Song Yan’s expression was dark and gloomy, his lip line straight. His pink eyes were veiled with a brooding haze, staring straight into the depths of Xie Shi’s eyes without blinking, carrying a hair-raising paranoia.
Xie Shi’s body perceived danger long before his consciousness did.
Every hair on his body stood on end, his throat tightened, and he had the illusion of being held in the jaws of a fierce beast, about to be swallowed whole at any moment.
Yet Song Yan maintained this expression for only a fleeting instant before the corners of his lips curved into a smile. In a soft voice, he said, “If A-Shi gets hurt, my heart will ache.”
His brows and eyes relaxed, and his gaze was alluring.
The hand that had imprisoned Xie Shi also loosened, shifting instead to catch one of Xie Shi’s fingertips. He shook it gently, acting like a spoiled child seeking a sense of security.
He had returned to his usual docile and obedient appearance.
It was as if everything just now had merely been an illusion.
Xie Shi’s tense body only then slowly relaxed.
“I was just too worried, so my grip was a bit too heavy.” Seeing Xie Shi remain silent, Song Yan raised a single finger, brushed it against the wrist Xie Shi had just been holding, and stroked it gently. With a pitiful look, he asked, “Is A-Shi angry?”
Xie Shi’s skin was fair; after having his wrist gripped for just a short while, that patch of skin had flushed with a light red mark and retained a trace of warmth.
To make matters worse, Song Yan’s fingertips continued to linger there. It was less of a soothing gesture and more of an ambiguous caress, making that patch of Xie Shi’s skin exceptionally sensitive.
He felt a tingling numbness where Song Yan touched him, as though tiny electric currents were sweeping across.
“N-No.”
Xie Shi desperately wanted to withdraw his hand, but his fingers seemed to have stopped obeying him. They trembled slightly, yet still obediently allowed Song Yan to hold them.
Song Yan was a master at pushing his luck.
Seeing that Xie Shi did not push him away, Song Yan slid his hand lower, wedged it into Xie Shi’s palm, and then grasped it firmly.
“A-Shi is truly good.” He curved his eyes, his tone laced with pleasure.
Xie Shi raised his other hand and pinched his burning earlobe.
His hand was being held by Song Yan, and the boundary was struck just right.
It wasn’t an intertwining of all ten fingers, but merely a pressing of palms together.
It didn’t quite count as ambiguous, yet it was sufficiently intimate.
Giving Xie Shi no reason to refuse.
Even if he did refuse, Song Yan would probably pitifully cry out that he was scared and make him take his hand back.
Xie Shi thought to himself that it was no wonder Meng Jingxue had fallen for it.
Who could possibly withstand this?
A sudden wind picked up, fine sand blowing past and lightly grazing the back of Xie Shi’s neck.
Xie Shi’s spine tightened, feeling as though someone had just stroked the back of his neck.
He reached up to touch the back of his neck and instinctively looked around.
They were already very far from the man-eating sand, but in the panic of running for their lives, Xie Shi had not returned by the original path.
This was not the boundless desert of the central Barren Wilderness.
He had no idea where they were.
The rocks here were strange, excessively strange.
Square and upright, every single one stood like a city wall, winding and twisting, splicing together to enclose a maze.
And Xie Shi and Song Yan were right at the outermost edge of this walled city.
Xie Shi turned his head to look at the rock he had just leaned against.
Grayish-yellow, its surface covered in a layer of grit that shed a layer at the slightest touch.
A bad premonition arose in Xie Shi’s heart. With a trembling hand, he brushed the loose debris off the surface of this boulder.
Then, he saw that this massive rock was riddled with cracks, as though it were pieced together from all sorts of stones.
Suddenly, the earth shook, gravel cascaded from the giant rock in showers, and a dull, echoing hum reverberated from within the maze.
One sound, two sounds, three sounds, and several more.
It was as if some terrifying entity was awakening.
The vibration of the earth grew more violent. Xie Shi swayed, unable to stand steady for a moment.
It wasn’t until Song Yan abruptly jerked him into his embrace that Xie Shi realized the earth wasn’t shaking at all.
It was the very rock he had just been leaning against that was trembling!
Not only was it trembling, but it was growing larger, growing taller, rising higher and higher.
And not just that one, for all the stones were growing!
Within the span of a few breaths, they grew to a truly terrifying degree, turning as tall as mountains, row after row of mountains.
A small, knife-sharpened peak jutted from the top of the mountains, resembling a colossal head!
Before he knew it, Xie Shi’s chin was tilted high up, gazing up at the towering rocks that had expanded amidst a booming rumble.
His eyes widened in sheer disbelief, the scene before him making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
No, this was wrong!
Xie Shi’s heart rate skyrocketed as he finally realized what terrifying truth this implied.
Everything here was…
As if to verify his guess, those mountains slowly rotated their heads!
Then, with a sudden swish!
The bulging eyes on dozens of heads snapped open simultaneously, their gazes converging into a single line, piercing straight into Song Yan!
Everything here was actually a giant rock monster!
Their auras were far more terrifying than the rock monster from earlier, each one possessing at least the cultivation base of the Soul Transformation stage!
In a fraction of a second, all the rock monsters violently surged to life, scrambling over one another to pounce toward Song Yan.
Crowding together, the stones on their bodies churned, looking from afar like a churning sea of rock.
With a horrifying sound, flying dust and mist, and a massive descending fist, the spot where Song Yan and Xie Shi had been standing was instantly blasted into a massive crater.
Yet when the dust settled, the rock monster that had struck down with its fist looked down in astonishment to find its target completely empty!
It let out an angry roar, lifting its gaze to look at the two figures fleeing into the distance.
At the very critical moment, Xie Shi had summoned a sword from his spatial sleeve.
The system had forged his background impeccably: he was a rogue cultivator, and he possessed a commonly used weapon, a sword named Bu Can.
Having not seen the light of day for a long time, the Bu Can sword emitted a clear, resonant hum the moment it was drawn.
Clumsily piloting the sword, Xie Shi pressed two fingers together, his hands flying rapidly in front of his chest to form spiritual seals. Cyan spiritual energy overflowed, wrapping around his fingers like mist.
“Hold onto me tightly!” Xie Shi shouted to Song Yan at the top of his lungs.
Song Yan silently held Xie Shi tighter.
His sword-piloting skills were truly abysmal. Even with his spiritual energy fully activated, he flew in a bumpy, halting manner, nearly plunging downward several times.
The rock monsters behind them roared excitedly, as if waiting for him to crash.
If not driven by desperate circumstances, Xie Shi would never have chosen to fly on a sword.
After all, this was also an activity that drained spiritual energy.
He couldn’t be able to hold on for long.
Xie Shi clenched his teeth and said to the system, “Help me keep an eye on this bunch of rock monsters!”
The system’s mechanical voice carried no inflection as it reported, “The nearest rock monster is nine meters away, ten meters, eight meters, five meters, three meters.”
Damn it.
Xie Shi once again channeled his spiritual energy fiercely, piloting the sword at full speed.
The fierce wind lashed against his face, blowing away his bangs and exposing his entire visage.
On that usually gentle face, a fierce and ruthless expression emerged.
His brows were heavily furrowed, his lips tightly pressed, and his pupils burst with an intense, desperate light of survival.
The cyan spiritual energy dragged a long, dazzling trail of fire behind the Bu Can sword.
Like a shooting star streaking across the firmament.
The system’s voice finally sounded once more: “The nearest rock monster is six meters away, nine meters, ten meters, twelve meters, fifteen meters.”