Chapter 70: The Road with No Return, Realization

Smelling the faint scent of blood, Rod’s expression changed. He then remembered he was still in this eerie forest, where danger lurked everywhere. Who knew what might appear at any moment—someone even stronger, or just another black giant rat that would be enough to give him a hard time.

He immediately became serious. Looking at the dead giant rat on the ground, he took a deep breath, gripped Dark Dragon, crouched down, and channeled his internal energy. Using Dark Dragon as a dagger, he began to dismember the rat.

Just the rat’s skin alone was enough to make Rod envious. With such defense, cutting it was already difficult. Rod knew well how sharp Dark Dragon was. The harder it was, the happier he felt—thinking to himself that he had stumbled upon a treasure.

This kind of skin could rival the defense of mid-tier holy-grade magical beasts. It was worth at least ten thousand gold coins in the market! Since leaving Iron Bar Town and deciding on his future path, Rod’s mindset had changed drastically—he valued money greatly! He knew that in this society, money was essential if one wanted to achieve anything. Money could make even the impossible possible; without it, nothing could be done. Unless he planned to stay in some organization or faction for life, relying solely on his own strength, he wouldn’t have much trouble surviving. But to achieve great things, money was necessary.

That’s why lately, he had become fascinated by the corpses and core essences of magical beasts, his eyes lighting up whenever he saw them.

After much effort, Rod finally managed to tear off the rat’s skin. Seeing the intact fur, a satisfied smile appeared on his lips—it was definitely worth a good price.

After storing the skin, Rod searched the rest of the body. He knew that such a powerful magic-based magical beast must have a core essence; it was the most valuable part and couldn’t be ignored.

After searching for a long time, Rod finally found something the size of an egg inside the rat’s head. The pure black object didn’t seem like a core essence, but it contained immense energy, clearly of high purity. This puzzled Rod—was it not a core essence? Could it be that the magical beasts in this eerie forest had also become strange? Instead of a core essence, there was this strange object, whose pure energy seemed to belong to the dark element!

A cool breeze swept by, causing him to shiver involuntarily. Without hesitation, he quickly stored the item carefully in his magic bag. Rod knew that such an object, even if not a core, must be worth a considerable amount. Just its pure energy was enough to attract the attention of those practicing dark arts and pique their interest.

Daring not stay any longer, he felt a chilling presence around him, as if he were under the gaze of cold eyes, making him uneasy. After scanning the surroundings and confirming no one else was approaching, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and quickly used the remaining trace of his combat energy to flee! The deeper he went, the more unbearable the gravity became. Yet he had to leave this place as soon as possible to find a safe spot to recover. So, he could only press on through the heavy gravity with a frown.

After advancing cautiously another two hundred meters, he found that the gravity here had reached 500 times normal! His combat energy and mental strength were no longer sufficient to keep moving forward. Added to this were the lingering injuries from earlier battles, which, under such gravity, caused excruciating pain. Rod had no choice but to find a place to train and recover properly.

Inside this hidden tree hollow, Rod sat cross-legged and began drawing elements from all directions toward himself. He didn’t know how much time passed during this cultivation, as he allowed his combat energy to flow in, refining and circulating it continuously. His wounds healed little by little under these conditions. Perhaps due to the gravity, the healing speed was much slower than before. By the time he finished cultivating and checked his wounds, they had recovered less than three layers. Under normal circumstances, his injuries would have healed by at least 70-80%, at least ensuring that the superficial wounds were fully healed.

Looking at the still-dark surroundings, Rod grew worried. Although this eerie place was indeed a blessing for cultivators, it was also full of dangers—strange, perilous, and deadly at every turn. No wonder there was no sign of anyone else!

Leaving the tree hollow, he felt the gusting winds and heard the eerie sounds they produced, giving him a spine-chilling sensation. His wounds hurt even more under the pull of gravity, as if the pain was resurfacing.

Leaves were falling everywhere; sometimes, one or two hitting his body caused intense pain, and in some cases, they left shallow scratches. This situation shocked Rod greatly.

After entering the demon race’s second form, Rod was all too aware of his own defensive capabilities! Ordinary things simply couldn’t hurt him in the slightest, yet now this was happening! It was easy to imagine just how powerful the attacks from those leaves were under the effect of gravity, and one could also sense their toughness. Such strength was likely on par with that of a high-level warrior’s attacks.

Of course, for those who could enter this place, a high-level warrior’s attacks might not even count for much. But with continuous attacks, coming at one from all sides, the threat was undoubtedly enormous.

Ordinary warriors, under such attacks from the leaves, would need to expend a tremendous amount of combat energy and mental strength just to defend against them. With that much strain, how could they possibly pay attention to their surroundings or prepare for potential monsters? Just thinking about it made Rod break into cold sweat.

Looking back only made things worse. Rod’s sweat flowed even more as he realized the gravity level where he was now was the same as that of the area he had passed through earlier. In other words, the gravity along the path behind him was now five hundred times greater than where he stood! In fact, Rod could faintly sense that the gravity seemed to increase the further back he went, as if forcing him to move forward.

A road with no return! That was the first thing that came to Rod’s mind. Indeed, this strange place had a sense of being a dead end—once you chose to go forward, there was no turning back. He closed his eyes and kept moving forward. No matter what dangers lay ahead, he had to go on. Rod felt that if he turned back now, the dangers he might face would likely be just as great. His intuition told him that the dangers behind him were endless.

Frowning and scanning the surroundings, Rod felt as though this place was a massive trap set by someone, or perhaps it wasn’t even a real place at all! Gradually, he began to doubt.

With a sigh, staying put wasn’t an option. Five hundred times gravity wasn’t a problem for him now, especially since the elements here were abundant. With his holy-grade strength and robust physique, he could reach the peak of his holy-grade abilities, capable of withstanding eight thousand times gravity. Even without external elemental support, he could barely withstand twelve hundred times gravity! Continuing forward wasn’t a big issue. At this point, he could only take it one step at a time.

Releasing his mental energy, he moved forward cautiously while keeping a vigilant eye on his surroundings, gripping the Dark Dragon tightly in his hand. At this moment, Fen Tian also appeared beside Rod to protect him! The human and the beast soul advanced together slowly.

The reason Rod released Fen Tian was, on one hand, to prepare for potential dangers and provide assistance, and on the other hand—more importantly—Rod had discovered that when facing the black giant rat earlier, Fen Tian was unaffected by anything in this forest, as if gravity had no effect on it at all. It could unleash its full strength at the initial stage of the Imperial rank! Although its strength was relatively low, this discovery excited Rod greatly. After some reflection, he concluded that it was because Fen Tian was still in a virtual beast soul form without a physical body, so gravity could not affect it.

It was precisely for this reason that Rod had another idea. In such a dangerous place, Fen Tian’s ability was undoubtedly a huge help. Currently, Rod was at the initial stage of the Saint rank, while Fen Tian was still at the initial stage of the Imperial rank. Though Rod didn’t need to worry about it for now—since Fen Tian would grow as Rod’s strength increased and more elements became available—Rod wasn’t satisfied with this pace. He planned to find a new way. If he could help Fen Tian train and reach the Saint rank as soon as possible, it would undoubtedly become a powerful ally for him, and in this forest, it would be the absolute main combat force.

At the moment this idea struck him, Rod suddenly felt a surge of excitement and enthusiasm! But soon after, confusion and doubt set in—he didn’t know where to start. If the Spirit of the Xuanyuan Sword were still around, it might be able to help him greatly. However, since it helped him kill the fire dragon in Tielan Town, Rod had felt a faint wisp of green smoke enter his body, and since then, there had been no news of the Spirit of the Xuanyuan Sword. Sometimes Rod even wondered if that wisp of smoke was to blame for the Spirit’s disappearance or danger. Yet, every time he looked at the tattoo of the Xuanyuan Sword on his dantian and felt the familiar aura coming from there during training, Rod knew it was still there, not gone. Perhaps it had encountered some trouble, was stuck in a training bottleneck, or was in seclusion—anyway, it was in much better condition than he had imagined.

The intense pain from his wound forced Rod to rest in place for a while; otherwise, continuing would only lead to one outcome—his wound bursting open and putting his life at risk. With a sigh, he had no choice but to return to the tree hole he had been in before and start practicing again, frowning in concentration. This session of practice took an entire day. Fortunately, his wounds weren’t too serious, and after a day, they had recovered by eight or nine tenths. It was only then that Rod dared to venture back into the forest! He looked around, took a deep breath, gripped Dark Dragon tightly, watched his surroundings warily, and began to move forward cautiously. As he progressed, the gravity kept increasing. With extreme caution, it took Rod over ten minutes to cover just 200 meters. Now, under seven hundred times the normal gravitational pressure, sweat appeared on Rod’s forehead. He stopped, frowned slightly, and a glint appeared in his eyes as he observed his surroundings. Suddenly, a cold smirk appeared on his lips.