Teng Wuji's face was grim. He took a step forward and a deep breath. The muscles of his withered body bulged like mountains, and his whole person instantly became two sizes thicker.
He held one hand to his throat, while his other fist faintly emitted the sound of wailing ghosts. As black qi surged, several demonic cultivators' faces with venomous expressions emerged. They gritted their teeth, their faces twisted. These faces rotated rapidly on Teng Wuji's fist, stirring the surrounding airflow like knives. He bent his elbow and threw a punch.
Teng Wuji frantically poured all his magical power into this arm. The sharpest weapon of a demonic cultivator, a physical attack!
In the dead of night, in the valley that had just fallen silent, a "bang!" sounded again. But this time, the sound was extremely short and muffled.
Teng Wuji's vision blurred, and he felt his fist tighten. The fist that was moving like lightning stopped in mid-air.
He was immediately startled. He focused his eyes and saw that the small purple ball in front of him was still rotating rapidly, with brilliant colors. And his fist was held by a plump, fair hand at the wrist.
That hand, compared to his, was pitifully small. It only grabbed a small part of his wrist, but it was as steady as a rock, making him feel as if his arm was cast in a cave pillar.
At the same time, a voice filled with cold killing intent sounded in Teng Wuji's ear. "Fellow Daoist, how does it feel to bully the younger generation?"
Teng Wuji was greatly shocked. Sweat instantly soaked his back. How did this person get so close to him, and how did he attack? He hadn't noticed at all.
'Who is this person? What is his cultivation?'
...
Li Yan saw that he had stepped onto a road of flames. On both sides of the road were bottomless, dark abysses, like a long bridge spanning a heavenly chasm.
Li Yan looked around. The bridge of flames seemed endless, with no beginning or end. He was standing on it alone. The sky was gray, and a wind blew past him, causing the faint blue flames on both sides to sway in unison, giving off an indescribably eerie and strange feeling.
What Li Yan found strange was that although he was standing between the flames on both sides, he felt cold all over. The burning flames did not bring any warmth.
Li Yan frowned. How did he get here? He couldn't remember for a moment. And it seemed that he had forgotten everything before. It was as if he had appeared here the moment he was born.
For a time, even his own name, Li Yan couldn't remember.
"Where is this place? And who am I?" Li Yan shook his head, but he couldn't remember his past or present life at all.
But deep in his heart, there were many familiar names that seemed to be on the verge of being spoken, but he just couldn't remember them.
After a little while, Li Yan simply stopped thinking about it. He felt the temperature in his body dropping sharply, as if his blood was about to freeze.
Li Yan turned to the side and looked at the swaying flames by the roadside. He didn't understand whether these flames had any temperature.
After observing carefully for a while, Li Yan slowly approached. Then he subconsciously released his divine sense, but there was no movement in his body.
'Divine sense? This name is very strange. It seems that just by thinking about it, I can sense things far away.' Such an explanation appeared in Li Yan's vague memory.
Immediately, Li Yan shook his head. 'This idea is really strange. Don't people see things with their eyes? I must figure out where I am.'
Li Yan turned and bent down, carefully extending a finger. He tried to lightly touch a small wisp of the swaying flame. But in the next moment, Li Yan quickly withdrew his finger as if he had been bitten by a snake.
The moment his finger touched the flame, an unbearable sharp pain came. When he looked at his finger again, he was stunned. His finger was wrapped in a thick layer of faint blue ice.
And waves of sharp, cold pain were desperately drilling into his finger. This sharp pain soon spread to his arm. From a ball of faint blue ice, it turned into a layer of faint blue ice.
Li Yan hurriedly shook his arm, but in just a few breaths, this arm of his had become a little stiff and was quickly losing consciousness.
'Extreme cold ice waves!' Another strange thought appeared in Li Yan's mind, but he had no time to think.
Li Yan hurriedly used his other hand to pat the layer of faint blue ice covering his arm. But to his horror, the faint blue ice quickly spread to his other hand.
Soon, Li Yan discovered with terror that his whole person could no longer move a single bit.
What frightened Li Yan even more was that in just this short while, his head had become drowsy, and he was slowly losing consciousness.
On the contrary, Li Yan's internal organs were now burning like fire, but his skin and flesh were still icy cold. The sharp pain of burning inside his body could not wake him up.
Sharp pain and drowsiness, emptiness and grayness, everything was strange.
Although he didn't know who he was or why he had come to this terrifying space, how could Li Yan be willing to die so easily? He struggled hard.
But it was all in vain. Slowly, Li Yan felt more and more tired, his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, his thoughts stopping at a certain moment, unable to continue thinking, becoming more and more blurred.
Just then, Li Yan seemed to hear a familiar voice. "Martial Uncle Wei, why is Junior Brother Li's aura getting more and more chaotic!"
...
Bai Rou and Hu Xiaowang's group of five were sitting cross-legged on a dark cloud. The dark cloud trailed a barely perceptible dark light in the night sky as it rapidly flew north. At this moment, Bai Rou's aura had improved a lot. In Wei Zhongran's view, her injuries were mainly due to forcefully using a seal that exceeded her realm, resulting in damaged meridians and the inability to circulate her spirit power.
After Wei Zhongran temporarily used his magical power to sort it out, Bai Rou was already able to take medicinal pills and recover on her own.
Hu Xiaowang and the other three, on the other hand, had looks of confusion and helplessness. When they woke up, they were already on the white cloud. What made them even more overjoyed was that Martial Uncle Wei had appeared in their line of sight, and that terrifying Golden Core demonic cultivator was nowhere to be found.
Hu Xiaowang and the other three only remembered the final scene of their escape on the Cloud-Piercing Willow. Suddenly, those dark-gold light clusters broke through the spirit power shield and hit them. They had no memory of what happened after that.
'Did Martial Uncle Wei just happen to arrive?' The three, excluding Yu Yuanjun, thought. But when their gazes swept to the blood-covered Li Yan on the side, this thought was immediately shattered.
Li Yan was lying on the dark cloud. His arms were bare, and although there was ointment on them, it was only applied to the fractured areas. In some places, the white bones were still visible, which made them feel a chill in their hearts.
Junior Sister Bai Rou's pretty face was also as pale as paper, looking as if she had been severely injured. Her aura was sometimes strong and sometimes weak, reminding one of a candle flame in the wind.
And Wei Zhongran was looking down at Li Yan with a grim face, his hands flashing with spiritual light as he continuously pointed at various parts of Li Yan's body.
Yan Feijun asked in a low voice, "Martial Uncle Wei, Junior Brother Li is..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Wei Zhongran glanced sideways at them, his eyes filled with a bone-chilling coldness, which was a stark contrast to his usual gentle, youthful appearance. Then he turned his head back and continued to treat Li Yan.
At this glance, the curious expressions on their faces immediately froze. It was obvious that Wei Zhongran was in a very bad mood at the moment.
They immediately dared not ask any more questions and all looked at Bai Rou. Bai Rou just gently shook her head at them, signaling them not to ask any more questions. This made them even more confused.
Now, including Yu Yuanjun, they could only guess what had happened. 'After that demonic cultivator knocked us out, Martial Uncle Wei (this plump cultivator) just happened to arrive and then repelled the demonic cultivator.'
'Li Yan and Bai Rou were probably just at the center of the opponent's attack, so they were both severely injured. It seems we were favored by the heavens.'
They would never have thought that they had been unconscious for a long time, let alone that Li Yan and Bai Rou had been contending with a Golden Core demonic cultivator all this time.
After more than ten breaths, Wei Zhongran finally stopped his hand seals. Then he looked at Li Yan, whose aura was still unstable, a look of worry on his face.
At this time, Bai Rou cautiously asked, "Martial Uncle Wei, why is Junior Brother Li's aura getting more and more chaotic!".
This time, Wei Zhongran did not show any dissatisfaction. He looked at the few of them and then answered softly.
"Multiple internal organs are ruptured, and forty percent of the meridians in his entire body are ruptured and shattered. Especially his arms, where the meridians were most damaged by the rebound. Although I have given him a 'Soul-Protecting Pill' now, the internal bleeding has stopped and is recovering."
"But after I used spirit power to guide his arms and the bones and meridians in his body, I only managed to reconnect a few of the main meridians. Next, it... it might be up to him..."
Speaking of this, Wei Zhongran sighed in his heart. Li Yan's injuries this time were really too serious. Even he felt it was very difficult.
After hearing Wei Zhongran's words, the five of them were greatly shocked. First was Yu Yuanjun. He almost cried out in alarm.
'A Soul-Protecting Pill! This senior is talking about a Soul-Protecting Pill! That's a Sixth-rank healing pill! Even if the family's Nascent Soul ancestor took it out, it would be heart-wrenching. And the opponent is clearly just a Golden Core cultivator, yet he... used... used it...'
Yu Yuanjun now also knew that Li Yan should also be a Foundation Establishment cultivator. The lives of ten, a hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators might not be worth a single "Soul-Protecting Pill."
But what he didn't know was that if Li Yan hadn't fainted so quickly, with Li Yan's caution and prudence, everything would have been in his plan.
His divine sense was originally going to take out a legendary Eighth-rank medicinal pill that simply didn't exist in the Desolate Moon Continent. But something had changed, and everything had gone in an unknown direction.
And Hu Xiaowang and the others were shocked that with Martial Uncle Wei's means, he actually said that Li Yan's injuries would ultimately depend on himself. Li Yan's life was already in danger. Bai Rou's already pale face became almost transparent.
But the reality was not just that. Wei Zhongran was already downplaying it. The most serious part of Li Yan's injuries was his internal organs, with more than sixty percent of them ruptured.
Although the "Soul-Protecting Pill" was protecting his organs and divine soul, this physical body probably couldn't be saved. A person whose internal organs were almost completely destroyed could only survive among cultivators.
If Wei Zhongran had been a little later, even Li Yan's divine soul might have dissipated. So this time, he also acted quickly and with all his strength.
Looking at the unconscious Li Yan, Wei Zhongran thought of the scene he had sensed with his divine sense before.
'Even I couldn't see through this child's cultivation. His true realm should have reached the Pseudo-Core Realm. But even so, according to what Bai Rou said, how could he hold off a Mid-stage Golden Core demonic cultivator for nearly twenty breaths?'
'I'm afraid that just this feat alone, no one among the Foundation Establishment disciples in the sect can do it. It's truly amazing. His means have far surpassed my own at that realm back then.'
'He must have had his own great fortune during his training this year. It's just a pity about this cultivation of his. I'm afraid it will be difficult to preserve.'
'It's already not easy to protect his divine soul from dissipating now. Next, after his divine soul condenses, he can only find a new body for Body Seizure. It's just a pity about his Fragmented Poison Body!'
Thinking of the Fragmented Poison Body, suddenly, Wei Zhongran's heart paused. It was as if a bolt of lightning had flashed through his mind. 'That's not right!'