Li Jun, who was fleeing for his life, did not feel it, but Tu Longziyun, who was crouching in front of Lei Hun and using his shield to cover him, felt as if the surrounding air was being sucked in by Lei Hun's outstretched hand. As Lei Hun murmured incantations, the red light in his left hand spun around and gradually condensed into a ball of fire. Then Lei Hun held down two fingers of his right hand and pointed at the giant man who was approaching Li Jun.
The ball of fire soared into the air, transforming into a crimson blur. The giant only heard the mage behind him shout "Watch out!" before the red light completely obscured his vision. A powerful magical shockwave then struck his head, sending him flying backward. Before he even hit the ground, he was engulfed in magical flames. The giant's roar turned into a pitiful scream as he rolled futilely on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames. Although the rain extinguished the surface fire, the magical fire infused into his body continued to burn. Moments later, his internal organs were burned away, and his dying screams pierced the deep, silent forest.
Lei Hun was panting heavily, looking even more exhausted than Li Jun, who had just escaped death. Tu Long Ziyun raised his round shield to block an arrow, and Li Jun stumbled and rushed to their side.
There should still be three enemies. The archer is currently the biggest threat to them; they need to find a way to eliminate him. Li Jun used the trees for cover, lying prone on the ground searching for the archer. But the bushes were too dense, and he couldn't see his opponent. Li Jun's mind raced, and he decided to take another risk.
The archer exchanged a glance with his mage companion; they had been working together for a long time and knew each other's thoughts. The mage cast all protective spells on himself and stood up, chanting incantations. Judging from his blue robe, he was a Taoist mage skilled in the Five Elements magic; the yin-yang symbol on his chest proved he had passed the test and was a "True Person" level mage.
As the True Man silently prayed, he could feel the forest spirits channeling immense spiritual power into his body with each incantation. The spiritual energy in this gloomy forest far exceeded his expectations; once enough power was gathered, he could unleash a powerful wood-based shockwave spell, killing enemies in their hiding places. The True Man concentrated all his mental energy on this, while the archers focused intently on preventing attacks from their opponents.
The flow of spiritual energy began to flow miraculously around the battlefield. The True Man felt that the spiritual energy gathered in his head was enough to generate a huge shockwave, but to be on the safe side, he decided to further enhance his spiritual energy. As a result, even more powerful spiritual energy gathered towards him, and others could even see the blue glow above his head.
Li Jun lay on the ground, watching in horror the strange changes happening to the real person. He was still more than twenty paces away from the real person. If he stood up, the archer would shoot him dead with an arrow. Moreover, at this distance, he could not guarantee that he could kill the real person with one shot.
Lei Hun's breathing quickened again. He closed his eyes and felt the spiritual energy of the surrounding trees rapidly diminishing. His opponent's purpose was crystal clear. But how could he stop his opponent? At present, it seemed there was no good way.
"Borrowing the power of the five elements that constitute this world through incantations is the foundation of Taoist magic. Remember, the human body is a container; the limit of how much borrowed spiritual power you can store depends on your daily training." The old sorcerer had once warned him in this way, but he never expected that the sorcerers on the other side could use only basic Taoist magic attacks to destroy him. Lei Hun coldly mocked himself while quickly thinking of a countermeasure.
Inspiration struck him in an instant. He began chanting prayers rapidly, and to increase their power, he bit his index finger and drew incomprehensible symbols in the air.
The True Man felt the gathering spiritual power growing stronger, but he was still not satisfied. He wanted to unleash what might be the most perfect spell of his life, to make the life of his enemy a sacrifice to his powerful magic. So he began his third prayer.
But then a dramatic change occurred. Although Lei Hun couldn't see the True Man's location, he cast an enhancement spell, amplifying the magical power within its range several times over. The True Man was within this range, and the effect of his prayers was also amplified several times over. The spiritual power that had been flowing into his head like a trickle became a raging torrent. His body couldn't withstand the sudden surge of immense spiritual power, just as a balloon couldn't hold more air than its capacity. The meridians storing spiritual power completely burst open, and a massive wood-type magic erupted within him. His entire body turned into a rain of blood, leaving not even a large fragment behind.
Startled and disoriented by the drastic changes around him, the archer lost all sense of reason amidst the blood mist, screaming and turning to run. Li Jun, however, did not lose his ability to react. He leaped up like a spring and hurled his short sword. The archer, who had no power to resist, felt a chill in his back and began to lose consciousness.
Li Jun let out a long sigh of relief and turned around to give Lei Hun a thumbs up. He could sense the reason for the fundamental change in the situation. But at the same time, he suddenly remembered that there should also be four enemies!
"Watch out!" Mo Rong's shout made Li Jun instinctively turn to the side, but a black shadow, as swift as the wind, still pounced on him from a large tree. It seemed that all Li Jun could do was close his eyes and wait for death. Mo Rong threw her short axe with all her might!
With a "thud," the steel claws of the person swooping down from the tree tore through Li Jun's armor, adding five long, bloody marks to his back. But they could no longer reach him, because Mo Rong's short axe was striking his head. This Yue girl was incredibly strong; half of his head was almost severed.
The still-shaken crowd exchanged bewildered glances, feeling as if they had narrowly escaped death. Even Tu Longziyun, who hadn't made a move yet, broke out in a cold sweat. Li Jun drew his short axe, wiped it clean on the corpse, kicked it aside, and handed it to Mo Rong.
Mo Rong looked at the short axe, then at the corpse lying on the ground, and suddenly felt nauseous. She even felt as if there was still blood on the short axe. She dared not take it. If she hadn't already vomited all her stomach on the boat, she would probably have vomited again immediately.
"Don't be sad, thank you for saving me," Li Jun comforted her, suddenly finding it strange that he also had the ability to comfort others. If it weren't for saving him, this Yue girl, who had never hurt anyone before, wouldn't have dared to split someone's head open with an axe, no matter how brave she was.
“Not bad,” Lei Hun said, but there was no hint of praise in his tone. What he said next was enough to make Li Jun furious enough to fight him to the death: “The important figures are all unharmed.”
Li Jun stared intently at him, but no murderous intent gathered in his eyes. "Don't try to provoke me." He retorted in a sharper tone, "I will never let you die until you pay the price you promised me."
"Let's take a break. If we can't start a fire to warm ourselves up right away, some people will get sick even if they don't die," Tu Longziyun said, looking at Lei Hun's pale face and Mo Rong, who was shivering.
"Hmm." Lei Hun turned his gaze to Li Jun. "What suggestions do you have?"
Li Jun looked up at the rain still falling from the branches and leaves, and began to think. It was clear that there was no place to take shelter from the rain nearby, so he had to keep going.
"Let's eat something first, then keep going and see if we can find a cave," Li Jun said uncertainly.
“That’s a great idea,” Lei Hun said sarcastically. “I think we should just cut down the tree now, saw it into planks, and then build the house.”
“I have a good idea.” Mo Rong seemed to have forgotten the initial unpleasantness and immediately shifted her attention to this matter. “Come with me.”
The four were too eager to leave the disgusting corpses, and none of them bothered to collect the food from them. Li Jun had considered this, but seeing the expressions on the other three's faces, he had to abandon the idea. They continued walking for a short distance, returning to where they had started to stop. Mo Rong pointed to a large clump of bushes and said, "There's a big tree here."
Beneath the bushes lay an ancient tree that had fallen many years ago. It would take about five people to encircle this tree, and it was covered with various parasitic shrubs. If Mo Rong hadn't been so short, she would never have guessed that beneath the lush foliage lay such a massive tree. Coincidentally, the tree was hollow, allowing Mo Rong to walk through its interior without even bending down.
"May the gods protect me." Unexpectedly, the spot she had randomly pointed out was so perfect. Mo Rong was the first to crawl into the cave. Apart from dust, there wasn't even a spiderweb inside.
Lei Hun lowered his head, about to enter the tree hollow, when he suddenly paused. Li Jun followed his gaze and saw obvious charred marks at the broken end of the ancient tree, indicating that it had been struck down by lightning years ago.
"What's wrong?" Li Jun asked sarcastically. Although he spoke with mockery, he was surprised that he felt no sarcasm at all. "Are you scared?"
“Yes, he was scared and asked for help.” Lei Hun, seeing no Confucian attitude of “extending one’s love for the young to the young” towards this young mercenary, immediately retaliated with double the force.
Li Jun was speechless for a moment. He realized that no matter how he argued, he couldn't win against the Confucian scholar. He could only shake his head and admit defeat, but before admitting defeat, he still gave a little sarcastic remark: "Now I know why you are still just a Confucian scholar at the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven."
“If I wanted to, I could pass the sage’s test right away.” Lei Hun said with a disdainful look on his face. Tu Long Ziyun interrupted their conversation in time.
"Are you coming in or not? If not, then move aside," Tu Longziyun said, shoving the two men.
The four of them went into the tree hollow. Mo Rong skillfully scraped off some dry moss, chopped down a few pieces of firewood from the hollow, and lit a fire with a flint. The leaping flames made their faces light up and dim.
"Be careful, don't let the fire burn our house down." Mo Rong hummed an unknown Yue folk tune as she busied herself. After a moment, she remembered Li Jun's injuries: "Brother Li, let me bandage your wounds."
Having gone through this life-or-death struggle together, Li Jun had begun to regard the three of them as partners. For mercenaries, employers are unreliable, but partners are exceptionally important. Therefore, he allowed Mo Rong to apply the wound medicine to his wound—but he soon regretted it. This future top craftsman had absolutely no skill in bandaging, and the pain he suffered during the bandaging process far exceeded the pain he felt when he was injured.
"Tell me, why did you come to this island?" While drying his rations over the fire, Li Jun asked the question that had been weighing on his mind for a long time, "You didn't come here to seize the Sea-Level Gamble, did you?"
“Yes.” Staring blankly at the flames, as if the flames had a magnetic pull that drew his gaze in, Lei Hun’s face in the fire didn’t look like a mage at all, but rather like a patient. After a slight pause, he continued, “I am searching for the legacy of the gods.”
"The legacy of the gods?" Li Jun could hardly believe it. When he noticed the calm expressions on Tu Longziyun and Mo Rong's faces, he was certain that they already knew about this. So he asked again, "Is there really some legacy of the gods?"
"Yes, the ancient gods created the world, and the covenant of the gods—these legendary things do exist."
He let out a puzzled laugh and chuckled, "So, the so-called fairies, demons, ghosts, and dragons," he paused deliberately when he mentioned dragons, glanced at Tu Long Ziyun, and then continued, "all of these exist?"
"Close your eyes," Lei Hun replied, seemingly unrelated to the question.
Seeing the serious expression on his face, Li Jun closed his eyes, and Lei Hun's voice came to his ears: "Relax, relax even more, what can you feel?"
Li Jun relaxed his mind, and the waves of his mind spread outwards. Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation. This sensation was like a power, or a form, as if it were all around him, or as if it were right in front of him.
"What is that?" Mo Rong asked, her eyes also closed.
“That is the remnant power of a fairy. Mo Rong, you are lucky to have found us a good place to live,” Lei Hun said slowly. “We are now inside the fairy’s belly.”