Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

Shirong flew past the Deer wood city at great speed and entered the Millennium forest after half an hour. This spirit sword was much slower than his previous one and thus it took him longer than normal. Still, this was much faster than just walking there.

"Hopefully that messenger can bring me a new spirit sword and spatial storage treasure quickly…" Shirong muttered as he touched the armor on his body.

He was continually draining spirit qi while wearing it and was barely able to balance the drain with his own passive absorption of spirit qi. Shirong also realized that the more time he wore the armor the more comfortable he was getting with it.

His efficiency with spirit qi use was also rising and he was barely wasting it now. Shirong scanned the area with his spirit sense and was not able to find any spirit beasts nearby. 

"Hmm… need to go deeper," Shirong said with furrowed brows.

The millennium forest spanned for more than a thousand kilometers in all directions and spanned across five different kingdoms. There were stronger beasts in the center of the forest and the deeper one went the higher the danger became.

At a certain point, it would even become dangerous to fly over the forest as there would be flying spirit beasts that would attack. Still, it would take Shirong around two hours to even cross the outermost ring of the millennium forest.

This was the area where mostly normal beasts lived but also had a few weaker spirit beasts living. 

Seeing that he was not having much luck with the beasts, he just decided to kill whichever he saw. Shirong touched the armor and willed it to change the form. The armor trembled on his body and started changing before slithering out of his sleeve like a snake.

Reaching his palm it turned rigid and took back the form of the green Crystal spear.

"Alright! Time to gain more spirit qi!" Lin Wu said to himself with excitement.

~Shua~

The sound of wind tearing was heard as the spear was thrown forward with great speed. 

~Thuck~

The spear effortlessly pierced through the back of the spirit beast impaling it to the ground. No cry or growl was heard as the beast died instantly and in a couple of seconds reduced to a dry husk.

Shirong got down to the ground and grasped the spear, pulling it out and absorbing the spirit qi that it gave him. Adding it to his dantian, he let it float around letting his core absorb it passively. Shirong scanned the area again and went towards the next beast that turned up in his range.

This beast was a rather large spirit beast that had forelimbs with two large claws. Still, Shirong did not pay much attention to it as it was much weaker than him, being at the mid stage of the qi refining realm. He approached the beast from the sky and jumped down, stabbing it through its head.

"Might as well practice some different moves and get used to it…" Shirong muttered to himself as he basked in the feeling of absorbing liquid spirit qi.

Shirong repeated the same thing multiple times, as he carved a path paved with beast corpses reaching all the way to the second ring of the millennium forest. This was the ring from where the number of spirit beasts rose and had only a few normal beasts.

The Millennium Forest was divided into a total of six rings. The third ring had spirit beasts that were at the late stage of the qi refining realm and higher. From the fourth ring, one could start to encounter core condensation realm beasts and was the part where Shirong would have to start being cautious.

The fourth ring still had some peak stage qi reining realm spirit beasts and normal cultivators occasionally went there. But the fifth ring was the absolute bordered where seldom anyone went unless they were also at the core condensation realm.

But in the fifth ring, even peak stage core condensation realm beasts could be encountered. Even Shirong would have to be careful when dealing with them. But it was these very beasts that he had come here for. If he wanted to gain a massive amount of spirit qi then core condensation realm, then this was his best bet.

Then finally there was the sixth ring. This was almost considered as a forbidden area as it was occupied by a few nascent soul realm beasts. No one knew how many there were exactly and no one dared to check it either. The sects that were stronger than them wouldn't bother to do a task like this and the others were too weak to even think of that. 

The reason behind the growing strength of the beasts as one went deeper into the forest was due to the increased concentration of spirit qi. It was said that there was a spirit qi spring in the very center of the millennium forest and was the thing that allowed the spirit beasts to grow stronger.

Some sects had actually tried to obtain this spirit qi spring, but till now no one had been successful, most of them dying before even reaching it. And the ones that did get near it, were either eaten by the nascent soul realm beasts or escaped by the skin of their teeth.

If Shirong wanted to go to the fifth ring of the millennium forest, he would have to spend at least fifteen days to cross the first to fourth ring.

Lin Wu was enjoying this and felt amazing to leech of Shirong. He barely had to put any effort and he would get spirit qi and vital energy.

"Ahh~ it was the right decision, saving Shirong that day. If I had let him die, who knows what I would be doing today, but enjoying free spirit qi like this would have definitely not been possible." Lin Wu said to himself while lying in an imaginary hammock in his mind.

Meanwhile, Shirong was slaughtering a pack of long horned earth bulls. He was covered in blood from the beasts while Lin Wu was still spotless, enjoying it all.