SQLJBFDTW Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Jade Thicket (2) People Always Have to Grow

Before the boat docked, Yu Wei directly stepped on the wind and flew away, landing in the shallow red water.

The hem of his clothes instantly soaked a large area, and a withered lotus slowly drifted away from him with the ripples.

Chao Jianxue walked behind him with a complicated mood, clearly seeing his slightly trembling shoulders. He knew that Yu Wei didn’t want others to see his embarrassment, so he didn’t step forward to look at him.

He said softly behind Yu Wei, trying his best to be gentle: “I didn’t expect something like this to happen… Should we go back, or go deeper in? I’ll listen to you.”

He still wanted Yu Wei to make his own decision.

After a while, he heard Yu Wei’s restrained but deep voice answer: “Go forward.”

So Chao Jianxue and he, one in front of the other, waded forward, groping their way.

The pavilions of the Yu family had all collapsed, and the jade-white bricks and tiles were scattered in pieces, many of which had turned into powder, dissolved in the water as sediment, faintly glittering. Those were the dust of shattered spiritual treasures.

The magnificent grandeur of the past had become a fleeting dream.

The places they walked through could still be identified from the ruins, from the covered walkways to the high pavilions, the destruction was thorough.

Chao Jianxue couldn’t imagine what kind of fighting or natural disaster could turn the former fairyland into what it was now.

He stared at Yu Wei’s back, afraid that he would overthink things, and forced himself to voice his doubts: “Where are the Yu family members? Not a single corpse has been found here. Could they have escaped?” Although it was highly unlikely, if a large number of people had escaped, Dongyuan would definitely have received news.

Yu Wei was silent for a moment, then shook his head.

Chao Jianxue coughed lightly and said, “I wonder if the Bitter Cold Heart is still here, should we look for it?”

“Shixiong…” Yu Wei finally turned his head, his profile sharp, although his eyes were filled with moisture, there was some kind of powerful and unparalleled strength in them, coupled with his tightly pursed lips, everything was self-evident.

He said, “Let’s find the Bitter Cold Heart first.”

They walked through the ruins, Chao Jianxue followed Yu Wei all the way, and finally came to the very center of the ruins, where the tiles were particularly special, with many jade fragments, and you could easily cut yourself if you weren’t careful.

Yu Wei used his spiritual power, tensing his shoulders as he searched through the ruins.

After rummaging for a while, Chao Jianxue saw that he couldn’t help much, so he stood on a high section of broken wall and carefully observed his surroundings.

As he looked, he suddenly noticed something strange.

From far to near, ripples appeared on the surface of the water from time to time. There was clearly no rain, but the water waves were swaying rhythmically. This swaying surrounded them, gradually approaching with almost imperceptible movements.

Chao Jianxue jumped to the surface of the water, without using spiritual power to support himself, and firmly stepped into the water.

Not satisfied with just that, he bent over and lay down, held his breath, buried his head in the water, put his ear to the ground, and listened intently.

“Dong, dong, dong—”

Sure enough, there was something underground, and the volume was estimated to be not small. Every impact sound was very muffled. It was these impacts that caused the water surface to ripple and sway.

“Little Shidi!” Chao Jianxue raised his head suddenly, nervous but not daring to speak loudly, so Yu Wei didn’t hear the first sound. He called again, “Yu Wei!”

Yu Wei stopped what he was doing and quickly walked over, also bending down to listen carefully. Then, the two tacitly flew back to the wall where Chao Jianxue had been standing.

This place had the highest view, and they could clearly see the spread of the ripples.

——Dong, dong, dong.

The two stood back-to-back, both summoning their swords, with only each other’s clearly audible breathing in their ears, as well as the increasingly clear impact sound.

A faint demonic aura floated in the water, and the color of the water became a little darker. Oh, it wasn’t the color of the water. Chao Jianxue looked up and saw that the sky was turning redder.

Strange phenomena in the sky were signs of demons being born.

Suddenly, unlike the tentative slight impacts just now, a huge crashing sound rang out under their feet.

Chao Jianxue and Yu Wei immediately jumped away from their original positions, landing on both sides, their sword intents ready to be unleashed.

“Dong!”

This time, the ground was shattered, and a large black-red object broke through from underwater, bringing up a magnificent curtain of water, separating the two of them.

Chao Jianxue’s vision was blurred by the water in the first moment, he quickly retreated, and when he opened his eyes and looked up again, he was nailed to the spot by the appearance of the demon in front of him.

It was an incomparably huge snake demon, its body rising from the water already blocking the color of the sky, covered in shiny black snake scales, and a pair of blood-red vertical pupils angrily shooting straight at Chao Jianxue.

He was going to die…

Chao Jianxue scrambled to avoid the snake’s head diving down and opening its mouth wide. He even smelled the venom condensing on the two huge fangs, which was the decaying smell of death.

Why was it attacking him as soon as it came up? What about Yu Wei over there?

He flew out Ming Qianli, transforming into several beams of sword light, barely blocking the snake demon’s attack.

The sword shadow of the Only Sword also appeared beside him at the same time. In the gap revealed by the snake demon’s pursuit, the Only Sword flew with a rustling light, heading straight for the snake demon’s seven-inch vital scale.

Yu Wei had killed snake demons before, and knew its weakness.

However, this time was different.

The light of the Only Sword was extremely sharp, but it still didn’t penetrate its seven inches, and was even bumped by the hard scales, the sword body sparking with dazzling spiritual light, and then deviating from its position, flying back into Yu Wei’s hand, shaking his wrist until it was numb.

After taking this blow, the snake demon changed its attack and went to bite Yu Wei.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Chao Jianxue exerted force on his toes, made a sideways dodge, directly stepped on the snake demon’s body, and used his strength, directly stepping the snake demon down a little.

When the snake demon was impacted, the already precarious ground was completely shattered, and along with the ruins of the building, half of its body was buried in the water.

The pavilions and bluestone ground of this Yu family were actually built on the water.

As the saying goes, blue water is wide, and black water is deep.

Looking down, the surface of the water was dark and bottomless, terrifyingly like a black hole, as if something indescribable was about to burst out from it.

Chao Jianxue was startled and quickly changed his posture, using the snake demon’s body as leverage, barely landing back on the uncracked ground, almost being dragged into the water.

“Thank you, Shixiong.” Yu Wei nodded to him, turned around and rushed to the opposite side of him, nimbly dodging the snake demon’s several bites, found the right opportunity, and leaped onto the snake’s head as lightly as a swallow.

Chao Jianxue was stunned, and immediately understood his intention, urging Ming Qianli, Ming Qianli also flew out like an arrow, and at the same time, he had a flash of inspiration and threw a magic weapon to him.

The snake’s head naturally swayed back and forth frantically, Yu Wei caught the hook rope thrown by Chao Jianxue in a critical moment, the rope had iron claws, which were the unique black profound iron in the Northern Border, extremely tough, and even the rope was made of special snow silkworm silk, impervious to swords and spears.

He stood up in the midst of the frantic shaking, forcefully inserted the Only Sword shallowly into the gap between the snake scales as support, and then, quickly threw the iron claws forward, hooking the snake demon’s wide open mouth.

The snake demon was in pain and struggled even more violently.

Pieces of the ground collapsed, and there was gradually no good place to set foot.

Chao Jianxue commanded Ming Qianli to closely follow Yu Wei to escort him, and he himself constantly changed positions, nervously looking up at the fierce battle between one person and one snake.

Above the constantly splashing water, Yu Wei was high up, and the fierce wind made him into a chaotic shadow in Chao Jianxue’s eyes.

He tightened the rope, took difficult steps to the center of the snake’s forehead, raised his hand and summoned the Only Sword, and stabbed the snake demon’s eyes with one sword, which was obviously the most vulnerable place on the snake demon’s body.

The snake demon instantly rioted, Chao Jianxue immediately saw the opportunity, urged Ming Qianli to also stab at the snake demon’s other eye.

Yu Wei jumped down, and Ming Qianli also flew back into Chao Jianxue’s hand like lightning, and the two stood side by side.

The snake demon’s vision was restricted, and after struggling and rioting, it dived down again, the water surface exploded, and a water column of several feet rose up.

When all the water fell, Chao Jianxue shook off the water on his body and looked down at the water surface that had returned to calm.

“It escaped.” He breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Wei frowned and looked for a while, his breathing gradually stabilized, and said to him, “Shixiong is not as timid as last time when facing demons.”

He was referring to when he first saw the spider demon last time.

So his trembling legs were all seen! He thought he had hidden it very well.

Chao Jianxue “humphed” and said, “People always have to grow!”

He looked at the vast water surface, the ruins that were still remaining had all sunk into the water, this snake demon was simply here to destroy the scene, how could he find the whereabouts of the Bitter Cold Heart?

While his mood was still tense, another huge shadow swam towards them in the black water.

The two were already prepared this time, and after making their starting gestures, they heard a roaring sound similar to a wild beast’s low roar, the sound was so loud that it shook the entire space.

The water broke through the sky, and the owner of the sound also spiraled into the air, a behemoth, still that snake demon…

However, this time it had two horns growing on its head, not fully transformed into a dragon form, and several pairs of short feet also grew on its abdomen.

He didn’t know what method it used down there, but in these short few breaths, it had transformed into a Jiao.

The snake demon leaped and became a Jiao demon, and the difficulty of killing it increased by another level.

Before Chao Jianxue could be shocked and lament his bitter fate, the Jiao demon came with a dive, as if to avenge its previous humiliation.

Its speed was particularly fast this time, Chao Jianxue only felt that before he had time to dodge, a great force had already pressed him down into the water.

The water instantly filled his mouth and nose, he held his breath in time, used the water avoidance technique, and simply fell down.

The further he sank, he discovered that the bottom of this deep water area emitted a gorgeous red light, which looked extremely ghostly.

In a state of suspense like a mayfly, he reached out and grabbed Yu Wei’s wrist.

The two looked at each other, and finally decided to go down together.

The demon Jiao didn’t chase after them.

Finally, his feet touched solid ground. The bottom of the water, which should have been pitch black, was now illuminated so that they could clearly see each other’s expressions.

Yu Wei also widened his eyes in surprise.

This underwater area was full of lotus flowers emitting eerie red light. In the water waves, the lotus flowers, which should have been clean and elegant, seemed to have become the dwelling place of demons and ghosts, turning the color of the water into blood.

Yu Wei quickly shuttled among the swaying red lotuses, gradually clenching his fists, and turned his head with anger and hatred: “This is a spirit gathering array.”

As the name suggests, it was to trap all the living beings in this area in this formation, extracting their spiritual power to supply the person who set up the formation and cast the spell.

Chao Jianxue looked down carefully, and saw a section of a human arm in the slightly bulging silt at the bottom of the water.

The missing members of the Yu family had a destination. He trembled his lips and couldn’t say anything.

And these red lotuses were faintly showing signs of catalyzing and blooming, and it was obvious that the snake demon just now suddenly transformed into a jiao, and should have come back to accelerate the extraction of the spiritual power of this spirit gathering array.

“Jade lotus gathers spirits, it’s clearly the Yu family’s secret technique.” Yu Wei said again.

He forcibly endured the trembling, and looked at Chao Jianxue.