"Granny once said that if you lost your way in the Wasteland and could not return to the village before nightfall, there was no need to panic. " Shen Mu steadied himself and thought, "There are many ruins in the Wasteland, and most of them possess strange and wondrous properties. If I hide inside one, I may yet survive.

Whether a ruin can save my life depends on two things. First, whether it contains a stone statue resembling the ones in the village. Second, whether it contains a great number of strange beasts. Those beasts possess spiritual awareness. They know where one can hide from the darkness. . .

" There were no shortage of ruins in the Wasteland. During his flight just now, Shen Mu had already glimpsed the remains of cities and villages, ancient broken walls and crumbling ruins. He simply had no time to stop and see whether any stone statues remained. Half the setting sun had already sunk below the mountains when, all at once, the world fell utterly silent, so silent it was enough to drive a person mad.

Then came a rushing, flapping sound. Shen Mu looked up and saw flock after flock of enormous birds shrieking across the sky, their black forms blotting it out.

The earth began to tremble. The trees toppled. Strange beasts burst from places unknown and bolted wildly across the land. Shen Mu even saw the waters of a lake churn as several enormous scarlet fish, each several zhang long, leaped from the surface. Using their fins as legs, they sprinted across the ground!

Shen Mu was bewildered. Fish running across the earth. .

.

were they still fish? "All these strange beasts are running in the same direction.

There must be somewhere ahead where they can hide from the darkness!

" His spirits soared, and he charged forward with the beasts. The sky grew darker and darker. In the distance, the darkness came surging like a tide. It was not like the darkness of night. It was more like a great flood, spilling over mountain peaks, flooding valleys, sweeping across the wilderness, and drowning everything in its path. Though Shen Mu had seen the darkness advance before, the sight still shook him to the core.

The darkness was bearing down with overwhelming force, yet the herd continued to race straight toward it. Shen Mu hesitated. The beasts were running in the very direction from which the darkness came. Was there truly some safe haven ahead, a place where they could evade its advance?

What if there was not?

Would he not die without even a grave? "Forget it. The darkness is moving too fast.

Even if I turn back now, I will never make it.

I cannot outrun it. My only choice is to follow the herd! " He clenched his teeth and hurled himself forward. More than ten li downstream from Hidden Cripple Village, the battle between Granny Zhu and the Lanjiang Five Elders had reached its most critical moment. At first, only the four elders had surrounded Granny Zhu, but they could not overcome her despite their relentless assault. Wei Shuangling, the foremost of the Five Elders, had been watching from a cliff above.

He now joined the battle, and the five elders formed the Five-Element Demon-Sealing Array. No one had expected that Granny Zhu, who had barely managed to hold on beneath the assault of the four elders, would suddenly grow far more powerful once Wei Shuangling entered the fray. The Five-Element Demon-Sealing Array could not even restrain the old woman. Shock and fury seized the Five Elders.

Only then did they realize that the old woman had deliberately shown weakness, luring Wei Shuangling into the trap so that she could wipe them all out at once and prevent any of them from escaping. Granny Zhu tiptoed across the ground, flickering here and there like a ghost. The silver needles and silk threads in her basket seemed to come alive.

In the blink of an eye, they stabbed the Lanjiang Five Elders until their bodies were covered in wounds, then pierced through all five old men and fixed their souls and bodies in place, leaving them unable to move. The little old woman wore a broad smile as she approached with a pair of scissors. "It has been a long time since this old woman tanned human skin. I wonder if my hands have grown rusty. .

. " She came before Wei Shuangling. Suddenly, he opened his mouth, and a silver pellet shot out, flying straight toward Granny Zhu's face.

The pellet expanded as soon as it met the wind. With a sharp hiss, countless streams of sword qi burst from it, ringing as they expanded outward.

In an instant, it had transformed into a sphere more than a hundred zhang across, formed entirely from dazzling sword light! Granny Zhu had not anticipated the attack. She hurriedly retreated, and her body suddenly went limp. It writhed through the air like an earthworm, twisting up and down to evade the sword lights one after another.

At the same time, the scissors flew from her hand. Like two silver dragons, they snapped shut again and again, cutting the sword lights apart. She had been caught off guard, after all, and one sword light still struck her. It came from behind, where her hunched back left a blind spot beyond her sight. The sword pierced straight into the hump of her back.

The sword lights vanished from the sky. Broken blades fell with a clatter, embedding themselves across several mu of earth. The silver pellet dropped to the ground with a slap and lay still. Granny Zhu landed as well, reached behind herself, and pulled out the sword.

Her brows drew together slightly. "You still managed to dodge it.

.

. " Despair showed in the eyes of Wei Shuangling, foremost of the Five Elders.

His voice hoarse, he said, "I ambushed you with a Sword Pill from such close range.

It held six thousand eight hundred and forty-two swords, yet you still evaded it. You cannot be some nameless nobody in the demonic path! There is no old woman like you among the demonic cultivators. Who are you? " Then he noticed Granny Zhu's back. At the place where the sword had pierced her hump, there was a wound, but not a drop of blood emerged. Instead, light shone through it.

There was clearly nothing inside. Wei Shuangling felt a chill run through him. "This is not your true appearance. You are wearing someone else's skin.

. .

" "You damaged my skin.

" Granny Zhu frowned, but the voice that came from her was not the aged woman's voice she usually used. It was instead remarkably pleasant. Anyone hearing that voice alone would have taken her for a beautiful woman in the flower of her youth, utterly unlike the old crone who now stood with one foot in the grave. Granny Zhu pressed a hand to her throat and sighed. "I am leaking.

. .

" She took silk thread from her basket and stitched up the sword wound in her back. After testing her throat, she found that her voice had returned to normal.

Suddenly, Wei Shuangling's face changed as though he had seen a ghost. He cried out, "I have heard your voice before. I know who you are!

The Nether Demon Cult's cult-leader's wi. . .

" Granny Zhu's expression shifted. She placed her fingers on the threads running through the five men, and the Lanjiang Five Elders were instantly sliced to pieces. Flesh and blood scattered across the ground.

Strangely, not a trace of blood stained the threads. Instead, they seemed alive, winding themselves together and shrinking into a ball of thread before returning to the basket.

Granny Zhu snorted and giggled. "You damned lame old man, how long have you been here? " Not far behind her, the Lame Old Man came hobbling toward them with the aid of a cane, a broad smile spread across his face.

"Just got here, just got here. Sis, I did not see a thing, and I did not hear a thing.