Chapter 687: Karmic adversity

Sword-infused wind clashed against the storm.

The yellow sand storm swept the severed limbs and body pieces up and away.

Gu Qing Shan put his sword away and spoke to the tree with the green glow: “I’m sorry for dirtying your place”

The tree responded: 「 It’s fine, it’s fine; nothing but a little smudge 」

Gu Qing Shan smiled: “Then I’ll be on my way”

「 Hm, see you again, feel free to visit whenever you have time 」

“Yes, see you”

Gu Qing Shan once again leapt to the sky.

He checked the direction and continued flying towards the black market.

This time, he didn’t run into anyone else and simply disappeared into the sand storm as he left the area of the tree.

After he left.

A small black scorpion jumped out from underneath the sand, whispering something to the tree

——–this was the same little scorpion that watched Gu Qing Shan in secret when he was resting before.

The tree lightly shook before dismissing: 「 I won’t 」

The little scorpion didn’t understand and whispered again.

The tree answered: 「 Ah, it’s because he was polite, I like polite people 」

The scorpion still unwillingly squeaked a bit more.

The tree continued to explain patiently: 「 Not just that, this was the first time I’ve seen a human who could be so well-versed in two Professions at once. This type of person isn’t someone you can simply run into, he might have some sort of terrifying secret to him, so we had better not be involved in such troublesome matters 」

While it talked, a bunch of severed body pieces silently appeared from underneath the sand.

They belonged to those people Gu Qing Shan killed just now.

Besides the corpses there was also a gourd of spring water.

「 These should be enough for dinner, and he even gave us a bottle of spring water, don’t you like it? 」the tree asked.

The little scorpion looked at the corpses, then at the gourd of spring water, but was still a bit unwilling to let things go.

It tried to whisper to the tree again, unconvinced.

The tree sighed and spoke: 「 So you’re that insistent on eating a fresh—– 」

Suddenly, a device blinking with red light rolled off one of the corpses.

It began to give off a noisy and constant ‘beep beep beep’.

The tree’s voice was cut off.

Both it and the small scorpion were attracted by the device.

The scorpion silently listened for a while, then squeaked to the tree in a confused tone.

「 Ah, stop asking me, I don’t understand technological things. You’re the one going to study, find it out yourself 」the tree’s tone became annoyed.

The blinking device suddenly stopped.

Not long after, several black dots appeared in the sky.

The black dots were flying here at an extremely high speed, quickly landing in front of the corpses.

“Boss, we found the place, unfortunately, little Zhi’s bunch is already killed” one of them reported.

“I thought our life monitoring device was malfunctioning, but someone was actually dumb enough to kill our people” the Boss spoke with a grim expression.

They all exuded thick killing intent.

They were eager to get their hands on the bastard that tried to go against them.

“9th, go take a look” the Boss ordered.

“Roger”

A midget among the group stepped forward and searched the pile of bodies for a small device.

In his hand, the device quickly got reactivated.

Everything that happened before was shown as a projection for all of them to see.

From the moment they ran into each other to the very last moment when Gu Qing Shan drew his sword and killed these ten people all at once.

Everyone silently watched through the entire thing.

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“Bastard, we haven’t been to Greyhan’s world for too long, but we’re not weak enough to be looked down on by this sort of garbage weakling!” one of them furiously shouted.

“That’s right”

“You’re right”

“If someone found out that over a dozen of our people got killed not even 2 days after we got here, wouldn’t that make us the laughing stock of every organization here?”

“Right!”

Seeing everyone in agreement, the Boss nodded.

He spoke: “That brat was heading for the black market. We’re heading there right now to kill him!”

“His sword technique was quite strange, make sure to be wary of it”

“Clean up these corpses, we’re heading out right away!”

“Yes, Boss!” the group shouted in unison.

They quickly cleaned up their comrades’ corpses.

As the little black scorpion saw them cleaning up the corpses, it couldn’t help but felt impatient.

Those are my food!

The little scorpion jumped out, squeaking at the group.

Its appearance quickly brought their attention.

It was very normal to see a scorpion-like creature in a desert.

So at first, none of them paid any attention to it.

But now, even a little critter dares to try stopping them from cleaning up the corpses.

From the look of it, this thing considers these corpses its food?

Little shit…

The closest one to it walked up to step on the little critter.

As soon as he raised a foot, he collapsed.

What happened?

Everyone else cautiously looked over.

They immediately noticed that their comrade was already dead.

“Enemy attack!”

The first person to react shouted.

Everyone else drew their weapons and got into battle formation.

They carefully observed their surroundings.

Then they all collapsed at once.

All of them were dead.

Vast clouds green mist slowly appeared from the void of space.

The faint greyish green mist came out from the fresh corpses before being absorbed into the tree.

The tree then became more lush and verdant.

Seeing those people unable to take its food away and instead became the new food, the little black scorpion happily jumped from joy.

It squeaked excitedly to the tree.

The tree’s voice resounded: 「 Indeed, it’s a very hearty dinner, we’ll have enough for tomorrow as well. You should be satisfied now, my child 」

The little scorpion nodded.

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「 Then it’s great 」the tree happily spoke.

Following its voice, all the corpses sunk below the sand and disappeared.

The large oasis in the middle of the desert began to shake intensely.

The sand around it slowly fell down.

A patch of black land about the size of a medium city rose up high, slowly revealing its true form.

This black land——-

—–no, this wasn’t land at all, it was an extremely hard black chitin exoskeleton!

Natural evil-looking patterns covered the entirety of this seemingly endless black hard shell.

Through this natural pattern, the terrifying presence of the creature was thoroughly hidden away, not letting a single bit leak out.

After a few more moments, its body that was hidden below the sand was fully revealed.

It was a giant black scorpion about the size of a city!

Its jet black body was terrifying and unimaginable.

Even if it did nothing but stand still in one place, anything and anyone that observed it would definitely feel their heart beating faster uncontrollably.

This was the natural instinct of all living beings, telling them to stay away from a clear sign of death, unavoidable.

The only place on the scorpion’s body that wasn’t black was filled with a glowing green light.

——it was the lush, green tree full of vitality that could fight off the sand storm from before.

Except the tree wasn’t actually a tree, it was the scorpion’s fatal tail stinger.

In this entire Drifting Sand world, perhaps no weapon could compare to this tail stinger in terms of fatality!

「 Let’s go home, we’ve played enough, don’t let mama wait for too long 」

The giant scorpion spoke with a deep echoing voice.

The same voice that belonged to the tree from before.

The little black scorpion squeaked, apparently asking for something.

「 Very well, you gluttonous little devil, here’s a little snack for you 」the giant scorpion spoke with a clear happy tone.

A corpse suddenly appeared on top of its back.

The little black scorpion looked at it.

It was the corpse of the man who tried to step on it before.

The little black scorpion happily climbed onto the corpse’s face.

It began to eat.

The city-sized giant scorpion began its slow trek through the desert.

「 Do you still want to eat the person who left before? 」 the giant scorpion asked.

The little black scorpion was happily gorging down on its food, so it only replied by pointing at the food in front of it with its little stinger.

「 Hm, that’s right, you can eat these rude ones without worry, because besides being food, they don’t have any other use 」the giant scorpion told it, feeling pleased.

Squeak squeak? The little black scorpion looked up and asked doubtfully.

The giant scorpion sincerely taught its child: 「 Politeness is important because within billions of worlds, it represents respect towards the unknown, as well as a scale of measuring of self-tolerance during the times of Apocalypse. Therefore, you must be a polite little fellow as well, to show that you were well-taught 」

Squeak.

The little scorpion answered without fully understanding it.

They slowly went far.

On the other side.

While flying, Gu Qing Shan suddenly landed in an awkward manner.

He then quickly arranged layers upon layers of formations for defensive, camouflage, counter-attack, as well as spirit funneling.

This cost quite a bit of spirit stones.

But it was a necessary expenditure.

Because his spirit energy had entered a state of an uncontrollable and sudden leap, forcing him to use formations to protect himself.

This meant only one thing——–

Without any warnings, his second karmic adversity had ended.

Thus, Gu Qing Shan was advancing to Tribulation realm late stage.