When Jian Yu heard the cry for help, he didn't mind it at first and his arms started to climb down on their own. Then a thought ran through his head, weren't there a bunch of tales of men saving women from inexplicable dangers? Didn't they end up being praised as a hero by the masses?

Jian Yu's arms stopped at that thought and he carefully laid out the pros and cons of trying to save the woman from whatever it was. In the end, Jian Yu decided to stay in the gorge. It's safer there and the situation of the woman in danger is none of his business after all.

However, as soon as he started to move back down, the gorge started shaking violently. The rocky walls crumbled apart and the ground started to sink in. Even the sewage system connected to it from Acirema started to collapse on itself!

Jian Yu's eyes bulged out of their sockets in shock along with the other cultivators on the surface. The rumbling caused by the gorge had spread out to cover a wide area in the blink of an eye. The rope Jian Yu was holding onto wobbled about unstably, forcing Jian Yu to climb up onto the surface with quick movements. The other cultivators in the area had already started fleeing away with haste away from the gorge, not even bothering to collect the demon hearts of the dead beasts. As for the demonic beasts that were well and alive, they shuddered momentarily before fleeing as well towards the nearby mountains.

Jian Yu swiped off any dust on his armor before running off to the source of the cry for help previously. Coincidentally, that was the direction that led to the mountain paths that Jian Yu used previously to stay away from danger.

"Might as well save that lady as a knight in shining armor. With my talismans, I should be able to at least keep myself alive," he thought with a complacent look on his face.

A few minutes after Jian Yu started running towards the source of the sound, he stopped again to look around for any signs of a damsel in distress. The ground rumbled every now and then to remind Jian Yu of the danger he was in which only served to fuel his impatience. Along the way, he swore he could hear a few shouts getting louder and louder. Clearly, he was getting close.

Finally, he caught a glimpse of a net hanging down from a thick branch of an even thicker tree. Within the net was a girl crying all by herself, unable to break free. Jian Yu's eyes lit up at the sight of this and began to straighten himself up before walking to her.

The ground began to crack apart and trees began to topple over into the cracks. This brought about a scene of havoc that nearly matched the scene depicted back in the Ferocity Sect before Jian Yu escaped.

Noticing the lack of time given for him to enjoy the moment, Jian Yu ran up to the net and snatched it off the branch only to hang the girl still caught up in the net over his shoulders.

From the moment Jian Yu started walking to her until he launched her over his shoulder, only a few seconds passed by. Only when Tang Mei felt something grab the net did she notice that somebody had come to her rescue!

The precious three men that caught her had scurried off to who knows where and left her behind, supposedly to get rid of the only witness and evidence of their crime. With the natural goings-on of the mountain, she was planned to die there, alone. As they were certain nobody was nearby even before catching her, they didn't even bother shutting her up. However, their seemingly perfect plan was ruined by Jian Yu who had unexpectedly arrived at the scene.

"Who.. are you?" She asked with a near raspy voice, the result of all of her earlier shouting.

Whilst running towards the mountain path far away from the Piercing Sword Mountain, Jian Yu quickly thought up a cool answer.

"Your knight in shining armor."

Then, he flashed the most charming smile he could as he continued to run. His legs were actually not getting tired yet, as opposed to his expectations. In fact, they seemed even stronger!

"Perhaps this is yet again another benefit from the Divine Beast Temple," he wondered in his heart.

Tang Mei was still being carried atop Jian Yu's shoulder, which only got her more uncomfortable considering her recent experience. She tried getting off silently but Jian Yu's arms were tightly wrapped around her waist. She could tell that despite his lack of expression, he was very nervous. Furthermore, she was a bit embarrassed at the way Jian Yu was tightly grabbing her.

So, with a light cough, she spoke up to Jian Yu, "Can you put me down? I... can run by myself."

While Jian Yu wondered what to say to initiate a conversation, Tang Mei spoke first. Thinking that Tang Mei wanted to relieve him of heavy burden, he gladly put Tang Mei down and helped her out of the net.

"What's your name?" He asked.

After a moment of thinking, Tang Mei answered, "Gong Zhu."

"Oh! You're a princess! As for me.."

"Yes, I already know, Sir Knight."

Tang Mei got up to her feet and removed the talisman sticking to her thigh, trying not to acknowledge Jian Yu's existence. She made a false name, which meant princess, for Jian Yu to refer to her as. She was afraid that after getting away from this man, he would be hellbent on trying to find her. To remove future hassles, she just gave him a false name there and then.

After helping her out of their net, Jian Yu was greeted by a cold look by Tang Mei. Inwardly, he was lamenting the fact that he wasn't charming enough for her to turn heads over heels for him. Alas, everything he did caused another person to dislike him again.

Sighing to himself, Jian Yu mentioned to Tang Mei that a safe mountain path was further ahead but Tang Mei refused to follow him now that her cultivation base was restored. Jian Yu's abilities and possible schemes were unclear to her so it was bad that she left.

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And so, Jian Yu watched as Tang Mei left towards another direction, leaving him all alone. He was certain he didn't do anything repulsive so perhaps it was just her that hated being around others. However, he had to admit. Although children mature at a quick pace in the cultivation world, that lass was maturing way too quickly in terms of her body. Jian Yu's hand squeezed air a few times in recollection of the plump waist he had taken advantage of.

"Gong Zhu..." He whispered under his breath, etching the memory of her image into his mind.

Afterwards, Jian Yu left the mountain on his own whilst Tang Mei made her way to where the Elder from before left the sect disciples. There, she patiently waited with her fellow sect disciples for the Elder to come pick them up, occasionally sending murderous glares at the three men she recognised. Inside, she swore to punish them.

Suddenly, loud explosions were heard as the Elder was seen in the air fighting off a 20 meter snake which emanated waves of power representing the Elemental Core stage!

It had caught sight of human cultivators in the vicinity of it's mountain, which led it to think that the cause of the destruction of it's territory was ultimately the humans. In it's rage, it didn't bother to think and started to kill all humans it saw. Thankfully, the Elder had foreseen such a thing would happen and prevented any deaths. He even placed a formation surrounding his sect disciples to protect them from any possible aftershocks.

As they fought, the rumbling reached it's peak and the mountain... split into two!

If that weren't shocking enough, from underneath the mountain, came a beam scintillating light shooting upwards. It gleamed blue at times and turned into a blinding white at another.

Everybody looked upwards in shock including Jian Yu who was at this point, quite a distance away from the Piercing Sword Mountain. What followed the display of lights was a deafening roar and a fierce gust of wind which toppled any still standing trees and shredded any unprotected beasts. Even the formation guarding the sect disciples was shaking violently in the face of this wind.

The sect disciples' faces turned pale at the sight. Who would have thought that their trial by fire would end up with such a shocking conclusion?

Then, the projection of a menacing azure dragon appeared within the light itself and clawed at the world around it. It was as if it was proclaiming to the Heavens themselves that it would swear to shatter it and break free of it's shackles.

However, the space around it merely shattered and reformed under the natural laws, proving the dragon's efforts futile. Finally, it faded away in what seemed to be regret.

Everybody's hearts thumped wildly at the sight of this azure dragon projection. That level of power, would they ever reach such heights?

For Jian Yu, he was similarly blankly gazing towards the azure dragon projection fading away when he heard a profoundly ancient voice roar into his mind seemingly from the Divine Beast medallion.

"Undying Beastial Dao; Obsessive thirst to break free; The four Sectors will unite; Conquer the cosmos!"

This series of short phrases caused Jian Yu to unconsciously tremble. Although Jian Yu could hear the words, all that echoed in his ears was a long roar followed by three successive animal noises, each completing one phrase after another. This set of mnemonics seemed impossible for Jian Yu to understand at the moment so he shoved it to the back of his head.

Jian Yu looked back up at the illusory azure dragon still fading away in the air only to find it staring back at him.

Suddenly, it let out a silent roar and manifested a real temple below it in place of the Piercing Sword Mountain. It was actually a temple dedicated solely to itself!

As the temple rose up from the ground, the mountain completely toppled over which caused the snake lording over the territory to hiss viciously at it and yet began to slither away from the temple.

Jian Yu's eyes glittered with a strange light as if he was forcibly controlling himself against going to that temple right away. After struggling for a few moments, he gained complete control over himself and headed towards the opposite direction.

"If destiny demands it, whatever is inside that temple will be mine in the end."

Somewhere in the vast universe, an old man's eyes widened up in shock. He was meditating on the great Dao when he suddenly felt a pain coming from his chest. Whilst gently rubbing the tattoo on his chest, he murmured, "Another generation arrives..."

Time passed as Jian Yu began to tread the same path he had the previous week, recalling past events. Then he took out the Divine Beast medallion and looked at it closer. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary which only deepened Jian Yu's curiosity. The more ordinary it seemed, the more mysterious it was.

Additionally, he wondered about the mnemonics he had heard before the azure dragon faded away.

"There's definitely some major secret behind the Divine Beast Temple. The words seemed so out of place but there's definitely some true meaning behind it all. What does it mean... Why couldn't the sentences just be complete?"

Out of the blue, his stomach started growling. This caused an odd expression to surface on his face. As experienced, cultivators didn't need to eat and never got hungry. They could sustain themselves with the natural qi of Heaven and Earth. Eating was just a pastime that cultivators would enjoy. However, now Jian Yu was feeling as if he had starved for an entire year. His stomach growled ferociously and his mouth started to water up. Jian Yu was inwardly very anxious and confused at what was going on.

However, as he felt himself losing himself to his desire to eat, he exclaimed, "ARGH, I need to eat!"

Afterwards, with bloodshot eyes, he ran off in a random direction to hunt. He dropped his armor to move faster and his jaws clenched as he couldn't find any beasts in the surroundings.

In his haste, he didn't hesitate to climb up a hill to get a good vantage point. As his eyes met the horizon, a tiger sitting atop a tree pounced at him!

Although it was a surprise attack, Jian Yu's senses had become surprisingly sharp as he relied on pure instinct and he immediately turned around and let loose a crude punch towards it.

In fact, Jian Yu's previous conjecture regarding his increase in strength was on point. His increase in strength was mainly caused by the refinement process in the Divine Beast Temple which also resulted in immense pain.

As such, although it was merely a crude punch, the tiger whose cultivation base was roughly around Jian Yu's, was immediately pushed back.

Under this crushing power, the tiger simply wanted to run but how could the starving predator let such easy prey get away?

Jian Yu released a few more crude punches whilst closing the distance between them an finally, the tiger's skull caved inwards and it perished.

Following his primal instincts, Jian Yu didn't even bother to cook the meat. Instead, he made his hand into a claw and scooped up chunks after chunks of raw meat out of the tiger and straight into his mouth.

Mere minutes later, the tiger's carcass was mainly left with bones and meat Jian Yu couldn't scrape off. However, Jian Yu was still satisfied with his meal. His hands and mouth dripped with blood and even his shirt was soaked in it. This was a gruesome sight but Jian Yu didn't even flinch at the sight of himself gorging on raw flesh.

"Urgh.."

Strange sounds came from his gut as he recalled that he wasn't supposed to eat raw meat of a demonic beast. Supposedly, it consuming it could result in the consumer having a serious stomach ache and at worst, death.

And so, Jian Yu looked around for any disgusting sights to start puking the meat out but couldn't. In the end, he started to rely on his own imagination.

"Ugly girls, vegetables..."

He then felt saliva being accumulated faster, signalling Jian Yu that he was going to vomit soon.

Yet, he felt himself fundamentally change as the ancient voice sounded out yet again.

"Foundational magic; Grand Beastial Devouring; Absorb demonic qi, form the fifth Divine Beast."