Chapter 137: Zhou Family in Danger

A few days later, the three men returned after investigating what lay beyond the mountain.

“He’s right… The only thing we can see past the mountain is nothing but endless desert. There’s nothing but sand…”

This piece of news sent the others reeling into despair.

Li Mu was right. The group had already sacrificed more than half their numbers and yet, they were barely past the halfway point of the desert.

This was a journey where they were destined to fail.

“Everything he told us has been right…”

“So, do you still think we can’t trust him?”

“But, everything he’s said is different from what our elder told us… Our elder said that the desolated desert was formed due to the Ancient War, and that we’ll find a huge oasis if we keep traveling east. It’s been centuries since the war was over. The desert should’ve shrunk. How is it getting bigger?”

“Who knows? The question is, do we continue or do we go back?” Zhou Tian asked.

The question lingered in the air.

The other four could not reply as they did not know what to say.

If they decided to turn around, then it would mean that their friends had sacrificed their lives for nothing.

They would return and be an embarrassment to their family.

However, it was also clear that they would never reach the other side alive if they continued forward.

“It’s time we made a decision.”

“Tian, let’s go back. We’ll tell everyone the truth. Let’s just hope they’ll understand the impossible challenge we are facing and that the elder has another way for us to survive,” Zhou Chen said.

“He’s right… We will die if we continue forward, and the mission would remain incomplete. What’s worse is that our family will never learn of what had happened to the Xu family nor about the situation in this desert. They would just continue to send more people out to their deaths…” Zhou Yun trailed off.

“I agree with Zhou Yun.”

It didn’t take long for all five of them to reach a decision. They walked up towards Li Mu, who was still resting on the tiny hill.

During the two days when the group was discussing their options, Li Mu had finally reached the conclusion that he had to become stronger to protect the weak.

He was fortunate enough that the check-in system at the Ancient Battlefield bore great rewards. It wouldn’t be long for him to advance with these newly found resources.

He could not give up. If he did, not only could he not protect his families, but he would perish when the Demon Clan attacked again.

As the barrier continued to deteriorate, it was time for him to step up instead of running away.

“We have come to an agreement,” Zhou Tian said to Li Mu.

“Is that so? Then, get ready to move,” Li Mu replied as he grabbed a bunch of prenatal stones and beast meat from the system storage.

The group quickly thanked Li Mu before packing the prenatal stones and meats.

Since their energy had run dry in the last few days, they had to replenish themselves, or else their prenatal qi would disappear completely.

It took half a day for Li Mu to complete his next check-in as the group recovered.

Meanwhile, at the edge of the desolated desert, a large group of humans seemed to be worried.

“Those bastard bats!”

They were cursing loudly.

“What did our family do to deserve such tragedy?”

“I… I can’t move! I’d rather go back and fight them!”

…

The Qin family followed closely behind the Zhou family as they escaped towards the desolated desert.

“It’s all the Zhou family’s fault. If they hadn’t come here with such a large group of people, we would’ve been able to live a safe life in the forest!” The members of the Qin family were pushing the blame.

“What’s the point of saying that? We’re all in the same boat now. Let’s just find a way to live through this.”

Deep in the forest, 18 of the Zhou family’s Virtual Realm cultivators were standing on the top of the trees. A thousand of their family’s elite members stood readily behind them.

They were all staring at the black cloud not too far away.

They were impatient; their fists gripped tightly as they waited for their leader to give the signal to attack.

Ten miles away from the humans, twenty Divine Realm bats and a few thousand elites were being led by a single leader leader as they approached their target.

Their bloody odor wafted through the air and reached the humans before they were even anywhere near them.

“Hehe! I can smell a lot of tasty human flesh,” said the leader of the bats. He laughed maniacally as he stopped just five hundred meters in front of the Zhou family.

“Flesh? Do you think your weak teeth can bite through our meat?” the leader of the Zhou family taunted.

The Zhou family elites prepared their energy almost instantly. They were determined to stop the bats, even if it would cost their own lives.

One of the elders rallied the elites, “As soon as the leader gives the signal, we’ll exert all of our energy. Make sure to take the bats down with you! Don’t give them the opportunity to suck our blood!”

“Yes, sir!” the elites responded in unison.

“If the bats dare to attack, show them that their meal ticket is ready to fight back!”

“Hah! Low-lives like you all don’t have the right to live in this world!” the leader of the Bat Clan mocked.

Despite how the bat leader was acting, he was actually a little anxious. He knew that his clan would have to defeat a thousand elite cultivators.

He turned around and nodded to his subordinates as a signal.

As long as they could take the frontliners down, they could easily feast on the ten thousand humans hiding behind.

The leader of the Zhou family pointed his sword at the leader of the Bat Clan. “That’s my cue to kill you disgusting beasts! Charge!”

With the human leader in the front, the humans exhausted their spirit qi and charged at the bats.

“W-what? You bastards! How dare you low-lives try to burn all your qi!” the leader of the Bat Clan scolded, angry at the fact that the humans were trying to use all of their power so that none remained for the bats to drain.

Not only that, the bats would have a harder time taking the humans down since their powers had tripled by utilizing all of their qi at once.

It would take a lot more effort for the Bat Clan to defeat and feast on the humans.

The leader of the Bat Clan roared. “Take them down!”

The bats behind him hesitated for a split second before charging towards the humans.

Most of the bats were reluctant to attack, but the humans were already closing in on them, and they had no chance but to meet in battle.

As soon as their weapons clashed, a few of the bats were quickly beheaded. As their blood spilled across the battleground, their awful stench spread to the human’s backline.

The reason why the bats were so eager to feast on the humans was that they needed to replenish their qi. They had used up quite a lot when they had tried to take down one of the Human Clans.

Back at the border of the desolated desert, the rest of the humans turned around when they realized what was happening.

“The elders and the elites are exhausting their qi! It’s going to kill them,” said one of the people.

“We can’t stop now. We have to move on. We must never become the bats’ food.”

No matter how painful it was to abandon their fellow humans, this group knew that they had to continue forward.

“Even if we die, we’ll make sure that the bats can never take our energy.”

It was a hard decision to make, but there was nothing else they could do unless they preferred to die by the bats’ hands.

Inside the desert, Zhou Tian and his group were walking back towards the edge.

Whenever they passed by the corpses of their fallen comrades, they would take the time to bury the bodies before continuing on their journey.

It wasn’t as if they were looking for the bodies on purpose, but they were following the path where they came from.

These “checkpoints” they stopped at along the way were marked by the water bottles that the deceased left behind.

Some of the bottles were buried deep inside the sand, but many were still on the surface, and Li Mu could notice them instantly by using his divine consciousness.

At that point, the compasses he brought with him had lost their function, and the group could only follow these bottles back to where they came from.

After burying a dozen bodies, they estimated that they were close to the border.

“This is where we exhausted our prenatal qi after flying all the way here from the forest,” Zhou Tian said.

“I see…” Li Mu nodded. He threw his Phoenix Blood Sword into the sky and controlled it with his divine consciousness.

The sword flew forward and returned two hours later.

“Let’s go,” Li Mu said. He picked up the five remaining people using his sword and flew into the sky.

After a few hours of flying, the forest was finally in sight.

Li Mu let out a sigh of relief. “Finally.” It had been seven months since he first stepped into the desolated desert.

The remaining five also let out sighs of relief but it didn’t last long. They tensed up when they realized that they had no idea how to explain the situation to their family.

“Hmm? What’s that smell?” Li Mu frowned after using his divine consciousness.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Tian asked.

“This place reeks of bats…”