Chapter 157 | Near Collision

Chapter 157: 157 | Near Collision

Lin Tian walked up the steep rocky slope. He stopped near a narrow crack in the stone. A damaged Jade-Bone Flower grew inside the gap. Two of its pale petals were missing, but the center still held a strong spiritual essence.

He extracted the flower, sealed its spiritual energy, and placed it in his spatial ring. He did not waste time admiring the harvest.

As he stood up, his spiritual sense peeled back the rocky terrain, revealing a massive, heavy aura hiding just behind a large boulder ahead.

He did not draw his sword. He stepped silently to the side and observed.

A Three-Eyed Scarlet Ape stepped out from behind the rocks. It was nearly three meters tall, covered in dense crimson fur that looked like coarse steel wire. Its muscles were thick and heavily reinforced. But the most dangerous feature was the strange third eye resting in the center of its forehead. The eye glowed with a sickly yellow light, acting as a powerful spiritual radar that scanned the area for prey.

The beast was at the Peak Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment.

A direct fight in the open would require a massive amount of Qi. The ape’s thick fur and dense muscles could easily block standard sword strikes. If Lin Tian fought it normally, he would risk unnecessary injuries and waste precious energy.

He was an engineer of combat. He never rushed a calculation.

He watched the beast carefully. The ape’s two normal eyes were sharp, but the third eye on its forehead was constantly glowing, scanning the spiritual currents in the air. However, Lin Tian noticed a structural flaw. The pupil of the third eye was highly sensitive. It was designed to absorb spiritual energy, which meant it was extremely vulnerable to sudden, concentrated bursts of physical light.

Lin Tian looked at the surrounding terrain. To the left of the ape, a narrow, V-shaped rocky gorge cut through the stone. The walls were high and close together.

He moved silently toward the gorge. He found a large, smooth black stone resting at the bottom. The surface of the stone was polished perfectly flat by years of wind and water.

Lin Tian took out a low-grade light talisman. He placed it against the flat black stone and angled it precisely toward the entrance of the gorge. He calculated the exact trajectory. If the light hit the stone, the smooth black surface would reflect the beam directly at the height of the ape’s forehead.

He channeled a tiny thread of Qi into the ground, creating a faint vibration near the gorge entrance.

The Scarlet Ape’s third eye snapped toward the vibration. It let out a loud roar and charged blindly into the narrow gorge, its heavy footsteps shaking the ground.

Lin Tian stood calmly behind a thick rock pillar near the bend. He waited until the ape was exactly ten meters away.

He triggered the light talisman.

A blinding flash of white spiritual light erupted from the talisman. The beam hit the polished black stone and reflected sharply, striking the ape directly in its glowing third eye.

The beast let out a horrific, high-pitched shriek.

The concentrated light completely overloaded its sensitive spiritual eye. The ape was instantly blinded. Driven by pure panic and pain, it lost all control of its momentum. Its heavy feet slipped on the smooth stone, and its massive body crashed headfirst into the solid rock wall of the gorge.

CRACK!

The sound of breaking bone echoed loudly. The ape’s skull fractured against the stone. It collapsed to the ground, its body twitching violently, completely stunned and unable to stand.

Lin Tian walked out from behind the pillar. He did not run. He walked calmly up to the stunned beast.

He channeled a dense, piercing thread of Qi into his index and middle fingers. He struck the exposed, unarmored gap at the back of the ape’s neck.

The force shattered its spinal cord instantly. The ape’s body went rigid, and then it fell completely still.

The kill was clean, silent, and highly efficient. Lin Tian had not wasted a single drop of Qi on a wide attack, and he had not taken a single scratch.

He extracted the beast core, sealed it, and cleaned his blade.

***

Three kilometers away, the atmosphere in Gu Yan’s small camp was suffocating.

Hong sat against a jagged rock, his eyes rolled back slightly. The beast venom from the lizard bite had bypassed his flesh and was now attacking his meridians. Dark, twisted black veins crawled up his neck, pulsing with a toxic, sickly light.

"The shadows..." Hong whispered, his voice a dry, raspy hiss. He coughed, spitting a mouthful of black, coagulated blood onto the ground. "The shadows are moving. They are laughing at me."

Mei knelt beside him. Her hands were covered in red, blistered burns. She had tried to push her Qi into his chest to suppress the poison, but the toxic heat had burned her palms. She was completely exhausted.

"His Dantian is collapsing," Mei said, her voice trembling with genuine fear. "The venom is causing severe Qi Deviation. If we do not find a pure Yang herb today, he will die by nightfall."

Gu Yan paced back and forth. His sword was drawn, his knuckles white from gripping the hilt. His eyes were bloodshot, and his chest heaved with every breath.

He was not just worried about Hong. His mind was trapped in a suffocating loop of deep paranoia.

He kept thinking about the lizard nest. He kept thinking about the sweet, rotting smell of the blood-bait.

"It is not a coincidence," Gu Yan muttered, his eyes darting toward the dense, shadowy trees. "The terrain is shifting. The beasts are herding us."

"Senior Brother?" Mei asked, confused and exhausted.

"Do not lie to me!" Gu Yan snapped, his voice cracking loudly. He pointed his sword at the empty forest. "The lizards did not just find us! The beasts in this realm are moving in a pattern. They are cutting off our routes. Someone is controlling them!"

Hong let out a sudden, high-pitched giggle, his mind slipping deeper into the hallucinations. "Lin Tian... he is under the ground. He is pulling us down..."

"Shut up!" Gu Yan roared, wasting another massive burst of fire Qi into the air. "I will kill him! When I find him, I will tear his core out!"

Mei quietly pulled her hands back and hid them in her sleeves. Her palms were burned red. She looked at Gu Yan’s wild, bloodshot eyes and realized the terrifying truth.

Their leader was completely broken.

She reached into her spatial ring and touched her only emergency escape talisman. She did not tell Gu Yan. If his paranoia got them killed, she would activate it and leave him behind. Trust in Alchemy Peak had completely shattered.

Suddenly, Gu Yan stopped pacing. He closed his eyes and extended his Divine Sense.

A massive spiritual fluctuation echoed from the north. It was the heavy, dying aura of a Peak Middle Stage beast, followed by a sudden, complete silence.

Gu Yan’s eyes snapped open. "That was a Scarlet Ape. It died instantly. There was no prolonged struggle."

He gripped his sword tightly. "Lin Tian did this. He is clearing the path. He is mocking us!"

"We keep moving," Gu Yan ordered, his voice dropping to a harsh, unstable whisper. "We go north. We find him."

***

Far to the south, Lin Tian stood quietly in the narrow gorge.

He felt a series of chaotic, erratic Qi fluctuations in the distance. It was the messy, uncontrolled burst of fire-attribute sword Qi, mixed with the heavy, desperate aura of a cultivator suffering from Qi Deviation.

Gu Yan was heading north, straight toward the dead ape.

Lin Tian did not pause his steps. He did not waste time hiding behind a rock or suppressing his aura. Gu Yan’s team was eliminating themselves. The central region’s pressure and the lingering poison were doing his work for him.

But he did not want Gu Yan to find the gorge and realize what had happened. If Gu Yan saw the clean kill and the polished stone, his paranoia would turn into absolute certainty.

Lin Tian took out a small piece of the ape’s bloody crimson fur. He attached a low-grade wind talisman to it. He whispered a short command and threw the fur high into the air toward the deep east.

The talisman activated, carrying the bloody scent and the faint spiritual residue of the ape deep into a dangerous, unstable spatial crack zone to the east.

He then took out a second wind talisman and triggered it at his own feet, blowing his own faint scent toward the south.

A moment later, he felt Gu Yan’s heavy, erratic aura pause in the distance.

Gu Yan had sensed the bloody scent flying east. Driven by his broken, paranoid mind, Gu Yan would chase the scent east, thinking Lin Tian was running away.

Lin Tian turned his body toward the south. He adjusted his breathing, reinforcing his meridians against the crushing spiritual pressure, and began to walk.

Behind him, the distant, erratic aura of Gu Yan suddenly shifted direction, speeding off toward the east, chasing a ghost.

Lin Tian did not look back. His gaze was locked entirely on the southern path. The true prize of the Secret Realm was waiting.