It was still afternoon, heading towards evening. Only a little sunlight could reach the ground in the forest of Bloody Valley because of the dense white trees with pale purple leaves in this valley. At this moment, Shun Jin was stopped at a puddle.
I was still following her from high up in the tree branches. The water in this place was strangely colored. Blood red. But what was even stranger was that this blood red could cleanse. Yes, that blood red was like ordinary water, apart from its color and strange smell.
Shun Jin used the blood water to wash her face, which was covered in the black blood of the eight-eyed monkey that attacked her a few hours ago.
Initially, she hesitated, trying to dip the tip of her sword and taste the water. After realizing it wasn't poisonous and had no strange taste, Shun Jin began to understand that the blood-red water was just ordinary water. It seemed that the dark qi in this valley made the water look and smell different.
But a puddle is still a puddle. Who knows what other creature was sleeping inside, waiting.
And Shun Jin, for the umpteenth time, had to face surprising things.
A slippery tendril, like an intestine, suddenly emerged from the puddle Shun Jin was using to wash her face. It caught her leg and pulled her quickly.
"Eh? Ah!"
Half of Shun Jin's body was pulled into the strangely deep puddle. Fortunately, she quickly plunged her sword into the ground so she wasn't completely pulled into the puddle. Using her left hand, which tightly gripped the slender sword stuck in the ground, Shun Jin tried to climb back to the surface.
There wasn't just one slippery intestinal tendril; they slowly bound Shun Jin's body up to her neck and pulled her more strongly into the not-so-large puddle. It was only wide enough for two people. But its depth made me frown.
I jumped to a branch closer to Shun Jin, who had lost her grip. She was like a duck touching water for the first time and half-drowning.
The noisy splashing of water continued, causing the puddle to spill everywhere. Before ten seconds later, Shun Jin sank to the bottom of the miraculously deep blood puddle.
I held the demonic sword. Ready to stab from afar using Qi techniques into whatever was in the blood puddle that had drowned Shun Jin.
But before that, I watched it first. This was Shun Jin's training to make her stronger by giving her various experiences. I wouldn't save her just because she was dying. She had to be able to surpass her own limits. That way, she would dare to face things that were more terrifying to her.
For one minute I waited, only bubbles came out of the puddle. But I was sure Shun Jin was still alive. Because I believe she wouldn't die foolishly like that.
And sure enough. The next second, Shun Jin emerged from the blood puddle with various intestinal tendrils clinging to her body. She even bit one of the intestinal tendrils in her mouth.
I grinned. It seemed she had slashed the creature in the blood puddle and managed to swim back to the surface. She immediately climbed onto the ground and forcibly dragged her weak and breathless body away from the blood puddle.
"Bleh! ...Hah!.. hah!... What kind of creature was that, really?.. That blood puddle was its mouth, and these intestinal tendrils were its tongue and entrails.. hah.. that creature tried to enter my body through the holes in my body.. hah.. luckily I stabbed something like a heart in there and cut off the intestinal tendrils that were pulling me.. hah.."
Shun Jin's wet chest heaved up and down. Her entire body was wet with blood water, which was now real blood. Not smelly water that was blood-colored. But smelly blood water that was real blood. Changing the color of the blue and white robe she was wearing.
Seeing Shun Jin encounter that creature, I just remembered one of the children who entered the Bloody Valley with me, who drowned while drinking puddle water. So that was its mouth, huh? I got good information from Shun Jin.
The puddle of blood closed on its own, as if the surrounding earth suddenly moved to close up into ordinary, walkable ground. No wonder I didn't encounter it before; it turns out that creature is indeed good at hiding and blending with nature.
Shun Jin lifted her body to stand upright. She bowed with a slender sword stuck in the ground to help her rise. She then continued walking, looking for a safe place to spend the night.
It was getting late, and the inhabitants of the Bloody Valley were becoming scarcer. By the way, during the day, not many inhabitants of the Bloody Valley could be found. Examples include the eight-eyed monkey or the blood puddle creature just now. Or the three-headed, human-faced cow that relies on its three hard heads to charge. Or large creatures like the buffalo-horned bear whose single claw swipe could fell the white tree I'm standing on.
Besides that, there were more strange small insects like flying eyes, or butterfly-winged mosquitoes with human faces the size of a fist. And again, they only gathered when they smelled a corpse. They didn't attack living creatures because they knew they were small.
Shun Jin, who was now more vigilant, was much smarter in her actions. She listened to every sound and checked every place twice to avoid encountering dangerous monster or spirit beasts.
So far, she's been quite lucky, I think. Not like me back then, on my first day of training in the Bloody Valley with a dull sword. I encountered a dragon-headed tiger and almost died being mauled by it. Fortunately, there was someone else there at the time, so I could use them as bait after crippling one of their legs, and I managed to escape death.
Among the inhabitants living here, I think even an eighth-level cultivator, an Immortal Ascension, would die if they met it—that creature. The white snake.
A white snake whose height is half that of a dark red tree. Its length can reach one kilometer. Its width is ten paces. When it opens its jaws, its mouth will appear to form a cave. Its scales are as hard as rock.
What is terrifying about that creature is not its size. But its ability to camouflage without being traceable by Qi. The white snake truly seems to disappear and then suddenly pounces on you whole from the front even before you realize it.
I once saw it; its jaws, when open, showed hundreds of sharp fangs as sharp as swords and as hard as steel. Inside its mouth, its tongue was covered in acid and poison. Anyone who enters it, unless they have surpassed Immortal Ascension cultivation, will die instantly.
In other words, that creature is not just a snake. It is—pure—walking death.
But let's save that story for another time. Because finally, Shun Jin has found a place she considers safe to sit and cultivate and regulate the increasing dark qi within her body.
I'm sure her dantian is now completely black because black veins are starting to appear on Shun Jin's body. If she delays cultivating and purifying the Qi within it for another hour, her body will crack and shatter. She will die in the most tragic way imaginable and join the regretful spirits tonight.
There was a hole in a human-sized rock that plunged into the ground. Shun Jin initially threw a stone into it to test if anything lived inside the hole. After waiting for about five minutes, Shun Jin finally dared to enter. And it turned out the hole was empty.
It was truly a naturally formed hole. Not made by creatures living in the Bloody Valley. Shun Jin gathered leaves and moved large rocks around the hole to cover it, leaving only a small gap for Shun Jin to enter. Once she felt it was safe and the sky began to darken, Shun Jin entered the hole to cultivate.
I sat on top of the hole where Shun Jin was. Behind me, various corpses of monster and spirit beasts lay dead, pooling in black blood.
"She is indeed lucky to have chosen me as her master. Heh, I really didn't expect to take a timid and spoiled girl like her as my disciple."
***