Dumbfounded
Even though Ye Ruoshui had said this before, Monsters on Luo Shen Mountain don’t have souls, so all of his skills combined would not have any effect.
But Qinghan was obviously not willing to believe this and wanted to try it out. While simultaneously making hand movements, the sword light hacked towards the monster in front of him.
As expected, the purple light passed through! Black fog enveloped a few crocodile monsters, and they did not even react in the slightest. As before, their eyes suffused with blood stared lifelessly at Qinghan.
However, Qinghan discovered an advantage. The black fog could influence the monsters’ sense of sight, but if he stayed within the fog, he would not be affected in the slightest.
“Bang”
As the sword light sliced downwards, the closest crocodile beast heard the sound of wind, and quickly dashed to the side, resulting in the sword light missing, and only scraped the surface of its skin, making it fly outwards.
As this was happening, the remaining 3 crocodile monster’s blood red eyes darted around, looking for Qinghan. In the end, they could not find anything, so they rushed towards the origin of the sound with 6 sharp claws in a flurry.
“Mysterious Trace Step”
Qinghan felt more relaxed, his footsteps were light and swayed with the wind. He effortlessly dodged through the three monster’s attacks and with a wave of his left hand, ferociously gouged a hole in one of the monster’s body.
“Bang”
The Monster that had been attacked collapsed on the yellow sand and shook the ground resulting in dust flying everywhere. This had rattled his brains, but still immediately burrowed in the ground, leaving behind his tail. Its tail swung around a little before quickly disappearing beneath the yellow sand.
“Bang. Bang. Bang.”
Qinghan tactlessly knocked the other 3 crocodile beasts flying. They were very peculiar because as soon as they were sent flying, they briskly ran away, as if they did not like to fight.
In an instant, the surroundings were filled with only boundless yellow sand, and Qinghan himself.
Hoo… Qinghan let out a long breath of cold air. The crocodile-like monster’s defenses were too strong. His own close-range heavy attack couldn’t even break one of its scales. He guessed that he had to use Battle Qi to cause internal energies to force them to run away.
He realised that his own attacking power was too low, but what was most important was that his martial arts were too weak.
Qinghan depressingly breathed in a breath of air. There was no helping it. From when he was a child, he was treated like a piece of trash in the Ye Family. He had never been bestowed upon high-level martial arts. His only attacking methods was the skill that all Ye people knew; “Ye Huang’s 7 Forms”.(TN: correct me if I’m wrong)
Although Ye Huang’s 7 Forms was rumoured to be transcribed from the first ancestor’s famed technique, if learn to the absolute peak, one could crush mountains and split the earth.
However, no one had ever learnt this martial arts to that level, or it was believed by the clan that the real 7 Forms had already been lost, and that these were only a fake copy.
Before the battle, the clan did in fact give him a sacred book and countless cultivation tips, but these were the life-protecting Mysterious Trace Step, and the book for Battle Qi cultivation. There wasn’t a book in regards to high level attacking martial arts.
Ever since Qinghan received the integration technique “Soul-Blackout”, he had never thought about cultivating in martial arts. He only thought about increasing his Battle Qi and soul realm.
At that moment,he felt that rather than learn martial arts, he should raise his BAttle Qi more.
After all, with his integration technique, everyone in the same soul real as him and below, he could immediately kill, but people with soul realm higher than him could immediately kill him, even if he learnt martial arts.
Now, he felt boundless regret in not asking Ye Shisan and Ye Qingqu about how they trained in the high levelled martial arts.
If he had, the him today would not have suffered as many losses. The crocodile-like beast obviously had much lower soul realms, but they had put him in a very difficult situation.
Qinghan made a decision to quickly find the safe space near the exit and to cultivate for about a year or so. Who knows, he might advance his level in the Mysterious Trace Step and the Seven Techniques of the Ye Emperor.
After resting a little, Qinghan started to run towards where the mirage of the exit had appeared. In his past life, he had some knowledge regarding mirages.Mirages are are created when light is refracted, so the probability of a mirage being in line of the person seeing it is quite high.
“Whoosh.”
But, after he had already walked for an hour, from beneath the yellow sands in front of him, a few crocodile-like beasts appeared once again. As soon as they had emerged, the immediately attacked Qinghan.
“Whoosh.”
Having experience fighting these beasts, Qinghan did not seem to mind them at all, abruptly utilising his integration technique Soul-Blackout.
Using the black fog to influence the beasts’ eyesight and judgement, he quickly fended off these few crocodile-like monster. Qinghan then once again continued in a straight line.
However, en route, he observed that the beasts that are attacking have become more abundant. It had started from a few, and now it had become more than ten at a time.
After repelling the last crocodile-like beast, Qinghan let out a forced laugh. From head to toe, his clothes had already been reduced to rags. On his blood covered body, many wounds could be found. Wounds that had not healed from before opened up once again.
He helplessly tore the rags from his body, and brought out a golden piece of leather armour from within his bag.
This armour was acquired from the Prefecture War. Originally, Qinghan didn’t wear it was it was too big, but right now, there was no other option except to put it on.
…..
Eh!!! Instead of it being slightly oversized, it seemed more like a bath towel on him. He had to use his broken rags to tie it onto himself. Even though it looked very funny, there was no helping it. Although Qinghan can heal whenever he is hurt, is still made from flesh and bones, so he is still afraid of getting hurt.
Continuing to move forward, Qinghan had a feeling he was getting quite close to the end. Despite this feeling being nonsensical, he still walked onwards following his gut.
The time between the appearances of the crocodile-like beasts became smaller and smaller as more and more of them started to pop out.
As soon as Qinghan had started to wear his leather armour, his defense had improved greatly. He only needed to protect his head as other areas were covered by the leather armour and his Battle Qi.
Now, he could feel more relaxed, except the consumption of his Battle Qi had increased.
“Hoo.”
Just like this, he trudged along with difficult for another half an hour. Finally, Qinghan laid eyes upon the black terrace he had seen before, and also the pitch black exit.
“Oh no, don’t play with me like this…”
In the distance, outside the dark cave entrance, there was a half-transparent dome exactly the same as the one outside the Puppet passageway.
The reason why Qinghan was sure this wasn’t a mirage was becuase the mirage from beofre did not have a dome.
The only thing is… outside the dome in the yellow sand, there were countless crocodile-like beasts. They were all crouched on the ground, enveloping the half-transparent dome. They were so densely packed that there were easily over ten thousand of them.
He had found the exit, but how was he to get through?
There were so many that not even water could pass between them. These beasts did not attack each other, so just thinking about squeezing through required all his effort.
Qinghan scratched his hair, and jsut stood there, dumbfounded.