Chapter 53: I Have Returned

A lizard opened its mouth and sprayed out acid.

But it was already too late!

The lizard picked the perfect opportunity, Huang Zao’s face distorted but he couldn’t avoid it and could only close his eyes and bite the bullet.

Psh.

Huang Zao’s field of vision was thrown into darkness as he got knocked down to the ground.

The next moment, he opened his eyes and saw his brother’s face twisting in pain.

“Older brother!” Huang Zao shouted as he promptly rolled across the ground, made some room and used all of his strength to throw his spear.

“Go die.” Huang Zao yelled.

After the green lizard discharged the liquid, it immediately became sluggish. Its large mouth hadn’t even closed before the spear tip plunged in through it, penetrating a bit into the skull before it got lodged between the bones.

At the critical moment, Huang Zao capitalized on the lizard’s exposed weak point and finally killed it.

“Older brother!” Huang Zao saw the lizard fall to the ground and gasped as he ran to Lan Zao’s side.

Lan Zao was lying on his stomach and was in so much pain that even a usually tough guy like him was wailing in anguish.

Seeing the wound on Lan Zao’s back, Huang Zao could not help but gasp a breath of cold air.

It was a terrible wound, the green acid had corroded the flesh and let out a sizzling sound, the flesh and blood turned into pus, wafting out a fetid stench. The injury was rapidly deteriorating and Huang Zao was certain that he would see Lan Zao’s bones in a few breaths.

This was just a bronze level lizard.

Huang Zao did not dare touch the wound as he quickly took out his water canteen and poured all of it out.

The water diluted the acid greatly and alleviated Lan Zao’s wound.

Huang Zao grabbed Lan Zao’s arm and supported his body, he then poured another water canteen onto Lan Zao’s body to quickly wash out the acid onto the sand.

“Save the water.” Lan Zao’s pain had been greatly relieved and he used his remaining rationality to warn Huang Zao.

“We can’t keep it!” Huang Zao gritted his teeth. Lan Zao’s injury was too grave and he had no choice but to use all of his water on it.

Meanwhile.

Green acid nearly hit Zhen Jin’s ear as it streaked across the sky.

Zhen Jin’s face was solemn.

There were more than a dozen lizards attacking him from all sides, there was no lack of iron level or bronze level magic beasts among them.

Relying on his agility and abundant experience, Zhen Jin constantly evaded while killing lizards, however, he could clearly sense that it was getting increasingly harder to move forward.

He couldn’t help but look at the path behind him as he shouted in his heart: “Why haven’t they come yet?”

Whoosh.

A light sound.

An arrow flew over the heads of countless lizards and landed in the sand.

“I tried my best.” Bai Ya gasped heavily on top of the sand dune.

As he gazed at the short bow in his hand, he couldn’t help but shake his head.

Using his shooting technique, he displayed the short bow’s maximum range, yet the arrow was still more than a dozen paces from Zhen Jin’s position.

This short bow had also suffered from the sandstorm and after a lot of fights, it was teetering on the edge of collapse.

“Lord Zhen Jin, the potion! Inhale it with your nose!” Everyone roared together.

Zhen Jin hesitated, he had his own plan and Bai Ya’s arrow was beyond his expectations.

What to do?

Zhen Jin clenched his teeth and suddenly jumped up.

In that crucial moment, he chose to believe in his comrades!

The lizards in front of him did not anticipate this, as a result, Zhen Jin stomped on their heads, soared into the sky, and leapt into the distance.

This was a very dangerous action because it would be very hard for Zhen Jin to dodge the acid while he was in the air.

Zhen Jin landed on the ground with a thump.

Three lizards opened their mouths and some waved their claws in order to kill Zhen Jin.

In an instant, Zhen Jin took a hastened glance and found the only escape path. He rolled over and over, tumbling dangerously close between two lizards.

He stretched out his hand, grabbed the arrow shaft and kicked the ground hard with his right foot, using it to lift his whole body up and stand up.

Without staying in place, he quickly ran as hard as he could.

While running, he pulled out the arrowhead and looked at the yellow fumes it emitted.

Zhen Jin fiercely breathed in the fumes through his nose.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

He immediately coughed and spat out a cloud of gray mist.

At the same time, his ears and nose also emitted the gray mist, he even shed tears of a light ashen gray tinge.

After a few breaths, Zhen Jin found that he had lost his sense of taste and smell, he could not feel his tongue and nose. Even his vision and hearing were weakened to a certain degree.

This was very detrimental to him.

If he wanted to break out of the lizard lounge enclosure, he needed to be observant and alert

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, he had to rely on his five keen senses and now all of them had been debilitated by half.

Immediately, the pressure on him from the lizard lounge had doubled.

The sand dune peak.

“Use these as the arrowheads.” Zi Di took out five to six arrowheads from her handbag at her waist.

Bai Ya immediately took them and placed them on arrow shafts.

These arrowheads were made by Zi Di in the lizard nursery, many people had seen them before and thus they were not surprised.

Whoosh

Bai Ya focused for a few breaths before drawing his bowstring and shooting out an arrow.

The arrow streaked across the air while constantly emitting a green smoke, it then hit the sand and the green smoke gushed out of it.

The green smoke slowly subsided on the sand and formed a brief smoke wall.

The entire exploration team once again shouted in unison to warn Zhen Jin.

Zhen Jin immediately rushed into the green smoke and followed its trail.

The surrounding lizards tried to break into the green smoke which resulted in them wailing in anguish and quickly retreating from it.

The green smoke was the same powder that Zi Di had sprinkled before, the lizards that breathed in the smoke would have their respiratory tracts corroded.

But Zhen Jin had breathed in medicinal fumes before and could breathe freely.

“There is actually such a fantastic medicine!” The eyes of the exploration team were wide with pleasant surprise.

But Zi Di shook her head: “To be honest, this is a failed product. The medicine is toxic and only Lord Zhen Jin’s body can handle it, after inhaling it, it can corrode the green smoke for a certain period of time, allowing one to breathe freely. If it were us, we would have already been choked to death.”

Zhen Jin was at least a silver level cultivator and could possibly be a gold level one. Although his constitution could not compare to most magic beasts, it far exceeded the average human.

In this manner, Bai Ya shot arrows again and again, first the medicine and then the green smoke. With this aid, Zhen Jin’s journey was no longer hindered and he successfully ascended and reunited with everyone on top of the sand dune.

“My Lord!”

“Lord Zhen Jin!”

The exploration team encircled Zhen Jin, each of them emotionally moved.

Bai Ya looked towards Zhen Jin with his face full of admiration.

“My lord, what should we do next?” Someone asked.

“Get ready, everyone will follow me and charge out. I will charge at the forefront.” Zhen Jin answered.

Cang Xu shook his head: “Lord Zhen Jin, I fear this plan will not work.”

Zi Di told them the particulars of her medicine.

Zhen Jin smiled but did not respond, rather he turned around and looked at the direction he had come from.

His eyes slightly squinted as he looked into the distance for a moment before he suddenly smiled.

This time, the sight he had seen did not disappoint him, he finally got what he had waited for.

Thus, he said: “Of course you cannot rely upon me alone. However, I have been here before. At that time, I hadn’t found you guys yet. But the pink compound trail gave me clues of your whereabouts deep in the lizard nest. I couldn’t rush into the lizard’s nest by myself so I provoked and attracted a scorpion group.”

“My injury was from provoking the scorpion group.”

“Look everyone, they are here.”

Everyone looked hastily and saw a large scorpion rushing in from the distance.

These scorpions were huge, no less than the lizards. The leader of the scorpion group had a strong silver level magic beast aura.

“Your Lordship is wise!”

“Excellent, we are saved.”

Everyone was exalted as they finally saw the chance of escaping with their lives.

However, the scene of the two beast groups fighting each other did not happen.

The scorpion group stopped at the edge of the lizard’s domain, after the lizards panicked for a spell, the iron level lizards all hurried to the front of the scorpion group.

The two beast groups did not directly fight, rather they stood off in confrontation.

“This…”

“Don’t tell me the scorpion group saw through our plan?”

“Curses, just fight already!”

Everyone was irascible.

But Zhen Jin was still smiling: “Don’t worry, early this morning I witnessed the lizards and scorpions fighting. First, they will provoke each other and if neither side concedes, the strongest of either group will come out to fight alone. The current situation is like so.”

“Give me some water and food, I need to replenish myself.” Zhen Jin requested.

Water and rations were immediately given to Zhen Jin.

Zhen Jin had already used up the food he had on hand.

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After he investigated the lizard nest for the first time, he had eaten the viper and then ran back to find the scorpion group and attracted them over.

Zhen Jin chewed, his Adam’s apple bobbed as food and water entered his stomach.

The medicinal fumes he had breathed in were still affecting him, as a result, the youngster could not taste anything. But, just the act of eating made his heart feel spontaneously satisfied and happy.

Zhen Jin, right now, was really hungry and thirsty.

After finding the pink compound, he had trekked long and hard to arrive at the fringe of the lizard nest. Afterwards, he withdrew and looked for the scorpion group, he did not hesitate to suffer injuries when provoking the scorpion group, finally, he made the round trip back.

Thereafter, under the intensely shining sunlight, he single-handedly

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charged at the lizard lounge. Regardless of stamina or spirit, this was a huge ordeal that had consumed a lot.

“Eat a bit more, my Lord!”

The exploration team crowded around Zhen Jin and watched him gulp down food, many of them were also subconsciously swallowing their own spit. Although they had eaten, their hunger clearly hadn’t been satisfied yet.

“Yes, Lord Zhen Jin, you have formidable strength and you need to eat more food than us.”

“My lord, put on this leather armor. We still have spares.”

Someone saw Zhen Jin’s hemp garments and immediately contributed his equipment.

The exploration team members all knew that he was the key person for their safety, all of their hope was entrusted to Zhen Jin.

“How much food do we still have?”

After hearing the answer, Zhen Jin shook his head and voluntarily stopped eating.

The group’s food was already too low, and with an uncertain future, he needed to save as much food as possible.

“Huu.”

He got up with a straight waist and spat out some foul air.

Although he only ate until he was half full, he was satisfied at this moment.

He took the leather armor and donned it on himself.

It was a little too big and Zhen Jin did not have much expectations that it could resist acid.

But having something was always better than nothing.

As for blades, since he had the spider blade, he took a dagger.

After being crudely armed, he swept his eyes over those nearby and saw five to six exploration team members.

The thing that surprised him the most was that there were so many people alive! This was beyond his expectations.

Zhen Jin was not a thief and did not have the ability to move stealthily. Therefore, when he had found the medicine trail, he did not enter and investigate the underground lizard nest the first time.

At that time, Cang Xu and Zi Di were still in the cave. Both parties hadn’t found each other.

The second time, Zhen Jin arrived here and suddenly found that so many people were still alive, his heart was unimaginably joyous!

After seeing these people, he didn’t hesitate and instantly resolved himself to use all of his strength to save these people.

On the one hand, this was the templar knight’s creed. On the other hand, the pressure of surviving alone was tremendous and Zhen Jin had already felt it deeply. He needed Cang Xu’s knowledge, Zi Di’s potions, and more. Even people like Bai Ya and the rest were precious manpower. Looking into the future, after he escaped this island, he would still need to compete in the White Sands City Lord competition and needed subordinates to aid him. 

Notes

Do humans need each other? The answer is of course, barring any logic breaking things like cultivation or magic, we humans need to stick together in our fight against the consequences of our actions. Everything in our modern world is not the product of the paragons among men despite Ayn Rand’s best efforts, but the work of countless and forgotten individuals throughout history. Obviously all of this gets tossed out in Xianxia when a random arrogant young master or MC gets their sweaty hands on some divine treasure or technique.

Translation Notes

(眼观六路耳听八方: lit. the eyes watch six roads and the ears listen in all directions

/

to be observant and alert (idiom) )

(rip best neck warmer)

(单人匹马突: single-handedly (idiom) )