64: Chapter 64 Rock Pig

Jiang Yan moved through the forest using the Wind Control Technique, every step landing on exposed rocks or thick tree roots.

Leaving no footprints and breaking no dead branches—these were habits carved into his bones from living in the Southern Wilderness for three hundred years in his past life.

He spread his Divine Sense to its limit of six zhang, bringing every detail within a six-zhang radius into his perception.

A small, squirrel-like rodent was perched on the treetop, gnawing on a pinecone; its tiny claws were peeling away the scales of the pinecone one by one.

Thirty paces to his left lay a piece of rotting wood, inside which hid dense swarms of wood-boring insects; the sound of them gnawing on the wood was as fine and faint as rain within his Divine Sense.

Directly ahead, beneath a rock, was a puddle covered by fallen leaves. A film of oil floated on the surface of the puddle, and a few finger-length blind fish swam in the mud at the bottom.

These details pieced together into a constantly scrolling map within his Sea of Consciousness.

On this map, he filtered out three traces left by Yao Beasts.

The first was on the trunk of an old pine tree that had been snapped in half.

The cross-section of the trunk had been repeatedly scratched by some kind of clawed Yao Beast, leaving seven or eight deep claw marks, each as long as a forearm.

The spacing between the claw marks was about three fingers wide, and they were two inches deep into the wood. The edges were rough, and a few coarse, gray-brown hairs were snagged on the upturned wood splinters.

Jiang Yan measured the arc of the claw marks with his fingers—blunt claws, not the hooked, sharp claws of felines. It was likely a bear-type Yao Beast, and not small in size.

The second trace was on a patch of exposed mud. The mud had been churned up into a mess, as if it had been plowed, leaving several traces of semi-dried mud.

Nearby were several piles of dried, hardened excrement. He squatted down and used his spiritual power to pick up a bit of the fecal matter, bringing it to his nose to sniff—the excrement was mixed with undigested bone fragments and coarse animal hair, and the smell was sour; it was not the excrement of a pure carnivore.

An omnivorous Yao Beast, one size smaller than the bear type.

The third trace was on a rock wall.

On the rock wall was a smooth depression worn down by repeated rubbing, about four feet off the ground, with a few coarse, gray-brown bristles remaining on the edge of the depression.

He picked up a bristle and held it against the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the canopy—the base of the bristle was coarse and hard, and the tip was split; it had been rubbed off while scratching an itch.

This creature was larger than the previous two, otherwise it wouldn't have been able to rub against such a high spot.

They were all left by small Yao Beasts. Or rather, they were all left by Medium Grade or Low Grade Tier 1 Yao Beasts.

His Sea of Consciousness contained a complete illustrated guide to Yao Beast territory markings; he knew exactly what habits, grade, and attack methods each type of mark corresponded to with just a glance.

These markings indicated that this area was occupied by a pack of Wind Wolves or similar gregarious Yao Beasts; their activity range was not small, but their grade was not high.

They posed no threat to him.

The next evening, he found a place to spend the night.

It was a south-facing rock wall with a natural depression at the base, several zhang deep; the innermost part was so dry that tiny salt crystals were visible on the rock surface.

A protruding boulder extended diagonally above the rock wall, shielding the upper part of the depression like an eave.

He set up the Li Fire Killing Array outside the depression, burying the fire copper Formation Plate into the shallow soil layer, with the fire jade Formation eye facing the entrance.

The moment he activated it with spiritual power, seven Formation patterns lit up in sequence, and a pale red warning light membrane formed an arc-shaped barrier outside the depression, glowing with a very faint red light in the twilight before vanishing.

He sat cross-legged in the deepest part of the depression and began to circulate the Taixu Nourishing Spirit Art.

His Divine Sense slowly expanded outward from the six-zhang boundary, probing outward inch by inch.

Within six zhang, he could "hear" the sound of the night wind passing through the pine forest—not with his ears, but by directly perceiving the trajectory of the airflow with his Divine Sense.

He could perceive every faint fluctuation of spiritual power on the Formation's light membrane, and the trajectory of pine needles tumbling in the air as they were blown off by the wind outside the membrane.

He could perceive the tremor of the sound of a nocturnal beast stepping on a dead branch in the distance as it traveled through the soil.

At noon on the third day, he encountered a Yao Beast head-on for the first time.

It was a stretch of rocky beach washed out by a mountain flood.

The dried-up riverbed was covered with pebbles of all sizes, from gravel the size of a fingernail to round stones the size of a human head, all mixed together, making a clattering sound when stepped upon.

The rock walls on both sides of the rocky beach bore traces of the mountain flood—a dark water line seven or eight feet high ran across the rock walls; the rocks above the water line were grayish-white, while those below were stained an earthy yellow by mud and sand.

At the end of the rocky beach, there was a gap in the mountain torn open by the flood. The bottom of the gap was covered with low shrubs, the leaves of which had been gnawed ragged by something, and the broken ends were still oozing blue-green sap.

Jiang Yan stopped when he reached the middle of the rocky beach.

Heavy breathing came from behind the bushes.

It was not human breathing, but the sound of some large animal's lungs pumping repeatedly like a bellows, each exhalation accompanied by the crunching sound of gravel being crushed.

His Divine Sense had already locked onto the target a step ahead—nearly a zhang in body length, shoulder height above his chest, its entire body covered in dark gray, stone-like skin.

On its back, three rows of bone plates ran from its neck to the base of its tail, each plate a palm thick, with edges as sharp as unpolished blades.

Its head hung low, its snout was wide and short, and two curved fangs protruded from its lower jaw, gleaming with a grayish-white light in the noon sun.

Rock Boar. A Medium Grade Tier 1 Earth-attribute Yao Beast. With thick skin and flesh, it could knock down a city wall when charging.

The shrubs were snapped in half.

Not just one, but a whole patch—when the Rock Boar charged out from the gap, the entire thicket was split down the middle as if it had been plowed, with broken branches and shattered leaves flying into mid-air.

Its four hooves crushed the pebbles, causing gravel to shatter and fly out from under its hooves; the largest piece of gravel flew out and smashed into the rock wall beside it, creating a fist-sized crater.

Its charging speed was extremely fast.

It took only a few breaths of time from charging out of the gap to approaching the middle of the rocky beach. The ground was trembling—this was not an exaggeration; the stones were actually jumping.

Those pebbles were bouncing under its hooves like beans in a frying pan, clattering and popping; every hoofprint that slammed down was accompanied by a dull, loud thud, and the gravel around the hoofprint was shaken outward in a circle.

Jiang Yan did not move. He just stood calmly in the middle of the rocky beach, his robes blown backward by the wind pressure brought by the charging Rock Boar.

Then, he simultaneously controlled two Flying Swords.

The flame gold flying sword shot out from his Storage Pouch.

The crimson center line on the dark gold sword body was exceptionally striking in the noon sun, and the nine Restriction patterns lit up the instant it left the pouch.

The flame amplification Restriction embedded on the sword spine was the first to activate.

Pale cyan spiritual fire surged from the sword hilt toward the tip, burning into a scorching white sword radiance along the crimson center line.

The speed of the Flying Sword was so fast that the sword body was almost invisible—one could only see a dark gold ray of light skimming the ground, shooting toward the Rock Boar's left front hoof.

At the same time, the purple-veined thunder sword shot out silently from another angle.

The pale gold thunder arc patterns on the bamboo sword body were already fully activated as it flew out; crackling arcs of electricity danced at the sword tip, ionizing the surrounding air into a pale blue mist.

The embedded purple pattern gold threads on the sword spine glowed with an eerie purple light in the reflection of the electric arcs, converging circle by circle along the spiral patterns toward the sword tip.