Longevity Martial Arts: Grinding Experience in the Chaotic World

Chapter 1235 641: Strange Aura (Part 2)

Seeing their desperate eyes, Gu Sheng slightly loosened his grip on the sword.

"You all..."

As soon as Gu Sheng spoke, those cultivators fell to their knees, begging for mercy.

"Spare us, senior!"

"We absolutely won't leak a single word!"

"We beg you to show mercy..."

Gu Sheng sighed.

"Just go."

He swung his sword to cut all the ropes, and the cultivators scrambled away from this slaughterhouse.

Only the white-haired elder bowed to Gu Sheng before leaving.

"Thank you, friend, for saving my life; I shall never forget it."

Gu Sheng waved his hand, saying nothing more.

Elsewhere, the commoners were already spontaneously rescuing the bound girls.

Most of them looked dazed, clearly having been greatly frightened.

Those who saw their loved ones alive held them and burst into tears, while those whose families had met misfortune sat in a daze, their eyes hollow.

Watching this scene, Gu Sheng felt a heaviness in his chest.

He turned towards the corpse of the Qingsheng City Lord and took off the void ring from his hand.

He also pillaged the storage bags from Nie Shan and several Earth Palace Realm experts.

"Where is Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge?"

Gu Sheng stopped a cultivator who was about to leave and asked.

The cultivator shivered in fear and quickly pointed to the northwest.

"Walk... walk three hundred miles that way, and there's a black mountain range..."

Gu Sheng nodded and said no more.

He took one last look at the ruined City Lord Mansion before turning into a stream of light, disappearing into the northwest sky.

After leaving Linyuan City, Gu Sheng didn't rest, flying a hundred miles nonstop before stopping in a desert.

By then, it was late, and the temperature in the desert dropped sharply, but for a cultivator, it was nothing.

The fierce wind kicked up yellow sand, forming moving sand walls across the vast desert.

Gu Sheng, clad in white, walked against the wind, yet not a speck of dust clung to him.

In his hand, he toyed with a pitch-black spirit stone.

"What exactly is this thing..."

The spirit stone was about the size of a fist, its surface covered in dense, blood-colored patterns, wriggling slowly like a living creature.

Strangely, these blood lines were actually seeping fresh blood, staining Gu Sheng's fingertips crimson.

A dense evil qi emanated from the spirit stone, and even with Gu Sheng's cultivation, prolonged contact caused him a sense of unease.

"Why did the Qingsheng City Lord collect such an evil object?"

Gu Sheng muttered to himself.

"And hide it so secretively..."

He recalled that when breaking the restriction on the void ring, this spirit stone was stored separately in a sealed black box, showing the Qingsheng City Lord highly valued it.

Even stranger, when Gu Sheng touched the spirit stone, he faintly heard countless ghosts wailing, indicating a mysterious link between this stone and Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge.

"Maybe I'll understand when I get to Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge."

Gu Sheng placed the spirit stone into his own void ring, casually discarding the Qingsheng City Lord's ring.

The ring fell into the yellow sand and was swiftly swallowed.

Based on the information from those cultivators, Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge was about three hundred miles northwest.

With Gu Sheng's speed, he could arrive in less than three days.

He looked up at the sky, where the setting sun dyed the desert a blood-like color, matching the spirit stone's hue.

"I have to hurry."

Gu Sheng said softly.

"The Qinghe Holy Land people should have discovered my whereabouts by now."

Just as Gu Sheng expected, Qingsheng City was in chaos at that moment.

Dozens of beams of light descended from the sky, landing on the ruins of the City Lord Mansion.

Leading them was a white-haired elder, clad in the elder robes of Qinghe Holy Land, with seven golden stars embroidered on the chest, indicating his identity as a seven-star elder.

"Search!" the elder waved his hand.

"Within a hundred miles, don't miss a trace!"

Dozens of Qinghe Holy Land disciples immediately dispersed.

Half a day passed, yet not one trace was found.

"Strange..." the white-haired elder frowned deeply.

"Disciples reported sensing Gu Sheng's aura here, so why is there now no trace at all?"

One disciple said cautiously.

"Elder, could it be that Gu Sheng used a secret technique to hide his aura?"

"Impossible!" the white-haired elder denied decisively.

"Unless a Holy Master-level figure intervened, no one can completely erase their aura. Keep searching!"

Meanwhile, in a valley over two hundred miles from Qingsheng City, Gu Sheng was sitting cross-legged on a giant stone, regulating his breathing.

The jade pendant hanging on his chest glowed faintly, forming an invisible barrier that isolated all his aura from the outside world.

"The 'Hidden Sky Jade' of the Great Elder is indeed miraculous."

Gu Sheng opened his eyes, gently stroking the jade pendant.

"Even the Seven-star Elder of Qinghe Holy Land couldn't detect it."

This jade pendant was a gift from the Great Elder upon leaving the Holy Land, rumored to alter the wearer's aura, making them untraceable.

Now it seems, the effect is even better than rumored.

Gu Sheng got up and continued on his journey.

He deliberately avoided the main roads, choosing instead to travel through desolate and remote wilderness.

Along the way, he could feel powerful divine senses sweeping across the sky from time to time, but none noticed him.

The next evening, Gu Sheng suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He keenly sensed a change in the air.

The previously dry and scorching desert wind now carried a hint of coldness.

"It's Yin Qi..."

Gu Sheng's spirits lifted.

"The Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge shouldn't be far."

As he continued forward, the Yin Qi grew denser.

By the morning of the third day, the scenery before him had completely changed.

The yellow sand was gradually replaced by gray-black gravel, vegetation became sparser, until it completely disappeared.

The sky turned gloomy, as if an invisible barrier filtered the sunlight to a pale and powerless state.

When Gu Sheng climbed over a sand dune, the sight before him took his breath away.

An expanse of lifeless ridges stretched out ahead, the mountains unnaturally gray-black, with jagged rocks like ghostly claws.

The entire ridge was shrouded in gray haze, devoid of any signs of vitality.

More eerily, the twisted shapes of the abruptly towering rocks, from a distance, seemed like struggling figures in agony.

"This is the Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge..."

Gu Sheng murmured.

"The place where the Ancient Divine Spirit fell..."

Legend has it that in ancient times, a powerful divine spirit once fought an arch-enemy here, both eventually perishing.

The resentful will of the spirit lingered after death, merging with the land to form this deadly zone.

Any living being entering it would be corroded by the lifelessness, turning into bones.

Gu Sheng carefully approached the foot of the mountain, feeling a chilling sensation to the bone.

The wind here carried faint wails, as if countless souls whispered in his ears.

"Such strong resentment..."

Gu Sheng circulated his spiritual power to resist the corrosion of lifelessness.

"No wonder ordinary cultivators dare not approach."

He was about to search for a path into the mountains when suddenly his ear twitched, and in an instant, he concealed himself behind a large rock.

A moment later, footsteps and voices came from afar.

"Senior sister, do we really have to enter the Ten Thousand Ghost Ridge? They say few who enter ever come out alive..."

"Shut up! The Holy Master has ordered, we must find the whereabouts of that traitor Gu Sheng. Someone saw him heading this way, he might be hiding within the ridge."

Gu Sheng's pupils narrowed — they were Qinghe Holy Land disciples!

Six azure figures emerged from the gray mist.

All were powerful Heavenly Palace Realm cultivators, and not ordinary ones; judging by their aura, they were at least mid-stage Heavenly Palace Realm, with the leader potentially at peak stage!

"Stop!"

The leading man, with sword-like eyebrows and starry eyes, had a Green Jade Token with "Qinghe" inscribed hanging from his waist.

His gaze, as sharp as lightning, swept over Gu Sheng.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

Gu Sheng, wearing a bronze mask, showed only a pair of calm eyes.

He had already used a secret technique to alter his voice, answering hoarsely.

"Loose cultivator Qing Feng, passing by."

"Qing Feng?"

The man unceremoniously scanned Gu Sheng with his divine sense.

"Take off your mask."

Gu Sheng stood unmoving.

"Fellow Daoist, you're overstepping."

"Insolent!"

A female disciple beside him reprimanded sharply.

"We, disciples of Qinghe Holy Land, can question whomever we choose!"

Qinghe Holy Land! Gu Sheng's heart tightened, indeed they were from the Holy Land.

He deliberately hunched his back, his voice carrying a hint of fear.

"So it's the esteemed disciples of the Holy Land, my apologies."

The man stared at Gu Sheng for a long while, then suddenly said.

"Your aura is odd, unlike a common loose cultivator."

Gu Sheng felt tense inside, but his tone remained unchanged.