Da Ming: The system granted me immortality; I clock in every day.

The heavens above were shrouded in a murky, dark aura.

The fierce wind, carrying coarse yellow sand, raged across this boundless Gobi Desert.

Each grain of sand, carried by the powerful gale, contains a force no less than that of a strong bow and crossbow in the lower realm.

The impact struck the weathered rock pillars, producing a dull, relentless crackling sound.

Li Changqing stood with his hands behind his back amidst the yellow sand. His worn-out blue cloth robe, which he had worn for many years, fluttered in the wind.

He did not activate his true energy to protect his body, but instead let the sand and stones hit his clothes, focusing on experiencing the overwhelming power of the laws in this new world.

"The heavens are high and the earth is vast, with strict laws. The spatial barriers of this upper realm are more than a hundred times more stable than those of the lower realm. Let alone shrinking the earth to an inch, even ordinary wind-riding flight would probably consume more than ten times the true essence of the lower realm."

His deep eyes swept around, and all he saw was desolation.

The spiritual energy in the air was indeed incredibly concentrated; a single breath was equivalent to several days of arduous cultivation in the upper and lower realms.

However, within this rich spiritual energy, there were wisps of dark red malevolent energy intertwined.

If someone with a weak will were to rashly inhale such mottled spiritual energy, they would soon suffer a qi deviation and become a madman who only knows how to kill.

This place is definitely not a good place.

The sound of air being torn apart in the distance grew more urgent, and the booming of colliding magical artifacts rolled across the sky like muffled thunder.

Li Changqing walked calmly to the back of an ancient beast skeleton, as large as a small mountain, half-buried in the yellow sand.

He suppressed all his aura, his entire being seemingly transforming into a stubborn rock on the Gobi Desert, quietly gazing in the direction from which the sound came.

Watching plays has always been his favorite pastime.

Before long, three dim streaks of light stumbled and broke through the air from the yellowish sandstorm.

There were two men and one woman, all dressed in light blue Taoist robes.

But at this moment, the Taoist robe was already stained and mottled with blood and mud.

The young man at the head of the group had his left arm severed at the root, the wound covered with a layer of shimmering frost, which had barely stopped the bleeding, but his face was ashen white.

Behind him was a young female cultivator with a beautiful face but a look of panic, and an elderly man with white hair who was clutching his chest and coughing up blood.

The true energy fluctuations on the three bodies were violently volatile, clearly indicating that they had reached their limit.

Judging from their aura, they are all around the Core Formation stage.

A great cultivator who could establish a sect in the lower realm is like a stray dog ​​being chased by hungry wolves on the Gobi Desert in the upper realm.

"Uncle Chen, we can't escape..."

The young female cultivator looked back in despair, her voice trembling with barely suppressed sobs.

Less than two hundred feet behind them, a jet-black flying boat, shaped like a giant centipede, was cutting through the sandstorm, trailing behind at a leisurely pace.

On the flying boat stood five cultivators clad in blood-red cloaks.

The leader was a tall, thin middle-aged man with a sinister face and a strange white bone rune imprinted between his eyebrows.

He stood on the head of the centipede flying boat, watching the three people fleeing ahead, a cruel and mocking smile playing on his lips, like a cat toying with mice.

"You remnants of the Clear Water Pavilion, you'd better run faster. This 'Blood Bone Centipede' of mine hasn't tasted the flesh and blood of a Water-bound Core Formation cultivator in a long time. Hand over that half of the 'Falling Star Secret Realm' map obediently, and I might spare your whole corpses and refine your souls into the Myriad Ghost Banner, which would be a good place for you."

The tall, thin man's voice was sharp and piercing, cutting through the sand and dust like steel needles stabbing into the hearts of the three people in front of him.

"wishful thinking!"

The one-armed youth bit down on a pill in his mouth, forced himself to gather his true energy, and shouted angrily.

"Your Blood Bone Sect wiped out my entire Clear Water Pavilion. This blood feud is so deep that even if we are shattered to pieces and our very souls are destroyed, we will never allow the remains of this map to fall into the hands of you demonic cultivators!"

The young man abruptly stopped his escape and turned around.

He shoved the female cultivator toward the old man beside him, his eyes filled with determination.

"Uncle-Master, take Wan'er and run! I'll hold them off!"

After saying this, the golden core between the young man's eyebrows trembled violently, and a chaotic true essence, extremely violent, burst forth from his body.

He was actually going to detonate his golden core to buy his fellow disciples a chance to survive.

"Like a mantis trying to stop a chariot."

The sinister-looking man on the flying boat sneered. With a flick of his sleeve, a thick, bloody light shot out, transforming into a gigantic white bone claw several feet in diameter. The claw was surrounded by a nauseating aura of bloodlust, moving with lightning speed, and before the young man's golden core could completely explode, it fiercely gripped his body.

"laugh!"

A dull thud of bones breaking.

The young man in the Core Formation stage couldn't even complete his self-destruction before being crushed into a cloud of blood mist by the giant white bone claw.

As the blood mist churned, it was completely absorbed by the giant claw, making the white bone claw appear even paler.

"Senior brother!"

The female cultivator named Wan'er let out a shrill scream, her eyes instantly turning red.

The white-haired old man's eyes were also bloodshot, but he knew that this was not the time to act rashly.

He suppressed his grief, grabbed Wan'er, and with the last bit of his true energy, transformed into a long, light blue rainbow, plummeting towards the massive ancient beast skeleton below.

They were powerless to fly and could only try to make a last stand by taking advantage of the complex terrain below.

"Bang!"

The two crashed heavily into the yellow sand, only a dozen feet away from the animal bones where Li Changqing was hiding.

The old man coughed up three large mouthfuls of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, clearly indicating that his heart meridian had been severed and he was barely breathing.

With trembling hands, he pulled an ancient jade slip from his bosom and shoved it tightly into Wan'er's hand.

"Wan'er... take the incomplete map... split up and run... every one of us who survives is a chance..."

The old man's voice was extremely weak.

Wan'er knelt on the sand, tears streaming down her face, yet she stubbornly shook her head.

She drew her three-foot-long sword from her waist, a layer of azure water rippling on its surface, and held it horizontally in front of her, staring intently at the centipede flying boat slowly descending from mid-air.

The flying boat hovered three zhang (approximately 10 meters) above the ground.

Five demonic cultivators from the Blood Bone Sect gracefully leaped down one after another, forming a pincer movement and blocking the last old man and young man in front of the beast bones.

"The separation of life and death is truly heart-wrenching."

The sinister-looking man slowly stepped forward, his boots making a soft scraping sound as they trod on the yellow sand.

He stared at Wan'er's beautiful face, a lewd glint in his eyes.

"Killing such a top-quality female cultivator with a water-elemental root would be a waste. Bringing her back to the sect to use as a cultivation vessel would be a much better thing. As for that old bastard, just chop him up."

The sinister-looking man waved his hand.

Two henchmen beside him, each wielding a blood-red longsword, grinned maliciously as they strode toward the white-haired old man, raising their blades high.

Everything seemed to be set in stone.

The law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, is vividly displayed in this hazy, sandy landscape.

Just as the blood-red longsword was about to strike, Wan'er closed her eyes in despair, preparing to commit suicide to preserve her innocence.

"Smack."

A crisp tapping sound of a folding fan rang out abruptly amidst the howling wind and sand.

The sound wasn't loud, but it strangely pierced through the churning bloodthirsty aura and clearly reached the ears of everyone present.

The two Blood Bone Sect cultivators, who were raising their butcher knives, suddenly froze.

The lewd smile on the sinister man's face vanished instantly, and his gaze, like that of a venomous snake, swept sharply in the direction from which the sound came.

They were seen in the shadow of that enormous beast skeleton.

Suddenly, a middle-aged scholar dressed in an old blue robe appeared.

He held an old Xiangfei bamboo folding fan in his hand, and was gently tapping the palm of his other hand with the fan ribs.

His handsome, weathered face exuded a detached and peaceful air, as if he had seen through the vanities of the world. He was quietly observing the characters on stage with the same gaze one would use to assess them.

"Who goes there?!"

The sinister-looking man felt a chill run down his spine.

The Gobi Desert is filled with sandstorms, obstructing one's spiritual consciousness.

But the man in the blue robe was only a dozen feet away from them, yet the five of them had not noticed his presence at all from beginning to end!

What alarmed him even more was that when he scanned the man in the blue robe with his divine sense, it was as if he had lost his way, unable to detect even the slightest fluctuation of true essence.

The other party was just a completely ordinary mortal.

But how could there possibly be any mortals in the extremely dangerous depths of the Shenjian Gobi Desert?

"Just passersby."

Li Changqing opened his folding fan and held it in front of him, seemingly disgusted by the bloody stench emanating from the Blood Bone Sect cultivator.

"You all hit me, I'm just taking a break here, it's no trouble."

His tone was gentle, as if he were truly just an innocent passerby who had wandered into this place by mistake.

The sinister-looking man narrowed his eyes, a flash of murderous intent disappearing in them.

Whether this man in blue is a hidden master or carries some kind of treasure that conceals his aura, in this desolate wilderness, eliminating all traces is the guiding principle for demonic cultivators.

That half-finished map is of utmost importance; we must not leave any survivors.

"Playing tricks. Third brother, kill him."

The sinister-looking man's voice was icy cold. He didn't take action himself, but instead gave a wink.