Wu Guang was slowly regaining his awareness.
First, it was the pain, the by now usual pain.
After that, he began feeling some parts of his body.
And only after almost an hour of this half-alive state he was feeling enough as to say that he was alive.
"Grhh" He lightly groaned while trying to process what he was feeling. It was hard, especially as he could not yet gather enough strength even to open his eyes.
Seemingly his reaction had provoked something of a change in his surroundings, as the heaviness and warmth, he felt on the left side of his body suddenly disappeared.
"You awake?" A female voice entered his ears.
"..." Albeit he tried to voice some kind of response, Wu Guang only felt his mouth opening silently.
"Take your time, just don't try to use qi. Your circulation was damaged, and even if it wasn't, there is simply too much foreign qi in it right now"
Without the ability to respond, Wu Guang tried to nod. And seemingly he did manage to do so.
***
Half an hour later, Wu Guang managed to open his eyes. His first instinct was to look around, but his neck did not want to turn, and so he was left with only what he saw in front, or over as he was on his back. From what he could understand, he was in some kind of a cave. The ceiling was about twenty feet tall, and he was laying on its floor, with some kind of furs? pelts? or something of that kind below him.
"You opened your eyes? Good! Can you now speak?" The same female voice asked. Wu Guang could not see the speaker, but somehow the voice appeared to be familiar...
"I... think... so" Taking an enormous amount of effort, and pausing after each word, Wu Guang responded.
"Well, that's something" The female voice grew closer and its owner entered Wu Guang's field of view.
She seemed tall and had her hair cropped short. Her face was dominated by a square jaw, but her big eyes and pointed nose added a layer of charm. It took only a few moments for even the current Wu Guang to identify the so familiar face, after all, it was no one else than Yuan Xiuying. Well, or at least she was before being used as a body for...
"Chun Hua!" Somehow Wu Guang managed to exclaim. Granted, in a weak voice, but at least without the need to pause and breathe between each word.
And then, he even managed to force his head to turn towards the opposite side. It wasn't like he was not glad to see her, no, on the contrary, he was extremely so. But, from what he saw, she wasn't wearing anything!
"Oh, I forgot that you humans have this strange conduct of dressing up. Wait for a bit"
With a painfully slow rustling, Chun Hua covered herself with some kind of robe.
"We both may have a lot of questions, but judging from your state, it will be better for you to stay put and listen to what I know. If you feel better afterward, well, you could probably explain why you were half-dying on a battlefield in place of simply escaping" Albeit her tone was normal at the start, the last phrase was said with a badly concealed anger.
"I..."
"Just shut up and listen" She interrupted, before beginning to explain what she knew.
***
As Chun Hua was taking more than the expected time to fuse with Yuan Xiuying, and the one to be left with her was Kass Shaa'r, Wu Guang had separated part of his consciousness, namely the one bound by the seal and left it with the latter. Normally it should not be something doable, but between his knowledge and the lizardmen's specialness, it went without a hitch.
And so, when Chun Hua awoke, a pair of days after Wu Guang had left, she found herself with the lizardmen. After a tense round of questions, she decided that Wu Guang was right about not risking his matters to stay with her, especially if he was leaving her to someone as strong as Kass Shaa'r.
The latter also conveyed the words of Wu Guang, which were basic instructions on how, and where they would meet. And so, the two of them entered the Great Mountains and using the routes that the lizardman had found before, reached the spot nearest to the 'Demonic Plateau' and the Wildlands border. Where they remained to wait for Wu Guang.
They did not plan to enter the Wildlands, but that was until the consciousness part that Wu Guang had left with Kass Shaa'r began dwindling. This could only mean that he was on the verge of dying, and so without thinking both decided to move out.
With a Warrior Lord cultivator's ability to fly, they managed to enter, and then scout while remaining unseen. At some point, they separated for a bit, and then Kass Shaa'r found the unconscious, almost dying Wu Guang.
He then reunited with Chun Hua, and after she did not know why Wu Guang was fighting in such a place, or why he risked his life doing it... Chun Hua decided that the best would be for them to not try to contact anyone of Wu Guang's acquaintances, preferring to hide in the Great Mountains and wit for the latter's awakening.
***
"I see... I think you missed the part where you two tried to heal me, but in any case, I am really grateful" Wu Guang had regained enough strength to sit down, and his speaking had improved.
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"Not that I can say we were successful. Scaly has a lot of qi, and his control is impressive... But as he has zero knowledge about humans, he was constantly asking me. And in my case, I could only use this" She motioned to her body before continuing
"As a model, and to say the truth, I doubt that another cultivator, especially of a different sex, is the best thing to base healing on"
"True, but I am still alive... As for the rest, it will depend on the heavens and my skills" Whatever had happened, Wu Guang was grateful to both of them for finding him and then mending his body enough for him to regain consciousness.
"So you have an idea already?"
"I do not feel anything impossible to heal, at least right now. But I will be not able to run a check until you take out the foreign qi" He wasn't lying, but he wasn't saying the truth either. indeed, he did not feel anything impossible to heal, but that was mostly because he could not, even now, feel anything except his physical body. Basically, he did not feel any qi inside himself at all.
"Mmm, and your right arm?" Chun Hua pointed to the blackened and inflamed piece of flesh that Wu Guang's right arm had been turned into.
"I don't know, at least not yet" This time he had said the truth. He did not remember all the details, but he recalled that one of his last decisions was to sever the nerves and qi pathways in his right shoulder, effectively separating himself from his right arm.
"Rest for a bit more, as soon as scaly is back, I think we are entitled to hear about what happened"
"Yes... Just a question, how much time has passed?"
"From the moment we found you 32 suns have risen" Chun Hua responded emotionlessly
"32!" Wu Guang exclaimed before quickly asking
"Have you two learned anything about what is going on the island?"
"I haven't left your side since we brought you here"
"Sorry..."
"No need, I just stated a fact. But scaly may know something, he has been patrolling the borders of the mountains"
"I see"
***
For the moment when Kass Shaa'r returned, Wu Guang was feeling far better. He could not yet stand up, but he at least did not feel like his body was made of lead. Well, except for his right arm, which continued to be a dead weight.
The lizardman was glad for Wu Guang's awakening, but as Chun Hua, he was very interested in why he, someone who tended to act in a far more thoughtful manner, at least from what they two had gathered, decided to fight in a battle that led him to such a state.
Wu Guang did not hide anything, and even though he still had trouble recalling some moments, explained almost everything.
Starting from the moment that he separated from them and passing through the incidents he and his friends, who hopefully were alive, prevented. How the battle on that small beach started, and how it ended, at least from his point of view.
"And so, when I sensed that the formation alarm, I decided to move towards there. I was careful of my condition, and so it took me about two hours to arrive. When I did, I found no cultivators, only over a thousand undeath" Wu Guang continued explaining, now moving to the part that his auditory, made of two, wanted to hear.
He sincerely said that the thoughts and feelings that made him decide to not allow the Wildlands to be damaged, or worse by the Death Rain were not something he could explain, but...
"So when I found that the primal magma worked, I decided that there was no way but to go and tackle the issue myself" Here he could have added "I do not know why the hell I even decided that" but he refrained from it, after all, not knowing something did not change the fact that he did decide to act.
The details of his last stand, as he considered it to be at that moment, were a bit hazy, but he did remember most of what had transpired.
"I used my aura to create something akin to a coat of Primal Magma, and under its protection, I jumped right in the middle of the undeath. I swept, kicked, punched, and even threw blobs of magma, destroying the corpses and neutralizing the poisonous liquid. And when my aura, which was already half-spent went out, I moved up to mental power, continuing to hold the magma around me" This part WU Guang did remember. After considering that his body could not resist direct combat, he decided to cloak himself in magma and fight without truly straining himself. The magma was a double-edged sword, one that ate through his reserves quickly. And because of that, he had started with the surrounding qi with the use of aura and then moved to mental power. Leaving his own dantian for last, as the most dangerous element in his state.
"And when my mind power ran out, I resorted using my own qi. It went fine, at least for the most part, and so when I felt that I reached my absolute limit, more than nine-tenths of the corpses were downed. But I had already committed myself to it and had no other choice but to finish, so I released all the locks, and tapped into my true Soul power"
"You mean that you decided to add something that you could not control to a body that had already reached if not gone over all the acceptable limits?" Chun Hua confirmed
"...Yes. Anyway, I somehow managed to finish every damn corpse. And either destroy or evaporate all the death rain they carried on them. Regretfully, as you just said, I went far over the acceptable limits, and so before I could react, the qi I forcibly infused with soul power went out of control. It started from the most strained part, my right arm, and so before losing consciousness, I gathered the remnants of anything I could and simply severed all the connections between my arm and my body"
"Which most probably saved your life" Kass Shaa'r resumed.
"Probably, not that I will know until I manage to check myself. You two healed me, and I am very grateful for it, but my circulation was broken, and so probably I will need to spend a very long time before I manage to reconnect it, and so gain it back" Wu Guang finished his explanations, adding part of his last findings. Indeed, his arm remained severed from the circulatory system, and that meant that at least 3 of his 12 main meridians were not part of the internal network that cultivators circulation.
***
Having no real access to qi, Wu Guang would have to depend on his consciousness to scan each inch of his body. But, his consciousness was damaged. And as he required qi to check on the latter, he was in a dead circle.
Or at least he would, if not for the fact that Kass Shaa'r carried inside him part of his original, pre-injuries consciousness. And however it had shriveled after the main damage, it was still enough for him to partially recover his capabilities.
After transferring the part and recovering the qi that had been holding Wu Guang alive until now, Kass Shaa'r suddenly asked
"Before you enter meditation and try to heal yourself... Do you have any instructions?"
"Instructions?"
"Yes, you will probably take a lot of time, so do you want me to go somewhere or try and contact someone?"
"Mmm..." Wu Guang thought for a few minutes before shaking his head
"No, I do not know enough of the current situation to act blindly. I know that with your strength you will be unmatched, at least on the island, but..."
"I see, then maybe I should just grab someone off the people that are searching for you?"
"What?"
"Oh, I kinda forgot to mention that before, but there are two men constantly moving near the Demonic Plateau and trying to scan for even a trace of your aura" If lizardmen could blush, Wu Guang was sure that Kass Shaa'r would have done so.
"Can you describe them to me?"
"Sure..."
"Mmm, got it. If you see them alone, and there is no issue for you to do so... Then please get both of them here. Just try to not scare them into fighting you to death"
"Hah! My sole presence is enough to deal with the intermediate sage realm, not to mention the soul realm one.
And indeed, what cultivator of the Yellow Realm, however advanced he was could resist the presence, aura, and pressure that a Earth Realm, Warrior Lord equivalent Saint Beast irradiated?