Chapter 190: The Very Sturdy Tomboy

"Boom~"

Over ten zhang away, the giant lizard spat a streak of black light from its mouth, and a giant tongue like a python slammed heavily onto the lid of the clam shell.

Xu Chen only felt the entire clam shell shake violently and then plummet downward. He knew he could not dodge it, so he simply pried open the shell and jumped out, silently circulating the Demon Refining Art, and then his Divine Sense turned into a tidal wave and surged toward the giant lizard; almost at the same time, a streak of white light landed on the giant lizard's body.

"Awoo~~"

The moment the white light appeared, the giant lizard immediately let out an extremely terrified roar, but it was immediately submerged by an explosion like five-colored clouds, its skin and flesh began to burst open, its two giant wings flapped like two massive fireworks, and its long tongue also whipped around crazily in the sky like a colorful ribbon.

"Boom~"

The giant lizard slammed heavily onto the ground, rolling and howling, its body covered in rolling black smoke and white light intertwined and exploding continuously, even igniting the surrounding Black Wind, turning a radius of a hundred zhang into a strange, multicolored patch, with the giant lizard roaring and struggling within it.

Xu Chen struck once and withdrew, having no intention of entangling with this giant lizard again. He turned and jumped onto the Clam Shell Boat, activated it again, and sped away in a streak of black light.

"Woo~ Ang~~"

From extremely far away, a roar capable of shattering the Soul rolled over like thunder against the ground, and at the same time, an even more terrifying aura shrouded this dark world like a tidal wave.

Xu Chen was terrified, his face pale.

This aura was so powerful that he was completely unable to resist it, so he disregarded everything and crazily output all his Yuan Qi, spraying it out from the Apertures all over his body as if it were worthless, turning it into a gale of Yuan Qi to push the clam shell to accelerate continuously.

He finally knew why the woman had wanted to run first.

Inside this giant lizard's nest, there was still a super fierce beast so powerful that it was impossible to match, far from what scum like them could contend with.

Of course, understanding was one thing, but the hatred was hard to dispel.

You running away is one thing, but would it kill you to give a warning?

Could it be that this woman just wanted him to stay behind as a scapegoat?

Thinking of this, he could not help but feel a mix of laughter and tears.

It seems this place is indeed different from the Immortal World, but human nature is the same everywhere; the practice of "let the Daoist Friend die, not the poor Daoist" is the same in any place.

He just happened to appear there by chance.

However, he would not give up this opportunity.

Having been stranded in this pitch-black place for several days now, he urgently needed to find a guide.

Having finally encountered a living person, he did not want to let it go; perhaps only by relying on these native inhabitants of the dark world would it be possible to escape this ghost of a place.

Otherwise, after missing this chance, wanting to find other humans in this ghost of a place again would be about the same as looking for a needle in a haystack.

So, under Xu Chen's desperate flight and pursuit, he slowly began to see that faint, flickering red light ahead again.

Xu Chen was overjoyed, once again squeezing his Yuan Qi for a crazy output, driving the clam shell to the absolute limit it could reach, heading straight for the red light like a streak of black light.

Closer... even closer...

In the blink of an eye, dozens of breaths passed, the red light ahead became clearer, and even the two red light wings could be seen clearly.

"Boom~"

Just at this moment, a pitch-black tide came from behind like a hundred-zhang-high mountain wall, overwhelming everything in its path and submerging everything along the way.

The terrifying pressure swept over like seawater, slamming heavily onto the clam shell, and then whistled as it poured into the gaps.

Xu Chen only felt his Soul get struck by a ten-thousand-jin giant hammer, his vision went black for an instant, and he spat out two mouthfuls of blood in succession, while the Blue Light Treasure Bottle in his mind also suddenly dimmed and vibrated crazily, then suddenly flared with brilliant blue light, releasing radiant starlight to protect his Soul.

His Divine Sense was completely stirred into dust by this aura.

With his Yuan Qi out of control, the clam shell rolled and spun forward, wrapped in the sky-filling black tide like a runaway flying boat.

Xu Chen grabbed tightly onto the spiderweb-like fascia inside the clam shell, letting the shell whistle and roll in the giant-wave-like black tide, unable to attend to anything else in the spinning world.

A shrill scream sounded not far away, a ball of red light rolled crazily in the black tide like duckweed, the light flickering on and off, until it dimmed and then disappeared.

"Boom~~"

While rolling, Xu Chen felt the clam shell slam heavily against a rock, and then roll and fall down along a cliff.

Xu Chen was also knocked dizzy inside the shell, his bones creaking all over, but when the shell finally stopped rolling, the surroundings became quiet.

That violent, terrifying aura had retreated like a tide, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

Xu Chen did not dare to be the least bit careless; dizzy, he began to check his surroundings and found that this black-coffin-like shell was extremely hard, and despite the terrifying destruction and upheaval just now, it had not suffered the slightest damage.

So, while breathing a sigh of relief, he simply closed the clam shell, sat cross-legged, swallowed a few Gathering Qi Pills, and began to meditate to recover his Yuan Qi.

That terrifying aura just now was definitely a Fourth-Rank Soul Beast.

Just a roar from far away had stirred up a frenzy that swept through a radius of thousands of miles, not only shattering all his Divine Sense but also causing his Soul to suffer a violent shock, making his consciousness go briefly dark, with his Yuan Qi so out of control that he could not control the flight of the clam shell at all.

This was the second most powerful and terrifying existence he had encountered since falling into this dark world.

However, even so, he felt that this Soul Beast could not be compared to the mountain-like giant beast he had caught a glimpse of with the clam shell before; they were completely not on the same level.

Although this one was terrifying, he still felt he had a chance to escape, but that giant beast from before—just looking at it from an unknown distance away had almost caused his Soul to collapse.

If it hadn't been for this old clam, which didn't know how long it had lived, carrying him and running away crazily at that time, he feared that the ripple like a surging sea would have torn him to shreds.

About an hour later, the black clam shell lying at the foot of a cliff clicked and pried open a tiny gap, and a faint white light shone through, looking particularly clear in this boundless silence and darkness.

Xu Chen extended his Divine Sense to slowly scan the nearby hundred-zhang area, and after finding no danger, he continued to expand the range of his Divine Sense.

One mile... two miles... three miles... five miles... ten miles...

Until the maximum range his Divine Sense could reach.

There was no movement within his Divine Sense.

It seemed that even the Black Mist was much thinner than elsewhere, likely because it hadn't had time to recover after that wave of frenzy swept through.

"Could that woman have kicked the bucket?"

Xu Chen was hesitant and also very depressed.

The situation at the time was too chaotic; he was completely unable to control the clam shell's flight, and only vaguely saw a ball of red light flicker a few times while rolling before it lost its trace.

Judging by the time and place where the clam shell fell, the spot where that woman fell shouldn't be too far away.

Thinking of this, Xu Chen drove the clam shell to fly up again and began to search slowly in circles around the area.

As the saying goes, if you miss this village, you won't find this shop.

He absolutely did not want to lose this rare opportunity.

Since falling into the Sealing Array, he had no idea what the outside world had become, and he was very worried, fearing only that the people at his sect gate thought he had died once again.

Of course, there was also a great possibility that he would never get out and would die in this dark, sunless place.

The supplies on his person were indeed quite plentiful, enough to last about a year.

But in the end, there was no food or environment here suitable for his survival; up to now, he had not discovered a single thing he could eat, and naturally, there was no water either.

Even if he could hold out for a year, he would eventually starve or die of thirst.

Most importantly, there were too many powerful Soul Beasts in this godforsaken place; Third-Tier, Fourth-Rank, or even higher-level Soul Beasts seemed to be everywhere, and he might end up as Soul Beast dung before he could even last a year.

After two successive mishaps, he no longer possessed his initial composure.

The only thing that brought him peace of mind was that the Blue Light Treasure Bottle remained powerful, capable of helping him resist the Soul attacks released by these formidable Soul Beasts, so he was not yet completely losing his wits or his sense of proportion.

Time flowed on continuously.

Xu Chen piloted the Clam Shell Boat, drifting and searching through this boundless black fog like a ghost.

After a full hour, his Divine Sense suddenly locked on, and he finally saw the figure of that woman in a canyon.

She was currently lying among the pitch-black scattered rocks, completely silent.

"Dead!?"

Xu Chen was stunned for a long while, but he still piloted the Clam Shell Boat down into the canyon and soon stood beside the woman; after carefully observing her with his Divine Sense for a while, he discovered that the woman actually still had a trace of breath, though it was extremely weak.

Xu Chen immediately breathed a sigh of relief, carried the woman into the Shell, and then piloted the Shell to fly back up, exploring the surrounding terrain while looking for a suitable place to decide to temporarily set up camp and wait until the woman woke up.

About half an hour later, he found a cave and flew inside.

The cave was not very large, about two or three zhang square.

Xu Chen blocked the cave entrance with the Shell, then dragged the woman inside and dropped her on the ground, only then having the time to carefully examine her condition.

The woman appeared to have suffered relatively heavy injuries and was in a deep coma, but there were no wounds on her body; it was just that the tight-fitting, armor-like leather garment she wore, made of some unknown material, was somewhat tattered, with large areas of skin exposed.

Her skin color was normal—a bit fairer than Xu Chen's and a bit darker than his senior sisters'—her hair was red, and there were some strange red patterns on her face that seemed to have grown out from within her flesh.

Furthermore, the armor was also covered in various red patterns.

What Xu Chen found most strange was that on this leather garment—at the hands, elbows, waist, shoulders, and legs—there were joint apparatuses made of something like crystal or bone at every joint position; especially on the chest, there was even embedded a deep blue, rhombic crystal, which was exactly the same as the kind he had pried off the cliff, only it appeared more compact and refined after being processed and polished.

Set off by this strange, tight-fitting leather garment, the woman's figure appeared extremely hot; where it should protrude, it protruded high, and where it should be slender, it was shapely and taut. Moreover, she was long-limbed, her entire body's muscles were extremely well-proportioned, her legs and arms were full of muscularity, stretching the tight leather garment until it was rounded, and her overall physique was exquisite and curvaceous.

"What a sturdy, tough woman!"

Xu Chen could not help but exclaim.

(End of this chapter)