Chapter 377: Chapter 364

In the woods, the senior brother was terrified.

Chen Xu also felt a moment of fear.

Because at the moment his junior brother died, he suddenly realized that his junior brother was pointing at him!

Yes, in the fleeting moment before his death, the gaze was directed right at Chen Xu.

He actually saw the “invisible” Chen Xu in that moment of dying.

But he didn’t have the chance to fully articulate what he wanted to say before his heart burst, leading to his death.

At the moment of his death, his eyes were filled with shock, pain, and disbelief, yet the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned with a bizarre smile.

This smile made the senior brother extremely uneasy.

He dared not turn around, feeling flustered and agitated, his sword pointed at the junior brother’s corpse as he angrily asked:

“Ding Chuan, what did you say? Explain it clearly! What’s behind me, tell me!”

But how could a corpse answer?

Junior brother Ding Chuan just lay there quietly on the chaotic ground, his body exuding a faint bloody scent.

The senior brother was very flustered, growing more and more anxious.

He kept shouting: “Ding Chuan, Ding Chuan! Get up, speak!”

In the midst of shouting, the senior brother raised his sword and suddenly swept it behind him forcefully.

Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!

His True Qi shot out through the sword, unexpectedly bringing up several strands of sword energy in an instant.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” The senior brother swung his sword into the air, releasing streaks of sword energy that chopped the trees behind him into a mess, while continuously glancing around.

Chen Xu then found himself feeling helplessly amused, realizing that he seemed to be mistaken for some indescribable entity, being guarded against so earnestly.

Of course, the reason he could still indulge in such thoughts was because he simultaneously discovered that although the senior brother’s sword energy occasionally grazed his body, those grazing touches seemed as if they were brushing against air—

The senior brother’s sword energy couldn’t harm Chen Xu.

Until the senior brother’s expression grew increasingly grave, and he shouted: “Qingyang Sunset!”

Whoosh!

A brilliant fan-shaped sword energy, green and radiant, suddenly shot out from the tip of the senior brother’s sword. The power of this move completely overturned Chen Xu’s previous judgment: the senior brother was stronger than Master Wu’s evaluation suggested.

It was imaginable that the senior brother had been holding back when dealing with the wild boar earlier.

If he had used such sword energy earlier, the boar would have likely been shattered into pieces with a single strike.

Now, as he suddenly erupted, although Chen Xu instinctively dodged, his speed was still not quick enough to evade the incoming sword energy.

In a flash, Chen Xu discovered again that even such immensely powerful sword energy still acted as if facing air, sweeping past him without causing any harm.

The sensation was incredibly strange.

Chen Xu pondered silently.

Clearly, he wasn’t truly “invisible,” because he could touch everything in this world, and when he made loud noises while walking, others would notice him.

Junior brother Ding Chuan, before dying, could see him!

Yet the senior brother’s attacks were ineffective against him, and it wasn’t a dissolution, but as if genuinely touching void, passing right through him.

What on earth was the principle behind this?

Chen Xu realized that this was actually a very powerful ability. If he could comprehend it, he would have the greatest reliance when traversing this world in the future.

But unfortunately, this ability was not under his control, and he completely couldn’t understand the reason behind it.

Chen Xu could only keep this in mind, occasionally mulling over it, hoping for inspiration to strike someday.

He surveyed his surroundings, seeing that all around looked as if a storm had swept through.

Within a radius of thirty feet, all the trees were either toppled or smashed to pieces.

Meanwhile, the senior brother stood in place panting heavily, the previous sword strike evidently having consumed a lot of his energy.

His right hand holding the sword even trembled continuously, gasping several times to confirm there was nothing unusual around before angrily moving towards junior brother Ding Chuan.

“Junior brother, you truly are something!” The senior brother sneered, “Even dying, you tried to deceive me. In that case, let me send you on your way once more.”

Saying this, he cautiously took a piece of talisman paper from his waist.

“Hmm.” Chen Xu was surprised.

He walked over to the senior brother, straining his Eye Power to carefully observe the talisman paper, discovering that it was quite similar to what was issued by the Qingxu Daoist Palace of the Great Li Kingdom.

This seemed to be: a Fire Talisman?

Chen Xu had seen such a Fire Talisman with Feng Yuanbai before.

Feng Yuanbai had purchased it from the Qingxu Daoist Palace.

However, compared to the talisman paper from the Qingxu Daoist Palace, the current Fire Talisman appeared more regular.

It faintly exuded dense fire-type Primordial Qi fluctuations, far surpassing the spirit talismans Chen Xu had seen from the Qingxu Daoist Palace.

Chen Xu memorized all the information, comparing it quietly.

He discovered that although the Great Li was a mural kingdom, there seemed to be countless connections between it and this world.

The senior brother raised the Fire Talisman, intending to activate it to directly burn Ding Chuan’s corpse.

But just as he gathered True Qi to his fingertips, at the instant the spirit talisman was about to be activated, the senior brother hesitated.

After much hesitation, he finally gritted his teeth, suddenly raising his sword to pierce junior brother’s heart again.

Shhh!

The sword went in and out.

The senior brother sighed; he was confirming if junior brother Ding Chuan was truly dead.

Once confirmed, he immediately squatted down and reached out to search Ding Chuan’s belongings.

This senior brother ultimately couldn’t resist the desire for his junior brother’s possessions, intending to retrieve them before using a fiery talisman to destroy the corpse.

Then, at the moment the senior brother reached for his junior brother’s waist.

A streak of black light flashed.

This black light was truly like a shooting star and arrow, in a flash of stone.

Just a moment… no, even a ten-thousandth of a moment.

The wind blew past a withered leaf nearby, yet this black light shot straight into the senior brother’s brow before the leaf could be moved.

Hiss!

As it turned out, the junior brother feigned death and spat out a black iron spike hidden in his mouth at the instant the senior brother bent down!

The senior brother didn’t even have time to shout; his throat merely emitted a vague sound: “You…”

His head exploded instantly.

Bang!

Red and white specks splashed as the senior brother fell backward.

This time, he didn’t have the chance to fake death like his junior brother; he died cleanly at one glance.

Ding Chuan flipped upright, clutching his chest as he cried and laughed: “Hahaha, excellent, senior brother, oh senior brother, Zhang Ming oh Zhang Ming, you thought you could ambush and kill me without me being prepared?

I just didn’t expect you truly intended to kill me!

Do you know, that the “Ji Zhou Immortal Dao Travels” was indeed acquired by me by luck from the Hundred Battles Ruins, for which I even exchanged thirty years of lifespan.

I treated you with sincerity, wanting to seek treasures together and change our fates, but who would have thought you’d strike first?

Senior brother, thirty years ago, you picked me from the beggar’s pile and brought me back to the sect. You once taught me carefully, guiding me to practice swordsmanship.

You brought candies for me from the market, swore with me to lead the sect to ascend to the Eighth Grade…

But you have forgotten all these.”

Ding Chuan sighed softly, removing his hand from his chest, revealing a shattered pendant.

It was not an ordinary pendant but a Healing Spirit Pendant capable of blocking a fatal blow.

Earlier, when senior brother’s sword pierced his heart, he was indeed close to death.

Yet the Healing Spirit Pendant absorbed his deadly aura and facilitated healing at the critical moment afterward.

Thus, Ding Chuan narrowly survived.

Unfortunately, this life-saving trump card could only be used once.

And Zhang Ming’s second sword truly struck Ding Chuan’s chest, rendering the Healing Spirit Pendant ineffective.

Luckily, that sword only grazed Ding Chuan’s heart, preventing him from a second death.

Ding Chuan endured the pain without activating it at that time, yet now he was pale and sweating profusely from the pain.

He fished out a bottle of healing ointment from his waist and carefully applied the powder to the chest wound.

This was his last bit of healing ointment.

The wound was too deep and the powder too little, merely stopping the bleeding slightly even if he used all of it.

After thinking for a while, Ding Chuan chose not to discard the empty bottle.

He placed the bottle back into his waist’s storage pouch and leaned over to carefully search through Zhang Ming’s corpse.

Half an hour later, Ding Chuan consumed an elixir found in Zhang Ming’s storage pouch, then started a fire and cut a piece of wild boar meat, roasting it in the clearing of the forest.

During this time, Chen Xu was watching from the side.

He noticed Ding Chuan continually casting his gaze as if searching for something inadvertently.

Yet his gaze swept over Chen Xu several times as if he saw nothing.

Was it because he was out of the near-death state that he couldn’t see Chen Xu?

Or was Ding Chuan still pretending?

His acting was first-rate, and Chen Xu wasn’t hasty in drawing conclusions.

But Chen Xu also noticed Ding Chuan’s stomach rumbling incessantly, clearly showing signs of hunger.

Previously, Zhang Ming had mentioned being close to starvation several times.

This was truly odd; a distinguished cultivator unable to afford food, on the brink of “starvation”?

Chen Xu found it hard to comprehend.

With a cultivator’s skills, regardless of poverty, with the vast mountains before them, even hunting would prevent them from starving, right?

But this question was answered by Chen Xu a quarter of an hour later.

Ding Chuan carefully roasted a piece of wild boar’s back meat over the flames.

The meat was as long as half an adult’s forearm, sizzling with oil and crisp, golden in appearance.

At first smell, the meat seemed fragrant, yet as Ding Chuan bit into it, his face suddenly wrinkled.

“Pah! Pah pah pah!” Ding Chuan hurriedly spat out the meat, showing a deeply frustrated expression.

“This meat is still inedible!” He seemed almost ready to cry, “So sour and astringent, surely tainted with poison, unsuitable for consumption! Alas, how pathetic, I, Ding Chuan, a dignified cultivator, am I truly destined to starve to death in these wild lands?”

“Pah! Pah pah pah!” Ding Chuan hurriedly spat out the meat, showing a deeply frustrated expression.

“This meat is still inedible!” He seemed almost ready to cry, “So sour and astringent, surely tainted with poison, unsuitable for consumption! Alas, how pathetic, I, Ding Chuan, a dignified cultivator, am I truly destined to starve to death in these wild lands?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep