Living steadily in the world of gods and mystery

Passersby on the road only saw a blur before a gust of wind passed by, and then he had vanished from sight.

Within a short while, Chen Li had already arrived at the city gates.

In the chilly early hours of late autumn, with few people entering or leaving the city, Chen Li stood to one side, pretending to be waiting for someone, pacing back and forth, surrounded by mist that made it hard to see more than a vague human figure ten meters away.

Seconds and minutes ticked by.

Chen Li waited anxiously.

And he waited for half an hour.

Suddenly, there came the sound of something tearing through the air from the distance. At first, it was hardly noticeable, but in the blink of an eye, the noise grew louder, clearly different from the ordinary sound of Qi Cultivation realm practitioners flying.

"He’s coming!" Chen Li’s heart began to pound violently, and his palms grew slightly moist as he grasped the hilt of his sword, quickly tightening his hold.

Since his arrival in this world, his hands had been stained with blood.

But facing a real battle for life and death,

he found himself as nervous as if it were his first fight.

The whooshing sound drew nearer,

closing in.

He took one last deep breath and began to cast the Body Protection Skill.

At the same time, he composed himself, not betraying a hint of his emotions.

Soon enough, a figure landed on the ground. It was Zhou Xutang, his face dark with ill-intent. Sensing something, he glanced in surprise at Chen Li, who was shrouded in a Protective Shield, not far away.

Zhou Xutang didn’t pay him much attention and started walking swiftly toward the city gates.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have been so careless, but at that moment, all he could think about was capturing Chen Li and interrogating him about the powers behind him.

He never expected that his adversary was right beside him or that a deadly assassination attempt was about to unfold.

Just as he turned around,

Chen Li sprang into action, moving as fast as lightning.

In two strides, he had covered over ten meters.

Zhou Xutang, with his keen Spiritual Sense, changed color dramatically and spun around abruptly.

A figure, like a phantom, flashed towards him and arrived right in front of him.

"You..." Zhou Xutang started to gather Mana around his body, forming a luminous layer of Mana, and had barely uttered a word,

when a light a hundred times more blinding than the sun sprang from the opponent’s eyes. Zhou Xutang instinctively closed his eyes, and in the split second of his distraction, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom, a terrifying sword light, dragging thick air with it, had already penetrated his defenses.

The long sword stabbed into his chest and protruded from his back, creating a bloody hole.

At the same time, Chen Li’s arm was severed into three pieces.

Everything happened so unexpectedly, in a flash, all within the blink of an eye.

"Looking for death!" Zhou Xutang’s eyes bulged in rage, and he spat out a mouthful of blood. A mixture of shock, fear, and anger surged through him. Mana raged throughout his body, shaking the world around him as if it too felt the tremor. He slapped a palm towards Chen Li.

"Bang!"

Chen Li was swept away, and the Protective Shield dimmed violently, but it held.

Zhou Xutang, gravely injured, was terrified.

He turned to flee.

Chen Li’s eyes were cold with murderous intent. He took the sword from his severed right hand with his left, and at the same time, he propelled himself forward with a push of his toes, catching up immediately.

Zhou Xutang had no choice but to turn back and take out a Magic Artifact.

It was a small black sword,

rife with a sharp aura.

Like a blade to the face, it made one’s hair stand on end.

However, before he could react,

he was again blinded by a Flash Skill, followed quickly by a Scolding Skill. Once he came to his senses, a cold sword light had already slid across his neck, and his head soared into the air.

A single stroke beheaded him.

The headless body stumbled a few steps and fell to the ground with a heavy thud, twitching uncontrollably.

Chen Li quickly stepped forward, snatching his Five Directions Storage Bag and the Magic Artifact in his hand. He looked at the distorted, fierce face and the head that still refused to close its eyes in death. Considering potential dangers, he suddenly lifted his foot and stomped down hard on the head.

With a "bang,"

the head burst like a watermelon under his foot,

shattering even the rocky ground beneath.

He swiftly laid down two Evil-Breaking Talismans, took a few steps, and vanished into the thick fog.

...

Along the way, Chen Li continually changed his appearance, allowing his tense nerves to finally relax slightly.

"There shouldn’t be any witnesses!"

Thanks to today’s thick fog, visibility was extremely low.

Furthermore, the battle was incredibly brief, lasting only a few seconds, making it even less likely that there were any witnesses.

"Finally, that great danger is gone!"

The ordeal was truly perilous.

If not for the surprise attack, had it been a head-on fight, the outcome would have been uncertain, hovering between two possibilities.

"Sigh, I hope this is the last risk like that," Chen Li silently lamented in his heart.

But he knew well,

that was just wishful thinking.

In this world, where the strong prey on the weak and strength is revered, if you don’t kill, others will kill you. There is simply no reasoning to it.

Many times, calamity descends from the heavens while one sits peacefully at home.

Chen Li hurried back, remaining alert to his surroundings until he reached home, where he finally let his guard down completely.

"Hiss!"

In the heat of battle, he hadn’t felt the pain of his wounds, but as he relaxed, not only his severed arm but his entire body throbbed with a tearing pain.

The sonic boom of that sword slash.

It was a desperate move, risking his very life.

Damage the enemy a thousand, oneself eight hundred.

He glanced at his right palm, now a blurry mess of flesh and blood, just a minor injury compared to his right arm, which was completely broken into three pieces.

Such was the immense strain of a sonic-speed strike on the body; it was one thing to practice on the air, but when used against an enemy, even steel would deform, let alone an arm. With the strength of his body, he could not withstand such an attack.

The most troublesome part was that such a wound could not be directly treated with the Hemostasis Healing Skill.

Chen Li closed his eyes and sensed his condition, his face turning ugly.

"A comminuted fracture... luckily, it’s not pulverized."

With his left hand, he probed the broken arm, and guided by his senses, he quickly repositioned the fragmented bones, even nudging several small pieces back to their original spots. The intense pain made him tremble all over, breaking out in a cold sweat.

He found a piece of torn cloth and carefully wrapped his right arm, binding it round and round.

He moved his right hand a little.

"I can barely move it now!"

He began to apply the Hemostasis Healing Skill.

However, it was failure, failure, and still failure.

The Hemostasis Healing Skill was no low-level technique.

Incantation and hand seals, neither could be lacking.

The broken right hand had completely lost its former dexterity.

"Damn it!" Chen Li cursed, unable to contain his anger.

He took a deep breath, forcibly calmed himself down, and after numerous attempts, he finally managed to barely succeed in casting the spell. He repositioned the slightly misaligned broken bones once more.

Then he waited quietly for recovery.

"Wonder how far Zhou Hong has run by now."

The wound became itchier, indicating it was rapidly healing.

Having nothing else to do, he picked up the storage bag left by the Zhou Family patriarch, poured Spiritual Power into it for refining, and attempted to erase the Foundation Establishment expert’s spirit imprint, which was far from easy for a Qi Cultivation practitioner to remove.

Fortunately, this was, after all, an imprint without a source.

Under his constant flow of Spiritual Power,

The spirit imprint was soon eroded and overwhelmed.

"So it’s a Five Directions Storage Bag!" Chen Li showed a hint of joy on his face.

Such a storage bag.

The Magic Artifact shop of the Longevity Sect had them for sale.

Worth three Top-grade Spirit Stones.

Just this storage bag alone was worth all his possessions (of course not counting Magic Artifacts and robes).

And this was just the bag itself.

Inside were more than a dozen bottles of elixirs,

A stack of Talismans,

A scroll,

A pile of Spirit Stones,

Three Magic Artifacts,

Four robes,

And various other miscellaneous items.

"What kind of Spirit Stone is this?" He took one out of the storage bag.

The Spirit Stone was translucent and extremely pure; a slight sensing was enough to feel the enormous Spiritual Power precipitated within.

"Could it be a Top-grade Spirit Stone?" Chen Li wondered silently.

The more Chen Li thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

There were four such Spirit Stones in the storage bag; if they were Top-grade Spirit Stones, then just these four were equivalent to at least four hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones.

Chen Li simply took all the Spirit Stones out of the storage bag and placed them on the table, counting carefully—152 Mid-grade Spirit Stones, 43 Low-grade Spirit Stones, plus the four Top-grade Spirit Stones.

Converted to Mid-grade Spirit Stones, that was a total of 552.

"Hiss, Foundation Establishment cultivators are indeed too rich."

He continued to take inventory.

The only scroll in the storage bag was titled "Rainbow Transformation Skill."

Chen Li picked it up, flipped through it, and realized it was a Second Order first-level technique, completely beyond his current capacity to use.

As for the Magic Artifacts and robes,

Aside from one that seemed to be of Second Order,

The rest were all First Order.

"Wait, aren’t these First Order items the belongings of Zhao Lin and the others!?" Chen Li felt more and more familiar with them as he examined them closely; they seemed almost recognizable, suggesting that the odds were not good for Zhao Lin and his companions.

"Eh, what’s this!" He took out a flat jade plaque.