Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1025 - Escape
Chapter 1025 – Escape
As long as Liu Wuxie outran the Azure Nether Crocodile’s attack range, he would stay alive.
With a loud rumble, the beast raised its head once more. The ice across several thousand meters cracked and collapsed, forming a colossal pit.
The ground kept collapsing as a small mountain in the distance crumbled and sank into the underground world.
Liu Wuxie escaped so quickly that he saved the Half-Moon Nunnery from destruction. Otherwise, the mountain beneath it would have collapsed as well.
He pushed his speed to the limit and channeled his true essence, melting the ice in front of him at incredible speed.
With no other choice, he slashed forward with the Heretic Blade, cleaving a path through the ice. He darted into the tunnel and sped forward, covering hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye.
The moment Liu Wuxie disappeared, the Azure Nether Crocodile lunged at where Liu Wuxie had stood just a few seconds ago. The beast snapped its massive jaws shut with a thunderous crack as if it had crushed an entire mountain in a single bite.
“Fuck, how did I end up running into a monster like this?” Liu Wuxie cursed through gritted teeth.
In ancient times, there were no spiritual or profound beasts, only primeval behemoths, the titanic creatures revered and feared for their sheer size. Over the ages, those colossal beasts had vanished, giving way to spiritual and demonic beasts. Only divine beasts retained faint traces of that ancient bloodline.
And now, one of them was chasing him.
The Azure Nether Crocodile thundered after him, its killing intent locked onto Liu Wuxie, determined to reclaim the Frost Bead.
“Spatial Dao Art!” Liu Wuxie shouted.
He didn’t dare face the creature head-on. Instead, he activated his spatial dao technique, freezing the space behind him with layers of ice to seal the passage, buying himself precious seconds to escape.
The space behind Liu Wuxie began to solidify, layers of frozen air locking in place to hinder the crocodile’s advance, but it barely slowed the ancient behemoth.
His spatial dao technique wasn’t enough.
In less than a fraction of a breath, the Azure Nether Crocodile lunged forward again, its massive head crashing through the tunnel. A bone-deep chill gripped Liu Wuxie as a terrifying suction force surged from the creature’s maw, threatening to yank him backward into its jaws.
To make matters worse, the crocodile spewed a torrent of ice from its mouth, flooding the tunnel with freezing power and trying to seal the path Liu Wuxie had just carved.
“Damn it!” Liu Wuxie growled. He hadn’t expected the Azure Nether Crocodile to be this relentless.
Ancient behemoths weren’t merely massive, but they were apex predators that ruled the world.
“Golden Flame Strike!” he shouted.
With a blazing swing of the Heretic Blade, Liu Wuxie unleashed a searing arc of fire. The strike tore through the thickening ice ahead, carving a fresh fissure through the frozen wall.
He didn’t hesitate. Without looking back, he dove into the opening.
Climbing upward was too slow. Moving horizontally was faster, and right now, speed was his only advantage. He had no other choice. This was the only way to shake the crocodile off his trail.
Above ground, chaos had already erupted.
Aside from the area around the Half-Moon Nunnery, the surrounding ice had vanished, leaving behind a vast black crater where the glacier once stood. It would take time for the shattered terrain to repair itself.
Then, a thunderous roar exploded from deep beneath the surface. The ground trembled, and the sound pierced the heavens. It finally reached the ears of those on the surface.
Even Master Yi froze for a moment, stunned by the raw, primal power radiating from that roar.
As for the ordinary disciples and those with lower cultivation, they collapsed to the ground, overwhelmed by the pressure that accompanied the sound.
“It’s a beast roar… Could a colossal beast be underground?” someone whispered, their voice trembling.
The thought seemed absurd. A colossal beast beneath the boundless glacier? Impossible, wasn’t it?
And yet, deep below, Liu Wuxie kept running. The Azure Nether Crocodile thundered after him, relentless in its pursuit.
He didn’t know how long he’d been fleeing. His robes clung to his body, drenched in sweat.
He dodged death more than once, each time by a hair’s breadth. Only his instincts kept him alive.
Just as he’d suspected, the Azure Nether Crocodile struggled in the cramped space. Its massive body turned every movement into a burden, each motion draining its strength. That limitation was Liu Wuxie’s only advantage.
Instead of escaping upward as most would, he had gambled everything on the horizontal flight. It defied instinct, but it had saved his life. If he’d tried to ascend, the beast would’ve swallowed him whole by now.
He raced through the frozen tunnels, pushing himself beyond his limits.
After several kilometers of frantic retreat, the tremors behind him began to fade. The Azure Nether Crocodile began to slow its pace.
But Liu Wuxie was nearly at his limit, too. His true essence ran dangerously low, and if the behemoth caught up now, he wouldn’t be able to resist.
Liu Wuxie grabbed a pile of supreme-grade spirit stones and threw them into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. The stones dissolved instantly, releasing a surge of pure spiritual energy that flowed into his body, rapidly replenishing his depleted true essence.
Then suddenly, the thunderous noise behind him stopped. He turned and froze.
Just a few dozen meters away, the enormous head of the Azure Nether Crocodile loomed in the shadows. Its eyes, each the size of a planet, rolled slowly until they locked onto him with crushing pressure.
Its hide resembled ancient armor that was dense and impenetrable. Liu Wuxie knew instinctively that even if he unleashed his full strength, even if he struck with the Annihilation Fist, he would not leave a single scratch.
For a long, tense moment, man and beast stared at each other, motionless.
The Azure Nether Crocodile had reached its limit. Pushing farther meant rising and shifting its massive body, but doing so would come at a cost.
If the creature stood in full, the shock would ripple across the extreme north. Mountains would collapse. Valleys would shatter. The entire region would fall with it.
The stalemate dragged on for several tense minutes before the Azure Nether Crocodile slowly began to withdraw its head. As it retreated, it left behind a massive crater, and it quickly filled with bone-chilling water.
I have to leave. Now.
Liu Wuxie didn’t hesitate for a second.
Channeling the last reserves of his true essence, he launched himself upward. The glacier layers, already fractured from the earlier collapse, gave way more easily than before, allowing him to ascend faster with every pulse of energy.
Above ground, Murong Yi and Xu Lingxue paced back and forth in mounting anxiety. They had no idea what was happening underground. Every time they tried to descend, Master Yi stopped them.
Nearby, Miao Jianying stood on guard, sword drawn, ready to dive underground the moment Liu Wuxie’s life hung in the balance.
The Half-Moon Nunnery had shifted nearly fifty meters from where it originally stood. Deep fractures cut through the terrain. To reach the summit again, they’d have to cross the crater and scale the mountain from the far side.
“What’s going on?” one of the nuns exclaimed, her voice echoing the disbelief on every face around her.
They stared at the fractured terrain in shock. The thought of a mountain being moved defied all reason. Perhaps only a deity could achieve something so unfathomable.
As the tremors gradually faded, more people began to gather around the Half-Moon Nunnery.
“Master, do you know what happened?” several middle-aged nuns asked, their expressions anxious.
However, Master Yi remained silent. Her eyes never left the horizon.
She was waiting for Liu Wuxie to return. Only he could explain what had truly happened beneath the glacier.
Even as night fell, no one left. The disciples remained near the Half-Moon Nunnery, tense and watchful. Patrols moved through the fractured terrain in shifts, keeping a lookout for danger.
“Don’t worry. I believe he’ll be fine,” Murong Yi whispered.
She was slightly older than Xu Lingxue and often stepped into the role of an elder sister, offering quiet reassurance whenever it was needed.
Xu Lingxue gave a slight nod. She believed in Liu Wuxie, too, but that didn’t stop the unease churning in her chest. The violent tremors and deafening roars earlier had left a lingering fear in everyone’s hearts.
Then, just as the first light of dawn touched the mountaintop, a shadow appeared, climbing out from the edge of the crater, body draped in ice and silence.
……
For half a month, Miao Jianying had barely rested. He circled the crater each day, refusing to give up hope.
The moment he saw a shadow climbing out of the abyss, he bolted forward like a shooting star.
“Brother Liu!” he shouted, eyes wide with shock.
Liu Wuxie collapsed onto the ground, barely conscious. Frostbite ravaged his body. His knuckles swelled, and shards of ice tore into his face. He looked utterly wrecked, drained in body and spirit. Every step he’d taken to crawl out had pushed him to the brink.
He hadn’t had a moment to tend to his wounds—not with the Azure Nether Crocodile still hunting him and not with the bone-chilling water erupting behind him. He had fled a collapsing world of ice and death, knowing even the slightest hesitation would get him swallowed alive.
He had escaped that frozen purgatory only after burning the last thread of his true essence.
Miao Jianying scooped Liu Wuxie into his arms and vanished in a blur of motion.
“Master Yi! Help!” he shouted, sprinting toward the Half-Moon Nunnery with panic lacing his voice.
True essence drained, Liu Wuxie drifted in and out of consciousness. His body burned with unnatural heat from a furnace Miao Jianying clutched in his hands. Yet, he still mumbled about the cold, his body shivering violently with each breath.
As Miao Jianying’s voice rang out, tents rustled open one by one. The disciples rushed out and gasped when they saw Liu Wuxie.
“Big Brother Liu!” Xu Lingxue and Murong Yi cried out at once, tears welling in their eyes the moment they saw his battered form.
“Quick! Get him inside and start a fire, now!” Master Yi barked, her voice sharp with urgency.
Even she couldn’t hide the shock on her face. Somehow, against all odds, Liu Wuxie had made it back alive.
They carried him into a tent and gently laid him on a padded mat. Fires were quickly lit around him, filling the space with warmth.
Miao Jianying worked quickly, stripping off Liu Wuxie’s frozen robes and wrapping him tightly in thick layers of snow beast pelts. Despite the warmth, Liu Wuxie shivered uncontrollably, still caught in the cold’s grasp.
Once everything was in place, Master Yi stepped forward and began examining his condition. Outside the tent, the others waited in tense, expectant silence. No one dared to enter, and only Miao Jianying remained inside with her.
He was the only man among them, and it naturally was his responsibility to change Liu Wuxie’s clothes.
When Master Yi finished her inspection and gently fed Liu Wuxie a pill, Miao Jianying leaned in, concern etched across his face.
“Master Yi, how is he?”
Master Yi sat back and sighed, still processing what she had seen.
“Just frostbite,” she said at last. “No serious injuries. He’ll recover with a few days of rest.”
Her voice carried a hint of disbelief.
By all logic, the cold should’ve killed him. Yet, somehow, Liu Wuxie had survived.
She had once attempted to descend the glacier, but she’d reached her limit after only a few thousand meters. If she had gone any farther, the cold would’ve frozen her to death.
However, Liu Wuxie had gone far deeper, tens of thousands of meters, and had even come into direct contact with the bone-chilling water. Ordinary cultivators would’ve died instantly from that alone. Yet, he had returned with nothing more than severe frostbite. That alone left Master Yi stunned.
Miao Jianying finally exhaled in relief.
When Master Yi stepped out of the tent, a small crowd had already gathered, anxiously awaiting news.
“Master Yi, how is Big Brother Liu?” Xu Lingxue asked, her voice tight with worry.
“He’s fine. He needs a few days of rest,” Master Yi said calmly. “Let him sleep. You can all return to your tents. Don’t disturb him.”
With that, Master Yi turned and quietly returned to her quarters.
For now, none of them could return to the Half-Moon Nunnery. They had to wait for the ground to refreeze and stabilize the mountain beneath it. Until the drift stopped, it was too dangerous to go back.
Everyone exhaled in relief. No one said it aloud, but they had all silently hoped Liu Wuxie would survive.
……
The next morning, Liu Wuxie slowly opened his eyes.
He blinked against the soft light filtering through the tent, and the first thing he saw was Miao Jianying sitting nearby, his back straight, his side profile facing him.
Miao Jianying looked gaunt and pale, worn thin by worry and sleepless nights. The sight stirred warmth in Liu Wuxie’s chest.
“Brother Miao… thank you for looking after me,” he said, his voice hoarse but steady.
Though Liu Wuxie had drifted between consciousness and darkness, fragments of his return remained clear in his memory. The cold had damaged his primordial spirit, and he needed time to recover fully.
