He had let them follow for a couple of reasons. For one, short of killing them, there was no way to stop them if they were determined to come. For another, he’d thought they had banded together out of some sense of camaraderie.
Now he saw the truth. They were only together for personal gain. They were so apathetic about their own companion’s death. ’And they call this loyalty?’
Oftentimes, beasts were far simpler than men.
Perhaps because there was no trace of killing intent or greed in Chu Fan’s eyes, the White Fox raised its head and looked at him.
"Don’t be afraid. Let me see your wound!"
The White Fox whimpered, its eyes still misty with tears.
As Chu Fan crouched down, the five men all retreated a dozen or so steps, keeping their distance.
It was a small fox, pure white without a single speck of another color. Its body was a little over a foot long, and it looked very weak.
An arrow had pierced the base of its left leg, and its white fur was stained with blood.
"This might hurt a little. Try to bear with it."
Chu Fan didn’t have any Elixirs or Spirit Medicines on him, so all he could do was pull out the arrow and bandage the wound with a strip of cloth.
He took hold of the White Fox’s left leg. The fox didn’t flinch, its gaze fixed on Chu Fan’s face.
Pulling out the arrow was painful, but the White Fox only let out a small whimper.
Even after Chu Fan tore a strip of cloth from his own clothes and bandaged its wound, it continued to stare at his face, as if to commit his appearance to memory.
"There!"
Chu Fan patted its head and stood up.
The White Fox landed on all fours, glanced at Chu Fan, and let out a cry before quickly dashing away, vanishing in a flash like a bolt of white lightning.
"An ungrateful little fellow, I see." Chu Fan smiled nonchalantly.
"I’m going to keep heading deeper. What are you five planning to do?" Chu Fan asked the remaining men.
The third man in their group spoke up. "Of course we’re going deeper. We’ve already lost three men. If we give up now, wouldn’t they have died for nothing?"
Chu Fan nodded indifferently.
They walked for another two or three miles in peace. As the fog continued to thin, their field of vision expanded.
’Actually, Chu Fan had been nursing a question for a while. Dingfeng Slope wasn’t that large, so why did Yu Zongding give him a three-month deadline?’
’Was it just an offhand comment, made because he knew I was doomed to die here?’
’The deeper he went, the more Chu Fan felt that things weren’t so simple.’
"Look, what’s that?" one of the men shouted, pointing ahead.
Chu Fan followed his gaze. There, on the edge of a southeastern slope, a colossal beast lay prostrate on the ground, as immense as a mountain.
If its massive nostrils weren’t pointed directly at them, Chu Fan would have mistaken it for a small hill.
Beneath the great beast lay a pile of skeletons.
But there was no sign of life from the beast; it had clearly been dead for a very, very long time.
’Could this be the Fierce Beast from over three thousand years ago?’
’It was hard to imagine. The beast had been dead for over three thousand years, yet it looked as if it were merely sleeping. The bones of the powerful predecessors beneath it had already carbonized, but the beast itself showed no sign of decay.’
’No wonder it took thousands of experts using a great Array to slay it three thousand years ago, and even then, they paid such a heavy price!’
’At my current level of Cultivation, if this beast were still alive, a single roar would probably have been enough to obliterate me with its shockwave.’
"My god, how can a Fierce Beast this huge exist in the world? A single one of its claws has to be several times bigger than I am!" someone exclaimed in awe.
The beast’s appearance was somewhat similar to a Qilin, except it had only a single horn on its head. Though shaped like a deer’s antler, its tip was incredibly sharp.
Its body was covered in both scales and fur, and two tusks grew from its lower jaw like a pair of Long Spears.
Aside from having one less horn, the biggest difference between it and a Qilin was its horse-like face and the tuft of a long beard on its chin.
Chu Fan’s attention was mostly focused on the colossal beast, but once the other five men confirmed it was long dead, their eyes were immediately drawn to the weapons lying beside the skeletons.
After all, the thousands of people who had besieged this Fierce Beast back then were all top-tier Cultivators from the Eastern Domain, or even the entire continent.
An unknown number of them had even reached the Tribulation Crossing Realm Peak, just like the founder of the Lingyun Sect.
One could only imagine the value of the weapons they had used.
Even after being exposed to the elements for three thousand years, those weapons still gleamed with a sharp, deadly edge.
After waiting a moment and seeing no danger, the five men all charged toward the weapons.
One of them even laughed boisterously, shouting, "You can’t believe the rumors! They said Dingfeng Slope was a Desolate Land, but look at me! I’m perfectly fine!"
"We’re rich, brothers, we’re rich! Just a single one of these weapons sold on the black market would be enough to feed a family for eight lifetimes!"
Their excited shouts pulled Chu Fan back to reality. Seeing them recklessly charge toward the Fierce Beast, he warned, "Be careful! The danger isn’t over."
’That’s right. For over three thousand years, countless skeptics had come to Dingfeng Slope. Had any of them ever left alive?’
’Could a place known as a Desolate Land for three millennia really be this simple?’
"Kid, stop trying to scare us, you hear? Nobody’s going to stop me from getting rich now!"
"Yeah! If you’re too scared, just stay over there and watch, you coward!"
It was unclear whether the wind was stirred by their running or if their shouts had triggered the residual power of the Array.
Just as they were about to reach the giant beast, a sudden gale erupted throughout the valley.
Every wisp of wind was like Sword Gang.
At first, it just stung their faces, but gradually, the wind began to carve gashes into their bodies, the wounds growing deeper and deeper.
Chu Fan realized something was wrong and hurriedly ran toward a nearby slope, twisting and turning to evade the wind as best he could.
The razor winds raged without direction, blowing across the skeletons on the ground and causing them to clatter against each other with a crisp sound.
The entire atmosphere felt utterly bizarre.
The five men, in particular, were caught in the eye of the storm. Their clothes had long been shredded by the gale, leaving behind bloody gashes.
They screamed and ran, trying to escape, but how could they possibly outrun the wind?
Chu Fan was wondering if there was any way to help them when a sight suddenly made his blood run cold.
The giant beast that had been lying prostrate on the ground suddenly straightened its limbs and stood up. As it rose, countless chunks of rock cascaded from its body.
Then, the beast turned its face toward him. The moment its eyes opened, two beams of golden light shot out from its pupils.
The immense pressure forced Chu Fan’s knees to buckle, and he fell backward, landing in a sitting position on the ground.
Even when he averted his gaze, the pressure was still so suffocating that Chu Fan could barely breathe.
’Wasn’t it already dead? Why did it suddenly come back to life?’ Chu Fan asked himself, his mind reeling with shock and doubt.
"Kill them, and you may live!" the giant beast actually spoke in a human tongue.
’Them? Who was "them"? It was the other five men, of course.’
Chu Fan looked over at them. The five were still dodging the razor winds, their bodies covered in wounds, like men drenched in blood.
"If you wanted to kill them, you could do it ten times over with a single breath. Why make me do it?"
Although Chu Fan was being crushed by its pressure and had nearly lost his composure, he hadn’t lost consciousness and quickly spotted a flaw in its threat.
"Do you have a choice?" The beast’s gaze sharpened, becoming almost tangible. A beam of brilliant light shot out and struck the ground in front of Chu Fan, blasting open a deep crater the size of a large basket.
"Fine!" Chu Fan agreed. He drew his Sword, pointed a finger, and the Long Sword rose into the air. With a light tap of his feet on the ground, he stepped onto the Flying Sword.