The Eternal Farmer: I Trade My Harvest for Immortality

Chapter 277: Red Sun Piercing the Sun

According to the ancient texts, if the portable space was later enriched with “Five-Colored Soil,” both its range and the quality of the black earth would undergo a fundamental metamorphosis.

One hundred mu was just the beginning. It could expand to a thousand, even ten thousand mu. It would evolve from a mere storage pocket into a small realm, then a large realm, and finally, a true Grotto-Heaven Blessed Land.

“Li Chuan! You destroyed Huang Yuanhua’s cave!”

“Get him! Make the Evil Cultivator pay!”

The crowd snapped out of their stupor, their confusion instantly replaced by righteous fury.

Li Chuan opened his mouth to explain, but his voice was drowned out. He was an “Evil Cultivator”—guilty until proven innocent, and never innocent.

Just as the mob prepared to tear him apart, Jiang Chen, standing at the rear, quietly circulated his Green Lotus Art.

Wood Spiritual Power flowed from his dantian, down through his legs, and into the earth beneath the chaos.

Snap!

In an instant, the ground erupted. Countless weeds surged upward, twisting into thick, iron-hard vines that whipped through the crowd, forcibly separating Li Chuan from his attackers.

Li Chuan blinked, realizing someone was secretly aiding him. He didn’t waste time questioning his luck. He seized the opening, turned, and fled toward the far side of the Dark Forest in a streak of desperate speed.

“He’s running!” someone shouted.

“Don’t let me see that bastard again!” Red Tiger spat, his face twisted in frustration.

Without Li Chuan’s interference, he could have led more tours, earning the last few Spirit Stones needed for Li Tie’s Foundation Pill. Now, with the cave collapsed and the Earth Qi gone, the tourism business was dead. They were forced back into the grind of hunting monsters—harder work, higher risk, lower pay.

Jiang Chen stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the retreating figure.

You took the blame for me, friend, he thought. Letting them kill you would have been in poor taste.

With the cave gone and the scapegoat fled, the crowd dispersed. There was nothing left to do but trek back to the Hunter’s Enclave.

Red Tiger’s squad moved sluggishly. On the return trip, they scanned the underbrush with desperate intensity, hoping to snag a few extra monster kills to offset their losses. Jiang Chen and the other temporary members understood the hustle and played along; for them, it was just part of the “authentic” experience.

Caw! Caw!

Above them, the circling Fire Crows signaled again.

Targets approaching. Lots of them.

Before Jiang Chen could even issue a warning, the forest filled with a chilling, rhythmic sound.

Awoooo—

Howls echoed from every direction, overlapping into a chaotic symphony of hunger.

Red Tiger’s expression plummeted. “The Greenback Wolves… they’re back for revenge!”

Zhou Cui glanced at Jiang Chen, her eyes shimmering with hero worship. “Let them come. With Fellow Daoist Zhu here, they’re just walking bags of Spirit Stones.”

Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t annoyed by her confidence, but his tone was grave. “I’m afraid… it’s not just Greenback Wolves this time.”

Through the shared vision of Crow One, he saw more than just the vengeful remnants of the previous pack.

Lurking in the deeper shadows were massive, pitch-black shapes that seemed to dissolve into the darkness itself.

Pairs of blood-red, vertical pupils ignited in the gloom, flickering like hellfire.

“Look closely,” Jiang Chen whispered.

These new wolves were titans compared to the Greenbacks. Their fur was ink-black, shimmering with a faint, sickly purple fluorescence. As they moved, fine black mist drifted from their coats. Wherever this mist touched vegetation, leaves hissed and withered, corroding into black sludge and releasing a pungent scent of decay.

Red Tiger’s eyes bulged. “Nightmare Demon Wolves!”

A collective gasp went through the team. These were apex predators, far deadlier than their Greenback cousins. They hunted in organized packs of thirty to fifty.

But numbers weren’t the real problem.

The ground began to tremble.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The vibrations started faint but quickly grew violent, shaking the leaves from the trees.

The squad turned as one toward the source of the tremor.

Emerging from the rear was a monster that rivaled the black trees in height.

A Nightmare Wolf King.

Its fur was a deep, abyssal black, wreathed in purple flames that seemed to flow like liquid over its muscles. Jiang Chen’s spiritual sense swept over it—six zhang in length, three meters at the shoulder. It was a living mountain of malice.

Its eyes glowed with a cold, intelligent red light, exuding a pressure that made the air feel heavy.

It scanned the group, nostrils flaring as it sniffed the air. It was hunting for a specific scent.

Its gaze locked onto Jiang Chen.

The Wolf King bared dagger-like fangs and let out a low, vibrating growl that rattled their bones.

“They’re allied,” Red Tiger realized, his voice trembling. “The Greenback Wolf King must have been its kin or vassal. It knows Fellow Daoist Zhu is the killer.”

Ling Mo and the tourists went pale. “What do we do?”

Red Tiger exchanged a grim look with his team. He hefted his weapon.

“We have two choices,” he growled. “One: Kill them all. Two: Die.”

The five mercenaries formed a defensive circle around Jiang Chen. Despite the overwhelming odds, not one of them suggested abandoning him to save themselves.

Jiang Chen observed them, a flicker of appreciation in his eyes.

Loyal, he thought. Rare for loose cultivators. Since you have backbone, I’ll give you a show.

Caw—!

The five Fire Crows let out a unified, piercing shriek.

Jiang Chen activated the Nine Flames Mystic Art and the Green Wood Fire Attraction Art simultaneously.

BOOM!

His dantian roared. The Fire Spiritual Power within him turned violent and expansive. His body temperature spiked, distorting the air around him into a shimmering haze.

“Stand back,” “Zhu Rong” commanded.

He levitated into the air, surrounded by his five crows.

Between his palms, a ball of golden flame ignited. It grew rapidly—hotter, brighter, denser.

It looked like he was holding a miniature sun.

The intense heat radiated outward, instantly flash-incinerating every weed and bush within a ten-zhang radius. The wood and metal-attribute cultivators below gasped, feeling as if they had been thrown into a furnace, the air suddenly too hot to breathe.

Red Tiger and the others stared up in awe and terror.

If the heat was this unbearable for allies, it was apocalyptic for the wolves. The pack whimpered, retreating step by step, their primal instincts screaming at them to flee the rising sun.

“Zhu Rong” spread his arms wide.

The ball of golden fire exploded outward, transforming into a massive pillar of light. It expanded from one zhang to three, then five… finally stabilizing at a terrifying ten zhang.

The five Fire Crows bathed in the golden inferno, their bodies swelling to gigantic proportions. They looked like legendary Golden Crows, wreathed in divine fire.

With a thought, Jiang Chen pointed a finger at the Wolf King.

The fire birds shrieked and dove.

Max-Level Scorching Sun Finger technique:

Red Sun Piercing the Sun!