Chapter Thirty: Fainting

After merging with the warriors of the Qingyi tribe, the speed of the procession increased significantly. The Qingyi warriors were born with extraordinary talents, moving through the jungle as if it were their home; even the wildest, most primitive forests seemed to them like broad highways. The shamans of Qingyi were adept at communicating with the myriad spirits and monsters inhabiting the woods, skilled in dispelling miasmas and poisons, their abilities invaluable within the forest.

The two hundred warriors brought by Qingying were all elite members of Qingyi. With them scouting ahead, the group encountered no further trouble.

With a long cry, Qingying swung from a hanging vine, tracing an arc through the air and swiftly overtaking the procession. In just a few leaps, he landed atop a giant tree several miles ahead. Nimbly, he snatched a few eggs from a bird’s nest, cracked them open, and swallowed the contents. Satisfied, he wiped his mouth and, agile as a monkey, tumbled silently back, landing beside Ji Hao. Tossing two eggs into Ji Hao's arms, Qingying slapped him heartily on the shoulder.

“Hey, Hao, don’t be so gloomy. Why are you always sitting here? You don’t act like a young man at all—more like one of those elders from the tribe. Want to wander around and have some fun with your uncle? Look, there’s a nest of iron-beaked parrots over there!”

Suddenly excited, Qingying shouted, pointing energetically to a towering ancient tree miles away. Ji Hao had barely turned his gaze when Qingying drew his longbow and fired an arrow. With a sharp whistle, a faint blue wind-shadow flashed behind Qingying, vague wings beating rapidly within it. The arrow was enveloped in a fine blue gust, shooting several miles in an instant.

Atop the mighty tree, beside a large nest, more than a dozen brilliantly plumed iron-beaked parrots fluttered and chirped melodiously. The arrow arced expertly around the nest, striking all the parrots at once; they shrieked and fell.

“Excellent shot!” Ji Hao was dumbstruck. His eyesight was sharp, and he saw clearly that each parrot was pierced through the eyes, their feathers untouched, all dropping neatly from the sky.

“Of course it’s a good shot!” Qingying boasted, leaping into the air, landing atop a tree a hundred yards away, then darting toward the fallen parrots in a blur of blue. “Hao, your uncle here is the tribe’s number one handsome man, best archer, and the youngest Grand Shaman in Qingyi history!”

Bragging all the while, Qingying hurried to the tree, collecting the fallen parrots. But soon, he was fleeing back in panic, pursued by swarms of dark-faced venom bees.

“Help! Xia, Big Brother, Brother-in-law, save me! Damn those venom bees—building nests in grass, what a nuisance!” Qingying ran, crying out. The venom bees weren’t deadly, but their stings caused unbearable itching, forcing victims to scratch until their flesh came away.

Ji Xia, amused and exasperated, caught Qingying and tossed him into the group. Opening his mouth, he spat a burst of fire, incinerating tens of thousands of bees into ash in an instant.

Still rattled, Qingying plopped down beside Ji Hao, cursing his luck. “What a disaster! Why must I run into those damned things?”

Ji Hao laughed, “Uncle, you’re supposed to be the tribe’s youngest Grand Shaman. How can you be so terrified of a bunch of venom bees?”

Qingying, unfazed, lifted his head toward the red sun and replied, “Of course I’m the youngest Grand Shaman in Qingyi history...just haven’t opened my shaman’s cave yet. But I’m only a step away—I’m already at the peak of the Lesser Shaman stage, alright?”

His shameless antics brought a dash of levity to the otherwise solemn group. Day after day, they traversed the jungle, and with Qingying’s remarkable archery and restless spirit, Ji Hao never lacked fresh prey. Sometimes, Qingying simply couldn’t resist, shooting any suitable game he spotted, while Ji Hao, practicing the Heaven-Mending Art, could absorb as much as he liked.

Their perfect cooperation allowed Ji Hao’s body, nourished by the Heaven-Mending Art, to grow ever stronger. His vital energy surged, and the refinement of his bloodline intensified. Ji Hao’s body, altered by dragon blood, possessed potential rivaling pure dragons, far surpassing ordinary humans. By devouring countless prey, his strength had long exceeded the limits of a warrior at the Shaman stage, but he deliberately suppressed his cultivation, holding it at the eleventh level.

On this day, fifty days had passed since leaving Golden Crow Ridge. Suddenly, several Qingyi warriors dashed back, treading lightly atop the trees.

“Ji Xia, Big Brother, Qingying, Big Brother, Cold Creek Valley is just fifty miles ahead!”

Impatiently plucking his bowstring atop the head mammoth’s tusks, Qingying cheered, darting away in a blur of blue, vanishing within a few leaps. Ji Xia and Qingfu also stood from the mammoth’s back, gazing ahead into the mountains.

Fifty miles—at the mammoth’s pace, they could reach it within an hour. Ji Hao rose and looked forward as well. Cold Creek Valley, the place Ji Shu had deliberately sent his family to; no matter what dangers awaited, Ji Hao was determined to make Ji Shu regret his actions, to let him taste the consequences.

He took a deep breath, smiled at Qingfu, and was about to speak when suddenly a burst of red light erupted from his chest and abdomen. Scorching heat surged from his organs, like a volcanic eruption, fiercely flushing through his meridians, muscles, and bones. Ji Hao spat a stream of burning blood, reached blindly for Qingfu, and collapsed as darkness overtook him.

The beast hide armor on Ji Hao was incinerated, revealing his lean, upright frame. On his smooth skin, dozens of twisted blood-red runes flickered rapidly, then began to break apart and vanish.

Qingfu and Ji Xia cried out together, “The seal laid by Shaman Ji Kui has collapsed? But didn’t he say Ji Hao would need at least the peak strength of the Lesser Shaman stage before the seal runes would gradually unlock?”

Countless visions flickered before Ji Hao’s eyes, a buzzing in his ears blocking all outside sounds.

Within his soul space, the shadow’s voice rumbled, “Hmm? Grand Shaman blood? Hmm, little one, those you call father and mother—they truly care for you... such bonds, how enviable!”