A Night of Desperation

Chapter 367: Estimation of 365, three

Between the dense forest lands, gray mist pervaded, with stooped black silhouettes slowly swaying as they walked about.

These figures were carrying pitch-black pouches, bending their bodies, emitting bursts of wails unconsciously, reminiscent of an old man’s groans.

Hoo!

In an instant, a breeze blew by.

Suddenly, there appeared a burly figure in the woods.

Yu Hong frowned as he looked at the figures in front of him.

’The Dragon Lizard has disappeared again… entering here, it vanished in a flash, losing contact… It seems to be the Spiritual Domain. And it’s very likely a wide expanse

His expression grew increasingly grim, unable to connect with Agrius’s senses either.

’It seems I can only rely on myself now.’

Different from the previous Spirit Disaster Monsters, these stooped figures completely ignored him even as he approached within ten meters.

Yu Hong walked up to one of the figures carrying a pouch, taking a careful look.

This was an elderly man with white hair whose skin was festering all over, his face covered in densely packed pustules, and his features indistinguishable.

The aging skin exposed on his arms and lower legs beneath his trousers further indicated his age.

If it were just that, at most he would be an old man looking to be in agonizing pain from illness.

But the black cloth bag on his back changed everything.

Who knows what was inside that pouch, bulging as if something alive was squirming and heaving within.

The old man gripped the neck of the pouch tightly with both hands, shuffling forward step by step, his movements arduous and slow.

When Yu Hong got close, he could smell an indescribable foul stench, strange and unnatural, evoking thoughts of dryness, dust, and darkness.

The other didn’t attack him, and he didn’t bother doing anything himself; after observing for a bit, he walked past this group of old men carrying black pouches.

The further he walked in, the denser the number of the pouch carriers became.

Yu Hong ventured in for over ten minutes, and the number of pouch carriers he saw had exceeded over a thousand.

Moreover, the environmental data on the multimeter had skyrocketed to over a hundred in intensity. This had reached his current limit of spiritual height.

Here, this was merely the environmental value of the spiritual fluctuations disseminated by the Spirit Disaster Monsters.

This made his heart grow heavier.

Crossing hill after hill.

Gradually the number of pouch carriers began to decrease.

In their place were densely packed black meat pouches covering the ground.

Each of these pouches was the size of a washbasin, their surfaces gleaming as if they were balloons, expanding and contracting as if breathing.

They grew on the ground, with large root systems beneath, seemingly absorbing nutrients from the earth.

Yu Hong tried to approach one of the meat pouches, squatting down to reach out and touch.

Without the Dragon Lizard and Agrius, he seemed to be not seen as an enemy here.

His hand lightly brushed over the thin membrane on the surface of the meat pouch.

Cool to the touch, like rubbing a ballooned bladder.

Even through the membrane, he could feel countless tiny insects scurrying about inside.

Yu Hong took out the multimeter, attached it, and took a measurement.

’1234.138.’

The spiritual fluctuation data inside was clearly compounded together; such a high value indicated a large number of small entities hidden within.

Without disturbing these creatures, he stood up and continued deeper.

Several hundreds of meters into the depths, he could gradually see the extensive ruins of the Zihe Palace.

However, around these gray-white buildings, there were quite a few clusters of silver-armored snake-headed entities patrolling.

Among them, a few golden-armored dragon-headed entities were mixed.

’They’ve actually formed an organization This was the first time Yu Hong had seen the Source Disaster exhibit such strong organization.

This gave him an extremely ominous premonition.

After carefully observing the existing number of Spirit Disaster entities and making sure, he slowly walked out of the forest and directly towards the Taoist Palace.

Swoosh!

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of the silver-armored snake-headed entities all turned their heads in unison to look in his direction.

Dense spiritual fluctuations, like a barrage of arrows, locked onto Yu Hong instantly.

The data on his multimeter soared to tens of thousands!

Putting away the meter.

"This is a test."

Yu Hong extended his right hand, palm shaped like a blade, covered in a layer of white luminescent Inner Strength.

"Still Inner Strength, at ten percent."

Using mere physical strength would not hit these creatures; only by combining it with Inner Strength could he actually strike and harm them.

Swoosh!

As soon as Yu Hong’s words fell, he turned into a white streak, rushing like lightning into the midst of the Spirit Disaster crowd.

His hand blade casually cleaved through, and with a single slash through the crowd, Spirit Disaster bodies were cut open and exploded.

Boom boom boom boom!

After a few seconds.

Hundreds of the snake-headed entities present had all exploded, turning into countless wisps of gray fog and vanishing.

The golden-armored dragon-headed entities, on the other hand, held long spears and began to rush towards Yu Hong.

"Kneel down!"

"Kneel down!"

"Kneel down!!"

Waves of spiritual fluctuations impacted Yu Hong’s mind.

But they were blocked by his own spiritual power combined with Inner Strength.

His own spiritual power, combined with the amplification of the Inheritance Dao Artifact Guang Han, had already reached over three hundred. Although it was still a small amount, when added to his Inner Strength and a strand of Divine Intent within the Dao Artifact, it seemed not difficult to block such a distance spiritual shock.

Inner Strength can indeed block spiritual shocks, but when not deploying Inner Strength, one is extremely vulnerable.

Now that Yu Hong had activated his Inner Strength, he was like a child wearing heavy armor; the Inner Strength was the armor. However, he could not keep burning Inner Strength all the time, remaining in that explosive state. His Inner Strength was not so plentiful as to sustain burning continuously.

Therefore, increasing his own spiritual strength had become the only choice.

Fortunately, he didn’t really test how much spiritual shock he could withstand, but promptly covered his entire body with Inner Qi to isolate the shock.

This was like adding an extra layer of necessarily tough shell outside his body.

As long as his Inner Strength wasn’t exhausted, he would be fine.

Gazing at the dozen or so Golden Armor dragon-headed men charging at him.

Yu Hong raised his hand, wielding only ten percent of his strength, and took the initiative to meet the attack.

Bang!

The first dragon-headed man brushed past him, its body instantly exploded into countless golden dots, followed by the dots turning into gray mist, completely vanishing.

Then came the second one.

Yu Hong ducked to avoid a thrusting spear, raising his hand and sweeping it forward.

Swoosh.

The chests of two dragon-headed men were torn open on the spot, spouting golden blood and retreating with agonized screams.

Then came three spear tips stabbing toward Yu Hong from three directions.

This time, it was too late to change tactics; Yu Hong simply stopped dodging, tensed his muscles throughout his body, and covered himself with Inner Strength.

Clang clang clang!

Three crisp sounds rang out, as all three spear tips stabbed onto his body without sparks; instead, an indescribable sense of dizziness surged into his mind.

’Is this dizziness purely spiritual piercing?’

He understood in his heart, and his hand wielding the hand sword swung forward to slash.

But this time, he peculiarly found something wrong.

The speed of his slash seemed to have slowed down...

Soon, three more dragon-headed men were sliced apart, exploding into pieces.

And Yu Hong was stabbed two more times.

This time, the change he felt was even greater. His speed at striking and slashing was significantly slower than at the beginning.

’Hit once, there is a slight dizziness and a reduction in speed?’ Yu Hong realized.

The rules of dragon-headed men seemed to be just that.

Moreover, with their own strength and speed both fast, moving at least a hundred yards and able to ignore physical inertia for swift direction changes,

Such monsters, if replaced by an average Magician, even the Great Mages with strong spiritual power like Qing Huang, would likely be in danger.

He carefully observed the patterns of the dragon-headed men.

After about several minutes.

He roughly figured out their metrics.

’Their stationary burst strength is about thirty tons, sprint speed unknown, but due to the lack of physical inertia, the strength should be similar, not much variation.’

’Their protective strength is strong; the Golden Armor is not for show and should withstand ordinary gunshots.’

’Their bodies are physical entities but can harm spiritual power, and, after charging for a while, they can temporarily transform into a gray cloud form, immune to physical attacks.’

Yu Hong’s hand sword cut a dragon-headed man that had dissolved into a gray cloud in the head area.

The hand sword hit nothing.

He retracted his hand without surprise, feeling he was hit in the back by spears twice more.

By now, his speed had noticeably dropped quite a lot.

From the initial two hundred yards or so, it had dropped to less than a hundred, which was slower than these surrounding dragon-headed men.

In front of the Zihe Palace.

On the spacious forest clearing, after realizing that he could not catch up with the enemy, Yu Hong simply stopped and stood still, letting the spears hit his body.

"One tenth of strength seems not enough to completely avoid multiple dragon-headed men, so..."

He stretched out his hand, and the Inner Strength on the back of his hand shone even brighter.

"Now, it’s two tenths."

Boom!

With a single hand, he accurately grabbed a spear coming at him and pulled forcefully.

The colossal strength enhanced by Inner Strength instantly pulled the towering dragon-headed man closer.

Boom!

Another muffled sound, and with his free left hand, he punched the dragon-headed man’s head, shattering it.

Golden blood rained down on the ground, emitting a faint white smoke.

The dragon-headed man collapsed to the ground, turning into gray mist, and his body along with its equipment all disintegrated and vanished.

Not only that, all the spears coming at him were caught by his bare hands, pulled closer, and he burst their heads one after another.

Within a mere ten seconds, the last of the dragon-headed men in the field had all disappeared under Yu Hong’s fists.

As all the dragon-headed men collapsed into mist.

The sensation of being slowed and weighted down on Yu Hong’s body also quickly dissipated.

"Have to kill off an entire group to lift this slowdown state? That’s quite difficult..."

Yu Hong guessed whether these dragon-headed men had already formed a small-scale Spiritual Domain, which made it so challenging.

Having cleared the entrance of the Taoist Palace.

He glanced at the broken gate on the ground and stepped inside.

In fact, coming here this time, he had harbored a sliver of hope for rescuing the Feixia Sword that had once supported Qingchen Temple.

But unfortunately... only upon really arriving here did he realize how laughable his previous thoughts were.

The entire Zihe Palace, as far as the eye could see, was in shambles, barely a single building intact.

Some ground still bore huge footprints akin to those of Black Giants; some buildings were stacked on one another, as if grabbed and used as tools by some giant to smash.

Other houses were completely flattened into a large patchwork carpet, seemingly crushed into the ground by something extremely heavy.