Fortunately, the two evil spirits, who were still frantically rushing towards Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls, were immediately shocked when they sensed the demise of their two companions and that they had become nourishment for him. After a slight hesitation, they retreated instead of advancing, bursting out of Zhou Ziwei's body and fleeing away...
You think you can just wander around inside my body and run away?
Zhou Ziwei didn't have such a good temper. Although he realized it a little late, it was indeed too late for the two soul energies in his body to gather and catch up. However, when Zhou Ziwei came to his senses, the two evil spirits had not yet emerged from his body. So, with a thought, Zhou Ziwei condensed two more soul energies into the shape of swords and quickly protruded from his forehead. Then, they spun in the air and stabbed back at himself... which just happened to meet the two evil spirits that had just broken out of his body.
Then, the strange vibration frequency caused the two streams of soul power to pierce into the two evil spirits' bodies without any hindrance. In the blink of an eye, the consciousness of the two evil spirits completely dissipated, turning into pure soul energy that was absorbed into Zhou Ziwei's body...
This is really nourishing...
After absorbing the soul energy of four evil spirits in succession, Zhou Ziwei felt that his soul power had broken through the two thousand mark in one fell swoop, and even reached more than two thousand four hundred remnant soul energy, which was not far from the maximum capacity of his current soul sea.
Hopefully, this level can be maintained!
While Zhou Ziwei was filled with admiration, he dared not slack off in the slightest, and his feet never stopped moving from beginning to end.
Fortunately, the direction he chose was in a relatively remote corner of the valley. Apart from the first four ghost bats, the other bats were not in this area. They were now chasing after him, but their flying speed was still a bit slower than Zhou Ziwei's frantic escape. The dozen or so ghost bats that first came from the side were hit by the aftershocks of the soul roars of Zhou Ziwei and the Bat King and fell to the ground. So for the time being, the only one chasing him was the Bat King behind Zhou Ziwei.
However, Bat King was the first to be injured by Zhou Ziwei's soul roar and has not yet recovered. His speed is still inferior to Zhou Ziwei's, so the distance between them only increases as he chases.
Although Zhou Ziwei is getting further and further away from the Bat King, it is estimated that even if the Bat King launches another Soul Roar attack, it will be difficult to cause serious damage to Zhou Ziwei.
However, Zhou Ziwei still dared not slow down in the slightest, and continued to rush frantically into the depression in the northwest corner as if desperate...
Where is it? Where is it?
As soon as Zhou Ziwei rushed into the depression, his speed immediately slowed down. At the same time, his long-unused 360-degree all-around vision ability suddenly activated, and he frantically channeled his soul power from every part of his body, radiating it in all directions. In an instant, every blade of grass and every tree within a 20-meter radius of him was captured in his consciousness without any omission. Zhou Ziwei's focus was mainly on the parts below the ground.
It's not here... It's not here either... Is Luan Yuqing's treasure map even real? How come we can't find the entrance to the ancient tomb?
That's right... Zhou Ziwei only glanced at the so-called treasure map fragment that Luan Yuqing showed him, but he was completely convinced that the ancient tomb of the Burmese king mentioned on it should be the tomb that the ladybug accidentally crawled into during the chase by the bat king last time.
Since Zhou Ziwei already knew the location of the tomb perfectly well, he naturally had no interest in the treasure map provided by Luan Yuqing.
The map of the ancient tomb's perimeter that fell into Qiao Mulin's hands was even more useless to him.
However, the copy in Luan Yuqing's hand was indeed the key to the entire treasure map, and it contained a very hidden topographical map of the two entrances to the ancient tomb.
If someone had never seen the valley's terrain and didn't know the exact location of the ancient tomb, they wouldn't be able to tell that those two places were the tomb's entrances and exits. However, Zhou Ziwei only glanced at them twice and memorized them completely.
So, after being forced by the Bat King to the point where he could no longer escape through the swamp, Zhou Ziwei decisively chose the secret passage leading to the ancient tomb.
In short, escaping in an open area is absolutely impossible. Even if he could increase his running speed to an abnormal level in a short period of time, he wouldn't even be able to keep up with the flight speed of a bat.
However, he couldn't maintain that abnormal speed for long. Running at such a high speed not only consumed a lot of his energy, but the excruciating pain in his feet caused by the ground's impact was enough to make him suffer. He estimated that his feet would swell up due to the intense pain after running a thousand or eight hundred meters.
Although Zhou Ziwei had never entered the secret passage of the ancient tomb, and the ladybug had not entered or exited through it, since it was a secret passage, its width must have been very limited. Presumably, at least a bat king of such enormous size could not fly in, and even ordinary ghost bats would be blocked outside the secret passage.
As for the smaller ghost bats... they pose no threat to Zhou Ziwei at all; no matter how many come, they will only become supplements for him.
Therefore, as long as Zhou Ziwei can find the secret passage of that ancient tomb, he will no longer have to worry about the ghost bats chasing him all over the sky.
However, the map in Luan Yuqing's hand only showed a rough location, and it was from many years ago. Now, the world has changed, and the terrain may have changed to some extent. Therefore, the approximate location that Zhou Ziwei thought of may not be correct.
If an ordinary person were to search for this passage, even without the interference of those ferocious ghost bats, they might not be able to find it even after a day or two.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei could completely replace his eyes with his soul power, and when fully activated, he could simultaneously monitor all directions of his entire body.
More importantly... his soul power can see through things. If there are holes in the ground or on the road he is passing through, he can find them immediately, which is something that others cannot see with the naked eye.
It was precisely because of this innate advantage that Zhou Ziwei dared to run here while being chased by the Bat King. However, he underestimated the secrecy of the secret passage. He searched very quickly, but even so, he couldn't keep up with the Bat King's flying speed.
Just as Zhou Ziwei had searched less than half of the depression and was still empty-handed, the Bat King behind him had already caught up to within thirty meters of him.
While frantically searching for the entrance to the ancient tomb's secret passage, Zhou Ziwei kept an eye on the movements behind him. When he saw the Bat King about twenty meters away, it suddenly inhaled and opened its mouth... Zhou Ziwei knew that this guy was about to unleash another Soul Roar. Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei had anticipated this move from the Bat King and was prepared. After running all the way, the cooldown time required for him to repeatedly cast Soul Roar had long passed. Upon seeing the Bat King's appearance, Zhou Ziwei immediately released the ball of soul power that he had already condensed in his sea of souls at the same time as the Bat King.
At the same time, the two cross-shaped darts he had been holding were launched almost simultaneously with the soul's roar, one above and one below, aiming straight for the Bat King's throat and heart...
"Boom—" The soul roars emitted by Zhou Ziwei and the Bat King collided in mid-air once again and exploded violently... This time, no other ghost bats were too close, so none of them were affected. However, the Bat King and Zhou Ziwei were quite close this time, so only Zhou Ziwei and the Ghost Bat King were most strongly affected.
At that very moment, both Zhou Ziwei and the Bat King were momentarily dizzy from the intense shockwave of soul energy, causing them to pause for a moment.
This slight pause was probably less than a fraction of a second, so it wouldn't have any impact on Zhou Ziwei, but it would be quite bad for Bat King.
Because Zhou Ziwei threw two darts at the same time as he let out his soul roar, given the Bat King's super-fast reaction speed and flight speed, even though the two darts could temporarily change their angle in mid-air due to the control of the independent soul within them, it would be difficult for them to actually hit the Bat King.
However, because of the brief moment of dizziness, the Bat King lost its chance to dodge. So, the moment the Bat King regained consciousness, its throat and heart were attacked by the cross-shaped darts at the same time.
With two sharp "thuds," the cross-shaped darts struck the Bat King's two most vulnerable spots with pinpoint accuracy, as if hitting the center of a red rake. Instantly, gray-black fur splattered everywhere, and dark red blood filled the air...
However, just as Zhou Ziwei was secretly delighted, he saw the Bat King shake its whole body with force, and instantly the two cross-shaped darts were shaken off its wounds. Although the Bat King was still bleeding profusely, it did not affect its ability to move at all. Unlike the four ghost bats that had been hit by the cross-shaped darts, it did not fall down immediately. Instead, it flew towards Zhou Ziwei at an even faster speed.
Wow, that can't be that weird!
After being continuously nourished by the evolved soul power over this period of time, Zhou Ziwei's body has become far stronger than that of a normal adult. The force with which he throws darts is enough to penetrate a three-inch-thick wooden board. However, although the two powerful darts drew some blood when they hit the Bat King, they did not cause any fatal damage to the Bat King. This shows just how powerful this guy's giant body is.
Zhou Ziwei didn't want to get entangled in a fight with the Bat King here. As soon as he saw the other party charging over, he quickly resumed his top speed and began running in circles around the low-lying area.
Finally... just as the other ghost bats in the valley had flown to the vicinity of the low-lying area and were about to swarm towards him, Zhou Ziwei finally found the entrance to the secret passage buried deep underground using his 360-degree all-view perspective ability.
The entrance was covered by a stone slab carved from a natural rock, beneath which was the entrance to a secret passage that slanted downwards at a 45-degree angle.
However, the stone slab was buried more than two meters deep in the ground. It is likely that the terrain here was originally very low, and after years of rain erosion, the soil from higher places was constantly washed down, gradually forming this layer of soil more than two meters thick, which blocked the original entrance to the secret passage.
Under normal circumstances, if Zhou Ziwei wanted to enter the ancient tomb from here, he could naturally dig slowly and leisurely... But right now, with the ghost bats flying in from all directions, there was clearly no way he would have that time.
Left with no other choice, Zhou Ziwei gritted his teeth and suddenly stopped beside the entrance to the secret passage. He then turned to face the swooping Bat King and slowly began to perform the starting stance of the Niu-style Tai Chi...
"Whoosh—"
The Bat King, covered in bloodstains and glaring with its already blood-red eyes, pounced down with a frenzied ferocity, seemingly intent on tearing this human who dared to defy its Bat King authority to shreds.
Facing the Bat King's murderous pounce, Zhou Ziwei showed no intention of dodging. Instead, he continuously swung his palms, heading straight for the Bat King's massive body, which was almost ten times his size.
With a muffled "thud," the man and the monster finally clashed, engaging in a most dangerous exchange of blows. Due to the huge difference in size, Zhou Ziwei was unsurprisingly sent flying by the bat's impact, landing three or four meters away with a "thud." While still in mid-air, he couldn't help but open his mouth and spit out a mouthful of bright red blood.
However, the Bat King, who seemed to have a clear advantage, did not gain any advantage whatsoever in this collision.
Its massive body was clearly hurtling straight toward Zhou Ziwei, but after the two bodies collided, the Bat King immediately felt an overwhelming force that yanked it sharply, changing the direction of its attack. Instead of continuing to fly toward the direction Zhou Ziwei had been thrown, it slammed headfirst into the ground...
With a deafening roar, dust billowed up as the Bat King's slam created a massive crater about a meter deep in the ground...
Wow... that's really powerful.
Although Zhou Ziwei coughed up blood from the impact, it was only some ordinary bruising. As long as the injuries to his body did not kill him immediately, they could be instantly healed by his upgraded soul power.
Therefore, Zhou Ziwei was not worried about the severity of his injury. Instead, before the surrounding ghost bats could catch up, he immediately flipped over and jumped up, kicking the Bat King's head, which was as big as a wheel.
Seeing this, the Bat King, still in a daze, let out an angry roar, flapped its wings and took flight again. Then it used its huge beak to peck at Zhou Ziwei's chest, as if it really thought it was a woodpecker.
Zhou Ziwei snorted coldly, retracted his flying kick, and gently swung his palms again. Instantly, a virtual vortex formed silently. The Bat King, unaware of its own limitations, crashed into it. Zhou Ziwei was once again sent flying, and the Bat King also fell to the ground. Its enormous mandible, like a jackhammer, burrowed deep into the ground with a loud "bang," even drilling a large hole through the thick stone slab. A chilling, eerie aura emanated from the bottomless hole beneath the stone slab...
Volume 1: The Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 177: The Ancient Tomb
Zhou Ziwei was once again struck by the Bat King's immense and terrifying power, causing him to cough up blood, but his body was not seriously injured.
Although he suffered a slight loss in both collisions, the Bat King was clearly more pitiful than the Bat King, who was used as a hammer for drilling holes.
The bat king had long been enraged by Zhou Ziwei. Although it had dug a hole in the ground with its mouth, it showed no curiosity about the world below. It only wanted to tear Zhou Ziwei to pieces or even devour him alive to quell its hatred.
So after Bat King finally regained his balance, he flapped his thin wings again and flew out of the cave once more, ready to fight Zhou Ziwei to the death.
However, the instant he flew out, Zhou Ziwei, who had been planning this all along, brushed past him without hesitation and jumped directly into the crater that had been smashed open by the Bat King's body.
The bat king sensed something was wrong as soon as it flew out and hurriedly turned back to fall into the pit. However, Zhou Ziwei was no slower than it to begin with, and this time he beat it to the punch, so it was impossible for the bat king to catch him again. When the bat king crashed into the bottom of the pit again, Zhou Ziwei had already passed through the crack in the stone slab that the bat king had hammered through with its mandibles, and fell directly into the secret passage below at a 45-degree angle. Then he slid down with a whoosh...
The Bat King's second slam did not widen the entrance to the secret passage. Instead, its violent impact caused part of the passage to collapse, completely blocking the entrance and leaving no gaps.
Leaving aside how frantic the Bat King was after losing track of Zhou Ziwei, let's talk about how Zhou Ziwei fell into the sloping secret passage and slid down for about fifty or sixty meters before finally reaching a flat area in the passage.
It was pitch black inside, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei didn't necessarily need to use his eyes to see things. In this situation, using his soul power to scan was much more convenient and effective.
He had already noticed that the secret passage was very rough and narrow, and it looked like it had been hastily dug out rather than being an original structure in the ancient tomb... He had also wondered why a road had been built out of the tomb if it was meant for the dead. Did they want the dead inside to come out and wander around? Now, seeing the scene inside the secret passage with his own eyes, Zhou Ziwei was certain that it was actually a tunnel dug by tomb raiders for the purpose of robbing the tomb.
The picture that Luan Yuqing's fiancé found was very likely drawn by the tomb raiders who dug the tunnel back then.
Ancient tombs that have been visited by grave robbers should have little left to offer. Although the rule for grave robbers is that they can only take a portion of the treasure each time they enter a tomb, those who would abide by this rule no longer exist. And there is really no need for the grave robber to draw a map of the tomb he emptied so that future generations can admire his work.
Therefore, Zhou Ziwei believed that although the tomb raider had dug a tunnel and even successfully entered the tomb, he did not gain much benefit and may have even lost his life. That is why he was still thinking about the ancient tomb before he died, leaving behind a map in the hope that someone could continue his great tomb raiding career.
This possibility is still very high. Others may not know the dangers in this ancient tomb, but Zhou Ziwei does know some. Last time, the ladybug accidentally wandered into this ancient tomb. Although it only passed by the edge of the tomb, it still saw many powerful souls that were almost tangible.
Ordinary souls may not be able to launch any substantial attacks directly against others, but can only harm living people by possessing or controlling their bodies. However, it's hard to say about souls that are almost solidified.
In any case, Zhou Ziwei had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the ladybug last time, and he was already feeling a chill. If he hadn't been truly desperate this time, he would never have ventured into this secret passage.
Although this ancient tomb may not have been looted yet, it may indeed contain countless gold and silver treasures, and most importantly, a large number of precious jade artifacts.
However, Zhou Ziwei had absolutely no interest in treasure hunting; in his view, it was simply courting death.
He had previously told Luan Yuqing that if she wanted revenge, she should just give the fragment of the treasure map she had to Qiao Mulin. That was no joke; in fact, he really thought so. With Qiao Mulin's group, if they couldn't find the entrance to the ancient tomb, that would be fine, but if they actually stumbled upon it by sheer luck... First of all, before they even entered the secret passage, 99% of them would be eaten by the swarm of ghost bats outside. Even if one or two people were lucky enough to enter the secret passage, what awaited them was only an even more terrifying existence. To steal the treasure intact and get out... that was absolutely impossible.
It's not that entering this ancient tomb is a guaranteed death sentence. If that were the case, Zhou Ziwei wouldn't have bothered going in. In fact, he had already discovered that the entrance to the secret passage drawn on Luan Yuqing's treasure map was very close to the hidden exit that the ladybug had found after accidentally wandering into the tomb, and it was located on the outermost edge of the tomb. Anyway, Zhou Ziwei didn't want to go into the tomb to search for treasure. Unless his luck was extremely bad, he would probably only be inside for a short while before finding another way out. He figured he wouldn't be so unlucky as to run into those terrifying beings!
The secret passage became slightly wider when it reached a flatter section, but one could still only walk forward with their body bent over. Fortunately, the path was not too far, and Zhou Ziwei found the entrance to the ancient tomb after walking only about twenty meters.
The tomb robbers had already sealed it up before leaving, and if it weren't for Zhou Ziwei's soul power allowing him to see through things, it would have been really difficult to find the exit.
He forcefully pried a rock on the side that looked no different from an ordinary rock several times, and finally it rolled down to the ground with a loud thud, revealing a wide and clean tomb passage.
Normally, one should let the air out for a while before entering an underground tomb, but Zhou Ziwei knew that there were actually more than one place in the tomb and above ground where there was ventilation, so he wasn't worried about suffocating in the tomb. Besides... the secret passage behind him had long been destroyed by the angry bat king, so the air in the passage was actually not circulating. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei did not hesitate at all. As soon as he dug the hole, he immediately crawled into the tomb chamber.
He then put the stone back in its original place, blocking the entrance to the secret passage again.
After doing all this, Zhou Ziwei headed towards the other exit leading to the outside world, which the ladybug had inadvertently discovered, according to his memory.
As Zhou Ziwei walked, he released his soul power, constantly scanning his surroundings.
Although this path should be relatively safe, Zhou Ziwei dared not be too careless. The souls in this ancient tomb were too strange. Even though Zhou Ziwei had mastered some skills specifically for dealing with souls, he did not want to have any contact with those powerful souls that were so solidified that they were almost physical.
I hope I can leave this cursed place safely and without any trouble!
While silently praying to all the gods and Buddhas in the sky, Zhou Ziwei walked quickly. After only two or three minutes, he found the exit that the ladybug had found when it left the ancient tomb last time.
It was a stone wall that looked like a honeycomb, covered with all sorts of tiny holes. The ladybug had crawled through one of these holes last time. Of course, Zhou Ziwei couldn't squeeze into such a small hole, but he knew that the stone wall was less than half a foot thick, and behind the stone wall was a natural crack in the mountain that may have been caused by an earthquake many years ago.
The crack wasn't wide, but a person could barely pass through. After walking a few dozen meters through the crack, you would enter a natural cave in the mountain, from which you could walk directly out into the outside world.
Having finally found the exit of the ancient tomb, Zhou Ziwei breathed a sigh of relief. The half-foot-thick stone wall, and a stone slab that was already riddled with holes, should not be a problem for Zhou Ziwei in his current state.
Although his technique of using leverage against force was completely ineffective against this dilapidated wall, his physical strength was now considerable, which is why he chose to pass through here. If his body had not been strengthened and he was still in his previous sickly state, he would never have been able to push down this wall, no matter what.
Zhou Ziwei first restored the soul power in his feet to normal, and then kicked the severely corroded wall hard.
The stone wall immediately swayed slightly a few times, but did not collapse.