Gou in the world of comprehension

Chapter 1417 This is what a decent life should be like!

As dusk settles, flocks of birds returning to the forest sweep across the sky, their calls echoing like a tide over the mountains.

At the western horizon, the setting sun was slowly sinking, turning the surrounding clouds into a blazing inferno. The rosy clouds billowed in the evening breeze, burning the eyes.

At this moment, Su Fan's figure was crushing through the layer of decaying leaves in the primeval forest, sinking into the ankle-deep dead branches and leaves with every step.

The ancient forest resembled a silent behemoth, with trees and shrubs growing wildly in a twisted manner, and the sunlight filtering through the intertwined branches shattered into mottled gold leaf on his shoulders.

As dusk approached, he finally reached the summit, his breaths mingling with the mountain wind as he passed by.

Standing on the edge of the cliff and gazing into the distance, the setting sun gilds the vast forest with gold, and that endless expanse of green does not reveal even a trace of smoke from cooking fires.

This continuous mountain range is far more vast and vibrant than imagined.

Along the way, you can see all sorts of strangely shaped old trees and vines, as well as colorful giant fungi growing under the shade of the trees.

Su Fan had been trekking through the mountains for half a month, but he still hadn't made it out of the continuous mountain range.

Su Fan's consciousness has not recovered at all. Even the slightest thought causes him to feel a sharp, stabbing pain in his mind.

His meridians and dantian were still in a state of chaos. Although the situation had improved somewhat, he still dared not mobilize his internal magical power.

Fortunately, his physical body has basically recovered, which allows him to trek through such a complex environment.

Unable to activate any escape techniques, or even the simplest lightness spell, he could only trudge forward with difficulty, stepping on the decaying fallen leaves.

Su Fan turned his head and looked in the direction he had come from.

This distance took him a full half month; if he were riding a ghost crow, it would only take a dozen flaps of its wings.

Not to mention activating a teleportation technique; the moment the thought arises, the other party is already hundreds or thousands of miles away.

There's no other way; given his current situation, the only way for him to leave these mountains is to take it one step at a time.

Thinking of this, he exhaled a breath of stale air into the void, and the white mist vanished in an instant in the twilight.

The predicament of not being able to even discern directions, coupled with the slow-healing injury, felt like a damp cotton ball stuck in my chest.

He doesn't even know where he is right now, and the fact that his injuries haven't improved is making him very frustrated.

By this time, it was getting dark.

As night fell, the stars and moon hung in the sky.

Moonlight streamed through the treetops, weaving a silver net on the ground. The stars shone as if tempered with ice, and the wind swept fallen leaves past our ears, carrying the unique chill of the mountaintop.

After another month of arduous travel, Su Fan finally discovered signs of human activity.

He saw a dilapidated thatched hut at the foot of a mountain, which must have been a hideout built by hunters in the mountains.

However, the interior was covered in dust, the thatched roof had long been torn apart by wind and rain, the beams and pillars were crookedly supporting the roof, and cobwebs were densely packed on the door frame, indicating that no one had lived there for a long time.

Even so, Su Fan was still incredibly excited.

This also indicates that this place is not far from human villages.

Su Fan immediately perked up, all the irritability and depression of the past few days vanished.

For the next few days, he traveled almost entirely by relying on his physical strength. When he was hungry, he would chew on mushrooms and wild fruits, and when he was sleepy, he would lean against a tree trunk and take a nap.

The dew on the decaying leaves soaked through his clothes, but it only made him more awake.

Until a thousand-year-old towering tree blocked his way, he climbed up the gnarled branches to the top of the tree and saw through the gaps in the leaves a place that looked like a human village in the mountain valley.

Standing atop a towering ancient tree, he could see through the dense branches that, at the foot of the distant mountain, a village-like settlement could be faintly discerned.

Su Fan leaped down from the ancient tree and then excitedly headed towards the distant village.

"Looking at a mountain makes a horse run itself to death." Even though the village was right in front of him, it took Su Fan more than half an hour to finally reach the outside of it.

This village, built against the mountain, has earthen walls that have been eroded by time, and the wooden ladders of the four corner arrow towers have long since rotted away, yet it still exudes a sense of solemn vigilance.

Strangely, the village was so quiet you could hear your own heartbeat; even the barking of dogs and the crowing of roosters were a luxury.

Su Fan walked to the gate of the village. The heavy wooden door had been broken into several pieces and was scattered everywhere. It was clear that it had been smashed by something.

Upon closer inspection of the stockade walls, one discovers deep claw marks and several large gaps covering the rammed earth structure, clearly indicating that they were forcibly dug open by some unknown beast.

The scratches were etched with a tearing arc, and dark red scabs clung to the edges.

Several gaps were at least ten feet wide, and broken arrowheads were mixed in with the rubble.

Although the rain washed away many traces, the dense claw marks in the mud didn't lie.
Those three-toed hooked marks were so large they could fit his entire body inside.

Such ordinary villages would be as fragile as paper in the face of powerful monsters.

Su Fan stared at the bone fragments embedded in the crack in the wall, his Adam's apple bobbing.

His brow furrowed as his fingertips traced the deepest scratch.

This kind of power is definitely not something that ordinary wild beasts possess; it seems to be the work of some high-level exotic beasts.

However, the village was completely silent and lifeless at this moment.

When he arrived at the gate of the village, he saw that the heavy gate had been smashed to pieces, with broken door panels scattered everywhere, clearly indicating that it had been smashed by something.

That's a bit strange.

Su Fan had been trekking through the mountains for over a month, and this place was clearly a land devoid of spirits.

He walked in the mountains for over a month, and the largest living creature he saw was a python as thick as a bowl. He didn't even encounter any intelligent spirits or monsters.

Moreover, the village was inhabited by ordinary people; how could they possibly be attacked by such a powerful beast?

Thinking of this, Su Fan frowned and walked into the village.

As he stepped over the threshold, the rotten wood beneath his feet groaned.

Despite being mentally prepared, the scene before him still sent chills down his spine, causing him to clench his fists tightly.

The village was covered with a thick layer of bones, some with gnaw marks and others with clean, neat cuts.

The dark brown bloodstains had long since seeped into the soil, gleaming eerily under the moonlight.

A musty, stale smell filled the air, as if something had quietly gone moldy in the dark.

There was no living creature left in the village; even the pottery jars on the stove were cracked into pieces.

One can imagine how horrific the scene must have been in the village at that time.

There was nothing left to see in the village, so Su Fan left the village and went around to the back.

Upon arriving here, he saw a dense line of strange beast footprints that stretched all the way into the distant mountains.

Those strange beasts came from the mountains. They devoured all the people in the village and then returned to the mountains.

Su Fan pondered for a moment, then followed the trail of footprints into the depths of the mountains.

Actually, he already had a guess in his mind, but he still needed to verify it to see if his guess was correct.

Su Fan followed the footprints of the strange beast for half a day, but the scene before him made him stop in his tracks.

He stood in the dense jungle, and through the gaps in the grass, he saw that deep in the forest ahead lay a vast ravine, dozens of miles wide.

No... that's not a ravine.

It was a beast trail carved out by sheer willpower. It was called a beast trail because the huge ravine was covered with countless footprints of strange beasts.

The ancient trees along the animal trails were either broken in half or uprooted, their gnarled roots resembling giant hands struggling in their death throes.

Further away, hills were sheared halfway down, and broken animal bones were embedded in the rubble.

Su Fan pushed aside the last thicket of bushes and emerged from the dense forest, standing on the animal trail and looking around.

The animal trail was covered with countless footprints of giant beasts, the deepest of which were several meters deep, and the largest footprint was more than ten feet in size.

The claw marks along the edges of the footprints were as deep as knife cuts. This beast, of such size, must have been a thousand feet tall, and its movements could even stir up the wind and clouds.

The road stretches into the distant mountains, turning into a thin line at the horizon, with no end in sight, like a crack split open between heaven and earth.

As Su Fan gazed at the endless, stretching beast path, he seemed to hear the roar of giant beasts galloping in his ears, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble slightly.

He knew his guess was right when he saw the animal trail.

Su Fan had seen this kind of scene many times; it must be that this plane had been invaded by another realm.

He was a witness to the roar of the Great Luo Heaven smashing the barrier of the Xuan Luo Realm, and the blood-red color of the Netherworld Realm tearing apart the barrier of the Ancient Heaven. He was a witness to those two inter-realm wars that stained the starry river red.

The bones piled up into mountains, the blood flowed into seas, and the tremors of the collapsing realm still echo in the soul.

However, when these exotic beasts broke in, perhaps their spatial coordinates were slightly off, and they plunged headlong into this lifeless, desolate place where mortals gathered.

The moment countless strange beasts trampled the earth, it was a catastrophe of utter destruction for the beings of this plane.

But the frost that had formed on the beast path did not lie; the dark green slime had long since dried into a glassy state, indicating that the strange beasts had passed through long ago.

It is estimated that this interdimensional war is currently raging fiercely, with the stars and rivers turning upside down in the chaos.

He couldn't help but laugh at himself, wondering if he was really a jinx, always running into such devastating misfortunes wherever he went.

Originally, he planned to find a gathering place of cultivators to exchange for some healing pills to recover as soon as possible, but who would have thought that he would run headlong into the vortex of the inter-realm war.

Who would have thought that he would be caught in the interdimensional war of this plane? If he wanted to reach the human settlement, he would have to cross the defense line of the alien beasts.

Then forget it.

You guys fight it out, I don't want to get involved.

Now Su Fan is only half alive, and if he gets involved in this interdimensional war, he won't even know how he died.

Su Fan gazed at the churning leaden clouds at the end of the beast path, his brows furrowed in a deep knot, as he began to consider where to go for healing.

When he first arrived, he didn't even know which realm he was on, let alone find a blessed land with abundant spiritual energy.

But healing requires spiritual nourishment; one cannot exhaust the last vestige of life in this desolate, mundane place.

He took a deep breath of the cold wind, which smelled of earth, and turned to trek along the edge of the animal trail, heading away from the battlefield.

Over the next few months, Su Fan followed the beast path and finally stepped out of that vast mountain that swallowed the sun and moon.

But the further I went, the more my heart felt like it was being pierced by ice picks.

Once these countless exotic beasts emerged from the mountains and forests, they began to bare their ferocious fangs and recklessly attack any humans they encountered.

This vast mortal world became a blood-soaked slaughterhouse.

When he left the mountains, all he saw along the way were scenes of utter devastation.

Where countless exotic beasts traversed, ordinary villages and towns were reduced to charred remains.

Amidst the ruins, the charred roof beams still retain their grotesque collapsed appearance. Half a burnt tiger-head child's shoe is embedded in the pile of bricks and tiles. On the overturned stone roller by the roadside, dark red bloodstains have long since congealed into a shiny black scab, which crumbles and falls off with a gust of wind.

Countless villages and towns were reduced to ruins, and hundreds of millions of ordinary people became food for these alien beasts.

Although Su Fan was a ruthless killer, often sacrificing hundreds of thousands or even millions of Celestials, his hands already stained with blood, he still looked on with a vengeful rage as he gazed at the scattered bones on the ground.
After all, those who died were all human beings of the same bloodline as him. No matter how hard or cold his heart was, he couldn't bear it. At this moment, he felt his throat tighten as if it were about to burst.

However, those countless exotic beasts from other lands did not linger in the mortal world.

After devouring all the creatures in this area, they surged towards the horizon like a black tide, presumably heading towards the spiritual domain guarded by cultivators from this dimension.

The two sides are likely engaged in a fierce battle, which is why Su Fan did not see any strange beasts along the way.

Of course, some ordinary people must have been lucky enough to survive, but they must have fled to the nearby mountains to build fortified villages and protect themselves.

What was once a bustling area with crisscrossing paths and the sounds of chickens and dogs has now become a wasteland that even stray dogs are unwilling to tread.

Ten thousand acres of fertile land are overgrown with waist-high wormwood. When the wind blows, scattered withered bones are revealed in the waves of grass, some still in the posture of running.

It can truly be said that white bones are exposed in the wild, and not a rooster crows for a thousand miles.

At this moment, Su Fan was wandering around a long-desolate city street.

The once bustling city is now deserted, with most of the rammed earth walls collapsed, revealing the blackened wooden beams inside.

The streets were covered with a thick layer of dust, and footprints could not be lifted up once they were in place. Even the wind carried a sense of decay and death.

Most of the buildings in the city are now just ruins, and broken bones almost cover the streets.

He entered a fairly intact courtyard, which clearly belonged to a wealthy family.

Su Fan searched through the various rooms. Perhaps because the strange beasts had arrived so quickly, the storerooms and grains in the courtyard hadn't been moved yet.

The kitchen was fully equipped with pots, pans, and dishes. He even found some cured meat and seasonings, and there was no shortage of firewood in the yard.

So Su Fan steamed a large pot of rice on the stove in the kitchen and stir-fried a pot of cured meat.

After the food was ready, he stood in front of the stove and ate.

Although it wasn't spirit rice and the edges of the cured meat were already somewhat rotten, Su Fan didn't care about any of that.

What kind of life has he been living these past few months?

I'm finally getting a hot meal!

In no time, Su Fan had finished a whole pot of rice and half a pot of cured meat.

After eating and drinking his fill, Su Fan went into a bedroom in the courtyard and collapsed onto the bed.

This is what a human life should be like!

He lay there for a short while and then fell into a deep sleep; his snoring was so loud that it could be heard even from outside the yard.

Su Fan was sound asleep when he suddenly sat up in bed.

At this moment, his scalp tingled, every hair on his body stood on end, and a chill ran down his spine to the back of his head.

Having experienced countless life-or-death moments, he is also very sensitive to impending crises.

Even when he was asleep, it still woke him from his sleep.

Su Fan arrived at the bedroom door, closed his eyes, and focused all his mental energy on sensing the situation outside.

Although he is currently unable to activate his divine sense, his five senses have not been affected.

"Wow..."

After a while, Su Fan vaguely heard a mournful shriek.

He knew it was a strange bird or beast from another land, probably attracted by the smoke from the cooking fire.

(End of this chapter)