The lead-gray clouds pressed down extremely low, with lightning flashing dazzlingly and tearing through the gaps in the clouds.
The full moon overhead was eerily large, casting a cold, white light over the earth.
Thunder roared directly above.
It shook the entire wasteland, awakening the dormant demons among the mineral veins.
In an instant, dozens of demons darted out from all directions, drifting and shuttling between the rain and lightning, their forms bizarre, gathering and dispersing abruptly.
Ouyang Rui stared nervously at the astrolabe pointer in his hand, which was constantly swinging. With so many demons suddenly appearing, perhaps the Moon Shadow Demon was among them!
The Moon Shadow Demon was different from other demons; it emitted a faint green light like a firefly, and as long as it appeared, it could be recognized at a glance.
"Xiaomi, watch carefully, I will definitely get the Ice Bow and Mystic Arrow and give it to you!" He turned his head and spoke excitedly to the girl beside him, his eyes burning with excitement.
However, he saw her frowning, her expression entranced.
"Are you saying that the Falling Star Wasteland will go to the deepest part of one's memory according to one's thoughts?" She suddenly looked up, "Then after coming in, can we still rely on our thoughts to go elsewhere?"
Ouyang Rui was stunned for a moment, then nodded: "Yes, you need to concentrate and focus your mind entirely on the place you want to go. As long as you pull someone else along, you can arrive there together. However, if your thoughts are not strong enough, you cannot transfer."
He thought she was scared by the suddenly appearing demons.
So he softened his voice and said understandingly: "Xiaomi, if you are afraid, you might as well concentrate and imagine the Ouyang Mansion. My family usually accumulates a lot of magical artifacts. Although the scenes in this world are virtual, and the artifacts are not real, I think the spirits would not dare to approach."
"You go hide there first, and I will go find you after I catch the Moon Shadow Demon, how about that?"
Chai Xiaomi seemed not to hear him.
Her brows were tightly furrowed, and she was thinking: Where would be the deepest place in Wu Li's memory?
*
Before entering the Falling Star Wasteland, in order to find the traces of the Moon Shadow Demon, the participants more or less brought magical treasures to spy on the demons.
And the sudden strange celestial phenomena here, with the demons flying and moving abnormally, naturally attracted others.
Chai Xiaomi was concentrating on thinking when suddenly a "whoosh—" sound came.
Several feathered arrows pierced through the rain, accurately shooting down several demons flying in the air.
Ouyang Rui frowned quietly, with a bit of disapproval: "There are good and bad demons. Some will actively attack people, but some are just little elves transformed from flowers, branches, and leaves, and will not hurt people. This action is too reckless and indiscriminate."
In order to show his masculine spirit in front of Chai Xiaomi, he took a step forward and shouted loudly: "You have no enmity with these demons, why do you want to harm them so cruelly?"
In the curtain of rain, two burly figures like bears walked over from a distance.
Wrapped in animal skins and wearing wolf fangs around their necks, the lightning flashed and illuminated their two ferocious faces pale white.
"Where did this little brat come from, daring to speak to your grandfather like this?" Unale did not put down the bow in his hand, and laughed with his companion beside him.
"Hahaha, since it's a little brat," Bagan laughed wildly, "Unale, aren't you best at hunting such little playthings?"
Ouyang Rui recognized from their attire that they were barbarians. Seeing one of them aiming an arrow at him, his face turned pale: "What, what are you going to do? The New Moon Arrow Duel has long had rules that participants are forbidden from fighting privately in the Falling Star Wasteland! I am the son of Ouyang Huai, the richest man in Qianwu Town. If you touch me, once we leave this place you will definitely..."
"Hahahaha..." The heavy rain gradually stopped, and the torrential noise died down, but it amplified the arrogant laughter of the two barbarians. They seemed to have heard something extremely comical, laughing so exaggeratedly that they almost squeezed tears out.
A moment later, Unale suddenly stopped laughing, his eyes like knives: "Our Khan even wants to slaughter Lord Liangya, do you think I'm afraid of you, a mere son of some bullshit richest man?"
The cold light of the arrowhead was pointed straight at Ouyang Rui's brow.
Ouyang Rui was already scared silly.
He had heard of the barbarians' archery skills. The swiftest white antelope on the grassland could not escape the twang of their bowstrings.
He wanted to dodge, but where could he dodge?
He couldn't judge at all which position that feathered arrow would shoot at, nor could he calculate the moment it left the string. He only felt the blood all over his body turn cold and flow backward, and his feet were like being nailed into the rocky ground, not daring to move a step.
And at this moment, Chai Xiaomi was desperately trying to outline the scene of the Ouyang Mansion in her mind with her thoughts, wanting to take Ouyang Rui to escape, but her heart was beating like a drum, her breathing was chaotic, and she couldn't concentrate at all.
She could only stare fixedly at Unale's gesture of notching the arrow, and suddenly remembered what Wu Li had casually mentioned when teaching her archery:
"A true veteran always has signs before the arrow leaves the string, either the shoulder blades silently tightening, or the breathing stopping for half a breath. If you encounter an enemy, stare closely at their eyebrows and expression. When the killing intent is concentrated on the string, people will always reveal a flaw."
At this moment, she saw the corners of Unale's grinning mouth suddenly tighten, and his right eye quickly narrowed for a moment.
Now!
Chai Xiaomi fiercely pushed Ouyang Rui to the side.
The arrow left the string at the same time.
His body tilted, and the arrowhead barely avoided his fatal brow.
But because he raised his hand in a panic to block it, with a "pfft" sound, it fiercely pierced into his left arm.
Only then did Unale clearly see the person behind Ouyang Rui. Previously, that slender figure was wrapped in a large men's robe, pressing tightly against the rock wall, and he thought it was a frail boy.
At this moment, with her wet hair clinging to her cheeks and her eyebrows and eyes fully exposed, she was actually...
A flash of amazement and excitement suddenly passed through the bottom of his eyes.
Wasn't this his tempting "bet"?
"Yo, little beauty." Unale let out two low laughs from his throat and asked seriously, "What's going on? Why isn't that fierce young man who always protects you by your side today?"
Regarding that unfamiliar young man, remembering the two date pits that broke through the wind that day, he still harbored three points of dread.
But right now, there was only a coward left beside the beauty.
Facing the enemy's arrow, he didn't even have the courage to move a step.
He stared at the young girl with naked eyes like a wolf. The undried rainwater on the ends of her hair was sliding down her jaw, and her pink lips were tightly pressed together. Although she was in a sorry state, she revealed a shocking tenderness in the water vapor.
Unale only felt a heat in his lower abdomen.
Bagan at the side laughed hoarsely, obviously thinking the same as his companion:
"Anyway, the arrow duel lasts for three days. Why not enjoy ourselves for a day first? The Ice Bow and Mystic Arrow will be ours sooner or later, and this little beauty..."
Bagan licked his lips, his gaze glued to Chai Xiaomi's face: "You will be ours sooner or later too, why not let us brothers have a taste first?"
"Don't even think about it! Don't even think about it!" Ouyang Rui's face was deathly pale, and he fiercely opened his arms to block in front of Chai Xiaomi. The feathered arrow on his left arm trembled slightly with his movements. "Even if I risk this life, I will absolutely not let you touch a single hair on her head!"
He turned his head, with a desperate resolution, and whispered to the person behind him: "Xiaomi, later I will rush out to distract them. You seize the opportunity and run without looking back."
But Chai Xiaomi clearly saw that his calves were trembling slightly.
This noble young master from an aristocratic family who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth seemed to be even less courageous than her.
Hearing these bold words, the two barbarians were amused again. A grasshopper after autumn can still jump twice, and they had long seen clearly how much the guy in front of them weighed.
This little threat didn't even count as wind past their ears.
Unale and Bagan exchanged a glance, a mad, twisted light flickering in the depths of their eyes like venomous snakes.
They closed in, step by step.
The crunch of their boots crushing the gravel was exceptionally piercing in the silence that followed the sudden downpour.
Just then, the kin of the demonic spirits that had been shot down earlier sensed the death of their companions. Letting out mournful cries, the drifting phantoms in the air suddenly gathered together. Like clouds of murky mist, they swarmed toward the two barbarians!
Though the spirits lacked any real lethal power, Unale and Bagan found themselves tightly entangled and their vision completely obscured, leaving them to swat frantically at the air amidst a flurry of furious curses.
