After being reborn, all I want to do is run away.

Chapter 159 The Remnant Tree of Ascension

Since he found nothing near the palace, he began to explore the islands in the entire lake.

He soon discovered something very strange outside the palace: the area covered by the palace seemed to be only covered by vegetation, with no animals at all, and even birds would deliberately detour when they approached the palace.

Although the reason is unknown, Kunyuan Palace should have a certain effect in repelling monsters and similar creatures.

Although the island appeared as a small black dot from a distance, Shen Xu discovered upon closer inspection that it was actually quite large. The palace occupied only a small portion of the island, which was surrounded by dense forests.

In order not to leave empty-handed, he began to take advantage of the abundant moisture on the island to explore everything around him.

after a while.

"This shouldn't be!" Shen Xu murmured to himself.

The dense forest is teeming with life, yet there isn't a single large animal of any size. The most abundant creatures are various kinds of insects, snakes, rats, and ants; there isn't even a rabbit.

If there's nothing wrong with the island's vegetation, then there must be an extremely powerful predator here, causing any creature with even a little bit of meat to end up in its belly. Shen Xu leans more towards the second possibility.

Thinking this, he became more cautious, slowing his pace and gradually expanding the area he could probe through the fog. As time passed, Shen Xu's heart grew heavier, for he had almost traversed the entire island but still hadn't discovered anything.

He began to wonder if he was overthinking things, but he was very unwilling to have come to the island and found nothing, nor take anything with him! This was the location of the Kunyuan Palace, a place that many swordsmen dreamed of. How could there be nothing here? He must have missed something.

Suddenly, he seemed to remember something, so he returned to where he had first arrived on the island. The blue crocodile saw him and immediately swam excitedly toward him, but the fog enveloped it again.

Looking at the scene before him, the blue-snouted crocodile understood that the creature seemed to want it to take him around the island, otherwise it wouldn't give it the thing that could make it stronger.

It was furious that the creature in front of it had lied to it.

But in order to become stronger, to become the leader, to be able to bask in the sun all over its body, and to live a life with women on both sides, it endured it.

Shen Xu stood on the blue-snouted crocodile and began to carefully observe the island. Sure enough, he found a dark cave on a cliff face directly behind the island.

He sprang to his feet, stomped the blue-snouted crocodile into the water, and landed on a rock below the cave. The blue-snouted crocodile, seeing Shen Xu's actions, immediately swung its tail and dived into the water, as if there was a creature in the cave that it was terrified of.

Looking up, Shen Xu saw a very ancient tree hanging upside down on the cliff above the cave entrance, with sparse branches and leaves, and a few unripe fruits hanging on it.

"The Shengyuan fruit tree is a wonderful thing! But it doesn't seem to be ripe yet." Shen Xu couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

But now that he's come all this way, he'll definitely want to explore the cave, but not now.

Judging from the blue-snouted crocodile's behavior, he knew that the creatures inside were not to be trifled with. Moreover, he had no idea about the environment and structure of the cave, and it would be easy to suffer if he went in rashly. He needed to wait for the creatures inside to come out and hunt before making any plans.

But he didn't intend to wait in vain. If the monsters inside didn't come out for ten days or half a month, he couldn't stay here for ten days or half a month either, so he could only outsmart them.

Before proceeding, he needed to explore the cave and get a general understanding of its structure. So he began to climb along the protrusions on the cliff wall to the vicinity of the cave. Looking at the few unripe fruits above the cave, Shen Xu couldn't help but sigh inwardly once again.

As wisps of mist drifted into the cave, and he sensed the mist drifting further and further away until it disappeared from his perception, Shen Xu realized that the cave before him might be more complex than he had imagined.

Back on the rocks below the cliff, Shen Xu began to think about how to lure the monster out of the cave.

Considering the various large creatures that have almost disappeared on the island, he could at least know that the creature in the cave must be carnivorous, but he did not smell any blood in the cave, so it was very likely that the monster had swallowed its prey whole.

Given these habits and the fact that it lived in a cave on the cliff, he was almost certain that the creature in the cave was a python.

Since it was a python, Shen Xu came up with a good idea.

This once again attracted the blue-snouted crocodile, which was very wary of the cave in front of him. Shen Xu explained to it that he needed a big fish. Before long, the blue-snouted crocodile brought him a large white fish about one meter long, and then it didn't linger and swam away in a hurry.

Shen Xu hung the large fish, which was still slowly bleeding, on the Shengyuan Fruit Tree above the cave entrance. Then he inserted the sword into the rock wall above the cave entrance and stood on the sword.

At the same time, the dense fog tightly enveloped his entire body, preventing his scent from leaking out and using the fog to lower his body temperature to the same level as the surrounding environment.

Drawing out the Cold Moon, Shen Xu began to wait quietly.

After the sun sets and night falls, the stars and the bright moon take over the sky in the Kunyuan Secret Realm.

Shen Xu was exhausted. His constantly tense nerves made him feel a little dizzy. The blood of the white fish on the tree had already congealed, but his mist still couldn't sense any sign that the python was about to come out.

This made him doubt whether his judgment was correct, but even if the creature in the cave was not a python, but some other creature, it should have come out to take a look at the smell of the white fish's blood, instead of remaining indifferent.

There were still no other creatures in the cave, but the blue-snouted crocodile's behavior didn't seem fake. This put him in a dilemma. He couldn't maintain this extremely tense state indefinitely. If he still hadn't spotted that creature by tonight, he would have to risk venturing into the cave to investigate.

Because he had already wasted too much time in this place, any further delay could disrupt Zuo Chen's plans.

Just then, the mist inside the cave was greatly disturbed, which instantly excited Shen Xu.

The Cold Moon Sword reflected the moonlight, which gave it a chilling gleam that could cut through anything. Wisps of white mist swirled around the Cold Moon Sword, carrying the moonlight and chilling gleam from its blade. In the end, the white waves that surged on the Cold Moon Sword caused the crystalline moonlight to shimmer continuously.

A soft yet rapid rustling sound, like countless tiny grains of sand rubbing against each other, emanated continuously from the depths of the dark cave. It was the sound of scales rubbing against the hard rock walls.

As the eerie sound drew closer to the cave entrance, a colossal python finally revealed itself. The python was over ten meters long, and its body was about a meter wide.

Its entire body was covered with a dense layer of fine, yellow-green scales that shimmered with a cold light in the dim light.

At this moment, the giant python was slightly extending its forked, scarlet tongue, which trembled gently in the air. With each extension and contraction, it could keenly sense the slightest change in its surroundings.

The faint, lingering scent of blood in the air was like an invisible thread, drawing its attention.

The aroma was coming from the cave entrance. After waking up, it smelled the faint fragrance of food. Although it was just a tiny, insignificant scent, it was an irresistible temptation for the hungry creature.

Since it has just digested the food it caught last time, it needs to go out hunting again, so it will naturally accept the food that is offered to it at this time.

As it slowly swam towards the cave entrance, the sight before it instantly ignited a raging storm of anger within its previously calm heart.

Its most prized fruit tree had been destroyed! A dead fish was hanging on its most beloved fruit tree. It didn't understand why the fish was on its tree, but it couldn't tolerate the dead fish continuing to hang there.

So it quickly twisted its body and came to the cave entrance, opening its blood-red mouth, ready to pull the dead fish down from its fruit tree.

But the moment it opened its mouth, a tremendous energy, accompanied by a dazzling white light, surged down from above like a tidal wave.

Along with this energy came a piercing, excruciating pain. In an instant, the giant python felt the world spinning around it, and its vision blurred.

Immediately afterwards, its consciousness was as if it had been ruthlessly dragged into an endless abyss of darkness...

Late at night, only a few Sword Alliance disciples from the Sword Selection were in front of the Shadow Stone Wall on Tianjian Mountain. They had to pay close attention to the images on the Shadow Stone Wall so as not to miss any exciting scenes.

"Those of us responsible for recording things late at night are the worst off. We don't get a chance to record any exciting scenes, so our rewards are pitifully small," a Sword Alliance disciple yawned.

“Who says otherwise!” Another Sword Alliance disciple yawned as well.

Just as they were yawning, the Shadow Stone Wall suddenly shone brightly, instantly energizing the two staff members.

In the pitch-black night, a bright moon hangs high in the sky, its cool light spilling onto the earth like a veil.

In this eerily quiet darkness, a black-robed demon appeared particularly ferocious in the moonlight.

He stood firmly on a sword deeply embedded in a hard rock wall, the longsword he gripped tightly gleaming with a cold light. The white waves surging on the sword were occasionally shimmered with the crystalline light of the moon, like mysterious runes dancing.

However, at this seemingly peaceful moment, an enormous, blood-red maw suddenly emerged from the darkness without warning and bit down on the evil spirit with lightning speed!

With this sudden attack, a dazzling white moonlight suddenly shone, like a white lightning bolt piercing the night sky, instantly illuminating the entire cliff face and the large expanse of blue lake below as bright as day.

The intense light made everything around them clearly visible, leaving nothing to hide.

As the blinding white light gradually dissipated, the two saw wood chips mixed with blood splattering in the moonlight, while the black-robed figure disappeared into the darkness.

A Sword Alliance disciple excitedly questioned, "Who was it that said there were no big scenes late at night?!"

"It's that evil spirit again! Doesn't it ever rest?! It's occupied the screen wall three times today alone, it's inhuman!"