Chapter 48

The transparent, gray fog covered the whole world.

Fire rained down steadily from the sky.

A hole in space-time started expanding into an exit. Gu Qingshan flew out while still being encased in the white, bubble glow.

The chaotic sound of a fierce battle caught Gu Qingshan’s attention.

A huge group of demons were squeezing their way up a mountain peak a few kilometers away.

A number of cultivators were standing back to back and trying their best to kill the demons off.

After a while, yet another cultivator got dragged out by the demons and was eaten cleanly while still howling.

“No! My brother!”

One of the cultivators suddenly cried out with great pain and sadness. He rushed out and went crazy trying to kill the demons.

It didn’t make any difference. The smell of blood drove the demons mad, and more started rushing up the mountainside.

After just a few seconds, that rash cultivator had also been killed off and eaten by the demons.

There were only about six or seven human cultivators left. They were like a candle in the wind and could be put out at any time.

Gu Qingshan looked carefully at the remaining people and murmured to himself, “Looks like these should be the people that General Gongsun had left behind. Since they didn’t all die, they must be pretty highly skilled.”

Gu Qingshan didn’t want to watch this battle anymore. He used the Spirit Power in his body to burst the nearly transparent bubble around himself and started freefalling in a particular direction.

His landing spot was a place that he had carefully chosen. It wasn’t too far from the mountain, but since most of the demons had already been distracted by the cultivators on the mountain, it was considered a fairly safe place to land.

Once his feet landed properly on the ground, Gu Qingshan immediately kept all his Spirit Power away and held his breath.

Demons could feel Spirit Power movement and breathing, so he had to be very careful about these things.

A terrible smell hit him. Gu Qingshan shifted himself aside violently and flew several meters backward.

There was the sound of something cutting through the air.

Followed by a loud boom behind him.

A large mouth filled with sharp teeth bit the ground and then drew back in indignation.

Gu Qingshan turned around to look, and his heart sank a little.

It was a Carrion Devouring Demon crawling along the ground like a moving mountain of rotten flesh.

An awful stench hit his nose.

This creature ate absolutely anything and had a penchant for rotting dead bodies. So after many years of this diet, it would start to reek of this awful smell.

Under most circumstances, even the other demons would avoid this creature because it was simply too smelly.

Since the Carrion Devouring Demon hadn’t managed to bite its prey, it angrily puffed its cheeks up and sprayed out a gooey substance to trap its prey where it was.

This gooey substance didn’t just make it difficult for the prey to escape. It was also capable of causing flesh to rot. If one got this stuff on the skin without any armor, then all their flesh and internal organs would rot away.

This particular Carrion Devouring Demon had a very powerful presence and surpassed most other Carrion Devouring Demons, so it was probably at Foundation Building stage.

Its saliva could possibly even rot bones.

Gu Qingshan had already predicted that it would do this, and that was why he moved so far away. He barely managed to dodge that spray of gooey substance.

One of the cultivators on the mountain glanced over in surprise.

Actually the moment Gu Qingshan had appeared in this world, they had already felt his presence.

But when they realized that he was only a Qi Refining cultivator, the hope they had in their hearts was extinguished again.

The cultivators had despaired and thought that this young fellow wouldn’t last more than a few seconds, but he’d ended up surprising them.

Gu Qingshan was only at Qi Refining stage and was one entire stage away from the Carrion Devouring Demon. But he had actually managed to predict what the demon would do and also managed to dodge the attack, so that was pretty impressive in itself.

When the Carrion Devouring Demon saw that its prey had dodged yet again, it opened its mouth and was about to roar in frustration.

The moment it made any noise, it would surely attract more demons to come this way.

If Gu Qingshan was surrounded by demons at his current cultivation level, then he would most certainly die.

But just before it could roar, the Carrion Devouring Demon suddenly felt that something had been stuffed into its mouth.

The Carrion Devouring Demon froze for a while.

Its brain simply couldn’t understand what was going on.

It started chewing the thing in its mouth instinctively.

The texture was strange and wasn’t something it normally liked to eat, but it seemed edible enough.

In fact, the more it chewed, the better it tasted, and this food seemed beneficial to itself.

The food made the Carrion Devouring Demon quieten down.

But what was this stuff in its mouth?

The Carrion Devouring Demon slowly stretched a claw out to pull the stuff out of its mouth to see what it was eating.

It wanted to remember what this thing was and wanted to add it to the list of things it could eat.

When Gu Qingshan saw this, he quietly lay against the ground and slowly retreated out of the Carrion Devouring Demon’s line of sight.

He had pulled out some Demonic Python skin and bones and flung them right into the demon’s huge open mouth.

This Carrion Devouring Demon was so hungry that it would even eat rocks. So since Demonic Pythons were rare demons and their skin and bones were very nutritious, it was definitely much more delicious than rocks and rotting carcasses.

Once the Carrion Devouring Demon’s attention had been successfully drawn to the food in its mouth, Gu Qingshan took the chance to quickly make his getaway.

He hid among a huge pile of rocks and looked around him carefully.

There weren’t a lot of demons nearby since a large majority of the demons had gone to squeeze up the mountain.

Meanwhile, the fight on the mountain was getting more and more brutal.

The few cultivators were surrounded by the demons, and they could neither attack nor defend.

The cultivators were fighting for their dear lives among the demons, so they had to use their Spirit Power and unleash every move they had. As a result, even the creatures standing miles away could feel the movement of their Spirit Power.

After looking at them for a while, Gu Qingshan’s expression became grimmer.

“All these people are at least at Foundation Building stage, and some are even at Golden Core.”

Both those cultivators and the countless demons were way too powerful for him to handle.

“My cultivation level is too low and there are so many things I can’t use, so I’m only left with…”

Just as he was thinking about what to do, there were a few demons that discovered him.

They roared and started coming his way. They used their bodies to try to push other demons away to try to eliminate any potential competition.

But Gu Qingshan didn’t bother looking at these Foundation Building stage demons. He ran and took out the formation disk at the same time. With the formation disk in one hand, he used his other hand to move his Spirit Power and hit the formation disk several times in quick succession.

His hands never stopped as he yelled out, “This way!”

On the mountain, yet another one of the cultivators had died fighting. His body had been quickly devoured by the demons, and the remaining cultivators were in grave danger.

The moment they heard Gu Qingshan’s voice, they looked over. When they saw that Gu Qingshan had a formation disk in his hands and was glowing with Spirit Power, they started feeling hopeful.

“It’s a formation disk!”

“He’s a Formation Master! A Formation Master!”

“That’s great! There’s hope for us!”

Formation Masters were hard to come by, so every sect treated them like treasures and made sure they were well protected. So how did this Formation Master appear here all by himself?

But there was no time to think about such things.

When they suddenly saw that glimmer of hope, they were suddenly energized and managed to make the demons around them move back by a few meters.

Under the command of one of the cultivators, they started to slowly move toward Gu Qingshan.

The leader pointed out two people and instructed, “He’s only at Qi Refining stage, so since you two are quick-footed, go protect him!”

“Got it!”

This Formation Master was their hope of surviving this.

Their commander also waved the jade fan in his hands as he used all his strength to shoot out his technique.

All the demons turned into ice sculptures after he attacked them, and even those more powerful demons that didn’t get completely frozen were slowed down tremendously.

The sword cultivator and knife practitioner quickly went up to kill off all these demons.

With the cover of this Frost Technique, the knife practitioner and sword cultivator moved as quick as lightning and got to Gu Qingshan in just a matter of seconds as they easily killed off every demon that came their way.

Gu Qingshan glanced at the two of them and fixed his eyes on the hand of the sword cultivator. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the weapon in his hand.

That was a sword!

Gu Qingshan’s fingers couldn’t help but start moving when he saw the long sword in the sword cultivator’s hand.

After he had transmigrated, Gu Qingshan couldn’t even remember a single sword technique. All the sword techniques he had practiced in his previous life seemed to be sealed away by the system on purpose.

He could sense that the system had done this to minimize the dangers he might face when he was traveling through space-time so as to avoid trouble that would harm him.

Gu Qingshan still remembered that the system had said ‘successfully smuggled over’ after he had transmigrated.

But even though he had successfully transmigrated, that mysterious seal on himself remained unbroken.

Something deep in his subconscious told him that he needed a sword.

Just like those days that had gone by, he needed a sword that could kill.

That sword cultivator at the Peak level of Foundation Building noticed Gu Qingshan’s gaze and looked back at Gu Qingshan strangely.

No, now was not the time!

Gu Qingshan suppressed the urge in his heart. He turned away from the sword and looked toward the commander.

“I see. He’s activated the Spirit Power of Water and reached the second stage: Frost. If not for him, all these people would be dead by now.”

Gu Qingshan took note of this in his heart, then looked toward the two cultivators right at the end.

Those two cultivators were standing in front of the commander and were using nothing but the strength of their fists and kicks to attack. Each attack made a large group of demons fly out.

These were all Martial Arts cultivators. Their bodies were filled with Qi and blood, and the Power of Guicang spread through their bodies.

That’s right, these were true blue Martial Arts Grandmasters that had reached the Peak stage and were about to enter into the Initial stage of Martial Arts Prime.

Countless demons continued to follow after them.

After a few more seconds had passed, everyone had reached where Gu Qingshan was and surrounded him.

The commander kept away his jade fan and asked anxiously, “What formation do you have? Need me to cover you?”

Everyone looked over.

Formation setups needed time, so if Gu Qingshan took too long and wasn’t ready even after the rest had already perished, then that would be the greatest joke of the day.

Gu Qingshan shook his head and replied, “I’ll be done in a second.”

He hit the formation disk, and his hands were already in position.

The formation disk that Gongsun Zhi had given him already had all sorts of advanced formations in place.

Gongsun Zhi had already taught Gu Qingshan all the hand positions for activating the formation disk. Every time the formation disk had to be activated, it required both Spirit Power as well as the correct corresponding hand position.

This was supposed to unseal the formation disk and set up the formation, so at one glance, Gu Qingshan’s movements did really look like he was a Formation Master.

Only veteran Formation Masters like Gongsun Zhi would be able to decipher the hand positions and tell that he was just an imposter.

The only problem was that there was a limit to the number of times the formation disk could set up a particular formation. After everything was used up, the formation disk would be useless.

But since they were in such an urgent situation and the cultivators didn’t know him, Gu Qingshan decided to just pretend he was a Formation Master.

“Water, Wind, Mist, Earth, Raven Heavenly Escape Formation!”

Gu Qingshan pushed his Spirit Power forward, then the formation disk exploded with a brightness that looked like a sea of stars, and there were four extra bright bursts of light that flickered.

The formation had been set up!

The most powerful formation on the formation disk had been activated, so Gu Qingshan had lost 70% of his Spirit Power in an instant.

The bright glow covered himself and all the cultivators next to him, and everyone disappeared from the demons’ sight immediately.

The countless demons started roaring angrily when they couldn’t find their target anymore. After a while, they actually started fighting amongst themselves.

The scariest, gigantic demons couldn’t stand it after a while, so they just picked up a few smaller demons and stuffed them into their mouths to chew for a while before dragging their huge bodies away.

This movement instantly extinguished the anger among the other demons.

After a short while, about half the demons left the mountain.

All the cultivators had all collapsed on the ground and were panting heavily within the protection of the formation.

They had all reached their limit.