Duncan's sword light was like a lone beacon of light in the darkness of the valley.
It smashed through the qi arrows and landed on a couple of the scorpions on the ground causing them to screech in pain. Duncan noticed that these scorpions were averse to light and they fled from it in a hurry causing him to see a little bit of hope in this situation.
What Duncan didn't know was that these scorpions are beings that usually dwell in mountain caves. They are known as Dark Scorpions and they are incredibly sensitive to light. They excel in digging and prefer a dark environnt as their habitat.
While this wasn't their preferred habitat, the unique phenonon of this area allowed them to grow unhindered in this region. They have had over a millennia to multiply and develop as a species in this region.
Until now, no one had been able to step foot into the hilly region because of their presence. While their level is low, they were incredibly deadly when it ca to laying out ambushes.
Ever since the Grotto Heaven opened, several people and demonic beasts have tried to explore the barren valley. Unfortunately, several of the demonic beasts and cultivators who ca in after Duncan have lost their lives to these scary scorpions.
Even those who had the power to escape the scorpions and their attacks didn't see it worthwhile to continue to be in this region or traverse the valley as they didn't want to waste their ti here.
Considering how long the valley was and how barren it looked, they felt that remaining in this region was a waste of their ti. Furthermore, they all knew that this Grotto Heaven would only be open for a month.
Instead of spending ti in a barren valley and being ambushed by Dark Scorpions every night, it would be better to seek their chances elsewhere. Even if they could deal with the scorpions, being attacked every night with nothing to show for only made people irritable.
Most people considered the valley to be the end of the Grotto Heavens as the hilly region was not even visible from the other end of the valley. Duncan was the only one to traverse from the other end of the valley, heading towards the center.
This also provided a sort of cover to the test left behind by Heavenly Teacher Huo Teng.
When Huo Teng left behind the token, he took great pains to conceal the presence of the token. This barren valley was created in particular to keep people away from the location.
When soone with adequate qualifications to pass through one of the tests stepped foot into the Grotto Heaven, the space restriction would send them to the hills directly.
As for what happens if the person didn't succeed or whether such a test was placed in other Grotto Heavens, it was also a mystery. The level of secrecy that Huo Teng had gone through to make sure his plans weren't discovered was not small.
Duncan, who was an unwitting pawn in this great ga of chess, was unaware of all these. He was currently battling the level 2 Dark Scorpions, trying to escape from their encirclent.
Sword light flashed repeatedly as Duncan perford to the best of his ability. Wherever the sword light passed through, the qi arrows that were sent by the Dark Scorpions were annihilated.
Moreover, Duncan wasn't standing still and performing his sword technique either. He was utilizing the to keep moving about. He didn't want to be cornered by the Dark Scorpions.
Whenever a Dark Scorpion tried to attack physically with its stinger, Duncan would escape from the location and appear elsewhere using his movent technique. He tried hard to get out of the predicant that he was in.
As the battle progressed, the Dark Scorpions beca more and more irritable with the flashes that emitted from the sword lights. This caused them to attack Duncan more aggressively.
However, this beca the turning point that Duncan needed to escape his predicant. Earlier, these Dark Scorpions had surrounded Duncan making it hard for him to escape. As a result, Duncan had no other choice other than to end up fighting with all of them.
Only his movent technique was keeping him alive, as he dodged their attacks and stayed in the air. If he was on the ground or went head to head with their physical attacks, he would have been killed by now.
As for the qi attacks, Duncan's sword lights had a trace of concept embedded in them, thus they overpowered the normal qi attacks of the Dark Scorpions. In the end, a kind of stalemate had been achieved.
However, as soon as the Dark Scorpions beca irritable and started moving around aggressively, a gap appeared in the encirclent Duncan faced. Duncan, who was already worrying about the amount of qi that was being consud, used this chance and charged out of the encirclent in a hurry.
The mont Duncan escaped from the encirclent, he took off without turning back. He flashed across the sky using his movent techniques and evaded most of the attacks that were aid at him.
The few that he couldn't, he used his sword to defend against them. Duncan didn't make the previous mistake of running around blindly this ti. He controlled his panicking heart and found regions that didn't have Dark Scorpions below to escape from the region.
The chase lasted for a while, but after a few hours of non-stop escape, Duncan managed to reach a region that didn't have any Dark Scorpions. This gave him so ti to take a breather.
As he recovered, Duncan was reminded of his flight from the wild beasts during the beast tide before he started cultivating and scowled hard. All his elation regarding improving his strength fled as he realized that even if he had started cultivating, he was no better than when he was a mortal with his current strength.
Still, Duncan knew that he didn't have much ti. The Dark Scorpions that were chasing after him would have given up by now. But, it didn't an there are no other dangers in the region.
Moreover, due to his hurried escape, he had already lost his bearings in the dark night. He didn't know where he was currently or which direction he needed to head towards to leave the valley. The entire valley looked the sa at night.
Scowling, Duncan sat down crosslegged and started to cultivate.
*****
A/N: Hey folks!
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