Chapter 54 - 54 54 Cave Demon

54: Chapter 54: Cave Demon 54: Chapter 54: Cave Demon After entering sleep through the Thought Preservation Technique, it was known as “Nourish the Mind and Body,” also called “Fetal Breathing.” This was the most optimal mode of rest. With consciousness in meditation, between a state akin to dreaming and not dreaming, the mind worked in perfect harmony with the body’s instincts. S~eaʀᴄh the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. It used the stored nutrients to repair and shape the body perfectly. A sleep of one or two hours under Thought Preservation could satisfy the daily needs of a common person, even if they were injured or depleted, and could be adjusted by sleeping a bit longer. Upon waking, An Jing felt replete with spirit, clear and refreshed, though there were still some aches in his muscles and his injuries had not fully healed—this was merely due to insufficient nutrients and the shortness of time. “I feel very good,” he declared. With a strong heartbeat, An Jing stood up and smoothly leaped from the beam to the ground, “Is there anything out of the ordinary?” On his forehead, the imprint of the Sword Spirit slowly retracted back into his skin, “Nothing. Nothing happened.” “That’s good,” An Jing’s eyes sparkled brightly as his spirit returned to its peak. He scanned his surroundings, “Had I been attacked right after I arrived, I could only have exerted less than half my strength. If attacked while I was resting, at most I could have exerted seventy percent.” “Now, I can exert at least ninety percent of my strength.” Regardless of whether that Spirit-specialized Monster was there, cautiously observing or waiting for its prey to step into a trap. At least An Jing had restored his condition to the best possible extent. After resting, An Jing began to check both the incoming and outgoing paths. The path he came from was naturally the one the corpses had taken, which is, in other words, a route leading to the ‘exit of the ruins.’ The path forward was the one the corpses had taken to delve deeper into the ruins, leading to the ‘depths of the ruins.’ Both An Jing and the Sword Spirit felt that delving deeper into the ruins was a bad idea, “Even professional exploration teams have failed here, with our strength, going deeper would be suicide.” However, it was necessary to explore the condition of the path forward a bit. Located at the rear side of the Ancient Ruins Attic, the path forward was a dark and winding corridor burrowing deep into the ground. An Jing felt bursts of moist hot air pumping out, “Is there a hot spring underground? It seems there might be other ventilation holes…” He shook his head slightly, with no intention of a deeper investigation—the presence of heat and water implied likely life. The deeper one went, the greater the danger. And the path coming… “Something has been here.” Just when he reached the edge of the passage near the corpses, An Jing suddenly stopped, while the Sword Spirit curiously asked, “Oh? How can you tell?” An Jing frowned deeply as he looked at a corpse he had previously scavenged, “I had deliberately stacked this skeleton here after scavenging.” “But now, these bones have scattered and there are traces of being trampled.” An Jing crouched down cautiously, holding a jade dagger and observing the trample marks, but he could not determine what kind of creature the footprints belonged to, “Strange, these aren’t beast marks, not hoofprints, nor shoes, nor monkeys or anything…” “Rather, they look a bit like some crawling creature, some tentacles climbing… could it be an octopus from the underground hot springs? An octopus that eats brains and souls?” “No, it’s not an octopus. It resembles…” Glowing Vines. An Jing saw traces of faint glow on the crushed remains. He thought of the Glowing Vines in the cavern behind him. By hiding in the Ancient Ruins Attic, he had avoided those Glowing Vines, and thus rested undisturbed for three hours. ——Sigh. A barely noticeable cold breeze swept by. Without any hesitation, An Jing turned around while slashing his palm with a jade dagger! The Blood Fiend Sword instantly recongealed, and then, following the motion of An Jing’s turning, twisting his waist, and extending his arm, it transformed into a full crimson arc of light, slashing directly at a shadow that had appeared behind him without notice! Splat! Something was cut through, and the sound of liquid splattering rose, but accompanied by a strange roar of rage, several scattered vines suddenly turned into seven or eight whip-like shadows, lashing towards where An Jing was! Yet at that moment, An Jing advanced instead of retreating, for the whips only had great destructive power at the tips; close up, they were powerless. And his Blood Fiend Sword in hand was incomparably sharp, its swings severing vine after vine, as easy as slicing through paper and cutting through oil, ending the confrontation in an instant with four or five vines cut apart. Then, An Jing held the long sword with both hands, the Sword Light flickering as he thrust directly into the center of that shadow’s body. Following a crisp slicing sound, An Jing pulled and yanked, bisecting the body of the demon into two! But it was in this moment, as his mind slightly relaxed, that An Jing heard the Sword Spirit’s reminder, “Guard your mind, be vigilant!” “The demon is not dead yet!” “Right, these are vines!” An Jing also quickly realized that, if everything was as he suspected, this demon could not possibly die from being bisected! Sure enough, the next instant, all the Glowing Vines in the entire cave suddenly lit up! Blazing white, their forms like webs, they illuminated the dim, gloomy cavern as if it were daylight! In the moment of brilliant light, an invisible Spiritual Shock spread, filling the entire cave with a force capable of instantly killing a Martial Artist practicing the Inner Breath. At the same time, the bisected Vine Demon began to squirm again, attempting to pounce towards An Jing! However, An Jing merely swayed slightly, still holding tightly to his sword. A round of crimson light flashed and vanished. His arm tightly gripped the sword handle, then he swung it, tracing a trail of red flame, brandishing sharpness, and slashing with one vertical and two horizontal strokes. Where the blade passed, the oncoming Vine Demon was divided into four, then six, then eight parts. This stroke of Sword Qi, just like the one An Jing had executed when he had broken through the Inner Breath, was forceful and profound, cutting marks across the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. The Vine Demon, now cut again, collapsed limply on the ground, and the many Glowing Vines that had erupted with the Spiritual Shock also dimmed, plunging the whole cave into darkness. The only lights left were An Jing’s eyes and the Fiend Sword in his hand, flowing with flame-like blood light. “Easier to handle than I thought; it’s a type of ambushing demon.” Having thoroughly dealt with the opponent, An Jing breathed a sigh of relief, shaking his head tiredly. Protected by the Sword Spirit and blessed by the Fate Pattern, An Jing’s resistance to spiritual attacks was indeed not low. Especially since he was on alert and wary, thus when the Vine Demon launched a full-force attack on his Soul and Spirit, he was merely stunned for an instant, feeling a piercing pain in his skull, but was not incapacitated. This Trump Card having little effect on An Jing, what followed naturally was a massacre. After catching his breath, An Jing planned to meticulously slice these Vine Demons into minced pieces, completely annihilating them. However, halfway through cutting, An Jing also discovered something extraordinary. A human skull.