Chapter 140: Plans After the Forced Landing

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch?!” Lying beneath the rubble, An tried to get up, but quickly realized that any movement caused intense pain from the burns covering his entire body.

Activating his regeneration at full power, his skin immediately began growing back.

New teeth started pushing through his gums. His throat and tongue regenerated, and finally, hair began growing back over his cracked scalp.

After lying there for several minutes, he waited until all his superficial wounds had completely closed.

‘This is already the second Foundation Establishment cultivator who can use a technique on the level of the Golden Core... Though that old man was already on the boundary between two realms, this red-eyed witch almost roasted me alive!’

Replaying the entire battle in his head several times, An calmed down slightly.

‘There's no way she's still alive... Though who knows? Maybe that attack doesn't harm the caster... Still, I hope she's dead... I'm not sure I want to face a technique like that again...’

Fully recovered both physically and internally, he enveloped himself in Qi and created several thousand points, each with a different vibration frequency.

Touching the surrounding rubble, he began turning it into sand, gradually digging himself a tunnel to the outside.

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He eventually emerged into a huge, dark corridor that had been badly mangled.

Every wall was cracked, and the doors leading to the cabins were broken or torn off.

The ceiling had buckled and looked ready to collapse under whatever was pressing down on it from above.

‘Where are you, chicken...?’ Looking around, An searched through the countless streams of Qi for the one belonging to Baldi.

‘There you are!’ After finding him, he jumped up and crashed into the ceiling, continuing to dig a tunnel through the rubble.

….

“Baaawk.... Cluuck...” Inside the VIP suite, its walls now crooked and damaged, Baldi lay in a foamy bathtub.

He held a large roasted carcass that looked suspiciously like another bird in one wing, and an open bottle filled with a brown liquid in the other.

Hearing the crackling sounds coming from the foyer and catching the familiar scent of pills, he suddenly jumped out of the tub and ran toward the exit.

“I see you didn't waste any time while I was gone...” Seeing Baldi burst through the doorway still covered in foam, with a roasted fellow bird in one wing and a bottle of liquid in the other, An shook his head.

“Eh, looks like our little vacation is over. Time to get out of here. Let's go.” Wrapping the bird in his Qi, An pulled him closer, leaving the creature hovering by his side.

Baldi didn't resist. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, he devoured the carcass in a few bites and emptied the bottle in a few gulps.

“Buuawwk!” Burping contentedly, with a satisfied expression and half-lidded eyes, he watched the scenery changing before him.

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Making his way through the wreckage of countless collapsed cabins and VIP suites, An eventually reached a thick wall that led outside.

He suddenly stopped. Through the wall, he could see more than two hundred living people.

Turning toward Baldi, he asked, “We have three options. First, we hide and go our own way, wherever we end up. Basically, the same as the last three years... Second, we hide, but follow this group. Sooner or later, they should lead us somewhere... assuming they don't all die first... Third, we join them and travel with them, again until they die, which is quite likely... What do you think?”

Baldi looked at An, thought for a second, and answered. “Cluck? Bawk! Cluck!”

An nodded. “You're right. Besides, staying with them definitely won't be boring... But about that last option, since when did you become so morbid?”

Folding his wings in front of himself, the bird objected.

“Cluck!” It was almost as though he were saying, “Look who's talking about villainy”.

An said nothing about the last part, not quite catching the change in the bird's Qi flow and emotions.

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After walking along the wall for a while, he found a huge crack with rays of light shining through it.

Wrapping his fist in Qi, he struck with all his strength and opened a hole large enough for his body.

….

The crowd outside turned toward the crash, but relaxed when they saw only a young man in torn clothes and a bird shaped like a ball hovering beside him.

Deep within the crowd, beside a huge tree, Captain Bongromonte stood with bloody wounds that were still bleeding.

When he saw who had emerged, he waved and called one of his people over. “Bring him here.”

“Yes, sir!” After receiving the order, the worker hurried through the crowd straight toward An.

….

Jumping to the ground, An used FireQi to burn away his shoes.

Now barefoot, he smiled. “This is much better. Heh...”

Feeling the grass beneath his toes, he raised his gaze toward the worker making his way toward him.

“P-please, follow me! Captain Bongromonte wants to see you!” The worker called out before he had even reached An and hurriedly gestured for him to follow.

Raising his head and spotting the captain in the crowd, An read his emotions. After thinking for a moment, he followed the worker through the throng.

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When he reached the captain, Feng Min was standing nearby, along with Su Mei, still disguised as a man, and the only surviving member of her group, Old Mo.

A little farther away, several dozen meters from them, Donte the Third sat among a group of elderly women, fanning one of the pale-faced ladies.

“Captain, your order has been carried out!” The worker bowed and quickly disappeared back into the crowd to continue doing what he had been doing before - helping the wounded.

Without ceremony, An sat down on the ground, leaning back on his palms, and set Baldi down onto the slightly wet grass, giving him room to move freely.

Everyone in the small group looked strangely at An.

At the barefoot young man in torn clothes once again. His hair was messy, but at least it was clean.

Beside the young man, a rooster sat down in a very similar position, clearly suffering from severe obesity.

The captain lowered his gaze to An's bare feet. “Is this more comfortable for you? I saw you burn your shoes.”

An merely nodded. “The purpose of shoes is to protect your feet and toes... But when your skin and bones are as hard as steel... they become pointless. They only restrict your freedom...”

Hearing his answer, the captain smiled.

Feng Min, however, snorted slightly, unable to accept An's strange way of thinking.

Old Mo studied the face of this young man he couldn't understand before suddenly asking. “Boy, who are you? Come to think of it, I've never seen you before. You're obviously not a passenger... You weren't among the guests before the first attack. I remember that clearly.”

Feng Min and Su Mei suddenly tensed.

Feng Min even placed a hand on the hilt of his rusty sword.

In response, An merely turned his head toward the old man and smiled. Then he turned back toward the captain and looked directly into his eyes.

After several seconds of silence, the captain finally asked. “Black Lily, my lieutenant. What happened to her?”

“Hmm, if I understand who you're talking about, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but she's most likely buried under the rubble at the very bottom... I doubt she survived, considering how close she was to the epicenter...” Tilting his head to the side, An simply gave the answer he genuinely believed.

Looking into the young man's eyes and maintaining another long pause, the captain repeated Old Mo's question. “Who are you?”

“Is it really that important?” An smirked, feeling confident.

Even though he was near a Golden Core cultivator and several others who were far superior to him in both physical and spiritual strength, he felt no fear.

It wasn't only because of the captain's surface-level emotions, which An could read as clearly as if they were written on his palm.

More importantly, he could sense the state of the hardened dantian inside the captain, in other words, what was known as the golden core.

He could feel that the captain was on the verge of collapse, his dantian barely holding together. And that was the main reason An felt no fear while surrounded by them.

Hearing his defiant answer, Su Mei couldn't hold back.

She stood up and shouted in her broken voice, “The captain asked you a question! Pull yourself together and answer properly!”

Old Mo extended a hand, trying to stop Su Mei, but then stopped and sighed deeply.

“All right. A few brothers and sisters from my sect and I were sent to a certain place... I won't tell you what was there because that's a matter of the sect, and none of you have anything to do with it... We were unlucky… or rather, I was unlucky. When we were attacked by a family of Mud-Eared Vasuki, they're enormous water snakes, in case you didn't know... I was unanimously chosen as the bait. Aaand then I went overboard, with a little help, of course...”

An made a fist and extended one finger, gesturing toward the exit.

At his feet, Baldi rolled his eyes at the sheer volume of lies pouring out of An’s mouth.

“A sect mission? Which sect? Are you from the demonic path?” Su Mei immediately bombarded him with questions, but he completely ignored her, which irritated her even more.

“Since you managed to get aboard the ship while we were repelling the attack, you must have been in the central region of the Beast Lands completely alone... for how long? And why didn't you help us?” This time it was Feng Min who asked the questions, making it obvious from his expression that he expected a quick and clear answer.

“Enough.” The captain spoke slowly and quietly without taking his eyes off An.

Feng Min and Su Mei stepped back, simply because they were afraid of angering the only Golden Core cultivator among them.

“We all need to work together for the sake of our survival. This place is nothing like the inner region where our journey began... Every argument, every grudge, and every conflict could, and will… cost someone their life.”

The captain looked around at everyone, trying to make them understand the situation they were in. “And you, the one who managed to survive here completely alone. I... we need your help.”

Looking into An's eyes, searching for something beyond emptiness and coldness, the captain tried to unite everyone who remained with cultivation above Foundation Establishment.

Silence settled over the group once again.

An lowered his eyes and thought.

Feng Min watched him hesitate, barely holding himself back from covering him in insults.

“Even if your plan works, and we all join together and travel as one group through forests, mountains, and rivers...” An suddenly smirked and glanced back at the enormous crowd of several hundred people before turning back.

“The first time we encounter spirit beasts, which could happen even today... your entire plan of everyone holding hands and helping one another... all of it will fall apart like-”

Before he could finish, Su Mei interrupted him. “How can you say that? Everyone knows that being in a group is safer and gives us a better chance of survival! Your outlook is far too pessimistic! If we all work together, we can make it to safety!”

Standing up from the ground, she clenched her fists and glared at An with contempt and anger.

Looking into her eyes, An merely smiled, perfectly understanding her somewhat naive view of the situation around them.

“Miss...” Even Old Mo tried to calm her down, understanding how far her opinion was from reality.

As a veteran of many battles, he understood the young man perfectly and worried about the exact same things.

“You're right. The entire plan will fall apart the first time we encounter a beast above the second rank, and that could happen at any moment... Besides, with my injuries, I'm not sure I could even stop a third-rank beast.” Captain Bongromonte sighed deeply, then shifted slightly and reached into the inner pocket of his uniform.

Everyone around immediately became dejected.

Su Mei took a step back and sat down on the ground again, lowering her gaze and trying to hide her slight panic.

Feng Min gripped the hilt of his sword even tighter, trying to pull himself together. All of his confidence, his sense of ease, if one could call it that, had been based on the fact that there was a Golden Core cultivator among them.

But now that it had become clear that this cultivator was only good as a scarecrow and nothing more, Feng Min realized that everything would now fall on his shoulders.

He was the strongest among them in terms of cultivation, being close to the late stage of Foundation Establishment. Though Old Mo, Su Mei's servant, was at the peak stage and technically held a higher cultivation, Feng Min knew there was little use for such a dried-up fruit.

Pulling a white sphere from his pocket, the captain closed his hand around it and pointed toward the stern of the ship.

“The Pure Sky artifact. If we use it, we should be able to reach the nearest fort without too much trouble. It's about four months away on foot.”

Looking around at everyone and seeing their worried expressions, he continued.

“Most people believe the Pure Sky has only one function: repelling flying beasts. But that's a misconception. The artifact installed at the stern of my ship can deal with creatures on the boundary between the third and fourth ranks. Regardless of what kind of beast it is...”