I am a full-level celestial master, you let me enter the strange talk of rules?

As powerful beings in the Celestial Realm, the chairman and the beautiful woman with peach blossom eyes possessed extremely keen senses.

The moment those solid footsteps sounded, their faces turned deathly pale, and their hearts felt as if they were being gripped by a cold, large hand, almost stopping their beating!

A terrifying aura, as unfathomable as an abyss and radiating pure destruction and death, surged forth from the direction of the footsteps like a tangible tide!

The aura was so powerful, so pure, and so despair-inducing that it far surpassed anything they had ever encountered before, and was even more terrifying than the pressure of the initial Saint Realm they had felt at the dock!

This was a force they could not possibly contend with! They couldn't even muster the thought of fighting back!

Squeak! Squeak!

The footsteps were neither hurried nor slow, yet each step seemed to pound on their hearts, causing the rotten wooden planks to groan under the weight.

The strange creatures on the ship have discovered us?!
Alarm bells rang in the chairman's mind, and all the muscles in his body tensed instantly.

He could feel that terrifying locking force had firmly locked onto the area where the three of them were! The enemy was rapidly approaching!
"run!"

The moment the thought crossed his mind, the chairman's instinctive reaction was to protect his teammates.

He recently received a lot of cultivation resources and hidden clan techniques from Zhang Yangqing, which improved his strength. He felt that he was a level above the peach blossom-eyed beauty.

In this extremely critical and life-or-death moment, his sense of responsibility as a superior and the "brotherly loyalty" he had cultivated by fighting alongside Zhang Yangqing instantly took over!
He gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressing the fear in his heart, and took a step in front of Zhang Yangqing and the beautiful woman with peach blossom eyes. With his back to the direction from which the terrifying aura came, his voice trembled with a hint of determination as he said urgently:
"Hurry! Jump off the deck! Get to the shore! I'll hold him off! Don't worry about me!"

However, he didn't even have time to finish the last word of his tragic "declaration of repelling the enemy."

hum!
A faint, yet seemingly profound, humming sound suddenly rang out beside them.

Immediately afterward, the chairman's vision blurred, and he saw a slender beam of light, about the thickness of a thumb, condensed to the extreme and between purple and silver, flash past Zhang Yangqing's raised fingertip as if by teleportation!
The beam of light was incredibly fast, as if it had pierced through space itself, its target being the tall figure that had just turned the corner of the cabin and revealed itself shrouded in thick black shadows, with only two bottomless hollows on its face!

The hidden eeriness that had just been exuding an aura of despair hadn't even had time to react, or even to "see" the beam of light!

puff!

A strange sound, like a cloth bag full of ash being punctured and then crushed by an invisible hand, suddenly erupted!
The tall, dark figure, from its chest upwards, including its head, shoulders, and arms, was like ice and snow instantly vaporized by high temperature. Under the incredulous gazes of the chairman and the beautiful woman with peach blossom eyes, it silently and completely turned into countless tiny gray-black specks of light scattered across the sky!
Only a pair of lonely feet, wearing tattered work shoes, remained in place, still in a forward-leaning posture, standing stiffly in place.

"!!!" The chairman's eyes widened suddenly, his mouth opened so wide it could fit a duck egg, the resolute and tragic look on his face froze instantly, and was then quickly replaced by an expression that looked like he had seen a ghost, a mixture of extreme shock, bewilderment, and a hint of absurdity.

He stiffly and slowly turned his head to look at Zhang Yangqing, who was still holding up his fingertips.

The chairman's voice was hoarse and trembling with disbelief: "You...you defeated him in seconds?!"

Zhang Yangqing then lowered his hand, glanced at him, and said in a flat tone, "Well, what else?"

Chairman: "." Otherwise what?!

The chairman almost couldn't catch his breath, feeling as if his understanding had been devastated!
He had made progress, and he guessed that Zhang Yangqing must have made progress as well, after all, this guy had never played by the rules.

But to this extent?! With a mere wave of his hand, he instantly obliterated a hidden monster that had filled them with despair and was extremely difficult to kill, leaving them with only two legs?!

This isn't progress, it's practically a leap from the spot!

The chairman couldn't help but blurt out, "If you're so capable, why were we hiding like that? Why didn't you just charge straight through?!"

Zhang Yangqing rolled his eyes at him as if he were an idiot: "Don't you know how to follow procedures? This ship and this river have very complicated rules. If I start by killing indiscriminately, making too much noise, it might trigger some more troublesome chain reaction, attract something even more powerful, or directly sink the ship and cause the rules to go out of control. The safest approach is to sneak in discreetly and strike at the crucial moment."

This is common knowledge not only to Zhang Yangqing, but to almost all the chosen ones.

He paused, then pointed to the two solitary feet that had begun to wriggle slightly, with fleshy buds and black threads growing from the severed ends, attempting to reassemble their bodies, and urged:
"Don't just stand there! This thing is a hidden anomaly derived from the rules; it can't be killed. It's just temporarily broken up. Judging by its recovery speed, it can reform in three minutes at most! Let's go!"

After saying that, he ignored the still shocked chairman and the beautiful woman with peach blossom eyes, turned around first, and stepped onto the deck of the cabin in a few steps.

Then, with a leap, like a roc spreading its wings, it landed lightly and steadily on the shore covered with jagged rocks.

The chairman and the beautiful woman with peach blossom eyes suddenly realized what was happening and, without thinking twice, quickly jumped down.

Only when their feet touched the solid ground on the shore did the three of them finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Looking back, the huge dead ship was still struggling against the current in the river of blood, and two feet that were stubbornly growing could still be vaguely seen through the cracks in the cabin.

It felt as if the despair I had just experienced was all a dream.

"This way." Zhang Yangqing didn't delay. His eyes scanned the strange surroundings. As if sensing something in the dark, he pointed in a direction: the area where the riverbank extended into the depths and the terrain gradually rose.

The three began to travel along the riverbank, heading deeper inland.

The surrounding scenery became increasingly eerie.

The ground beneath my feet was dark red, likely soaked in blood.

The stream beside it was still a thick, blood-red liquid, but what was even more puzzling was its direction of flow!
It is a natural principle that water flows downhill.

But the blood river in front of them was flowing slowly from the low-lying area beneath their feet toward the higher mountain they were advancing on!
It seemed as if an invisible force was forcibly lifting up the heavy blood, pushing it upwards against the current!

"This is the River Against the Current?" The chairman looked at this scene that defied the laws of physics and couldn't help but ask in a low voice. (End of this chapter)