Chapter 143: Chapter 142: Those Who Don’t Want to Die Can Leave

On the way through the poisonous woods, three more unlucky souls ran into Wu Chen again.

This time, without waiting for Wu Chen to kick them, they wisely slammed their heads on the ground, raised their cloth sacks high, and offered them to Wu Chen.

Even though they acted so piously and posed no threat, Xue Hongling still stepped forward to collect the spoils.

After the two figures had walked far away, the three men clutched their now-empty sacks, their faces crestfallen. They didn’t even have the strength to get up.

"This is just lawless! Who robs people over and over again? They’re just milking the same spot for all it’s worth!"

One of them wiped away tears and cried, "They’re nothing but hooligans and bandits, the shameless dregs of society!"

Another sighed, "Why don’t we... why don’t we go outside the secret realm and tell an Elder that these two disciples have no sense of decorum?"

"So what if they’re lawless? What good will telling an Elder do? You expect an Elder to come in here and deal with this person?"

Another man looked at his companion as if he were an idiot, his expression helpless.

"You’ll go on and on, and the Elder will probably just think you’re trying to trick him, that you’ve gathered a large group of disciples to ambush him in the secret realm!"

"If he just kills you with a single punch on the spot, you’d be getting off easy!"

"..."

The men thought about it and realized he was right. It seemed no one in their own Blood Slaughter Sect could help them.

And with no one to help, if they couldn’t turn in enough goods and lacked Contribution Points, there was a very high chance they’d be refined into medicinal pills!

The thought of such a fate made them all shudder violently.

One of them glanced left and right, seeing only the three of them and no one else around.

He steeled himself and said in a hushed, fierce voice, "What if... what if we go over to the four other sects and surrender?"

As soon as he said this, you could have heard a pin drop in the woods.

"Are you crazy? Everyone knows people from the Blood Slaughter Sect have blood on their hands. You think those righteous sects will take us in?"

"We were abducted and forced into the sect, too! What choice did we have?"

The one who made the suggestion shook his head. "Besides, surrendering in a fight is completely different from the three of us going to them personally to admit our wrongs!"

"That’s true..."

The other two felt he had a point. The secret realm was one of the few places not supervised by Elders or managers, and it was their only chance to escape.

The man who proposed it said, "Either way, it’s a dead end. We might as well try our luck with the four sects. We can gather some more medicinal herbs to show our sincerity."

"The worst that could happen is they cripple our foundations, leaving the three of us as cripples for the rest of our lives."

"Is that really worse than death?"

"Could it possibly be worse than staying in the Blood Slaughter Sect?"

Faced with this barrage of questions, the other two recalled their sleepless, uneasy days in the Blood Slaughter Sect, and their expressions finally softened.

"Alright!"

The three of them had finally reached an agreement.

...

Passing through the poisonous woods, they headed toward a mountain peak, and the air around them gradually grew colder.

After crossing another peak, the fog thickened. Beyond fifteen zhang, it was a hazy blur, making it difficult to see.

They were now approaching the Wushan Cold Pool.

’Hmm, you’d need to be at the Perfection stage of the Flesh Refining Realm at the very least to come here.’

Feeling the chill wind, Wu Chen estimated that even someone at the Perfection stage of the Flesh Refining Realm would have a tough time.

After all, everyone’s purpose for coming here was surely for the fish in the cold pool.

The temperature here was low enough to make white mist appear with every breath.

One could only imagine how low the water temperature in the cold pool was.

Just touching it would probably make one grimace in pain, let alone immersing half your body to catch fish.

After walking for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, the sound of splashing water came from ahead.

It seemed they had arrived at the Cold Pool.

"Fellow disciples, halt! This Cold Pool is already occu—"

Seeing someone approach the pool, the disciple standing guard immediately drew his saber.

After all, the pool was only so big. A team of ten was just right; every additional person meant a significant drop in Contribution Points for everyone else.

That was why he, the strongest among them, was standing guard to stop others from getting close.

But as Wu Chen’s figure drifted past, the disciple’s words were cut short as his head landed in Wu Chen’s hand.

Without pausing, Wu Chen sheathed his saber and continued walking toward the misty pool, head in hand.

As the sound of water grew clearer, a cold pool about seven or eight zhang wide appeared in his vision.

In the pool, nine figures were struggling in the waist-deep water, trying to catch fish.

Lifting the head, he shouted to them:

"I’ve killed your guard. If you don’t want to die, you can leave now."

Wu Chen hadn’t tried to hide his footsteps, so someone had noticed him early on.

Now, after his shout, everyone in the cold pool turned to look.

Despite the fog, they could still make out the head in Wu Chen’s hand. It belonged to their guard, a disciple at the Perfection stage of the Meridian Passage Realm!

He was also their team’s leader.

’He died without making a sound?!’

The group’s faces turned deathly pale, whether from the cold or from fear, it was hard to say.

They hadn’t heard any sounds of a fight, which meant the man before them was far stronger than anyone present!

Having been in the cold pool for nearly an hour, their bodies were already stiff and their limbs numb from the cold.

Regardless of the newcomer’s true strength, they knew this was absolutely not the right time to fight.

"Let’s go!" someone said decisively, though his heart was filled with reluctance.

The speaker was the one with the highest cultivation realm, aside from the dead guard.

With the guard dead, he naturally became the team’s new leader.

After he spoke, everyone unhesitatingly waded to the shore, dumped the grayish-brown fish they had caught from their sacks, and followed their leader away without a backward glance.

"Are we really just leaving like this?"

After walking about a dozen zhang and confirming the other party wasn’t following, someone in the group grumbled under their breath, clearly resentful.

"..."

The leader heard the voice and stopped. The others also stopped, waiting for him to make a decision.

He clenched his jaw, his expression conflicted. It was clear he was also unwilling to give up the cold pool so easily.

After all, the other cold pools in this area were already claimed, and the strongest member of their team was now dead.

They stood no chance of winning a fight for another pool.

Thinking it over, he realized that circling back for a surprise attack might give them a slight chance to reclaim the cold pool that was originally theirs.

"Since that person came for the cold pool, he’ll have to get in to catch fish."

"No matter how strong his constitution is, he won’t be able to stand the cold for long. It’s bound to affect the speed at which he can draw his saber."

The leader looked at the group and said in a low voice, "We’ll sneak back and hide in the surrounding woods."

"When he’s completely frozen and tries to get out to warm up, we’ll all strike at once! We’ll take back what’s ours!"

"Boss, we’ll follow your lead!"

Everyone nodded in agreement. No one objected.

Having made a unanimous decision, the group suppressed their footsteps and quietly returned to the edge of the cold pool.

They hid themselves among the plants and peered at the scene.

They saw the newcomer leisurely picking up the fish on the bank and placing them into a storage pouch.

"He has a storage pouch!"

"This guy is a senior among Direct Disciples! An Elder’s favored apprentice!"

"Who cares what he is? As long as he gets in that pool, all the good stuff on him will be ours!"

Hiding in the foliage, the men’s eyes lit up as they stared at the pouch in Wu Chen’s hand.

Having a storage pouch meant he was no ordinary Direct Disciple.

One had to understand that even Direct Disciples were ranked. Only those with the highest strength, handsome looks, and the ability to please their masters had a chance of receiving a storage pouch.

And they had to admit, from the looks of it, the person by the pool had probably met all those conditions.

Everyone watched the figure by the water with great anticipation, finally seeing Wu Chen finish collecting his spoils and begin preparing to enter the water.

He bent down, rotated his ankles, and twisted his body, circulating the Qi and Blood within him to its peak.

Amidst their hopeful gazes, Wu Chen’s figure suddenly strode toward the cold pool.

But with every step Wu Chen took, the faces of the Blood Slaughter Sect disciples hiding in the distance grew a shade paler.

Because with each footfall, a dull rumble echoed from the ground.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Not only that, but as the thunderous sound rolled on, the ground began to shake noticeably, making it difficult for the hidden disciples to keep their crouched positions. They were nearly exposed.

It was as if the ground was enduring a force of millions of pounds from the man’s run!

BOOM!

With his final step at the edge of the cold pool, Wu Chen’s figure leaped into the air.

Before their eyes, he appeared above the center of the pool, at a height of about four zhang.

Then, his body, imbued with an unknown, terrifying force, plummeted toward the cold pool below.

BOOM!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.