Hide in the world of gods and demons

Chapter 115 Battle of Life and Death
The screams and wails continued intermittently until dawn.

"Creak" sound.

Zhou Xutang pushed open the door.

His hands and face were covered in blood, and his expression was frighteningly grim.

Chen Wen, or rather Chen Li, was asked this question from the very beginning.

The reason they subjected them to torture all night was to extract information about the person behind them.

He absolutely refused to believe that everything was done by a Qi Refining cultivator.

Perhaps Dongbo was killed by 'Chen Wen'.

However, the second instant kill of seven members of the Zhou family could not possibly have been accomplished by a Qi Refining cultivator.

Unfortunately, he never got to know anything before he died.
The city lord, who had been guarding outside all night, saw Zhou Xutang come out and immediately stepped forward respectfully, cupping his hands and saying, "Senior Zhou, is everything going well? The banquet is ready. You've been busy all night, why don't you have a simple meal?"

"The Zhou family will remember this favor, but we'll have to skip the meal... Oh, and one of them escaped. We'll need Lord Liu to keep an eye on him then," Zhou Xutang said with a forced smile.

"Senior Zhou, you flatter me. It was just a small favor for me." City Lord Liu smiled broadly. It was worth all the effort he had put in to gain the favor of a Foundation Establishment family. "Don't worry, Senior. As long as he dares to show his face, I will definitely help you find him."

"Then I thank Lord Liu in advance," Zhou Xutang said.

……

After bidding farewell to Lord Liu, Zhou Xutang's smile vanished instantly, his eyes turning icy cold: "You have some nerve!"

He had actually met this man named Chen Wen at Yu Cheng's birthday banquet.

He almost escaped.

"Could it be that the person behind you is Yu Cheng?" He pondered for a moment, but quickly dismissed the thought: "That's impossible. He's just a skeleton in a grave, he's long since lost his ambition... Never mind, let me see who's behind you."

His body soared into the air, straight into the sky.

……

Autumn is getting stronger.

Early in the morning, while it was still barely light, Chen Li pushed open the door.

A thick fog blanketed the area, reducing visibility to very low levels.

He went out into the yard, stretching his body while checking the game panel.

[Realm Level: Qi Refining Level 8: 72/100]

"I'm not far from the ninth level of Qi Refining; I should be able to break through before the end of this year," Chen Li thought to himself. "Next, I should start thinking about Foundation Establishment!"

He suddenly threw a punch.

The air exploded with a loud "thud".

The fog churned violently.

"I don't know if we can get through this hurdle smoothly. According to Bai Jinwang, the success rate of Foundation Establishment is pitifully small, almost one in a hundred. If we fail, we will suffer serious damage to our vital energy and shorten our lifespan, or even die... Alas, it's so difficult!"

Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the courtyard gate.

"Big brother, open the door quickly!"

It was Gu Mengqing's voice.

Chen Li's expression changed.

He strode to the door, opened it, and pulled Gu Mengqing inside.

"Why are you back? Didn't I tell you to go out and lay low?"

Gu Mengqing was breathing heavily, his face was pale and haggard, and his eyes were bloodshot.
"Big brother, we've been discovered by the Zhou family patriarch. Run quickly, or it will be too late. Zhao Lin and the others have probably... probably already implicated you." Gu Mengqing whispered, his face filled with panic and anxiety.

"What!?"

Chen Li was struck dumb upon hearing this!

The thing I least wanted to see still happened.

Although he had imagined this scenario more than once, when it actually happened, his heart still pounded and his breathing became heavy. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down:
"Tell me in detail, how did you find out, and how did you escape?"

Gu Mengqing dared not hide anything and quickly recounted the whole story.

"So, the Zhou family patriarch hasn't returned yet..." Chen Li paced back and forth a few steps, then stopped: "Find a place to hide first, don't show your face, and contact us again after things have calmed down."

“Yes, brother,” Gu Mengqing replied.

After Chen Li finished speaking, he quickly walked towards the bedroom.

Zhou Hong had already gotten up and was dressing up in front of the bronze mirror. Chen Li grabbed Zhou Hong and said quickly as they walked, "Come on, let's go to the basement. The incident last time has been exposed, and the Zhou family patriarch will be here soon. Follow the passage and leave here immediately."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Hong felt a wave of dizziness and her face turned pale.

"You...and you?" She understood the implication in Chen Li's words.

“If the two of us go together, we'll be too conspicuous and both of us will be doomed. You know I can disguise myself and can leave whenever I want. When the time comes, wait for me on the second mountain peak west of Luanluo Mountain. Remember, the second mountain peak,” Chen Li said.

Zhou Hong immediately felt a little relieved and nodded vigorously: "Okay, I'll remember."

"Don't delay, let's go now!"

……

Watching Zhou Hong disappear into the passage, Chen Li sealed the basement entrance with stone slabs, and then blocked it again with a cabinet.

He leaned against the cabinet, closed his eyes, and rested for a while.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes.

"So what about foundation building!"

By this time, he had completely calmed down.

He never even considered escaping.

Since provoking the Zhou family, he had spent countless sleepless nights contemplating the feasibility of killing Zhou Xutang, and this time it was just an earlier-than-expected event.

"Who lives and who dies is still uncertain!" Chen Li muttered to himself, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes.

He changed into Zhou Dongbo's robes and took out a second-tier magic sword, holding it in his hand.

Then, changing his appearance, he quickly walked out the door.

Gu Mengqing had already left and disappeared without a trace.

It was still dark outside, and a thick fog shrouded the area.

He moved with lightning speed, quickly heading towards the city gate.

Luanluo City has only one city gate, and the city's protective array has the ability to prevent flight, so the only way to enter or leave is through the main gate.

The thick fog perfectly concealed his figure.

Pedestrians on the road only felt a blur before their eyes, a gust of wind blew by, and then he disappeared without a trace.

Before long, Chen Li arrived at the city gate.

In the early hours of late autumn, with a slight chill in the air, few people entered or left the city gates. Chen Li stood to the side, pretending to wait for someone, pacing back and forth. The surroundings were shrouded in mist, and only a blurry figure could be seen ten meters away.

Time passed by minute by minute.

Chen Li waited anxiously.

They waited for half an hour.

Suddenly, a sound of air being torn apart came from afar. At first, the sound was barely perceptible, but in the blink of an eye, the noise grew louder and louder, and the sound was clearly different from that of ordinary Qi Refining stage flying.

"It's here!" Chen Li's heart began to pound, and his palm, which was gripping the sword hilt, became slightly damp. He quickly tightened his grip.

Since his time travel, his hands have been stained with blood.

But this time, it's a real life-or-death battle.

He found himself still as nervous as he was during his first battle.

The sound of something cutting through the air grew closer and closer.

It's almost here.

He took one last deep breath and began to cast a protective spell.

At the same time, calm your mind and don't let any emotion show.

Soon, a figure flew to the ground. It was Zhou Xutang. His face was gloomy. Suddenly, he sensed something and glanced at Chen Li, who was shrouded in a protective shield, not far away with a hint of surprise.

Without paying much attention, he quickly walked towards the city gate.

Normally, he wouldn't be so careless, but at this moment, he was only thinking about taking down Chen Li and interrogating the person behind him.

Little did he expect that the person in question was right beside him, nor did he anticipate that a deadly attack was about to be launched against him.

In that instant of turning around.

Chen Li moved instantly, his figure as swift as lightning.

With two consecutive strides, he covered more than ten meters.

Zhou Xutang, with his keen senses, changed his expression drastically and turned around abruptly.

A figure flashed by like a phantom, attacking right in front of him.

"You..." Zhou Xutang channeled his magical power, condensing a layer of magical light around his body, before he could utter a single word.

A light a hundred times more dazzling than the sun shone from the other's eyes. Zhou Xutang instinctively closed his eyes, and in that instant of distraction, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom, a terrifying sword light, carrying thick air, pierced through his defenses.

The longsword pierced his chest and emerged from his back, exploding into a bloody hole. At the same time, Chen Li's arm was instantly severed into three pieces.

Everything happened so suddenly, the whole process was lightning fast, and it only took the blink of an eye.

"You're courting death!" Zhou Xutang's eyes widened in fury, and he suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood. He was filled with shock, fear, and rage. His magical power surged, and the heavens and earth seemed to tremble. He slapped Chen Li with his palm.

"Oh!"

Chen Li was knocked away, and his protective shield suddenly darkened, but fortunately he managed to hold on.

Zhou Xutang was seriously injured and terrified.

He turned to run away.

Chen Li's eyes were filled with murderous intent. He took the sword from his severed right arm with his left hand, and at the same time, he pushed off the ground with his toes, and his figure was like an arrow released from a bow, catching up in one step.

Zhou Xutang had no choice but to turn around and take out his magical artifact.

This is a small black sword.

A sharp, piercing aura permeated the air.

It was like a sharp blade striking your face, sending chills down your spine.

However, before he could make a move...

He was blinded by a flash spell, followed by a shout spell. When he came to his senses, a cold sword light had already slid across his neck, and his head flew into the air.

A sword pointed at the head.

The headless corpse staggered a few steps before collapsing to the ground, its body convulsing uncontrollably.

Chen Li quickly stepped forward, snatched his storage bag and the magical artifact from his hand, and glanced at the head beside him, its face twisted in a ferocious expression, its eyes still wide open in death. Thinking of the potential danger, he suddenly raised his foot and stomped heavily on the head.

There was a "boom".

His head was crushed by his foot like a watermelon.

The ground beneath their feet was crushed to pieces.

He cast two exorcism talismans in quick succession, took a few steps, and disappeared into the thick fog.

……

Chen Li's expression kept changing as he walked, and his tense nerves finally relaxed a little.

"There shouldn't be any witnesses!"

Thanks to the dense fog today, visibility is extremely low.

In addition, the battle lasted only a few seconds, making it even less likely that there would be any witnesses.

"Finally, this major worry has been resolved!"

This time it was extremely dangerous.

If it weren't for a sneak attack, the outcome of a face-to-face battle would be hard to predict; it's entirely uncertain.

"Sigh, I hope this is the last time I'll face such a dangerous situation," Chen Li sighed inwardly.

But he knew it.

That's just wishful thinking.

In this world, the strong prey on the weak, and the mighty are respected. If you don't kill someone, someone else will kill you; there's no logic to it.

Often, disaster strikes out of nowhere while you're sitting at home.

Chen Li walked quickly, keeping a close watch on his surroundings, until he got home, at which point he finally relaxed completely.

"hiss!"

He was so focused during the battle that he couldn't feel the pain in his wounds. But now that he relaxed, he felt a tearing pain not only in his severed arm but throughout his entire body.

That sonic boom sword strike before.

It's a fight where they're risking their lives.

Injure one thousand enemies, and self-inflict eight hundred.

He glanced at his right palm, which was a bloody mess. This was just a minor injury; the most troublesome part was his right arm, which was completely broken into three pieces.

The strain on the body from a sonic strike is immense. It might be okay to practice against thin air, but using it against an enemy would deform even steel, let alone an arm. With his physical strength, he simply couldn't withstand such an attack.

The most troublesome thing is that this kind of injury cannot be treated directly with hemostasis techniques.

Chen Li closed his eyes and sensed it for a moment, his expression turning grim.

"Comminuted fracture... thankfully, not too comminuted."

He kept groping for his severed arm with his left hand, and by sensing with his mind, he quickly put the broken bones back in place one by one, and even put a few pieces of bone back in their original positions. The intense pain made him tremble all over and break out in a cold sweat.

He found a piece of rag and carefully wrapped it around his right hand to secure it.

He moved his right hand.

"He can barely move now!"

He began to perform hemostasis treatment.

However, failure, failure, and more failure.

Hemostasis is not a low-level technique.

Incantations and hand seals are both indispensable.

The severed right hand has completely lost its former dexterity.

"Damn it!" Chen Li couldn't help but get angry.

He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, and tried several more times before finally managing to cast the spell successfully. He then put the slightly dislocated and broken bone back into place.

Then just wait for it to recover.

"I wonder how far Zhou Hong has run off to."

The wound is becoming increasingly itchy, but it is healing rapidly on its own.

With nothing else to do, he picked up the storage bag of the Zhou family patriarch, infused it with spiritual power to refine it. The spiritual imprint left by a Foundation Establishment expert was far more difficult to remove than that left by a Qi Refining cultivator.

Fortunately, this is a source without roots.

Under his inexhaustible spiritual power.

The spiritual imprint was quickly worn away and eroded.

"It's actually a five-sided storage bag!" A hint of joy appeared on Chen Li's face.

This storage bag.

The magical artifacts of the Longevity Sect are sold in their shops.

It is worth three high-grade spirit stones.

This storage bag alone is worth more than his entire fortune (not counting magical artifacts and robes, of course).
This is just the storage bag itself.

There were also more than a dozen bottles of pills inside.

A stack of talismans.

A book scroll.

A pile of spirit stones.

Three ritual implements.

Four robes.

And some other miscellaneous things.

"What kind of spirit stone is this?" He took one out of his storage bag.

This spirit stone appears crystal clear and quite pure; with a slight touch, one can sense the immense spiritual power deposited within it.

"Could it be a high-grade spirit stone?" Chen Li wondered to himself.

The more Chen Li thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

There are four spirit stones in this storage bag. If they are high-grade spirit stones, these four alone are equivalent to at least four hundred mid-grade spirit stones.

Chen Li simply took all the spirit stones out of his storage bag, placed them on the table, and carefully counted them: 152 mid-grade spirit stones, 43 low-grade spirit stones, and 4 high-grade spirit stones.

Converted to mid-grade spirit stones, that's a total of 552.

"Wow, Foundation Establishment cultivators are really rich."

He continued counting.

The only book in the storage bag was titled "The Rainbow Transformation Technique".

Chen Li picked it up and flipped through it, only to find that it was a second-tier, first-level spell, which was completely beyond his current capabilities.

Other ritual implements and robes.

Apart from one item that appears to be of the second tier.

The rest are all first-order.

"Wait, these first-tier items, could they be the relics of Zhao Lin and the others?!" The more Chen Li looked at them, the more familiar they seemed, as if he had seen them before. It seemed that Zhao Lin and the others were probably dead.

"Hey, what's this!" He took out a flat jade tablet.

(End of this chapter)