However, what Lin Mo did not expect was that the three of them entered the vortex together, but seemed to have ended up in different places.

"Pfft!" Just as Lin Mo hesitated, he suddenly felt his scalp numb. A swirl of yellow sand erupted from the ground in front of him, and a scorpion about the size of a human appeared before his eyes. The scorpion's body emitted a faint black metallic sheen, its scale armor was hard, and its pincers seemed to be made of steel. Behind them,

a tail like an iron whip curved upwards, with its sharp end glittering with cold starlight.

"Get lost."

Lin Mo flipped his hand, gripping two Willow Leaf Blades hidden in his sleeves. With a flick of his wrist, he threw them out, creating two flashes of cold light.

To come to the Ancient Battlefield Ruins, Lin Mo had specially prepared many things for himself, and he did not leave the Willow Leaf Blades in his Space Ring, because he considered all possibilities when coming to such a mysterious place.

The issue of suppressing power was something Lin Mo encountered years ago when he took the midterm exam, but he didn't expect to be proven right; such places that contain the aura of Ancient Strong People would suppress the power within his body.

"Clang!"

"Clang!"

The two Willow Leaf Blades shot onto the scorpion's metallic scale armor, causing two points of starlight to splash before being deflected and sinking into the nearby yellow sand, completely buried.

"Such hard scale armor."

Lin Mo said with slight surprise. Although he couldn't utilize True Yuan and Spiritual Energy now, his body underwent significant enhancements after the transformation by Blood Demon Vine. His flesh, skin, bones, and meridians were all greatly improved, surpassing ten thousand pounds in sheer physical power alone. Each Willow Leaf Blade flew with more than ten thousand pounds of impact,

together accumulating twenty thousand pounds of attack power, yet it didn't kill this giant scorpion.

The giant scorpion seemed to emit a subtle sound, as if angered by the human's attack before it, quickly crawling towards Lin Mo. Though 'crawling' seemed inadequate, its speed was frightening, the flying yellow sand dazzling in the air, reaching Lin Mo in almost an instant.

The massive pincers, like iron clamps, fiercely tore through the air, leaving a dark shadow as they came at Lin Mo.

Lin Mo bent his legs and sprang up, leaping over ten meters high; he looked down.

The pincers didn't grab him, but they did crush a giant rock nearby into rubble and stone fragments, exploding into the air. "Such great strength."

Lin Mo pulled out a dagger about a foot long from his leg guard, its body pitch black and unremarkable, but upon close inspection, one would find some faint golden runes carved on the dagger, occasionally flickering with a hint of light.

"Here we go again."

Lin Mo descended from the sky with a mighty foot stamping on the scorpion's back, the immense power spreading through the scorpion's body, producing creaking sounds from its shell.

The enraged giant scorpion waved its enormous pincers, but Lin Mo twisted his body like a pretzel, forming a bizarre arc, narrowly dodging the pincers' attack.

"Heh-heh."

Lin Mo grinned, then suddenly a dark shadow tore through the air, splitting towards his head, a point of cold light abruptly appearing within his eyes.

The scorpion's iron-black tail, its sharp stinger poised straight at Lin Mo's head.

"Damn it!"

Lin Mo hurriedly held the dagger horizontally before him. With a 'clang', he blocked the sharp tail tip, following which a golden light flashed on the dagger.

Slash!

Lin Mo, gripping the dagger, deftly shifted the tremendous force from the tail, driving the dagger into the scorpion's back, then lightly jumped to the side.

Glug glug!

From the wound pierced by the dagger came a spray of black liquid, flowing out like a fountain.

A pungent stench hit his nose.

"Hmm?"

After Lin Mo sliced open a half-meter-long deep cut with the dagger on the scorpion's back, it gradually fell, but inside it faintly glimmered with a black light.

Lin Mo held the dagger and severed the scorpion's tail, "Such hardness, luckily this dagger was temporarily forged by me as a Ninth Grade Magical Tool, or else I wouldn't be able to cut it."

After severing the scorpion's tail, and seeing it wasn't moving anymore, Lin Mo felt relieved.

After all, in such unknown and strange places, one must be cautious in their actions.

Then, wielding the dagger, Lin Mo arduously sliced open the hard shell and retrieved a black stone from within the scorpion's body, with faint black light emanating from it.

"Is this a top-grade Energy Stone?"

Lin Mo's face showed astonishment. No wonder these scorpions mutated, evidently due to swallowing the Energy Stones, but not completely digesting them.

The pure Energy Stones, two stones were equivalent to one top-grade spiritual stone.

Lin Mo extended his right hand, and a small, simple ring shone from his index finger, instantly absorbing the Energy Stone.

"It actually worked, otherwise, I couldn't have held too many."

Lin Mo himself couldn't use Spiritual Energy, but the energy from the Energy Stone activated the Space Ring to absorb it.

Of course, without Lin Mo's Divine Thought mark, the contents of the Space Ring couldn't be retrieved.

After tidying up the energy crystals, Lin Mo pulled the Willow Leaf Blades from the desert sand and placed them in the secret pocket of his sleeve, continuing forward.

...

"That was close, good thing I prepared two Fire Talismans."

Lin Mo wiped the mud and sand from his face, a smile curving at the corner of his mouth.

Not far ahead of him, two massive wolves lay on the ground, emitting a delicious scent, their bodies charred black. These were the fifth batch of predatory creatures Lin Mo encountered. The wolves were large, each with a thin black horn growing from their foreheads, and both speed and strength were immense.

Much more difficult than the monsters faced before, Lin Mo had to use talismans. These talismans were already stored with energy and required only a bit of technique to deploy. Though their power wasn't great, it was enough to deal with two hungry wolves. After carving open the wolves' heads, Lin Mo extracted two pale green stones and placed them in the Space Ring. Along the way, he had already obtained seven top-grade energy crystals, considerably rewarding and, with sufficient energy, Lin Mo could rely entirely on absorbing energy crystals to enter the Innate Realm.

After organizing his things, Lin Mo continued moving forward.

Here there was no sun, no moonlight, only a vast expanse of yellow sand everywhere, almost covering the entire world.

Lin Mo did not know how long he had walked when the storm weakened significantly, revealing some blurred buildings ahead.

"Did I finally make it out?"

Lin Mo frowned, not relaxing his vigilance, as who knew what monsters could emerge here.

After walking a distance of about a thousand meters, he finally stood beside some broken columns, looking at the remnants of buildings ahead, most of which were buried by yellow sand, but faintly displaying the silhouette of a palace complex.