69: When disaster strikes, everyone flies away.

After successfully contacting Leng Yaozhu, Shen Guyan finally woke up from his meditation, feeling satisfied.

As for how Leng Yaozhu would arrange things, he did not dwell on it much. He trusted that woman's capabilities.

Shen Guyan slowly stood up and examined the surrounding environment. After confirming that the area was relatively safe, he began to radiate outward from this location to conduct a reconnaissance.

Noticing Shen Guyan's actions, the staff members responsible for monitoring at the Spirit Pagoda could not help but twitch their lips. This kid's way of doing things was truly cautious to the extreme...

Shen Guyan carefully shifted his figure within the forest, using various surrounding shrubs to hide himself. Compared to other students entering the Spirit Ascension Platform for the first time, he was undoubtedly the most cautious one. This was because, since childhood, he had read many stories about the Spirit Beast forest within the Spirit Ascension Platform in books.

He knew very well that danger was everywhere here; one wrong move, and in a certain sense, he would be buried here.

However, danger also represented opportunity. If he could successfully kill a Spirit Beast, he would receive some energy feedback, which would be beneficial to his Emerald Demon Bird Spirit Soul.

His two Spirits, the canglang sword and the azure dragon mask, were both simultaneously enhanced by the spirit ring of the Emerald Demon Bird Spirit Soul, each obtaining their first Spirit Ability.

The flaw of Companion Type Twin Martial Souls was that once Shen Guyan's Cultivation reached a Bottleneck, he had to attach spirit rings to both Spirits to continue Cultivating. Unlike true twin spirits, where one could attach a spirit ring to just one Spirit and wait until their Cultivation was higher in the future to attach one to the other.

Shen Guyan's current Mental Energy was not considered top-tier. His Companion Type Twin Martial Souls were an advantage in the Early Stage, but in the future, if he could not raise his Mental Energy to a very high level, it would instead restrict his development. Because if his mental Realm was insufficient, it would be difficult to bear the spirit souls required to support two Spirits.

The Spirit Ascension Platform was one of his ways out. What he wanted to do most right now was to improve the quality of his Emerald Demon Bird Spirit Soul. If the Emerald Demon Bird Spirit Soul could reach the thousand-year purple level, he could attach one more spirit ring to himself. And in the future, when it reached the ten-thousand-year black level, he could attach yet another spirit ring.

The fewer spirit souls a Spirit Master absorbed, the less Mental Energy it consumed. Moreover, once the quality of the spirit soul improved, the quality of the spirit ring would also rise accordingly, which was the best way to strengthen oneself.

Shen Guyan had been in the forest for a while now and had yet to encounter a Spirit Beast, but he controlled his footsteps to make as little sound as possible, even controlling his breathing to match the frequency of the wind, while carefully observing his surroundings, waiting for a Spirit Beast to appear.

It would be best to encounter a lone Spirit Beast; with each one killed, there would be a sliver of benefit to his own spirit soul...

However, before he had walked very far, he heard voices conversing not far ahead.

"Someone?" Shen Guyan's thoughts raced. He did not reveal himself immediately, but instead hid even his shadow behind a large tree.

Not far in front of him, a man and a woman were walking, supporting each other.

Shen Guyan focused his gaze and quickly identified the other party's identities.

The arrivals were none other than two other classmates from his class, Fei Biao and Long Chu.

These two had always had a good relationship with Cang Qiong. Before the Class Promotion Competition began, they had rejected almost all classmates who wanted to fight in place of Cang Qiong, the reason naturally being the tacit understanding between the three of them.

Then came that sparring match for the class quota, where Shen Guyan relied on his terrifying speed to snatch the competition spot from Cang Qiong's hands.

Even after the victory in the Class Promotion Competition, these two did not give Shen Guyan any friendly looks. Of course, Shen Guyan was also not interested in building a good relationship with these two.

"Fei, are you alright?" Long Chu supported Fei Biao as she leaned against a large tree nearby, panting heavily.

"I'm okay, just a bit exhausted. You've sustained quite a few injuries, haven't you?" Fei Biao checked the wounds on Long Chu's body with concern, her eyes filled with heartache.

It could be seen that the bond between the two was very deep, perhaps even somewhat abnormal.

They had just experienced a fierce battle. After entering the Spirit Beast forest, they had quickly encountered a group of ten-year Wind Baboons. This type of Spirit Beast did not have very strong combat power on its own, but it won by having an extremely large number.

Facing dozens of ten-year Spirit Beasts at the same time, if not for Fei Biao's super-strong crowd control ability, Confusion, plus Long Chu's desperate fighting, the two of them likely wouldn't have been able to hold out.

Fortunately, because the two had eliminated quite a few ten-year Spirit Beasts, the boost brought to their spirit souls was quite considerable.

"If only Cang Qiong were here; with that guy's support, both you and I would have it easier." Long Chu sat on the ground and sighed. His Soul Power was less than forty percent, and his physical strength had dropped severely; he had to rest, he had to rest.

"Sigh, it's all that Zhuo Tianya's fault... but if not for him, we probably wouldn't have been able to beat Class Two, and we wouldn't have the qualifications to come to the Spirit Ascension Platform." Fei Biao thought for a moment and said.

"He just relies on speed and close-combat techniques. Once he sees the competition between high-Rank Spirit Masters, he will know that these close-combat techniques he studies are useless." Long Chu snorted, "However, I haven't seen that guy Cang Qiong for the past two days. There are even rumors that he dropped out."

"How is that possible?" Fei Biao smiled and scoffed at this information: "Once we advance to the third or fourth grade and the gap in Soul Power Rank becomes obvious, even without Zhuo Tianya, we will be able to defeat Class Two, and then we can bring Cang Qiong back."

"That's true. When the time comes, we'll kick Shen Guyan out. This time, we can just consider it him working for us." Long Chu nodded in agreement, completely unaware that a certain teammate they spent every day with was now in an unknown state of life or death.

Shen Guyan listened quietly to their conversation and had no intention of revealing himself to refute them.

It was only because he saw from afar that a massive figure was slowly descending toward the two of them from the tree branches.

"Why has the sky darkened a bit?" Long Chu suddenly felt something strange in his heart, and Fei Biao subconsciously looked up toward the sky.

She saw with horror that a human face was descending rapidly toward the two of them.

It was a woman's face, looking very beautiful, only, her mouth was open, revealing ferocious fangs.

What made them even more horrified was that this human face was growing on the belly of a giant spider.

Shen Guyan quickly found information about this Spirit Beast from his memory: Man Faced Demon Spider. This was the Man Faced Demon Spider, known as the killer of Spirit Beasts, a top-tier hunter. At the hundred-year level, it could already contend with ordinary thousand-year level Spirit Beasts.

Coincidentally, Class One had previously had a dedicated class about the Man Faced Demon Spider type of Spirit Beast, and they had used a screen to play the hunting methods of this type of Spirit Beast; that fear remained deeply etched in their memories to this day.

The two of them had almost no hesitation at all, not even sparing a glance at their companion, and lunged out in different directions. Even in their prime, the two of them combined would have no chance of defeating the opponent, let alone now, when their Cultivation was insufficient and their physical strength had dropped significantly.

Only by running away was there a glimmer of hope for survival.

"Husband and wife are like birds in the same forest; when disaster strikes, each flies their own way." Shen Guyan scoffed in his heart, while simultaneously preparing himself fully.

"Puff!" With their whole bodies tightening, Long Chu and Fei Biao felt as if their entire bodies had been entangled by something. Even though they usually cooperated tacitly, once entangled, they were unable to break free.

At this moment, even if they wanted to tap their distress signal device, they could no longer do so.

A chilling aura, accompanied by "rustling" sounds, arrived. The next moment, the two suddenly felt intense pain in many parts of their bodies, followed by coldness, numbness, and a trembling from the depths of their hearts that quickly spread throughout their entire bodies—