Roar~

The Snow Tiger, originally weakened to the extreme from blood loss, suddenly seemed possessed by a deity, erupting with an aura several times stronger than before. Its eyes blood-red, the blood flowing from the wounds on its body transformed into over a dozen red tendrils that attacked A'Wu. Watching the red tendrils lashing toward him, A'Wu's face showed a disdainful expression.

"A dying struggle. Shadow Strike." As he finished speaking, A'Wu's body became a blur and stabbed toward the Snow Tiger's skull.

Squelch~

Without any suspense, the Snow Tiger's skull was effortlessly pierced through the brow by A'Wu's sword. Having pierced the Snow Tiger's skull, A'Wu was about to withdraw his sword and leave when suddenly those dozen or so tendrils bound him at extreme speed. At first, A'Wu paid no mind to the tendrils wrapped around him, but when he tried to snap them, he discovered they were incredibly tough. No matter how he struggled, it was useless, and they only wrapped tighter and tighter.

Ssss~

The stinging pain of his flesh and blood being corroded made A'Wu panic for an instant, but he quickly calmed down and turned his head to look at Yun Hanshuang. "Come help me."

Yun Hanshuang looked at A'Wu with a teasing gaze, then took out an Explosive Flame Bomb. "Sure! You'd better hold on tight!"

"You dare?! If you dare do this, the Young Master won't let you get away with it." Seeing the Explosive Flame Bomb in Yun Hanshuang's hand, A'Wu realized what the other intended and spoke to threaten him.

"I'm so scared." Yun Hanshuang put on a frightened expression and hurled the Explosive Flame Bomb at A'Wu.

Boom~

A soaring flame erupted, vaporizing all the snow within a hundred meters radius into white mist. Only after the mist was frozen into water droplets by the cold air and fell back down did Yun Hanshuang clearly see the place where A'Wu and the Snow Tiger had originally been. By now, their figures were gone, leaving only a pile of charred black ash in their place.

‘The power of this Explosive Flame Bomb is this great? Next time I get a chance, I need to buy more for self-defense.’

Yun Hanshuang walked over and rummaged through the pile of ash, pulling out three items: a sword, a storage ring, and a beast core.

‘That Snow Tiger was unlucky too. It had probably just broken through and hadn't gone to the middle zone yet before being killed. Still, I'm quite grateful to it for helping me get rid of the tail ahead of time.’

Yun Hanshuang glanced around, then used his movement technique and vanished from the spot.

Inside an ice cave, Yun Hanshuang took out three storage rings. These were the storage rings of the two middle-aged cultivators and A'Wu. Yun Hanshuang first tipped out the contents of the two middle-aged cultivators' storage rings. After sorting and organizing the items on the ground, Yun Hanshuang found nothing of value, but there was one item that piqued his curiosity.

It was a mass of indistinct threads, about the size of a human head. Yun Hanshuang reached out to pick it up and examine it. But the moment his palm touched the threads, several fine cuts were sliced into it, and a fierce stinging pain shot through the wounds. Yun Hanshuang hastily took out detoxification and healing pills and swallowed them. Only after the wounds healed did the pain dissipate.

‘I was reckless. At least it wasn't some deadly poison.’

Only after seeing nothing abnormal with his body did Yun Hanshuang secretly sigh in relief, feeling a lingering fear at his own recklessness. It was precisely because of this lesson that Yun Hanshuang would maintain a degree of wariness toward the unknown in the future, which helped him evade many crises later on.

‘I wonder if the books in their storage rings have an introduction to this thing.’

Yun Hanshuang brought all the books from the two middle-aged cultivators' storage rings before him and began carefully flipping through them.

‘Profound Geng Spider Silk?’

In a book of miscellaneous notes, Yun Hanshuang found an introduction to that mass of threads.

The Profound Geng Spider was a type of spirit beast that lived only on Geng Metal ores. They ate only Geng Metal their entire lives. Because they consumed Geng Metal, a metal-attribute divine material, year-round, their spider silk all carried the qi of Geng Metal. As a result, besides being extremely tough, their silk was also extremely sharp. This made the silk of the Profound Geng Spider a divine material for refining spirit artifacts, because just adding a small segment of spider silk would multiply the killing power of the spirit artifact several times over.

And the best Profound Geng Spider silk was the illusory silk produced by those Profound Geng Spiders on the verge of death. It not only contained rich Geng Metal qi but also carried the toxin of the Profound Geng Spider.

‘To think those two paupers would have such a divine material!’

Yun Hanshuang wrapped the Profound Geng Spider silk in ice, then stored it away in his spatial ring.

After putting away the spider silk, Yun Hanshuang took out A'Wu's storage ring and looked at the items on the ground.

‘As expected of someone working in a merchant guild, his assets are considerable.’

Yun Hanshuang estimated the value of the items in A'Wu's storage ring to be around thirty thousand Low-Grade spirit stones, which was considered wealthy among Foundation Establishment cultivators.

‘This man must have regularly reported my situation to Han Hao. This must be the communication jade pendant!’

Yun Hanshuang picked up a blue jade pendant and examined it, confirming that it was indeed a pendant used for communication. Suddenly, a line of text appeared on the pendant.

"You haven't reported in for three hours now. Has something happened?"

Yun Hanshuang glanced at the line of text but paid it no mind. He tossed the pendant aside and took out all the spirit stones Han Hao had given him. Only after inspecting each and every spirit stone and confirming there were no issues did he store them away in his spatial ring.

‘It's time to leave. Otherwise, with that flying boat's speed, they'll catch up soon enough.’

After finishing sorting the items, Yun Hanshuang walked out of the ice cave, casually tossed aside the Yin-Yang Pendant at his waist, then used his movement technique to fly toward the middle zone.

* * *

About an hour after Yun Hanshuang left, a flying boat appeared before the ice cave. Han Hao's face was ashen as he looked at the word on the ground.

Dumbass.

"Good. Very good. Never since I, Han Hao, was born have I been toyed with like this. You think that by hiding your aura you can escape the palm of my hand? Naive." Han Hao finished speaking and touched the bracelet on his right wrist. A flash of golden light appeared, and a golden mouse the size of a dog materialized at his feet.

The Treasure-Seeking Mouse. This was also the reason Han Hao had let Yun Hanshuang roam freely. With this Treasure-Seeking Mouse, no matter where the other party fled, he had absolute confidence in capturing him. "Go." Han Hao issued a command to the Treasure-Seeking Mouse, and the mouse immediately understood, turning into an afterimage and darting off in the direction Yun Hanshuang had left.

"Pursue." Han Hao flew aboard the flying boat and ordered his subordinates to pilot the boat in pursuit.

Yun Hanshuang had no idea Han Hao was already about to catch up. At this moment, he was being chased by a second-tier Snow Wolf. Just as Yun Hanshuang was nearing the border between the middle and outer zones, a second-tier Snow Wolf had been chasing a first-tier Snow Deer. Yun Hanshuang, seeing this scene from afar, had immediately hidden himself. But unexpectedly, the Snow Wolf twitched its nose, then gave up chasing that Snow Deer, turned around, and pounced toward him.

‘F*ck!’

Seeing that Snow Wolf turn and pounce toward him, Yun Hanshuang cursed inwardly, then used Butterfly Shadow Layers to flee. The Snow Wolf was extremely fast and quickly blocked his path. Seeing this, Yun Hanshuang took out over a dozen first-tier talismans, activated the spells within them at the Snow Wolf, and without even checking the result, turned and ran.