At the same time that the entire Yanzhu city was about to be engulfed in a storm, Shun Long had already walked past the city gates a few moments ago, as he headed towards the 'Flame Lion's' canyon right away.
Since he had no other reason to stay in Yanzhu city now that he had completed both of the missions that he had accepted from the Assignment Hall, there was no way that Shun Long would simply stay there when the Elders of the Yan family would be looking for him after he had killed Yan Wen.
Although Shun Long wasn't afraid that they would dare to do anything publicly to a disciple of the Holy sect, as that would be equivalent to the Yan family attacking the prestige of the sect itself, returning back to the Holy city was still the most important thing to do right now since he planned to spend the remaining 2 weeks within the Dao Tower advancing his comprehension of his Dao of Time. Thus there was no way that he would simply waste his time fighting with the people from the Yan family. Besides, it was very likely that the Yan family had more than a handful of Dao Kings, so fighting with them without even Little Silver by his side was impossible just yet even if he wanted to.
Naturally, Shun Long wouldn't take the long way around that would take him nearly a month to return back to the Holy city. There were only 20 days left until he met Liu Mei and the rest in front of the Holy sect's gates, and if he really spent the remaining 20 days traveling, he wouldn't be able to even make it back in time to the Holy sect, let alone train in the Dao Tower inside the Holy city like he was planning to.
Even though the 'Flame Lion's' canyon was said to be extremely dangerous and it was rumored to even have rank 6 magic beasts inside it, now that Shun Long wouldn't have to protect Ying Gui and keep his carriages safe during the journey, crossing the canyon would be much easier.
After all, even if Shun Long met with peak rank 5 magic beasts again, even if they were beasts who had stronger mental defenses than the peak rank 5 'Red-furred bear' that he had met the last time and couldn't be taken care of in one hit, he was still confident that he could injure them heavily with the poison he had concocted from the 'Soul poisoning hell grass' and kill them all the same.
Of course, if he was unlucky enough to meet with any rank 6 magic beasts, there was no way that Shun Long would even think of fighting them. He knew that it was impossible to harm them even if he threw all his remaining bottles of poison towards them. The only thing that he could do was try to run as far away as he could from them.
After all, the difference between a peak rank 5 and an early rank 6 magic beast was an enormous one!
''I only have 6 more bottles filled with the poison from the 'Soul poisoning hell grass', but they should still be enough to allow me to cross the canyon even if I meet with 2 or 3 peak rank 5 magic beasts.''
With this thought in mind, Shun Long no longer held back, as he ran at full speed, leaving Yanzhu behind him to disappear in the distance.
...
After running for almost 3 hours, Shun Long quickly arrived back at the canyon's entrance.
Although it had taken him 10 hours to reach Yanzhu city from the 'Flame Lion's' canyon the first time when he was riding the carriage that Ying Gui's 'Ironhide cows' were pulling, in the end, the 'Ironhide cows' were still rank 4 magic beasts. Even if they were running at full speed, they could never be compared to Shun Long's own speed.
As soon as he stepped foot inside the canyon, Shun Long immediately circulated his 'Monarch's Hourglass, causing his eyes to turn golden at the same time, before he headed towards the canyon's depths right away. He knew that he was less than 30 minutes away from the spot where he had killed the peak rank 5 'Red-furred bear' a day ago.
Even though this place was still considered to be extremely dangerous since it was still within the depths of the canyon, as long as no rank 6 magic beasts showed up, Shun Long was confident to take on even peak rank 5 beasts, which was why he dared to step foot inside the canyon by himself.
However, even most peak rank 9 Nascent Soul stage experts wouldn't usually enter the depths of the canyon by themselves without a large and powerful group, unless they were extremely desperate to cross the canyon as soon as possible!
A little more than half an hour soon passed before Shun Long arrived at the same spot where he had killed the peak rank 5 'Red-furred bear' one day ago.
Surprisingly, the bear's blood that had fallen on the ground back then had yet to dry, even after an entire day had gone by, and it had actually formed a small pool of blood on the ground instead.
Ignoring the small pool of blood however, Shun Long followed the same path that he and Ying Gui had followed the first time, as he headed towards the other end of the canyon.
Activating the second 'Monarch's Domain', Shun Long's speed instantly increased by many folds, causing his body to look like a streak of yellow lightning covered with a faint blue light as he coursed through the 'Flame Lion's canyon'.
Surprisingly, only a handful of peak rank 4 and early rank 5 magic beasts attacked him on the way, and every single one of them was destroyed in the blink of an eye.
Although the early rank 5 magic beasts were a bit trickier to handle, they were still taken care of easily as soon as Shun Long took out the black sword from the 'Stone of Time'.
In the end, not even a single one of those magic beasts managed to last more than 2 hits, and finally, an hour later, Shun Long arrived at the other end of the canyon.