Escape

Fortunately, it was a forest of pagoda-like weathered rock hoodoos. Han Sen was taking his cover behind the pagoda-like hoodoos and paid no mind which way he was going as long as he could get rid of the silver bird.

However, the horrendous silver bird was still following him. Under its claws, even a car-sized stone was crushed in an instant. Its strength was almost divine.

After running for a while, Han Sen was suddenly in the open and out of the hoodoo forest. He complained inwardly, "Now without the hoodoos as my cover, how could I outrun this damned bird."

Without the cover of the hoodoos, the silver bird uttered a ferocious hoot and rushed toward him.

Without hesitation, Han Sen summoned the bloody slayer and black beetle and turned himself into a golden centaur, running with all four hooves.

Han Sen had always trusted the speed of the bloody slayer, but this time he failed to run away from the silver bird. Instead, the bird was catching up.

"Am I going to die here?" Han Sen complained inwardly. The shapeshifting time was limited and his current geno points would give him less than an hour. Once his time was up, how could he ever outrun the ferocious silver bird with his own feet.

But now Han Sen had no time to think. He had to focus on running as fast as he could.

As for the purple-winged dragon beast soul, Han Sen did not dare to summon it at all. Once he used wings to send himself in the air, his flying speed would be even lower and he would be turning himself into a meal for the bird.

Looking at the endless plain, Han Sen ran desperately while the silver bird was snapping at his heels. As time passed, Han Sen started to feel a severe soreness and knew that his shapeshifting time was almost up.

As Han Sen was considering whether to turn around and fight the bird head-on, he heard a rumbling of water ahead of him. It seemed that there was a wide river there. Suddenly, his eyes lit up.

Without thinking any further, he ran at his full speed toward the sound and used Jadeskin fully so that he could shapeshift a bit longer.

Han Sen soon saw a wide river with roaring waves more rapid than the Yellow River.

Seeing this river, Han Sen was overjoyed. Now he only wished that this silver bird did not know how to swim so that he could take refuge in the water.

Running desperately with four hooves, Han Sen felt his body muscles were being torn apart as he had exceeded his shapeshifting time limit.

But the only thing left to do was to hang on and keep running to the river. Giving up shapeshifting now was equal to giving up his life.

Six hundred feet away from the river, Han Sen's eyes were bloodshot and the pain in his body almost made him scream. Yet he had to run.

Five hundred feet... Three hundred feet... One hundred feet... Ten feet...

As Han Sen thought his body was about to explode, he had finally made it to the river. With acute pain, he threw himself into the water.

Thump!

Han Sen heard a loud noise behind him, and then felt a burst of pain on his back that almost made him black out.

His heart froze, knowing the silver bird had followed him into the water. The desire to survive made him muster what was left of his energy and try to dive deep into the river.

At this point, Han Sen could no longer keep up shapeshifting, or else his body would break down. The moment he turned into himself, he felt he was pushed downstream at an incredible speed.

He tried not to faint, as he could drown in such torrents before he was eaten by the bird.

He summoned the mutant black barracuda, and a mutant mount more than four feet long appeared next to him. Holding tight on the mount, Han Sen controlled it to dive to the bottom.

When Han Sen could no longer hold his breath, he sent the mutant black barracuda to the surface.

Finally getting a little break, Han Sen was glad to find the silver bird was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that it did not know how to swim and just clawed his back when he jumped into the water.

His back was still in great pain, and his whole body felt like it was falling apart with spasms in his muscles. He felt like he was made into a plate of sashimi with his flesh being sliced off.

The consequence of shapeshifting overtime made Han Sen helpless. Fortunately, he had his black beetle armor for protection, or else the creatures in the river that had sniffed the smell of blood would have torn him apart.

Groups of strange fish more than two feet long hovered around him and tried to bite his body from time to time. The sacred-blood armor had thwarted all their attempts.

Withstanding the maddening pain, Han Sen grabbed the Z-steel dagger in his sleeve and stabbed it into a strange fish next to him. The fish was gutted as he pulled the dagger fiercely, and it died without struggling.

"Primitive creature black lantern fish killed. No beast soul gained. Eat its meat to gain zero to ten primitive geno points randomly."

Seeing other black lantern fish hurrying over to the dead one, Han Sen quickly cut off a large chunk of fatty meat from its belly and threw the rest of the dead fish aside.

Watching groups of black lantern fish chasing the dead body away, Han Sen took a bite at the meat in his hand. It tasted fishy and bitter, but Han Sen could not afford to be picky. When he jumped into the water, his back was clawed by the silver bird and his backpack was lost. With no water or food left, he could only rely on this creature's meat to gain some strength.

If he wanted to live, he must have enough strength.

But the fish meat was so unpalatable that Han Sen only ate half of it and threw the rest away. He would throw up otherwise.

With some physical strength recovered, Han Sen started to observe the surroundings. Although it was already at night, the starlight and moonlight were so bright that he could still see mountains and forests along the river. But he still had no idea where he was.

Gathering his strength, Han Sen commanded the mutant black barracuda to swim up to the shore.

His luck was not too bad. Next to the shore was a grove of trees. He looked around and found no trace of creatures nearby.

With a long sigh of relief, Han Sen climbed up into a tall tree's crown. When he was about to take a good rest and treat his wound, a beast roar rang in the mountain near him.

"How bad can my luck be?" With a wry smile, Han Sen vigilantly looked in the direction of the roar.