Zhang Ruochen and Han Xuan rushed day and night without stopping, reaching the fastest speed, and finally arrived at the outer periphery of Tianmo Ridge by noon on the second day.

  On the horizon are towering mountains, dense forests, sparse human habitation, and occasionally giant ferocious beasts roaming.

  "We're only half a day's journey away from Tianmo Wucheng, we should be safe by now."

  Han Xuan let out a long sigh of relief and smiled, "I remember that not far from here, there is a small city called Yue Jic City. It belongs to the sphere of influence of the Yun Tai Sect's manor. We can go there to rest properly. Perhaps, the people sent by the Yun Tai Sect and the Wu Shi Academy have already arrived at Yue Ji City."

  Zhang Ruochen thought for a moment and said, "Alright, if the Wumeng Academy and the Yuntai Sect really have experts waiting to greet us in Yueji City, that's a good thing. However, we should still be cautious and it's best to scout ahead before entering the city."

  It has been more than ten days since then, and the news must have already spread back to the Wu City Academy.

  The Wushu Academy will definitely send a strong person to come and pick up Zhang Ruochen, after all, with the talent shown by Zhang Ruochen, it is absolutely worth the Wushu Academy's key protection.

  When Zhang Ruochen and Han Xuan arrived outside Yueji City, they discovered a very strange thing.

  The city gate is wide open, but not a soul can be seen.

  Although it is said that Yuejic City is just a small city, it is absolutely not desolate. Every year, the warriors who go to the Tianmo Ridge for adventure can be said to be in the tens of thousands, and most of them will stay in Yuejic City temporarily, replenish their healing medicine, sell the bodies of the barbarian beasts, and so on.

  Why is it that today, there isn't a single person in sight, as if it were a dead city.

  Zhang Ruochen sniffed lightly in the air, and even hundreds of meters away, he could smell a strong stench coming from the city.

  "How can Yueji City be so quiet? Has the evil martial artist of the Poisonous Spider Merchant Guild already occupied this small city?" Han Xiao wondered.

  "If it were a poisonous spider merchant's evil martial artist, they would never be so obvious."

  Zhang Ruochen seemed to have guessed something and walked directly towards the city gate.

  Han Xiang hesitated for a moment and then followed him up.

  As they entered Yueji City, Zhang Ruochen and Han Xuan only discovered that the entire city of Yueji had indeed become a dead city, with no one in sight on the streets.

  Because there is nothing but corpses.

  Those corpses were scattered all over the ground, some hanging from the eaves, others broken in two.

  They looked like they had died just a day or two ago, their bodies were extremely emaciated, all the blood in their bodies had been drained, and the air was filled with a putrid smell that made people want to vomit.

  Although it was still daytime, it gave people a gloomy and terrifying feeling, as if they had arrived in a human hell.

  "What happened to this entire city?"

  Even with a strong psychological quality, Han Xiao's face turned pale, and a strong sense of fear arose in his heart.

  "It can't be a ghost, right?"

  Han Yu slightly leaned towards Zhang Ruochen and tightly gripped the hilt of his sword.

  Zhang Ruochen's face was expressionless as he walked up to one of the mummies, squatted down, and looked at the two holes on the mummy's neck.

  Zhang Ruochen's pupils contracted and he said, "It's really her."

  Han Xiao asked: "Who?"

  Zhang Ruochen stood up again and said: "Have you heard that the master of Wushicheng Academy is fighting against a blood-sucking demon?"

  "It's said that Wushu Academy dispatched ten top-notch experts at the Tianji boundary to deal with her, but she managed to escape from them as well."

  Han Xuan suddenly came to a realization and exclaimed in surprise: "Could it be that she was the one who drained the blood of all these people? Throughout the entire city of Yueji, there were at least tens of thousands of warriors. With just her own power, it's probably still impossible for her to drain the blood of tens of thousands of warriors."

  "She's probably been cultivating Blood Spirit."

  "With the help of the Blood Spirit, combined with her own strength, it's not a difficult task to drain the blood of all warriors in the entire city of Yueji. After absorbing so much human blood, I wonder how far she has grown."

  Han Xuan looked at Zhang Ruochen with some surprise and asked in a puzzled tone: "You seem to be quite familiar with that vampire demon."

  "Of course, because I've seen her and know where she's from." Zhang Ruochen said.

  Han Xuan was taken aback and asked curiously: "What is her origin?"

  "This isn't the time to talk about that blood-sucking devil, we've got trouble again"

  Zhang Ruochen's gaze was fixed on the direction of the city wall.

  "Humming"

  A group of colorful bees flew above the city wall of Yuexing City, with a glint of wisdom in their eyes, staring at Zhang Ruochen and Han Xuan.

  Those bees' bodies are about 100 times larger than ordinary honeybees and are roughly the size of a fist.

  Their wingspan is up to half a meter long, and at the tail end, there are sharp venomous spines.

  At a glance, it's like hundreds of colorful birds flying in mid-air.

  "Qianli Feng" Zhang Ruochen said.

  Han Yu also stared at the giant bees and said, "Being able to control so many thousand-mile bees at the same time must be a master-level beast tamer. As far as I know, there is a strange person beside the Four Sides King named Ling Xian Su, who is a great beast tamer. Could it be him catching up?"

  "It should be him," Zhang Ruochen said.

  A thousand-mile bee, a first-class barbarian beast with average attack power. Its true use is to pursue enemies, survey terrain and transmit messages.

  Ordinary low-level beast tamers can only raise one or a few thousand-mile bees.

  Able to dispatch hundreds of bees at once, it's absolutely a master-level person arriving.

  The Beast Master's attack power is more terrifying than that of an ordinary Tianji Realm warrior, and can easily destroy a city.

  A beastmaster is comparable to hundreds of thousands of troops, and its destructive power on the battlefield is the strongest.

  Those thousand-mile bees found Zhang Ruochen and Han Xuan after they flew out of Yueji City to inform that beast-controlling master.

  Han Yu said: "While that beast master has not caught up yet, let's make a quick escape"

  "Where to escape to?"

  "Zhang Ruochen calmly said: 'The most formidable thing about beast tamers is their ability to control ferocious beasts and launch attacks on warriors. In Yueji City, there are city walls, houses, and formation arrays that can hinder the ferocious beasts and give us a chance to counterattack. But if we escape into Tianmo Ridge and are surrounded by a group of ferocious beasts, it will be even more unfavorable for us.'"

  Han Yu said: "Your meaning is that we will stay in Yueji City and compete with the Beast Master"

  "The power of a beast master, we can't match. We're just trying to delay time, and can only hope that the experts from Wumeng Academy and Yuntai Sect will arrive soon." Zhang Ruochen said.

  Han Xuan finally understood Zhang Ruochen's meaning and stayed in Yueji City, where the masters of Wushang Academy and Yuntai Manor would be easier to find.

  If they were to escape into the vast mountains, they would not only have to face the constant attacks of the fierce beasts, but it would also be difficult for them to wait for a master to come and rescue them.

  Zhang Ruochen began to take stock of the resources available in the storage ring, taking them out one by one.

  Thunder beads, forty-five pieces.

  Three types of healing pellets, ten bottles, each containing ten pellets. Among them are healing pellets, true energy recovery pellets, and temporary strength increase pellets.

  Four types of wound-healing pills, two bottles, five pills in each bottle.

  Attack and Defense Diagrams, Seven Pieces.

  Defensive formation flags, two. Offensive formation flags, five.

  Han Xiang stared at Zhang Ruochen as he took out a large pile of resources from his storage ring, already shocked beyond words.

  Those forty-five thunder beads alone are worth tens of millions of silver coins and have the power to destroy hundreds of thousands of troops.

  There are also those elixirs, battle maps, and array flags. All of these treasures added up are worth at least 30 million silver coins.

  She was a young lady from a wealthy and influential family, also a top genius, but compared to Zhang Ruochen, she was simply poor.

  Han Yu picked up one of the battle maps and unrolled the sealed scroll.

  On the painting, a three-stage upper barbarian beast, the purple horned beast, is presented. According to the explanation on the war map, if the war map is activated, ten purple horned beasts can be summoned to assist the warrior in battle.

  The value of this one battle map alone is absolutely worth more than two million silver coins.

  "How did you get so many treasures?" Han Xiao asked.

  These treasures of Zhang Ruochen were naturally taken out from the warehouse of the Red Spider Giant Ship, and were once high-end goods that the Poisonous Spider Merchant Association had prepared to auction off.

  Zhang Ruochen didn't tell her the origin of those treasures, saying: "To resist the beast's attack, we must first set up a formation. The protective formation of Yuejic City has been damaged to some extent, and even if it is repaired successfully, its power will be greatly discounted."

  "Now there's only one way, that is to use the seven array flags I took out and combine them with the original city protection array of Yuan Jizheng City to form a new city protection array. You go first and insert the array flags on the city wall."

  There are seven sets of formation flags in total, two sets of defensive formation flags and five sets of offensive formation flags.

  Each formation has at least twenty-four flags, with the "Ghostly Skull Formation" having the fewest, while the "Thousand Troops and Ten Thousand Beasts Formation" has the most, with eighty-one flags.

  The banner is made of bronze casting and refining the flagpole, with a length of about seven feet. The Array Master installs the Ling Crystal in the flagpole to provide the energy needed for the array flag. At the same time, the flag surface is woven with witch gold silk, engraving the array method pattern, and connecting it with the flagpole as a whole.

  Just insert the array flag into the ground according to a certain law, and the warrior uses true energy to urge the formation.

  Among the seven arrays, even the cheapest "Ghostly Skull Array" can be auctioned off for 3 million silver coins at the Poisonous Spider Merchant Guild's auction house, comparable to the total assets of a lower-ranking family.

  Zhang Ruochen didn't just want to set up the seven arrays, but also wanted to combine them with the protective array of Yu Jiceng, making the arrays exert their greatest power.

  At that time, even if Yue Jiecheng is not as strong as a golden soup, he will at least have the power to fight a defensive battle with that beast master.

  Han Xiang transformed into a faint, ethereal shadow and flew onto the city wall of Yue Ji City, inserting row after row of array flags on top of the city wall as he began to set up his formation.

  Inserting flags is actually not a technique with much content, it's something that any martial artist would know.

  For some reason, although he clearly knew that this battle was more ominous than auspicious, Han Xuan still felt excited and expectant, not feeling any fear at all.