Chapter 160 Into The Phoenix Chamber Part 40

From the corner of Michio's eyes, he saw that the two participants running towards them were outnumbered, Michio wanted to help them, but he didn't forget that he also wanted to protect Hajime and his friends. Although Hajime had been struggling to keep up with the others, Michio knew that Hajime was using almost all his strength. Michio could tell that Hajime was unable to catch up to Yul at times, and Yul had to reach back and hold Hajime's hand to keep the momentum going. Michio decided not to help because participants knew the risks of participating in this competition. 

"Just go!" 

Michio heard a woman yell. The woman's shouts made Michio look and found that one of the two participants running from the left had fallen to the ground. The man stopped, turned to face the fallen woman, and began attacking four dead men while trying to lift the woman up. 

One of the dead men rushed forward towards the fallen woman, Michio stopped grabbing his spear and threw his spear forward, striking the dead man in the middle of the head, killing him instantly. 

"Monk!" Shik shouted. He tried to grab Michio's arm, but Michio had already run past him. "Monk! Come back!" 

"Come back quickly," Meng shouted, but he couldn't stop himself in time and bumped into Hajime's back. 

Abrafo and Yul suddenly stopped and turned to the left, where they saw Michio knocking one of the dead men to the ground with his three-section staff while four of the dead men jumped towards him. 

Hajime quickly grabbed a handful of leaves and threw the leaves directly towards the four dead men. Eleven leaves turned into eleven spikes and hit the head of the dead men who rushed towards Michio. 

The male participant initially aimed for the dead men's head but found this difficult as the dead men was moving rapidly from side to side and trying to bite him simultaneously. 

Michio helped the fallen woman to her feet and swung his three-section staff to the right, knocking one of the dead men to the ground as he dashed forward and plucked the spear from the fallen dead man's head. 

The male and female participants, along with Michio, backed away towards the others as the dead men rushed towards them. Michio quickly wrote the word "fire" and used his own power to throw the word "fire" floating in front of him to the ground. The small fire quickly spread around Michio and others, making the dead men afraid to step forward. 

"Go. Get out of here," Abrafo said to the woman and man. "Michio... come on." 

Michio looked at Abrafo and said, "Over there, that's the first pond." He pointed ahead. 

When everyone was about to walk towards the first pond, Hajime seemed to hear galloping running towards them. He paused and asked, "Do any of you hear the sound of horse hooves?" 

Yul turned his head left and right, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary except dead men approaching them from the left. "No... only dead men," he said. 

Hajime said, "I swear, I heard the sound of galloping. It was coming towards us from behind very fast." He slowed down. When he heard the swooping sound, he turned to check, only to find Onon charging directly toward him. He quickly crossed his arms over his chest, bracing himself for impact. 

Onon's head hit Hajime's chest at high speed, causing Hajime to be thrown forward into the forest fifty yards away, towards the edge of the first pond. Hajime's body continued to tumble until he hit a tree nearby the pond. 

"Hajime!" The group shouted in horror. 

Hajime slowly stood up, but his injuries were too serious. He knelt on one knee and spit out a mouthful of blood. 

Yul quickly rushed towards Hajime, while Abrafo, Michio and others turned around to see a navy black ox stomping its feet angrily, preparing to charge towards the group. 

"I thought we killed him?" Abrafo said, reaching for his sword. 

Michio slowly returned to Abrafo. "Apparently it has come to life again," said Michio, moving his lips as slowly as possible so as not to annoy the already angry Onon even more. 

After Lixin and others rushed past the boulder, they found that most of the dead man had entered the Phoenix Chamber, and few of the dead were wandering around. The group stopped to catch their breath, and when Jin turned to see if everyone had made it, it turned out that Bong was not among them. 

Jin said worriedly, "Prince Bong is not with us?" 

Everyone turned around and found that Bong was missing. 

"What are we going to do? Do we want to go back?" Shi asked. 

Lixin said, "No, going back means we are heading towards death." 

Feng asked, "But what about Prince Bong?" 

Lixin sighed and said, "I said before, there will be no rescue if you fall behind." He looked at his men. "Including me. If I fall behind, don't try to come back to me. Let's keep going, we don't have much time left." 

Lixin and his team began to walk out of the Phoenix Chamber, heading towards the narrow passage and towards Scattered Forest. 

Bong quickly moved his butt back as fast as he could, avoiding the dead men rushing towards him. When he was able to stand, he quickly crawled about ten yards, and despite his injuries, he started running into the woods opposite where Lixin and the others were running, because there were too many dead men wandering around that area. 

As Bong started running, he felt severe pain in his right shoulder. He didn't know if he would turn into a dead man because the dead man bit him, but for the time being he continued to run through the forest, trying to find the entrance to the Phoenix Chamber. 

Just when Bong thought that his fate had been sealed because he didn't know where he was, he saw a burning flame in the distance, so he continued to walk towards the small burning fire that was still far away from him. Although he was now feeling tired and groggy, he knew his only chance of survival was to walk toward the fire and hope someone would be kind enough to help him.

"Eyes open. Don't fall," Bong muttered to himself. "Eyes open. Don't fall. Eyes open. Don't fall." He kept repeating the same words and continued to run towards the burning flames, with many dead men chasing after him. 

Abrafo smirked and said, "I cut off your head and you are still alive. You are one tough bastard..." He looked at Onan with a smile. "If I turn you into ashes, will you come back to life?"

Michio looked at Onon and then at Abrafo. "But he doesn't seem to be afraid of fire, and I don't have any fire talisman left," he said. 

Abrafo walked up to Michio and said, "If we can't reduce him to ashes, then let's seal him." 

Michio said, "Seal him?" 

Abrafo said, "Seal him. Even if the person who resurrected him comes back to help him, he will not be able to enter the Fairy Ring Circle to set him free." 

Michio said, "But Hajime can't use his power..." 

Abrafo looked at Shik, Meng and Michio and said, "There are four of us. So, let's work together or we will die here." 

Meng said, "I would rather be beaten than poisoned." 

Shik said, "Tell us what needs to be done." 

Abrafo said, "Alone I die, together we survive. Let's seal this mad ox up." 

Onon charged at Abrafo and Michio. Michio swung his three-section staff forward and struck Onon on the head, while Abrafo turned his body to the left, grabbed Onon's left horn, and jumped on Onon's back. 

Onon knew Abrafo was going to stab him, so he suddenly stopped, causing Abrafo to be violently pushed forward, rolling off Onon's back and landing in front of Onon. Onon transformed into a human form and swung his right ax at Abrafo. Abrafo raised his sword to block Onon's axe, then pushed through Onon's legs, pushed himself off the ground with his left hand, and swung the sword at Onon's calf. 

Onon leapt to his feet, spun forward, and swung his ax at Michio, five yards away. Michio knocked away Onon's ax with his spear, stumbling a few steps backward, while Meng and Shik sprinted forward, attacking Onon with their swords. 

Yul rushes towards Hajime, but when he is a few yards away from Hajime, ten dead men rush towards Yul; Yul draws his sword and starts attacking the ten dead men. 

Although Hajime knew that his legs could no longer support his body, when he saw Yul fighting alone against ten dead men, Hajime was worried about Yul's safety and slowly walked forward. He seized the first dead man by his hair, and with all his strength succeeded in pulling him away from the other dead man nearest to Yul. As he reached out to grab the second dead man, another dead man squeezed through the other dead men and grabbed Hajime's arm. The dead man stretched out his head and wanted to bite Hajime, but Hajime placed his grabbed arm against the dead man's chest and pushed the dead man towards the pond. 

The dead man whom Hajime had pulled down slowly stood up and rushed towards Hajime. Now, Hajime desperately wanted to escape from the two dead men who grabbed Hajime's arms, but they continued to push Hajime towards the pond, and when Hajime took another step back, he ran out of land and Hajime fell into the pond with the two dead men. 

Under the water, the two dead men refused to let go of Hajime's arms and pushed Hajime to the bottom of the pond. Hajime struggled to break free but failed. The dead men threw Hajime's body forward, and Hajime took the first thing out of his bag and threw it into the pond. 

The black panther rises from the bottom of the pond and bites the leg of a dead man. The black panther drags the dead man away from Hajime. 

Hajime knew that he would soon run out of air, so he dug out one of the eyes of the dead man who was trying to bite him and pushed the dead man away with his right foot. Pushing the dead man away from him he also pushed himself a few yards backward and his back touched a hard object. He quickly turned around and was surprised when he saw the golden statue sitting cross-legged on a lotus under the water. The statue's right hand holds a golden baton about twenty-five inches long, and its left hand holds a large pearl the size of a fist. 

Hajime looked up and saw the afternoon sun shining through the water, creating many shadows under the water. Hajime looked around found that the originally clear pond had turned red, and many of the dead men who fell to the bottom, dead men with and without head.

Fearing for his life, Hajime grabbed the golden baton to protect himself, but the moment he grabbed the golden baton the white object that he thought was a big pearl suddenly stretched out and wrapped around his hand, quickly tangled around Hajime's neck. Hajime tried to pull it off, but the rubbery liquid texture white object was still tightly around Hajime's neck. At this time, Hajime run out of air. When the human survival instinct activated, Hajime opened his mouth, water and the white rubbery liquid texture poured into Hajime's mouth. Hajime's respiratory tract was completely blocked, and Hajime struggled desperately to swim to the surface, but dead men continued falling into the pond blocking him from escaping.