Too Much Force

The arrow that suddenly shot out of hiding left everyone stunned. It was far too swift, far too terrifying.

It carried astonishing power, skewering the enormous wildcat and pinning it straight to a boulder, piercing and shattering the stone's surface.

It all happened so quickly that the hunting party led by Shi Yunshan was shaken. With its power and speed, that arrow could definitely pierce a Dragon-Horned Elephant's scales. It was terrifying.

Judging from the force of that arrow alone, whoever had attacked from hiding was undoubtedly formidable. Even those among them wearing three layers of thick, refined-steel armor probably would not survive two arrows.

Fortunately, the hidden archer was not targeting them. Otherwise, a direct hit would have pierced them clean through the heart.

"Someone from a nearby village?" Shi Yunshan's mind raced as he considered the hidden attacker's identity. There were only a handful of likely candidates for a party entering the mountains at this time and in this place.

Clang!

Another arrow flew over, seemingly with even greater force. It pinned the enormous, still-struggling wildcat dead against the boulder, striking sparks as it scraped against the stone.

"Friends from Stone Village, we killed this prey. By the rules of the Great Wilderness, it belongs to us." Someone emerged from another part of the dense forest, where thick-trunked trees grew, and called toward Shi Yunfeng.

"So it's our friends from Fei Village." Shi Yunshan recognized the man. They were reasonably well acquainted.

After a brief gesture of acknowledgment, he led Stone Village's hunting party away from the dense forest to search for other prey.

"We're just leaving?" Di Yi did not quite understand. Although that man had killed the enormous wildcat, Shi Yunfeng and the others had already prepared for the hunt and were about to act. Surely there ought to be some respect for who had arrived first.

"There's nothing we can do. Those are the rules of the Great Wilderness." Shi Yunshan shook his head, telling Di Yi there was no need to resent it.

According to him, survival was difficult for everyone in the Great Wilderness, so an unwritten rule governing ownership of prey had long since taken shape.

Whoever killed it first owned it. Strength decided everything.

Take their current situation: even though they had discovered the prey first, that alone could not determine who owned it. Someone else had seized the initiative. They could not blame anyone else; they could only blame themselves for being too cautious.

"Does this sort of thing happen often, then?" Di Yi asked.

"Generally, it's rare. After all, as I said before, life in the Great Wilderness isn't easy for anyone," Shi Yunshan explained. "But there are always exceptions. Take today, for instance. Because of what happened that rainy night, we had to travel this far before finding suitable prey. The people from other villages are probably in the same situation, venturing beyond their usual hunting grounds. Encounters are inevitable."

"Survival..." Di Yi pondered. He wanted to understand the hardship Shi Yunshan spoke of, but unfortunately, he could not share that feeling.

For him, survival was not difficult. He could not understand the feelings that came with struggling to stay alive, nor the thinking behind making compromises with one another for survival's sake.

Before they knew it, they had traveled several dozen li. Di Yi suddenly stopped and looked in a particular direction.

"Honored guest, what's wrong?" Seeing Di Yi stop, Shi Yunshan cautiously surveyed their surroundings and asked in a low voice.

"There's a big fellow lurking over there." Di Yi pointed off to one side, toward a lush stretch of mountain terrain where ancient trees towered into the sky and abundant vegetation teemed with life.

"A big fellow lurking there?" Shi Yunshan's eyelid twitched. Taking a closer look, he saw that it was indeed an excellent place to conceal a massive body.

"Give me a bow." Di Yi held out his hand. This time, both to prevent anyone from snatching the prey and to test his own limits, he intended to act immediately.

At those words, Shi Yunshan nodded and handed Di Yi a large bow, along with an arrow half a person's height.

Taking the large bow, Di Yi gauged the force needed to draw it, nocked the arrow, and loosed it casually without taking careful aim.

The instant the sound of it tearing through the air rang out, that stretch of mountainside had already split apart. Vast swaths of trees shattered, smoke and dust billowed, and an enormous, terrifying expanse of empty ground appeared, as though a massive explosion had occurred.

"This..." At the sight, not only Shi Yunshan but everyone else was left wide-eyed and speechless.

The instant the sound of the arrow cutting through the air rang out, it had already struck the mountainside. That speed was simply unimaginable, who knew how many times greater than that of the man from Fei Village.

After all, the sound of the Fei Village man's arrow cutting through the air had at least followed behind it. But Di Yi's arrow had struck before its sound could even travel.

It was far too terrifying, enough to astound the world!

"Let's go take a look." Di Yi returned the bow to Shi Yunfeng and led the way toward the area blasted bare.

Soon, he arrived and looked around, searching for the big fellow's corpse.

But he quickly grew embarrassed. He had found the big fellow's remains, yet they could no longer be called a corpse. If he had to describe them, they were nothing more than mashed flesh and scraps.

He could only judge its size from the blood it had splattered.

"This... could it be a Five-Colored Great Insect?" Arriving afterward, Shi Yunshan surveyed the "gruesome" scene, using the faintest traces to identify the big fellow.

"A Five-Colored Great Insect?" Di Yi looked at Shi Yunfeng.

"Yes. Its skin and blood bear five colors. Honored guest, look at this splattered blood. It fits the description perfectly." Shi Yunshan pointed to the bloodstains, which showed different colors in the sunlight when viewed from different angles, and said with lingering dread, "To think it was such a huge fellow. Fortunately, you noticed him beforehand. Otherwise, if we'd blundered in, there would have been no chance of survival."

"Was he very strong?" Di Yi asked.

"Very strong. He qualified as a ferocious beast, an unusual kind of python. Leveling a mountainside would have been effortless for him." Shi Yunshan nodded. Such a huge fellow was an existence they could never defeat.

"Then how do you think I compare to him? What sort of limit might I have reached?" Di Yi continued.

"Well... I'm not quite sure, but you're certainly stronger than the kings and nobles outside the Great Wilderness. Perhaps you've reached the utmost limit of Blood Moving," Shi Yunshan answered after some thought.

"The utmost limit of Blood Moving? What is that?" Di Yi had heard a new term.

"Well... I don't know. I've just often heard the elders mention it. It's a limit on the path of cultivation, but I don't know the details." Shi Yunshan shook his head. He had grown up in secluded Stone Village in the Great Wilderness and had never encountered the outside world. He did not know what it truly meant.

"You've often heard the elders mention it... do they know, then?"

"The elders in the village probably don't know the details either. Though I've heard them discuss it, it was just after-dinner chatter, idle boasting."

"Then something simpler, like Blood Moving. What is that?"

"The village does have a few records about that. It's a form of cultivation, said to possess the marvel of seizing the creative power of heaven and earth. Once you reach that realm, you can wrestle ferocious beasts bare-bodied and overpower people with several times the strength of someone like me, whose arms can exert four or five thousand jin of force."

"Oh, then has any of you reached that realm? Or is there anyone like that in Stone Village?"