed. They had only fled downstream until they reached this place, where the riverbed had dried up and the water had ceased flowing.

In any case, they should have gone far enough.

At this point, if anyone asked them which direction the Golden Core Immortal Sect lay in, none of them could tell.

If they could still be easily captured and dragged back after fleeing so far, then they would simply accept their fate.

Because this was truly the limit of what they could do.

Only now did they finally have the chance to stop and catch their breath.

The firelight dried their damp clothes, bringing a wonderfully warm feeling.

This was a patch of scrubland, with wild grass on the ground reaching only to their ankles.

In Gu Qingfeng's understanding, it resembled the kind of place where hills met grasslands, with gentle terrain and excellent visibility.

They planned to spend the night here, then look for signs of people the next day.

Clearly, Zhao San was rather familiar with sleeping in the wilderness.

It was said that before being captured and taken to the Golden Core Immortal Sect, he had often gone hunting with his father.

After lighting the bonfire, Zhao San and Wang Wu went looking for food, while Qi Lingguang gathered firewood. Shen Yun was injured, so she rested beside the fire with Gu Qingfeng.

While resting, Shen Yun could not help shifting farther away from Gu Qingfeng, afraid of disturbing him.

Because Gu Qingfeng was currently sitting cross-legged and regulating his breath.

Ever since their escape began, Gu Qingfeng had been frantically using his Geng-Metal Power. This had made him increasingly proficient in controlling it, but the expenditure had also been enormous.

It could be said that he had subjected the Geng-Metal Power within his body to an outrageously ruthless squeeze.

It was the kind of squeeze where, even after every last drop was gone, he still had to force out a few more drops.

Only now that he had stopped to rest did Gu Qingfeng have the opportunity to regulate his breath and recover his qi.

As he silently recited the incantation, the Geng-Metal Power produced through reversal slowly surged from his dantian and flowed into his meridians, nourishing his parched body like river water.

The Geng-Metal Dao Fruit condensed within him—his former Golden Core—also gradually recovered some of its golden color from its dimness.

When using Geng-Metal Power, Gu Qingfeng had discovered that this Geng-Metal Dao Fruit produced by reversal could store a vast amount of Geng-Metal Power.

If he had to compare it to something, then the dantian was a generator that could continuously produce Geng-Metal Power, while the Geng-Metal Dao Fruit was more like a high-density energy battery that could store it within itself.

Not only that, the Dao Fruit seemed capable of refining it as well. Once Geng-Metal Power entered it, it gradually became more condensed and pure, as if compressed, with a greater density.

Naturally, outsiders could not see the specific changes within Gu Qingfeng's body. In Shen Yun's eyes, it only seemed as though an additional sun had appeared within him, holy golden light radiating through his skin. Combined with his handsome face, he was no different from an immortal god descending into the mortal world.

Her gaze therefore became even more reverent.

Remembering her earlier thought of offering herself to him, she felt even more ashamed.

With Junior Brother Gu's bearing and abilities, what could he possibly want from me?

Want me because I'm old? Want me because I'm a mortal?

Wang Wu and Zhao San were very fortunate. They actually discovered a wild rabbit burrow nearby and returned with several plump rabbits.

The two of them also saw Gu Qingfeng regulating his breath and were momentarily entranced.

They did not dare disturb Gu Qingfeng. Instead, they quietly went to the riverbank and began dealing with the rabbits' fur and innards.

By the time Qi Lingguang returned from gathering firewood, the group had naturally lit another fire to roast the meat, so as not to disturb Gu Qingfeng.

In their eyes, Gu Qingfeng sat there with golden light flickering across his body, bright one moment and dim the next, looking profoundly mysterious.

The rabbit meat had been roasted for quite some time, yet the four still did not dare eat, because Gu Qingfeng was still regulating his breath.

Though Gu Qingfeng was nominally still their fellow disciple, even a fellow disciple with whom they had shared a life-and-death bond, they no longer dared look upon him as merely a fellow disciple.

After a while longer, Gu Qingfeng finished regulating his breath. His divine radiance withdrew, and he opened his eyes.

Shen Yun, who was closest to him, quickly picked up a roasted rabbit at hand and offered it to him.

"Brother Gu... Immortal Master Gu, it was just roasted."

She had originally intended to call him "Junior Brother Gu," but in the end, she changed her words.

Because she realized that even though they had lived together as fellow disciples in the Golden Core Immortal Sect for several months, even though they had escaped together, people were inherently different, divided into high and low, noble and base.

Junior Brother Gu was especially different!