At this time, spring had just begun less than half a month ago, and even the daytime temperature was still below freezing, so the snow in the forest had not yet begun to melt.
However, the road leading from Qingliang City to Gray Desert is quite muddy because various monks often pass by. Footprints and ruts from pedestrians can be seen everywhere.
Gao Yuan had an ordinary version of the light body amulet affixed to his body and followed several other members of the team along the established route.
In order to avoid causing unnecessary trouble, after Gao Yuan decided to join this escort mission, he temporarily drew a batch of ordinary versions of talismans when he returned home for daily use during the mission.
For him, who was accustomed to the dual acceleration of the Grandmaster-level Light Body Talisman and the Wind Technique, the team's speed at this time was no different than a turtle crawling.
But this is not a big problem. When he had a detailed discussion with Su Qing three days ago, he already had a clear understanding of the itinerary of this mission.
The distance from Qingliang City to the Oasis Base Camp is about a thousand miles, and the trip is divided into two stages, totaling ten days.
The first stage is located in the outer area of the wild forest, with a total length of about 700 miles, and the journey is expected to take two days.
Because this road is used by both disciples sent by major forces to carry out exploration missions in the gray desert, as well as backpackers transporting supplies, over the years, all kinds of monsters along the way have basically disappeared.
Therefore, this section of the road is also the easiest part of the whole journey. Unless you encounter a second-level monster wandering out from the depths of the wild forest, let alone a backpacker team of at least five people, any late-stage casual cultivator will be here.
There won't be any problem.
Although the second stage is only less than three hundred miles away, less than half of the first stage, its danger is several times higher. In addition to the various shadow demons that appear and disappear, the gray desert itself
The environment is very dangerous.
Therefore, the traveling speed at this stage is extremely slow, and it is expected to take eight days!
…
The morning after two days.
After a night of meditation, Gao Yuan stood up refreshed, washed briefly, and ate some dry food with several team members.
Then he came to a huge dead pine not far away, and looked far into the gray desert opposite from a few miles away.
I don't know if it has been eroded by the strange power from the gray desert. In the middle area between the wild forest and the gray desert, various dead plants can be seen everywhere. Even the soil on the ground looks darker than other areas.
Although it was already eight or nine o'clock, and the sun had risen high enough to illuminate the world, the gray desert a few miles away was still dark, as if shrouded in thick dark clouds.
After observing with the naked eye for a while, Gao Yuan then used his Qi-gazing technique, only to find that the entire gray desert seemed to be shrouded in a thick miasma of fog, and nothing could be seen except the boundless gray and white color.
Su Qing should be more careful after all. Seeing Gao Yuan not eating much, he walked aside and looked at the gray desert in the distance. She thought he was nervous, so he came over to comfort him:
"Don't worry too much. Although the shadow demons are weird and difficult to deal with, the number of them that appear each time is generally not more than five. The previous team encountered only extreme situations, which may not be encountered once in a year or two. Under normal circumstances.
Well, as long as you're careful, there's usually not much danger."
Of course Gao Yuan was not worried about this, he was just impatient because he was about to complete the system task.
But Su Qing had good intentions after all, so he smiled and nodded, and then asked:
"Sister Qing, why don't we set off yet?"
The other three people in the team all called Su Qing "boss", but Gao Yuan always felt a little weird about this, so he did not follow the others and called him "Sister Qing" instead.
After observing it for the past two days, the latter seems to be quite useful.
Su Qing looked up at the sun hanging high in the sky and said:
"It's not possible now. The sun is getting lower. Although the sun is shining brightly here, it's very dark inside the gray desert. The dark environment is not conducive to discovering the shadow demon's traces. Just wait for another half an hour."
Hearing this, Gao Yuan nodded and stopped talking, quietly looking into the distance.
…
Half an hour later, the team that had already finished repairing set off as scheduled.
Like everyone else, Gao Yuan quickly took out several kinds of talismans and patted them on his body. In addition to the diamond talisman, there was also the demon-suppressing talisman distributed by Su Qing.
The Demon Suppressing Talisman is a second-level talisman provided free of charge to backpackers by the Service Hall. Its main function is to protect the user from the chaotic evil energy that is everywhere in the gray desert.
This is also the first Kaiyuan realm talisman that Gao Yuan has come into contact with. Different from the talismans of the Qi training realm, the material for making this second-level talisman is not talisman paper, but a specially treated animal skin, which is used to draw pictures.
The spiritual pattern is not cinnabar, but some unknown animal blood.
The journey of several miles came in a blink of an eye. After arriving at the edge of the gray desert, several people quickly entered in order according to the predetermined formation.
The members of Su Qing's team are all very humane. Considering that Gao Yuan entered the gray desert for the first time and had no experience, Su Qing decided on the team's formation in the gray desert after experiencing Gao Yuan's attack ability personally.
That is to say, the four of them kept a distance of less than one foot from each other, forming a square with Gao Yuan in the middle. They themselves were responsible for guarding the surroundings, and Gao Yuan only needed to attack with all his strength after the shadow demon appeared!
Although the gray desert borders the wild forest, there is no so-called buffer zone between the two.
Basically, the front foot is still in a normal world with bright sunshine, but the rear foot sees a darkening in front of the eyes, like evening, and everything around is dark.
At the same time, an extremely gloomy feeling enveloped Gao Yuan's whole body through the gray-white barrier formed by the demon-suppressing talisman.
Across the several figures protecting him, Gao Yuan's eyes were constantly scanning the surroundings. Unlike the people around him, he was not actually nervous.
Because of the gray-white barrier covering the demon-suppressing talisman, he now wears a master-level diamond talisman on his body.
Based on the Shadow Demon's attack power described by Su Qing and others before, Gao Yuan would have no problem standing on the spot and resisting three times. What's more, he also has an almost instantaneous enhanced ice shield to protect himself, so his defense is impregnable!
After the team moved forward at an extremely slow speed for about a few hundred meters, Gao Yuan suddenly felt something in his heart, and vaguely felt that there was an abnormal fluctuation coming from the two o'clock direction.
As the innate essence in his body grew stronger, Gao Yuan's five senses became more and more sensitive. He also paid more and more attention to this sixth sense, and immediately looked in that direction.
At this moment, Su Qing, who was responsible for guarding this area, also discovered an abnormality and reminded him:
"Shadow Demon found on the right front! One! Prepare to attack!"
At the same time, a shadow about a foot in size suddenly appeared on the ground in front of her, and then as if a portal had opened, a humanoid monster nearly two meters tall jumped out of it.
The humanoid monster's facial features collapsed together like a melted candle, and its entire body was covered in a layer of unknown waxy substance that was as black as ink.
In addition, its body is surrounded by a layer of illusory black gauze-like body, its appearance is basically the same as the monster's body, and it is like an afterimage brought up by the monster when it moves!
Gao Yuan narrowed his eyes slightly and felt a faint sense of familiarity.
After thinking about it for a while, I discovered a clue. How come this monster looked very similar to the Kaiyuan Realm transformation that died in his hands before? Is there a certain connection between the two?
At this moment, the monster jumped out of the shadow on the ground without stopping, stretched out a forelimb covered in illusory black shadow, and swept towards Su Qing!
The latter didn't panic at all when she saw this. She took a small step back very skillfully and avoided the opponent's attack by a hair's breadth. At the same time, the spell in her hand that had been condensed but not fired was instantly released.
I saw a thick dark blue arc of lightning erupting from the front of her stretched out palm. With the explosion of "ZilaZila", it instantly bombarded the shadow demon's chest, causing its body surface to surge.
The black gauze clothes were all messed up.
At the same time, several rays of light of different colors flashed around and bombarded the shadow demon's body one after another, including Gao Yuan's pyrotechnics.
In fact, he discovered the abnormality half a beat earlier than Su Qing, but in order to stabilize his novice character, and a shadow demon appeared this time, it was not an emergency, so he deliberately delayed it.
He started attacking after a while, but he didn't want to finish harvesting just in time.
The shadow demon's chest was already in tatters under the bombardment of several consecutive spells. After the orange-yellow fireball caused by the expert pyroblast burst out, it was immediately exploded into a pile of flying fragments.
At the same time, a gray-white font also appeared in front of Gao Yuan's eyes: