Chapter 819: Lieshan (1/2)
Agonizing pain pierced straight through Lu Yun’s body, assaulting his mind in waves. All of his tendons and bones felt like they’d been ground to paste and were being barely held together by the poor sac of his battered skin.
Suddenly, he felt something wet and warm touch his cheek. He struggled to open his eyes and saw the little fox lying prone next to his ear, unconsciously licking the blood on his face. She looked as broken as Lu Yun.
“This is my primary body. What’s going on? My primary body was in the kingdom of hell. How did I get here and in this state?” Dazed, Lu Yun took stock of his condition. His blood vessels, flesh, meridians, and bones were all blended together like dumpling filling. He couldn’t sense the six paths of his nascent spirit, the kingdom of hell, or Xing Chen. Even the Tome of Life and Death was nowhere to be seen.
What little immortal force remained in him was the only thing keeping him alive. Once it expired, his primary body would, too. And since he couldn’t sense his nascent spirit, the death of his body would mean the actual death of him.
“What’s going on? What the heck happened?” This was the worst injury he’d ever suffered since setting foot on the path of cultivation, and he’d never been this close to death before.
Waves of intense pain returned with redoubled fury and muddled his mind. Right before he fell unconscious, he heard a back and forth of some unknown language.
Then, there was only darkness.
……
“Ancestors’ spirits bless us.”
“Ancestors’ spirits bless us.”
“May the men of Ning Village return safely with a bountiful harvest.”
“May the men of Ning Village return safely with a bountiful harvest.”
……
Piercing yodels cut through the serenity of dawn. Ten men donning heavy leather armor with bows on their backs and sharp weapons in their hands marched into the dense forest before them, their steps unified and heads held high. They were in fine fettle and their collective presence imposing.
Half a year ago, a hunting group had brought Lu Yun and the little fox out of this very forest. After six months of arduous effort, the Ning people managed to bring them back from the brink of death, but only just.
It’d taken all this time for Lu Yun to recover, and he was currently no different from a fragile, ordinary mortal. His cultivation and immortal force were lost, and his constitution was in the same state as when he’d first arrived in the world of immortals.
A connate dormant bloodline with no capability to cultivate.
The little fox was in no better state. She’d also lost all of her cultivation and eight of her puffy tails. She’d even lost the ability to speak.
Without Lu Yun, she would die a quick death. The bell hanging around her neck was still there, however. Lu Yun had checked it thoroughly, but it seemed to be an ordinary item with nothing unusual about it.