Su Chen thought for a moment and said, "I'll call you Little Zi from now on."
The purple fox slowly opened its lazy eyelids and glared at him; it looked clearly and extremely weak.
"All right, you'll stay with me from now on. I'll help you find some spirit herbs, or I'll buy some medicinal pills."
Right now, he had not yet condensed any flames and was completely unable to refine pills, so he could only buy them.
***
Chapter 11: If You Are Willing, I Can Take Responsibility
After Su Chen left Panyou City, the major families of the city went completely insane. Su Chen had slaughtered their core disciples, among whom were the sons of the various family heads.
The families joined forces and went to the Su Clan to demand an explanation, but the reply they received was that Su Chen had already been expelled from the Su Clan and was no longer one of their own.
They did not doubt this, because the deterrent power of the Su Clan had already spread throughout the entirety of Panyou City.
Choosing to give up was simply impossible.
The various families immediately dispatched their most elite warriors to search for Su Chen in a dragnet.
***
In the deepest part of the Heavenly Punishment Forest, Su Chen grew increasingly vigilant, as this area was home to various formidable demonic beasts; if he were unlucky enough to encounter one, he would be in big trouble.
As long as he passed through the forest, he believed he could reach the Eastern Wasteland Academy very soon.
Nightfall had completely enveloped the forest. It was eerie and frighteningly silent.
To save time, he had deliberately chosen to walk through the Heavenly Punishment Forest. Encountering danger was perfectly normal; if he were afraid of death, he might as well have just found a hole to hide in.
His expression grew increasingly solemn. So far, he hadn't encountered a single demonic beast, and he hadn't even heard a single roar. It was too calm. It was so quiet it felt wrong.
Under the cover of night, the forest was pitch black, and a cold, desolate atmosphere permeated the surroundings. Even Su Chen couldn't help but shiver.
He did not stop his pace. He continued forward.
According to the distance, in another day's time, he would be able to pass through the forest successfully. It was even better that there were no demonic beasts threatening him.
"This is..."
Looking at the bones of demonic beasts appearing in front of him—scattered everywhere, the dense pile of remains emitting a sickening stench of death—he couldn't tell how many beasts had died here at a glance.
No wonder he couldn't see any beasts or hear any movement; it turned out that all the beasts had been slaughtered. Who could have done this?
His expression was extremely grave. Su Chen walked step by step, keeping his spirits at the highest level of alertness.
Just then, a terrifying killing intent surged from all directions, fiercely invading his mind. Su Chen’s eyes instantly became unfocused.
Deep in his consciousness, an endless purgatory formed, with countless bones piled high like mountains to create a sea of corpses, and vast, stagnant baleful energy swirling in the void.
A look of pain appeared on his face. Su Chen gripped his fists tightly, controlled by the purgatory in his mind, and faint traces of blood-red began to appear on the surface of his skin.
*Hum!*
Suddenly, the sounds of Buddhist chanting echoed in Su Chen’s mind. Eight Buddhist chants rang out simultaneously, and the purgatory that had just been there vanished instantly. Su Chen regained his clarity.
Covered in sweat, he realized what a terrifying killing intent illusion that was. Had it not been for the help of the eight Buddhas within his Chaos Body, he likely would have been completely controlled by the killing intent and turned into a slaughter machine, or else consumed by it entirely.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt a lingering fear.
Instead of retreating, Su Chen continued forward.
However, this time, Su Chen began to circulate Buddhist divine powers within his body. An invisible Buddhist aura enveloped his entire being, so that even if he encountered such a thing again, he would at least be mentally prepared.
After walking for about half an hour, he arrived in front of a stone wall. The towering stone monument was engraved with dense, intricate patterns, resembling tiny tadpoles, which formed bizarre symbols.
The ground was covered in the bones of demonic beasts, and their blood had converged into a river.
And yet, it was the figure standing before the stone wall that completely captivated Su Chen.
Even with her back turned to him, Su Chen could imagine just how shocking her beauty must be. Her tall, slender figure lacked the slightest flaw, and long, raven-black hair draped down her back.
She stood perfectly still, like an old monk in meditation.
Feeling curious, Su Chen guessed that the stone wall must be a treasure, especially given the strange markings and patterns; he could sense the eerie aura emanating from it.
He walked up to the woman and turned his head to look.
Her skin was like jade, her brows like light mist, and her eyes held a brilliant, flowing radiance. Beneath a high, straight nose was a cherry mouth. She possessed a peerless face that could topple kingdoms. In all his years, Su Chen had never seen such a beautiful woman.
Only four words could describe her: "Shockingly beautiful."
The more he looked, the more curious he became. Su Chen noticed that the woman remained motionless, staring fixedly at the stone wall. He then turned his own gaze toward the towering monument.
To ensure his safety, Su Chen immediately circulated his Buddhist divine powers and the Chaos Devouring Art, causing a golden phantom of the Chaos Body to faintly emerge behind him.
While others might not understand it, under the cover of the Chaos Body's golden avatar, Su Chen was actually able to gradually discern that the patterns on the stone wall contained a martial art.
"The Primordial God-Demon Technique?"
His heart surged with joy. Su Chen did not waste a single moment. He immediately circulated the Chaos Devouring Art, and strands of devouring power flowed into the stone wall, enveloping the surface and specifically targeting the carved patterns.
This martial art had to be incredibly powerful, for only by enveloping it with his devouring energy could he comprehend the so-called Primordial God-Demon Technique contained within the wall.
Under the influence of the devouring patterns, the tadpole-like symbols poured into Su Chen’s mind; this was exactly the method for cultivating the Primordial God-Demon Technique.
He was overjoyed and did not dally or waste time. He circulated the Chaos Devouring Art faster and faster, and the speed of his devouring increased accordingly.
Half an hour later, Su Chen let out a long sigh of relief. He had finally finished devouring it.
"What are you doing?"
He watched as the woman suddenly turned to look at him. Her eyes, black as the night, stared at him fixedly, as if looking at her own prey. To Su Chen’s shock, the woman began to take off her clothes.
A crimson flush covered her beautiful face as she lunged directly at Su Chen.
The aura emanating from the woman was too powerful; it instantly restrained Su Chen, leaving him unable to move a muscle. He couldn't even circulate the Chaos Devouring Art, nor could he reach for his Burial Tribulation Pen.
Su Chen had never imagined that one day he would encounter something like this. Feeling his strength forcibly suppressed, he was instantly pinned down by the woman.
"I’m still a virgin, don't!"
No one paid any heed to Su Chen’s cries, save for the carcasses of the demonic beasts on the ground. However, the moment their bodies collapsed, the bodies were pushed away by a wave of air, and currents of energy enveloped them both, forming a massive cocoon.
In the silent, dark night, Su Chen lost his virginity.
And he had lost it under such circumstances.
A desolate aura shrouded the area. Roughly six hours later, the cocoon shattered. Countless cracks spread across it, and with a *bang*, the cocoon collapsed.
The woman’s eyes were cold and chilling. She had never expected that she would be corroded by the stone wall and end up doing such a thing, slaughtering all the demonic beasts in the Heavenly Punishment Forest. She had intended to comprehend the martial art contained within the wall, but instead, she had tried to be clever only to suffer a loss, even losing her first time.
It was hard for her to suppress the killing intent in her heart over a mere boy in the Foundation Establishment Realm. However, for a woman, her first man was incomparable. If it had been anything else, she would have struck him down long ago.
"What kind of expression is that?"
Seeing the youth's innocent face, the woman was furious and felt like giving him a slap.
"What expression can I have? You relied on your strength to do whatever you wanted, and I didn't even have a chance to resist."
Shameless!
Truly, how shameless!
She had never seen someone so shameless. He had gotten the benefit and was still acting like the victim; clearly, she was the one who had suffered a loss, yet now it felt as if he were the one who had been wronged.
The furious woman radiated a cold killing intent, her gaze icy.
Su Chen, however, felt no fear. He was indeed the victim. In his view, such things were equally important for men and women; whoever was on the receiving end was the victim.
*Endure!*
The woman looked coldly at the youth before her and asked, "What is your name? Where are you from?"
"Su Chen, a wandering cultivator."
He had already expelled himself from the Su Clan and was no longer one of them, so he considered himself a wandering cultivator.
With a deep sigh, Su Chen stood up and said helplessly, "Forget it. I'm a man, so I won't haggle with you. If you are willing, I can take responsibility."
***
Chapter 12: Ancestral Phoenix Palace, Luo Tianfei
In Su Chen’s view, as a man, one should be broad-minded, even if he had been the passive party in this affair.
Fortunately, he hadn't exactly come out on the losing end; the woman possessed a shockingly beautiful face. If she had been an ugly hag, it truly would have been a disaster.
"Take responsibility?"
The woman was amused by his words.
A mere boy in the Foundation Establishment Realm actually said he would take responsibility for her? How would he take responsibility? What kind of responsibility?His expression instantly turned cold. Su Chen could see deep contempt in the woman's eyes, and he understood what she meant—she simply looked down on his low cultivation.
"Today's events should be considered an accident. You can just forget about it."
Instead, Su Chen smiled and said, "You might think it's an accident, but I, Su Chen, am not a casual person. It's true that I am not yet qualified to take responsibility, but one day I will let the whole world know that you are my woman."
The woman didn't believe him at all.
Nodding, she smiled and said, "Then I look forward to that day."
In her view, anyone could say such things, but actually pulling it off was an entirely different matter.
For someone in the Foundation Establishment Realm to talk about taking responsibility was a joke in itself.
Watching the woman turn to leave, Su Chen asked, "What is your name?"
"Luo Tianfei of the Ancestral Phoenix Palace."
Watching the figure vanish, Su Chen's eyes were filled with unwavering determination. Even now, he still felt somewhat dazed, never expecting to lose his virginity here, and with a complete stranger at that.
The Ancestral Phoenix Palace?
He had never heard of such a sect in the Eastern Wasteland.
Yet Su Chen was well aware that the Eastern Wasteland was vast, home to countless sects, with dynasties alone numbering in the thousands. It was only natural that he had never heard of the Ancestral Phoenix Palace.
After the turmoil of the night, Su Chen did not linger and immediately departed at top speed.
Because of Luo Tianfei's massacre, the fierce beasts deep within the Heavenly Punishment Forest had been almost entirely wiped out. Thus, Su Chen encountered no obstacles and successfully crossed the forest.
It was a narrow escape.
For a martial artist in the Foundation Establishment Realm, the Heavenly Punishment Forest was indeed a perilous place where a single misstep meant death.
"Hey, kid, wait."
No sooner had Su Chen stepped out of the Heavenly Punishment Forest than two men blocked his path. Both were in the Void Pill Realm, and one of them stood barely four feet tall, wearing a sinister and sly expression.
"Something the matter?"
"Since you made it out of the Heavenly Punishment Forest alive, you must have plenty of good things on you. We won't kill you—just hand over your spatial ring."
Robbing and killing travelers was a routine affair.
They didn't think much of the young man at all. As Void Pill Realm cultivators, let alone teaming up, either one of them could easily kill him.
Without wasting words, if these people wanted to rob his spatial ring, they would first have to see if they had the ability to back it up.
The Rolling Stone Fist was one of the martial arts techniques kept in the Su Clan's martial arts pavilion.
As Su Chen executed it, it felt like a massive boulder roaring down a cliff. Punch after punch came in rapid succession, the wind whistling around his fists as he launched a fierce assault directly at the two men.
"You're courting death!"
Seeing the young man strike first, the two men roared in fury, their faces burning with rage as they launched a murderous counterattack.
A Foundation Establishment trash had actually dared to attack them first—he simply didn'm know how to spell death.
Overbearing palm prints converged from left and right. The fist force and palm prints collided violently, sending surging shockwaves rippling outward that cracked the ground into a massive, spiderweb-like pattern.
Yet in Su Chen's hands, the most ordinary martial art unleashed terrifying might.
After the brief collision, the expressions of the two men altered drastically. Never had they imagined that a mere Foundation Establishment youth would possess such formidable strength.
Daring not to underestimate him any further, the two immediately released their respective Blood Wheels. One summoned a Wolf Blood Wheel, while the other summoned a Tiger Blood Wheel. A wolf and a tiger roared toward the heavens, their howls shaking the surrounding area.
Above Su Chen's head, a Blood Wheel instantly materialized. A sword of slaughter floated quietly within the wheel, its cold eyes gazing at the wolf and tiger charging in to devour him.
"My body is like a sword, and the sword slashes the firmament!"
Re-forged through slaughter, this Blood Wheel far surpassed its predecessor in rank. The chilling sword intent felt like an endless purgatory, and an overbearing sword Qi pierced through layers of space, slashing fiercely down upon the two Blood Wheels.
The sword Qi forcefully pierced through the tiger and wolf Blood Wheels. Accompanied by miserable screams echoing through the void, the Blood Wheels above the two men shattered instantly, and their bodies flew backward like kites with broken strings, crashing heavily to the ground.
Thud!
The two men slammed hard onto the earth, blood staining them all over. Before they could even react, Su Chen's figure had already appeared before them.
With a single sword strike, he had gravely wounded two Void Pill Realm experts.
They found it impossible to accept this reality. Even though they were only at the Level 2 Void Pill Realm, they still shouldn't have been matched by a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
The gap between the Foundation Establishment Realm and the Void Pill Realm was like an uncrossable chasm, nearly impossible to bridge. Yet right now, whether they believed it or not, the facts lay before them, leaving no room for denial.
They were scared out of their wits.All previous arrogance was completely gone. Disregarding the terror in their hearts, they stammered in panic, "Please spare our lives, my lord! We are willing to be your dogs—you tell us to go west, and we wouldn't dare go east."
"I beg you, lord, spare our lives!"
Before the face of life and death, so-called dignity was worth less than dirt; as long as they could keep breathing, anything was fine.
Su Chen's gaze remained ice-cold, devoid of any wasted breath. He understood all too well just how terrifying the cruel reality was: without sufficient strength and a hard enough fist, one could only be slaughtered by others.
Operating the Chaos Swallow Art within his body, he took them down one by one with a single strike each, launching straight into a frantic devouring of their souls.
***
Tianguzhe City.
At this moment, the martial artists coming and going through the city gates were as numerous as the hairs on an ox. The streets were bustling and prosperous, filled with hawking and clamoring noises; there were even martial artists riding spirit beasts as they walked through the thoroughfares.
Tianguzhe City had extremely strict rules: anyone wishing to ride a spirit beast through the streets had to obtain permission from the City Guard, register it on the official rolls, and pay a gold coin fee. After all, if a spirit beast injured someone or caused a fatality, its owner could be tracked down.
When encountering someone riding a spirit beast, passersby would hurriedly step aside. No one was willing to gamble their life on whether a spirit beast might suddenly go mad.
Walking into Tianguzhe City, Su Chen intended to purchase a few medicinal pills for the purple fox. After all, the beast's injuries were far too severe; if things continued like this, he doubted the purple fox could hold on much longer.
"If I get the chance in the future, I must definitely tame a dragon as a mount. That would certainly have a lot of prestige."
He smiled helplessly.
Su Chen knew very well just how difficult it was to tame a divine dragon as a mount. As top-tier existences in the world of spirit beasts, the might of the dragon race reigned supreme across the continent.
He walked down the street, glancing at the shops on both sides to see if there were any pill pavilions or medicine stores.
A young girl dressed in a pink skirt came riding a white fox straight toward him. She was around seventeen or eighteen years old, with delicate facial features, skin as white as snow, and a jade pendant hanging from her neck.
Five meters apart.
The white fox lowered its head and let out a roar, then charged directly at Su Chen.
"White Fox, what are you doing?"
"White Fox, stop!"
The white fox was also at the Foundation Establishment Realm, and its strength even surpassed Xia Liyan's. Its sudden frenzy caught Xia Liyan completely off guard.
Losing her balance, she was thrown right off the fox's back. Her rear end made intimate contact with the ground with a solid thud, hurting her so much that she grimaced and bared her teeth.
To the astonishment of everyone present,
the white fox actually trotted right up to Su Chen, folded its front legs, and knelt down before him.
"Is that Xia Liyan from the Xia family?"
"Nonsense! You don't even recognize the apple of the Xia family's eye? In Tianguzhe City, you might not know the City Guard, but you can't possibly not know Xia Liyan."
"I wonder what's going on. Xia Liyan's mount actually knelt before this guy. We're in for a good show."
"Yeah, look at Xia Liyan's expression."
She stood up and dusted the dirt off her backside.
Staring at the white fox that was now kneeling in worship, Xia Liyan was utterly shocked. Even she had no idea what was wrong with her mount or why it would suddenly bow down to this person.
At that moment,
even Su Chen, looking at the white fox kneeling before him, was completely bewildered.
What was going on?
"Who are you? Why did you make my white fox kneel to you?"
Xia Liyan walked over, extending her slender hand to stroke the kneeling white fox as if trying to soothe it.
A large crowd had already gathered around. After all, Xia Liyan was quite famous in Tianguzhe City, and everyone wanted to see why her mount had inexplicably knelt before a complete stranger.
Looking thoroughly innocent, Su Chen began to feel a trace of impatience. "Perhaps my charm is simply too great, to the point that even your mount couldn't resist it."
What?
Hearing this, everyone was struck dumb. They had seen shameless people before, but never one quite so brazen.
Spirit beasts and humans had entirely different perceptions of affection. While the young man was indeed quite handsome, claiming that he could attract a spirit beast to its knees was absolute nonsense.
Xia Liyan rolled her eyes with a look of utter contempt. "You truly insult my intelligence. Do you seriously expect me to believe that?"
"Xia, my dear, what's wrong? Who upset you?"
Just then,
a young man emerged from the crowd, holding a folding fan. He walked with a pretentious swagger, waving the fan back and forth. Clad in fluttering white robes with a somewhat delicate appearance, he had even put on makeup.
"Dong Zhang from the Dong family is here."