Whoosh, whoosh—
Scorching flames suddenly rose in the dark mountain forest. That leopard beast that looked like a zombie was instantly engulfed, then burned to ash.
“Master.”
Little Dragon withdrew the flames, in a vomiting posture: “Too disgusting!”
Jun Changxiao scanned the valley’s interior situation, murmuring: “This place is probably a bit unusual.”
Swish!
Swish!
Just then, another six or seven leopard beasts jumped out from the shadows, their bodies covered in rotting wounds, their faces abnormally fierce—no matter how you looked at them, they resembled soulless zombies.
“Deal with them.” Jun Changxiao said.
“Whoosh, whoosh—”
Little Dragon opened its big mouth, and scorching flames spewed out, completely eliminating several leopard beasts.
These disgusting fierce beasts weren’t particularly strong, but after being burned to ashes, crystal cores still scattered among the remains.
Swish!
Jun Changxiao waved his hand, drawing the crystal cores over.
The interior of the crystal cores showed a dark color, as if occupied by some kind of evil force.
“Could what’s sealed here be demonic qi?” Jun Changxiao speculated.
The system said: “Anyway, it’s not any proper energy.”
Jun Changxiao stored them in his spatial ring, looking toward the depths of the mountain forest: “Let’s go, we’ll go in and take a look.”
This look was quite something, because in that complex mountain forest, there were all these disgusting fierce beasts without souls wandering around, even with red eyes, mutually slaughtering each other.
If it weren’t for confirming that he was in a fantasy world, Jun Changxiao would have suspected whether he’d transmigrated to a zombie-filled apocalypse.
“Master.”
Little Dragon transmitted: “What the hell kind of place is this!”
The disgusting, decayed stench floating in the air made it dare not breathe too much. Most of the time, it could only hold its breath.
Jun Changxiao didn’t speak and continued moving forward. Soon he came to a small stream.
The water.
Was also black!
“So smelly!”
Little Dragon hurriedly moved away, collapsing: “Even the water isn’t clean!”
Jun Changxiao said: “The entire valley seems to be controlled by some kind of virus. Was it naturally formed, or man-made?”
Thinking of how there had once been a demonic sect here, he leaned more toward it being man-made.
“Swish!”
He took out a spoon from his spatial ring, then scooped up water. As a result, he saw the water frantically boiling.
“Poisonous.” The system said.
Jun Changxiao said: “Could it be that the fierce beasts drank the water here and became like zombies?”
Whoosh—
Just then, a huge bear beast with a completely rotted body pounced from behind. That body was far larger than even the Mountain-Bearing Bear!
Jun Changxiao raised his hand, spiritual energy condensed and formed, directly spraying out in the void, blasting the charging big fellow away, and its entire head even exploded on the spot!
Having reached Sword and Martial Dual Wuwang, he had extremely strong control over spiritual energy. Without needing to execute martial techniques, he could rely on spiritual energy alone to form shock waves in the void.
“This Demon Ridge Valley seems to hide some unknown secret.” Jun Changxiao stood up, his eyes flashing with anticipation.
Solving mysteries and such—most interesting.
However, what left Sect Master Jun speechless was that the fierce beasts here all lacked thinking, and their whole bodies were rotted. They simply couldn’t be taken as contract beasts!
This guy had requirements for contract beasts—they must have looks.
……
Deep inside the gloomy Demon Ridge Valley, those disgusting fierce beasts, like mindless ghosts, wandered back and forth in the forest. Occasionally discovering humans, they would charge over fiercely.
Unfortunately, they were too weak.
Before even getting close, they were engulfed by Little Dragon’s flames.
As they went deeper and deeper, the number of disgusting fierce beasts grew fewer, but their strength increased layer by layer. By the time they’d gone five or six li in, there were actually ones comparable to high first-rank level.
Boom!
Cold spiritual energy blasted out, directly annihilating a high-grade fierce beast resembling a lion.
Jun Changxiao took out the black crystal core, shaking his head: “If it were in normal form, it would also be suitable as my contract beast.”
“Master!”
Just then, Little Dragon stared ahead: “What’s that!”
Jun Changxiao looked up.
Ahead were many damaged buildings, covered all over with moss and vines, emanating a sinister yet ancient aura.
The only wall that hadn’t been eroded had characters that seemed to be left in fresh blood, reading—Heaven and Earth Undying, Demonic Path Eternal.
“There should have been demonic sect forces here.”
Jun Changxiao came over, examining these damaged buildings. It felt more like some kind of sentry outpost.
His spiritual sense spread out. In the grass were scattered human skeletons, all completely black in color, extremely similar to the stream water he’d just seen.
Jun Changxiao cupped his chin: “Could these skeletons have drunk that poisonous water when they were alive?”
“Master!”
Little Dragon jumped onto a damaged building, staring below: “There are weapons here!”
Jun Changxiao came over.
A skeleton sat leaning against the wall corner, a sword inserted in its ribcage. It seemed to be from a very ancient era—it was already covered in rust.
Jun Changxiao closed his eyes.
His entire being seemed to instantly return to ten thousand years ago, witnessing as a bystander the scene of a group of martial artists attacking the outpost, the scene of slaughter.
Swish!
He opened his eyes: “Could it be righteous sect people who joined forces to attack Demon Ridge Valley?”
……
The sky gradually darkened.
Jun Changxiao didn’t continue traveling but temporarily settled in these damaged ruins.
Night.
Cold wind howled, the sinister aura grew denser.
Little Dragon felt a bit scared, unconsciously moving closer to its master.
Jun Changxiao wrapped the sword in spiritual energy. From the forging style and engraved patterns, he judged: “This should be an antique.”
“Roar!”
“Roar!”
Just then, from deep in the mountain forest came bursts of frenzied roaring, shaking the surrounding tree leaves with rustling sounds.
“Hmm?”
Jun Changxiao raised his head and discovered that in the starry sky ahead, there was something like a formation barrier that flashed and disappeared.
“Let’s go.”
He grabbed Little Dragon with one hand and headed toward the dark mountain forest.
Soon, Jun Changxiao arrived at an even larger ruin. The scattered human skeletons were even more numerous—in a certain area, five or sixty were gathered together.
The wall similarly had the characters “Heaven and Earth Undying, Demonic Path Eternal.”
“The light rose from here.”
Jun Changxiao’s spiritual sense fully opened, covering a surrounding distance of five or six li, but he didn’t see anything unusual.
Wait!
Just then, he discovered that on the open ground ahead, strange complex lines were carved, with a skull symbol in the central area.
Jun Changxiao came over, crouched before the lines, murmuring: “These should have just been drawn.”
“Here.”
He looked around, his tone certain: “There are other people!”
Whoosh—
Just then, a stream of light shot from the shadows.
Slap!
Jun Changxiao raised his hand, catching the incoming hidden weapon, sneering: “Thinking this can hurt this seat? Far too naive.”
“Hmm?”
Opening his palm, he discovered his skin had turned purple-black and was continuously spreading.
The hidden weapon was poisoned!
“Hahaha!”
A shadow completely shrouded in black robes walked out from behind a damaged building, laughing sinisterly: “Didn’t anyone tell you not to casually catch hidden weapons with your bare hands?”
“Damn!”
Jun Changxiao’s face immediately became fierce. His entire right palm had completely turned purple-black—clearly the poison was quite strong.
“Friend.”
The black-robed person laughed eerily: “Don’t try to force out the poison with spiritual energy, or you’ll only die faster.”
“Thud!”
Jun Changxiao directly collapsed on the ground, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
The black-robed person came over, laughing sinisterly: “To dare enter Demon Ridge Valley, your courage really isn’t small.”
“Just right.”
He stopped in front of Jun Changxiao, lightly removing his black robe, revealing a fierce face: “I’m still lacking fresh blood for sacrifice. I’ll use yours.”
“Swish!”
Jun Changxiao sprang up, his poisoned right hand gripping the person’s neck. The fierce expression on his face relaxed into a smile: “Didn’t anyone tell you not to easily approach your opponent?”
“You…” The black-robed person said in shock: “Didn’t… didn’t get poisoned?!”