Chapter 177

Stop!

Wang Shan let out a hoarse roar, causing Li Hu and Zhang Mei behind him to abruptly halt their steps.

Just three steps ahead lay a patch of utterly ordinary-looking rocky ground. But the instant Wang Shan shouted, the air above it twisted eerily, like summer air scorched by charcoal; a pebble rolled from beside his foot, and the moment it touched that area, it vanished silently, leaving not even a speck of dust.

Li Hu's back was instantly drenched in cold sweat. If he had taken just one more step just now...

"Sir, this..."

"A spatial trap." Wang Shan's voice held a suppressed irritation, "That damned thing anticipated our route and lay in wait here ahead of time."

This was already the seventh trap they had encountered after fleeing into this spatial rift. Some were energy nooses appearing out of thin air, others were micro fissures capable of devouring everything; each was set up just right, as if an unseen pair of eyes coldly watched them from above, delighting in seeing these ants struggle desperately in the maze.

"Let's go around it." Wang Shan pointed to a narrow crack in the stone on the left.

That malicious thing seemed to be playing with them, always leaving a seemingly passable path to lure them deeper, draining their strength and spirit.

Li Hu and Zhang Mei flanked left and right, guarding Wang Zhe who held Wang Zhitao, moving their steps warily. This accursed place was oppressively grim; each step felt like treading on a blade's edge, their minds constantly taut.

"Cough... cough cough!"

At this moment, Wang Zhitao, who had been continually held in Zhang Mei's arms, suddenly began to convulse violently. His originally purplish face now swelled to a dark purplish‑black, and waves of thick black qi seeped from his pores, carrying an ominous fishy‑sweet smell.

"Not good!" Zhang Mei's hand holding the child trembled. "Brother Wang, Zhitao... the poison has flared up again! It's fiercer than any previous attack!"

"Brother!" Wang Zhitai was terrified, tears instantly welling up, his small hand clutching the glowing Black Jade Slip tightly, as if it were the only lifeline.

Wang Shan snapped his head back, seeing his grandson in painful struggle, his heart feeling as if gripped by an invisible giant hand, pain making him almost unable to breathe. His own wounds had not yet healed, the relentless agony of his cultivation technique's Counter-Devouring constantly tormenting his nerves, yet none of that compared to the anguish of watching his grandson walk toward death before his eyes.

"Medicinal pill… quick, feed him a pill!" Wang Shan roared.

"Useless!" Zhang Mei's voice choked with tears. "The Life-Sustaining Pill we just gave him—its potency seems to have been instantly washed away!"

Ordinary medicinal pills have completely lost their effect against this strange poison originating from the very source of this place.

"System! Is there any way?" Wang Shan bellowed in his mind.

【Warning: Target Wang Zhitao's vital signs are rapidly declining. Ordinary medication has failed. The only solution: obtain the homologous power of the Beast Source Core to neutralize.】

【Warning: The will of this plane has completely sealed off the Beast Source Core region; any forcible approach will provoke its most ferocious extermination attack!】

The icy alert sounded like two basins of cold water poured over Wang Shan's head.

Going to the Core Area means death; not going, and my grandson will die imminently.

"Heh… hehe…" Wang Shan let out a low, hoarse, unpleasant laugh. "To toy with us, drive us to a dead end… do you really think you've got us in the palm of your hand?"

His bloodshot gaze swept over the surroundings, the omnipresent sense of oppression seeming to mock his inadequacy.

"I'm not running." Wang Shan suddenly said.

"Master?" Li Hu blinked.

"If we keep running, we're walking into the slaughterhouse it's prepared for us." The madness and resolve in Wang Shan's eyes made Li Hu and Zhang Mei's hearts tighten. "It wants us to go east, but we won't! It thinks it's the hunter; today I'll be the gambler who flips the table!"

He walked up to his little grandson Wang Zhitai, crouched down, and looked at the child's tear-filled eyes.

"Zhitai, don't be afraid. Hand the Jade Slip to Grandfather."

Wang Zhitai sniffed, obediently passing over the warm Black Jade Slip.

Wang Shan took the Black Jade Slip, attempting to carefully infuse a thread of his chaotic beastly power into it.

Hum—!

The Black Jade Slip shuddered violently, bursting out blinding light; a powerful recoil nearly made him lose his grip. He grunted, another thread of black blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. This thing consumes enormously—each activation feels like stabbing another knife into his already near‑collapsing body.

But he did not stop; instead, he increased the output of power.

"Open… for me!"

He wasn't using the Black Jade Slip to probe the distant Beast Source Core—that would be tantamount to declaring war on that terrifying entity. What he intended was to reverse‑probe the nearby energy flows of the heavenly net it had laid out!

No matter how perfect the net, there are always nodes where the threads cross, and there are always fleeting weak points created by shifts in energy!

"Master, what are you doing…?" Zhang Mei grasped his intention.

"It anticipated our route, so I won't follow it!" Wang Shan's eyes locked onto the Black Jade Slip blazing brightly in his hand; its surface flowed with countless tiny runes, like a high‑speed precision instrument.

"Zhitai, come over, put your hand on it!"

Although Wang Zhitai was afraid, he still stretched out his small hand and pressed it onto the Black Jade Slip.

In an instant, the Black Jade Slip's light stabilized. A faint connection, mediated through Wang Zhitai as a "medium," linked with the laws of this space. In Wang Shan's perception, the surrounding deadly traps and Seals were no longer a vague danger but turned into a vast, intricate net woven from countless energy threads.

"Found it!"

Wang Shan's eyes suddenly brightened.

In his "field of vision," seven or eight meters ahead to the left front, a rock wall that appeared impregnable showed, behind it, an energy flow that, due to maintaining a massive spatial trap on the other side, revealed an extremely fleeting, blink‑and‑you‑miss it weak point!

That's not a road, but it's the weakest link in this net!

"Li Hu, Zhang Mei, take the children and follow me in a charge!" Wang Shan hesitated not at all, grabbed the jade slip, and was the first to rush toward that rock face.

"Charge?" Li Hu looked at the solid rock wall, his brain struggling to keep up.

"No time to explain, this is our only way to live!" Wang Shan's roar carried an indisputable resolve.

Li Hu and Zhang Mei exchanged a glance, no longer hesitating; one scooped up Wang Zhize, the other clutched the already unconscious Wang Zhitao, and with all their strength followed behind Wang Shan.

At the moment they set off, that ancient presence seemed to sense their intention. The whole spatial rift shuddered violently, a massive pressure squeezed in from all directions, the energy of the rock wall ahead instantly grew heavy, and that weak point was being repaired at a visible speed!

"Hurry!"

Wang Shan's eyes nearly burst as he poured all his remaining strength into an explosion, his whole body becoming like a cannonball that slammed hard into the rock wall.

That wasn't a collision, but rather using the power of the jade slip to forcibly tear open a gap!

"Go!"

He used his last ounce of strength to shove Li Hu, Zhang Mei, and the two children hard into the fleeting energy crack in the rock wall.