Chapter 72: Jiajia

The heaven and earth were shrouded in a hazy gray light. Various refracted, irregular lines gave people a deeply oppressive feeling.

This was a world made entirely of yellow sand, boundless and stretching as far as the eye could see. The occasional breeze sweeping across the sand carried particles of dust and gravel that could easily slice open an ordinary person's skin.

Beside a plant resembling a cactus, a dust-covered young man was bent over, digging at the roots of the plant, presumably hoping to extract some water to drink.

This young man was none other than Chen Hongxu, who had been sucked into the Demon-Sealing Pagoda. Having stayed here for over three months, he had gained some understanding of basic survival skills.

Plunging his hand deep into the sand and fumbling around, he felt something rigid and straight. A corner of Chen Hongxu's mouth curled upward as he gripped firmly with his palm, gave it a backhand snap, and pulled out a portion of the plant's roots.

Tilting his head back, he let a few drops of plant juice fall onto his dry, cracked lips. Chen Hongxu distinctly felt the water-deprived condition in his body improve significantly. This was the magical property of this cactus-like plant. Although they were rarely encountered in this desert, basically whenever you did run into one, any state of dehydration from the previous few days or even over ten days could instantly return to normal.

It wasn't that Chen Hongxu hadn't thought about digging up more to keep as a reserve, but strangely enough, once the roots left the cactus, they could not survive for more than five minutes. Of course, Chen Hongxu had more than one method, but when he wanted to simply uproot the entire cactus and carry it away, he discovered that with his current strength, he was completely unable to shake a single plant. This shocked him, but even more, left him helpless.

When he was dragged into this place by that bizarre attraction, his weapon spirit had actually been stripped directly out of his body by a beam of light. Such a situation had never happened before; otherwise, with the weapon spirit's vast knowledge at that moment, it certainly would have been able to offer him some guidance.

"I still have to rely on myself," Chen Hongxu thought to himself, raising his head to scan the surrounding environment with a very vigilant expression.

This world of yellow sand was not as peaceful as it appeared on the surface. During these three months, Chen Hongxu's life basically consisted of traveling, searching for water, and fighting. As for luxurious things like food and rest, he didn't even dare to think about them now.

"Although this world seems to stretch endlessly, it must have an end after all. The weapon spirit once said that unless it is a self-contained world of its own, a spatial trapping artifact cannot possibly be infinitely large."

"I've been staying here for over three months, walking and stopping, and I probably haven't even completed a tenth of the journey. Next, I'll probably have to pick up the pace. Although I can sense the safety of Yan Shanhren and the others, it's been several months, and I don't know how anxious Xue Xi has become by now."

Watching the roots in his hand turn into glittering gas and dissipate into the air, Chen Hongxu slowly stood up, let out a long whistle to vent the pent-up frustration in his heart from the past few days, tapped the ground with his toes, and vanished from the spot.

...

Another three months later, in a certain part of the yellow sand world where sand and dust flew, Chen Hongxu was locked in a fierce battle with a giant-clawed insect.

Chen Hongxu leaped lightly, braced one hand against the insect's pincer, flipped over onto its back, tapped with his foot, and darted away in the opposite direction.

"Boom."

The giant insect was knocked to the ground by Chen Hongxu's kick, yet it appeared completely unharmed. Propelling itself with its tail against the ground, it unsteadily straightened its body. Compared to Chen Hongxu, its stature was entirely like that of an ancient giant.

On the back of the giant insect, right where Chen Hongxu had kicked it, a white light flashed. The pincers in front of its forehead clicked and clacked together, and a pair of emerald-green eyes stared at Chen Hongxu as it said, "Brat, are you scratching an itch for me?"

"Heh!" Chen Hongxu stood with his hands behind his back. If not for his tattered clothes, he would truly have possessed the demeanor of a grandmaster. He curled his lip and said disdainfully, "Big bug, you've been chasing me for over a month. If I didn't even know whether you were injured or not, then you'd be underestimating me far too much."

The giant insect's eyes narrowed slightly, unsure whether Chen Hongxu's words contained any probing intent.

"Hey!" Chen Hongxu had no mind to play mind games with a bug. He shouted, "You can't do anything to me, and I can't kill you without using my trump cards, so let's just call it a draw, how about that?"

"Ha, kill me?" The giant insect seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. Swaying its body, it muttered to itself, "This suit of armor of mine has the bloodline of an ancient basaltic tortoise embedded in it. Do you really think you can kill me?"

Chen Hongxu did not want to argue any further over this matter with a creature whose brain was somewhat defective. He slightly withdrew his left foot and raised his hand to point...

In an instant, the color of the heaven and earth shifted as a patch of purple cloud appeared without warning above the giant insect's head.

The giant insect's straightened body was instantly pressed flat against the ground by the pressure emanating from the purple cloud. It raised its head in horror, staring up at the purple cloud with an inexplicable expression.

In this baffling place, Chen Hongxu did not want to consume too much energy. Of course, the main reason was that he lacked the certainty to kill the giant insect in a single blow, so a terrifyingly imposing move like the Finger Collapse was better used as a deterrent.

Chen Hongxu withdrew his finger, and the purple clouds in the sky instantly vanished into thin air. Regrettably, the giant insect remained pinned to the ground, not daring to get up.

"Can we talk properly now?" Chen Hongxu stared cautiously at the giant insect. If it still didn't know what was good for it, then even if he couldn't kill it, he would leave a deep and lasting impression on it.

The giant insect's eyes rolled craftily, as if debating whether to maintain its unyielding dignity. However, when it caught sight of Chen Hongxu once again slowly extending his fingertips, whatever idiotic notions of pride it had possessed had long since flown beyond the nine heavens.

Its body continuously shrank until it reached the size of a small dog, and it said sheepishly, "Fighting and killing is the most boring thing in the world."

Chen Hongxu was left speechless and gaping. This fellow's shamelessness surpassed even that of Fan the Good-for-Nothing. It had hunted him down for a whole month, and now it was claiming that fighting and killing were the most boring things ever—good grief, it even dared to act cute.

Transferring his gaze elsewhere—for fear that if he kept looking at the bug rolling around and practically barking like a dog, he wouldn't be able to resist killing it—Chen Hongxu said, "Tell me about this place."

"Huh?" The giant insect hadn't expected Chen Hongxu to ask such an ordinary question. It stopped rolling, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Then let me introduce myself first. My name is Jiajia..."

Suddenly, Jiajia felt a chill run through it. Pausing, it caught sight of Chen Hongxu's icy expression, swallowed hard, and continued, "This world is actually a spatial magical treasure, haha."

Faking a laugh, Jiajia saw that Chen Hongxu showed no signs of displeasure, and pressed on, "This magical treasure has a quite formidable reputation. Leaving aside its ability to subdue demons and devils, forming a world of its own is an unfathomably great power. Its name is—the Demon-Sealing Pagoda."

"The Demon-Sealing Pagoda?" Chen Hongxu muttered, repeating the name, his eyes filled with chill. In his mind, he figured he must have been plotted against by that old Daoist priest from Kunlun; otherwise, how else could he have ended up here inexplicably? But did that fellow not even fear the Daoist Heavenly Oath?

Throwing these chaotic, baseless thoughts to the back of his mind, he motioned for Jiajia to continue speaking.