Read Rise Of The Worm Sovereign Chapter 411 - Over Ten Thousand Years Old? online for free - AllNovelFull
Looking at the locks, Lin Wu smirked.
Of course, these locks were nothing for Lin Wu, though he didn't break them right away. Instead, he made a small hole with his tail and peeked into them only to find out that they were filled with treasures!
"Goddamn! There's a lot of stuff here." Lin Wu exclaimed before breaking down the doors.
In total, there were seven such storage rooms here and all of them had mixed items. They were chiefly composed of spirit stones, spirit weapons, spirit tools, talismans, formation plates, spirit herbs and many more things that a cultivator would like.
There were a lot of things that even Lin Wu could use at his current level and stored them away. Though the last room that he went to, Lin Wu left locked. This was the one he was intending to leave for Shirong.
"Gotta leave him something so that he doesn't suspect." Lin Wu stated before getting back out.
Even if Lin Wu had pretty much decided to leave Shirong by now, he wasn't going to let go of him as a pawn. He still had a few uses that might come in handy later, and his clan was another point that was important.
With the increase in Lin Wu's cultivation and skill, he no longer needed to follow his initial plans. The Taiji Celestial's tomb and even the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle were impregnation factors that led to this change.
The Taiji Celstial's tomb gave him the baseline to maintain while the journey with the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle gave him more opportunities and knowledge that expanded his borders. Lin Wu was sure if he had not become a spear for Shirong, he would not have had opportunities like this.
With all that done, Lin Wu left the underground area and covered the entrance with a large rock.
'If they can come here, then that must mean there is a different way of entry to the ruins. Can't risk someone else coming here and spoiling my set up.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
He also wondered who could be behind the murder of Ji Quan and the other members of his team. The most likely answer was the followers of the Skull god since they were looking for the bloodline crystals of the vermilion bird, but he didn't know for sure.
"Are there other keys for entry to these ruins, perhaps? The stone feathers might be for the most important part of the ruins, the hall with the essence of blood and it also allowed us to access the rest of the parts.
Maybe the Stone feathers were the master key and there are some smaller keys of the lower ranked areas?" Lin Wu muttered to himself.
He moved around looking for things but could not find any more useful items. A lot of the items were either destroyed or the halls that Lin Wu was able to access were empty.
"Hmm… there are clear signs of a human presence here…" Lin Wu said upon seeing the handprints on the walls.
Because of the dust, it was easy to see them.
"But why are there no footprints?" Lin Wu questioned, but then a few seconds later he got the answer himself.
"Ah! Of course, the dust would settle on the ground much easier than the walls. Ji Quan was killed about ten months ago and that should have been enough to cover the floor but not the walls.
Plus, the door of this hall was closed since then, so no new dust could enter this hall either." Lin Wu answered.
Lin Wu decided he was done looking at the left side and then went to the right side of the main hall. This time, he ended up in a slightly different area. The buildings here were far smaller than the ones on the left side and looked to be more of the residential type.
Lin Wu could see what were obviously living courtyards that were arranged in a uniform manner. There were rows upon rows of them, but even these were mostly destroyed. Lin Wu didn't really find anything of particular importance here.
He did end up finding some tattered paintings and scrolls, but they were far too damaged to make out anything. Even the system was helpless here and couldn't gather any reasonable data from the things.
"Hang on, system can you estimate how old these things are, maybe?" Lin Wu questioned.
~Ding~
——
ANALYZING: Please wait a moment
ANALYSIS COMPLETED: Estimated age of documents ~10,511 years
——
"Holy Shit! Now that's old…" Lin Wu said upon seeing the number.
"Wait, a minute… doesn't this coincide with the story of the Three Guardian beasts. They appeared ten thousand years ago and these documents are a little older than that. Even if the age varies by about 500 years, I think it should be the same time period." Lin Wu analyzed.
The more Lin Wu thought about it, the more he found it to be right. But there were still a lot of questions that were left unanswered. He didn't know how or why only three of the Guardian beasts were awakened and why they looked different from the actual guardian beasts that Lin Wu knew off.
'This only gets more and more complex huh… but also interesting at the same time…' Lin Wu thought to himself.
After another hour, Lin Wu was done searching through the right part of the ruins. He had gone all the way to the border of it and even there nothing was present. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that most of what was left was already taken by him.
It had simply been too long that a lot of things had deteriorated and thus not much was left to obtain.
"Can't say I didn't get anything. Even the much is enough…" Lin Wu muttered to himself as he returned to the main hall.
There he saw that the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle was still deep in slumber. Unlike before, Lin Wu could not sense any change in her and neither could he probe her body.
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Lin Wu tried to get closer to the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle, but felt the air heat up.
"Whoa there! It's me Lin Wu," Lin Wu spoke up.
But even after a minute, he revived no answer. Furrowing his brows, he tried to get a better sense of the situation. Since the system couldn't do much and his spirit sense was suppressed as well, Lin Wu chose the final option that he had.
"Alrighty! Radiation perception… ON!" Lin Wu said as his eyes glowed with a very chunni look.
Upon doing this, he could see a thick layer of thermal radiation surrounding the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle. It was very dense around her body and the body itself was glowing like the sun under a thermal scanner.
It was fully white and looking at it hurt Lin Wu's eyes. He quickly stopped using the skill and realized what it was, probably.
"This must be a defensive instinct automatically activated by the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle due to her bloodline. The air around her is hot enough to melt steel and even rocks. I don't even know what would happen to those that touch." Lin Wu said to himself.
Though, just wanting to test it out, Lin Wu picked up a small stone pebble from the ground and lightly threw it near the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle, making sure that it didn't hit the beast itself.
~poof~
The pebbled didn't even hit the ground before it was heated up, melted and reduced to ash that blew away. All that happens in less than two seconds and was very shocking to Lin Wu.
~phew~
"Good thing I didn't go closer or my crystal body would have probably cracked due to the heat or worse… melted." Lin Wu muttered to himself after taking a breath of relief.
Putting some more distance between them, Lin Wu observed the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle for a minute before deciding to do something else.
"Let's get Shirong all sorted out, shall we?" Lin Wu said to himself before heading out.
The way he was going to was exactly the opposite of the entrant of the main hall. Shirong was trapped between the outer two barriers and according to the data that the system was currently showing him, he was completely fine.
Though due to the interference, the system hadn't been able to fully update the data for Shirong and he would have to get closer to know what actually happened to him.
'At least he's alive.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
Lin Wu crossed ten barriers before reaching the third barrier of the ruins. From here, he could see out, but others could not see in. This was the way these barriers were designed, the inner part of the barriers was hidden and its size could not be estimated.
In a way, it was ingenious as that meant that if someone managed to get through the first couple of layers, they would keep on wandering around trying to get to the next part, or just think this was the last area and leave.
It was a good attempt at misdirection, to be honest and Lin Wu added that to his list of tricks… or rather the system did. Lin Wu even wondered if the area that Ji Quan was accessed in a similar way. The intruders might have entered behind Ji Quan or vice a versa and Ji Quan ended up dying somehow.
Though the question still existed, how did Ji Quan die, and if the intruders did it, why did they leave behind his corpses?
Though them not having any items on them also hinted to the fact that their corpses had been robbed, perhaps.
Converging his thoughts for now, Lin Wu decided to leave it all to Shirong for now and let him figure things out. He looked at the area where Shirong was trapped and saw him sitting cross legged. His eyes were closed and spirit Qi steadily flowed around him.
"Huh… so he's been cultivating all this time. Maybe he doesn't even realize it's been over two months now…" Lin Wu spoke.
Lin Wu had seen Shirong cultivating for a month as if it was nothing before at the Deer Wood city. Just another month extra was probably nothing to him at this point. Seeing this, Lin Wu went over his plan and shrunk down his body to the smallest size he could reach.
Then he drilled into the ground and went to the spot where he had put the replacement for himself. It was a fake spear, made in the same shape as him and would emit similar spirit Qi fluctuations as well.
Overall, it was a good decoy and was something Lin Wu was intending to make use of further… albeit with some modifications and improvements.
"Here we go… time to act," Lin Wu muttered to himself as he touched the decoy from the bottom and absorbed it into his body while replacing it exactly with himself.
~shua~
Shirong, who had been dormant all this time, opened his eyes upon sensing the fluctuations coming from the front.
"So you are ready…" Shirong said in a low voice.
~humm~
Just as he said that, the Immortal Crystal Armament that had been embedded in the ground rose up automatically and glowed, as if beckoning to him. A smile appeared on Shirong's face as he stood up to grasp it.
~Crack~
Shirong's Knuckles cracked as he clasped his fingers around the handle of the Immortal Crystal Armament.
'Feels nice…' Shirong thought.
~Huala~
In the next moment, the barrier in front of him opened up like a curtain, allowing him to see beyond it.
"Perfect!" Shirong said upon seeing this and stepped into the next layer.
There, he saw another barrier in the front and furrowed his brows. He walked up to the barrier and placed his hand against it.
~flickered~
The Barrier flickered against his hand but did not let him in.
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Shirong stood in front of the Fourth Barrier and furrowed his brows.
"Huh… so it took the Immortal Crystal Armament a month to disable just one of the barriers…" Shirong muttered to himself. "No… wait. That's not it, this barrier is stronger than before." He added, after noticing the thickness of the barrier and the complexity of the runes.
'Seems like each layer is different and will take longer for the Immortal Crystal Armament to unravel it.' Shirong thought.
After pensively staring at the barrier for a minute, Shirong shook his head.
"So what if it takes even longer for the Immortal Crystal Armament to unravel the next layer? I got plenty of time!" Shirong said with determination.
"But… there are more places to explore at least." Shirong said while looking to his right and left.
Since the layers of the barriers were set up in a circular shape, one could go around it freely once they entered it. And Shirong was in the third layer, right where the corpse of Ji Quan was located, albeit a bit far from where Shirong was.
Shirong looked to the right and then to the left, before finally deciding to go right.
"Ah, I thought he would go to the left. Never mind, I'll let him explore for a bit while I read the information analyzed by the system." Lin Wu decided.
And so, Shirong spent over ten hours checking out all the ruined courtyards on the right side of the ruins. He was curious about the scrolls and paintings in there as well and wondered if there were useful items in there.
But eventually, he gave up after nothing of importance was found. He kept on going and circled around to the left side, where the corpse of Ji Quan was located.
"Ah, finally he went in the right direction!" Lin Wu said upon noticing where Shirong was.
Two hours later, Shirong made his way to the location where Ji Quan's corpse was located, or more accurately, the blocked entrance. Lin Wu had intentionally made it look a bit suspicious and Shirong caught on to it as well.
"What's this?" Shirong muttered.
His spirit sense probed the rock and went below it, only to find the entrance to the lower area.
"Huh? A basement?" Shirong said upon his discovery.
~Boom~
He lifted the Immortal Crystal Armament and slammed it on the boulder, blocking the entrance, shattering it as if it were chalk.
~scatter~
The pieces of the boulder scattered all around and the entrance was finally revealed to the man. He furrowed his brows and waved his hands to produce a few orbs of light around him. They floated around him as he walked further into the basement.
But once he reached the bottom, his eyes went wide.
"FIFTH UNCLE!" Shirong yelled, nervousness apparent in his voice.
While he had already known that his Fifth uncle was dead, he had not expected to truly find his dead body. He had mostly thought that his dead body would have been destroyed /eaten /burned or the n-number of things that happened to cultivators that died out in the wild.
But what was more surprising to him was that the body of Ji Quan was whole and undamaged. No injuries could be seen on his body and neither were there any signs of decomposition, which was not that unusual as the body of a Nascent Soul realm cultivator that died before his longevity was over could maintain it for over many years.
Plus, Ji Quan wasn't originally a Nascent Soul realm cultivator either, he was a Dao Shell realm cultivator!
The only thing was that he had damaged his foundation due to an injury sustained during his youth and ended up with a weakened cultivation base. Despite that, he was still at the Adult Stage of the Nascent Soul realm.
"Who… no, what did this?" Shirong questioned, seeing the stage of his uncle's body.
He let his gaze wander and saw the other corpses, some of which were intact while some that were mere skeletons. Seeing the different ways that these people had died, a few hypotheses appeared in his mind.
"No, I need to get more information…" Shirong said while shaking his head.
He first put the body of his uncle in the spatial storage ring and then went to check up on the rest of the corpses. He took his fair time in checking the corpses in detail, not letting out even a little chance of mistake.
After two hours, Shirong was finally done and had a tense expression on his face.
"Spirit Qi depletion? In a place like this… it can't be done normally and will need a very unique technique or formation to do so. Hmm… there are no traces of formation around here; that leaves a Qi skill or maybe even a cultivation technique." Shirong analyzed.
Lin Wu who had been observing him from the start, was rather impressed.
"He actually managed to reach the same conclusion as the system." Lin Wu muttered as he continued to observe the man. 'Wonder how long he'll take to check the locked room.'
Just as Lin Wu thought of this, the man looked at the depths of the underground hall and waved his hand, sending out the orbs of light to the ends. The light spread around, revealing the multiple rooms that were located here.
Six of the rooms were already opened, but a single one was closed. Shirong gazed at the empty rooms but did not pay much attention. He had already seen the other ruined courtyards and thought that this was the same.
But when he got to the locked room, his opinion changed.
"Huh? Spirit Qi?" Shirong said upon sensing a very faint spirit Qi wisp.
This was intentionally made by Lin Wu as he had left a small hole in the door. It let out the spirit Qi contained within the room and allowed Shirong to sense it.
~whoosh~
Shirong pushed with his hand and wind attribute spirit Qi swirled bound it. The spirit Qi formed into a gale that then pushed through the locked door.
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~CRACK~
The locking mechanism of the door broke apart as the force of the wind reached a peak.
~DENG~
The doors were opened with a bang and a wave of spirit Qi hit Shirong's face. There he saw all the treasures that were lying in the room. If it was any normal cultivator, their eyes would have glowed with excitement, but instead of that, Shirong became wary.
"Is this safe…" Shirong muttered to himself.
"Ugh! Just go in, I've already verified everything." Lin Wu said, but Shirong could not hear it, of course.
The man assessed the room for a bit before coming to the conclusion that it truly was safe for the taking.
~phew~
"At least this was not all loss. But seeing as there are other rooms empty, uncle Quan was likely killed by either some trap that laid in there, or the other party that came in. Seeing as they have no personal items on them, they were definitely robbed postmortem." Shirong said.
He stored all the treasures in the spatial storage treasure before collecting the rest of the corpses. He was going to let his clan assess them once he got back.
"I best get back to the clan. There are far too many uncertainties here. Besides… my mission is already complete." Shirong said to himself.
But just as he stepped out of the underground hall, he heard a loud sound.
~BOOM~
"AHAHAHA! THE BARRIER THAT STOOD FOR CENTURIES HAS FINALLY FALLEN!"
"THE WILL OF THE SKULL GOD SHALL BE FINALLY FULFILLED!"
"GLORY TO THE SKULL GOD!"
"MAY THE SKULL GOD REIGN ETERNAL!"
Multiple shouts and cheers came from the distance after the explosion.
~shua~shua~shua~
The three layers of the barrier that surrounded the ruins suddenly started to retract at a rapid pace.
"What in the name of…" Shirong said as he saw the barrier fade away into nothing.
~whoosh~
Wind could be heard as a group of men in strange garbs flew in from the south.
"Followers of the Skull God!" Lin Wu and Shirong both said at the same time.
Twelve Hours Ago.
Two men in strange garbs who were none other than the follower of the skull god had been sitting on top of a small hill. They had been skillfully hiding between a cleft that was naturally created at the edge.
From here they were gazing at what were ancient ruins. These were the same ruins where Lin Wu and the eagle beast were currently in.
~shua~
"What was that!" One of the men was startled by a noise.
"It came from the ruins!" the other man said.
They looked at the ruins but could not see anything different around it. The barriers of the ruin extended quite far up in the sky such that the top was even hidden by the clouds themselves.
Thus, when Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle descended on the platform, they were not seen by anyone else. But the noise caused by them was still enough to attract the attention of a few people.
"Quick, we need to inform the priest! We were told to report everything that happened here, no matter how small." The other man said.
They then took out a jade slip and sent a message to their superior. Once that was done they took a breath of relief and kept on observing the ruins.
"Hey, what do you think must have happened?" one of the men questioned.
"It can be anything. I remember the high priest said before that this is the place the Skull god has been desiring for a long time, but it was hidden away for centuries. Only when those people came here ten months ago did this truly appear.
At least now we can see the outer area of the ruins, previously the barrier was too strong and could hide everything behind it. If a change similar to back then is happening, then it must be the barrier weakening due to the influence of the great skull god!" the second man said, fervor present in his eyes.
"Praise to the Skull god! With him guiding us, we shall reach the peak of the world!" The first man said proudly.
The two of them waited for about an hour before the sound of wind blowing could be heard. The two men immediately became alert and looked to the west.
"They're here!" The two men said in unison.
From the distance, over five hundred men in strange grabs were flying towards the hill. All of them were exuding spirit Qi fluctuations which showed that each of them was a cultivator.
But that was not all as there were multiple Nascent Soul realm spirit Qi signatures in them, along with even more core condensation realm signatures. Along with this, several strange beasts were running on the ground as well.
These beasts had plain white mask-like heads. They were nothing other than the specter skull hounds. Though the strongest spirit Qi fluctuation was coming from none other than the person who was in the front.
It was a boy that looked to be no less than ten years old. But he had a crooked expression on his face and black smoke constantly emanated from his eyes. If one looked at his hands, one would find that he had seven fingers on each hand along with nails that were at least three inches long.
The boy seemed more like a demon rather than a human at this moment. A minute later, the large group came to land in front of the two men.
~thud~ thud~
The two men instantly kneeled on the ground upon seeing the boy.
"Glory to the Prophet! Glory to the Prophet!" The two men greeted.
"Speak…" The boy said in a raspy voice, that strangely echoed in one's head.
"The ruins. We felt a strong wave of energy coming from it a while ago. We think that there might be a change similar to before happening there." The two men spoke.
"Hmm… very well… Head out!" The boy ordered.
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Present time.
Shirong and Lin Wu watched on as what was basically an army of the followers of Skull god arrived. The barriers that surrounded the ruins were being dispelled with strange spirit tools that the followers were using.
There were a few of the followers that were carrying incense burners in their hands. These burners let out smoke that spread around and whenever it touched the barrier, it would start to weaken it before it eventually got dispelled.
They had already dispelled the outer two layers that were the weakest and now were heading to the third one.
"Dammit, what are they doing here and how did they get in?" Shirong couldn't help but curse.
He hid in a collapsed building for a bit to assess the situation. He could already feel the multiple strong spirit Qi fluctuations that were coming from the small army and knew that there were multiple Nascent Soul realm cultivators mixed in them.
"Head to the old location where we were last pushed out!" A voice suddenly ordered.
"Hahaha! I'll finally get to sacrifice that man's corpse to the Skull god! Filthy imbecile tried to oppose us, the followers of the great Skull god!" A Nascent Soul realm cultivator shouted as he flew towards the direction of the place where Ji Quan and other corpses were lying before.
Shirong was hiding nearby and had heard their words clearly. They were enough to infuriate him, and he gritted his teeth in anger.
"You… you all really were the ones who killed Uncle Quan… you shall suffer for this…" Shirong said to himself in a low voice.
While the man was angry, he knew better than to rush out. If he wanted to defeat all of them, a fight due to blind range was not the way. Rather than that, he needed to strategize and find a way to get rid of them without him getting into harm too much.
It was going to be a tough job and will need a lot of thinking for him to do.
"Ugh! If that doesn't work, I'll just escape. Let's see how they fare after offending the entire Ji clan!" Shirong said.
Lin Wu who was hearing it all, also understood that this was a rather strange situation that neither of them had expected.
'So it really was the follower of the Skull god that killed Ji Quan. The only question is though… how did they get in?' Lin Wu wondered.
He knew the stone feathers were basically the key to the central area of the ruins and if one arrived using the platform, it was basically the same as them getting the master key.
"There may be other keys for the different barriers perhaps. Or… they may have used the same method that they are using now." Lin Wu said before using radiation perception. "That smoke is strange…"
Lin Wu couldn't see the smoke and it appeared as a glob in his vision. It kept on changing and spirit Qi behaved rather strangely with it. It was as if the smoke was alive and wiggled around.
"System can you scan?" Lin Wu questioned.
"Negative." The system responded.
~Sigh~
"Will need to think of something else." Lin Wu muttered to himself.
He then spread his spirit sense and did a quick scan himself, trying to see how many people were here and what their cultivation bases were. In less than a minute, an estimated formed in his mind and he furrowed his brows.
"Forty three Nascent Soul realm cultivators, one hundred and sixteen Core condensation realm cultivators, three hundred and eight Qi refining realm cultivators… and one Dao Shell realm cultivator." Lin Wu calculated quickly.
While Lin Wu was not worried about the core condensation realm cultivators and the Qi refining realm cultivators, what he was worried about were the 43 Nascent Soul realm cultivators that were spread around.
He would have been fine it was ten or even twenty such Nascent Soul realm cultivators but 43? Even Lin Wu would have to be very cautious with them.
'Thankfully, only five of them are actually at the Adult stage of the Nascent Soul realm… And one of them is heading right this way.' Lin Wu observed.
The single Dao Shell realm cultivator that Lin Wu had sensed, seemed to be the strangest of them all. Lin Wu's spirit sense could feel the cultivator's spirit Qi fluctuations, but his body was shrouded in a strange inviable layer that muffled his spirit sense.
Lin Wu feared that if it got too close, the man might detect him. Plus, the man was far too unusual to him and gave weird vibes to Lin Wu.
"Might just be one of the creepiest dudes I've sensed till now… and I haven't even seen how he looks till now." Lin Wu muttered to himself.
Seeing this all, there was one thing Lin Wu knew for sure. Fighting them all alone would not be possible for him, and neither would it be possible with Shirong. Even if they were able to kill a majority of them, the Dao Shell realm cultivator would still be a major problem.
~Sigh~
"I'm gonna need the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle here. Only she would be able to handle the Dao Shell realm cultivator." Lin Wu said in his mind.
He looked in the direction of the innermost layer where the main hall was located and could not see any change there.
'Hopefully, she'll wake up from all this commotion soon. She doesn't like being woken up from sleep anyway and should slaughter them all before asking questions.' Lin Wu thought.
While Lin Wu was thinking all this and Shirong was observing and making plans of his own, the followers of the Skull god had reached the area where Ji Quan's corpse once laid.
"Huh? THE CORPSES ARE GONE!" one of the followers shouted from the inside.
"There are signs of someone entering and they seem recent! Look at the dust prints!" A more clever follower analyzed.
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The Nascent Soul realm cultivator that was waiting outside furrowed his eyes and went down to check. After coming to the same conclusion, he had an enraged expression.
"SEARCH THE ENTIRE AREA! WE HAVE A SECOND PARTY IN THE RUINS RIGHT NOW!" The Nascent Soul realm cultivator shouted.
The man's voice echoed in the entire area and reached the ears of all that were in here. Along with his voice, the man also spread out his spirit sense in the ruins, trying to find the 'intruders'.
Shirong became tense and was ready to attack when he felt the spirit Qi coming near him. But just when it was actually about to touch his body, the Immortal Crystal Armament automatically wrapped around him and formed into an armor.
The Spirit sense that touched the surface of the armor slipped off it as if water on Teflon.
~phew~
"Close call…" Lin Wu muttered to himself.
What Lin Wu had just done was to use the traces of unknown energy that were within Shirong's Dantian to form a masking layer. It was the same unknown energy that Lin Wu had used to make the backdrop function and it was now coming in handy.
Although, this ended up depleting a part of it in one go. But now the protection offered by it would last for a while against the spirit sense of others. Lin Wu had not expected it to come in handy right now.
~Howl~
Suddenly, the howl of a beast that was familiar to Lin Wu and Shirong could be heard.
"The Specter Skull Hounds!" Lin Wu recognized.
Lin Wu soon found a couple of Specter Skull Hounds coming towards them.
"Dammit, they can smell him out!" Lin Wu realized.
"There! The Servants of the Skull God have found the intruders! Get them!" The voices of the men could be heard as they found Lin Wu and Shirong's positions.
Shirong narrowed his eyes as a dangerous look appeared on his face.
"So be it! ~Kaboom~" Shirong said before letting out a massive spirit Qi wave.
Lightning gathered around his body before exploding outwards, destroying the ruins that he was hiding in, along with the specter skull hound that had gotten closer.
~thud~
~thud~
~thud~
The debris from the explosion was shot towards the followers of the Skull god as well and managed to injure a few while killing some directly.
"ATTACK! Don't let him escape!" The Nascent Soul realm cultivator, who was near the place where Ji Quan's corpse had been ordered.
~shua~
In the very next second, various attacks were launched towards Shirong. There were flames, weapons, smoke, and shadows coming towards him now, all of them directed toward his vital areas and intending to kill.
"Humph! You dare?" Shirong harrumphed and waved his hands.
Before the attacks could even reach him, dense wind attribute spirit Qi repelled it all away.
"ARGH!"
"DODGE IT!"
The cries of the followers of the skull god were heard as their attacks were sent back to them, injuring them further. The ones that were the weaker ones among them were directly killed.
This single opposition of Shirong had killed nearly thirty of the followers of the skull god. But this was merely a drop in the bucket and there were many more that were now heading in his direction.
Lin Wu let his spirit sense fully flow now that there was no use hiding and directly probed each and every follower of the Skull god that was nearby. Now he could even tell which stage of which cultivation realm they were at, unlike before when he could only tell the realm.
"Man, this does not seem good. They got fifteen Adult stage Nascent Soul realm cultivators already. Gonna be a tough battle…" Lin Wu muttered to himself as he quickly tried to make a plan.
There were a few ideas in his mind and he hoped to be able to defeat all of them, but if that was not possible Lin Wu decided to place his bets on the one person who could do so… the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle.
She was already at the Shell Completion stage of the Dao Shell realm and her cultivation was still increasing due to the bloodline essence she was assimilating. Not to mention the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had already managed to restrain the Dao Treading realm Aquadream Sea Lotus before.
~Ding~
But while Lin Wu was thinking this all, the chime of a bell was heard coming from afar.
~swoosh~
In the next moment, streams of smoke soared through the sky as they attacked the next barrier. There were over a hundred such streams that attacked the barrier and it started to visibly weaken with each passing second.
"How are they doing this? Those barriers are far too strong for even me," Shirong couldn't help but say.
~shing~
And just as this was said, the glint of a weapon was seen from the side by him.
~clang~
Shirong slammed his hand against the spirit sword that had just attacked him. Since he was wearing the Immortal Crystal Armament in an armor form, Shirong was fully protected as of now and even high grade spirit weapons would not be able to do much against him.
"What! How?" Words of surprise could be heard from the old Nascent Soul realm follower that had just attacked Shirong.
Shirong looked at the man and rushed towards him.
"Why don't you test and see yourself!?" Shirong yelled as he punched out.
The gauntlet on his arm glowed with an emerald green light as wind and lighting attribute spirit Qi swirled around it.
Immortal Sky Shaker Art, Crystal Armament: Decimation Fist!
Wind and lightning merged as they formed into a cyclone that shot towards the Nascent Soul realm follower.
~swoosh~
The speed of the attack was far too fast for the old man to dodge and the best he could do was to defend against it. He pulled out six coins and threw them in front of him.
"Prime Coin Hexagram Shield!" The old man chanted.
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The six coins thrown by the Old man reacted to his chant as they started to spin on their own axis before forming into the shape of a hexagram.
~DENG~
As if a hammer had hit a bell, the Prime Coin Hexagram shield was struck. It trembled and looked like it would crack at the moment now. The attack of Shirong was far stronger than the old man had expected.
"HAA! BREAK!" Shirong pushed ahead with his fist and increased the output even more.
Lin Wu did the same, and the amount of spirit Qi within it directly doubled. Plus with the added radiation, the spirit Qi holding the Prime Coin Hexagram shield got unstable. A few seconds later, the shield started flickering and was unable to hold back.
~Crack~
~clang~
~clang~
~clang~
The shield broke apart, and the six coins were blown away, scattering against the ground.
"Aargh!" The old man tried to dodge at the last moment but was still hit on his right arm.
The arm could obviously not bear the attack and was directly reduced to a mush due to the force of the vortex. The radiation mixed in the vortex also penetrated the wounds of the old man, making him suffer even more.
~cough~
The old man spat out more blood as the pain coming from his now gone arm did not stop. He felt as if his insides were busing and an unknown energy coursed through his body.
"What is this… ~cough~ what is in my body?" The old man questioned as he struggled to control himself.
"Die, old man!" Shirong yelled as he sent out another punch.
~boom~
The punch shot through the old man's chest, destroying it completely. The old man's Nascent Soul tried to escape, but the radiation in Lin Wu's spirit Qi was enough to corrode it away and kill it instantly.
The old man could not even let out a voice of protest before his life was ended.
~shua~shua~shua~
But before Shirong could do anything else, wisps of smoke came from behind him. He turned to look and saw that there were over twenty Nascent Soul realm cultivators that had arrived behind him with a lot more core condensation realm cultivators and Qi refining realm cultivators.
Though what caught his attention the most was the child that was floating at the very back. His face and hands looked to be eerie, but the thing that caught his attention the most was the spirit Qi fluctuations coming from him.
"Huh? That child is a Dao Shell realm cultivator? HOW!?" Shirong said in shock.
Lin Wu had a similar reaction but he was not shown outward and was just in his mind.
"That's one creepy kid! I guess that's what they mean by crotch goblins in this world…" Lin Wu said.
While Lin Wu had known that there was a Dao Shell realm cultivator in their midst, he didn't know what he looked like. A seven fingered child with long nails was definitely not something that Lin Wu had expected.
"Oh? Interesting… I didn't expect another person would be able to find the keys of the Ruins of the fallen beast." The chills hoarse voice traveled from the back.
"Yup, definitely creepy." Lin Wu confirmed.
Hearing the child's voice, even Shirong was a bit stunned, but soon understood something.
"It's an old cultivator that has used his Nascent Soul to take over other's body. That is definitely not his original body… and seeing the unusual physique of the child, it is bound to be done using an unorthodox technique… fiendish even." Shirong analyzed quickly.
Unlike most other cultivators, Shirong was from the Ji clan and had a plethora of experience with matters such as this. Not only did he know about the detailed cultivation realms, but he also knew their peculiarities.
From the Nascent Soul realm onwards, even if a cultivator's body was destroyed, they would still be able to live on in the form of their nascent soul. Of course, the nascent soul was not something that could stay stable for long periods without having a vessel.
But getting one was easier said than done. Cultivators often spent long periods of time finding suitable corpses for them to take over, but even then there was the problem of incompatibility.
A corpse that had gotten too old could not be used either and either needed a recently died person or a literally living person. Some cultivators even had secret agreements with unique organizations that could find them compatible bodies.
The clans and sects though, had it a bit easier as they could just pick someone from their descendants. This was another reason why clans often had hundreds if not thousands of descendants and why the clans would not get rid of trash descendants.
What if one day they died, and they needed a body and the trash descendant was the only compatible one?
Plus, there was also the fact that until a person died and their nascent soul was released, they would not be able to fully determine which body would be suitable for them from the very start. Even if they did so and found a compatible body, there was a great chance that it would not be compatible at the moment of their death.
The compatibility of the body could change on various factors and they were far too vast to keep track of by most people.
Shirong now took their entire thing far more seriously than he had till now. The appearance of the child had changed everything for him, it was not just the twenty Nascent Soul realm cultivators and hundreds of other lower ones.
"Surrender and you shall be spared… for now." A Nascent Soul realm cultivator from among the ground spoke.
~flicker~
And just as he said this, another barrier of the ruins started to fade away. Lin Wu and Shirong looked at it feeling surprised that they had managed to get through the fifth barrier as well.
"Well… Fuck!"
Lin Wu now knew for sure that the situation had gone too deep into the negative.
"Seems like normal tactics might not work here anymore…" Lin Wu muttered to himself as he gazed at each and every person in the enemy group trying to come up with a plan.
~shua~
But before he could even think more, he felt the sixth layer of the barrier flicker as well. The smoke that was coming from the incense burners only got stronger and managed to pierce through the barrier, eventually making it disappear.
"Ahahhaa! After all these years, it is finally working! We knew the power of the Skull God would one day come out on top!" A couple of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators from the group spoke.
No one knew, what Shirong was thinking right now, but he suddenly sped ahead towards the group of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators.
The eyes of the cultivators went wide for a moment, as they were surprised by this.
"He dares come straight at us!? Get him!" One of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators yelled.
"He can't think well about himself and surrender. Now he's going to suffer for a long time!" Another Nascent Soul realm cultivator spoke.
~boom~
Shirong stepped on air, creating small explosions wherever his feet struck. The wind attribute spirit Qi coming from the steps shot out in a circular manner and struck the weaker enemies.
"Gah!"
"NOOO!"
"Save me!"
"My legs!"
Varies cries of pain and fear could be heard coming from the Qi refining realm cultivators and even some Core Condensation realm cultivators. Even Shirong's non-offensive moves were enough to hurt the people in one go.
But this was not enough for Shirong as he spun his hands around in a rapid motion.
~Crackle~
~crackle~
~Sizzle~
Lighting arced across his arms as it turned into whips. The gauntlets on his arms elongated and sprouted long spikes, which then turned into segmented sections that were joined by a small crystalline cord.
The crystallized whips were moving around at rapid speeds while spurting lightning from them. Wherever they went, they cleaved through flesh and broke rocks. The structures around them kept on getting more and more damaged until eventually only an area void of anything was left.
The Followers of the Skull god that were in the range were all killed whether they be at the Qi refining realm or the core condensation realm. As for those at the Nascent Soul realm, the two that were closest managed to get maimed as their limbs were cut off.
"Argh!" Various shouts filled with pain could be heard echoing across the ruins.
The Nascent Soul realm cultivators whose limbs had been cut off still managed to retreat, though. Even if they did not have limbs, that didn't really stop them from moving around by just flying.
"Bastards!" Shirong cursed as he felt the drain on his spirit Qi.
While this attack was strong, it also consumed a proportionate amount of spirit Qi from him. Lin Wu was only providing him with thirty percent of the spirit Qi of the total. Though this was not because he was saving and skimping on it, but because he had a bad feeling about it.
"That child… he's the most dangerous one here. He's been staring at us the entire time and not attacking." Lin Wu muttered to himself.
The inaction of the Dao shell realm cultivator was why Lin Wu was limiting his spirit Qi use. He feared that if he used it all up right now, it might become troublesome for him later.
Lin Wu gritted his teeth before finally deciding to use something that he had made a while back, but never got to use.
"System, use the spirit Qi battery protocol." Lin Wu ordered.
~Ding~
——
COMMAND: Accepted
CUSTOM PROTOCOL ONLINE: Spirit Qi Battery protocol.
REROUTING RESOURCES: Internal spirit stone array created
INITIALIZING CIRCUITS: Synchronizing with the subject
INITIALIZATION COMPLETED: Protocol link established
——
"Aha! What…" Shirong grunted
A couple of seconds after Lin Wu gave the order, Shirong suddenly felt his meridians trembling along with his Dantian. Then in the next moment, hundreds of pricks were felt all over his body and made him cry out in pain.
But the pain was only momentary and once it faded away, it was replaced with power, pure unending power!
"What is this?" Shirong looked down at his body.
Small red patterns had appeared at the lower surfaces of the crystal armor, right where it touched his skin. The patterns were a bit vibrant and if one looked closer, they would realize that they were not just static patterns; they were actually flowing.
"Is this… my blood?" Shirong said in shock.
The more his blood circulated among the patterns, the more spirit Qi poured into his body.
'This feeling… it's different… far different from the Immortal Crystal armament's usual infusion of spirit Qi.' Shirong understood.
Instead of the spirit Qi being poured into him, it felt more like his overall capacity had increased. This was different from using spirit stones as well, since the rate of flow was far quicker than that of the spirit stones.
"If this doesn't help him, then nothing will… time to go all out!" Lin Wu said to himself.
Somehow his emotions were transmitted to Shirong due to the new link, and he felt enraged as well. But along with the rage, Shirong had a new kind of an emotion. He felt as if he was being looked down upon by the followers of the Skull god.
He felt as if it was the hugest offense that these people dared to exist in his presence. It was a primal feeling that he could not explain, stemming from deep within his blood.
"HAAAAAAA~!!!!~" Shirong suddenly let out a roar that bordered on beastly.
And along with his roar, a strange screeching sound was also mixed in. The crystal armor on his body glowed in a blinding light as the red eye patterns on the top flared up into a burning red.
~BOOM~
Shirong moved like a bullet as he tore through the troves of followers of the skull god that were heading towards him. Shirong clearing out the surrounding area had given Lin Wu enough time to set this all up and now… they could take full advantage of it.
The child with the seven fingers who was standing at the back widened his eyes upon seeing this.
"Jumping from Infant Soul stage to the Adolescent Soul stage in less than a minute… now this is interstice." The child muttered to himself.
He then looked at his subordinate Nascent Soul realm cultivators, who were all staring in surprise and frowned.
"GO!" He ordered simply.
The Nascent Soul realm cultivators heeded the orders and attacked Shirong together. There were now over twenty Nascent Soul realm cultivators attacking Shirong at the same time.
The only reason why the remaining Nascent Soul realm cultivators did not attack him was because they were busy with something else. There were still streams of smoke attacking the barriers and breaking them.
The followers of the Skull god had progressed another step further and had broken through the seventh barrier now.
Seeing this, even Lin Wu was stunned.
"How the hell are they doing this? Even with the Undaunted Sapphire Body art, it took me ten times as long." Lin Wu couldn't help but question.
His eyes locked on the incense burners that were in the hands of the nascent Soul Realm cultivators. The burners looked rather simple and were fully covered with holes for the smoke to come out.
Lin Wu narrowed his eyes and used his radiation perception to its full potential. The color scale suddenly changed for him and he could see a vast difference now.
The incense burners had a strange flow of spirit Qi around them, which caused the radiation around them to act differently too.
"Those are all spirit tools, that's for sure. But what's inside it… that is definitely not any normal incense as I can't see any heat from it." Lin Wu analyzed.
He then looked at the bodies of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators and saw that their spirit Qi was pouring into the incense burners silently.
"It's a bit different. Using spirit Qi as the fuel makes sense, but what is the actual substance being burned?" Lin Wu wondered, but no matter how much he looked, he could not decipher that.
As for the smoke that came out of it, it looked like a blurry area in his vision. It was obvious that the radiation perception couldn't really work as well on it.
"That smoke had different properties as well." Lin Wu realized.
~Swoosh~
Lin Wu focused back on the attack at hand as he was awakened by the sound of the twenty Nascent Soul realm cultivators coming towards them.
"Well then… time to rumble!" Lin Wu said as Shirong sped forward at the Nascent Soul realm cultivators.
Their small army had various weapons that they were using and all of them were similar to the smoky sword that the first follower of the skull god had used back when Lin Wu met the Silver Beak Sky Soar eagle.
It was evident that each of these weapons had been specially made and had qualities that could even injure Lin Wu's body.
~DENG~
Tens of Weapons hit Shirong at the same time, but were blocked by the armor. But this was intentionally done by Shirong and Lin Wu had a surprise prepared for the others.
~Weeng~
~zap~
The weapons that had attacked them and were in contract with the crystal armor got stuck in them as the armor suddenly morphed in a way that latched onto the weapons.
"Huh? How?"
"What the hell! Let go!"
Voices of protest could be heard as the followers of the skull god tried to pry their weapons free, but failed.
~Crackle~
~zing~
In the next instant, lightning was sent out from the armor and it traveled through the stuck weapons before finally reaching the bodies of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators.
"ARGH!!!"
"NOO! STOP!"
~Sizzle~
The smell of burning flesh could be sensed as the lightning charred the skins of the attackers. The attack was full of lightning attribute spirit Qi, which seemed to be far more effective against the strange murky smoke attacks of the Followers of the skull god.
"That must be the common cultivation technique and skill they use. Since they can also command specter skull hounds and they are of the yin attribute, the extreme yang of the lightning element is the best to deal with it." Lin Wu said.
While this attack had not killed the attackers, it had still managed to stun and paralyze them for a bit. But this was all that was needed for Shirong and Lin Wu to take advantage of.
The armor started to change once again and became a bit more bulky and broad. The process continued at a rapid pace as multiple protrusions rose up from the surface before finally turning into spikes. The spikes were over a meter long each and spaced in an irregular space.
Still, the addition of the spikes was enough to turn Shirong into a spiked ball instead.
Immortal Crystal Armament: Hundred Spike Wrecker!
The spiked ball started to spin as it then trampled over the paralyzed Nascent Soul realm cultivators around it. They couldn't even let out cries as tens of spikes skewered them directly.
Lin Wu and Shirong continued moving without stopping as they mowed through the enemies. The bodies of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators were left stuck on the spikes, but the ball did not stop and kept on rolling.
"SAVE ME!"
"PROPHET SAVE US!"
"O' GREAT SKULL GOD HELP US!"
Cries of mercy and pleading were heard as the spiked ball trampled upon them. Once the Nascent Soul realm cultivators were all stuck to the ball, it moved towards the weaker followers of the skull god.
They all were gathered around, so it made it even easier for Lin Wu to kill them.
"And… STRIKE!" Lin Wu shouted as he mowed down a hundred followers.
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Lin Wu was like a bowling ball as he mowed down the followers of the skull god, like bowling pins.
The more fortunate ones died in a single hit while the unlucky ones were alive even when the spikes pierced their body, leaving them crying in pain and agony. Lin Wu kept on rolling and killing as many as he could right now.
This was not just to reduce the number of people, but actually to obtain the spirit Qi they had. You see, the form Lin Wu had taken was carefully chosen. The spikes allowed him to penetrate their bodies and forcefully drain their spirit Qi and vital energy.
Hundreds of notifications were popping up on the side window for Lin Wu that showed that he had obtained spirit Qi and vital energy.
'There we go killing cannon fodder to restore resources… reminds me of a game I used to play in the past. It involved a lot of killing too…' Lin Wu thought to himself.
"A little background music would help though," Lin Wu said finding it to be a little lacking.
Shirong on the other hand, was as tense as ever looking around hoping that those nascent Soul realm cultivators were dead. While they had managed to catch them off guard, he did not know if it really worked or not.
His spirit sense spread and checked the bodies of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators, discovering that ten out of all had been killed. Though he did not know if their Nascent Souls were still alive or not.
"Good, fourteen down, twenty nine to go…" Shirong said with a little grin.
~shua~
But just before they could continue on anymore, a strong beam of energy hit them.
~DENG~
Lin Wu and Shirong were knocked away by the beam, crashing into tens of buildings, destroying all of them.
"Ugh, dammit." Lin Wu said as he and Shirong switched back to the normal form.
While the ball form was good for multiple enemies, it was only so for the cannon fodder types. Even the Nascent Soul realm cultivators only became its victims because they were paralyzed. If that had not been, Lin Wu probably would not have been able to kill them.
Shirong looked at the source of the attack and saw that it had come from the other group of nascent soul realm cultivators that were sent by the child. They were working together and had sent out that attack.
"Kill him!" The Nascent Soul realm cultivators rushed towards Shirong.
"He dares kill our companions and servants of the Skull god, he shall face our wrath!"
More and more curses were hurled by the followers of the skull god and their anger could be clearly felt from all this. The number of the followers of the skull god had been reduced by half directly by Lin Wu and Shirong, and this was enough to consider them as lifelong foes.
"Come on! We'll kill you all!" Lin Wu taunted, but it was not like anyone could hear him.
~swoosh~
They flew towards Shirong with their weapons drawn and various lights of attacks glowing around them.
~DENG~
~clang~
~bang~
Shirong tried to dodge as many of the attacks as he could, but it was still difficult to dodge so many attacks. There were hundreds of them coming at the same time, making it far more difficult than before.
Thankfully, Lin Wu was able to bear the attacks. But even then, Lin Wu's body would get small cracks from time to time.
"Dammit, those Adult Stage Nascent Soul realm cultivators can still hurt my body!" Lin Wu cursed.
Even if he could continually heal the damage that he got from the others due to the system, it still hurt Lin Wu and disturbed him a bit.
"You shall die under my blade!"
~clong~
Suddenly, the sound of a blade bending could be heard coming from behind. Lin Wu sensed that there was someone sneak attacking them from behind. It was also a Nascent Soul realm cultivator and he had a long axe in his hand.
The Axe had smoke coming out of it and it was evident that it was something related to the skull god as well and thus could hurt Lin Wu.
"Welp, time for a new tactic." Lin Wu said before transmitting some new information to Shirong.
As soon as Shirong got the message from the immortal Crystal Armament, his eyes lit up.
"Haha! This only gets better and better!" Shirong said before bringing his arms closer to his body. The armor started to broaden up towards his shoulders and became slender towards his legs.
~clack~
His legs suddenly joined up as the boots melded to become one. Then, in the next moment, he started to spin rapidly and disappeared inside the ground.
~boom~
The Axe of the Nascent Soul realm cultivator hit the ground where Lin Wu and Shirong had been, but all that was left behind there was a hole the size of Shirong.
"Huh? Where did they go?" The man couldn't help but question.
Shirong's spinning had knocked up a lot of dust and debris in the area and thus the man was unable to see that they had actually entered the ground. As for the spirit sense, there was still interference from the unknown energy that Lin Wu had used and thus they could not be directly sensed with spirit sense.
~zing~zing~zing~
Shirong found himself to be moving through the ground at rapid speeds.
"How do I control this…" Shirong wondered and thought of going left.
Just as he did that, the spinning armor changed its direction to left.
'One thought is all that takes' Shirong through to himself.
He quickly grasped the methodology and used his spirit sense for navigation while his mind to control the direction. He thought of going left and it turned left. He thought of right and it went right.
"Wait, a second… isn't this speed… FASTER THAN FLYING? How can this even be possible?" Shirong was shocked.
Somehow, in the armor, moving through the dense ground was faster than flying in free air. After a few seconds of shock, Shirong shook his head and focused on the task at hand.
"Let's take advantage of this and get rid of more…" Shirong muttered to himself before changing his direction and finding a target that was relatively far from the others and isolated.
It didn't take him long to do so and he found an Adolescent Soul stage Nascent Soul realm cultivator a distance away from the battlefield. While he was not as far as the others who were using the smoke from the incense burners to break the barriers, he was still at the border.
~Rumble~
"Huh? What's tha—" Before the man could say any more the ground below him trembled and burst apart.
~boom~
~splat~
~splat~
~splat~
Out came Shirong covered with the crystal armor that was now moving like a drill. The drill came out from right where the Nascent Soul realm cultivator was standing and hit his body. The spinning motion and spikes on the drill managed to utterly maim the man's body, killing him in an instant.
"NOOO!!!" The man shouted in pain as the life drained from his eyes.
The lower half of his body was almost gone, and he was only left with a head and upper shoulders. Soon his eyes glazed over and he died, but then a second later a pale glow came from his body.
~swoosh~
"Dammit, this sneaky bastard!" The man who was only left with a Nascent Soul cursed.
It flew away at rapid speeds, trying to get to safety, but it was too late for him.
"Where do you think you're going?!" Lin Wu said as he controlled the direction of the drill and flew towards the Nascent Soul.
"Stop him!" The cries of the other Nascent Soul realm cultivators came from the distance as they witnessed what was happening.
~zing~
They sent out defensive skills to protect the Nascent Soul, but alas! They were not enough.
~Crack~
~Crack~
~Crack~
Lin Wu directly drilled through the defensive silks like they were paper and hit the Nascent Soul that was escaping.
~poof~
The Nascent Soul was as if a small balloon, snuffed out in one go.
"AH, good! More spirit Qi and even some data nodes." Lin Wu said upon seeing the notification window.
Lin Wu obviously didn't have the time to go through the data nodes and thus just put them on the back burner till he got into a more free area.
"He killed brother Jiguan!!" The shocked voice of other followers could be heard coming from the other side.
"How is he doing this?"
"How did he get there so fast? Is he teleporting?"
"He must have a spatial spirit tool! Quick, get him! We may get to have some rewards!"
Various words could be heard coming from the followers of the skull god, each worse than the one before.
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