With the realization that the story he had made up to tell Wang Xiong might really be true, Lin Wu didn't know what to do.

"Damn… don't tell me I have a secret ability to tell the future and search the past?" Lin Wu wondered to himself.

But before he could lose himself in his thoughts anymore, he was woken up forcefully.

~DENG~

One of the large, dark hands slapped them into the ground, fully embedding them into it. The cyclone of wind and lightning was forcefully stopped and the rest of the followers of the skull god were now saved.

"GAH!" Shirong grunted in pain.

While he was not injured directly due to the armor protecting him, the sudden impact of the hand still managed to rock his insides. His brain felt like it had been hammered and his stomach churned.

~Crack~

Lin Wu was not faring that well either. In fact, he was the one who was injured the most. After all, he was the one who had borne the entire damage of the hands. Not to mention this attack was from a Dao Shell realm cultivator.

"Fuck, what stage is he even at? I can't tell…" Lin Wu said as he got the system to heal his injuries using the vital essence.

The system had been continually converting the vital energy obtained from killing everyone into vital essence and by now Lin Wu had gathered a sufficiently large store of it.

~Ding~

——

VITAL ESSENCE CONSUMED: 46,000 units

VITAL ESSENCE STORAGE: 4,441,799 Units

——

In a few seconds, all the cracks that had appeared all over Lin Wu's body had been healed under the effort of the system. Thankfully, Lin Wu's meridians were not damaged otherwise, this would have been far more problematic.

Lin Wu was mostly durable against physical damage and did not really mind it, since he could regenerate it on his own. But the damage that sunk into his body and affected his meridians was not something that could be healed quickly.

Though this made Lin Wu learn something about the additional cultivation technique that he had been practicing all this time. There was a sapphire blue glow that was hidden by the surface of his body, but Lin Wu could see it himself.

"Huh… The Sapphire meridians made by the Undaunted Sapphire Body art have the effect of enhancing the durability of the meridians too… didn't know that." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

But after a second of thought, he realized that it was understandable. The Undaunted Sapphire Body Art was an unpracticed cultivation technique. Even its creator had not utilized it and had died before that.

Thus, while she had managed to write down about the main effect of the technique, she had missed out on the extra effects of it that could only be discovered after testing out the technique first.

In a way, Lin Wu was the one who was beta testing the entire Undaunted Sapphire Body Art.

"I guess that's why the technique starts converting the meridians from the outermost part first and not the inner ones. The peripheral meridians will be the ones that bear the damage the most anyway." Lin Wu nodded to himself before trying to get out of the ground.

Though this was not for long since several black tendrils came out of nowhere and wrapped around him, pulling him into the air.

"Huh? What?!" Shirong, who had finally recovered from the shock of the impact, said in surprise.

He traced the source of the black tendrils and saw that they were coming from none other than the Child who was at the Dao Shell realm. Each of his right hand's fingers was connected to one of the Black tendrils.

They all wrapped around his body, with four on his limbs, one on his neck, one on his upper torso and one on his waist. They fully restrained him in place, making him unable to move at all. Even his neck was stuck in one place, and he could only move his eyeballs to see things.

As for his spirit sense? It was getting restrained too. Because the seven black tendrils were wrapped around him, Shirong's spirit sense found it hard to leave his body.

"It is no use struggling. Your time is over!" The Dao Shell realm cultivator spoke.

Lin Wu tried to use his spirit sense as well and found it to be movable.

"Dang! The range is reduced to just a few meters… just what level of suppression is this?" Lin Wu couldn't help but question.

Though unlike Shirong who was stuck looking in one direction due to his neck getting restricted, Lin Wu could still look in a 360 angle due to his eyes being movable. Lin Wu looked towards the direction of the barriers and saw that the followers had managed to take down another barrier, leaving only the 12th and the final 13th barrier standing.

"Come on… be a bit quicker and reach the 13th barrier. A huge surprise is waiting for you…" Lin Wu muttered to himself.

He now knew that the best chance at survival was to delay this as long as possible so that either the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle might wake up on her own, or the collapse of the 13th barrier disturbs her enough to awaken.

Either of those options was acceptable to Lin Wu and the only thing that he didn't want to happen was this Dao Shell realm cultivator finding out who or what he was.

'If he really is linked with the Shadow Calamity, then me having knowledge about the Taiji Celestials tomb might put me at a greater risk than before.' Lin Wu thought to himself.

Shirong felt upset at everything and understood that there was something far more sinister going on in the Dread Coil Marsh than what his clan had originally thought.

"Do you dare kill me? Try and do that! Come on! Then see how the entire Ji clan descends upon this place! You will have no place to run!" Shirong taunted.