Cold sweat drenched his forehead and his hard breathing echoed within his ears. He didn't know how far has he traveled but for the moment, he can feel a.s.sured that the one following him has lost his trails.

s.h.i.+n Jiao didn't know how many times he stopped to check his surroundings and how many times he frantically ran as fast as he could after finding his pursuers at the edge of his absolute sense. Even with the boots, which he made giving him a boost of speed, it seems that the people or person following him would always catch up behind him. His mind is already exhausted in using his absolute sense, as it has a wider burst of range than his spiritual sense, he still persevere and pushes through. Because he knows what would happen if he is caught.

The sudden burst of his absolute sense covers a far wider range than his spiritual sense. But it is blurry and the image in his head is inaccurate, yet this is the only thing he can use as of now. At the edge of his sense, it seems that there are two groups of people following him. One of the groups is a pair of two men and the other one is a pair of a man and a woman, but they are not on the ground but floating in the sky.

s.h.i.+n Jiao currently heaves a sigh of relief for, at last, he is able to rest after hours of running with all his strength. He then slumped down on the ground and ate something from his already tattered bag. He didn't know how long he would run but gaining energy from food is a must as he didn't want to use the few remaining fasting pills he had.

"If only I'm sure that this place is safe, I could use the teleport scroll. But my guts are telling me that this area is still not safe." s.h.i.+n Jiao thought after a.n.a.lyzing the situation.

After a while of rest, s.h.i.+n Jiao continues to run deeper into the forest. Not long later he was able to reach the boundary separating the Dark Forest and the regular forest, without a second thought he enters the fog covered Dark Forest. s.h.i.+n Jiao didn't feel anything after carefully walking a while but then all of a sudden his sharp senses shouted danger. He quickly congeals his absolute sense and within that limited range, he quickly saw a person rus.h.i.+ng towards him.

Boom!!!

A loud ringing sound reverberated through the air where dust and debris came flying everywhere. A figure landed on the ground near him wielding a huge saber on hand. The figure belongs to a man, which looks like in his 30's. The black mask he is wearing hides half of his face with his mouth visible. The bulky structure of the man cannot be hidden by his robe while on his mouth he flashed a contented smile.

"Kekeke… this is really interesting. I can't believe that an ant-like you can dodge that. I was very careful to hide my presence, how did you know my location?" the man said in a deep and playful voice.

"Who are you?" s.h.i.+n Jiao asked in vigilance not answering the man but instead throws his own question.

Right now, the man in front of him is a gold core realm expert, and he can't judge further than that which means that the man might already be at the peak of the gold core realms. So s.h.i.+n Jiao's vigilance and senses are at their peak because he didn't know what the person will do next.

"Me? I'm just a mercenary. I heard that you have caused trouble for my master, you've killed 30 of his men... You know that those are some of the elite of the gang. Because of that, my master wants you to pay for it with your life." The man casually said.

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"Your group is the one asking for trouble, not me. Should I just stay still and let you do whatever you wanted? To h.e.l.l with you people. You wanted to steal something that is mine, then come and get it!" s.h.i.+n Jiao gritted his teeth and shouted.

He knows that he has no way out of this thing but to fight it out. Though his cultivation is still low, yet he came out prepared. If worst comes to worst then he will have to use all his trump cards and go with mutual destruction with them. Even if he returns to being a normal mortal, he still has his brains and knowledge.

"Haha… a very proud young man. You are really brave to provoke me even though you know of my power. Let me show you what I can do then." The man said as he waves his huge saber.

"Che… you're only able to bully those with lower cultivation than yours. But if you face those who are stronger than you, I think you'll cower and even kowtow to that person. Shameless…" s.h.i.+n Jiao muttered.

But his voice was still loud enough to be heard by his opponent as a red hue suddenly appears on the man's neck. The man's face immediately turned sour with the insult from a weakling like s.h.i.+n Jiao, but his pride could not accept the insult and so his gaze turned frosty. He then impatiently growled at s.h.i.+n Jiao, brandis.h.i.+ng his huge saber intending to cut s.h.i.+n Jiao's body in half.

"Die! Insolent fool!" the man said in anger.

He didn't use any of his spiritual Qi as the insult from s.h.i.+n Jiao has already affected his judgment. He is a strong cultivator among his peers. He has defeated many people, but of course, those are lower than he is. Since s.h.i.+n Jiao hit his sore spot he wanted to prove that even without using his strong spiritual Qi he can kill the young man who insulted him.

Upon seeing this s.h.i.+n Jiao was really elated. He knows that cultivators are proud and some are easily provoked. So he didn't think twice and tried to provoke the man and it actually worked. With the man's Qi field not activated, s.h.i.+n Jiao can see the opportunity right in front of his eyes. So he didn't think twice and immediately shorten the gap between them.

In one step s.h.i.+n Jiao immediately brandish the dagger in his hand and slash it towards the man. Seeing s.h.i.+n Jiao's action the man sneered and immediately parried the dagger. With the cultivation of the man, he is able to send s.h.i.+n Jiao flying backward for a couple of meters.

"Weak! Trash like you can't fight against me!" the man jeered as he took a step forward while swinging his huge sword.

The air boomed as the sword broke through the sound barrier while it flew towards s.h.i.+n Jiao who is still trying to stand up. s.h.i.+n Jiao wasn't wounded but he just felt groggy and a bit shaky. When s.h.i.+n Jiao heard the noise he unconsciously lifted the dagger and blocked the incoming huge saber. s.h.i.+n Jiao immediately feel his hand go numb as the two metals collided together.

Ting! Clang!

Boom!

s.h.i.+n Jiao was once again sent flying to the air but this time, he hit a tree with a huge impact. s.h.i.+n Jiao felt his whole body become sore as he found himself embedded inside the broken tree trunk. This time s.h.i.+n Jiao has an amazed look on his face, though he looks battered with his robe in tattered yet his body is unhurt.

He realized that whenever he is about to get hit by the enemy's huge blade, there is a thin film coming from the dagger protecting his body. But what amazed s.h.i.+n Jiao is that he discovers that the energy feels familiar. It is the same energy that he has been using before which had made him a very strong cultivator. It's the natural energy from his sphere.

"This… this is the energy from my spheres!" s.h.i.+n Jiao muttered with a hint of excitement in his tone.

When s.h.i.+n Jiao discovers that he has lost his cultivation, he didn't want to admit it but he was truly devastated. He has worked hard in discovering his own path in cultivation. And it was very hard for him to find a solution in combining the two, but in just a blink of an eye, he lost everything. As a person, he felt devastated, but he didn't want to just give up just like that. So upon discovering the familiar energy his heart feels really happy.

s.h.i.+n Jiao has scanned his body before but found nothing. So now he again quickly scanned himself with his absolute sense, and all of a sudden he actually found a hint of his old power. What baffled him his that the energy is coming from his head. Especially within the middle part of his head, it's like a tumor. But the thing that surprised him is that its growth didn't take any s.p.a.ce within his head, instead, it melded with s.h.i.+n Jiao's brain tissues and became a part of his brain.

He already saw this from people who could wield mana. Their dantian is located within their brains, and that is the source of their power.

Though he now found the spheres, however, what made s.h.i.+n Jiao worry a little is that he didn't know how to use them freely as of now.

No matter how hard he tries he cannot access the energies within his head. He then scans them to check everything and was left dumbfounded, now in that area, there are only 6 spheres with varying colors. He didn't know what happened but he didn't have time to find out. If he wanted his cultivation back he needed to defeat his opponent first and then study the thing within his head.

So he quickly moved and walks out.

When s.h.i.+n Jiao walks out of the broken tree trunk the man suddenly stopped in his tracks and showed a dumbfounded expression. Though s.h.i.+n Jiao has dirt all over his body and his clothes are in tatters, his body clearly didn't suffer any grievous wounds.

"What… what the h.e.l.l are you?" the man muttered unconsciously.

But he didn't have time to dawdle because he immediately remembers what he should do.

"This is getting interesting, let me try and use around 30% of my strength." The man said as he immediately rushed towards s.h.i.+n Jiao's figure.

When s.h.i.+n Jiao saw the man's speed, he could not help himself but mutter something.

"So fast!"

In a blink of an eye, the man suddenly appears in front of s.h.i.+n Jiao and swings down his huge saber towards his head.

"Now die!" the man shouted as he suddenly used all of his strength with this attack.

Though he said that he will only use 30% of his strength but his gut feeling telling him to break the promise and go all out. Deep inside him, he can feel weariness towards the young and helpless looking lad. He didn't know where it's coming from as in this battle he has all the upper hand and has been attacking without even giving his opponent a chance to fight back. But his weak-looking opponent is actually unhurt.

But before the man could think of anything else, he suddenly felt something biting his right arm. Following that is the loss of his strength in gripping the huge saber. He suddenly found his old weapon too heavy to carry and his finger slipping against the handle of the weapon which immediately slid off his hand and flew pa.s.s s.h.i.+n Jiao's head. It didn't even graze his hair as it tumbles through the air and embedded itself on the ground.

Silence pervades the air as the man suddenly felt warm liquid trickling down from his arm. The smell of a rusty iron suddenly entered his nose. Though s.h.i.+n Jiao's gun is powerful, yet with the man's cultivation, it didn't have enough power to destroy his arm. So it was only able to tear a hole on the man's arm.

Arrgghh!!!

The man's painful wail suddenly follows as he now discovers the painful sensation on his arm. He immediately jumped backward using all his strength to distance himself away from s.h.i.+n Jiao.

But then what he saw made him want to scream in anger. s.h.i.+n Jiao actually followed his movement and also jump with him. With that, the distance between them didn't increase but instead decreases. The man then waves his left hand to grab s.h.i.+n Jiao's neck. Since his only chance to fight back is to do another preemptive strike to incapacitate his opponent.

But before he knew it, he saw another flash of light coming from s.h.i.+n Jiao's hand and felt one of his legs suddenly go numb. When he landed, the man immediately fell tumbling on the ground. He was baffled and wanted to stand back up, but he now discovers another painful sensation coming from his left thigh which now has a hole in it.

The man now showed a horrified look on his face and wanted to activate his Qi field. But before he could do anything, with a flash of light, he suddenly found his consciousness slowly fading and darkness overcoming his sight.

Thud!

The man fell on the ground with the top of his head blasted open. He didn't even have enough time to react and do anything as s.h.i.+n Jiao decided to just finish him.

In this fight, he discovers that the arm and legs of a cultivator are very resilient to damages. Though he has used 50% of his power almost breaking the gun, he just made a small hole on his opponent's arms and thigh. But then the head is truly a weak spot in every living creature, as he just used 20% of his spiritual Qi added to the gun's bullet and was able to blast his opponent's head open. He wanted to shot the heart but it is encased in a hardened rib cage.

Upon killing the man, s.h.i.+n Jiao immediately grabs everything the man has except his clothes and immediately ran as fast as he could. He put everything inside one of his small pouches and put it in his breast pocket.

Meanwhile, as s.h.i.+n Jiao left the area a shadow suddenly appears. Upon seeing the devastation and the dead body, the shadow which belongs to a middle-aged man suddenly showed an angry expression. He didn't expect that his most priced fighter would fall in this place. He then checks the wounds on the man's body and found that there's a small metal that is still embedded in the thigh.

"So this is your secret. I'm going to make you pay for this. I will get that legacy and tear your whole body apart. All the years of preparation have been for naught because of such one insignificant ant." The middle-aged man muttered in anger.

This man is Ding Gushan, who has been chasing s.h.i.+n Jiao for a while now. Though he has positioned his men in this forest in advance, he didn't expect that more than 30 of them would have fallen in the hands of the insignificant weak-looking young man. But now, no matter what sacrifice he has to make he swore that the legacy within the young man's body would be his. He can suddenly imagine an army loyal to him using the same artifacts and abilities. No one can ever stand in his way and his ambitions.

Though a little angry the man now showed a crazed expression at the prospect of getting his hands on a great treasure.

Without a word, Ding Gushan didn't waste any more time and directly used all his strength and jump towards the direction of where s.h.i.+n Jiao fled.

...

Meanwhile, s.h.i.+n Jiao is currently running at his maximum speed and like a specter, he weaves through the thick groves of trees. But he suddenly had a bad premonition and that his senses are giving him an extremely dangerous feeling.

But then before he knew it a figure suddenly descended from above and landed heavily right in front of him. Luckily for s.h.i.+n Jiao his reflexes are top-notch and were able to evade the sneak attack.

Boom!!!

The explosion caused by the figure's suddenly heavy landing blew a dust cloud all over the place. s.h.i.+n Jiao's figure was thrown a couple of meters away but was still able to land on his feet.

"You truly are a hard thing to kill. You're like an insect that struggles to survive. But an insect is still an insect... and this place will be your graveyard." The figure within the dust cloud said.

s.h.i.+n Jiao's heart is now racing with anxiety as the voice is familiar to him. He squinted his eyes and carefully watch as the dust cloud slowly died down and reveals a figure in the middle. When he saw the figure, s.h.i.+n Jiao's body involuntarily shook.

"Oh, c.r.a.p! How come he's here? d.a.m.n it, is this my end?" was the only thing that came to his mind.