Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Damn it!”

The enemy’s sharp arrow must’ve been made of a special material that was neither metal nor wood. It boasted tremendous electromagnetic interference. When it pierced into the dashboard, all the pointers and indexes immediately started shaking violently, just like the abnormal state when a plane entered the Bermuda Triangle.

Thankfully, this off-road vehicle still adopted an old-fashioned mechanical control system for the most part. It didn’t carry too much electronic equipment and was still able to move forward.

But the speed and the agility of the steering were obviously not sustainable.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Right then, three sharp arrows pierced through the air and darted close like lightning. Despite Li Yao’s driving skills that had been accumulated over dozens of cycles, which allowed him to dodge the first two arrows, he was still not able to dodge the third arrow, which stabbed into the hood of the tank. The engine of the tank immediately roared, and the speed of the vehicle hit rock bottom.

Li Yao cursed. No matter how hard he stepped on the gas, it was to no avail. Fury was raging inside his brain. The terrain and every data on the map, including the altitude of the enemy in midair… All kinds of information was swirling inside his brain like a surging river. He made up his mind and rushed toward a sparse forest not far away.

Although it was called a forest, in fact, it was just a few coconut trees that could only be found in the tropics. If it were broad daylight, it would be impossible to resist the assault from the sky.

But in such a thunderstorm, Li Yao decided to take a gamble.

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

Another five arrows landed around the off-road vehicle. Some of them even pierced through the roof of the vehicle and hit right between Zhang Daniu’s legs, leaving a hole in the seat. The guy was so scared that he found it hard to breathe. He was cramping and almost passed out.

/

But Li Yao took the opportunity to rush into the coconut woods.

“Get off!”

Li Yao roared at the ghost cat and Zhang Daniu.

“W-what?”

The two of them looked at each other and swallowed the words ‘you’re crazy’ at the same time.

“The engine is gone. I can only hold on for another three to five minutes. This is the only place where I can turn the situation around. Get off now!”

Li Yao shouted again. He braked the off-road vehicle, picked up his toolbox, and kicked the door open before he rolled out.

Thankfully, the ghost cat was quick enough to crawl out of the window and drag Zhang Daniu out of the back seat. Seeing that Li Yao had opened the cap of the tank, she quickly dragged Zhang Daniu and ran away.

BOOM!

Flames in the shape of a butterfly surged out of Li Yao’s palm and crawled into the fuel tank. The off-road vehicle immediately turned into a dazzling fireball. Even under the assault of the wind and rain, the flames and smoke still rose to more than ten meters in the sky, temporarily blocking the vision of the pursuers.

The moment the flames exploded, Li Yao took a deep breath and ran toward the coconut tree closest to him. His speed far exceeded the limits of human beings. The ninety-degree vertical trunk of the tree was as easy as walking on the ground for him. He reached the top of the tree in one breath and stomped on it hard, almost breaking the coconut tree. With the help of the rebounding force, he jumped from one coconut tree to another, and from the second coconut tree to the third coconut tree. He treated the coconut tree as a spring. With every bounce, his speed and strength increased. When he reached the last coconut tree, the trunk of the tree was almost bent into a crescent moon by him, and he shot into the sky like a roaring cannonball.

Shua!

The toolbox that Li Yao had been carrying all the time drew a vicious arc as he threw it towards the archer in the air.

Hiu!

A screwdriver arrived first, but its target was not the archer but the toolbox. The toolbox was smashed into pieces. Naturally, the tools inside were scattered everywhere.

Although the archer was able to overlook every movement in the coconut grove from high above, his attention had been distracted by the explosion of the off-road vehicle and the flying tools. He did not expect that Li Yao would soar into the sky and lunge at him like a weird bird. He was so scared that he forgot to react.

In the moment of shock, Li Yao was only three to five meters away from him.

However, since this archer dared to chase after Li Yao and the others by himself, he was clearly not someone who was easy to deal with. A moment of absent-mindedness was already a mistake that he had never made before, and he would not allow himself to continue this mistake for even a second longer.

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

In just one second, he had shot seven arrows in a row, which almost blocked every angle of Li Yao’s attack.

Li Yao, on the other hand, had nowhere to borrow his strength in midair. Unless he had the ability to soar into the sky by stepping on his right foot with his left foot, he could do nothing except dodge the seven consecutive arrows.

As it turned out, there was nothing Li Yao could do about the rain of arrows. After dodging three arrows, he was already exhausted. He could only curl up and accelerate to the ground, falling into the mud heavily. Although he dodged the arrows, he did not even touch the enemy’s fur.

However…

Not long after he landed, the archer fell from the sky with a ‘plop’ and fell flat on his back.

His bulging eyes were full of blood streaks, but the blood streaks turned into lifeless blackness one after another. He could no longer hold the bow with his shaking hands and could only clutch his throat helplessly. A screwdriver had been stabbed into his throat precisely and pierced through his spine and brain stem, almost drilling out of his head.

For a strong enemy such as a ‘hunter’, the same trick could not be used twice.

But the archer, although armed with a hunting bow, was clearly not a qualified hunter.

Li Yao had used the fireball from the explosion of the off-road vehicle, the toolbox from Fairy Flower, and himself, who was flying like a weird bird, as bait in order to make the archer forget the fact that he could manipulate objects remotely.

In the end, a small screwdriver accelerated and changed its direction under Li Yao’s remote control, ending his life.

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!

The archer bulged his dead fish eyes and stared at Li Yao with a complicated look. The brightness deep inside his eyes gradually disappeared.

Li Yao sighed. He pulled out the screwdriver from his throat and let the blood spurt out, giving him a quick death.

This should be the last pursuer, right?

Although the off-road vehicle had been scrapped, this place was not too far from the border. As long as there was no flood ahead, one could still find a nearby town on foot. It would not be a problem to get new transportation.

Li Yao was somewhat relieved. He turned around to look for Zhang Daniu and the ghost cat.

“Master Niu!”

He narrowed his eyes and searched the sparse coconut woods. Soon, he found Zhang Daniu leaning against a coconut tree, but there was no sign of the ghost cat.

“What happened? Where is the ghost cat?”

Li Yao was greatly surprised. With the fire still burning in his eyes, he looked at Zhang Daniu’s face, only to discover that the author of had an extremely ugly complexion. His face was as black as ink.

Li Yao suddenly had an ominous feeling.

Zhang Daniu’s expression was both strange and confused. He let go of the coconut tree and staggered towards Li Yao. He extended his hands, which were also black to the fingernails, towards Li Yao. Finally, he fell into Li Yao’s arms.

The rainwater was as cold as ice, but his body was as hot as burning coal, with a vague, sweet, stinky smell. Li Yao heard rumbling noises coming from his internal organs, as if they were… melting!

“Master Niu, what’s wrong?”

Li Yao was anxious, but Zhang Daniu was already speechless. Very soon, thick black blood flowed out of his eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth… and ears. He collapsed like an empty sack. Li Yao could not feel his bones at all. Everything below his skin had melted.

Over his shoulder, on his back, where his back was aimed at his heart, there was a dagger with a grinning skull carved on it. It did not look like a human head but more like the head of a cat, which was the self-defense blade of the ghost cat.

BOOM! CRACK!

Thunder and lightning illuminated the bleak land and the burning coconut woods.

Li Yao’s mind was as clear as a mirror. How could he not understand what was going on?

They had all been fooled.

Ghost Cat was not a member of the Ark Foundation but a spy of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Maybe the original purpose of the Heaven’s Origin Sector was to capture Zhang Daniu alive. That was why they had sent a hunter team to set up multiple ambushes.

However, as the defense lines were broken through one after another, and even the last archer was killed by Li Yao’s screwdriver, and there was no way that they could bring Zhang Daniu back alive, it was better to leave a dead body than to let Zhang Daniu fall into the hands of the Ark Foundation.

This was the mission of the Ghost Cat.

Li Yao did not know how to react to such a fact. Every muscle on his face was almost out of control.

Zhang Daniu’s heart was no longer beating and he was no longer breathing. He collapsed to the ground. His chest was clearly caved in. Black blood was spreading around him like a deep, black pool.

He died a clean death. Not even the gods could save him. He could only wait for the next ‘reboot’, if there were any.

“Master Niu…”

Li Yao rubbed his face so hard that his eyes were almost blinded, but he still found it hard to accept the fact. He had escorted them all the way to this place and was about to find Red Pole, the leader of the resistance, and solve all the mysteries about him, Zhang Daniu, and Red Pole. But in the end, Zhang Daniu was still—dead?

Are you kidding me?

Li Yao really wanted to roar and shake his nonexistent hair like a lunatic.

But a moment later, something strange about Zhang Daniu’s body caught his attention.

“Wait. What—what is this?”

It was hard to explain what he saw.

As the body gradually stiffened, long, narrow red lines grew out of Zhang Daniu’s blackened skin. The red lines extended and interweaved into dense spider webs. His ‘skin’ peeled off like cracked paint, revealing a new layer of pale skin!