Chapter 353 Forest of Darkness
The lake was three thousand miles wide and flat as a mirror. As soon as he caught sight of it, Long Chen urged Little Snow in its direction.
Little Snow was extremely fast, and those thousands of miles were traversed in just a short time.
“Hide in the spiritual space for a moment.” Long Chen activated his Spiritual Strength to return Little Snow to his spiritual space. Glancing back at the Barbaric Wind Beast, he laughed mischievously.
“This little chase of ours is over. I’ll definitely remember you, and hopefully we’ll meet again!”
Long Chen cupped his fists in its direction and leaped into the lake, rapidly swimming to the bottom. The lake was extremely deep, almost like an abyss, and just a few dozen meters from the shore, the water level reached a depth of hundreds of meters.
Suddenly, the water trembled and Long Chen felt a powerful undercurrent rushing towards him, accompanied by a terrifying pressure. He hastily swam further.
He could hear the Barbaric Wind Beast’s angry roar. Long Chen knew that it was currently attacking the lake.
Long Chen followed the undercurrent all the way to the center of the lake. More and more undercurrents shot out around him, most likely created by wind blades from the Barbaric Wind Beast.
However, the lake water was obstructing most of that attacking power. Other than the first few being a bit uncomfortable to Long Chen, the rest weren’t able to pose any threat to him once he was deeper.
At the center of the lake, the depth had reached a terrifying three thousand meters. The water pressure was strong, but it didn’t pose any danger to Long Chen.
Just like that, Long Chen hid in a crack at the bottom of the lake, using his divine sense to keep track of the activity above water. At the beginning, the lake water had been constantly shaking, with countless fish being killed by the impacts.
However, those impacts were unable to threaten him. The crazy bombardment continued for two hours before gradually pausing. Perhaps the Barbaric Wind Beast had already left.
Long Chen bitterly endured for a full day at the bottom of the lake before swimming back up to the surface. When he was about to reach the surface, he saw there were countless fish that were dead, floating on the surface. Many of them were species that Long Chen didn’t recognize.
Evildoer! Killing the innocent, and then shamelessly wasting it all! If only Wilde were here.
Long Chen stealthily stuck his head out from the crowd of dead fish, when the air suddenly shook.
“Shit!” Long Chen hastily dived back into the water.
BOOM!
A huge wind blade shot through the water. Even though Long Chen had reacted quickly, he had only reached a depth of thirty meters before a terrifying wave of energy struck him. It was as if a hammer had smashed him, and he vomited a mouthful of blood.
At the same time, a strange energy struck his head. He became incredibly dizzy, and almost directly fainted.
Long Chen was horrified. He endured the intense pain in his head and continued swimming downwards.
Continuous explosions rang out and Long Chen’s head continued to buzz. He felt like his head might split apart.
Fuck, now I know how those fish died. They weren’t killed by direct hits, but by the vibrations of the water from its attacks.
Long Chen once more reached the bottom of the lake, feeling like his head might split open. This time it had really been too dangerous. If he had lost consciousness, it would have been all too likely for him to have died.
“This is no solution… the Barbaric Wind Beast wants to kill me and definitely won’t leave this place. I have to think of a way to get out of here.”
He began to swim over to the other shore. The part of the shore he chose to go to was like a steep cliff. It was still extremely deep here, and as long as he didn’t swim up, he still wouldn’t be noticed.
However, Long Chen didn’t dare climb ashore. The lake might be three thousand miles wide, but that distance was nothing to the terrifying Barbaric Wind Beast.
With its speed and its control over wind energy, it would easily be able to run across the water. These three thousand miles were no obstruction to it.
I guess I can only use this clumsy method.
Long Chen’s Spiritual Strength spread out and a golden page appeared in front of him. He began to cut through the rock. He wanted to cut a tunnel that stretched far away enough from here that it was out of the Barbaric Wind Beast’s line of sight.
Although this method was a bit clumsy, Long Chen was unable to think of a better solution. It wasn’t as if he could try to compete in terms of patience.
Magical Beasts had shocking lifespans. A year was nothing to them. However, Long Chen would be killed if he waited a whole year.
So he didn’t dare compete with it in terms of patience. He still needed to go looking for more opportunities for himself. He could sense that the mysterious feeling of something summoning him was growing more intense. That should be the greatest opportunity for him.
He had no idea what this golden page was made of. It was thin as paper, but when he used Spiritual Strength to control it, it was capable of piercing iron like it was mud. Its sharpness was terrifying.
The golden page cut through this rock like a sharp blade cutting through tofu. In just a couple of breaths' time, a channel thick enough for him had been cut into the rock.
Long Chen did this all very carefully. He replaced the rock behind him as he went. If he made too big of a movement, then it would be noticed by the Barbaric Wind Beast.
However, Long Chen was pleasantly surprised to find that after he had excavated just a couple hundred meters, he actually managed to connect to a natural underground cave.
And the best thing about it was that he could feel wind within the cave. In other words, this cave had to be connected to the surface.
He sensed the wind and began walking with the wind. Generally, it was colder underground than the surface, so the wind would usually blow from underground to the surface.
In less than six hours of wandering underground, Long Chen finally saw light ahead. He was filled with an incomparable sensation of freedom.
He carefully went to the edge of the cave and used his divine sense to scout the surroundings. Only when Long Chen confirmed this wasn’t near the lake did he dare walk out.
He realized he had come out from halfway up a mountain. He hastily concealed his aura and snuck his way to the top of the mountain.
As he had expected, he hadn’t gone far.
From the top of the mountain, he could see the lake that was now over two hundred miles away. The Barbaric Wind Beast was still closely staring into the lake.
Hehe, just keep guarding here. I’ll be leaving first.
Although Long Chen knew he no longer needed to be so careful here, he had truly been scared by the Barbaric Wind Beast.
He carefully crept away. Only when he was two mountains further away did he finally relax.
Over these past few days of being chased by the Barbaric Wind Beast, Long Chen might have appeared relaxed, but in truth, his nerves had been constantly stretched taut. Even now that he had shaken off the Barbaric Wind Beast, he still almost felt like its huge head would come up from behind and swallow him at any moment.
Being chased by a terrifying fifth rank Magical Beast was practically a nightmare. If it had been any other person, then even if they managed to survive after being chased for that long, they probably would have had a mental collapse.
Now that he was further away, Long Chen began to increase his speed. When he was finally tens of thousands of miles away, he finally allowed himself to completely relax. He found a hidden area to rest.
His mental strain far surpassed the exhaustion of his body. Long Chen found a cave and summoned out Little Snow. With Little Snow guarding him, he slept deeply while lying on Little Snow’s side.
Even Tendon Transformation experts needed to sleep. That allowed them to relax in the face of the pressure they were under. Long Chen slept soundly for three whole days before finally opening his eyes, feeling completely refreshed.
“Little Snow, enter the spiritual space. We’ll work together to make it bigger.”
Long Chen needed to increase the size of his spiritual space. Originally, three thousand meters was more than enough for Little Snow. But with the addition of the Wind Spirit Crystal, there were now terrifying gales surging around in his spiritual space.
Although there were no signs that it would cause the spiritual space to collapse for the moment, it was possible that it would pose a threat in the future. So now that he had escaped from the Barbaric Wind Beast’s chase, Long Chen was planning on settling this matter. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to put his heart at ease.
Once he put Little Snow in his spiritual space, Long Chen used his Spiritual Strength to communicate with him. “I want to increase the size of the spiritual space. I’ll be using the Wind Spirit Crystal’s energy to evenly expand it. Little Snow, you do your best to try to spread the Wind Spirit Crystal’s energy evenly throughout the space.”
“Aowu!”
Long Chen nodded. Little Snow was still growing smarter. He was easily on the level of a human, and capable of comprehending such things.
“I’m starting. Don’t be nervous.”
Long Chen took a deep breath. His mind-sea shook, and his Spiritual Strength began to circulate.
Within Long Chen’s boundless mind-sea, there was a small sphere that was practically just a speck of dust in this space. That was his spiritual space.
Ordinary cultivators were unable to expand their spiritual space. They would normally have to destroy the original one to create a brand new spiritual space.
As a person’s Spiritual Strength grew stronger, it would allow them to create larger and more stable spiritual spaces. However, it would exhaust far more time. It could easily take months. Long Chen didn’t have that much time.
So Long Chen was planning on loosening the restrictions of his spiritual space, and then borrowing the Wind Spirit Crystal’s energy to slowly expand it like slowly blowing a bubble.
In order to do this, there were two requirements. One was that there needed to be energy inside the spiritual space that was evenly expanding it. The other was that the owner’s Spiritual Strength had to have reached an abnormal level. Otherwise, there was a risk of the spiritual space exploding. However, this wasn’t anything difficult for Long Chen and Little Snow.
Three days later, the spiritual space in Long Chen’s mind-sea had reached a width of thirty thousand meters. Long Chen gave Little Snow a thumbs-up. Little Snow’s control had been perfect, and there had been no danger the entire time.
Long Chen adjusted himself slightly. He finally took off the baby mask and revealed his face. He would reveal his real face to the world.
Although that would draw over countless people wanting to kill him, he had already made his decision. In the future, he would not run from those situations. If you want to kill me, then come. I’ll welcome you at any time.
Looking at the map, he saw that not far from this place was a forest. A red warning marker was drawn over it.
“The Forest of Darkness.”
Long Chen smiled. Forests definitely had various kinds of precious medicinal ingredients. He definitely had to take a look.
He began to travel in its direction. After just a couple hundred miles, the vegetation started to become increasingly dense.
Suddenly, Long Chen’s divine sense noticed three figures in an open space, and a pleasantly surprised expression appeared on his face.
“I thought I’d have to search everywhere for you. But instead, you appear in front of me like this, hehe!”