Chapter 54: Cave-Dwelling Demonic Creature

  By using the Thought Preservation Teique to enter a state of tranquility before sleep, oains what is called ‘Preserving the Spirit and Nourishing the Body,’ also known as ‘Fetal Breathing.’

  This was the optimal way to rest. In that tranquil state, h between dream and non-dream, one seamlessly aligns scious thought with the body’s instincts, ing the nourishment stored within and repairing, shaping the body in an ideal manner.

  One or two shi of this spirit-preserving sleep is enough to meet the needs of an ordinary person for aire day. Even if injured or depleted, one recover by sleeping a bit longer.

  Upon waking, An Ji brimming with energy, his mind clear and refreshed. Though there was still a faint ache in some of his muscles and his injuries had not fully healed, that was merely due to insuffit nourishment in his body and the retively short rest.

  “I’m i shape.”

  His heart beat powerfully as An Jing stood up a smoothly from the beam down to the floor. “Anything unusual?”

  At his forehead, the Sword Spirit’s mark slowly withdrew into his skin. “No. Nothing at all happened.”

  “That’s good.” An Jing’s eyes shone brightly, his vigor restored to a peak as he sed the surroundings. “If something had ambushed me right when I arrived, I could only have brought out less than half my strength. If it had ambushed me while I was resting, I would at most have been able to use sixty to seventy pert.”

  “But now, I bring out at least y pert of my power.”

  No matter whether that potentially existent demonic creature specialized ial assaults resent—whether it was cautiously from the sidelines or waiting for prey to stumble into its trap—at the very least, An Jing had restored himself to the best state he possibly could.

  After resting, An Jing began to examihe two paths leading in and out.

  The route back, of course, was the same one by which those corpses had e—in other words, a road leading to the “exit of these ruins.”

  The forward route was the path those corpses had taken to get here, the ohey inteo explore further—leading to the “depths of the ruins.”

  Both An Jing and the Sword Spirit felt that venturing deeper was not a good idea. “Even specialized exploration teams were destroyed here. With our level of strength, going deeper would be suicidal.”

  Still, they o at least do a brief probe of what y ahead.

  That forward route y at the side and rear of the a ruins’ loft—a deep, winding corridor leading far below the earth. An Jing sensed repeated gusts of moist, warm air rising from within. “There’s a hot spring underground? Seems like there might be other ventition shafts…”

  He shook his head slightly, having no iion to iigate further—where there is heat and water, there is likely life. The deeper one goes, the greater the danger.

  As for the way back…

  “Something’s been here.”

  Just as he reached the edge of the passage behind the corpses, An Jing abruptly halted. The Sword Spirit was quite curious. “Oh? How did you figure that out?”

  Frowning, An Jing studied one of the corpses he had previously searched. “After I sged it back then, I deliberately pced this skeleton here, stag the bones.”

  “But now, the bones have been scattered, with signs of being trampled.”

  An Jing crouched warily, jade dagger in hand, examining the footprints. Yet he could not dis what sort of creature had made them. “Strange. Not paw prints, not hoof prints, not a shoe, nor something like a monkey…”

  “Instead, it looks like some kind of crawling creature, something with tentacles. Could it be an octopus from an underground hot spring? Ohat eats brains and souls?”

  “No, that’s not it either. It looks more like…”

  Grass-like vines.

  On the crushed remains, An Jing noticed faint glowing marks.

  He thought of the luminous vines in the underground cavern behind him.

  He had avoided those glowing vines by hiding ihe ruins’ loft, allowing himself three shi of undisturbed rest.

  —Hoo.

  A faint gust of cold wind blew past.

  Without the slightest hesitation, An Jing spun around while sshing his palm with the jade dagger!

  The Scarlet Death Bde instantly re-formed. Following the motion of his pivoting waist aended arm, it became a full crimson arc, cleaving straight at the dark figure that had suddenly appeared behind him!

  Pffft! Something was sliced open with a wet sptter. Yet, apanied by a bizarre howl e, tless tangled vines immediately transformed into seven ht whip-like shadows, shing toward An Jing!

  But rather thareating, An Jing advanced, because a whip’s greatest destructive power lies at its tip, while up close it cks force.Meanwhile, the blood-hued Scarlet Death Bde in his hand was inparably sharp; with each swing, vier vine was severed on the spot, as though slig paper or chopping through grass. In the blink of an eye, four or five vines had been cut off.

  Afterward, An Jing took a proper two-handed grip on the longsword. Its bde-light flickered as he thrust straight into the ter of that dark figure’s body.

  Then, with a crisp, decisive slig sound, An Jing pulled and dragged the bde, cutting the demonic creature’s body ly into two!

  Yet in that same moment, just as An Jing rexed his guard a fra, he heard the Sword Spirit’s warning: “Focus your mind, stay alert!This demonic creature isn’t dead yet!”

  “Right, it’s vine-like!” An Jing immediately uood: if things were as he suspected, this demonic creature could hardly be killed simply by severing its body.

  Sure enough, in the very instant, all the luminous vihroughout the cavern fred brilliantly!

  They shoh an indest white glow, shaped like an imme, illuminating the dim underground cavern as though it were broad daylight!

  The moment they burst into radiance, an invisible Divine Soul shockwave spread out—a disturbaent enough to instantly kill any martial artist at the Internal Energy stage—filling the entire cave.

  At the same time, the vine mass that had been severed began wriggling anew, preparing to lu An Jing!

  However, aside from a slight sway of his body, An Jing still clutched his sword firmly.

  A scarlet wheel of light flickered and vanished in an instant.

  His arm, ched around the sword’s hilt, swung it in a bzing crimson trajectory, unleashing a razor-sharp edge in three strikes: oical and two horizontal.

  Wherever the bde passed, the lunging vine mass was first divided into four parts, then six, the.

  Each streak of Sword Qi, just like the ssh An Jing had unleashed when he broke through to Internal Energy, burst forth with vigorous power, carving rifts into the ground and sending dust flying everywhere.

  The vine mass, sliced apart once more, colpsed to the ground, and the many glowing vihat had unleashed the mental assault dimmed as well. The entire cavern lunged into darkness.

  All that remained was the gleam in An Jing’s eyes and the Death Bde in his hand, flowing with a fiery scarlet radiance.

  “It was a bit easier to deal with than I expected—an ambush-type demonic creature.”

  Having pletely taken care of the oppo, An Jing exhaled a deep sigh of relief and shook his head, feeling somewhat fatigued.

  With the Sword Spirit proteg him and the blessing of his Heaven-Ordained Fate, An Jing’s mental resistance was truly not low.

  Especially since he had been on guard, holding vigin his heart. Thus, evehis vine demonic creature unched a full-strength assault on his Divine Soul, he merely froze for an instant, feeling a stab of pain in his skull—but it was far from enough to render him incapable of a.

  Since even its ultimate trump card had little effe him, what followed was iably a one-sided sughter. After catg his breath, An Jing inteo chop these vine masses into tiny bits, killing them thhly.

  However, halfway through cutting them apart, An Jing noticed something out of the ordinary:

  A human skull.

  (End of Chapter)