With brute force, Wu Youren thoroughly dispersed the residual Guizu aura lingering within this knight Guizu!
Another massive wave of experience points secured!
Earlier, he had felt that corrupted knights were easier to kill, and it truly turned out to be the case.
If it had been one of those misty, free-floating knight Guizu, its Guizu aura wouldn't be bound by a physical body and could dissipate all too easily, making it harder to kill instead.
What was especially fortunate was that slaying this Guizu hadn't caused much noise!
It wasn't completely silent, but the negligible sounds were masked by the patter of the rain.
Most importantly: this Guizu hadn't been given the chance to wail!
Under cover of the rain, the other Guizu hadn't noticed the clash that took place here.
Could he specialize in hunting corrupted martial artists in the future? Wu Youren couldn't help letting his mind wander for a moment.
However, that wasn't something to dwell on right now. First, he needed to see what was left in the vehicle.
Unfortunately, he didn't dare toss out a glowstick and had to grope around by hand bit by bit.
He had searched for less than half a minute when the metal spheres fell silent one after another, and the Guizu's distraction gradually subsided.
Gradually, order began to return, and the agitated Guizu aura settled down.
There was still a minor episode, though: several masses of Guizu aura weren't particularly friendly toward one another and began harassing each other.
Wu Youren paid them no mind, focusing entirely on scrounging for supplies.
One could say he had brought this on himself; when he left the observation post during the day, he could have easily taken his own backpack.
Yet Wu Youren had figured that there wasn't much left in the backpack anyway, and simply walking away empty-handed... wouldn't that look dashing?
If he'd bickered back and forth and ended up unable to leave, wouldn't that have turned into some melodrama?
He utterly detested that sort of sappy sentimentality.
Besides, if he had truly carried a large backpack, it would have been cumbersome whether traveling or fighting.
In short, escaping with his life was his top priority; everything else took a back seat.
Now that he had begun surviving on his own, he had to consider gathering various supplies for daily living.
Leaving things behind back then had been the right call, and scavenging supplies now was also sound; the time, place, and circumstances were all different.
Several clusters of Guizu aura were still tangled over there, though others were drifting back to their original positions.
Wu Youren scavenged quietly for ten minutes or so and felt... his haul was quite substantial.
By now, Guizu aura hovered all around him. It wasn't as tranquil as before, making a silent departure rather tricky.
Still, he was in no hurry. The night was young, and he simply needed to wait patiently for an opening.
It was just that the chilly Guizu aura drifted to and fro, frequently brushing right past him—it felt like... one truly needed nerves of steel.
Yet right as he was enduring this torment, the distant rumble of gunfire and explosions faintly reached his ears.
Clearly, this was a counterattack from humanity; he was not fighting alone.
The surrounding Guizu aura... responded quite placidly, as though watching the fire from across the river just for the spectacle.
Wu Youren could deduce the reasoning: it wasn't that anything had gone wrong among the Guizu, but purely that they were rather far from the battlefield!
The absolute distance wasn't terribly far, but there were far too many clusters of Guizu aura in between, effectively serving as a buffer.
Among those clusters of Guizu aura, quite a few were entities Wu Youren would steer well clear of.
As time passed, the gunfire grew denser, and the blasts grew louder.
Could Great Liang be launching a counteroffensive?
Wu Youren couldn't help recalling what the Martial Academy had said a couple of days ago: so now, the time had arrived?
Still, this... didn't concern him much. What did the Guizu crisis in Liang have to do with someone from Jin?
Curling up beside a vehicle wheel, he gazed indifferently at the scene before him, silently chanting in his heart: Hit them harder.
The more chaotic the situation, the easier it would be for him to slip away!
Yet he didn't believe the battle could escalate very far.
The reason was simple: if Liang took this seriously enough, or possessed strong enough coordination and mobilization, how could things have deteriorated to this point?
Of course, these were merely his own conjectures, not grounded facts.
Yet a dozen-odd minutes later, seven or eight beams of bright light suddenly burst across the sky.
The light appeared abruptly, though when it first surfaced, it wasn't particularly blinding.
However, the speed at which the light surged was breathtaking. In the blink of an eye, dazzling, multicolored spheres of light exploded across the sky.
There were yellow, red, blue... but the majority were white and silver.
"Grand knights, finally willing to make a move?" The corner of Wu Youren's mouth twitched.
Such momentum was definitely not something ordinary knights could produce.
Of course, above grand knights were Divine Might Knights.
Yet he couldn't imagine what earth-shattering scene would unfold once beings of that caliber took action.
In any case, Liang's grand knights were making their move now—and more than just one or two. He could consider himself a witness to it, couldn't he?
As attacks of grand knight caliber unfolded, vast swaths of Guizu aura churned madly...
Wu Youren had never been exposed to the relevant lore, and the distant battle was utter chaos, making the scene truly difficult to describe.
Yet without a doubt, that was the main battlefield, while the area he was in essentially boiled down to: don't seek death, and death won't find you!
Right now, laying low was the only right choice; there was no need to overthink it.
This wave of attacks proved quite prolonged. The spheres of light waxed and waned, surging one after another, as if they could go on until the end of time.
Over an hour later, Wu Youren began secretly lamenting: his body heat was running low.
Though he had eaten quite a bit at noon, it had been over a dozen hours since his last meal.
On top of that, it was still raining, his damp clothes constantly dripping water, and he felt he was nearing the brink of hypothermia.
If he could circulate his inner breath, a minor issue like this wouldn't matter at all, especially with the abundant experience points he had accumulated.
Regrettably, however, doing so was truly inconvenient.
He felt a pang of regret; had he known, he shouldn't have left the foliage cloak behind at noon...
Never mind that, what was done was done. At the very least, he should have eaten some raw python meat earlier!
Fortunately, as time passed, a change finally occurred.
The Guizu aura around him began to shift, drifting wisps of mist toward the battlefield as its density gradually thinned.
Wu Youren secretly hoped: May those grand knights out there hold out a bit longer!
After another half hour, he felt ready to pull out.
Yet as he gathered the supplies, he ran into a minor snag: his limbs were somewhat stiff and wouldn't move very nimbly.
After a moment's thought, he decided to circulate a wisp of inner breath to invigorate his blood and qi—and, conveniently, treat it as a test.
Once the test began, however, it became hard to rein in, and the breath he circulated grew steadily stronger.
It wasn't until the outflow of Guizu aura began to decelerate that he decisively reined in his inner breath once more.
Even so, a thought surfaced irrepressibly: Could inner breath be converted into battle qi?
Whenever he felt relatively safe, whimsical ideas always bubbled up uncontrollably.
As his inner breath diminished, the speed of the Guizu aura's departure gradually picked up again.
Evidently, the commotion of circulating his inner breath had grown too prominent, alerting the Guizu aura to something abnormal; thankfully, he had adjusted in time.
A moment later, the Guizu aura drained away faster and faster. He quietly packed up the items and carefully made his exit, trudging through the uneven terrain.
He wouldn't wait until the situation was at its safest to withdraw.
He couldn't be certain whether such a moment would ever arrive; knowing when to stop was key in all things, and there was no need to chase perfection.
On his way back, the danger level dropped noticeably.
The attention of most Guizu aura clusters was drawn toward the distant battle.
Meanwhile, the faint afterglow cast by those attacking spheres of light illuminated the terrain somewhat, facilitating his trek.
Wu Youren took half an hour to retreat back into the cave, where he hoisted a large boulder to block the entrance.
The supplies he brought back this time were quite bountiful: fuel drums, a small vehicular battery, firearms... and a large backpack.
It was practically the entirety of that corrupted knight's belongings.
In truth, he could have salvaged many more items from the off-road vehicle, such as wires and guide rails.
For now, though, there was no need; enough was enough, and he had no idea how long he would remain here.
There had been an oil stove inside the vehicle, which he had also brought back, and he set about grilling python meat right over the grate.
While waiting, he circulated his breath, using true qi directly to bake his clothes dry.
Drying them with true qi went swiftly. Once his garments were completely dry, he rigged a few simple warning contraptions, and by then, the python meat was done.
The meat wasn't cooked all the way through, and some parts were charred, but under the circumstances, he couldn't afford to be picky.
Wu Youren sent a jolt of true qi through it to ensure no surviving parasites or eggs remained, and that was good enough.
The five-meter-long python, as thick as a man's calf, amounted to nothing more than a single meal for him.
Though he was full, he was far from stuffed, which went to show just how much physical energy he had expended throughout the day.
Next, he took stock of his haul, mentally categorizing where each item ought to be used.
Then he stepped outside the cave entrance to observe the battle once more, confirming that the clash remained intense.
Even several clusters of Guizu aura not far from the cave entrance had begun surging in that direction.
Should be safe in the short term! Wu Youren didn't linger to watch, returning to the cave to resume his meditation.
Now that Cynthia and the other were gone, he circulated his heavenly circuits with full force, striving to digest the experience points as quickly as possible.
His meridians began aching faintly again; all the painstaking rest and recovery of the past few days had been undone in a single night.
Wu Youren strongly suspected that cultivating with such high intensity might leave lingering internal injuries.
Yet did he have a choice?
Ruthlessness was not something he reserved only for others—if a man wasn't ruthless, he couldn't stand firm. Fighting to survive came first.
Unawares, several hours slipped by. Only when Wu Youren felt his meridians could endure no more did he slowly ease to a halt.
Then he began attempting to clear the greater circulation. The Eight Extraordinary Meridians—there was quite a bit of intricacy to them.
Just as he was attempting to open the Yang Heel Vessel, a sudden premonition struck him, and he dispersed all the true qi throughout his body.
Holding his breath, he tiptoed toward the cave entrance, intently monitoring the tripwires and warning contraptions outside.
The next instant, a contraption was tripped. A faint snap sounded, followed by tumbling rocks.
It was meant as an alarm; the stones weren't large, but the racket of them tumbling was by no means small.
Then, all fell quiet, the surroundings lapsing into dead silence.
Yet not long after, an imperceptible wave of oppressive pressure swept past.
Chapter 69