~GROAN~
A groan of pain was heard in what looked like an empty cavern.
The only other sound that could be heard was that of a small stream that passed through it.
There was barely any light here and the little illumination that did exist came from the fine glowing moss that grew on the ground.
"Ugh! My shoulder…" A proper voice was heard this time, belonging to a young man.
If one looked carefully, they would see a person lying face down, a short distance away from the small stream. His body was riddled with injuries and the clothes he was wearing were tattered, almost turning to shreds.
The worst injury though, was on the man's shoulder where golden bones could be seen peeking out from the flesh. And not just a that, a fine crack could even be seen on the golden scapula.
"HAAA!" Lin Mu let out a grunt and made himself turn to his side.
He stayed in that position for a minute, before mustering more strength to make himself sit up.
"UGH! Where am I?" Lin Mu said with a grunt and winced in pain.
He opened his eyes but could barely see anything in the area. Other than the faint light coming from the moss that reflected off the small stream, there was little to see. This was strange to Lin Mu since he knew with his enhanced senses he should be able to see in this level of light far more clearly.
Unable to see anything or anyone, Lin Mu decided to focus on himself first.
"I need to treat my injuries… this is the first time I've gotten this injured after cultivating the True Gold Body Forging Arts." Lin Mu said to himself.
He was about to use his spirit sense to check when he realized that he was unable to.
"Huh? Why's my spirit sense not working?" Lin Mu was confused.
He tried to extend it from his body when he realized it simply did not leave the confines of it. Furrowing his brows, he tested it a little more and discovered something more.
'It works fine inside my body at least… still, this is too strange.' Lin Mu thought.
He went ahead and scanned his own body, only to find out the vast amount of injuries that he had.
"How did I end up like this?" Lin Mu questioned, unable to remember much.
"No wait! What was I even doing before this?" Lin Mu tried to recall, only to feel a headache.
He didn't give up though and started from the next closest memory he had.
'Senior Xukong intervened and killed the immortal skeleton. Then Gu Yao… UGH!' Lin Mu winced in pain once more, but this time, the memories started to return.
He recalled activating the Ancestral Bell forcefully with the ring and opening a spatial portal before pushing Gu Yao into it along with himself.
And just as he did this, he felt the remaining memories appearing as well.
…
"You will die too if you do this! And you still dare to do it!?" Gu Yao shouted while hammering away at Lin Mu.
"Doesn't matter to me! You will die regardless!" Lin Mu shouted and held Gu Yao in his grip.
The two of them were moving at a great speed. And looking around, one could see streaks of light passing by like blurs. There were also strong spatial fluctuations all around them, but they were kept in place by what looked like a thin membrane.
Gu Yao paused for a moment and looked around, finding a strange energy around him.
"DID YOU JUST PUSH ME INTO THE GREATER VOID!?" Gu Yao realized, as an expression of fear appeared on his face.
"I have no idea which layer of the void we are in." Lin Mu said, much to the man's irritation.
But all this was merely Lin Mu buying time so that he could figure out his next step. Gu Yao's attacks were certainly doing damage to his body, especially since the man was rather strong after having been revivied by the invader's power.
Lin Mu could easily estimate that Gu Yao now had the strength of an Immortal Ascension realm expert at the very least. If it were not for the fact that his body was very durable, he would have been unable to live under the constant attacks.
But while doing this, Lin Mu finally had an idea.
"HIYA!" Lin Mu twisted his body and turned to the side.
It was very difficult due to being in motion and that too at a great speed, but he still did it.
"NO!" Gu Yao saw what Lin Mu was intending to do and shouted out in fear.
"HA!" But Lin Mu didn't care for the man's thoughts and kicked him in the chest with all his might, sending him flying to the other side.
"CURSE YOU!!!" Gu Yao shouted as his body was flung aside.
It flew a short distance before finally hitting the thin membrane that was surrounding the spatial channel that they were traveling through.
Unfortunately for Gu Yao, touching the membrane meant that his body now needed to bear the full brunt of the spatial energy of the void.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" An ear piercing cry was heard as Gu Yao's body literally started being shredded against the spatial energy outside the membrane.
It was as if a man was being pushed against a wall while being hung out of a train's window. His skin and flesh were grated against it and turned into a paste before finally turning into fine motes of molecules that were neither flesh nor Qi.
This was the last scene Lin Mu saw before he fainted, unable to bear his exhaustion. Not only was his vital energy drained from using the Burning Heart Sutra and being in the Demonic form, but forcefully controlling the Ancestral Bell and opening the spatial portal had consumed a significant portion of his spirit Qi as well.
It was only through sheer will that he had been able to push away Gu Yao.
His eyes closed and when they opened, he found himself in this dark cavern.
"That was… really risky…" Lin Mu muttered to himself as he recalled everything.
Still, it was a risk that he was willing to take and would never regret. Because if he had hesitated, Gu Yao and the invader could have very well escaped and hid in the Xiaofan world.
And while Lin Mu and the rest might have been able to find them eventually, they didn't need to hide for long. After all, the goal of the Invader was to absorb the core energy of the Xiaofan world.
With the power that it had, even if it was injured by Xukong it only needed a few days to recover it all and even go beyond. But by that time, all would be lost and the Xiaofan world would start to break down in its entirety.
Lin Mu certainly couldn't allow that to happen.
~Sigh~
"At least it's over…" Lin Mu said to himself.
Having understood his situation, Lin Mu first decided to heal himself. He had a lot of injuries that needed to be cared for and even his spirit Qi was lacking right now.
"At least there is spirit Qi here…" Lin Mu said with a little relief in his voice.
He sat in a cross-legged posture and started to absorb the spirit Qi around him. At the same time, he took out all the remaining healing pills he had in the ring and ate them all.
Lin Mu sat in that position for a few days, while his body healed slowly. Even cultivating took longer for him due to the injuries to his meridians. He had greatly strained them during the battle and not even realized it.
Thankfully, the damage was not something permanent and would heal on its own with enough time.
At a certain point, Lin Mu felt like he had healed enough and decided to move around.
'I have about half my usual spirit Qi stores…' Lin Mu checked.
While it was not optimal, it was enough for him to defend himself. Additionally, the injuries on his body had mostly healed, except the one in his shoulder. The flesh itself had healed, and the skin had regrown, but the bones underneath it would take longer to heal.
This was the side effect of the True Gold Body Forging Arts that Lin Mu only discovered now. While it would make one's body extremely tough and dense, it also made it so that it was harder to heal the bones once they actually broke.
Lin Mu was still in the advantage here though with his bloodline of the Great Slumber bear silently promoting his natural healing ability.
But there was still the issue of his spirit sense being restricted.
"I can barely scan an area of ten meters ahead of me…" Lin Mu estimated.
While he wasn't completely in the blind like before, and the spirit sense did extend outside his body, it was nowhere close to his range from before.
Lin Mu didn't know if it was because he was still injured or there was something else. But he knew that he needed to explore more to figure out why.
'Senior Xukong will also not be able to help me for a while…' Lin Mu didn't forget.
Xukong had already warned him that once he intervened, his avatar will be forced to enter a dormant state to recover.
Now Lin Mu needed to understand his situation without the guidance of his master.
