Chapter 1482 Departure Downward!
The process was exciting, and the result was chaos.
No one had expected for Xia Fan to just run off after killing the Yellow Venerate, abandoning the Yellow Venerate’s body and not even saying anything to Sarah. He simply rushed off into the black forest, vanis.h.i.+ng without a trace.
The Yellow Venerate’s lackeys instantly scattered in fear. The investigators from the Sacred Federation rushed out and started kicking the Yellow Venerate’s corpse to vent their rage. Somebody took a picture of the body, probably so that they could report the Yellow Venerate’s death to their superiors once they returned.
Sarah was flabbergasted as she watched Xia Fan leave, a reluctant look in her eyes. After taking care of her up to this point, Xia Fan had ultimately still left, perhaps forever.
!!
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The winds howled past Xia Fan’s ears as he traveled at more than twelve hundred meters per second, almost flying through the dark forest. The astonis.h.i.+ng amount of draconic energy originating from the injection of three drops of Immortal Wine had caused Xia Fan’s rank to soar, but it had also placed a huge burden on his body.
It was like there was some berserk monster inside his body, and the only means of suppressing it was using up the energy through constantly running, or the monster would bite back at him. Thus, he had left Sarah and gone to find Traveling Buddha.
Xia Fan saw that Sarah was already able to sit up, meaning that her spinal injuries had healed up faster than expected. When they had first dropped into the black abyss, Xia Fan had promised that he would take care of her, but he hadn’t promised to take care of her for the rest of her life. When it was time for things to come to an end, Xia Fan showed no hesitation.
Xia Fan stopped avoiding the monsters he ran into, brus.h.i.+ng past them at high speeds and taking their lives while he was at it. With his rank suddenly rising so quickly, his body wasn’t quite used to his new condition, so Xia Fan needed some practice. The monsters were the perfect targets to practice on.
Suddenly, a sudden blast of wind swept through the dark abyss, affecting Xia Fan’s stability. At the same time, he focused on a scent carried by the wind, and began to sniff the air. Traveling Buddha would leave his scent wherever he went, and if he followed that scent, he would definitely be able to find his partner.
But Xia Fan was confused as to why a blast of wind would suddenly sweep through the usually calm dark abyss.
Xia Fan’s speed was currently 4320 kilometers per hour, a speed that the vast majority of people could only dream about. His heart was thumping like an engine, blood being pushed to every part of his body. Oxygen was no longer taken in through breathing. Instead, his skin was sucking in air from his surroundings.
Xia Fan felt like he would never run out of energy. This was the power from the Immortal Wine!
——
Yet after half an hour, this power finally began to wane, and one hour later, Xia Fan stopped feeling so hot. After two hours, Xia Fan had gone back to being completely calm.
At this time, Xia Fan finally found Traveling Buddha’s scent. Following the scent, he ran into Thousand Ink’s little familiars. They were in the form of a flock of hummingbirds flying in a V formation through the forest, probably being used by the Qian Shuimo for surveillance.
Xia Fan was delighted, and his mood picked up. He picked up speed and soon saw Traveling Buddha’s group gathered up and resting. They had seemingly just been through a fierce battle, and Traveling Buddha had been wounded. Duanmu Heng was helping him bandage a cut on his right hand.
Whoos.h.!.+
Xia Fan put on the brakes, skidding to a stop next to Traveling Buddha’s group. As he was moving too fast, his sudden stop caused him to stir up a large amount of dirt that blanketed Traveling Buddha’s group.
When the dust settled, Xia Fan saw Traveling Buddha’s group was in a sorry state, all of them covered in black soil. Traveling Buddha’s just-bandaged wound had to be cleaned and rebandaged.
But when they saw Xia Fan, everyone forgot their displeasure. Traveling Buddha excitedly ran toward Xia Fan, ignoring his bleeding wound to give Xia Fan a hug, lifting him high into the air. With wide eyes, he shouted, “I knew you weren’t dead! You finally managed to find us!”
Xia Fan was one of the few people in this life who Traveling Buddha, who didn’t usually care about anything, actually had feelings for. While the other people weren’t as excited as Traveling Buddha, they were naturally happy to see one of their brothers returning.
“Let me introduce you. This is Thousand Ink, this is Jin Yu, the one squatting on the ground is Luo Jiuyi…”
As Traveling Buddha introduced Xia Fan to everyone, Xia Fan shook his head. He then frowned, for he finally saw there were numerous human corpses strewn on the ground. There were over a hundred of them, and they all wore armor with the Murder Shrine symbol. It looked like a standard scouting company.
Looking at the wounds on Traveling Buddha’s group, Xia Fan immediately understood that their wounds were because they had fought against the people of Murder Shrine. It had happened less than an hour ago, so if he had been fifteen minutes earlier, he might have made it in time for the fight.
“Battle? We were the ones who attacked. We ambushed them!” Traveling Buddha said casually. “The Murder Shrine is an enemy, so we naturally should kill them if we run across them. It doesn’t even need thinking about! If not for these guys, we would never have ended up in such a bad state!”
Xia Fan was startled, and quickly asked for an explanation. Thousand Ink took on the role as the scout of the party. He chuckled bitterly and said to Xia Fan, “The situation is truly very bad. The Murder Shrine has already come down, and with a lot of people.”
“How many people do they have?”
“Several tens of thousands is what I’ve concluded from the intelligence my little familiars have gathered, but I can’t guarantee that there’s not a large force out there that I haven’t discovered. After all, this black forest is far too big. Even I’m helpless against it.” Qian Shuimo shrugged in answer.
Xia Fan’s mind rapidly worked. Speed was a powerful and mystical special ability. As Xia Fan’s rank increased and his speed increased, his thinking speed, vision, and smell all grew sharper and faster. It was a special attribute that no other special ability had.
Xia Fan had everyone sit down and then said, “It’s actually to our advantage that the Murder Shrine’s people have come down.”
Everyone was startled. That was a strange way of viewing their situation. How was being outnumbered by their enemy advantageous?
Xia Fan continued, “Think about it. The greatest problem we face right now is that we can’t leave the dark abyss and send a signal back to headquarters.
“But now, the Murder Shrine has sent a large force into the black abyss, so they must know how to get out. And their movements are very weird. They lured nearly two hundred thousand Outer Frontier warriors here. They must have a reason for putting on such a big show.
“So long as we follow them and watch them, not only can we find a way out of the forest, we can investigate what the Murder Shrine is up to.
“Thus, we can’t stay here. We need to quickly and carefully get closer to the Murder Shrine’s force. Thousand Ink, do you know where they are right now?”
Thousand Ink nodded, but his expression didn’t relax. “I do know, but there are two things I have to correct. Firstly, this isn’t some black abyss, but the Demon Chasm. When the Skywings swept through Ashen Dragon and Hidden Moon, it was true that they killed a lot of people, but before leaving, they did something very weird.
“The Skywings said that they had found a Demon Chasm. in Ashen Moon and that they had sealed it. However, they said that they couldn’t guarantee that the seal would last, and the people of Ashen Moon would just have to see how lucky they were.
“You, Nan Jing, Duanmu Heng, and Ping Feng might not know about this, but Traveling Buddha, Jin Yu, Luo Jiuyi, and I are descendants of Ashen Dragon and Hidden Moon, so we are very clear about this. Based on what I’ve seen so far, this is probably the Demon Chasm the Skywings spoke of.”
Xia Fan felt his blood start to boil. He had constantly been looking for traces of his family, searching for the legendary Skywing Token. If his family had sealed this Demon Chasm, this was extremely valuable information!
Suppressing his shock, Xia Fan asked curiously, “Since the Skywings came to this black forest, they should have left behind traces.”
“Traces?” Thousand Ink frowned. “It’s been forty thousand years. Even if there were traces, they would be very difficult to find. In any case, I didn’t see any.
“In addition, we haven’t left the Black Forest because the direction we were going is wrong. After entering the Demon Chasm, the Murder Shrine’s people didn’t run around like we expected. Instead, they went down.”
“Down!?” Xia Fan blurted out in shock.
Thousand Ink lightly nodded. “Correct, they went down. The Murder Shrine’s people have already gone to the level below the black forest. If the Skywings left anything behind, it should be down below.”