Chapter 851: No Trace at All

"Good!"

Shi Chuankong nodded, then sat down cross-legged on the spot. After wiping the beast core clean, he took a deep breath, swallowed it, and closed his eyes.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and said with a slight frown,

"Brother Li, you swallowed the beast core like this too, right? But for me, it doesn't seem to have any obvious effect."

"That beast core of yours was much inferior to the previous two. It seems that the fiercer these strange beasts are, and the more other beasts they devour, the larger the beast core formed in their bodies. The longer they live, the denser the star power contained in their cores, which might be more beneficial for opening acupoints." Han Li analyzed after a moment's thought.

"I think that's the case. But judging by the look of this island, it seems that the long-tailed giant lizard and the black centipede were probably the two strongest beasts here." Shi Chuankong turned back to scan the plain and ridge behind them and said.

"It's fine. Now we need to focus on traveling. There will be plenty of opportunities later to try again." Han Li nodded and said.

"Good! If any powerful beasts on the way don't have eyes, don't blame me for being rude." Shi Chuankong rubbed his hands and said with a grin.

After chatting for a while, they didn't continue their attempts and went to rest separately.

The next morning.

At the edge of the island, Han Li, riding the floating bird, began to accelerate from a hundred paces away, charging toward the black mist region.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

With each step the floating bird took, an explosive sound rang out beneath its feet, stirring up clouds of dust.

It ran faster and faster, its strides growing larger, until it reached the island's edge. Suddenly, it leaped into the air, soaring over the black mist region, and spread its two huge wings with a flapping sound.

At the same time, a far greater oppressive force filled the surrounding void, showing a terrifying trend of increasing.

Air jets continuously shot out from the air sacs beneath the floating bird's feet, and its wings flapped incessantly as it struggled to fly forward.

Traveling through this region was already difficult, and with Han Li on its back, the floating bird's flight was noticeably lower than when it had flown over the previous night, almost skimming the black mist.

Han Li pressed himself close to its back, hiding as much as possible under its wings, his eyes fixed ahead, muscles tense, fearing any mishap.

Fortunately, the distance between the two islands was shorter than they had estimated the night before, and the floating bird had clearly made the trip countless times, so it was well accustomed. Soon, it carried Han Li to the other island and landed.

As soon as he set foot on the island, Han Li dismounted from the floating bird's back, and his body sank slightly, feeling that the spatial pressure weighing on him had grown even stronger.

He let out a light breath, adapted for a moment, then patted the floating bird beside him, sending it back to fetch Shi Chuankong and Crab Immortal.

After landing, both of them also noticed the change in spatial pressure on the island, and their brows furrowed.

"This island is much larger than the previous one, and the spatial pressure here seems to have increased significantly." Shi Chuankong said.

"Indeed. Judging by this, the beasts on this island are likely even more formidable. We need to be more cautious on our journey ahead." Han Li said gravely, gently stroking the floating bird's head.

"We have this little fellow to thank. Let's first find where those floating birds came from and capture a couple more. Riding them will speed us up and help us find the exiled prisoners sooner, so we can inquire about Fellow Daoist Zi Ling." Shi Chuankong glanced at the floating bird crouching beside Han Li and suggested.

"I've already scanned with my divine sense. There's a canyon several dozen miles away where the floating birds from last night are. No time to lose; let's set off immediately." Han Li nodded.

About half a day later, the three of them, each riding a floating bird, burst out of the canyon, chased by hundreds of floating birds, and galloped toward the center of the island.

...

Time passed, and over two months went by.

In a rugged mountainous area, three floating birds gathered together, pecking at the ground.

Not far away, beneath a huge boulder, two hundred-foot-tall tusked giant elephants covered in blue-gray scales lay dead in the gaps between rocks, blood at the corners of their mouths.

On the top of each of their heads was a bowl-sized bloody hole, from which the beast cores had been removed.

On top of the boulder, Han Li and Shi Chuankong sat back-to-back a few steps apart, their acupoints glowing, their bodies enveloped in light.

Crab Immortal stood expressionlessly to the side, gazing into the distance, lost in thought.

Before long, Han Li and Shi Chuankong, who had been sitting with closed eyes, opened their eyes one after the other, turned around, and smiled at each other.

"After all this experimentation, it's basically confirmed that the crystals inside these scaled beasts can indeed increase star power in the body and help cultivate the physical body, but they are not enough to stimulate the opening of acupoints." Han Li let out a long breath and said.

"That's true. But even so, swallowing so many beast cores these days has brought clear benefits. Our tolerance to the spatial pressure in this realm has improved significantly. I didn't expect that coming with Brother Li to the Scale Void Realm would bring such an opportunity. If we can keep hunting and devouring beast cores here, it's much faster than bitter cultivation outside." Shi Chuankong said with a smile.

"As long as we devour more beast cores, our physique will become stronger, and when we later reach a larger landmass, we'll be able to handle it with ease." Han Li nodded.

"Fellow Daoist Li, that group of scaled giant scorpions is catching up again. At their speed, they'll be here in about thirty breaths." Crab Immortal suddenly warned.

"Those persistent pests. If not for their numbers and the low value of their cores, I'd have wiped them out long ago." Shi Chuankong spat lightly, somewhat disgusted.

"Don't bother with them. We'll soon reach the next landmass, and they won't be able to follow. Alright, let's set off." Han Li said with a smile.

With that, the three remounted their floating birds and galloped across the mountainous terrain.

...

One morning, several months later.

At the edge of a red-brown Gobi wilderness, a black beast resembling a hairless, scaled jackal was tearing at the rotting flesh of a giant lizard that had died days ago.

Suddenly, its ears perked up, and it raised its head warily, staring into the misty haze beyond the wilderness.

In the mist, a huge shadow was passing through the layers of fog, heading this way.

The jackal scaled beast quickly retreated a hundred zhang, then turned its head to look back.

"Moo..."

Accompanied by a low, deep roar, a giant blue-black turtle over ten zhang tall emerged from the black mist, swimming slowly and landing on the Gobi shore.

The turtle's head resembled that of a blue ox, and the patterns on its shell were unique, emitting a special luster that reflected specks of blue-green light in the morning sun.

On the turtle's back stood three men. The leader was a man in a green robe with ordinary features; beside him was a man in purple robes with white hair and an extraordinarily handsome face, far surpassing the former.

Behind them was a man in Taoist robes, who scanned the surroundings with an indifferent expression and met the gaze of the jackal beast. The latter's eyes shrank, and it completely abandoned the carcass, turning and running far away.

The three on the turtle's back were none other than Han Li, Shi Chuankong, and Crab Immortal.

After months of long-distance travel, they had finally left the Gray Scale Island group and set foot on this Brown Valley Continent.

During this time, though they tried to avoid areas where powerful beings resided, they still encountered no fewer than a hundred small-scale attacks by scaled beasts, and over a dozen attacks by various large scaled monsters. Most of these they evaded thanks to the floating birds' exceptional running ability.

But some unavoidable encounters forced them to fight head-on.

Among these, two battles were particularly arduous. In one, after a fierce fight, they killed two giant armadillo-like beasts that attacked them, obtaining two beast cores the size of an infant's fist.

In the other, they suffered heavy losses: all three floating birds were devoured by a hundred-zhang-long scaled ground dragon that suddenly burst out from underground.

That beast was not only extremely powerful in physique but also vicious and cunning, immediately burrowing underground when things turned unfavorable, making it very troublesome.

Han Li and his companions had to contend with it for nearly half a month before finally escaping its territory and danger.

After that, they traveled on foot for over a month before encountering this beast, which Han Li named "Void-Treading Turtle."

There was something special about this turtle's shell that, like the floating bird, allowed it to partially resist the realm's heavy pressure. Even in areas shrouded in black mist, it could float through the void like a sea turtle in the immortal realm.

It was thanks to this turtle's unique ability to float through the void that Han Li and his companions were able to cross the nearly thousand-zhang expanse of black mist between the last island and this continent, reaching their destination.

At that moment, the three sitting on the turtle's back were all silent—not because they had nothing to say, but because they were all enduring the pressure on this continent, which had increased more than tenfold.

Under such pressure, Han Li found it hard to breathe, his internal organs felt compressed together, and a faint buzzing sound echoed in his ears.

Shi Chuankong had scales emerging on his body, revealing part of his demonic true form to resist the pressure.

In contrast, Crab Immortal, being a puppet, though also suffering from the pressure, was somewhat better off than the two in terms of sensation.

Han Li extended his divine sense to probe the surroundings. On this continent, his spiritual power was suppressed even more severely; now, even detecting activity within a range of seventy or eighty miles was quite difficult.

Throughout the journey, they had not encountered any exiled prisoners nor found any trace of Zi Ling, which kept him uneasy.

After all, this secret realm was much larger than he had anticipated, and the environment was extremely harsh. His cultivation was almost useless here; only a strong physical body could contend with the various lurking beasts.

Zi Ling had been thrown into this place for so many years—how was she faring now?

As Han Li was pondering, his mind suddenly stirred, and the Void-Treading Turtle under his control instinctively stopped.