201: Chapter 201 The Ultimate Escape

At both ends of the stone bridge, three Disciples of the Beast Taming Sect, clad in starlit Daoist robes, were holding Formation Flags, keeping a vigilant watch over their surroundings.

They stood in a Three Talents formation, their Qi connected; if any one of them were attacked, the other two could instantly form a formation to kill the assailant.

All three were at the Qi Refining Level 8, with solid foundations.

Gu Shen hid behind a massive rock, silently calculating their respective combat strengths.

His internal organ injuries had not yet healed, and the operation of the Nirvana Star Core was sluggish; he could not easily manifest the gravitational field of the Nirvana Star Core.

If he were to summon the Cyber Iron Guard at this moment, the battle would inevitably cause a huge commotion, attracting even more pursuers from the surroundings.

He had to kill them in one blow without causing too much of a disturbance.

Gu Shen swept his gaze slightly, landing on a nest of Red-Tailed Poison Bees hanging upside down above the stone bridge.

The hive was as large as a water vat, harboring thousands of First-Grade Poison Bees with extremely irritable temperaments.

The AI Crystal initiated multi-threaded calculations.

Angle, wind direction, and trajectory—the optimal solution was obtained within a single breath.

Gu Shen curled his fingertips slightly, and a thread of extremely fine Geng Metal Sword Qi shot out from his finger, slicing silently through dozens of zhang of space, precisely severing the fragile stalactite connecting the hive.

"Boom!"

The massive hive smashed straight down, hitting the center of the stone bridge.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz—!"

The hive shattered, and tens of thousands of Red-Tailed Poison Bees swarmed out frantically like a burning red cloud.

They were already irritable, and with their home now destroyed, they immediately poured all their fury onto the three Beast Taming Sect Disciples at the bridgehead.

"Not good! It's a swarm of Red-Tailed Poison Bees!"

The three Disciples were horrified, hurriedly raising their Spiritual Qi protective shields and brandishing their Magical Artifacts to hack at the swarm.

Individually, the First-Grade Poison Bees were extremely weak, but there were thousands of them, and their tail stingers could corrode Spiritual Light, making them incredibly troublesome.

The formation fell into chaos, and a fatal gap appeared in the connection of their Qi.

The killing intent descended in that very instant.

Gu Shen's figure erupted, the thunder shadow boots on his feet pushing his speed to its Peak, as he charged toward the three like a bolt of lightning splitting the darkness.

Dashing into the swarm of poison bees, the stingers of the bees pricked his body, yet they couldn't even break through the defense of his Cold Jade Bone.

"God-Slaying Sword!"

The translucent, pale golden Sword Intent of the God-Slaying Sword split into three, instantly piercing into the Sea of Consciousness of the three Disciples.

The three of them froze simultaneously, expressions of extreme pain appearing on their faces.

Gu Shen closed in, his hands turning into claws.

"Crack! Crack!"

The crisp sound of bones breaking was masked by the buzzing of the swarm. Gu Shen used the sheer power of his Physical Body to crush the throats of two Disciples.

The remaining lead Disciple, whose cultivation was slightly deeper, forcibly broke free from the dizziness and attempted to crush the distress jade talisman in his hand.

Gu Shen lashed out with his left leg like a long whip, carrying the force of ten thousand jun, slamming it heavily into the Disciple's side.

"Bang!"

Like a kite with a broken string, the Disciple was kicked off the stone bridge, falling straight into the surging river below, his cries for help swallowed by the waves.

Three breaths, the enemies were dead.

Gu Shen ripped the Storage Pouches off the two corpses, his Divine Sense forcefully wiping away their imprints.

A casual glance revealed a few Medium-Grade Spirit Stones, over four hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, several Second-Grade Demon Cores, and a few bottles of Medicinal Pills. The wealth of these Sect elites was truly substantial.

After counting the spoils, Gu Shen casually stored the two corpses of the Beast Taming Sect Disciples into his Storage Ring as well.

"This place is not suitable for a long stay; the person who fell into the river may not be dead, and I fear he might reveal my whereabouts."

Gu Shen dared not hesitate; he leaped across the stone bridge, heading toward the deepest and most unfathomable forbidden land of Mang Mountain, continuing this long and brutal escape.

...

In the heart of Mang Mountain, the river wound its way, disappearing deep into the rocky cliffs.

The surrounding terrain became increasingly low-lying, with large swathes of purple-black miasma, like thick, viscous fog, accumulating in the forest and along the forest floor, refusing to dissipate.

The roots of towering ancient trees were soaked in a swamp bubbling with poison; the surroundings were quiet and desolate, completely devoid of any sounds of living creatures.

Clad in a grey robe, Gu Shen clung to the side of a slippery, moss-covered rock wall, his feet lightly touching the withered roots protruding from the water as he snuck toward the even gloomier deep mountain valley.

His complexion was a sickly, ashen pale.

Inside his abdomen, the internal injury left by the sonic resonance was continuously eroding his healthy organ tissues as his blood and Qi circulated. Every breath pulled at his internal organs, causing pain like knife cuts.

His deep cyan Poisonous Sha True Essence moved through his meridians with extreme sluggishness.

"Master, the body's blood oxygen saturation continues to decline. Micro-tears have appeared in the left ventricular valve."

From the black iron buckle at his collar came the tense, monotone electronic voice of the Crab, transmitted precisely along his collarbone into Gu Shen's ears: "The current physiological state is no longer suitable for any high-intensity True Essence output. You must find a safe area and enter a long-term physical hibernation."

Gu Shen's lips were tightly pressed together, his chest heaving slightly as he slowly suppressed the rising metallic taste of blood in his throat.

Hibernation was a luxury. The Beast Taming Sect's search net was tightening inward, inch by inch, with him at the center. Those Sect Cultivators were extremely seasoned; once he stopped moving, their Spirit Beasts would surely sniff out the clues.

With a shift of his intent, a drop of essence white dew (Medium) was retrieved from his Storage Ring and promptly sent into Gu Shen's mouth.

Pure Spiritual Qi transformed into a trickling stream, barely protecting his heart meridians and maintaining the vitality within his body.

Suddenly, a dense sound of "flapping" came from the thick poisonous miasma above.

Gu Shen stopped in his tracks and immediately pressed himself into the shadow of a massive ancient tree.

Through the gaps in the branches and leaves, dozens of giant bats, blood-red all over with a wingspan of a zhang, were flying in an umbrella-shaped formation, skimming low over the ground. Eerie red light flickered in their eye sockets, their nostrils twitched violently, and sharp screeching sounds wove into a detection net covering several miles.

"Master, high-frequency ultrasonic detection signals have appeared above."

The Crab's warning arrived immediately: "The target organisms are releasing composite sonar. At the same time, their olfactory organs are highly sensitive to iron ions and amino acid residues dissipating in the air. The blood Qi that leaked from your previous injuries has already narrowed their search range to a radius of five miles."

Red-Eyed Blood Bats.

The Red-Eyed Blood Bats were Second-Grade Spirit Beasts in the Great Yu Cultivation World specialized in tracking blood Qi. They were extremely greedy for the residual Qi left behind after Cultivators fought, and when they moved in swarms, even high-grade concealment formations could hardly fully evade their detection.

Gu Shen's gaze was grave.

These pursuers had clearly realized the fact that he was severely injured and intended to rely on such dense tracking methods to exhaust him to death.

"I cannot stay here long."

Gu Shen exerted force with his toes, preparing to change direction.

Several miles behind him, a crimson-red signal flare broke through the poisonous miasma and exploded in mid-air with a boom.

Following immediately, several sharp fluctuations of magical power were released without any concealment, turning into several streaks of light that followed the direction guided by the blood bats, approaching the swamp area where Gu Shen was located at high speed.

The pursuers had arrived.

And their auras were robust; they were all elites of the Beast Taming Sect's inner Sect at the Qi Refining 9th Layer Peak.

Gu Shen's eyes were cold and dark.

Fighting them head-on now, with his heavily injured body, even if he could kill these few people, it would attract an even greater encirclement from the surroundings.

Fleeing also wouldn't shake off those Red-Eyed Blood Bats in the sky, which were like maggots on rotting bones.

Only by setting an ambush on the spot and using thunderous means to wipe out the vanguard sent by the enemy could he sever the enemy's tracking chain.