The Magus Era

A three-eyed young man squatted on the ground, and lightly dipped his finger in the little bit of blood on the ground that had been spat out by Ji Hao. The man then sneered and said in a deep voice, "He is gravely hurt to the bones and internal organs. It is so bad that he can't even run."     

The three-eyed young man then thrust his tongue out, put the slight bit of blood on the tip of his tongue and carefully tasted it, then affirmed, "He is only thirty miles away from here, at the most. Lord Di Luo, he is indeed seriously injured, and this blood was spat out by him not long ago, he couldn't have run too far."     

Di Luo was standing beside this young man. The handsome face of his had now gone purple with rage. Wind-like shadows had been flashing across the erect eye between his eyebrows, and solid wind power with fierce, arm-thick gusts circled around his body, which even brought his slim body up from the ground and made him float in the air.     

Di Sha had been leading the Blood Fang and fighting in this Southern Wasteland for a whole five-hundred years, and none of the Jia Clan Warriors had died during that time period. Di Luo had led the Blood Fang only for a few days and one Jia Clan warrior had already died. Moreover, it had been an elite warrior, who had developed his special gift of his nose and gained special abilities on tracking enemies.     

"Are you saying that they're no more than thirty miles from here? Then make this place the center, and gather all our people over! I want you to search the jungle within hundred miles around, inch by inch!" yelled Di Luo in a low voice with his teeth gnashing, "That little bastard, and that little bitch, capture them alive, alive! I only want them captured alive!"     

Resonant whistles came from the jungle, as one faded, another rose. Tall and strong Jia Clan warriors who had been silently darting in and out of the watery mist like a group of ghosts and large groups of slave warriors who had been rushing across the jungle with all kinds of weapons held in their hands all were set into motion towards the new goal. Additionally, large amounts of metal 'sword edge spiders' and huge centipedes were crawling around the jungle.     

Hovering in the air were thumb-sized metal hummingbird puppets, which had been released from the metal centipedes' bodies. Thousands of exquisitely crafted hummingbird puppets spread in the air above the area within a radius of a hundred miles, forming a gigantic net, while watching the entire jungle.     

Ji Hao had been lying under a big tree and was gasping with difficulty. He split the 'Star Mushroom' that he had picked earlier, into two; one half for Man Man and one for himself. The 'Star Mushroom' instantly melted after being put into his mouth, turning into a strand of cool power that flushed all over his body like a chilly stream. Finally, the popping sounds which were continuously coming from inside Ji Hao's body like the sounds made by bow strings when they suddenly were broken, had stopped. His body that had been so close to exploding, had finally stopped worsening in its condition.     

The Collapse of the Nine Stars was a powerful fighting magic that would burn the user's life energy and blood until eventually costing the user's life. Added with the incomparable power of the Sky-Opening, the current body of Ji Hao was unable to take the horrible counterforce that was caused by the combined launching of them both.     

By using the The Collapse of the Nine Stars and Sky-Opening together, Ji Hao's tendons, bones, skins, flesh and all the internal organs were nearly shattered into pieces. Fortunately, he had absorbed some essence milk of the earth and one piece of earth essence crystal, which made the quality of his body far beyond those ordinary Junior Magi. Moreover, large amounts of Senior Magi blood had been continuously digested by the multicoloured flame and was replenishing his body; with all of these together, his body had been barely spared from exploding.     

Nourished by the vast life-force energy contained in the 'Star Mushroom' just now, Ji Hao's wounds stopped from worsening. The multicoloured flame in his lower abdomen was fleetingly transforming the sphere of Senior Magi blood into multicoloured light streams, which then quickly merged into his whole body. The body parts that had merged with the multicoloured light streams quickly started healing; even those bones that had broken into fragments, only pieced together by a thin layer of periosteum, had started wriggling and healing, even becoming stronger and firmer than before.     

Ji Hao laid under that huge tree like a puddle of mud while twitching intensely and healing his own body as quickly as he could. However, the recovery of his body that had almost shattered into pieces had brought him unbearably great pain and itching, which made Ji Hao want to cry out but he even failed to squeeze out any tears. More than once he was on the verge of passing out because of the pain.     

Luckily, Ji Hao's Yuan Dan had almost condensed into a substantial, solid being, and the strong Yuan Dan gave him an incredibly strong willpower that allowed him to hold the pain back and try his best to keep a slight trace of consciousness.     

Suddenly, Ji Hao heard a subtle noise coming from about a hundred feet away. In a flurry, he patted the head of Man Man, who had been lying behind him, and pointed at a small tree hole next to him. Man Man took a glance at Ji Hao, and hid into the tree hole, without saying a word.     

Soon, the watery mist silently dispersed. A Jia Clan warrior, whose skin was a bronze colour and with a black-iron-like luster, slowly walked out from behind a gigantic tree. His four eyes were shining with a black, cold light, giving an extremely sharp and heartless feeling.     

"Hmm? You, alone?" the Jia Clan warrior looked around vigilantly.     

The watery mist surrounding Ji Hao started rotating slowly, shrouding his entire body and the tree hole that Man Man had hidden in. Ji Hao had been at the center of the scent of blood that was emitted from his own body. The dense scent of blood had been spreading everywhere, and along with the rotating watery mist, this perfectly covered Man Man's breath and her scent.     

"Yeah, I'm on my own." Ji Hao let out a bitter smile with difficulty, and said. His body was so badly damaged, that it hardly even looked like a human's body. Although his body had been quickly healing, he still didn't have the strength to even move. After he had killed the Jia Clan warrior who had been tracking them alone just know, he madly ran for tens of miles, consuming the last bit of his power.     

"I'm seriously injured, I can die here, but not that little girl!" Ji Hao looked at the Jia Clan warrior and said honestly, "If anything happens to her, my Abba, Amma will all be in huge trouble. So I told her to run away by herself."     

The Jia Clan warrior hesitated a bit, then suddenly moved at lightning speed, and brought up tens of wisps of afterimages, quickly circling around the area within a hundred feet in radius; he even got up on the treetop, and carefully searched on the tree for a while.     

A while later, this Jia Clan warrior leapt down from the treetop, stood in front of Ji Hao and carelessly looked down at him, as he laughed and said, "You didn't lie, little kid. That little girl did run by herself. But, how far do you think she can run?"     

The Jia Clan warrior then bent his waist and grabbed Ji Hao's neck, and pulled him up from the ground. Ji Hao was pulled up from the ground, till his face was about to touch the bronze face of the Jia Clan warrior.     

The Jia Clan warrior carefully observed Ji Hao's face for a while, then shook his head scornfully, and said, "Did you just kill To Di? That poor kid, he had a good nose, but strangely unlucky. How could he die at the hands of a barbaric kid? The glory of his entire family has been extinguished because of him."     

Before the voice of the Jia Clan warrior had faded, his face suddenly twisted, and his bronze-coloured face quickly turned deadly pale.     

His eyes showed fear, dropping Ji Hao on the ground, heading down and staring at the tiny little fist of Man Man that had broken through his metal armour, deeply into his body, tightly grabbing his spine.     

"I will not let you...kill Ji Hao!" Man Man's face was covered in tears, which had mixed with the rainwater. She growled to the Jia Clan warrior with an incomparable determined tone, "You horrible monsters! I will let Abba kill you all! Not a single one of you can leave the Southern Wasteland alive!"     

A beam of red light flashed across Man Man's palm - The scary strength of Man Man had been activated. In the next moment, the Jia Clan warrior's spine, which was as thick as an ordinary man's lap, and thousands of times harder than steel, was instantly crushed into pieces by Man Man's little palm. A great heat gushed out of Man Man's palm, suddenly setting the middle of the Jia Clan warrior's body ablaze. Within only a blink of an eye, the gigantic strong man had been burnt into a pile of ash, and even the full steel armour that he had been wearing, was burnt into a stream of liquid.     

Man Man gnashed her teeth, carefully carried Ji Hao on her back, and quickly darted into the deeper jungle with small and gentle steps.     

"Man Man has killed a man," cried Man Man while murmuring, "Not that Man Man killed him by accident, Man Man indeed wanted to kill him... But Man Man really killed a man this time."     

"It's okay, you will get used to it when you kill more." Ji Hao let out a sigh, patted Man Man's head and comforted her.     

Even Ji Hao felt that what he just said was terrible for comforting a little girl. Just as he thought, Man Man started to cry even harder when she heard him say that.     

More shrill whistles came behind them along with an uncountable number of swooshing sounds which were coming closer and closer. At least tens of Jia Clan warriors had discovered them.