Chapter 40: The Master Has Returned

Half a bottle of ancient beast essence blood exerts a tremendous effect.

As the beasts landed, they charged toward Chu Chen one after another. His Coiled Snake Sword was so battered from slashing that it began to smoke, yet he still waited in vain for his short-tempered master to come to his rescue.

"Master!"
"Master, save me!"

He finally understood why villains in stories always liked to say, "Scream all you want; no one will hear you." It was truly useless. His desperate cries for help vanished into the night sky, met only by deafening silence.

Chu Chen had originally thought it through quite well: by sprinkling the essence blood on his head, he would lure the beasts to his location, and given his master’s fiery temperament, she would surely intervene. But he had miscalculated. Bai Ning did not come, and the others at the Demon Suppression Bureau watched from the sidelines, refusing to help.

Driven to a corner, Chu Chen quickly submerged his consciousness into the Gallery of Illustrations to activate the "Transformation Realm Experience Card." He consumed all one thousand Spirit Rhyme Pills rewarded from the corpse-guarding demon in one breath, finally finding a moment to catch his breath.

Wrapped in the spiritual energy of the Transformation Realm, his Coiled Snake Sword erupted with bolts of lightning as thick as an arm, casting flickering shadows across the surroundings. The moves were dazzling, but the cost was an even greater drain on his spiritual energy. Every time he channeled the Profound Thunder Sword Art, a violent vibration traveled through his wrist—a sign that the Coiled Snake Sword was being pushed beyond its limits. If he kept hacking away, the blade would break sooner or later, and it was currently his best weapon. He truly did not know how he would survive this battle once the sword shattered.

Chu Chen leaped into the air, the Profound Thunder Sword Art crackling with thunder as he severed the nose of a giant rat demon. A massive white-furred ape lunged behind him, its hands clasped together, swinging down like a heavy millstone. A dark shadow engulfed him; before he could even see what it was, Chu Chen instinctively dodged. In mid-air, he sank his consciousness into the Gallery of Illustrations.

"Congratulations on slaying the Tier 7 Giant Rat Demon. Reward: one copy of 'Earth-Escaping Technique'."

Upon hearing the words "Earth-Escaping Technique," Chu Chen was overjoyed. He snatched the reward, glanced at the first line of the first page, and immediately pulled his consciousness back to reality.

As Chu Chen landed, the white-furred ape’s strike hit the ground, and it roared in fury, pounding its chest. Suddenly, a spike as thick as a thigh pierced through the ape’s chest with a muffled thud. As the spike was slowly withdrawn, the ape collapsed. Its massive body tumbled down the mountain of beast corpses like a giant boulder rolling down a hill.

As more and more beasts perished, the small courtyard became a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Before he could catch his breath, another beast lunged at him.

Cultivation in the Transformation Realm corresponds to Tier 7 to Tier 9 beasts. Tier 8 beasts can take human form, while Tier 7 beasts manifest elemental traits. The first tiger demon that had fallen into the courtyard, with its blue flames erupting from its paws, was an example of Five Elements elementalization.

Among the elementalizations, the most formidable is the "Catastrophe Level," which grants beasts control over earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues, or droughts. The second rank is "Five Elements." The third is "Natural Elements," such as wind, fire, thunder, and lightning. The fourth and lowest rank is simply the enhancement of the beast’s inherent physical abilities.

Take, for instance, the rooster demon charging at Chu Chen; its elementalization served to reinforce its talons, especially the sharp, gleaming, scimitar-like spurs on its feet. As it flapped its wings to dive toward its prey, it struck out with its claws.

Chu Chen blocked with his sword, producing a shrill, piercing screech of metal against metal. "Clang..."

The rooster demon seized the Coiled Snake Sword. Its elementalized claws were incredibly sturdy, and the sharp blade could do nothing against them. Gripping the sword, the rooster flapped its wings violently, attempting to drag both man and blade into the air. Chu Chen twisted his wrist with force and unleashed a White Family palm technique, a blast of energy erupting from his palm and striking the rooster’s chest. The massive recoil slammed Chu Chen hard into the ground, but he managed to wrench his sword free.

Looking at the three deep gouges on the blade, Chu Chen realized the Coiled Snake Sword had reached its limit. The rooster demon stabilized itself in mid-air and dove again like a hawk.

"Boom!"

Chu Chen rolled aside, and the rooster slammed headfirst into the mountain of corpses. The tremendous impact tore a gap in the pile. The flying beast carcasses buried Chu Chen, but in doing so, they revealed a path of survival. The carcasses were massive, and the gaps between them were just large enough for Chu Chen to crawl through. He pushed aside the corpses pinning him down and dove into the heart of the mountain of dead beasts.

He crawled to the deepest point and submerged his consciousness into the Gallery of Illustrations to continue studying the "Earth-Escaping Technique." The flow of energy in this technique was even more complex than the "Insight Technique." Fortunately, he had time to catch his breath; the beasts outside, having lost their target, began to slaughter one another. The sounds of roars and tearing flesh echoed through the gaps in the corpse mountain to Chu Chen’s ears.

He discarded all distracting thoughts, focusing solely on the energy flow of the "Earth-Escaping Technique." The commotion outside gradually died down as the infighting neared its end. Suddenly, the mountain of corpses trembled violently. Chu Chen felt at least three beasts clearing away the bodies. With every movement, the space around him shifted; sometimes it expanded, other times he was pressed so tightly he could not move. Regardless, Chu Chen remained like a piece of meat on a butcher's block, letting them do as they pleased while he focused on his cultivation.

"Awoo!" A massive roar erupted. A standing gray bear demon, its chest fur red and smoldering with flames and black smoke like the engine of a steam train, appeared. Having finally tracked the scent of the ancient beast essence, the bear was visibly excited, drool dripping from its maw. Beside it appeared two more bears—one white and one black. Chu Chen had not expected the bears to unite and emerge as the final victors.

The lead gray bear lunged toward its prey. Before Chu Chen could even use the Earth-Escaping Technique, a streak of light shot down from the night sky, piercing the gray bear’s neck, traveling through its entire head, and exiting its jaw before blasting a scorched crater into the ground.

"Bang!"

The other two bears did not escape the same fate, killed instantly by the same move. Three figures slowly appeared in the night sky, hovering before Chu Chen.

"We meet again, Officer," said the man in the center. He continued, "I warned you that I hoped you would have the strength to put up a fight when I found you. Why are you so fragile?"

As Meng Ran spoke, he glanced toward the direction of the main hall. "Look at your colleagues. Has even one of them come to help you? When one’s own interests are threatened, no one cares whether others live or die. That is the human heart. Pure, extreme egoism!"

"Goodbye. It won't be painful."

As Meng Ran finished speaking, a burst of demonic energy sprayed from his palm, condensing into the shape of a bullet.

"Go!"

The tiny demonic bullet streaked across the night sky like a meteor, slamming into the ground and kicking up a massive wave of earth.

"Boom!!"

The beasts in the courtyard were swept away, and a woman in a white dress stood before Chu Chen. Meng Ran suddenly felt his blood flow slow, overcome by an inexplicable sense of dread. He wanted to run, but his feet would not move.

Having learned she had been deceived, Bai Ning had fought her way back, and her aura could no longer be contained. In the blink of an eye, the white dress vanished from where it stood and reappeared behind Meng Ran. With a swift strike, the head of the holder of the Human Hero Illustration fell to the ground.

Chu Chen let out a long breath... Wait, no. If Master killed Meng Ran, how am I supposed to go back?

Well, if he couldn't go back, so be it. Chu Chen would simply stay in the Tianyuan Continent, slaying monsters to level up, establishing his own sect, and unifying Yunzhou.