The primeval, untamed mountains held not only towering trees a thousand feet tall, vines thousands of feet long, and peaks soaring tens of thousands of feet into the sky, but also seemingly boundless marshes and immense rifts whose bottoms could not be seen.
Along the way lay many boulders that seemed to have been hurled from the sky in ages past. Covered in lush vegetation, they weighed anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Who knew what fierce battles had once taken place here?
The mountains ahead were lush and green. They were already thousands of miles from Stone Village, yet, drawn along by the golden radiance emanating from the Golden Hou, the group had reached this place in little time.
Crack!
Suddenly, something enormous seemed to be moving in the mountain range behind them. A vast dust storm rose there, and the ground caved in beneath its tread.
Several mountains collapsed. The earth cracked to a terrifying degree, its fissures wide enough to swallow entire mountain forests. Their pitch-black depths inspired an oppressive terror.
"Heavens, what kind of creature is that?!" Everyone who had followed Di Yi out of Stone Village was stunned.
What had they just seen? It was an enormous claw, immense beyond belief. Even the mountains looked small before it. Its emergence alone seemed to have caused the mountains to collapse and the earth to split.
"Just a big fellow." Di Yi glanced that way, then paid it no further attention.
It was probably an enormous creature that lived underground, most likely a ferocious beast. Its habits might have resembled those of the scale-armored creature he had once seen: both liked burrowing through mountains and beneath the earth.
"Roar!" Di Yi might not have cared about that huge creature, but the Golden Hou was another matter. It was the king of these mountains. Ordinarily, none of the beasts dared make trouble anywhere it had passed.
It immediately unleashed a rebuking roar that resounded through heaven and earth. Startled, the enormous creature swiftly withdrew its claw and fled amid billowing dust, leaving only a stretch of terrifying devastation behind.
Shi Yunfeng and the others were shaken, unable to speak for a long time.
That enormous creature had to be a terrifying ferocious beast. With a body so immense, never mind its claw-even the landslides and tumbling boulders it stirred up would have been enough to leave them half-dead.
The Great Wilderness truly was terrifying!
They had barely traveled out of Stone Village before encountering such danger. Had Di Yi not been leading them, had they relied on their own strength alone, they would certainly have suffered casualties by now.
There was absolutely no way they could have fought that huge creature.
At that moment, these young people truly understood the mission entrusted to them. No wonder so few villagers ever ventured beyond the Great Wilderness. It was not that they did not want to leave, but that doing so was almost the same as seeking death.
They understood just how difficult it was to leave the Great Wilderness.
"Let's go. There's nothing worth watching. Stop standing there in a daze," Di Yi said.
At Di Yi's words, Shi Yunfeng and the others recovered from their shock. They glanced at the terrifying rift, steeled themselves, and clenched their fists, determination gradually filling their eyes.
They carried Stone Village's hopes on their shoulders. If they were frightened into retreat here, how could they speak of the future?
The landscape of the Great Wilderness was almost endlessly repetitive, with little variation. Mountains or water filled every view, and apart from the beasts, insects, and fish that lived here, there were scarcely any signs of human habitation.
Over the past several days, Di Yi had led Shi Yunfeng and the others more than a hundred thousand miles. With the Golden Hou there, they traveled remarkably fast.
"Uncle Di Yi, that Mottled Tiger seems to be chasing us again," Shi Yunfeng said as they walked through a mountain ravine.
Their journey took them across mountains and ravines. With the Golden Hou's kingly might, they naturally traveled in a straight line, passing through the territories of many huge creatures along the way. Clashes were inevitable.
Ordinarily, given the Golden Hou's strength, those huge creatures ended up routed, unable to escape becoming its next meal.
But there were always exceptions, such as the Mottled Tiger Shi Yunfeng had mentioned.
This was a mutant, unlike ferocious beasts or Primordial Remnants. For some reason, it had undergone a mutation of its own and possessed a special precious technique.
In terms of sheer strength, the Golden Hou could absolutely overpower the Mottled Tiger.
But just as the Unicorn possessed speed that ordinary ferocious beasts lacked, the Mottled Tiger possessed an ability the Golden Hou did not: tearing through the void.
"Oh, it's chasing us again?" Di Yi was actually rather interested in the Mottled Tiger. Otherwise, he would have intervened long ago, after the Golden Hou's repeated setbacks.
After all, he had already gained a True Understanding of the Mottled Tiger's ability to tear through the void. If he wished, he could tear through it himself, and dealing with the creature would be easy.
"Yes. It really is relentless." Shi Yunfeng nodded. During the Mottled Tiger's pursuit, he had gleaned quite a bit from the runes of the precious technique it used, and had become keenly sensitive to their fluctuations.
"It's fine. Let it keep chasing." As Di Yi spoke, he asked, "You've more or less learned its precious technique by now, haven't you? What about Shi Tu and the others?"
"I've learned most of it. Though I can't use it as freely as the Mottled Tiger, I can activate it successfully twice out of ten attempts." Shi Yunfeng nodded. "As for Shi Tu and the others, their progress is neither fast nor slow. If they try to use it, they can still succeed."
"Good, then. Make the most of this chance. I think it's nearing its limit. Sooner or later, it'll grow tired and give up." Di Yi nodded, then signaled for the Golden Hou to slow down and go have a "fierce battle" with the Mottled Tiger.
When they had first encountered the Mottled Tiger, he had not paid it much attention or taken any interest in it. But once it displayed a precious technique that let it tear through the void and escape, an idea had come to him.
Although the old patriarch had said it was fate whether these people from Stone Village returned or not, Di Yi was the one who had brought them out. He needed to give them some measure of protection.
The Mottled Tiger's appearance, and the precious technique it used, offered precisely that protection.
If Shi Yunfeng and the others gained the ability to tear through the void and learned this precious technique, then no matter how badly outmatched they were in a fight, they could at least outrun their enemies.
As long as the green hills remained, there would be no fear of running out of firewood.
Boom!
The moment the Mottled Tiger saw the Golden Hou appear, it switched to attack. Brilliant runes flashed all over its body as it lunged forward.
The battle was very "fierce." Shattered rocks pierced the sky, and that stretch of mountains was leveled. The ground split apart, and dust billowed everywhere.
In the end, seeing that it was at a disadvantage, the Mottled Tiger resorted to its old trick. It tore straight through the void, avoiding a "fatal blow," and vanished, fleeing who knew how many miles away.
"It probably won't chase us again." As Di Yi watched the battle, he caught the Mottled Tiger's unwillingness to concede as it fled.
Clearly, it was too exhausted. It had strayed too far from its territory, and its efforts had come to nothing. It had no choice but to give up and stop trying to settle the score with the Golden Hou.
"It's all right, Uncle Di Yi. We've all learned most of it. Once we let it settle and study it further, we should be able to use it normally." Though Shi Yunfeng and the others felt some regret, this was already enough.
After all, they had memorized the Primordial Runes. All that remained was to test them in actual use.
"Then let's go." Di Yi nodded, then signaled for the Golden Hou to continue onward.
Vast stretches of the Great Wilderness were uninhabited, and scenes of the strong devouring the weak played out constantly.
Everything was drenched in blood. There was no reasoning with it.
Sometimes, even the Golden Hou encountered terrifying creatures it could not handle.
Whenever that happened, Shi Yunfeng and the others could not help shuddering at what might have been. Without Di Yi, could they have survived these endless hardships and perils? They might have lost their lives at any moment.
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