Chapter 1: Escaping to the Wandering Spirit Mountains

  A forest shrouded in a faint, dark mist, cold and damp, with every tree growing in strange shapes, like monstrous beasts, exuding an aura of terror.

  In the forest, there are bubbling swamps everywhere. If you're not careful, you'll step into one and sleep here forever.

  "Ka-ching" "Ka-ching"

  A loud noise came from behind a big tree, like two rusty iron bars rubbing against each other.

  Before long, a skull emerged from behind the tree, holding a black and shiny bone spear. The skull was still wearing tattered armor, and in its two empty eye sockets, two eerie red glows were flickering.

  At this moment, a faint silver light flashed across, silently shooting into the ear hole of this skull.

  In an instant, the red glow in the eye sockets of the skull was extinguished like a flame doused with cold water, and then the entire body collapsed into a pile of bones.

  On the opposite side of the tree, a figure emerged from the shadows. It was a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy with a dark longbow on his back, his face covered in dirt and his clothes tattered and worn out. However, his eyes occasionally flashed with a cold light that made one's heart skip a beat.

  If someone saw the young man at this time, they would inevitably feel a chill. His entire body was shrouded in an aura of deathly stillness, and not a hint of human warmth could be sensed.

  The young man leaped down like a lynx, pulled out the silver arrow from the skull, and then inserted two fingers into the dark eye sockets of the skull. Before long, he pinched out a green bead from inside.

  "Haha, not bad luck, I got ten Soul Pearls today." A faint smile appeared at the corner of Qi Bei's mouth. What was strange was that when he smiled, the aura of death around him completely dissipated, and his eyes became lively, making people feel warm and close.

  "Night is falling again, gotta find a place to rest for the night. Sigh, don't know when I'll be able to get out of this damned Spirit Mountain Range." Ziqi muttered to himself, and with a flicker of his feet, he agilely leaped onto a large tree, his figure disappearing into the trees after a few bounds.

  The moonlight poured down like liquid silver, and the Wailing Mountains began to bustle with activity.

  Skull, Zombie, Ghost Insect, Soul-Eating Beast...

  The Ghost Mountains at night are a paradise for ghosts and a carnival for spirits of the dead.

  A stranger in this place would think they are in hell.

  In a dimly lit rocky cave, Qibei sat cross-legged, with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his breath sunk into his dantian, and his palms facing upwards on top of his knee joints.

  A faint white smoke rose from the top of his head, Baihui acupoint, while at the same time, his body's pores continuously seeped out pitch-black stains.

  In an instant, Qi Bei's entire body trembled slightly, and a series of crisp explosions sounded within him.

  At the same time, on the back of Ziqi's left hand, a golden dragon pattern that rode the clouds and fog suddenly appeared, emitting countless golden threads.

  A scorching heat like a wildfire in the upper dantian, a thick and heavy true energy rose up to the heart and lungs.

  In an instant, Qi Bei only felt that his body had turned into a boiler, filled with boiling **, about to explode.

  "Ah......" Qi Bei suddenly opened his eyes wide, his mouth agape, and a loud roar burst forth from his throat.

  A loud roar shook the sky, faintly accompanied by a hint of dragon's wail.

  After this roar, Qi Bei felt his whole body relaxed and comfortable, as light as a feather.

  "Shen Long Jue's first layer, I've finally succeeded." Qi Bei muttered to himself. In his dantian, a swirling mass of golden inner energy was slowly rotating. He could feel the surging power within his body and even hear the faint rustling sounds made by a zombie hundreds of meters away.

  However, Ziqi soon realized that something was amiss. His roar had attracted some high-level vengeful spirits who could fly and move about freely. The dense aura of death outside, the chilling cries of the numerous vengeful spirits, and the sounds of breaking air that came from all directions, formed a symphony of hell.

  Qī Běi sprang up, pouring out a string of differently colored Soul Orbs from a cloth bag, arranging them into a peculiar formation.

  "Mogras, Biania." Zhi Bei held a black ancient book in his hand, muttering obscure incantations.

  As soon as the incantation was finished, a mysterious magical symbol rose from the black ancient book. More than 100 spirit beads on the ground shattered instantly, and the dense death energy wrapped around his figure gradually disappeared.

  A big living person suddenly disappeared out of thin air.

  Just as Ziqi disappeared, the boulder blocking the entrance of the cave was shattered by a massive force. A skull with thick, black armor covering its entire body appeared at the entrance. Its eye sockets flickered with golden light, scanning back and forth inside the cave.

  "The demon in front of me is a high-ranking undead, the strongest among its kind. Even if I had ten lives, it would still be enough to kill me, but fortunately, it doesn't seem to have noticed my presence. The magic in this world is indeed mysterious." Zhi Bei thought to himself with a hint of relief.

  Not long after, this skull broke through the air and left, high-level undead already had a certain level of intelligence.

  However, outside the cave, hundreds of low-level undead had already blocked the exit.

  The sky gradually brightened, and the undead creatures outside the rocky cave apparently disliked sunlight, instinctively starting to move into the cave.

  Just then, the magic of the stealth formation was about to run out.

  He carried a longbow on his back, held a bone knife in his left hand and grasped a dark red bone spear with his right hand, his body tense like a leopard ready to pounce.

  Suddenly, with a "peng" sound, more than 100 souls turned into powder.

  Qī Běi swiftly sprang up, his bone knife slicing out a white flash of lightning. In an instant, he beheaded the three zombies in front of him, and his body, following its momentum, knocked over a skull, his right hand's bone spear inserting into its eye socket.

  Anger, causing all the spirits around him to riot and swarm towards Ziqi like a beehive.

  "Die!" Qi Bei's body was filled with violent energy, and he let out a loud roar. The bone knife and spear in his hand emitted strands of golden light, and wherever they passed, it was as if they were chopping melons and cutting vegetables, leaving behind only mangled limbs and broken bones.

  Zi Bei himself didn't expect that after reaching the first layer of Shen Long Quan, his combat power would soar to such an extent.

  His strength, his speed, and his reaction have increased by more than three times compared to before.

  Especially when the internal force is infused into the Bone Knife and Bone Spear, the golden light emitted is as sharp as the divine sword Tian Ya, and it can conquer everything.

  However, Qi Bei didn't dare to be too happy, these were just some low-level undead spirits. Although his internal energy was surging and powerful, it had a fatal weakness - he couldn't sustain it for long. Just a few attacks would already consume more than half of it.

  Zi Bei had already rushed out of the cave, he didn't dare to fight back, as there were about 500-600 undead creatures surrounding him. If his internal energy was exhausted, it would be difficult for him to break through the encirclement.

  The low-level undead moved slowly, at a pace similar to that of Qi Bei's, and soon arrived at the periphery without much effort.

  Qī Běi chopped off the zombie's head in front of him, flipped over and landed on top of a skull with one hand, sliding more than ten meters like a big Peng bird before landing, already escaping from the undead crowd.

  Zi Bei let out a breath of relief and started running down the road.

  Suddenly, a strange change occurred, and a pair of long, sharp, dark purple-black claws burst out from the ground, firmly grasping Qi Bei's feet like an iron hoop.

  Qī Běi's heart skipped a beat, his left hand's bone knife emitted a faint layer of golden light as it chopped downwards.

  With a "ding" sound, only a three-inch long slit was left on the zombie's hands, and the group of undead not far away was less than eight meters away.

  Qī Běi let out a loud roar, his internal energy surging through his legs as he pushed off the ground with great force, sending himself flying upwards like a cannonball.

  A zombie was brought up from the ground, no, it should only be counted as half a corpse, because the lower body of this zombie had completely disappeared, its claws still firmly grasping Qi Bei's foot.

  Looking at the zombie with only half its body left, his heart felt as cold as snow in July.

  The zombie's eyes glowed with a greenish light, its entire body was extremely hard, and on its forehead, there was a streak of bright silver. In other words, it was an advanced undead creature, because the bright silver on its forehead was also known as a Silver Corpse, even if it was incomplete, it was still an advanced undead creature.

  The silver corpse, relying on the strength of its two hands, suddenly thrust forward with half of its body in a flash of lightning, and opened its large mouth full of fangs to bite at Qi Bei's thigh.

  Qī Běi's bone knife slapped horizontally towards the Silver Corpse's head, causing its large mouth to deviate from its target and bite into empty air.

  But Qi Beixin's heart turned ruthless, his legs twisted and kicked out, several pieces of flesh were hooked down by the silver corpse's claws, but he regained his freedom. At this time, the distance between him and the group of undead was only half a meter, and the skull in front had already swung down the bone blade in its hand.

  He dived northward, his body rolling on the ground several times before suddenly jumping up and leaping onto a large tree. He was now at the edge of a dense forest.

  By relying on the dense jungle and his ability to hide, he would greatly increase his chances of escaping with his life.

  Qī Běi took advantage of the momentary jump to glance back, and his pupils suddenly contracted violently.

  Only half of the silver corpse's body was left, yet its speed was actually three points faster than his. All he saw was that its two hands pushed off the ground and jumped, and all he could see was its afterimage.

  His nerves were stretched to the limit, and his mind was highly concentrated. Every time he reached a life-or-death juncture, his tense nerves and concentrated mind allowed him to calculate and analyze with incredible speed.

  Splash

  Zi Bei had just leaped off a large tree, which had been torn to shreds by the sharp claws of the silver corpse.

  Zi Bei desperately leaped from tree to tree, but no matter how he turned, the silver corpse stuck tightly to his back, leaving a trail of bloodstains on his back, thighs, and even buttocks.

  "It seems that I won't be able to shake it off, if this continues, even if I'm not torn apart, the poison from the wound will be enough to make me suffer for eternity." Qi Bei thought to himself, the wounds on his body had already begun to fester, the toxins spreading throughout his body through his bloodstream. If he hadn't been holding his breath to protect his internal organs, he would have been unable to move by now. But even so, he wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer.

  Zhi Bei didn't panic, this wasn't his first time facing a life-or-death crisis. He deeply knew that at such moments, if he didn't keep a calm mind, he would only die faster.

  Just then, Qi Bei's gaze swept over a large tree in front of him to the right, where a nest of corpse-eating insects was located, and his heart skipped a beat.