Chapter 369 - Lightning Strikes
However, Gu Zuo’s considerations were of no use. There also wasn’t any need to concern themselves about why the tremors occurred. In the present situation, Gongyi Tianheng was carrying Gu Zuo, and they were running for their lives. It seemed like the lava, which was pouring out from all over the place, could sweep everything away. It surged with enormous waves that flooded the heavens!
Tianheng’s running was fast, but Gu Zuo’s mood was tense. He didn’t even know how long they had been escaping now, and he didn’t have a clear understanding of when this would end.
Those rivers of lava seemed unrelenting. The “water level” was rising little by little. It was like it wanted to wipe everything off the face of the map!
— If there was one thing to be glad about, it was that those innumerable Earth Worms were submerged under the churning lava. Although it wasn’t known whether these Earth Worms could survive in the lava, there were no doubts that the creatures were too busy to conduct any attacks on the escaping people.
However, after an undetermined amount of time, just as Tianheng stepped on a mostly-submerged boulder, it suddenly broke apart. From within, a lava spout nearly fifty meters tall blasted up!
The lava spout was extremely horrifying. The terrible heat it carried rushed towards Tianheng in a split second!
Gu Zuo noticed this, too.
Tianheng didn’t toss Gu Zuo aside — Even though Tianheng could’ve soared even higher had he thrown Gu Zuo away. Perhaps, he could’ve avoided this lava spout.
Gu Zuo’s mind blanked. There wasn’t enough time to think about anything. Then, a stream of surging energy drilled out from the s.p.a.ce between his eyebrows! At the same time, he braced himself for the scorching pain once they were surrounded by the lava…
However, there were no such sensations.
Gu Zuo slowly opened his eyes, and discovered that he and his big brother were floating in the air.
His thoughts shifted, and the two people abruptly started falling. Gu Zuo was frightened as he focused his mind again. Both of them re-stabilized.
Gu Zuo: “…”
Tianheng smiled and said: “This time, it’s all thanks to Ah Zuo.”
As it turned out, during that moment of crisis, Gu Zuo’s psychic power erupted. He suddenly took out more than half of his reserves, turned it into a flat, solid object like a door panel, and supported their weight under Tianheng’s feet.
In the past, Gu Zuo’s psychic power wasn’t strong enough, and supporting himself wasn’t easy. But now, he was at the Core Psyche Realm. In fact, so long as he was willing, he could carry pa.s.sengers — Though, the greater the number of pa.s.sengers, the faster his psychic power would be used up.
Previously, Gu Zuo was always taken along by Tianheng under the armpit or on the back. He had basically forgotten that he also had this kind of special skill. Just now, when it was a matter of life and death, his survival instincts kicked in, and he brought the two of them away from the range of the lava’s surges.
Tianheng said that escaping with their lives this time was all thanks to Gu Zuo. This was completely correct.
Gu Zuo looked below.
While they were fleeing, he hadn’t thought about the bigger picture. He only felt that there was lava wherever they went. Yet, now that they were looking down from a high vantage point, he realized that those rock piles and stony mountains seemed like fountains that spewed out lava. The cracks in the ground were the same. With lava springing up all over the place, it dyed the entire landscape the colors of a blazing flame.
Of course, he didn’t know that this spectacle was “the dragon’s head pouring forth a dragon’s breath”. Likewise, the tremors and cracks were due to the dragon overturning the earth. This shifted up the leyline that was concealed even deeper underground. After the earthquake, while the land welled up with lava, it also spewed out lots of resources — The stone ova.
Right now, they only needed to wait until everything settled down. Then, they naturally could conduct further explorations.
At this moment, Tianheng opened his mouth and said: “Ah Zuo, conserve your strength. Let’s move to a stable mountain.”
Gu Zuo heard this, and promptly snapped out of it.
Indeed. This wasn’t the time to sightsee. Taking advantage of the fact that his psychic power was still at adequate levels, he looked for a smooth and steady location without delay!
It was easy to scout an objective from high elevations. Gu Zuo controlled his psychic power to “fly” even higher. After that, he searched in all directions. Not long after, he found a gigantic mountain that was over three hundred meters tall. While many boulders had fallen from that stone mountain because of the quake, due to the mountain’s solid structural stability, the outer crust hadn’t been torn asunder. Naturally, it also didn’t erupt with any lava. As for the lava pouring out of those nearby cracks and “volcanic craters”, although the sides of the mountain were slammed by molten waves many times, the mountain was only half-submerged in the end.
Gu Zuo pointed to that side: “Big brother, what do you think about that place?”
Tianheng took a quick look: “Pretty good. Let’s go there.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Gu Zuo urged the thoughts in his mind, which caused his psychic power to swiftly deliver them through the empty sky!
After one or two seconds pa.s.sed, the pair smoothly reached their destination.
Gu Zuo heaved a sigh of relief as they slowly descended, and withdrew his psychic powerk2026; This round of consumption was a little big.
Tianheng still carried Gu Zuo on his back, but didn’t let his pharmacist down. Instead, he spoke: “Ah Zuo, use this chance to increase your recovery speed. I’m afraid that this lava will keep erupting for some time. We’ll have to make early preparations.”
Gu Zuo didn’t have any objections, and diligently heeded those words: “Okay, big brother.” He thought about something, and said, “If we can’t wait here anymore and there’s nowhere else to stay, then big brother needs to remember to call for me.”
The edge of Tianheng’s lips revealed a smiling expression. He spoke in a warm voice: “Okay.”
Gu Zuo felt relieved. After that, he rapidly operated his inner cultivation method, continuously extracted the medicinal qi inside the storage s.p.a.ce, and swallowed quite a few flawless pills to replenish his internal qi. Just like this, he sank into a deep state of cultivation.
He improved and recovered a lot!
In this leyline, it wasn’t known what kinds of dangers they would meet…
The luck of these two people was pretty good. After going through this period of running away and finding this mountain, the mountain itself was strong and tenacious. Until the end, it stood firm and didn’t collapse. During this length of time, the most dangerous thing was just that the lava submerged more than half of the mountain. However, it was completely out of the question to burn and rend this mountain like the others.
As a result, once several hours pa.s.sed, only small trails of lava were still bubbling up from all over the place. The majority of the region had already become tranquil.
Numerous scorching-red qi currents spiraled into the sky, and a bizarre fog rose up from the ground.
The lava had settled down. Much of it was reabsorbed back into the earth’s cracks, and what were left behind on the surface had turned into areas of sunken depressions, lava pools, and the like. Though, it wasn’t the same as before where there were no places to stay.
Down below, the vast stretches of land, which were originally barren and rocky, had become completely different environments with strange phenomena!
This, too, was the aftermath brought about by the turning of the earth dragon and the outpouring of the dragon’s breath. Around those strange phenomena and within those different environments, there were many times when stone ova were surging out from the depths of the leyline.
Gu Zuo sucked in a deep breath: “Big brother, we…”
Gongyi Tianheng faintly smiled: “We’ll go to harvest the stone ova together. It’s just that we must be even more careful.”
Gu Zuo earnestly nodded his head: “Big brother, rest a.s.sured. My psychic power has already recovered completely.”
Soon after, Tianheng stamped his foot, and his entire form turned into a flying arrow loosed from its bowstring. He swiftly stepped down along the stones, which had finally stabilized, and charged into the dense and rolling fog.
The two’s lines of sight were obstructed by the fog. Anything that they were able to see had become vague and difficult to distinguish.
Gu Zuo released his psychic power, and discovered that the range he could extend it this time had reached one hundred meters: “Big brother! This side, this side!”
Tianheng’s footsteps slowed. Then, he turned around, and travelled in accordance with Gu Zuo’s pointers.
Gu Zuo started to give directions:
“Left! On the left side!”
“Here, it’s on the right side, but you can only go five meters ahead. Otherwise, you’ll fall into the lava!”
“Around the corner! There’s a swamp!”
“Over there, quick!”
Five to six minutes elapsed in this way. Tianheng walked according to Gu Zuo’s words, and not a single step was out of place. Afterwards, the area ahead of them opened up. At the same time, a crisp, crackling noise echoed out. Although the lingering fog had dispersed, some purple clouds would suddenly emerge every now and then. These clouds would break out with rolls of distant, rumbling thunder.
There was no need for Gu Zuo to use his psychic power to investigate. The two people could see that a thunder pond had unexpectedly appeared in front of them!
Of course, to say it was a thunder pond was a bit of an exaggeration. It was just a big hole. Inside the hole, there were many tiny bolts of lightning that formed lightning nets. At the center of these revolving nets was a huge rock that was about the size of a human.
This was a stone ovum?
No. This was a light-purple colored stone! It didn’t share the same characteristics of a stone ovum!
Canon of Wondrous Medicines reported that all of the stone ova in this world were ashen-white.
Gu Zuo jumped down from Tianheng’s back: “Big brother, what should we do?”
Tianheng pondered a little: “Ah Zuo, can you tell whether the inside that large stone has…”
Upon hearing this, Gu Zuo promptly focused his attention, and looked towards the interior of that light-purple boulder. Sure enough, it took a single glance! Bundled inside that light-purple boulder was an indistinct, egg-shaped object!
That was a stone ovum!
Gu Zuo hurriedly said: “Big brother, I saw it, too! In that case, shall we go to pick the stone ovum now?”
Tianheng said: “It’s not that we’ll go together. Rather, I’ll be going alone.”
Gu Zuo: “Eh? That’s no good. It’s dangerous!”
Tianheng smiled: “If we’re going into that pit, we’ll have to carry that large stone out. Ah Zuo isn’t strong enough, but this elder brother has a tough body. Naturally, I’ll go alone to resist the lightning. Otherwise, wouldn’t Ah Zuo be injured for no reason?”
Gu Zuo was conflicted.
What his big brother said really did make sense. This little body of his probably wouldn’t be able to endure a few licks of lightning before burning to a crisp. At that point, he might become a burden for his big brother… After hesitating over and over again, he finally nodded his head.
Gu Zuo warned repeatedly: “Big brother, when you go, you must be careful. If you feel like you can’t withstand it, return right away. It doesn’t matter if you can’t remove the boulder. Big brother’s safety is the most important.”
Tianheng’s gaze softened: “Don’t worry, Ah Zuo.” He softly reminded, “This elder brother will be going. There’s a bit of distance, so Ah Zuo will be by himself here. You need to be cautious, too.”
Of course, Gu Zuo answered positively. However, from beginning to end, his gaze never strayed from Tianheng’s back.
After that, Tianheng strode forward in large steps, and quickly went to that large hole.
Gu Zuo saw Tianheng plunge into the hole, and watched as the lightning nets instantly wrapped around Tianheng’s whole body. He also noticed that the lightning nets were lashing many blackened marks onto Tianheng… At the same time, although Tianheng’s outer robes were largely burned to ashes and most of his skin was laid bare, Gu Zuo didn’t have any adventurous or uncontrollable thoughts. Rather, his heart was filled with pain.
Aiya! When all was said and done, being struck by lightning into that appearance didn’t matter. His big brother hadn’t called out in pain, but it was also okay to not stubbornly endure it…
But in fact, it wasn’t unbearable for Tianheng.
In actuality, for the sake of tempering his physical body, the training he endured had been even more severe than now. It was just that it hadn’t looked so excessive on the surfaces of his skin. On the contrary, he was initially engulfed by waves of stabbing pain due to these lightning nets. Though, after a brief period of adaptation, he realized that, once the electrical power entered his body, not only did it temper his muscles, it also stimulated his meridians, strengthening their flexibility and durability.
As he possessed a Tiandu Body that hadn’t been completely treated, and whose meridians were always somewhat weaker than the physical body, Tianheng deeply felt that these lightning nets were advantageous to him. He couldn’t help slowing his steps as he walked inside the pit.
Gu Zuo watched anxiously, and couldn’t stop himself from asking.
[Big brother, is there something wrong? If you can’t endure it, just come back!]
Tianheng’s voice was unhurriedly transmitted.
[Ah Zuo, pay attention to yourself, too. This place is beneficial to me. It’s just tempering.]
Gu Zuo’s expression was wooden.
[Oh. Then, big brother, you can take your time.]
It was good that nothing bad happened…
Gradually, the usefulness of the lightning nets became smaller and smaller, and Tianheng’s steps started picking up speed. Before long, he approached the center of the large hole, which was also the location of the light-purple boulder.
Immediately following this, Tianheng extended a hand, and slowly went to touch that large stone.
In a split second, a clear electric current arced out, encapsulating Tianheng in purple rays of light! This time around, the bolts of lightning weren’t silk threads like before. Rather, the electric charge was instantly increased. This caused the ends of Tianheng’s hair to spread out in all directions, making them somewhat disheveled.
Gu Zuo: “…”
— Big brother, this is getting an electric shock, right? Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?
Gu Zuo wasn’t fl.u.s.tered this time. He carefully observed Tianheng’s expression, and found that there truly wasn’t the least bit of reluctance or forced difficulty. Instead, Tianheng was calmly learning through experience. Gu Zuo withdrew his psychic power, and didn’t go to bother him.
After a short period of time, Tianheng reached out his hand once more.
This time around, when he touched that boulder, there wasn’t any interference by thunder or lightning — Or it could be said that this bit of interference was already useless against him.
Following this, Tianheng carried the boulder, and effortlessly returned from inside the large hole.
However, while he was walking back, the pupils of his eyes suddenly shrank!
At the exact same time, Gu Zuo, who had sighed in relief because his family’s big brother was safe, abruptly sensed a type of intense danger! He subconsciously dodged. A long saber made of psychic power was already aimed at the source of that danger, and violently sliced out!
Gu Zuo’s figure retreated. At this time, he realized that a gigantic, python-sized Earth Worm, whose entire body was covered in a faint-purple light, was in the middle of ambushing him!
His heart shivered. He moved his psychic power again, which transformed into an enormous mallet and a giant wolf-tooth cudgel.
These were the most destructive weapons that Gu Zuo could imagine. At this moment, he showed no mercy. Against that gigantic Earth Worm, the saber sliced, the mallet smashed, and the cudgel mauled. A cruel hurricane of attacks rained down!
Originally, an Earth Worm of this size should’ve been very difficult to handle.
Yet, for some reason, this Earth Worm’s defense was somewhat weaker than what Gu Zuo antic.i.p.ated. It didn’t take long for it to fall to the ground and die under this deluge of strikes.
Gu Zuo heaved a sigh, and wiped away any sweat.
That was a close call.
At this time, Tianheng rushed over.
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