Philip, Watt, and Jack searched for a few hours but couldn't find any traces of human life near them, even the beasts are not high in number.

Sam is still unconscious and his body has several black patches all over, they are oozing black foggy aura.

Except for the small patches, his skin turned pale and the worst part was, the wounds on his shoulders and the chest. He didn't get enough time to heal his wounds.

He entered the shadow world with those wounds on and the corrosive energy completely entered the body. They looked visibly dangerous. They didn't even dare to move Sam randomly lest they increased the damage. They couldn't understand his physical situation, but they do know that this is a life-threatening crisis.

In fact, they are right, if not for the presence of Shadow mouse bloodline, Sam would have already died as soon as he entered the shadow world, his current cultivation is nowhere near qualified to get him entry into that world.

He defied the rule and now this is the price he has to pay.

His current condition is indeed extremely bad and this is due to the combination of the damage he took.

First, the spiritual core was slightly cracked. Although the damage is light and it is healing bit by bit and the problem wouldn't become threatening until he overexerts himself, the problem is he did overexert himself, and that too he entered the shadow world immediately.

Just like any other body part, when injured, the spiritual core would also heal if it was given enough rest and nourishment.

But before that nourishment could reach it, the shadow world corrosion impacted his soul and body. Just like any environment, the shadow world also rejects and repels the foreign entities, and the soul and body are the foreign entities for the shadow world.

Now, Sam's soul and body are somewhat corroded and the shadow mouse bloodline is slowly absorbing it.

If the spiritual core has been in its best state, this would have been faster and to make it worse, his spiritual energy reserves are almost empty with the battle, thunder prison, and bloodline technique.

The recovery of spiritual energy is taking a long time because part of it has to heal the wounds on his body which is taking longer with the shadow corrosion, it is almost a paradox and everything was linked.

Only time can make one of these aspects complete and break this chain. Until, then they can only give him some low-level spiritual energy recovering pills to make sure he would take in the spiritual energy.

They don't dare to give high-level pills in fear that his body wouldn't be able to absorb the energy and suffer a backlash.

Now, they are in middle-of-nowhere completely unclear of Sam's condition.

They decided to make a temporary residence in the forest and stay there temporarily and take turns in scouting the area to find any traces of society.

Meanwhile, the news about the destruction of the beast faction spread among all the major and minor powers. At first, only the higherups, knew about this, but now even a small servant came to know about it.

And the worst part is Sam's name and age are extensively publicized in the gossip.

There are many stories about Sam's origin and how much damage he really created. Some said, he came for his rightful place as an heir and some said that he went to the beast faction purely to damage because of his ancestral feud.

Some even said that he went there to steal something and some said he went to steal a bride.

The stories got more and more ridiculous.

But none of the stories confirmed his death. Although many of them thought that it is almost impossible to leave a faction alive after creating that much damage, the fact that a young man can kill more the seventy percent of the faction members is also deemed impossible until they heard this story.

So, either for the sake of leaving a possibility of achieving that impossible feat or just for the sake of these storyteller keeping some sort of mystery, Sam's death was not confirmed.

Many people are dying to know whether he is dead or not. Some of them to make sure that he is dead if not make sure to make him dead, some of them try and recruit this guy and some of them are just curious.

But there is one person who is extremely worried.

That is Arman.

By now, his continuous and anxious speculations led him to believe that Sam knew that he is monitoring him and he was extremely anxious and afraid at the notion of facing his retaliation.

He started thinking and making preparations for his own safety and to his delight, he is still the genius of the thunder god temple and he is still trusting the temple to involve if push comes to shove

Then, he was hit by the news about the destruction of the beast faction and the names of the perpetrators.

When he heard the name of the main perpetrator who made the attack, he literally felt his legs shaking and he couldn't even utter a single word.

He felt so afraid that he a Grand realm cultivator almost caught a fever. He holed himself up inside his room and didn't come out till then.

He desperately wanted to know that Sam is dead.

If Sam is still alive, he couldn't feel safe, but at the same time, he doesn't want Sam to die. Because he needs the thunder prison.

If Sam is dead, then the thunder prison would go into the hands of some other person possibly some higher-level person in the beast faction.

It would make it hard for him to take it from his hands and that would only become more difficult if that person knows the significance of the thunder prison.

As he was contradicting himself and living in his own thoughts, he got a summon from the temple-head of the thunder-god temple.

He was shocked by this. He did the temple-head many times, but every time there was an occasion or a reason.

So, for the temple-head to call him at this moment, he has some bad premonition.

When he entered the private meeting room, the temple-head went straight to the point.

"You should have heard of the news about Sam."

Arman became nervous, but he did his best to hide it and nodded his head.

"Then you should know you might become his next target."

Arman shuddered and said.

"Wh..What do you mean Sir?"

"Do you think you are the only smart one in the whole thunder god temple? Do you think everything is safe as long as no one saw meeting someone else and secretly made a deal with Grand elder?"

There are very few things that are able to hide from me and even fewer people who are capable of hiding them. You chose the wrong spy. You should know that there are people called double-agents who do the spying job."

Arman felt his throat run dry, he doesn't know what to say or do.

Should he admit it? Should he make a run for it? Or should be blatantly denied it? Before he could decide it, the temple head continued.

"If I am not wrong, Sam is not as ignorant as you and would have already known about your actions and you being safe and sound means, he used you to serve his own purpose.

Now, you have outlived your usage, so you will be his next target.

I called you to say, that to deal with a person like Sam who could deal with this much damage to a major power just for the sake of genius is not practical, so if the situation arises, the temple wouldn't side with you."

Arman started to panic; all the preparation he had made revolved around the fact that the thunder god temple would keep some resistance to Sam.

Even if they don't fight with him, they should at least hinder him a bit, after all, he believed that Sam wouldn't possess the same tricks, he used on the Beast faction all the time.

How does he know that? Come on, how can someone possess those kinds of dangerous tricks on them all the time?

But the reality slapped him in the face. The temple is not going to side with him, they don't even want to get involved much less hinder Sam.

As he panicked, the temple god said.

"There is only one possibility that you could escape this predicament, but I don't know if it is a definite possibility and it is a hundred percent feasible."

"Please do tell me. I will do whatever it takes to be safe."

Arman saw a strand of hope in that despair. The temple-head turned around and there is a faint smile on his face which Arman completely failed to notice.