“Oh right, how are you intending to deal with Qiu Yi Meng and Luo Xiao Man?” Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled slightly as he asked, “Luo Xiao Man isn’t so important. Although her Purple Fern Valley isn’t bad, compared to you their influence is still somewhat lacking, but Qiu Yi Meng is a Qiu Family person.”
“Of course I understand the complexities of their identities,” Shan Qing Luo smiled softly, “But I can’t allow them to leave just yet, I’m planning to bring them to the battlefield tomorrow.”
“The battlefield?” Yang Kai asked curiously.
“En, most of the Great Han Dynasty’s major forces have been waging a campaign against the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land for quite some time now.” Shan Qing Luo casually replied to Yang Kai.
“What do you intend to do by taking them to the battlefield?”
“Naturally, I have my reasons. Why, do you want to accompany me as well?”
“No thanks.” Yang Kai stretched his body as he let out a light laugh, “I’ve finally achieved some degree of freedom, so why would I continue to follow you around just to be manipulated?”
“Hmph, what an ungrateful man, returning the sincerity I’ve shown you with such spite.” Shan Qing Luo glared at him bitterly.
“Ugh…”
Frowning, Kai Yang suddenly remembered something and asked, “Right, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. What are Evil Spirits, and what is this Evil Cavern?”
Shan Qing Luo was suddenly surprised, “Where did you hear about that?”
“That day when I fought with Le Yu, I heard others in the audience say that he had comprehended one of his Martial Skills from Evil Spirits that dwelled in the Evil Cavern.”
Hearing this, Shan Qing Luo nodded and didn’t ask about the grudges between Yang Kai and Le Yu that had lead to the fight; with her shrewdness, she could easily tell that the blame lay with Bi Luo for this incident.
Collecting her thoughts, she replied, “The Evil Cavern is a very strange and dangerous place, filled with beings we call Evil Spirits. Le Yu’s Demonic Purple Qi Body Martial Skill was obtained from there, but right now he’s still incapable of fully casting it. Why, do you want to check it out?”
“I had intended to.” Yang Kai didn’t deny it. After all, when he had refined those traces of Purple Spirit Demonic Qi left inside his body, he felt that their energy was somehow similar to the Evil Qi stored within his Unyielding Golden Skeleton, which sparked his curiosity. He wanted to find out what mysteries were hiding with the Evil Cavern’s Evil Spirits that lead to this induction.
If he was lucky, he might be able to uncover some of the secrets about his Unyielding Golden Skeleton there.
Now that chaos had descended upon the world and with the smoke of battle erupting all over, Yang Kai became acutely aware that his strength was still too low, and he was unable to make any significant impact on the overall situation. It was better to find a place to hone himself and enhance his cultivation so that he was better prepared for whatever came next.
“You want to go there…” Shan Qing Luo frowned slightly, apparently somewhat unwilling to allow him, but a sigh soon leaked from her delicate lips, “Alright, you seem to be cultivating some kind of Evil Cultivation Technique. Going there might lead to some gains for you, but the Evil Cavern is located in the territory of the Profound Yin Ghost King. The environment there is significantly worse than Fragrance City, it could even be described as a land where enemies are everywhere, so… I’ll send Bi Luo with you tomorrow, she knows the way there. With her, you should be able to bypass some troublesome places more easily.”
“Good!”
The next day. At dawn, Bi Luo ran over.
Since the day the two of them had engaged in their ‘joint activities’, this enchanting girl had never again appeared in front of Yang Kai, so upon meeting again for the first time, she couldn’t help but blush lightly. However, she still glared at Yang Kai fiercely and curtly said, “Mistress has instructed me to guide you to the Evil Cavern. You little bastard, even if you’re courting death, why must you pick that kind of place and force this Young Lady to take you there? Forcing me to run around like this, seriously, how annoying.”
Yang Kai could only laugh sheepishly and scratched his head while saying, “Thanks in advance.”
“Fine fine, do you have anything left to tidy up? If you don’t then let’s leave now, that place isn’t exactly close to Fragrance City. Going back and forth will take a few days at least.”
“Nope, let’s go.”
As the two of them were just about to leave the palace, they happened to bump into Shan Qing Luo who was accompanied by Qiu Yi Meng and Luo Xiao Man. It seemed like they had been waiting there specifically for Yang Kai.
As they glanced back and forth amongst themselves, Yang Kai noticed Qiu Yi Meng and Luo Xiao Man’s depressed and desperate expressions, which seemed to silently beg Yang Kai to say a few words for them in order to help them out of their current predicament.
However, after wrinkling his brow slightly, Yang Kai pretended not to see them anymore.
Since Shan Qing Luo obviously wasn’t intending to take their lives, and she must have some other purpose in bringing them with her, saying anything at this point wouldn’t be helpful in the slightest.
“I’ll take you part of the way. Half a day later we’ll separate, it’ll save you some effort.” Shan Qing Luo lightly smiled and waved her hand. A gentle Qi wrapped all of them up before she directly flew out of Fragrance City.
Feeling this gentle, breeze-like Qi enshroud him, Yang Kai couldn’t help but frown. Qiu Yi Meng and Luo Xiao Man also despaired, realizing once again just how futile trying to escape from the Beguiling Demon Queen’s hands would be.
Speeding through the air, in an instant, they had already traversed a few thousand meters.
As they flew, Shan Qing Luo whispered to Yang Kai, “The Evil Cavern is located in the Profound Yin Ghost King’s territory, but with my Seal, no one should provoke you. Nevertheless, you and Bi Luo should still try to avoid stirring up trouble, the people there are not as amenable as Fragrance City’s residents. Bi Luo will only be able to take you there before she has to return.”
“En,” Yang Kai nodded slightly.
“There are many Evil Spirits that live inside the Evil Cavern, every year many people obtain benefits from them but even more people die to them. Don’t dive too far into the cavern, if you encounter some of the more powerful Evil Spirits that dwell further inside you’ll certainly die!”
“What exactly are Evil Spirits?” Yang Kai frowned.
“Evil Spirits are… they’re a partial solidification of Demonic Qi and Evil Qi which makes them difficult to cope with. They possess no sentience but are incredibly aggressive, and as long as they sense living creatures they’ll attack.”
“What benefits can be obtained there other than learning Martial Skills?” Yang Kai asked. Shan Qing Luo seemed quite familiar with the Evil Cavern so naturally, he wanted to gain as much intelligence about it from her as possible.
“Besides obtaining and cultivating some special Martial Skills, after you defeat one of those Evil Spirits they’ll leave behind some of their essences. This essence is a type of energy that can be absorbed and refined, allowing one to increase their cultivation, it’s for this reason that the Evil Cavern, despite its dangers, continues to draw many cultivators who want to gain life experiences as well as strengthen themselves. Not only disciples from the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land’s sects, there are even many outsiders who disguise themselves and come here, hoping to gain some advantages.”
“I see!” Yang Kai nodded.
“However, there are also some Evil Spirits inside that posses some special things, such as odd Martial Skills like Le Yu’s Demonic Purple Qi Body, but all of these Martial Skill are basically Evil Skills. Another example is a type of essence that strengthens one’s Spiritual Energy, there have been a few people who have come across such things and had their Spiritual Energy enhanced greatly.”
“Is there really such a wondrous thing?” Yang Kai’s interest was suddenly piqued when he heard there was a chance to obtain some Precious Treasures which could enhance his Spiritual Energy.
“There are indeed many good things to be had inside the Evil Cavern, but it all depends on your ability to earn them.” Shan Qing Luo smiled lightly.
“En, such treasures existing, the Heavens and Earth are vast and mysterious.” Yang Kai became more and more aware of this fact ever since his last expedition to Nether Mountain.
“Long ago, I once heard from my mother that the Evil Cavern was connected to another place…” Shan Qing Luo said, chuckling slightly, obviously not taking this anecdote too seriously.
“Another place? Where?”
“The Demon World…”
Everyone else in the group had a light flash past their eyes. None of them had ever heard about such a place.
“Who knows, maybe it’s true. How else could you explain the presence of those Evil Spirits which only exist there.”
“You’re joking, right?” Yang Kai sneered lightly.
“Hehe… it’s just something my mother heard from her mother…” Shan Qing Luo smiled as she said offhandedly.
“Yang Kai, are you planning to go to this Evil Cavern for life experience?” Qiu Yi Meng’s beautiful eyes shimmered, as she asked him.
“En.” Yang Kai nodded.
“Could you bring us with you? I’d like to experience that place too.” Qiu Yi Meng’s smiled sweetly.
Shan Qing Luo glanced meaningfully towards her after hearing this.
Qiu Yi Meng laughed dryly, “I can be of help to him, with more people it will be safer. After all, my strength isn’t low.”
“Rest assured, I don’t intend on mistreating you two,” Shan Qing Luo said softly. “I’m simply taking you to the battlefield so you can see for yourselves exactly how those who’ve come to attack the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land act.”
Qiu Yi Meng was stunned for a moment before understanding at least part of what Shan Qing Luo’s intentions were.
“In fact, good and evil aren’t as clearly defined as you may think. In this world, things aren’t that black and white!” Shan Qing Luo’s always soft and enchanting voice at that moment actually took on a serious and slightly helpless tone.
Half a day later, their group parted ways. Shan Qing Luo brought Qiu Yi Meng and Luo Xiao Man away while Yang Kai and Bi Luo continued on towards the Profound Yin Ghost King’s territory.
The Profound Yin Ghost King had the appearance of an evil ghost. Amongst the six Great Evil Kings his strength ranked near the top, a very difficult opponent. Once, the Ghost King also had some intentions towards the Beguiling Demon Queen’s beauty and even employed some underhanded means in an attempt to seize her only to have the previous generation’s Beguiling Demon Queen rescue her, so he and Shan Qing Luo didn’t have a very good relationship.
Between the two big territories, there had even been some conflict.
Therefore, even though Bi Luo had Shan Qing Luo’s Demon King’s Order, she really didn’t dare show it lest it draw unwanted attention from cultivators loyal to the Ghost King.
The two proceeded cautiously towards the Evil Cavern, however their journey was relatively uneventful, as they did not encounter any major problems.
Occasionally, they would encounter some other cultivators, but each time both sides would only be vigilant towards one another and neither rashly took action.
Three days later, the two arrived within three kilometers of the Evil Cavern.
Upon reaching here, Bi Luo stopped and pointed to the front. “Where you want to go is right ahead.”
“En,” Yang Kai gazed ahead, but to his surprise didn’t discover anything unusual there, not even signs of Demonic Qi like he had imagined.
“Hey, you little bastard, once you go, do your best not to die!” Bi Luo snorted unhappily.
Hearing this, Yang Kai stared towards here and suddenly chuckled, “What’s this? Why do you care so much about whether I live or not? Have you perhaps fallen for me?”
“Bullshit!” Bi Luo shouted, “This Young Lady liking you? I’d sooner fall in love with dog crap! There’s nothing between us at all! Let me warn you, you better forget about what happened that last time, neither of us owes the other anything! If you dare spread around any nonsense about it I’ll castrate you!”
As Bi Luo continued scolding him, Yang Kai suddenly rushed up, wrapped his arms around her waist and back, pulled her towards him, and fiercely sealed her lips
“Em… mmm!” Caught by surprise, Bi Luo struggled fiercely to escape.
However, Yang Kai quickly released her and laughed as he turned around and quickly left.
“Bastard!” Bi Luo blushed furiously, biting her lips as a residual feeling and taste spread across them.
[As long as I live, I’ll never allow a man to touch me again!] Bi Luo cursed to herself.
Waiting until Yang Kai had disappeared from sight, Bi Luo coldly snorted before turning away as well.
Crossing the final three kilometers or so, Yang Kai came across a dark hole leading into the ground. Standing beside this pit, he felt an eerie wind blow past him that sent a chill across his skin, which not only made his body feel cold but even caused his Soul to feel uncomfortable.
[Worthy of being an Ominous Ground, it really is unusual…] Yang Kai secretly thought.
Circulating his True Yang Secret Art slightly to disperse this cold feeling, Yang Kai quickly jumped into the cave with the wind whistling past him as he quickly fell into the abyss.
This pit was quite deep. Yang Kai had fallen for quite some time, yet had not reached the bottom.
Suddenly, the sounds of fighting rang with flashes of flickering light from below. Clearly, someone was using a Martial Skill.
Yang Kai quickly raised his level of vigilance even further and kept in mind everything Shan Qing Luo had told him. Although this Evil Cavern was extremely dangerous, there were always groups of people inside it for life experience. He had just not thought that he’d meet some the moment he entered.
The more dangerous a place was, the more wonderful the treasures it held, and the Evil Cavern clearly had enough hidden opportunities to attract these fortune seekers.
If it were not for the world currently being in a time of chaos, with many people engaged in warfare outside, there would certainly be even more cultivators inside these caves.
Where people gathered, disputes would occur, even leading to fights and bloodshed. This was an ancient truth that applied no matter where one looked.
After a while, the sounds and flashes of light became clearer.
As Yang Kai listened, he became aware of four distinct individuals, each of whom had the strength that was neither high nor low, probably all True Element Boundary cultivators.
Descending even slower, Yang Kai quietly released his Divine Sense and felt a large number of evil auras in every direction for as far as he could sense. These auras varied in strength and gave off an uncomfortable feeling, probably the Evil Spirits he had been told about.
There were also the auras of a number of cultivators, but they were quite scattered, each group seemingly deciding to not mix well water with river water.
Although he was not aware of any immediate dangers, Yang Kai still quickly took back his Divine Sense.
Searching one’s surroundings with their Divine Sense had its own dangers. If it suffered any injury while away from one’s physical body it would damage their Soul. Even if it was an Immortal Ascension Boundary master they would carefully consider when and where to use their Divine Sense and normally would only use it occasionally to investigate their surroundings.
After the time it would take to drink half a cup of tea, Yang Kai finally touched the ground again.
Not far in front, he saw four people engaged in sending a variety of Martial Skills flying about. Each of them displayed excellent teamwork, when one retreated, another advanced, obviously they had full control of the situation.
Fighting with them were a few things which emitted an odd fluorescence. These things were humanoid in shape and had fuzzy facial features, but their bodies were vague and misty, almost like an ethereal illusion.
Ferocious roars and bursts of wailing howls rang out along with explosions of wind. Although these things didn’t appear to be too powerful, they possessed an odd tenacity and were apparently extremely difficult to kill.
[These things should be the so-called Evil Spirits! Sure enough, they’re unusual creatures.]
Although Yang Kai had suddenly set down behind them, none of these four actually noticed, presumably concentrating too much on the battle before them.
To avoid any misunderstandings, Yang Kai deliberately made some noise.
The four cultivators were instantly surprised and hurriedly looked back.
The next moment, one of the four left their formation and vigilantly faced Yang Kai.
In response, Yang Kai remained indifferent and didn’t reveal the slightest hostility but instead just quietly stood there waiting for the fight to end.
The youth who was confronting him stared for a moment before noting Yang Kai’s behaviour and quickly flashed a meaningful grin before nodding lightly in acknowledgement.
Yang Kai nodded lightly in return before going back to observing the environment of the Evil Cavern.
This underground cavern seemed similar to the Heaven’s Cave he had visited once before many years ago. The entire underground structure was a massive hollow with the occasional giant column towering to the ceiling high above.
Unlike the Heaven’s Cave though, this Evil Cavern was barren and almost devoid of any vitality, inevitably giving off a feeling of repression. The architecture was quite complex with multiple paths winding off in all directions.
Although it was deep underground, it wasn’t pitch dark. Everywhere you looked there were flickering points of light, some like tiny fireflies that flitted about, others like clumps of ghost fire. It was like the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land’s purgatory, with members in it appearing no better than hell spawns.
After looking around for a while, Yang Kai had a random thought.
If Old Demon were here, these green Evil Spirits would undoubtedly be a delicacy for him. It was a pity that he was probably still absorbing the Demonic Qi at the bottom of the Coiling Dragon Stream.
As for the four cultivators before him, although one of them was guarding against Yang Kai, thus reducing their available firepower, the remaining three didn’t appear burdened. Quickly launching a variety of ferocious Martial Skills, they soon dispatched the few green Evil Spirits they were fighting.
Accompanied by a series of piercing howls, the bodies of these green Evil Spirits suddenly collapsed and dissipated into thin air.
All that was left behind were a few transparent clusters of mist, and each of them seemed to contain some residual Evil Qi suspended mid-air.
[Evil Spirit Essence!] Yang Kai quickly concluded.
All of the cultivators who came to Evil Cavern essentially came for this Evil Spirit Essence as absorbing and refining it would yield a variety of benefits.
However, these groups of green Evil Spirit Essence looked a bit weak and apparently weren’t very rich in energy.
When he discovered this, Yang Kai quickly became disinterested.
Noting Yang Kai’s calm and indifferent behaviour, the four cultivators relaxed slightly as they secretly nodded to themselves. One of the youths who appeared relatively calm quickly faced his female teammate, “Rong Mei, quickly collect the Essence.”
“En!” The girl nodded, pulled out a small bottle from her waist pocket, and pointed it at the green Evil Spirit Essences while inputting a bit of her True Qi.
*Xiu xiu xiu…*
After the small bottle sucked in all of the Evil Spirit Essences, the girl gently shook the bottle as she revealed a smile. Her pair of clear eyes stared at it with a very satisfied look.
Yang Kai raised one of his brows, curiously observing the entire process.
The youth who had just spoken seemed to be aware of this, quickly cracking a smile as he cupped his fists towards Yang Kai and greeted, “This one’s name is Tao Yang, may I ask who this Fellow Daoist is?”
“Yang Kai!”
“So it is Brother Yang.” Tao Yang laughed, raised his sword-like brows, and bluntly asked, “From Brother Yang’s reaction, it seems like you’re not quite familiar with this place, correct?”
“En.” Yang Kai nodded. Though Shan Qing Luo had told him about the dangers and opportunities in the Evil Cavern, he had never heard her mention anything about a bottle that could collect Evil Spirit Essence, so he was quite curious about this.
“Is it Brother Yang’s first time here?”
“Indeed.”
“No wonder.” Tao Yang showed a friendly smile, which neither displayed the least bit of malicious intent, nor did he give off an arrogant aura in an attempt to bully him with their superior numbers.
From this point alone, Yang Kai thought to himself that he needed to re-examine his previous prejudices towards cultivators from the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land. It would appear that the rumours and hearsay about the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land in the outside world were a bit too biased. Those who lived here weren’t all unreasonable bloodthirsty devils and monsters.
Wicked and good seemed to both exist no matter where one went.
As Yang Kai and Tao Yang were talking, the other three youths examined Yang Kai with great interest, and each of them had some thoughts of curiosity and ridicule. They had never thought that someone would dare to enter the Evil Cavern all by themselves, yet there was one such reckless fool right in front of them now.
[Really doesn’t know how to write the word ‘dead’.]
“What is that bottle?” Yang Kai asked as he glanced towards the bottle in the girl’s hand. Since he sensed no malice from this Tao Yang, naturally he thought of gathering some information from him.
“This thing…” Tao Yang took the bottle from the girl’s hands and shook it in front of Yang Kai. If one looked carefully they could see a dense clump of green light inside, like a drop of turbid water, “This is a Purifying Spirit Bottle, it’s a type of artifact that’s used by those who come here for life experience.”
“What’s it used for?”
Seeing this newcomer really not know anything, Tao Yang couldn’t help be grin helplessly, rubbing his forehead slightly as he patiently explained, “Brother Yang, you that when an Evil Spirit is killed it leaves behind its essence, right?”
“En.”
“Well, this essence contains all kinds of wonderful things that are very beneficial to cultivators after they absorb and refine them, but… This essence isn’t that easy to absorb because it contains a lot of residual malevolence which requires a cultivator to refine out, the more powerful the Evil Spirit, the more powerful the malevolence left in its essence after it dies.”
Yang Kai nodded lightly, he too could also detect the residual evil aura hidden in the Evil Spirit Essence. No one could directly absorb this malevolence into themselves, and doing so would only lead to a backlash against their mind and Soul.
“Since it takes time to refine it, and inside this Evil Cavern there is crisis around every corner, you can’t absorb the Evil Spirit Essence on the spot. Doing so would leave you vulnerable while you attempt to refine it, only a fool would do that.” Tao Yang said with a light chuckle, “That’s where these Purifying Spirit Bottles comes in handy, they allow you to store Evil Spirit Essence until you can find a place to safely absorb and refine it.”
“I see!” Yang Kai suddenly understood. He never had thought that things would be so complicated when he had rushed here on his own. Apparently in the future, he needed to be more careful.
“Also, the Purifying Spirit Bottle also had a purifying effect on the residual evil aura, the longer it remains in the bottle the easier it is for one to refine the essence, but doing so can also damage the Purifying Spirit Bottle, so it’s best not to store it for too long. Best to find an opportunity to quickly refine it to avoid such a situation while also increasing your own strength, haha!”
“Many thanks for your guidance Brother Tao!” Yang Kai cupped his fists in thanks.
“Brother Yang is too polite.” Tao Yang faintly smiled. Finished with his explanation, he wrinkled his brow for a moment and seemed to struggle and hesitate but soon turned to his female companion, “Junior Sister, give me one of our bottles.”
Not thinking too much about it, the girl quickly took out another bottle and passed it to Tao Yang.
As soon as Tao Yang grasped this bottle, he offered it to Yang Kai while letting out a friendly laugh, “It’s best to bring one of these with you Brother Yang, otherwise I’m afraid it would be quite troublesome.”
“Senior Brother!” Seeing him so easily offer a Purifying Spirit Bottle to a stranger they had just me, the other three youths couldn’t help but object.
A Purifying Spirit Bottle, though not a particularly precious artifact, was still quite troublesome to refine. As such, they had only brought three of them with them this time.
But now, their Senior Brother wanted to give one away just like that?
“Those who come here for life experience should help one another out and support one another.” Tao Yang quietly glanced at his three juniors, indicating with his eyes that they should keep quiet.
Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled slightly as he held the Purifying Spirit Bottle he was given.
This was an instinctive reaction to this unusual situation. Since he had arrived here, although he hadn’t sensed any malicious intent from Tao Yang’s group, in the end, they were still strangers who had met by chance, and seeing them act so generously was surprising, to say the least.
This act of generosity couldn’t help but make him feel suspicious, thinking that perhaps there was something they wanted his help with!
But they had just met, what could it be they wanted in exchange?
Holding the bottle, Yang Kai hesitated to simply refuse. When someone gifted you something in friendship, directly rejecting them wasn’t polite, doing so would instead give the opposite party a bad impression, like you were distrustful of them or looking down on them.
The question is, what to give them in exchange? Yang Kai thought to himself.
Sweeping the Black Book space with his Divine Sense, in terms of treasures, besides the Myriad Drug Liquid, Milk, and Cream, there was only the Yin Yang Monster Ginseng.
Other than that there were the artifacts he’d obtained from the Great Sects of the Endless Sea Islands, as well as the Asura Sword and the Thousand Blossoming Blood Begonia.
Obviously, he couldn’t give these things away.
All that he had besides that were some pills. These pills were the ones originally prepared for him by Ling Tai Xu. There were also the two bottles of Heaven Grade pills which he had taken from Shan Qing Luo’s Treasure House.
Searching his possessions like this, Yang Kai suddenly felt that he was actually quite poor.
After considering for a moment, he decided to exchange a bottle of Heaven Grade pills with these four.
A bottle of Heaven Grade pills was also worth a great deal of money, and this particular bottle also happened to come from Shan Qing Luo’s Treasure House. A bottle of Heaven Grade Top-Rank pills was worth at least 20,000 to 30,000 silvers.
That should be enough to offset the cost of a Purifying Spirit Bottle.
Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled slightly as his Divine Sense wandered about the Black Book space. Although it was only for a moment, but in the eyes of others, it seemed like he had suddenly gone into a daze.
Although his three juniors didn’t agree with Tao Yang giving Yang Kai one of their precious Purifying Spirit Bottle but because he was their Senior Brother they begrudgingly endured.
However, none of them could help but think their Senior Brother was being too generous, even somewhat reckless. All of them had only just met for the first time, and even if for some reason he wanted to show goodwill here, why did he have to go that far?
Then, when they all saw Yang Kai suddenly fall into a stupor, actually putting on an ignorant expression, all of them couldn’t help feeling more annoyed.
The girl named Rong Mei suddenly glared harshly as she coldly snorted, “When someone sends you something, you don’t even bother to offer some thanks? Did you suddenly become a mute?”
The other two were also cold-faced and did not bother to hide their dissatisfaction in the slightest.
Yang Kai was stunned for a moment before quickly turning to them and then lightly said, “I apologize, I was thinking about something and became distracted.”
“Finished?” Rong Mei quipped angrily and seemed unwilling to let the matter drop until Yang Kai offered at least some works of thanks.
“En.” Throwing a bottle of pills towards Tao Yang, Yang Kai cupped his fists and said, “Until we meet again!”
Done what needed to be done, Yang Kai turned and casually walked away.
“Hey…” Rong Mei chased after him a few steps, but seeing him quickly disappear from sight, the anger she had been holding back burst out, “This brat…”
“All of you… haa…” Tao Yang looked at his Junior Brothers and Junior Sister, shaking his head. Although he didn’t go so far as to accuse them, the disappointment on his brow was obvious.
“Senior Brother!” The taller, thinner of Tao Yang’s Junior Brothers spoke up questioningly, “Is he worth all of this?”
“Right right, he doesn’t seem like anyone important, even his robes were ordinary, why did you feel the need to give him a Purifying Spirit Bottle?” Rong Mei couldn’t help but ask with a puzzled light in her eyes before softly muttering, “Such an ungrateful brat. Not even bothering to say thank you.”
“Why does he need to thank us? It’s not like he received that Purifying Spirit Bottle for nothing.” Tao Yang’s gaze finally shifted to the pill bottle in Rong Mei’s hands and casually urged, “See for yourself.”
“Fine!” Rong Mei pouted, pulling a face like an unhappy child, “Isn’t it just a bottle of pills, could these possibly be equal in value to a Purifying Spirit Bottle? Hmph!”
While complaining, she casually uncapped the bottle and gently sniffed. Her beautiful face instantly paled, as she turned a shocked gaze towards Tao Yang.
Seeing this, Tao Yang sighed lightly.
“Impossible…” Rong Mei’s face was filled with surprise, and she seemed afraid to believe what was happening. Quickly she poured out one of the pills from the bottle onto her small trembling hand and carefully observed it before her other two Brother Disciples also came up to sniff the rich pill incense, and they all exclaimed in shock, “Heaven Grade pills?”
“Look more carefully.” Tao Yang’s eyesight was obviously higher than his three Juniors and at one glance saw the actual quality of this pill.
“This is… a Heaven Grade Top-Rank pill!?” His three Junior’s faces no longer showed any complaint and instead were filled with joy.
“Heaven Grade Top-Rank True Qi restoring pill!” Tao Yang grinned helplessly, “Tell me, can these offset the value of a Purifying Spirit Bottle?”
Rong Mei’s face instantly blushed with embarrassment, “En.”
These four had come to the Evil Cavern for life experience, so naturally, they had brought some True Qi supplementing and healing pills, but the pills they brought with them were only Heaven Grade Low-Rank at best. This bottle of pills that Yang Kai easily threw to them was a whole two ranks higher in quality.
Although it was only two ranks, the difference in value was worlds apart!
Sometimes, a good bottle of pills’ value couldn’t be measured with money. In crucial situations, they could mean the difference between life and death!
“Just who was that kid? So generous!” That slimmer Junior Brother gasped, his face still filled with shock.
None of them could understand. Their Senior Brother and that youth had definitely just met for the first time, but both of them had delivered extremely precious gifts to the other like they were competing to see who could be more generous.
“I gifted him a peach and he returned the favour in kind, that’s all.” Tao Yang said, his mouth twitched slightly as he cast a blaming gaze towards his three Juniors, “No matter what his real identity is, your Senior Brother wanted to befriend him, but now you three wasted my efforts.”
Tao Yang’s Juniors couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty being scolded as such.
Curious, Rong Mei soft asked, “Senior Brother, how did you know he was someone worthy of befriending? People come here from all different walks of life with many different personalities, what if he was a sinister person?”
Tao Yang grinned helplessly, “If he had any malicious intentions, he wouldn’t have deliberately made noise to alert us to his presence.”
The three suddenly realized that what they thought was Yang Kai carelessly making noise when he had arrived was actually something he did on purpose.
Doing so was likely so they wouldn’t misunderstand his intentions.
Acting so, it was clear he didn’t want to stir up trouble, so obviously his demeanour wasn’t bad.
“Besides,” Tao Yang continued, and his eyes flashed a light of caution, “Just now, his speech and attitude revealed that he really didn’t know much about this place, yet still had the confidence to come here alone. No doubt he is quite strong.”
“Maybe not, he was clearly a little younger than us.” Rong Mei obviously did not quite believe Tao Yang.
“Age doesn’t mean everything to a cultivator. Didn’t you notice that although he was facing us alone, he wasn’t nervous at all, not even raising his guard? What does that mean? It shows that he didn’t fear us taking action against him, possibly even confident he could defeat all of us should he need to. That’s the main reason I wanted to befriend him.”
“How can that be?” The three exclaimed repeatedly, shaking their heads, “I don’t believe it!”
Tao Yang cast a disappointed gaze at his three Juniors, “All of you can’t be so short-sighted, alright? The geniuses of this world are numerous. Powerful talents can appear anywhere, you have to judge things from a long-term perspective.”
However, Rong Mei simply laughed, “Even though Senior Brother said so, I still don’t believe it. Hehe, even though I admit there are many geniuses in this world, but someone his age being able to kill all four of us? That’s not a genius, that’s a monster!”
The other two nodded, not taking their Senior Brother’s words to heart.
“Haa…” Tao Yang only felt like he was wasting his time by trying and failing to educate his Junior Sister and Junior Brother, so sighing heavily, “You three… remember my words. In order to survive in this world, you cannot lack strength, but more so you absolutely cannot lack judgement! You must be able to see clearly who you cannot offend and who you can befriend. If you can do that, you’ll be able to live longer.”
“Fine, fine, I know Senior Brother likes his clichés. We should get moving, that guy is already one step ahead of us.” Rong Mei walked over and began pulling on Tao Yang’s sleeve, “We should move a bit faster, if we catch up to him we can see if he really has such great ability, Senior Brother continuing to talk about it is useless now. “
“Good.” Tao Yang nodded and also accelerated his pace.
In truth, he too wanted to know what exactly Yang Kai was relying on to dare to come here alone.
Several kilometres away.
Yang Kai frowned as he stared in front of himself at a floating ghost-like creature, obviously one of these so-called Evil Spirits.
Carefully observing it again, he found that this Evil Spirit was really just a semi-solid entity, with neither hands nor feet and only vague facial features, truly ghastly to look at.
After a moment, Yang Kai walked towards it.
Evil Spirits had no sentience but were quite sensitive to living being’s vitality. As long as a living creature entered within a certain range them, they would violently attack and would not give up until either they or their prey was dead.
Once Yang Kai approached to within a few dozen meters, the Evil Spirit discovered him.
Immediately it let out a howl and quickly fluttered towards Yang Kai.
The air became chilly as an icy wind burst forth as ear piercing cries echoed about.
As the Evil Spirit rushed towards him, Yang Kai sent out a palm strike infused with his True Yang Yuan Qi.
Being struck by this palm, the Evil Spirit suddenly staggered back, and from the point of contact, a blazing flame spread out, incinerating it.
Although this invading True Yang Yuan Qi was quickly offset by the evil energy of the Evil Spirit, this one palm seemed to have caused it heavy losses, and the green radiance which made up its incorporeal body dimmed significantly.
Coming to a halt and ceasing its howls, the Evil Spirit seemed to be momentarily stunned before turning around and suddenly fleeing in the opposite direction.
Yang Kai was stunned for a moment, faintly feeling that something was not quite right, but quickly pursued.
Though this Evil Spirit didn’t appear to be a complete entity, its speed was actually quite fast, forcing Yang Kai to chase after it for a long time before finally catching up with it. After Landing a few more strikes on its transparent body, soon all that was left was a lump of Evil Spirit Essence.
The entire process had been relaxed, far more so than Yang Kai had imagined it would be.
From his prior observation of Tao Yang’s group dealing with an Evil Spirit, Yang Kai had estimated that defeating one would be quite troublesome on his own.
Not proceeding forward, Yang Kai sunk into contemplation, feeling that this entire situation was abnormal.
He had been told that an Evil Spirit would fight till its dying breath, so why did this one all of a sudden turn and flee? On top of that, why did it only take him four or five strikes to kill it?
[Are these Evil Spirit’s suppressed by my True Yang Yuan Qi?]
Pondering for a while, this was the only reason Yang Kai could think of.
His True Yang Yuan Qi had always been his greatest advantage against demonic beings. Yang Kai had even relied upon it to suppress the potent evil energy contained within his Unyielding Golden Skeleton.
Thinking so, Yang Kai was startled and quickly became excited.
Undoubtedly this meant he held a great advantage within this Evil Cavern, and not taking advantage of this point to reap a great harvest would be too wasteful.
Pulling out the Purifying Spirit Bottle, Yang Kai imitated Rong Mei’s actions and injected a small amount of his True Qi into it, which instantly caused the Purifying Spirit Bottle to suck up the Evil Spirit Essence in front of him.
Nodding in satisfaction, Yang Kai let out a small laugh.
Putting away his Purifying Spirit Bottle, he quickly continued on his way.
There didn’t appear to be many signs of recent cultivator activity in this area, only some scattered traces of a few individuals, so Yang Kai simply walked forward while leisurely killing any Evil Spirit he came across. After meeting one, Yang Kai would attack ruthlessly, not giving any of these Evil Spirits any chance to flee again and instantly destroyed them with overwhelming force.
In less than half a day, the Purifying Spirit Bottle was packed with over twenty Evil Spirit Essences, but Yang Kai could feel that the energy contained in these Evil Spirit Essences wasn’t all that strong, so even if he absorbed all of them, they wouldn’t provide him much benefit.
More than a dozen kilometers behind Yang Kai, Tao Yang and his group had been walking forward carefully, but after quite some time, they still had not encountered a single Evil Spirit, which caused them no small confusion.
“Why is it so peaceful here?” Rong Mei muttered under her breath as she frowned slightly.
Tao Yang also looked about suspiciously before suddenly wearing an aghast expression and quickly said, “I’m afraid all the Evil Spirits here have already been cleared.”
“In this outermost section of the Evil Cavern with a number of Evil Spirits lurking about and few people, who could have swept away all of them already?” Rong Mei laughed dismissively but suddenly thought of something. Then she turned to Tao Yang in shock, “Senior Brother, you mean…”
“En. We haven’t encountered others coming back from the inner section so these Evil Spirits must have been killed by someone in front of us.” Tao Yang’s gaze became sharp, “It seems like I still underestimated his ability. It seems like not only is he very strong, he also cultivates some powerful Martial Skills that can greatly restrain these Evil Spirits, otherwise, even if his strength was incredible he wouldn’t have been able to clear all of them out so quickly.”
Tao Yang’s three Juniors all wore shocked expressions, and none of them dared to underestimate Yang Kai anymore. Some dread even welled up in their hearts.
Yang Kai held his Purifying Spirit Bottle in front of a group of Evil Spirit Essences for a long time and slowly injected his True Qi, yet it failed to inhale it.
He wrinkled his brow in confusion for quite some time.
Observing carefully for a long time, he suddenly understood. His Purifying Spirit Bottle had apparently reached full capacity, so it was impossible for it to absorb any more Evil Spirit Essence.
Thinking of this, Yang Kai shook his head as a wry smile appeared on his face. He reached out and sucked the Evil Spirit Essence in front of him into his palm before absorbing it directly into his meridians.
Using his pure True Yang Yuan Qi to refine it, this Evil Spirit Essence was soon purified and turned into a lump of pure energy, which was quickly devoured by his Unyielding Golden Skeleton.
[Seems easy enough…]
Swallowing this batch of energy, his Unyielding Golden Skeleton suddenly let out a strange feeling. Like it was extremely hungry for this energy, and it seeked more in dissatisfaction.
Seems like this refined Evil Spirit Essence had very great appeal to his Unyielding Golden Skeleton. Aware of this, Yang Kai couldn’t help but grin happily.
The time he had refined Le Yu’s Purple Demonic Spirit Fire also gave him a similar feeling, so Yang Kai had guessed that this place would be a paradise for his Unyielding Golden Skeleton, and now it seemed like it really was so.
In any case, since refining this Evil Spirit Essence was very easy for him, Yang Kai simply went ahead and inhaled all twenty of them from his Purifying Spirit Bottle into his meridians.
Less than half a quarter of an hour later, he had completely refined these twenty Evil Spirit Essences.
Immediately, a joyous feeling welled up from the Unyielding Golden Skeleton, which gave Yang Kai a slight sense of euphoria.
The only disappointment was that these essences only increased his strength and nothing else, no enlightenment, Martial Skills, or even an increase in Spiritual Energy.
Even so, Yang Kai grinned, quite satisfied with this result. After all, he knew that special Evil Spirit Essences were quite rare inside the Evil Cavern, so finding one was essentially a matter of one’s luck.
Just as he was about to continue his exploration, Yang Kai felt a fluttering in his mind, and he turned to stare in a particular direction, his brow furrowing.
Frowning in thought for a moment, Yang Kai quickly rushed back in that direction.
Half an hour later sounds of battle reached his ears. Up ahead he could see flashes of light from Martial Skills.
Looking towards these flashes, Yang Kai saw a number of young men and women gathered together fighting a few Evil Spirits under the leadership of one of one young girl.
The Martial Skills these people were using had a certain evil aura to them, and all of their hands were unusually pale, akin to ghost claws that seemed to give off a deep chill. Observing, Yang Kai noticed that each time one of these people launched a Martial Skill a piercing howl was emitted as it tore through the air towards the Evil Spirits.
These Martial Skills, to a certain extent, were similar to the Evil Spirits themselves, creating a semi-transparent ghost like phantoms with unclear features, giving off a grim and menacing auras.
What truly caught Yang Kai’s attention though was that the Evil Spirits this group was facing were not the same as the ones he had encountered before.
Until now, the Evil Spirits he came across were all green coloured, but the ones here now were bright blood red, which gave them a more malevolent appearance.
Moreover, these red Evil Spirits’ strength was undoubtedly stronger than the green ones. Even their bodies had a more corporeal look.
Therefore, even though the number of people here was larger than Tao Yang’s group, they would still take quite some time to achieve victory.
Four or five red Evil Spirits gathered around, screaming and howling, seeming to resonate and communicate with one another, before taking unified action, advancing and retreating in a half-organized fashion, making them far more formidable and troublesome than green Evil Spirits.
However, this group of young cultivators still clearly held the advantage. After a while, one of the red Evil Spirit’s gradually dimmed and was quickly defeated, which cemented the battle’s balance in favor of the cultivators.
Repeatedly unleashing various grim Martial Skills, the group attacked the red Evil Spirits with overwhelming force.
Unexpectedly, one of the red Evil Spirits on the verge of dying actually bypassed the crowd and rushed directly towards Yang Kai.
Yang Kai frowned but did not dodge, interested to see just how strong these red Evil Spirits were. Lifting his hand, he sent a True Qi infused palm towards this oncoming enemy.
Striking it head on, the red Evil Spirit shrieked and instantly collapsed, leaving behind a group of Evil Spirit Essence that floated in front of Yang Kai.
This group of Evil Spirit Essence was clearly superior to the ones Yang Kai had previously obtained.
Yang Kai had no intention of collecting this Evil Spirit Essence but perhaps because it had just recently tasted such energy, his Unyielding Golden Skeleton acting without restraint and immediately inhaled this Evil Spirit Essence.
Yang Kai couldn’t help being stunned, feeling slightly helpless.
Nearby, the group of cultivators who had originally seen Yang Kai use a single move to kill an Evil Spirit were somewhat shocked and were equally surprised when he had unscrupulously absorbed the Evil Spirit Essence.
“Hey, my friend, don’t you think you’re acting a bit unruly?” A gloomy youth stood out and quipped while glaring gloomily at Yang Kai.
“En, apologies, it was unintentional.” Yang Kai knew there was no point trying to talk his way out of this so he frankly admitted his wrong.
“Unintentional?” The young man sneered, “After blatantly absorbing our Evil Spirit Essence you still want to claim you didn’t mean to?”
Although Yang Kai’s previous strike had surprised him a moment ago, he wasn’t afraid. After all, they had seven or eight people on their side. What’s more, Yang Kai’s argument really wasn’t very convincing.
What wasn’t intentional about plundering other people’s treasures in front of their faces?
Listening to their comrade, the others of this young man’s group also moved forward and coldly glared at Yang Kai, clearly unwilling to let the matter drop.
Only the young girl who seemed to be their leader remained still. Her beautiful face gawked towards Yang Kai, her eyes flashed a trace of panic, and her tender body involuntarily shivered slightly.
She quickly remembered that terrible torture and unbearable suffering.
“Friend, you should consider your situation well, although our Ghost King Valley isn’t a supreme power, we’re also not so easily bullied.” The same youth glared at Yang Kai as a sneer appeared on his face.
Yang Kai frowned, lightly replying, “I’ll compensate you.”
“Compensate? How do you place to compensate us?” That youth snorted.
“No need,” Yang Kai didn’t have enough time to reply before the young girl hiding behind the crowd walked up and said. Her eyes contained a faint trace of panic as she said towards Yang Kai, “You don’t need to compensate us.”
“Junior Sister…” The young man looked towards the young girl in surprise, as he did not understand why she would suddenly say so.
“I know him! Don’t quarrel over such small matters.” The young girl said indifferently, although a tinge of red appeared on her face as she stared towards Yang Kai. More memories of the absurd acts she and Zi Mo had done to ‘seduce’ this youth before suddenly popping up in her mind.
[That stupid woman Zi Mo, she really convinced me he had some kind of disability but in the end we just ended up allowing him to take advantage of us for free!]
“Junior Sister knows him?” The young man couldn’t help but feel surprised as he glanced back and forth between her and Yang Kai.
“En, he saved my life once.” The girl finally showed a light smile, but this cold woman’s smile somehow seemed a bit stiff.
“Young Miss Leng, we meet again.” Yang Kai smiled back at the girl.
This girl, shockingly, was Ghost King Valley’s Leng Shan!
Zi Mo and Leng Shan both had marks left on their Souls by Yang Kai’s Divine Sense, so Yang Kai could feel their presence as long as they were close enough, still, Yang Kai didn’t expect to meet Leng Shan here.
“En, we meet again.” Leng Shan nodded slightly, relieved in her heart that it seemed that this brat didn’t intend to say anything about their past encounter, nor did he intend to torture her.
Although she had understood long ago that Yang Kai wasn’t actually malicious in nature, Leng Shan still couldn’t help but be on edge around him.
Seeing how both of them were really familiar, the other Ghost King Valley disciples relaxed, and the hostility of the gloomy youth also reduced significantly.
“You should first refine that Evil Spirit Essence, once that thing is absorbed into the body, if you don’t quickly refine it, it will lead to problems.” Leng Shan whispered, then turned to her fellow disciples, “Quickly collect the other essences but keep your guard up, don’t let other Evil Spirits take us by surprise.”
The crowd quickly nodded and set about their tasks.
Yang Kai also chuckled lightly then began to circulate his True Yang Secret Art.
The red Evil Spirit’s Evil Spirit Essence was really different. It contained significantly more energy than one left behind by a green Evil Spirit.
A short moment later, Yang Kai let out a light breath and said, “Done.”
“Done?” The gloomy young man exclaimed and furrowed his brow at Yang Kai, “Friend, an Evil Spirit Essence isn’t so easily refined, is it? Are you sure you’ve purified it completely? This thing is not a joke, if it’s not refined completely it will most likely leave behind some hidden dangers.”
The youth’s reminder had been well intentioned. Apparently, because Leng Shan had said he was her life’s benefactor, his opinion of Yang Kai had improved dramatically or it would have been impossible to speak so.
“It’s alright, I cultivate a True Yang Secret Art, so refining these things is quite simple for me,” Yang Kai said lightly.
“I see, I was wondering why this friend was so easily able to kill that red Evil Spirit. On top of having great strength, you also can restrain them with your True Qi’s attribute!” The gloomy youth smiled as he let out a carefree laugh.
“Good, my name is Chen Yi, if I had offended this friend just now, I hope you will not take it to heart.”
“Good, I’m Yang Kai!”
Since the other party was willing to reconcile, naturally he wouldn’t reject, nor would Yang Kai actually care about such minor slights. After all, it really was his own fault.
In a secluded spot inside the Evil Cavern, the disciples of Ghost King Valley sat together in meditation. Having just undergone a fight, they also needed a moment to restore themselves.
In these Ominous Grounds, one’s safety could only be guaranteed if one maintained their peak condition.
Despite entering a meditative state, none of them relaxed their vigilance and closely monitored their surroundings for any signs of movement lest any red Evil Spirits suddenly appeared.
Yang Kai looked around and nodded while curiously observing Leng Shan in particular. After nearly a year apart, this icy girl had grown a lot.
Leng Shan was neither the strongest nor the oldest in this group, but it was clear that she was in command. Almost everything that was done was in accordance with her orders, allowing this group to have a high degree of organization.
Her high status in the Ghost King Valley was one reason for this, but more importantly she commanded everyone’s respect because she had accumulated a great deal of life experience in various trails and Forbidden Zones.
The gloomy youth Chen Yi also smiled and sat down nearby, smiling well-meaningly towards Yang Kai.
He seemed unaware that Yang Kai had killed two Elite Disciples of Ghost King Valley and that Leng Shan had a significant grudge against him.
“Why are you here?” Yang Kai asked curiously, surprised that on his visit to the Evil Cavern he would run into an acquaintance.
Although in that Isolated World Yang Kai’s relationship with Zi Mo was closer than the one he had with Leng Shan, but due to his Divine Sense Brand remaining on her Soul he still had a faint connection with her.
It was just that this link was unilateral. Yang Kai could feel Leng Shan’s presence but she couldn’t feel his.
“I can naturally be here,” Leng Shan grinned, “Don’t you know where this is?”
“The Evil Cavern.” Yang Kai frowned before suddenly understanding, “This place is in the Profound Yin Ghost King’s territory… Ghost King Valley, so Ghost King Valley was originally from this region of the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land.”
“En,” Leng Shan nodded lightly.
Yang Kai suddenly thought, “Does Ghost King Valley and the Profound Yin Ghost King have some kind of relationship?”
“Although both have ‘Ghost King’ in their titles, we don’t actually have any kind of deep connection, we just happen to belong to the same jurisdiction is all.” Chen Yi interjected with a smile, “It looks like Brother Yang isn’t very familiar with the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land.”
“En,” Yang Kai muttered.
Chen Yi simply laughed however and said, “Never mind, if you don’t understand anything, feel free to ask me. Since you’re Junior Sister’s savior, then you are a friend of my Ghost King Valley, and that naturally makes you my friend as well. Out of curiosity, where does Brother Yang come from?”
“Senior Brother!” Leng Shan shouted. Obviously, she knew which Sect Yang Kai came from, but because she knew, she felt it wasn’t something to be discussed casually.
Before, High Heaven Pavilion was a relatively unknown Sect, but now it was world-famous because it was the birthplace of the current Demon Lord.
Because of its relationship with the Demon Lord, the entire High Heaven Pavilion had essentially been destroyed, and not only did the outside world know about this, it was even news in the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land!
The Demon Lord’s arrival had brought war to the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land, which was not something everyone wanted to see.
After noticing Leng Shan’s sudden change in demeanor, Chen Yi grinned awkwardly and waved, “Well, just treat it like I hadn’t asked. Brother Yang doesn’t need to mind.”
However, in his heart his curiosity grew. Where exactly did this Yang Kai come from?
Yang Kai could only faintly smile in response.
“But, how come you are here?” Leng Shan asked inquisitively. She knew that High Heaven Pavilion was tens of thousands of kilometers from here.
“I heard that this place was interesting so I came to play!”
Chen Yi and Leng Shan were both dumbstruck and were unable to hold back a wry grin.
“You certainly have some big guts. A lone person actually daring to come here to play…” Leng Shan reluctantly shook her head, but when she thought back on just how terrifying Yang Kai’s strength was, she also wasn’t too surprised.
[Maybe he really is qualified to come here just to play…]
“Oh right, how come the Evil Spirits you’re dealing with here are red? All the ones I’ve come across so far were green.” Yang Kai asked curiously.
“Ha ha ha.” Chen Yi laughed loudly after realizing that Yang Kai really may have come here for fun. Why else would he have basically no knowledge about the Evil Cavern?
Leng Shan’s brow twitched slightly, as she tried to stifle her laughter.
The other disciples of Ghost King Valley also couldn’t help but look at Yang Kai with funny expressions.
Looking around, Yang Kai couldn’t help but scratch his head awkwardly.
“Ahem,” Leng Shan lightly coughed and straightened out her expression as she asked, “What is the difference between the green Evil Spirits and the red Evil Spirits?”
“Well, the red ones are undoubtedly stronger.”
“It’s like this: inside the Evil Cavern, the further one progresses, the more powerful the Evil Spirit’s they encounter become. It’s relatively easy to deal with green Evil Spirits which is why you mostly find them in the cavern’s periphery, As one dives further into the cavern, they encounter red, purple, and eventually black Evil Spirits. As the strength of these Evil Spirits’ grows, their bodies become more and more solid, to the point that a black Evil Spirit basically has a complete physical body. Even if it is a low level Immortal Ascension Boundary master, they have no choice but to retreat when they encounter one. For those at the True Element Boundary like ourselves, if we work together, at most we can deal with purple Evil Spirit. If we were to encounter a black Evil Spirit, our only choice would be to flee, and if we weren’t able to escape fast enough, we would most likely lose our lives.”
Yang Kai’s brow twitched upon hearing this. Obviously, it was from one of these purple Evil Spirits that Le Yu had obtained his Demonic Purple Qi Body and Purple Demonic Spirit Fire.
“I understand now.” Yang Kai nodded slightly.
“Moreover, in addition to these ordinary four different coloured Evil Spirits, there is a special type of Evil Spirit that Brother Yang should be extra wary of in this Evil Cavern.” Chen Yi said seriously, and his expression became exceptionally serious.
“Oh?” Yang Kai, noticing how solemn Chen Yi’s expression became, had his interest piqued and was unable to hold back his curiosity and asked, “What kind of Evil Spirit?”
“A Soul type Evil Spirit!” Chen Yi replied. His voice was filled with a tone of warning, “They look exactly the same as any other Evil Spirit, so they’re quite hard to differentiate, but if you come across one, I advise you, do everything in your power to flee!”
“Why is that?”
“Because they possess a Soul Skill!” Chen Yi grimaced, “I’m just a True Element Boundary cultivator, so if I were to encounter a Soul type Evil Spirit, I wouldn’t be able to even defend myself. Brother Yang, do you have a Soul defence type artifact?”
Yang Kai shook his head.
“Then it seems you’ll have trouble defending yourself as well,” Chen Yi said, frowning slightly, “Those who come to this place usually carry artifacts that can defend against Soul Skill attacks, if they’re high enough quality, they may be able to block some of the effects from a Soul type Evil Spirit. Well, Brother Yang cultivates a True Yang attribute Secret Art, so perhaps that will provide you with some limited protection as well.”
“It doesn’t matter, I doubt I’d be so unlucky to come across one.” Yang Kai grinned.
Although he had no Soul defence type artifact, he did have his Soul Palace Soul Skill, and the level of his Soul defense shouldn’t be too bad.
So in reality Yang Kai didn’t take this warning too seriously.
“Good, it’s true that Soul type Evil Spirits rarely appear.” Chen Yi nodded.
After a few casual words, the atmosphere had become much more relaxed.
Just as they were chatting, a weird voice suddenly rang out from a short distance away. The sound was sharp and shrill, like a mix of whistling winds and howling ghosts.
All of the Ghost King Valley disciples heard this voice and turned their heads towards the direction of its origin.
“There’s movement.” Chen Yi’s vision became sharp as he muttered under his breath.
“En, let’s go take a look.” Leng Shan nodded firmly.
Yang Kai didn’t ask any questions, but looking at the faces of these people he seemed to guess that there was more going on than simple Evil Spirit hunting.
“Move out.” Chen Yi quickly ordered and glanced over towards Yang Kai briefly, “Brother Yang, if you don’t mind, how about traveling together with us?”
“Good!” Yang Kai nodded immediately. He had just accidentally received an Evil Spirit Essence from them, and since he had yet to compensate them, traveling together with them for the time being was only to be expected.
It wasn’t his policy to receiving graciousness from others for free.
As the group walked forward, Leng Shan deliberately hung back and eventually walked side by side with Yang Kai.
“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything like that to you again.” Yang Kai stated clearly, thinking she might still be worrying about their previous encounter.
“I know you won’t,” Leng Shan shook her head, “I just wanted to tell you some things.”
“Oh, and what would that be?”
Leng Shan laughed lightly, “I wanted to tell you why we’ve come this time to the Evil Cavern.”
“Hmm? What is it that you’re trying to accomplish here?” Yang Kai puzzled.
“Actually, we’re looking for someone.”
“Looking for someone?”
“En, there are a few outsiders who have recently killed a lot of disciples from Free And Unfettered Sect, and then fled here. Our Ghost King Valley isn’t far from Free And Unfettered Sect, so we were pulled into this situation to help them.”
At a glance, Yang Kai could tell from her expression that she was rather resentful about helping this Free And Unfettered Sect.
Chuckling lightly, he asked, “Does that Free And Unfettered Sect often bully your Ghost King Valley? You don’t seem very willing to be here this time, do you?”
“Hmph, of course I don’t want to be here!” Leng Shan glared harshly, all but confirming Yang Kai’s speculations, before she continued, “I’m telling you in advance because I know you don’t belong to the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land, and the ones Free And Unfettered Sect are hunting are cultivators from the outside. I’m just worried that if you see your fellow comrades in danger you’d be put in a difficult position.”
“Fellow comrades?” Yang Kai sneered, “My Sect is gone, exactly what comrades do I have?”
Leng Shan’s expression became a bit dim, and she whispered, “About High Heaven Pavilion’s situation… my condolences!”
Yang Kai simply snorted.
Perhaps influenced by Shan Qing Luo or perhaps because of High Heaven Pavilion’s misfortune, Yang Kai no longer cared too deeply about concepts like righteousness or evil. The so called beliefs of the world in his opinion had nothing to do with him.
“Who is it that Free And Unfettered Sect is chasing?” Yang Kai was a bit curious.
“Other than a woman, who else could it be?” Leng Shan scoffed, “Free And Unfettered Sect’s favourite pastime is acting without restraint, not a night goes by they don’t do their best to vent their desires, understand?”
“Ah… I understand.” Yang Kai suddenly felt awkward, never having thought the cold and indifferent Leng Shan would actually speak so bluntly.
“But this time it’s not just a single young woman but a pair of twins. Both of them are extraordinarily beautiful and exceptionally strong to boot, and the two of them have actually razed quite a storm around here.” Leng Shan’s eyes secretly shone a light, obviously taking some pleasure in others’ misfortune, “The two of them have killed more than a dozen Free And Unfettered Sect disciples, but unfortunately it seems they finally came up against more than they could handle and were forced to escape here.”
“You seem to hold quite the grudge against that Free And Unfettered Sect.” Yang Kai looked her up and down, then chuckled, “Did someone from their Free And Unfettered Sect try to ‘vent their desires’ on our little beauty here too?”
“Hmph!” Leng Shan angrily snorted and turned her face away, not directly answering his question, but her meaning was clear enough.
“Heh heh…” Yang Kai chuckled and suddenly thought of something, “If you really were to find those two women, what are you planning to do?”
“I don’t know either,” Leng Shan shook her head. “I didn’t want to get involved in this in the first place. Even my Master said that we can just superficially cooperate and we don’t need to put in any real effort if we happen to catch them… we’ll think about it then.”
“Good.” Yang Kai nodded lightly.
After walking forward for a long time.
Yang Kai’s eyes suddenly flickered, looking towards a particular direction.
“Wait!” Yang Kai reached out and grabbed Leng Shan.
“Stop!” Chen Yi, hearing this sudden voice, quickly raised his hand and ordered the group of Ghost King Valley disciples to form a perimeter.
“What happened?” Leng Shan asked in surprise.
However, Yang Kai didn’t answer and instead stared harder and harder at that spot ahead of them. His vision suddenly became cold, and he shot forward like lightning, as his True Qi surged, and shot out a palm seemingly at thin air.
From the void in front of him, rippling waves spread out, and in the next instant, an unexpected figure appeared in everyone’s field of vision.
This person’s face couldn’t hide his shock and astonishment, apparently unable to believe that Yang Kai had found him, and he quickly fell back as he raised his hands and shouted, “Wait wait!”
Yang Kai’s expression went dull for a moment when he noticed the opposite party’s pale ghost-like hands.
Disciples of Ghost King Valley all had hands that looked like this, seeming to have no blood flow through them.
“Ah… Brother Yang, stop!” Chen Yi hurriedly shouted.
This shout reached his ears, and Yang Kai also quickly halted his attack.
“He’s one of us,” Chen Yi and Leng Shan hurriedly explained.
“A scout….” Yang Kai cracked a wry grin. Originally he had thought someone was waiting in ambush to attack them, but it turns out this person was just a disciple of Ghost King Valley who had been sent ahead as a pathfinder.
After being forced out of his concealment, this young man couldn’t hold his shock as he stared at Yang Kai, and he only relaxed slightly when Chen Yi arrived, by loudly cursing, “What the fuck! Who the hell is this guy?”
“He’s Junior Sister Leng’s benefactor.” Chen Yi briefly explained.
Yang Kai was soon told that this disciple named Cheng Ying really was a scout sent out by the Ghost King Valley team.
“Sorry, it’s a misunderstanding!” Yang Kai cupped his fists in apology.
“Misunderstanding? Dog shit!” Shouted Cheng Ying, “I used a concealment artifact and a special stealth type Martial Skill. Senior Brother Chen Yi couldn’t even find a trace of me, so how did you see through it in an instant?”
Listening to his outburst, everyone else suddenly felt something was off.
If it weren’t for Cheng Ying’s perfect stealth techniques, they wouldn’t have allowed him to explore the road ahead on his own in the first place. With the combination of his stealth Martial Skill and concealment artifact, even if it were a general Immortal Ascension Boundary master they wouldn’t be able to detect any signs of his presence. This was what Cheng Ying relied on to provide a steady stream of forward intelligence to the team.
But now, Yang Kai, a youth who hadn’t even reached the Immortal Ascension Boundary, had actually seen through his camouflage!
How could they not be surprised?
“True… Brother Yang, how did you manage to find him?” Chen Yi asked curiously.
Yang Kai wrinkled his brow slightly, “Well… my senses have always been a bit keener than most people.”
“That’s it?” Cheng Ying clearly didn’t quite believe him, but since Yang Kai apparently didn’t want to say anymore he was at an impasse.
Leng Shan also glanced suspiciously at Yang Kai, and a pensive light flashed across her beautiful cold eyes, but instead of digging further into things, she swiftly changed the topic, “Cheng Ying, do you have any new information for us? Did you discover something up ahead?”
Cheng Ying immediately recovered, and a grin slowly formed on his face, “I found them! Those two slu…”
“Hm?” Leng Shan’s vision instantly became cold, as a fellow woman, hearing someone use such language wasn’t very pleasing.
“Ahem… the whereabouts of those two girls was exposed.” Cheng Ying grinned helplessly and quickly continued, “However, those two are much stronger than we expected, their realms are obviously not very high, but when the two of them join together their strength rises dramatically, probably due to some special Secret Art that they cultivate. Those Free And Unfettered Sect bastards really ate some harsh losses at their hands, and several of them died, Yu Qing was also nearly castrated by one of them, that scene… hahaha, too good!”
Cheng Ying was apparently a lively person. Describing the battle that took place in an animated voice in great detail, “Seeing that guy who’s always trying to act cool, shriek in panic as the blade struck towards his crotch, hahaha!”
“Keke… Junior Brother Cheng, enough nonsense!” Chen Yi could see that Leng Shan was becoming increasingly annoyed and thus quickly interrupted his story.
“Hah… ahem…” Cheng Ying scratched his head awkwardly and pretended to slap his mouth lightly, “Yes yes yes, it’s all my cheap mouth’s fault. Junior Sister Leng shouldn’t pay it any mind.”
Leng Shan snorted ill-humouredly, but she understood that this was just this guy’s nature. A wild beast wouldn’t just become civil all of a sudden.
Chen Yi also grinned slightly, and a look of amusement surfaced on his face before he quickly asked, “In the end, was that dog Yu Qing actually… castrated?”
Cheng Ying replied somewhat disgruntled, “Nope, such a pity, but after that near miss, my guess is he’ll be shrunk up for ten days to half a month… hahaha he deserves to be beaten!”
That latter half of his sentence he directed towards Leng Shan with a smile.
“Haa, too bad!” Chen Yi also let out a long sigh, “So, what happened then? What happened to those two girls?”
“They escaped, ran further inside to be exact.” Cheng Ying’s expression suddenly became serious, “There were signs of purple Evil Spirits in the direction they fled… a lot of them, I’d guess they’re just about to reach their limit.”
“Hmm…” Chen Yi frowned, “What are Yu Qing’s intentions?”
“You know his disposition. Naturally, he doesn’t plan to let things drop, he wants us to go with them, kill our way through those purple Evil Spirits, then catch those two.”
“That bastard!” Chen Yi cursed angrily.
Ghost King Valley had repeatedly been humiliated by Free And Unfettered Sect for many years now, but because the Yellow Spring Pond that was essential to Ghost King Valley disciples’ cultivation had been occupied by Free And Unfettered Sect, even if Ghost King Valley was extremely resentful of them, they had no choice but to compromise.
In order to gain access to that Yellow Spring Pond, Ghost King Valley these years had offered innumerable female disciples to Free And Unfettered Sect. All so that their male disciples could use them as their toys.
Between the two Sects there had long been tensions, but because neither could overwhelm the other it was impossible for them to actually fight it out, so instead a fragile peace had barely been maintained.
Therefore, even though Leng Shan and her group were extremely unwilling to, they had no choice but to come here to assist Free And Unfettered Sect because Yu Qing had pledged that in exchange for the lives of these two women he would have the Yellow Spring Pond opened to them for one month.
One month, it was enough time to allow hundreds of Ghost King Valley disciples to dramatically increase their strength! Leng Shan and the Ghost King Valley Elders couldn’t refuse such temptation.
Now, Yu Qing wanted their Ghost King Valley disciples to join up with them and clearly planned to use them to clean up those purple Evil Spirits in order to minimize Free and Unfettered Sect’s own losses.
The two Sect’s disciples had had countless dealings over many years, and each of them were very familiar with the other’s thoughts and methods. How could Chen Yi and Leng Shan not understand what Yu Qing’s objective was?
“Then, do we go or not?” Cheng Ying looked at Chen Yi and Leng Shan.
Chen Yi grit his teeth but eventually didn’t speak and just looked towards Leng Shan.
Leng Shan sneered, “Of course we go! We have to go! Even if it’s just to look at their pitiful states we should take the trip!”
Hearing her put it this way, Chen Yi’s spirits were suddenly lifted, and he nodded firmly, “Good, what Junior Sister says makes sense.”
After the group had finished their deliberations, they started walking forward again with Cheng Ying in the lead.
Along the way it was very quiet, not a single Evil Spirit appeared. Obviously, this path had been swept clean earlier.
A while later, a group of men appeared in front of them, and their numbers were no fewer than their own group from Ghost King Valley, and nearby there were clear traces of a ferocious battle, traces of blood and flesh were scattered on the ground and a number of fresh corpses were present as well.
A sinister looking fair-skinned man amongst this group had a bright red bloodstain on his pants. As he sat there uncomfortably, large drops of sweat continued to drip down his forehead, and his slightly pale face was filled with an expression of hatred. His cold eyes glared into the depths of the Evil Cavern, and he muttered aloud, “You two sluts! Sooner or later I’ll make suffer for this. You actually dare to hurt me, you dared try to hurt me there!”
Despite the dim light, one could still clearly see a nearly half-foot long gash on his upper thigh which was until now still leaking blood.
In front of this evil-looking man, a beautiful young woman was kneeling down and carefully dressing his wound.
Even in this environment, this sinister youth’s pillar was still towering high.
When the disciples of Ghost King Valley arrived, Leng Shan immediately disregarded this group with clear signs of disgust apparent in her eyes. Whereas Chen Yi looked around with great interest and called out tauntingly, “It’s a minor injury, just a flesh wound really. Yu Qing, what are you getting so worked up about?”
Yu Qing suddenly roared furiously, “What dog shit minor injury, what dog shit flesh wound!? Those two sluts must pay dearly for this, I want them to suffer a living hell where they’ll beg me for death!”
Yu Qing clamoured, and his face filled with rage.
Yang Kai also looked around at Free And Unfettered Sect’s disciples, and impressively discovered that all the men from this sect, one by one, were all pale looking, like they had all overdrawn their blood force and vitality. Although all of them were clearly born exceptionally handsome, with their deathly pale complexions, all of their charm had been destroyed.
Every Free And Unfettered Sect male disciple had a number of pretty flowers accompanying him, but unlike these men’s pale complexion, each of these women was filled with vigour, and each of them wore flattering smiles, seeming to be quite unrestrained.
When these females looked towards the various Ghost King Valley disciples they made no attempt to conceal the amorous tones in their gaze. One of them even took the initiative to walk up to these male Ghost King Valley disciples and began teasing and tempting them.
Seeing this, the Free And Unfettered Sect male disciple behind her not only didn’t become jealous but instead reached out to pinch her plump behind, which immediately provoked a seductive moan to leak from her cherry red lips.
Yang Kai’s expression immediately became ugly. He found that since he arrived in this land, he had continuously encountered men and women who delved into various erotic and immoral acts. Even Shan Qing Luo and Bi Luo, needless to say, cultivated a supreme type of Seduction Technique, and although they themselves both still held their purity, they were more than a little familiar with the matters between men and women.
These Free And Unfettered Sect’s disciple looked like they all engaged in the plucking of yin and yang. Yang Kai was just unsure about why they were so loose about it, or whether there was some hidden profoundness to them being so.
“Although your Ghost King Valley people’s looks are somewhat ugly, these Free And Unfettered Sect disciples are far more disgusting,” Yang Kai whispered quietly in Leng Shan’s ear.
“Who are you saying is ugly?” Leng Shan angrily retorted.
“Well, I mean your hands are all a ghastly shade of white, almost like they belong to a ghost or corpse.”
“What do you know! Just wait a few years, once we cultivate our Secret Art to a certain level the colour will naturally return to our hands. Don’t compare our Ghost King Valley people and those Free And Unfettered Sect trash, hmph!”
Yang Kai simply shrugged and no longer said anything.
“Enough of this, since you’ve come, then we can get started. The purple Evil Spirits in front of us are a bit too numerous for any one of our forces to take on, so everyone needs to sincerely cooperate in order to break through.” Yu Qing fixed his pants as he arrogantly said to Chen Yi.
Chen Yi snorted back coldly in response, “I certainly hope you Free and Unfettered Sect people will cooperate sincerely!”
After the two factions came together and briefly discussed their plans, they decided to move out immediately.
Chen Yi reluctantly took the lead while next to him were two Free And Unfettered Sect disciples, a man and a woman. Behind them the rest of the group dispersed in the fan-shaped arrangement, ready to enter the battle at any moment.
Soon after setting out, the group came across two purple Evil Spirits. Their dense Evil Qi auras were several times more violent than the previous red Evil Spirits, and their bodies were also significantly more opaque. Even their facial features were more clearly defined.
Sprouting from their forms there were even two tentacle-like appendages with vaguely defined fingers, a ghastly sight to behold.
“Here they come!” Chen Yi called out, as his True Qi surged.
“One for each of us!” Yu Qing said lightly, as the Ghost King Valley and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples broke formation, each group taking on one of the two Evil Spirits.
Piercing cries and eerie howls sent shivers down everyone’s spines.
In an instant, everyone viciously attacked the two purple Evil Spirits.
The Ghost King Valley disciples used a variety of Yin Qi Martial Skills and coordinated teamwork to pin down their target.
Similarly, nearby, the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples used their own Martial Skills to suppress the Evil Spirit. The only difference being that their Martial Skills weren’t as ghastly as Ghost King Valley’s, but instead somewhat pleasing to the eye.
Yang Kai only remained in the rear and did not actively participate in the fight. From time to time, he would send out a strike or two, but for this first contact, he wanted to observe the extent of these purple Evil Spirits’ strength.
After a moment, he basically understood their bottom line.
These purple Evil Spirits were indeed much more difficult to deal with than the red Evil Spirits. The seven or eight Ghost King Valley disciples together, although firmly holding the upper hand, didn’t dare rush their assault and chose to steadily consume their opponent’s power bit by bit.
Such Evil Spirits, if three of them rushed in, Yang Kai estimated that these Ghost King Valley disciples wouldn’t be able to cope.
The two groups fought for a long time, and eventually managed to kill their respective Evil Spirit. Each of them obtained an extremely potent Evil Spirit Essence. Both of their factions each looked extremely pleased as they held their Purifying Spirit Bottles and prepared to collected this treasure.
Working together, both parties had achieved a significant victory.
The scene was quite harmonious as a feeling of cooperation floated in the air.
However, Yang Kai was acutely aware that Leng Shan had constantly been wary of Free And Unfettered Sect’s movements, even while they were engaged in combat and never once dropped her guard towards them.
After successfully killing these two Evil Spirits, the Ghost King Valley disciple who was specifically responsible for collecting its essence was about to receive it, when a female disciple from Free And Unfettered Sect, giggled, fluttered over and directly absorbed it into her body.
Immediately floating back to the Free And Unfettered Sect camp, her pretty face wore a proud and satisfied expression while her male companion beside her planted a kiss on her lips and praised, “Baby, you’ve got guts.”
“Hehe, I just want to help make you stronger.” The woman said flirtatiously.
“Yu Qing!” Chen Yi couldn’t help but shout, “What’s your meaning?”
Yu Qing however just chuckled, “I don’t mean anything.”
“That essence was obviously ours, yet you blatantly rob it from us?” Chen Yi coldly glared at him along with all the other Ghost King Valley disciples.
“Chen Yi, I don’t understand what you mean. Free And Unfettered Sect, Ghost King Valley, aren’t we all one group? Eeryone here is now sincerely cooperating and helping one another, us receiving this essence is the same as you receiving it, right?” Yu Qing offhandedly said, completely devoid of any kind of remorse.
“If so, if you kill and Evil Spirit we can openly take its essence?” Chen Yi stared gloomily, his tone extremely cold.
“As long as you have the ability, feel free, haha!” Yu Qing laughed maliciously, “Well, don’t be so angry, it’s just one Evil Spirit Essence, compared to that, wouldn’t Ghost King Valley much rather obtain access to the Yellow Spring Pond? Rest assured, once this little incident is settled, the Yellow Spring Pond will be opened to you for one month just as promised, you have my, Yu Qing’s word!”
After the Yellow Spring Pond was brought up again, Chen Yi’s brow wrinkled, clearly hesitating, but eventually he simply grunted, “I’ll hold you to that!”
Chen Yi didn’t want to make too big a deal about this; Ghost King Valley disciples really had no immunity when it came to the Yellow Spring Pond, if it weren’t for Free And Unfettered Sect’s strength, Ghost King Valley would have fought against them for control of it long ago.
The two groups continued to move forward, but the harmonious atmosphere had now been completely shattered.
Yang Kai walked beside Leng Shan and quietly inquired, “How come that woman directly absorb that essence into her body? I can’t sense her having cultivated some kind of Secret Art that can restrain that Evil Spirit’s energy.”
It was precisely because she had directly inhaled the Evil Spirit Essence into her body that the Ghost King Valley’s disciple didn’t have an opportunity to collect it. After all, it took a brief moment to prepare and use the Purifying Spirit Bottle required.
“Because she’s a Charmed Slave…” Leng Shan whispered, “They’re willing to accept any kind of damage or torment if it helps the male disciple of Free And Unfettered Sect they’re assigned to. Don’t underestimate how these bastards, Free And Unfettered Sect’s men, use a special Secret Art on these Charmed Slave to brainwash them so that even if they ask for their lives, they won’t even hesitate.”
“What?” Yang Kai exclaimed. This Free And Unfettered Sect seemed to have some formidable methods, a technique to dominate a woman’s mind and body to the point she was willing to offer her life with a single command.
“En, that Charmed Slave will definitely receive some heavy injuries, but she doesn’t care, and that Free And Unfettered Sect disciple also doesn’t care, one is willing to offer, one is willing to receive, that’s how the men of Free And Unfettered Sect work. Each of them has more than one Charmed Slave so even if one of them die, they won’t even bat an eye.”
“Animals!” Yang Kai scorned.
“You flatter them, they are far worse than animals!” Leng Shan sneered.
As the two of them talked, Yang Kai really saw the woman who had just inhaled the Evil Spirit Essence unscrupulously kiss her male companion, which appeared to be a passionate exchange from the outside. Their tongues intertwined as thin transparent threads of liquid stretched between their mouths and a mass of energy was transferred from her to the male Free And Unfettered Sect disciple’s body.
As they finally parted, a look of satisfaction appeared on the man’s face, and his pale complexion seemed to be a bit healthier, while instead the woman appeared unwell as traces of blood leaked from her mouth.
However, it really seemed like she didn’t mind as she gently wiped her mouth and lovingly gazed towards her man with a look of bliss upon her face.
When Yang Kai saw all this, he couldn’t help but shake his head secretly. These Charmed Slaves of the Free And Unfettered Sect were quite pitiful indeed.
Half an hour later, after Ghost King Valley’s disciples managed to kill another purple Evil Spirit, a female disciple from Free And Unfettered Sect sprang forward in an attempt to seize the Evil Spirit Essence again.
Seeing this unrestrained display, Yang Kai frowned, shot forward, and arrived at the essence before the woman. He stretched out his palm and directly absorbed it.
“Hm?” Yu Qing raise his brow in astonishment when he witnessed Yang Kai’s actions but said nothing more and instead revealed a devious smile.
Their Free And Unfettered Sect’s women didn’t care about harming themselves, so directly absorbing the Evil Spirit Essence on the spot and suffering the backlash while they refined it in order to benefit their male companions was no big deal.
However, Yang Kai was obviously not immune to this danger. Therefore, Yu Qing was secretly gloating to himself, thinking that this reckless Ghost King Valley disciple was simply cutting off his nose to spite his face, so he was happy to just sit back and watch.
“Seems I owe you two essences now.” Yang Kai returned with wry grin.
“No need, better to have Brother Yang take it than to have those bastards pick it up for free.” Chen Yi laughed, also not giving it any more thought. He knew that Yang Kai cultivated a Secret Art which completely restrain the Evil Spirit’s energy, so even if he absorbed and refined it on the spot, he wouldn’t suffer any harm.
Leng Shan also nodded lightly, agreeing with Chen Yi, and since neither of them had any opinion, naturally the rest of the Ghost King Valley disciples didn’t say any more. Instead they just directed hostile glares at the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
For the next half a day or so, whenever the Ghost King Valley group killed an Evil Spirit, Yang Kai would swoop in and absorb its essence. He had even considered swiping the Evil Spirit Essence from the Free And Unfettered Sect’s group, but because he didn’t want to add on to Leng Shan and her group’s troubles, he finally restrained himself.
Seeing Yang Kai, in his mind, go so far to spite Free And Unfettered Sect, Yu Qing couldn’t help but stare at him coldly with a devious grin on his face as he taunted, “Little brat, I’d like to see just how long you can endure! After absorbing so many essences without refining them, sooner or later you’ll fall onto the Demonic Path!”
In reply though, Yang Kai merely grinned, “No need for you to worry!”
“Good, we’ll see!” Yu Qing’s said as a cold light flashed across his eyes.
The path they walked upon had been quiet for some time now, and they had actually stopped encountering Evil Spirits since a while back.
The two groups exchanged glances, as both of them were confused about what exactly had happened.
Suddenly, as they were proceeding forward cautiously, from somewhere not far away, an intense burst of extremely rich energy welled up.
This energy was similar to the Evil Qi given off by Evil Spirits but much more concentrated. It was like the warning signs of the advent of some terrible monster, and it immediately caused everyone present to pale in fright.
A moment later, this sudden burst of Evil Qi suddenly disappeared and the surroundings once more became extremely calm.
The group all turned to one another, and all of them understood the look in each other’s eyes.
The more dangerous the situation was the greater the benefits there were to be had. Both the Ghost King Valley and Free And Unfettered Sect disciples were people with keen senses for these kinds of things, but remembering how oppressive that Evil Qi was, all of them couldn’t help but have some reservations.
“Do we go and check it out or not?” Yu Qing asked after some hesitation.
Chen Yi was also indecisive and turned to look at Leng Shan.
Leng Shan’s brow furrowed, apparently weighing their options.
But before she had enough time to think it through, one of the Free And Unfettered Sect female disciples suddenly screamed, “Evil Spirits!”
“What? Where?” Yu Qing quickly asked as he glanced around.
“Behind us!”
As these words were uttered, everyone turned back to look and suddenly felt a burst of cold wind hit them from behind, which caused them all to tremble unconsciously.
Half a kilometer behind them, a cluster of vague purple shadows emerged, sending out sharp howling cries as they raced towards them. Looking at their numbers, it was clear that there were at least a dozen of them.
A dozen purple Evil Spirits. Even if the Ghost King Valley and Free And Unfettered Sect disciples truly banded together, they would definitely be unable to cope.
“How are there so many!?” Chen Yi shouted, as his face instantly drained of all colour.
“Who cares! Run!” Cheng Ying quickly shouted.
Without any hesitation, the entire group hurriedly displayed their Movement Skills and fled forward away from the oncoming Evil Spirits.
“There’s more around us!” As they ran, Yu Qing suddenly shouted.
Sure enough, as all of them scanned their surroundings, they really found a large number of Evil Spirits floating around them. A shocking number of purple figures seemed to be traveling in exactly the same direction as them. It seemed like every purple Evil Spirit within a several kilometer radius was rushing this way, probably attracted by the sudden burst of Evil Qi from before.
None of them knew what dangers lay ahead, but behind them, to their left, and to their right, only death awaited them, so they pushed on.
After running more than a dozen kilometers none stop, all of a sudden everyone stopped, and their eyes bulged in shock at the sight before them.
In front of them was a large open space filled to the brim with purple Evil Spirits. These Evil Spirits all floated back and forth, and for some unknown reason they were fighting amongst themselves.
From all directions, more and more purple Evil Spirits flooded into the space and joined the fray. It was a thrilling spectacle to behold.
Even Yang Kai with his numerous fantastical experiences was shocked by this scene, not to mention the disciples from Ghost King Valley and Free And Unfettered Sect.
Although he cultivated the True Yang Secret Art which could restrain these Evil Spirits, but against such a vast quantity he was still helpless. If they really turned and attacked them, Yang Kai reckoned he wouldn’t even be able to resist.
Suddenly, everyone was filled with despair, and many of their eyes overflowed with tears as panic and fear spread across their faces, as they stood there stunned, not knowing what to do next.
Before them was the wolf. Behind them was the tiger. There was no place to go, and they were basically in an absolutely hopeless situation!
“Brother Yang? Brother Yang!” Not far away, a loud voice called out, seemingly recognizing Yang Kai.
When he heard this voice, Yang Kai turned his head and saw Tao Yang, the one he had first met when he entered the Evil Cavern, hollering and waving towards him.
He was on a naturally formed plateau that stood atop one of the large pillars that could occasionally be seen inside the Evil Cavern. It had a flat surface that seemed to be about twenty or so meters off the ground.
To Tao Yang’s side were his two Junior Brothers and his Junior Sister, gathered together looking scared.
In addition, not far away there was another such high platform.
“Over there!” Yang Kai shouted, leading Leng Shan and the others toward the pillar, Yu Qing and others suddenly seeing hope for survival also scrambled to keep up.
In this life or death crisis, Yang Kai also no longer concealed his strength, and he charged through the swarm of purple Evil Spirits, sending a number of them flying with full powered strikes infused with his True Yang Yuan Qi.
Fiercely rampaging through this horde of Evil Spirits, he finally managed to cut a path through their encirclement and jumped up onto the high platform that Tao Yang stood upon along with the disciples from Ghost King Valley.
This plateau’s area wasn’t overly large, so with the four people in Tao Yang’s group and the seven or eight Ghost King Valley disciples, although it wasn’t crowded, but it also couldn’t accommodate the entire group from Free And Unfettered Sect.
On top of the plateau, Yang Kai turned around and glared coldly at Yu Qing’s group.
Fortunately, they also had some self-awareness, knowing that now was not the time to fight amongst themselves.
Immediately, the Free And Unfettered Sect group turned, summoned their respective artifacts, and quickly made their way to the other pillar a short distance away.
These artifacts all emitted various glows in the dark cave, apparently a mix of fire and lightning attribute offensive artifacts. Only these kinds of attacks could restrain these yin type Evil Spirits.
Numerous Evil Spirits swirled beneath the platforms, screaming at each other, just like crazed beasts, yet atop these pillars it was extremely peaceful, seemingly like a separate world from the chaos below. This whole situation puzzled everyone greatly, and all of them wondered what mysteries these pillars hid.
“Brother Yang, we meet again.” Tao Yang looked at Yang Kai with a wry smile.
Yang Kai also looked back at him, gratefully cupping his fists, “Many thanks, Brother Tao.”
“Brother Yang is too polite.”
“How did Brother Tao end up here?”
“Same as you probably, we were chased over…” Tao Yang laughed helplessly. He and his Junior Brothers and Junior Sister had followed behind Yang Kai for quite a while, yet the result was that they didn’t come across a single Evil Spirit for quite some time.
After a while, Tao Yang could only lead his group in a different direction, no longer following Yang Kai’s trail. As they explored, they had unwittingly entered the domain of purple Evil Spirits and finally came across an isolated one, but before they had time to launch an attack, an accident occurred.
Behind them, a large group of Evil Spirits suddenly appeared and chased after them. In a panic, they escaped in the opposite direction and eventually wound up here, taking refuge atop this high platform.
“Are there others here as well?” Yang Kai asked as he caught his breath. Looking around, he discovered that about a kilometer away from them there really were two slender figures sitting atop a third high pillar.
Such a distance, under peaceful sun-lit conditions, Yang Kai could see across clearly, but in the dim depths of this cavern, obstructed by various obstacles, all he could make out was that they were a pair of young women.
“They must be the pair of twins Free And Unfettered Sect are chasing,” Leng Shan said, glancing towards them as she whispered.
Yang Kai nodded lightly in agreement.
“Are these Brother Yang’s friends?” Tao Yang looked around curiously at the Ghost King Valley disciples. Yang Kai was definitely alone when he had entered the Evil Cavern, yet now he had suddenly appeared before them with a big group of people who didn’t appear to be strangers. This scene made Tao Yang somewhat surprised.
“En, they’re old acquaintances. I didn’t expect to meet them here,” explained Yang Kai.
Tao Yang laughed heartily, “Looks like Brother Yang has friends and relatives all over the world, even in this forsaken place you can come across old acquaintances, good good! This one is Treasure Instrument Sect’s Tao Yang!”
“Treasure Instrument Sect!?” Chen Yi exclaimed loudly, Leng Shan’s beautiful cold eyes also flashed with surprise as she looked towards Tao Yang, apparently also having heard of this Sect.
“Excuse our disrespect, it turns out Brother Tao is a disciple from the famed Treasure Instrument Sect, this one is called Chen Yi, we are disciples of Ghost King Valley!”
“So it is Brother Chen!” Tao Yang laughed happily, not changing his expression in the slightest because the opposite party was from Ash-Grey Evil Land’s Ghost King Valley.
Yang Kai was also surprised, not expecting that Tao Yang was actually from the famous Treasure Instrument Sect.
Treasure Instrument Sect …
It was a very small, yet very special Sect.
The entire population of Treasure Instrument Sect numbered only around one hundred, even smaller than most third-class Sects, truly amongst the smallest in existence, but its name was in no way inferior to Medicine King’s Valley.
Medicine King’s Valley represented the apex of Alchemy in this world, whereas Treasure Instrument Sect was the highest authority when it came to artifact refinement!
There were only a few Mysterious Grade Top-Rank artifact refiners in this world, but half of them hailed from Treasure Instrument Sect.
Treasure Instrument Sect had its own unique artifact refining style, making their products easily recognizable, so although the Sect wasn’t large, its name was very loud.
Each year, Treasure Instrument Sect would only produce and sell twenty artifacts!
But each of these artifacts were at least Heaven Grade and were sought after by great families and large Sects all over the world.
The patriarchs of some small families and Sects did not necessarily have artifacts on par with those possessed by an ordinary Treasure Instrument Sect disciple.
So the world had a saying, any one Treasure Instrument Sect disciple was a walking treasure.
Yang Kai hadn’t paid too much attention to them when they had first met, but now hearing Tao Yang say he was from Treasure Instrument Sect, upon closer inspection he found that from their robes, their weapons, even their accessories were all extraordinary artifacts.
Tao Yang daring to say that he was a Treasure Instrument Sect disciple showed that he was serious about befriending him and thus did not want to hide his identity.
Seeing him be so frank, Yang Kai was also disinclined to conceal his origins, cupping his fists in reply, “High Heaven Pavilion’s Yang Kai…”
As soon as he uttered this, everyone sucked in a breath as they stared in shock towards Yang Kai.
Only Leng Shan, who already knew, shook her head slowly, knowing what effect Yang Kai’s words would have.
“No way…” Cheng Ying murmured, his eyes almost bulging out of his sockets.
Chen Yi also froze for a long time before laughing awkwardly, “I see. I, Chen Yi, have had my eyes opened today.”
Saying so, he lowered his voice and said, “It turns out Brother Yang is from the famous High Heaven Pavilion! Brother Yang’s Sect seems to produce one powerhouse after another.”
The new Demon Lord originated from High Heaven Pavilion, and now there was Yang Kai who was also a High Heaven Pavilion disciple. Simply being from the same Sect as the Demon Lord was a shocking fact, so how could everyone not be surprised?
“These two brothers being so frank with us today, my Ghost King Valley is grateful!” Chen Yi quickly put a positive spin on things.
“Alright alright…” Leng Shan shouted a few times, “You guys, can’t you focus on our immediate situation for now? Before we discuss anything else we need to find a way to resolve this crisis. Honestly, I don’t understand what goes on inside all of your heads.”
“En en!” Rong Mei from Treasure Instrument Sect nodded in agreement.
The others who had gathered around all glanced shared a wry grin. Yang Kai raised his brow and shifted his attention to Tao Yang, asking, “Since Brother Tao has been here before, do you understand anything about this situation?”
“Unfortunately not, we came this time because our Master said he wanted some Evil Spirit Essence to see if it could use it to refine an artifact, but nothing like this has ever happened before, in fact, we only reached here a short time before all of you arrived.”
“En…” Yang Kai frowned, looking down off the plateau only to see a thick layer of Evil Qi, like a dark fog that blanketed the world. Purple Evil Spirits shuttled back and forth through the Evil Qi, seeming to absorb it to strengthen themselves while fighting with other Evil Spirits. From time to time an Evil Spirit would be killed, leaving behind an Evil Spirit Essence that would exude a faint tempting light.
It wasn’t long before a dozen or so Evil Spirit Essences appeared, scattered around the cavern floor, and as time passed, and more and more Evil Spirits were killed, the number of essences continued to rise steadily.
Everyone stared at these essences with hot eyes, but no one had the courage to snatch them.
Forget about the large number of Evil Spirits that would instinctively attack anyone who approached, and just being stained with the thick ink like Evil Qi that lingered around the cavern would likely not end well.
“If you really want to understand what’s happening, I think it would be best to ask those two girls over there, they likely know a bit more about what’s happening than we do. If it weren’t for their kind reminder to climb these pillars we likely wouldn’t have survived until now.” Tao Yang said as he looked off into the distance.
“Chen Yi!” Yu Qing called out suddenly, apparently also having discovered the two women’s hideout. His expression dimmed as he maliciously smiled, turned around, and shouted towards the Ghost King Valley group, “If you can capture those two women for me now, I can have the Yellow Spring Pond opened to you for two months instead of just one!”
Listening to this, Chen Yi couldn’t help sneering, “Yu Qing, you’re crazy. Look around you, we don’t even know if we’ll survive this and yet you’re still thinking of taking revenge? If you have time to waste on that, you should try to find a way out of this mess first!”
However, Yu Qing just grinned even harder, “Even if I die here today, I want those two sluts to die under my crotch first!”
“Idiot!” Chen Yi spat in disgust, his face filled with contempt.
“Don’t bother listening to any of his nonsense. If we survive this crisis, I swear to never deal with him ever again.” Leng Shan cut in, as her disgust reached an extreme height.
The conversation between Chen Yi and Yu Qing had apparently reached the ears of the two women as they stood on their distant platform, both of them turned vigilant gazes towards these newcomers.
Yang Kai’s brow furrowed for a moment before he stepped forward, “I’ll go ask them.”
“Ah… it’s too dangerous,” Chen Yi exclaimed. Now that Evil Spirits floated about in all directions, although they were temporarily safe atop these pillars, if any of them were to leave, it would likely prove fatal.
“That’s right, don’t go.” Leng Shan also kindly objected, “What if you get entangled by the Evil Spirits and can’t break free?”
Tao Yang also frowned, “Brother Yang, we should at least discuss this matter some more first.”
“Don’t worry, I have a sense of proportion!” Yang Kai shook his head lightly, “My True Yang Yuan Qi cultivation technique can greatly restrain these Evil Spirits, they won’t even be able to approach me.”
“But what if those two girls don’t understand what’s happening either, wouldn’t you be doing all of this in vain then?” Chen Yi still had reservations as he shook his head solemnly. The situation was simply too dangerous, even if he knew Yang Kai’s True Qi could effectively restrain these Evil Spirits. If anything went wrong, not only would he lose his life, even their own group’s defensive strength would be greatly reduced.
For now, as long as they remained on top of these pillars, the surrounding Evil Spirits seemed to be ignoring them, but who could say for certain it would stay that way?
At that time, if Yang Kai was with them, even if a desperate battle ensued, their chances for survival would nonetheless be higher.
“Then… why don’t we ask them to come here?” Treasure Instrument Sect’s Zhao Rong asked innocently.
Immediately, everyone looked towards her awkwardly.
“… What?” Zhao Rong asked, her big eyes blinking in confusion.
Tao Yang could only smile wryly, “There seems to be some kind of grudge between those two girls and Brother Chen’s group, so asking them is probably impossible.”
“In order to display our sincerity, I still have to make the trip.” Yang Kai said, his mind made up, “Regardless of anything else, the two of them possess formidable strength, if we can win them over and have them join us, it will increase our odds of survival!”
“En, that’s right.” Leng Shan’s cold eyes flashed brilliantly, “If you can convince them to join us, I can swear to you that our Ghost King Valley will no longer hold any hostility towards them, as for those Free And Unfettered Sect bastards, under these circumstances we have no need to be polite with them.”
Chen Yi also nodded slightly and seriously reminded, “Brother Yang, be careful, if you feel like things are too dangerous you must immediately return!”
“En.” Yang Kai nodded firmly, leaped up, and then shot forward towards the two girl’s position.
Seeing him use such a swift and powerful Movement Skill, everyone couldn’t help but feel a burst of admiration.
In an instant, Yang Kai had crossed several hundred meters and rapidly approached the plateau the two girls were resting upon.
Aware of his approach, the two girls suddenly stood up and their True Qi surged. Their eyes contained a look of vigilance, as they prepared to defend themselves.
While mid-air, Yang Kai rapidly circulated his True Qi and sent out a pure Yang aura while he dodged the floating Evil Spirits. Fortunately, at the moment, the thick Evil Qi seemed more attractive to these Evil Spirits than himself, so he didn’t encounter any major trouble.
After brief flight, Yang Kai shouted out the other side, “Two young ladies, don’t misunderstand. I just came to inquire about the current situation and bare you no malicious intentions.”
As his voice rang out, the two girls suddenly twitched, and their vigilance dropped significantly, apparently shocked by what they heard.
Unaware of what these two were thinking and in order avoid making them feel nervous, Yang Kai didn’t immediately press the issue, and he hovered nearby as he tried to sound as sincere as possible, “Two youn …”
But before he could finish, the other side called out, “Yang Kai, is that you?”
Nearly choking on his words, his face filled with disbelief, as Yang Kai was immediately dumbstruck.
“Impossible…” Yang Kai muttered out loud as he heard this familiar voice. The image of a certain pair of girls involuntarily popped up in his mind. Quickly he took a closer look at the two girls atop the plateau. Sure enough, the two young girls standing side by side matched perfectly with the ones he was thinking of.
These two girls seemed to have been carved from the same mold, and regardless of their looks or their auras, they were perfect mirror images of one another.
Both of them had the same elegant and refined style that perfectly complimented their graceful appearances. There was some hidden fatigue upon their oval shaped faces, but their two pairs beautiful eyes still shone with a radiant splendor.
At such a close distance, the two sides stared at each other.
“It really is you!” One of the girls called out, obviously extremely happy.
Yang Kai no longer hesitated and rushed straight to their side. Landing right in front of them atop the stone pillar, he asked in disbelief, “How can it be you?”
Earlier, he had heard Ghost King Valley and Free And Unfettered Sect say they were chasing a pair of beautiful twins, and that these two had killed more than a dozen Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
At the time Yang Kai hadn’t thought too much about it, after all, although the number of twin sisters in the world weren’t too many, they also weren’t too few.
On top of that, among the people he knew, none of them were twins, and although this pair of enchanting Blood Battle Gang sisters had identical appearances, they weren’t actually twins.
So, he had never imagined that it was actually them whom Free And Unfettered Sect were hunting.
Hu Jiao Er, Hu Mei Er!
It had been quite some time.
The last time he had seen them was during the struggle inside the Heaven’s Inheritance Cave. Back then, the three of them had walked side by side as they ascended the Yin and Yang ladder; each time the Yin energy hit them, Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er both snuggled up to Yang Kai to stay warm.
Remembering back, the fond memories came flooding back to him and gave him a warm feeling inside.
In a flash, it had been nearly two years.
Yang Kai had grown from an inexperienced Initial Element Stage cultivator to a True Element Boundary Fifth Stage expert.
It was also clear to him that these twin flowers had also made great progress!
One of the two girls stared happily towards Yang Kai. Her beautiful eyes overflowing with joy at their long awaited reunion, the other of the pair was gnashing her teeth, her brow furrowed as she called out, “That’s what I’d like to know! How come you’re here you smelly brat?”
Upon suddenly meeting them again, at first, Yang Kai hadn’t been able to tell them apart, but upon hearing this he quickly wore a smile, “Jiao Er!”
The older sister immediately blushed red as she grit her teeth even harder, “You little bastard, you still recognize me.”
“Haha, if you hadn’t said anything I really wouldn’t have been able to tell you apart.” Yang Kai laughed happily, after the past few years, these two sisters now were more similar than ever. If it weren’t for their vastly different temperaments, it would be impossible to tell them apart, but Hu Jiao Er was undoubtedly the more aggressive of the pair, and only she would call Yang Kai smelly brat.
That year, Yang Kai had said that one side of her bottom was slightly bigger than the other and had also taken quite a few liberties with her, gaining some unwarranted advantages.
“Mei Er!” Yang Kai nodded to the younger sister.
“En.” Hu Mei Er nodded and smiled happily, and her eyes watered slightly, which placed her cuteness on full display.
“Hmph! Calling out so affectionately, your face is really thick!” Hu Jiao Er quipped, but it was obvious to anyone that she was also quite happy.
When one met a friend from their hometown it was probably always like this.
Sweeping her pretty eyes up and down Yang Kai, Hu Jiao Er said in amazement, “It’s been a long time, it seems like you’ve become quite strong.”
Before, Yang Kai had the appearance of an emaciated kid, quite pitiful, but now he had a firm heroic air to him.
An embarrassing memory of Hu Jiao Er’s surfaced when she mentioned that. All those years ago when she had been teasing Yang Kai, her soft peaks had smacked again Yang Kai’s bony ribs and it had caused her quite a bit of pain afterwards.
(TL note: What a random excuse to talk about boobs…)
“You two have also become more beautiful.” Yang Kai replied in kind.
The two beautiful flowers exchanged a glance and giggled, while the fatigue and weariness on their faces seemed to drift away, which restored some of their vitality.
“Your mouth has gotten quite sweet!” Hu Jiao Er glanced at him. “You can fly as well, so you must have reached the True Element Boundary too.”
“En…” Yang Kai nodded lightly as he swept the sisters with his Divine Sense, and his expression suddenly became shocked as he stared towards Hu Mei Er.
“What is it?” Hu Mei Er asked as she blushed slightly, feeling somewhat embarrassed being stared at so intensely.
“Your cultivation…”
“True Element Boundary Fourth Stage!” Hu Jiao Er laughed impishly, with a playful and proud look upon her face.
There was no need for her to say anything, Yang Kai had already clearly felt it.
True Element Boundary Fourth Stage! Although it was not too high, strangely enough, the two sisters were both now at the True Element Boundary Fourth Stage.
Yang Kai and the younger sister Mei Er were almost the same age, and after such a long time and across a variety of experiences where he had gained all kinds of opportunities, he had only managed to reach the True Element Boundary Fifth Stage.
But now, Hu Mei Er was only inferior to him by a single Minor Realm. This cultivation speed could only be described as terrifying!
What was of more concern to Yang Kai though was Hu Jiao Er’s realm.
She was about the same age as Su Yan and was one of the Three Sects’ most elite disciples, but now, Su Yan had reached True Element Boundary Ninth Stage, and even if she hadn’t yet broken through to the Immortal Ascension Boundary, he estimated that it wouldn’t be long until she did.
However, Hu Jiao Er now was still at the True Element Boundary Fourth Stage; a big gap had opened up between them.
The younger sister’s cultivation was lightning fast, while the elder sister’s had slowed to a crawl. This situation was obviously strange!
Considering Hu Jiao Er’s aptitude, it was completely unreasonable for her cultivation to have all but stagnated for the past two years.
“Is it related to the opportunity you gained in the Inheritance Heaven’s Cave?” Yang Kai suddenly thought.
“En.” The older of the sisters didn’t conceal anything as she nodded and explained, “The inheritance we obtained is called the Twin Qi Shared Spirit Secret Art, it’s a cultivation technique specifically suited for twins, and although Mei Er and I aren’t really twins, because we’re so similar we have no problem practicing it. When we circulate this magical Secret Art together, our cultivation speed is doubled, but since Mei Er’s starting point was so much lower than mine, when we began most of the benefits went to her, it was only recently that our cultivations became equal at the True Element Boundary Fourth Stage.”
“Hee… that’s amazing!” Yang Kai laughed happily.
“How about you?”
“True Element Fifth Stage.”
“You’re not so bad yourself!” Hu Jiao Er giggled and did not ask any more. She could naturally guess that Yang Kai had obtained the Heaven’s Cave’s final inheritance.
After the three chatted for a moment, Hu Jiao Er’s expression suddenly changed and immediately became wary towards Yang Kai as she said, “That’s right, I almost forgot to ask you what you’re doing with those bastards! It can’t be that after High Heaven Pavilion was destroyed you went and joined that damn Free And Unfettered Sect, right?
“You’re thinking too much,” Yang Kai smiled wryly.
“Stop, don’t come any closer!” Hu Jiao Er immediately stood in front of her younger sister, as she gnashed her teeth, “Then why are you together with that group of scum? Don’t think I didn’t see you arrive with those bastards! They’ve been chasing after us sisters for quite some time now; if you don’t give me a good explanation, I won’t forgive you and I definitely won’t let you come near us sisters!”
“Elder Sister… he’s not that kind of person!” Hu Mei Er tried to object.
“Knowing someone’s surface doesn’t mean you know their real selves, hmph!” Hu Jiao Er scolded her sister, “If you don’t dig deep enough into their heart you can’t be sure if they’re good or evil.”
“Okay okay, I can explain,” Yang Kai said helplessly and briefly recanted his experiences since he arrived at the Evil Cavern.
“Really?” Hu Jiao Er tilted her head and stared at Yang Kai, seeming to be unwilling to miss the slightest change in his expression.
“Why would I lie to you?” Yang Kai said, “When I first approached you, I had obviously only asked if you knew what was happening here. I never expected that it would actually be the two of you, but since things have turned out like this, I think it’s best if you come back with me to the other side so we can all help each other through this crisis.”
“Elder Sister, I trust him, let’s go.” Hu Mei Er firmly stated. Obviously, she completely trusted Yang Kai.
Hu Jiao Er, on the other hand, seemed to hesitate slightly, as she was still very much unwilling to associate with those ugly Free And Unfettered Sect men, but she knew that the two of them staying here by themselves wouldn’t lead to a good end. However, she thought that Yang Kai’s proposal was reasonable, so after a moment of consideration she nodded, “Good, we’ll come with you, but Mei Er and I need to restore our True Qi first before we head over.”
Obviously, she didn’t fully trust the Ghost King Valley group, so she needed to at least make this much preparation.
The sisters had travelled for many days through the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land and never had a moment of rest as they were pursued by the disciples of Free And Unfettered Sect. If not for their enhanced True Qi recovery speed, they likely would have been caught long ago.
Upon entering the Evil Cavern, the pair had to also deal with Evil Spirits, which further exhausted them, so now their True Qi really was completely depleted.
“If we wait for you to restore your True Qi it’ll be at least half a day.” Yang Kai smiled wryly.
“There’s no way I’ll agree to come with you without at least recovering our True Qi.” Hu Jiao Er said firmly, and her small red lips pouted in an adorable way.
“I have a solution then.” Yang Kai grinned meaningfully and extracted a drop of Myriad Drug Liquid directly from the Black Book space, then he stretched his finger out towards Hu Jiao Er, “Open your mouth!”
Almost instantly, Hu Jiao Er obediently opened her cherry red lips.
This casual reaction showed that despite her harsh words, she wasn’t actually too alert around Yang Kai.
Putting his finger into her mouth, Hu Jiao Er reacted with surprise and suddenly realized what was happening. Her round almond coloured eyes immediately bulged as she blushed bright red with a mix of anger and embarrassment on her face; however, Yang Kai quickly cut off her stray thoughts, “Hurry up and absorb it.”
Hu Jiao Er frowned lightly but still followed his instructions, and a sweet and refreshing taste spread across her tongue. As she swallowed this sweet liquid, a surge of warm energy burst forth and spread from the centre of her chest to the tips of her fingers in a flash, and her dried up True Qi recovered at a phenomenal rate.
Her expression changed rapidly. Unable to hide her surprise, she looked at Yang Kai suspiciously but upon finding not the slightest indecent light in his eyes, she put down her final worries.
Hu Jiao Er understood that whatever Yang Kai had given her was undoubtedly a very precious elixir, so she definitely couldn’t afford to waste it just because she was shy. She quickly curled her tongue and lightly sucked on Yang Kai’s finger.
After a few gentle licks, her pair of beautiful eyes quickly became watery as her whole face took on a light pink flush.
Yang Kai couldn’t hold back an awkward laugh as he slowly pulled his finger out, which brought a silk crystal thread with it.
“Enn… delicious…” Hu Jiao Er suddenly muttered and an ambiguous moan leaked from her lips.
Yang Kai felt the hair on his nape stand up, and he did his best to hide his own embarrassment to her intense reaction, but his mind relived the moment Hu Jiao Er’s soft little tongue wrapped around his finger over and over again in his head.
Quickly steadying himself, he dried his finger on his clothes and then once again brought out a drop of Myriad Drug Liquid for Hu Mei Er. “Your turn.”
Hu Mei Er, however, couldn’t help but shake her head and blush bright red, as she stuttered in a nearly inaudible voice, “I… I’m still… not prepared…”
[This little…]
At a time like this she was actually still thinking such random thoughts!
“Mei Er, he’s giving us something to complement our True Qi, it’s not what you think.” Hu Jiao Er hurriedly sat cross-legged and began refining this drop of liquid. The two of them were practically identical, so how could she not know what her younger sister was thinking?
“It’s a rare treasure, quickly accept it.” Hu Jiao Er emphasized.
Hu Mei Er glanced back and forth between her sister and Yang Kai before gently nodding. She opened her cute tiny lips and wrapped them around his finger. Compared to her elder sister, she was significantly shyer, unable to act as boldly as she accepted the drop of liquid.
“You two quickly refine it, I’ll stand guard.” Yang Kai lightly coughed and boldly turned his back to them.
“En.” The charming twin flowers nodded and quickly ran their Secret Art to restore their True Qi.
On the other stone pillar, Chen Yi, Tao Yang and the others kept watching over the Evil Spirits in their surroundings.
“Brother Yang has been gone for so long, why hasn’t he come back yet?” Chen Yi frowned somewhat suspiciously.
However, Tao Yang simply chuckled, “It looks like Brother Yang is having a detailed conversation with them. On top of that, those two girls don’t seem to be wary of him at all.”
Looking over from where they were, although they couldn’t see their faces, it was still easy enough to make out their respective figures.
From what they could see, Yang Kai and the pair of beautiful twins were only standing about a meter or so apart. If they were at all wary of him, how could they have allowed him to be so close?
“Impressive! It looks like Brother Yang’s charm isn’t small ,” Chen Yi couldn’t help but admire.
“Hmph!” Leng Shan snorted unhappily.
Originally, in that isolated world, she and Zi Mo had suffered no small loss at Yang Kai’s hand, but they were also quite clear how potent his ability to charm a woman was.
Both she and Zi Mo had done their best to torment Yang Kai, making him experience a life like death, but in the end, not only was their hatred towards him essentially eliminated, on the contrary, they both felt a good deal of goodwill towards him.
If he didn’t have a strong charm, how could he have done that?
“They’re coming back!” Chen Yi suddenly exclaimed, which caused everyone to look up to see Yang Kai and the two girls flying towards them, side by side.
“Amazing!” Tao Yang was also sincerely impressed.
After only a few moments of talk, the two girls had willingly decided to join him; as Tao Yang thought about it, he was certain that he wouldn’t have been capable of eliminating their hostility and vigilance so quickly.
Not far away, on the other stone pillar, Yu Qing’s pupils shrank and instantly stared at the charming twin flowers. His eyes flashed an obscene light, and the edges of his mouth curled into a cold smile.
As the three of them reached the halfway point, an accident suddenly happened.
As the countless Evil Spirits fought amongst themselves, the jet black Evil Qi became disturbed suddenly, and for some unknown reason a dragon-like projection of Demonic Qi burst up from the ground and engulfed the space around Yang Kai and the two girls.
“Be careful!” Chen Yi couldn’t help but call out in alarm.
But before his voice had faded, a brilliant burst of light emerged from within the darkness as Yang Kai’s whole body suddenly radiated like the sun with True Yang Yuan Qi pouring out into his surroundings.
As this pure True Yang Yuan Q burst forth, it created a resplendent three meter wide oval light curtain.
When this wave of warmth washed over them, Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er relaxed, and the chill they felt upon their skin quickly receded as they withdrew their prepared counterattack.
*Tsss…*
As the Evil Qi came into contact with this light curtain, a crackling, hissing noise rang out, like salt being thrown into boiling oil, but it was ultimately repelled and unable to penetrate this defence in the slightest.
“Good… too good!” Cheng Ying praised unceasingly, and his eyes stared in shock at the scene taking place before him.
“Brother Yang’s True Yang Yuan Qi is so effective against this Evil Qi!” Tao Yang gazed towards Yang Kai with excitement, “But how is his True Qi so pure?”
Although none of them had actually touched that rich and potent stream of Evil Qi, they could all imagine how serious the consequences of doing so would be, but Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi actually being able to directly repel and evaporate it had far exceeded their expectations.
Didn’t that mean that Yang Kai was essentially free to move around inside that mass of darkness, so long as he was careful not to be attacked by those Evil Spirits of course?
Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er also took the initiative to rely on Yang Kai and practically leaned against him as they flew forward.
Yang Kai was even blunter and directly hugged them both as he pushed his True Yang Yuan Qi in order to return even a moment quicker.
After returning to the high pillar, Hu Jiao Er quickly broke free from his embrace and glared at him bitterly, while muttering under her breath, “Just you wait, I’ll make sure you pay for your frivolousness!”
“Haha…” Yang Kai laughed dryly but knew better than to answer back.
With the arrival of the two sisters, the group’s morale climbed great. Each on their own was a strong, beautiful, and enchanting young woman, but paired side by side, they seemed to shine even brighter.
When Leng Shan secretly compared herself with these two, she couldn’t help but let out a light sigh.
She found that compared with them, whether it was appearance or temperament, they had far exceeded her. Each of them was a first-class stunning beauty.
“Greetings Young Ladies!” Chen Yi cupped his fists politely.
“Hmph!” Hu Jiao Er snorted back dismissively. Although they had never actually fought one another, but the two sisters knew well that in addition to the disciples of Free And Unfettered Sect, this group from Ghost King Valley had also been chasing after them, so naturally she wouldn’t forgive them so easily.
Palpably feeling Hu Jiao Er’s indifference, Chen Yi wryly shook his head in embarrassment and was not sure of what to say next.
“Jiao Er, since you arrived here first, did you notice any strange anomalies? Something to explain what happened here?” Yang Kai asked, skillfully changing the conversation’s direction.
Although Hu Jiao Er still continued to frown, she quickly replied, “Mei Er and I were fighting with the Evil Spirits when all of a sudden a great flow of Demonic Qi seemed to bubble up from underground. When this Demonic Qi showed up, all of the Evil Spirits started to behave a bit abnormally. When Mei Er and I noticed something was wrong, we quickly tried to escape, but with so many Evil Spirits arriving from all directions , before we know it we somehow wound up here.”
“Wait, the Demonic Qi seemed to gush from underground?” Chen Yi’s expression suddenly twitched, “Do you know where it started from?”
Hu Jiao Er, taking their current crisis into account, no longer rebuffed him and quickly pointed in one direction, “Over there, do you see the roiling Demonic Qi? The burst of Demonic Qi came from there.”
Shifting their gaze in the direction she pointed, everyone quickly noticed that there really was a place where the Demonic Qi seemed to be more violent, like it was flowing out from a fountain.
In addition, as more Demonic Qi erupted from that spot, the surrounding Demonic Qi beneath them was also gradually rising.
“No way…” Chen Yi’s face went pale, “We can’t be so unlucky, can we?”
“What is it?” Yang Kai’ swiftly asked, and his brow furrowed when he realized that Chen Yi knew something about what was happening.
“It’s the center of the Evil Spirit Spring!” From afar, an old voice answered before Chen Yi could explain.
Hearing this, everyone was surprised, and all of them turned around to look, only to find a new group of people rapidly approaching them with a horde of purple Evil Spirits hot on their tails.
It seems another group of people had been driven here!
The number of people in this new group was small, only one old man with four juniors, but the old man was undoubtedly an Immortal Ascension Boundary master!
Aware of his strength, everyone revealed a mix of fear and hope; Immortal Ascension masters generally didn’t appear here. They would normally be deeper inside the Evil Cavern.
The old man’s body was like a father eagle, sheltering the four young people in front of him as he waved his artifact around, repelling the surrounding Evil Spirits as his eyes darted back and forth, until they eventually stopped on the Free And Unfettered Sect group’s platform. Then he hurriedly roared, “Stand aside!”
Yu Qing and his companions wore bitter expressions, but didn’t dare disobey, and they quickly huddled together to allow the old man and his juniors up.
The old man quickly carried his four juniors and leapt up onto the plateau, as he faintly glanced towards Yu Qing, “Free And Unfettered Sect is it? You have no complaints, right?”
Under the old man’s hawk-like stare, Yu Qing could only laugh, “Senior must be joking, this pillar has more than enough room!”
“Good!” The old man nodded, apparently very satisfied with Yu Qing’s response.
Seeing him fling off numerous Evil Spirits upon his arrival, it was obvious how strong this old man was, so even if Yu Qing was unhappy about being ordered around, he knew better than to show any dissatisfaction.
Upon landing, the attention of the four young men were drawn to the Free And Unfettered Sect male disciple’s Charmed Slaves, and in response, the girls one by one batted their lashes and flirted back with them, seeming to not give a single thought to the crisis around them, or even the jealousy of their male partners.
“If you lot want your cultivations sucked dry by those women keep staring!” The old man gruffly reminded his four juniors.
Awakened by this harsh scolding, the four young men suddenly blushed in embarrassment and shifted their gazes.
The Charmed Slaves of Free And Unfettered Sect were able to absorb part of a man’s vital energy when she ‘interacted’ with him and pass it along to any Free And Unfettered Sect male disciple to help him increase his own cultivation.
Because of this, the Charmed Slaves of Free And Unfettered Sect had no taboos about devouring other males. In fact, Free And Unfettered Sect’s male disciples would even encourage their Charmed Slaves to actively attract other men so that they could ultimately benefit.
In addition, these Charmed Slaves were also trained to use a variety of mystical techniques to accomplish similar acts, so in the eyes of Free And Unfettered Sect male disciples, Charmed Slaves weren’t people but instead useful tools.
The old man was obviously very familiar with Free And Unfettered Sect’s methods and feared that his inexperienced juniors would suffer a loss at their hands so he had promptly warned them.
After settling in, the old man turned his furrowed brow below, and a greedy light flashed past his eyes as he stared at the so-called Evil Spirit Spring’s position.
Waving his hand dismissively towards Chen Yi he said, “Little Ghost King Valley brat, you seem to know some things about this Evil Spirit Spring. Explain it to them so they won’t die ignorant.”
“Good!” Chen Yi also wanted to explain things to Yang Kai and his companions, so now that this old man was telling him to he no longer had any reason to hold back.
“These two young ladies didn’t misread the situation, this Evil Spirit Spring is just like it sounds, a fountain of Demonic Qi. This thing is extremely harmful to us cultivators, but to the local Evil Spirits it is a huge opportunity. If they are given enough time, they can absorb the Evil Qi from the spring and grow stronger and more solid, so whenever it appears it will attract all the Evil Spirits in the vicinity towards it.” Chen Yi explained slowly, and his expression was quite dignified.
“Whenever the Evil Spirit Spring appears, the Evil Spirits inside the Evil Cavern become extremely unstable as can you see, they’ll even kill each other in order to monopolize the Evil Qi below. For the time being they’ll be occupied trying to absorb as much Evil Qi as possible but soon… once they begin to really rampage they’ll certainly also attack us. Our luck is really terrible, the Evil Spirit Spring doesn’t necessarily appear for many years at a time yet we’ve managed to bump into it.”
“Ah… then… what should we do?” Exclaimed Treasure Instrument Sect’s Zhao Rong, “Should we try to escape now while they’re still ignoring us?”
“And go where?” Chen Yi grinned wryly, “There’s nowhere left to flee anymore. If we stay here we’ll be able to survive a bit longer, if we leave, I’m afraid we’ll just die sooner.”
“Hey hey, the little brat is right,” The old man smiled and nodded, “Even this old master or other similar experts, once forced into this situation there’s no hope of escape, your group of kids wanting to flee? Don’t even dream!”
Wearing an evil grin, the old man suddenly addressed everyone present, “How about it? Why not join hands with this old master to see if we can go on living?”
Chen Yi looked towards the old man, wrinkling his brow slightly, “What is Senior’s plan?”
“Nothing fancy, everyone just needs to fight!” The old man cackled, “Although your strengths aren’t high, but fortunately there are a number of you. All you need to do is stay on that platform and resist with all your strength for as long as it takes for these Evil Spirits to leave. Since you’ve all dared to come here you must be carrying a lot of artifacts designed to resist these Evil Spirit, right?”
“Good.” Chen Yi firmly nodded. They were not the same as Yang Kai who had come here haphazardly. Naturally, since they dared venture into the Evil Cavern, they had prepared a number of appropriate artifacts beforehand, but up until now they hadn’t used them simply because there was no need.
“Good, so we fight, with our lives hanging in the balance, ha ha ha… this old master can even help you out if you need some assistance.” The old man smiled and nodded, and a look that didn’t quite seem like kindness flashed across his face.
Chen Yi wryly grinned, cupping his fists respectfully, “Then this Chen must offer his thanks to Senior in advance.”
Obviously he didn’t believe that this old man would take care of his group out of the goodness of his heart. In fact, even if it were true, with the number of Evil Spirits around it was quite likely even he would die sooner or later, so how could he purposefully increase the pressure on himself? They were neither friends nor relatives, and the relationship between the two sides could at best be described as co-dependants.
It was only because of the circumstances that this old man had said these words.
“At the critical moment, this old master can indeed help you once or twice, but I have a condition!” The old man grinned deviously.
“What condition?” Chen Yi asked.
The old man’s gaze shifted greedily towards the Evil Spirit Spring, quickly saying, “If we make it through this crisis, this old master wants whatever is inside that spring!”
“Good, we juniors only wish to survive!” Chen Yi seriously replied.
“Good!” The old man grinned, no longer saying anything.
“What exactly is inside that spring?” Yang Kai whispered quietly in a curious voice. Seeing the old man suddenly become so happy after Chen Yi agreed to his request, he estimated that it was something quite valuable.
“An Evil Spirit Essence!” Chen Yi replied, “But it is definitely a very special type of Evil Spirit Essence considering the huge amount of energy that is erupting out of the spring.”
“A very special Evil Spirit Essence?” Yang Kai couldn’t help but become excited, Shan Qing Luo had told him that some special Evil Spirit Essences could contain things that increased Spiritual Energy or perhaps held powerful Martial Skills…
Could this Evil Spirit Spring contain an essence that held such a treasure?
But after remembering their current circumstances, Yang Kai immediately calmed down, knowing that the priority now was to keep his life.
On both of the high pillars, everyone waited nervously, the Evil Qi which circulated below them steadily rose higher and higher as it spewed from the Evil Spirit Spring, all while dozens of Evil Spirit Essences glittered brightly just out of reach, which caused all of them to salivate.
As long as one leapt down, they could instantly harvest several tens of these essences, far more than one could obtain from multiple days hunting inside the Evil Cavern.
Of course, more Evil Spirit Essences had appeared here, and since they had arrived, at least one or two hundred Evil Spirits had been killed, but many of the essences which condensed after their deaths had already been absorbed by other Evil Spirits or integrated into the turbulent Evil Qi.
However, obviously no one dared leave their respective plateau even with such wealth lying before them, and instead forced themselves to stare helplessly as these essences were swept away, and a great sense of loss welled up in each of their hearts.
After some time, a lot the Evil Spirits below let out piercing shrieks, and their purple bodies suddenly flickered, as if they had become extremely unstable. The ambient temperature also rapidly plummeted and turned the surrounding thousand meters or so into a frozen purgatory.
“Everyone get ready, do your best to stay alive you brats, hahahaha!” The old man suddenly cackled.
Just as he let out this horrid laugh, more than a dozen Evil Spirits suddenly leapt up from below and charged towards the cultivators atop the two pillars as if they had suddenly noticed the presence of living creatures within their midst and had gone crazy.
As the howls rang out, Yang Kai and his group were swiftly surrounded by six or seven Evil Spirits.
All of them had been waiting for this moment, and they let loose their prepared Martial Skills upon these new attackers.
Purple Evil Spirits had great strength but not against such a dense bombardment of attacks. They didn’t die immediately, and a delicate balance between them and the cultivators was formed.
As quickly as the Evil Spirits launched their offensive, they were beaten back, their bodies flickering non-stop.
In preparation for the next assault, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples finally brought out their artifacts.
The Ghost King Valley group had two artifacts designed to restrain Evil Spirits, one with a fire attribute, and one with a lightning attribute.
Using these artifacts, they summoned a flaming dragon phantom which quickly engulfed two Evil Spirits that seemingly howled in pain while burst of lightning kept them paralysed.
These two artifacts were both Earth Grade Top-Rank, and though not as potent a restrain as Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi, they at least had no difficulty holding off a number of these Evil Spirits at once.
Treasure Instrument Sect’s Tao Yang was obviously wealthier than the Ghost King Valley group, directly summoning a Heaven Grade artifact that created a burning plume of fire which instantly wrapped up two Evil Spirits, gradually incinerating them.
These two Evil Spirits kept screaming and flitting back and forth, but neither of them seemed to be able to escape the burning cloud’s range.
Between the two Sects, relying on the power of their artifacts, they could easily deal with four Evil Spirits at once.
The Hu Sisters on the other hand coordinated with each other perfectly. They didn’t have an artifact designed to resist Evil Spirit’s, but by fully utilizing their Twin Qi Shared Spirit Divine Art, both of their battle strengths were greatly increased, so dealing with a single purple Evil Spirit didn’t present too much of a challenge to them.
Finally, Yang Kai dealt with the last purple Evil Spirit on his own. Forming a blade from a drop of his Yang Liquid, he took full advantage of his True Yang Yuan Qi’s ability to restrain the Evil Spirit in order to single-handedly hold his own.
With every strike he made, the purple Evil Spirit’s body would fade significantly.
Although he also had powerful Heaven Grade artifacts at his disposal such as the Asura Sword, Yang Kai felt that using his Yang Liquid would be more effective against these Evil Spirits.
Now putting it into action, it seemed his guess was right.
From the start of the battle until now, Yang Kai’s group managed to hold back all six of the Evil Spirits that had rushed them with relative ease.
Seeing this, the tension they had all initially felt gradually relaxed and their offensive became smoother, gradually securing the upper hand.
Soon, the Evil Spirit that Yang Kai was dealing with was crushed, and with a last deathly cry, it died and transformed into a lump of Evil Spirit Essence.
Without any hesitation, Yang Kai stretched out his hand and directly absorbed this essence into his meridians before turning to his side and assisting the Hu Sisters with the Evil Spirit they were battling.
Hu Jiao Er couldn’t help but glance towards Yang Kai in surprise, not having thought that on his own he would be able to defeat an Evil Spirit even faster than her and her sister.
[It seems like, over the past two years, this little rogue’s combat strength has made great progress! Looks like I’ve still underestimated him.]
While Yang Kai and his companions didn’t have any difficulties defending their position, the old man and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples also seemed to be holding their own with ease; the old man, after all, was an Immortal Ascension Boundary master and his four juniors also possessed significant strength, add on the group from Free And Unfettered Sect and their plateau’s combat effectiveness was actually higher than Yang Kai’s side.
Even while the old man was dealing with a number of Evil Spirits, he still had enough leeway to check up on Yang Kai and his group from time to time, probably concerned that they would be defeated by this first wave of attacks.
But after seeing the purity and strength of Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi, a light flashed across his eyes, “Very good! Young man, do you want to come here and work together with this old master? Old Master can help keep you alive!”
With the strength he had displayed, coupled with the Yang attribute’s ability to restrain these Evil Spirits, once the old man could draw him to his side, their strength would be greatly increased!
On top of that, the pure combat effectiveness Yang Kai had shown was quite impressive, which naturally gave the old man a pleasant surprise.
Hearing what the old man said, everyone from Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect all tightened their fists and glanced hesitantly towards Yang Kai.
Although Tao Yang and Chen Yi both thought they were getting along fairly well with Yang Kai, in the end they were still at best passing acquaintances. If at this time Yang Kai decided to leave them, they wouldn’t be able to say anything.
Moreover, from a practical standpoint, Yang Kai choosing to cooperate with the old man was undoubtedly more beneficial to him.
Thinking so, everyone couldn’t help but feel nervous.
However, Yang Kai simply sprang up from the platform and hovered mid-air, while violently attacking the Evil Spirit that the Hu Sisters were engaged in battle with while offhandedly saying, “Many thanks for Senior’s consideration.”
Momentarily stunned, the old man soon grinned meaningfully and retorted, “Little brat, no need to be stubborn, if you cooperate with this old master, afterwards, one of every five Evil Spirit Essences we obtain can be yours. How about it, this old master won’t make you suffer a loss.”
“No thanks!” Yang Kai decisively refused. This old dog obviously wasn’t anyone good, so even if he wasn’t worried about the Hu Sisters’ safety, Yang Kai still would have refused to work with him lest he find himself caught inside the tiger’s den.
“Fine fine, this old master won’t insist.” On the surface the old man’s casual reply didn’t make it seem like he was least bit upset over being rejected, but the instant he had spoken a cold light had flashed past his eyes.
[Little bastard doesn’t appreciate this old master’s kindness, hmph!]
Seeing Yang Kai reject the old man so firmly, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples involuntarily breathed sighs of relief, and all of their eyes revealed a touch of gratitude. Only the Hu Sisters continued to smile towards him sweetly, as they had from the start.
Without saying anything else, the three of them had all come from Black Plum Town and shared a not shallow friendship. They had never even considered the possibility that Yang Kai would abandon them.
After all, in the Inheritance Heaven’s Cave, he had not once even given a hint of abandoning them as they climbed the Yin-Yang stairs.
Shortly after, Yang Kai and the Hu Sisters managed to crush the Evil Spirit, which left behind a floating Evil Spirit Essence. Yang Kai quickly threw his Purifying Spirit Bottle to Hu Jiao Er and shouted, “Use this to collect that essence, don’t try to absorb it directly!”
“En.” Although Hu Jiao Er hadn’t seen or heard of this Purifying Spirit Bottle before, it only took her a moment after Yang Kai tossed it to her to figure it out. She inputted a small amount of her True Qi into it and watched it suck up the essence immediately after.
As Jiao Er processed this, Yang Kai flew towards the other side to assist the Treasure Instrument Sect and Ghost King Valley groups.
After a quick and decisive battle, all six of the Evil Spirits that attacked them had been beheaded, but what was odd to everyone present was that these Evil Spirits, which normally feared nothing, wanted to flee and escape when attacked by Yang Kai’s Yang attribute True Qi.
But just as they had finished off this first wave, before they had a chance to catch their breath, a new batch of Evil Spirits flew up from below, and this time in even greater numbers.
Immediately, the group was thrust back into the heat of battle.
Under these strained circumstances, Yang Kai soon found himself fighting two Evil Spirits at once.
Unable to execute them quickly, the shortcomings of Yang Kai True Yang Yuan Qi immediately emerged.
Although his True Yang Yuan Qi was highly effective at restraining and eliminating these Evil Spirits, but because of this natural restraint, all of the Evil Spirits also seems to have an instinctual impulse to avoid Yang Kai, so unless directly engaged in battle with him already they would do their best to distance themselves from him and instead attack the others.
Yang Kai was soon dripping in sweat as he was forced to chase down these Evil Spirits as he attempted to assist everyone he shared this high pillar with, and this lead to the once stable situation to show some signs of breaking.
Fortunately, the members of his group were all quite strong and carried with them a lot of powerful artifacts, which allowed them to hold their group steadily even at critical junctures.
As time passed, the pressure and intensity of the fighting only continued to increase, and they soon found themselves unable to completely eliminate a group of Evil Spirits before the next wave descended upon them.
“Junior Sister, you and Junior Brothers quickly use the Five Dragon Entangling Seal to assist Brother Yang!” Tao Yang suddenly shouted after seeing the awkward position Yang Kai was in.
“Good!” Zhao Rong promptly replied and quickly summoned a seal type artifact.
This new artifact had five dragon images engraved onto it, and after being infused with True Qi by Zhao Rong and other two Treasure Instrument Sect disciples, it was accompanied by a fierce dragon roar, and the five engravings suddenly transformed into dragon phantoms floated up from the seal.
As these five dragons hovered mid-air, a beam of light shot out from each of their mouths and flew towards one of the Evil Spirits.
In an instant, the light beams coiled around the Evil Spirit and bound it in place, and despite how it struggled it couldn’t break free, only able to howl indignantly as he squirmed back and forth.
Yang Kai’s expression suddenly filled with joy as he raced towards this Evil Spirit; gripping his Yang Liquid sword, he unleashed a powerful slash and swiftly sent it to its death.
The three Treasure Instrument Sect disciples also smiled happily; seeing Yang Kai so easily kill this Evil Spirit, they quickly changed their hand seals and directed the five dragons toward another Evil Spirit.
Although three people had left the defence line to help Yang Kai, not only did their formation not collapse, but instead it became more stable.
Everyone had taken out a number of True Qi restoring pills in advance, so they could quickly recover their energy whenever need be.
The only exceptions were Yang Kai who naturally didn’t need such pills and the Hu Sisters who had just swallowed a drop of Myriad Drug Liquid which would continuously help them restore their True Qi for some time to come.
With the assistance of the Five Dragon Entangling Seal, the battle’s momentum once again shifted in Yang Kai’s group’s favor.
On the other hand, atop the other platform, the old man and the disciples from Free And Unfettered Sect were finding the situation a bit more strenuous.
Although there was an Immortal Ascension Boundary master with them, but their total number was not as high as Yang Kai’s side, and more importantly, they lacked the extremely high level artifacts that the Treasure Instrument Sect disciples had brought with them, so while their combat effectiveness was higher, the number of options available to them to deal with these Evil spirits was actually lower.
As the old man continued to watch Yang Kai show off his might, an uncomfortable feeling suddenly flashed across his thoughts, like he, as the one with the highest cultivation here, had lost a lot of face. So with a great palm thrust, the old man unleashed a gale of wind that tossed two Evil Spirits towards the opposite pillar.
The Evil Spirits could only use pure physical attacks and decided their prey almost entirely on instinct, so once they had been shot away towards another target, they wouldn’t bother turning around to pursue the old man.
When the old man blasted these two Evil Spirits over, it suddenly put the Hu Sisters into a crisis.
Working together they could somehow deal with a single Evil Spirit, but now suddenly facing three all at once, how could they possibly handle it?
Seeing the two sisters suddenly fall into crisis, Yang Kai’s eyes flashed a murderous light, and this also cemented his earlier suspicions that this old dog was really nothing good. He quickly broke away from the Evil Spirit he was fighting and rushed to help Jiao Er and Mei Er.
As he leapt towards them, he knew he wouldn’t make it in time, so Yang Kai quickly flicked his hand and threw a drop of Yang Liquid towards them.
Using his exquisite True Qi manipulation, the drop of Yang Liquid suddenly turned into a semi-circular light curtain, which directly enveloped the Hu Sisters.
At that moment, Xiao Fu Sheng’s Yuan Qi control techniques truly displayed their worth!
Just as the light curtain appeared, the two Evil Spirits that had been flung over by the old man crashed into it, and both of them suddenly released piercing howls as parts of their ethereal bodies seemed to sizzle and burn.
Instinctively, both Evil Spirits hurriedly retreated.
Even the Evil Spirit the Hu Sisters had been dealing with also fell back as fast as it could, which caused the two’s attacks to hit thin air.
Yang Kai stared at this scene in shock.
Truthfully he hadn’t expected such a dramatic result to arise from his spur of the moment impulse.
“No way, seriously?” Cheng Ying and the rest of the Ghost King Valley disciples cried out, also unable to believe what they were seeing.
“Watch out! Everyone focus!” Leng Shan yelled as she saw the two Evil Spirits the old man had flung towards them along with the one previous fighting the Hu Sisters decisively give up attacking Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er and instead rush towards the others atop the plateau.
All of a sudden, the pressure everyone other than the Hu Sisters felt increased sharply.
“Hey, Brother Yang, that’s not fair!” Chen Yi helplessly cried out with a wry grin upon his face.
Although the Hu Sisters were now extremely safe, the rest of them were now facing an even bigger crisis.
“Sorry, I didn’t know this would happen!” Yang Kai awkwardly apologized; fortunately, he was also there to share this sudden increase in pressure, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to apologize if his actions had resulted in casualties.
As he engaged the two new Evil Spirits his thoughts quickly turned towards trying to find a way to take advantage of this accidental discovery of his.
Suddenly, a wonderful idea came to him!
Hurriedly dispatching the two Evil Spirits the Treasure Instrument Sect trio had entangled, Yang Kai shot up into the air and hovered above the crowd.
Ignoring everyone’s surprised and confused stares, Yang Kai quickly withdrew a drop of Yang Liquid from his dantian and condensed it between his palms.
Once again displaying his exquisite True Qi control, Yang Kai transformed this drop of Yang Liquid turned into another semi-circular light curtain. This time it covered the entire top surface of the high pillar the group was standing on. The only difference was that this time the curtain was undoubtedly thinner and less radiant.
As soon as this light curtain fell, all of Evil Spirits fled backwards, as if they were struck with dread.
However, such a thin light curtain could only serve as a deterrent, if the Evil Spirits were to crazily attack, it would only be a few breaths before it shattered.
Seeing this, Yang Kai decisively went all out and repeatedly withdrew drops of Yang Liquid and shaped them into light curtains.
Layering these light curtains one on top of another, under Yang Kai’s exquisite True Qi control, all of these hemispheres precisely overlapped one another.
Using a full twenty drops of Yang Liquid, Yang Kai quickly completed this masterpiece.
Within this twenty layer True Yang Yuan Qi Light Curtain, though no one dared say they were perfectly safe, but handling these Evil Spirits was no longer an issue.
“This…” Everyone’s jaws dropped as the gawked.
The life and death crisis they all found themselves in had all of a sudden become extremely relaxed; this unexpected transformation was something that none of them could quite keep up with.
The surrounding Evil Spirits fluttered around the platform, but most did not dare to even approach; occasionally, one of them would attempt to attack them as before only to be burned on contact with the light curtain before quickly receding.
After standing dumbstruck for quite some time, everyone turned and stared awkwardly at Yang Kai.
The Hu Sister’s eyes both contained a slightly hot light as they gazed at this young man they had recently reunited with.
“I just did it on a whim, I didn’t think it would work out so well.” Yang Kai grinned awkwardly as he laughed.
“Simply amazing…” Chen Yi praised, almost in awe of Yang Kai.
Everyone else nodded, their eyes filled with admiration and gratitude.
After slowly recovering from their initial shock and examining their situation more closely, all of them were shocked as they estimated just how much True Qi Yang Kai had used to create such a solid defensive curtain!
How did he come up with such a massive quantity of True Qi, and how could he be standing there as if it were nothing to him?
“Monster! Absolute monster!” Leng Shan spat.
Everyone nodded again.
What they didn’t know was that every layer of this Light Curtain was the result of the crystallization of the total amount of True Qi Yang Kai could condense in his meridians! So twenty of these curtains were equal to Yang Kai completely emptying his meridians twenty times! How could this defence screen not have such astounding strength?
Moreover, the density and purity of Yang Kai’s True Qi were both abnormally high for his cultivation.
If converted to average terms, this light curtain’s strength was almost equivalent to ten Immortal Ascension Boundary masters fully focusing on defence!
With this shield protecting them, weathering this crisis was now a piece of cake.
“Young man, could you be so kind as to help this old man out?” The old man held down his pride to ask. Even he, an Immortal Ascension Master, had no means to reproduce the Heaven-defying feat of a man that has barely reached a third of his age. Therefore, under such circumstances, he had to swallow his pride and pled.
The high pillar that Yang Kai’s group occupied was now an impregnable fortress, not letting a single leak through, even if their group stood around and did nothing, they wouldn’t have to worry about their safety, but as a result, on the old man’s side, the number of Evil Spirits they had to deal with subsequently increased, making their situation more and more difficult.
As their situation deteriorated, the old man could only call out to Yang Kai and ask for help.
Hearing this plea, many of the Ghost King Valley disciples sneered sarcastically and glared at the old man.
Zhao Rong of Treasure Instrument Sect even went a step further and muttered under her breath, “That old dog just tried to harm us, yet now he’s begging for Brother Yang’s help, how shameless!”
The old man’s underhanded scheme a moment ago had not escaped any of their sights, but although all of them were extremely annoyed by his behaviour, due to his strength, none of them had dared to hit back.
The old man obviously saw this look in all of their eyes but didn’t seem to mind, and instead just lightly said, “Youngsters, you should all carefully consider the current situation, who knows if you’ll need to ask this old master for help in the near future? You should sell this old master a favour now while you can lest when your turn comes you wind up with regret.”
Although his tone was light and casual, anyone who had any discernment could tell that he was threatening them. If they didn’t help him now, he would certainly make them suffer for it later.
In his heart, Yang Kai sneered, but on his face he wore a serious expression and shook his head slowly, “Unfortunately I cannot help Senior right now, my True Qi has been completely exhausted so I need to restore myself first.”
As he spoke, Yang Kai ‘unsteadily’ sat down cross-legged.
The Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples all suddenly realized this point, and each of them quickly pulled out a number of True Qi restoring pills and offered them to Yang Kai.
It wasn’t that they were gullible enough to be deceived by Yang Kai’s word, but in this chaotic situation it was simply something they should do.
Moreover, during this intense battle, Yang Kai had definitely consumed a lot of True Qi, not to mention him setting up this multi-layered light curtain, so needing to restore his True Qi only seemed appropriate.
Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er on the other hand simply exchanged a glance, as the two of them pouted and smiled.
The two sisters knew that Yang Kai possessed a kind of miraculous liquid that could almost instantly restore one’s True Qi reserves, so how could they believe the slightest bit of his nonsense?
The situation atop the pillar was clearly displayed before the old man’s eyes, and because what was said was reasonable, he couldn’t tell if Yang Kai was lying or telling the truth, so he no longer forced the issue and instead let out a somewhat hollow laugh, “Very well, you should first quickly restore yourself.”
Ending the conversation, the old man re-focused his attention on the battle around him.
Atop the plateau, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect groups glanced around in amazement, not expecting that in this life or death crisis Yang Kai would somehow create an absolute safe haven.
And so they observed the other side’s battle while talking in hushed voices amongst themselves, as they watched as Yu Qing and his party struggle to defend themselves as their True Qi and Blood Force rioted.
The old man in particular lived up to his status as an Immortal Ascension Boundary master. His True Qi seemed endless as he casually sent out strikes. In fact, each of his seemingly simple moves was actually extremely powerful and allowed him alone to fight four Evil Spirits without any disadvantage.
While he battled, he also diverted some of his attention to protect his juniors. Meanwhile, the Free and Unfettered Sect disciples were struggling to maintain their line of defence as their True Qi continued to be exhausted. Although the old man should have provided some assistance, but he would never lend his hand out to such scum that even their grandparents would disown.
The male Free And Unfettered Sect disciples’ originally pale complexions became even whiter while their Charmed Slaves also no longer showed any coquettish looks. Each of them wasnow drenched in sweat as they struggled to cope.
Outside the True Yang Yuan Qi defensive shield, the Evil Spirits continued circling as they attempted to find a weak spot, but no matter where they struck, the result was the same.
After a while, they actually gave up and began flying towards the other platform to attack the old man’s side.
Instantly, the situation became critical; the old man roared furiously and no longer held back. He summoned his artifact and sent out various powerful Martial Skills one after another.
The Free And Unfettered Sect group also struck back harder, but it was obvious they couldn’t cope with so many Evil Spirits.
“Senior, senior!” Yu Qing shouted anxiously, “Please help us!”
Although the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples outnumbered the Ghost King Valley group hey suffered because they specialized in raising their cultivation through various male female plucking techniques. Their True Qi wasn’t as pure or stable as others in the same realm, so their defences were quickly overwhelmed, which forced Yu Qing into a situation where he needed to beg the old man to save them.
“Heh heh!” The old man laughed evilly, “This old master can barely defend himself, how could I have the spare capacity to save you lot?”
Yu Qing cursed silently, and knowing that this old man wasn’t some benevolent benefactor, he quickly followed up, “If Senior can help us survive this crisis, my Free And Unfettered Sect will definitely compensate generously!”
“Let’s hear it!” The old man said as his eyes flashed a greedy light.
“If I we can make it back alive, each of us can offer Senior a Charmed Slave! Senior should be familiar with my Free And Unfettered Sect’s methods and certainly understands the value of these Charmed Slaves!” With his life on the line, Yu Qing didn’t dare spew any nonsense and directly offered extremely rich conditions.
Hearing this, the old man’s eyes lit up with an obscene light and he grinned maliciously, “This old master is naturally aware or your Free And Unfettered Sect’s Charmed Slave’s usefulness, along with their Secret Art and skills designed to assist one’s cultivation, they’re also all extremely well versed in meeting their master’s desires!”
“Senior is well informed!” Yu Qing nodded.
Casually accepting this flattery, the old man laughed happily, “Good, since there are four of you, when this old master feasts on your four Charmed Slave’s vital yin, my cultivation will improve greatly.”
“What Senior says is absolutely right.” Yu Qing was in a hurry, so although he was cursing this old dog inside he did his best to wear his most flattering smile, “As such, Junior asks Senior to quickly take action!”
However, the old man simply coldly snorted, “However, this old master has heard that you Free And Unfettered Sect men all have more than just a single Charmed Slave, and looking at you lots demeanor, your positions in the Sect shouldn’t be low, you must have at least four or five each, right?”
Yu Qing’s smiling face twitched, as he realized he had underestimated this old dog’s appetite.
“Little brat, your luck is quite good!” The old man grinned. “This old master is willing to help, but this old master wants eight Charmed Slaves as compensation! That is, each of you must deliver me two Charmed Slaves in order to equal the value of this old master taking action! Whether you agree or not is up to you but… hah, if you’re life is gone, you won’t be needing those Charmed Slaves anyways, right? Hahaha!”
This last sentence thoroughly poked Yu Qing’s weakness, not allowing him to refuse, so with a gloomy expression, Yu Qing nodded without hesitation, “Good, I accept!”
“Little brat, you’re certainly decisive enough! Good, we have a deal!” The old man laughed, and his moves suddenly became even more ferocious, as he protected the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples as well, which greatly relieved the pressure Yu Qing’s group felt.
[The price was worth it.] Yu Qing comforted himself, trying to balance his unwillingness with his desire to live.
Free And Unfettered Sect’s male disciples indeed had more than one Charmed Slave each; however, each Charmed Slave took a significant amount of time and resources to develop, so losing two of them was by no means a small loss.
As Yu Qing was discussing terms with the old man, the Free And Unfettered Sect Charmed Slaves were totally unmoved, as if the discussion had nothing to do with them.
“Remember your words, if you dare try to renege … this old master will pay a visit to your Free And Unfettered Sect to collect what he’s owed!” The old man coldly threatened.
Yu Qing’s heart jumped, as he suddenly wondered what origins this old man had that allowed him to not fear his Free And Unfettered Sect, then he quickly wore an ugly smile, “How could Junior dare! A gentleman’s word isn’t spoken lightly!”
Hearing this, many people covertly spat disdainfully.
If Yu Qing was a gentleman, there were definitely no villains under the Heavens.
Meanwhile, Yang Kai and his group were now idly sitting atop their platform, but the joyful feeling they gained from seeing the hope of survival gradually calmed down as they observed their surroundings.
Not knowing when this tide of Evil Spirits would recede, it was difficult for them to not feel somewhat desolate.
Opposite them, the old man and the Free And Unfettered Sect continued fighting with the Evil Spirits, killing them at a steady pace and causing numerous Evil Spirit Essences to appear around them, but no one had time to collect these and gradually, these essences fell into the swirling jet black Evil Qi below.
Suddenly, the old man’s expression changed and he roared angrily, “Free And Unfettered Sect brats, quickly sacrifice your Charmed Slave!”
His tone was fierce and did not permit any objections.
“Ah…” Yu Qing froze for a moment and stared at the old man in confusion, wondering why he would suddenly issue such an order.
“If you don’t want to die, then do it now!” The old man hurriedly snapped, and a faint hostile intent surfaced from his aura!
“Bu…” Yu Qing didn’t fully understand what was happening, but he felt that now was not a good time to sacrifice their Charmed Slaves. Their numbers were currently enough to hold their formation, but once their Charmed Slaves were sacrificed, it would essentially be like halving the number of Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
Naturally he wanted to avoid such an outcome.
“This old master will give you three breaths, if you haven’t sacrificed them, I’ll kill all of you!” The old man delivered his ultimatum.
“Senior Brother, what should we do?” One of the Free And Unfettered Sect male disciples asked Yu Qing, his anxiety and helplessness apparent.
“Do it!” Yu Qing angrily shouted, not daring to hesitate any longer. The only reason they had been able to preserve their lives until now was because this old man would occasionally help protect them. If the old man all of a sudden turned on them, they would no doubt die immediately.
Although extremely unwilling to sacrifice their Charmed Slaves in this way, Yu Qing had no alternative.
With Yu Qing giving his order, the few Free And Unfettered Sect male disciples all simultaneously let out their strongest attacks to push back the Evil Spirits they were engaged with and then grabbed hold of their respective Charmed Slaves. A determined light flashed across their eyes as they deeply kissed them.
Seeing this, Leng Shan couldn’t bear to watch and averted her gaze while quietly pulling Zhao Rong and the Hu Sisters with her, “Don’t look!”
“En? What’s happening?” Zhao Rong asked curiously.
Leng Shan obviously knew what would happen once these Charmed Slaves were sacrificed, so she had intended to spare her fellow females this scene.
Chen Yi also sighed lightly, and a glimmer of pity flashed across his eyes. In fact, most of the Ghost King Valley disciples also hung their heads slightly and averted their gazes from what was to take place.
Although their relationship with Free And Unfettered Sect wasn’t friendly by any stretch, and each of them had often fought with these Charmed Slaves, in the end, they couldn’t help but sympathize with these unfortunate women, who had their minds and bodies completely enslaved and were unable to determine their own fate anymore.
It’s wasn’t that they didn’t know how to care about themselves, nor were they born inherently debased, but they were trained that way by Free And Unfettered Sect’s men with special tools, medicines, and techniques.
The three young women couldn’t hold back their curiosity, even though Leng Shan had told them not to look, so Zhao Rong and the Hu Sisters quietly glanced over to see what would take place.
However, the moment they saw, all three of them shivered violently.
As they exchanged what looked like a passionate kiss, the four Charmed Slaves’ bodies trembled, and as the trembling became more intense, their once beautiful faces quickly became old while their delicate bodies aged at a pace visible to the naked eye, rapidly drying up, as if a dozens of years were passing by in an instant.
The True Qi and Blood Essence of these Charmed Slaves was quickly transformed into energy that constantly flowed from their lips into the male Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
As this happened, the pale faces of these Free And Unfettered Sect men suddenly flushed with colour, like they were being infused with vitality, and it instantly gave them a healthy radiant glow that perfectly complemented their originally handsome looks.
Even the strength of their auras also began to rise sharply.
This was a sacrifice!
Free And Unfettered Sect’s forbidden technique, only by taking advantage of these brainwashed Charmed Slaves could such an inhuman Martial Skill be displayed!
This technique could no longer be described as simply ‘evil’.
After less time than it would take to drink a cup of tea, the Free And Unfettered Sect’s male disciples had undergone a massive transformation and became vigorous and high-spirited.
The Charmed Slaves in their arms on the other hand had been forever drained of their vitality, but their dull dim eyes still showed an unrelenting affection as their old haggard mouths wore extremely satisfied smiles.
Their role as devoted slaves had been imprinted in their very souls!
True Qi burst out uncontrollably from Zhao Rong and the Hu Sisters, and their eyes filled with fire as they glared maliciously at the still celebrating male Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
They were all women, so watching these Charmed Slaves die in such a pitiful manner had naturally provoked their ire.
After this sacrifice was completed, Yu Qing laughed and released the aged body in his embrace, not even sparing it a glance as this withered corpse rolled off the plateau and disappeared into the sea of Evil Qi below.
The strength of these Free And Unfettered Sect male disciples had skyrocketed, which gave them a domineering and ruthless aura. All of their attacks now contained at least twice their previous might, but as he glanced towards the old man, Yu Qing’s eyes still had a well hidden trace of anger and hatred.
He had not wanted to sacrifice these Charmed Slaves at this time because the most dangerous moment had yet to arrive.
But because of the old man’s overbearing strength, he had no choice but to obey him, so naturally he held some dissatisfaction.
The old man seemed to have not noticed this glint as he laughed wantonly, “Good, this old master knew you were a decisive person. In the future you will certainly become someone great! Little brat, you and your Junior Brothers defend here for a moment while this old master handles something!”
“Good!” Yu Qing nodded firmly, not asking the old man what it was he intended to do.
With that, the old man roared, flew up into the air, and shot out from the platform. After he flew up, a single purple Evil Spirit tightly followed behind him, almost like a shadow following its master.
“What is he trying to do?” Chen Yi muttered gloomily when he noticed the venomous grin that appeared on the old man’s face as he led that Evil Spirit towards their side.
As he flew towards them, the old man continued to attack this particular Evil Spirit, drawing its attention as he approached Yang Kai and his group.
“Has this old guy gone crazy?” Cheng Ying smiled contemptuously, “Struggling to lead a single Evil Spirit towards us, could it be that he thinks that Evil Spirit can kill all of us?”
“Hahaha!” One of the Treasure Instrument Sect male disciples laughed dismissively, “That old man is wasting his time, doesn’t he know that these Evil Spirits can’t even touch Brother Yang’s light curtain?”
Because none of them had lowered their voices, it was clear that the old man could hear them, but even so, he didn’t get angry and instead just sneered even more as he led the Evil Spirit towards them.
Leng Shan’s cold eyes flashed, as he realized something wasn’t right, and he quickly called out, “Be careful, he’s definitely up to something.”
Tao Yang also nodded and increased his vigilance.
A moment later, when the old man and the Evil Spirit arrived next to their pillar next to the high platform, everyone tensed slightly and prepared to counterattack if need be.
“Here, a gift for you!” The old man maintained his sneer and laughed loudly as he struck the Evil Spirit with a palm, which sent it crashing towards the light curtain before he darted away, almost immediately reappearing on the Free And Unfettered Sect’s side.
“Senior, did you make us sacrifice our Charmed Slaves just to give you a moment of freedom?” Yu Qing’s expression was quite ugly, and his voice contained a questioning tone.
“En!” The old man nodded plainly.
“And with that moment… all you wanted was to lead that Evil Spirit over to them?” Yu Qing almost couldn’t contain the anger in his chest.
He hadn’t known why this old man was so anxious to have them sacrifice their Charmed Slaves, but now it seems like he forced them to do so just for this one insignificant act. Obviously this wasn’t worth the life of a single Charmed Slaves let alone four.
“Do you have any opinion?” The old man glanced back at Yu Qing coldly, and his eyes were full of overbearing arrogance.
“Junior doesn’t dare!” Yu Qing’s blood ran cold, and he quickly suppressed his anger. Although after the sacrifice the strength of him and his fellow brothers had rose, but when faced with an Immortal Ascension Boundary master they still weren’t qualified to object!
“Good. Well, just wait a bit and you’ll see, if they don’t beg this old master for help soon, Old Master here will unscrew his head for you to use as a chamber pot!” The old man grinned.
Yu Qing was stunned, not understanding why this old man was so confidant all of a sudden.
At that moment, the Evil Spirit that was led to Yang Kai’s group was launching a series of attacks towards their defence shield.
But as it collided with the light curtain again and again, it was inevitably repelled. The fiery True Yang Yuan Qi easily disintegrating any residual Evil Qi from its attacks, but contrary to the previous Evil Spirits, this one did not immediately retreat.
After many failed attempts, this Evil Spirit no longer recklessly attacked but instead stared towards them with its almost clearly defined face, opened its mouth, and let out an ear piercing scream.
That sound was sharp and grating and caused everyone’s ears to ring, and as the sound penetrated their heads, a purple halo sudden enveloped them, wrapping all of them in an eerie radiance.
Everyone had been indifferently watching this Evil Spirit’s fruitless attacks but hadn’t expected it would suddenly come up with such a hand, so by the time they had perceived a threat it was too late to defend themselves.
As this purple halo washed over them, they all felt their consciousnesses tremble and their strength drain from their bodies, and some of them even fell limply to the ground.
Others were overwhelmed by nausea as they felt like a million ants were gnawing at their minds, delivering them an unbearable pain.
Even the Hu Sister combination couldn’t withstand this attack, and their pretty faces distorting in pain.
Only Yang Kai remained unaffected. Unlike the others of his group, he had already begun cultivating his Soul and was able to offset some of the damage. On top of that, he also had his Soul Palace Soul Skill which allowed him to easily withstand this Evil Spirit’s attack. .
“A Soul Skill!” Chen Yi screamed, “It’s a Soul Type Evil Spirit!”
By this point, everyone had figured this out, and each of them become pale, as they stared in fear and panic towards this Soul Type Evil Spirit in front of them.
Soul Type Evil Spirits were a very special presence in the Evil Cavern.
It looked no different from the other Evil Spirits, but because it had the ability to use Soul Skills, any cultivator under Immortal Ascension Boundary that ran into one had only two paths before them.
Escape or die!
But in this situation, running away was not an option, but trying to fight it was akin to suicide.
Within the Evil Cavern, Soul Type Evil Spirits were exceptionally rare, which was obvious from the scene before them; although there were hundreds of Evil Spirits gathered here with more constantly arriving, but from beginning to end only one Soul Type Evil Spirit had appeared. This was sufficient to show how few of them existed.
None of them had thought they would encounter a Soul Type Evil Spirit when they first came to the Evil Cavern, just like they never dreamed they would be caught up in the Evil Spirit Spring’s eruption.
But right now, such a situation had arisen and caused all of their hearts to sink.
The old man who had deliberately led this Soul Type Evil Spirit to them was no doubt harboring malicious intent, likely doing so as retaliation for Yang Kai’s refusal to help them.
Turning his gaze towards the old man, Yang Kai’s eyes flashed a cold light!
He didn’t fear this Soul Type Evil Spirit, but everyone else who was with him did! The Soul Skill it had just used was a wide area attack as well, so it could affect all of them at once, meaning that everyone besides Yang Kai would sooner or later have their Souls destroyed and result in them either dying or degenerating into an idiot!
“Quickly!” As the Soul Type Evil Spirit, looking in from outside the light curtain, opened its gruesome mouth again, Chen Yi shouted, “Does anyone have a Soul defence type artifact!”
Instinctually, everyone looked towards Tao Yang.
Although the Ghost King Valley disciples had made sufficient preparations for this expedition to the Evil Cavern, but Soul type artifacts were just as rare as Soul Skills themselves, not to mention a Soul type artifact that could defend against Soul Skills needed to be of a very high grade.
None of these Ghost King Valley disciples had the qualifications to hold such a precious artifact.
Tao Yang on the other hand was a Treasure Instrument Sect disciple, if he didn’t have an appropriate Soul type artifact, then no one here would.
Although Yang Kai was not afraid of this Soul Type Evil Spirit, in the end he was only able to protect himself from it, so with so many people gathered on this high plateau, and considering the wide range of the enemies Soul Skill, he was quite troubled about how to handle it.
Fortunately, Tao Yang was just as wealthy as imagined, hastily removing a ring from his bad and pouring True Qi into it.
A buzzing sound burst out just as the Soul Type Evil Spirit cast its Soul Skill again.
Soon after, the purple halo re-appeared and enveloped them once more.
However, the ring in Tao Yang’s had also sent out a series of ripples which crashed into this halo.
Everyone held their breath nervously and stared in anticipation.
As the artifact’s ripples and the purple halo collided, the ripples disappeared instantly while the purple light dimmed significantly; unfortunately, the purple halo had not dissipated completely.
Tao Yang’s Soul defence type artifact wasn’t strong enough to completely defend against this Soul Type Evil Spirit’s attack!
Everyone suddenly looked miserable, unsure of what to do next.
The only upside was that this artifact could at least weaken the effect on their Souls to the point where it was at least bearable.
But obviously this was not a long-term solution; damage to one’s Soul was no joking matter, if it continued to accumulate, it would still become a major risk.
“Sorry, I only have this Soul type artifact!” Tao Yang said guiltily as he stared towards the Soul Type Evil Spirit.
“Why are you apologizing Brother Tao? If not for you being here I’m afraid none of us would be able to withstand this attack at all!” Chen Yi said earnestly.
“En,” Cheng Ying nodded, “but we still have to think about what to do next!”
Even with the support of Tao Yang’s Soul defence artifact, the longest they could hold out was at best half an hour.
Yang Kai didn’t say anything and instead just coldly glared at the old man.
Seeing the crisis they were in, the old man let out arrogant and outrageous laughter, apparently very pleased with himself.
Hearing this wanton laughter, everyone couldn’t help but grind their teeth in indignation. If it weren’t for this old man’s malicious scheme, with the help of Yang Kai’s Light Curtain they would be perfectly safe, but now, facing this Soul Type Evil Spirit, they suddenly found themselves helpless and in mortal danger.
“That old bastard!” Zhao Rong’s viciously cursed, not caring whether the old man heard her or not.
“Little friend!” The old man smiled happily while knocking away several Evil Spirits and yelled to Yang Kai, “See, your side is now facing a crisis and so are we, why don’t you cooperate with me so we can both survive?”
“How do you propose we cooperate?” Yang Kai indifferently asked.
“It’s simple, you help us put up the same type of defensive cover over here and then this old master will help you to deal with that Soul Type Evil Spirit. You can’t cope with it because none of you have reached the Immortal Ascension Boundary, but this old master is different, this old master is not only an Immortal Ascension master, but I have also reached the Immortal Ascension Boundary Fifth Stage, although dealing with that Soul Type Evil Spirit is a little troublesome, but killing it isn’t too difficult. So, how about it? Such cooperation benefits both of us!”
When the old man said so, everyone suddenly realized.
It seemed like his goal in guiding the Soul Type Evil Spirit to attack them was to force Yang Kai to help them. If Yang Kai could really put up a Light Curtain for them, the pressure the old man was facing would drop drastically.
At that time, they could also just sit on top of their pillar and relax like Yang Kai’s group.
As long as they could delay until the Evil Spirit Spring disappeared, they would be able to simply walk out from here.
If it weren’t for the old man having scruples about the strength of Yang Kai’s group, why would he have taken such a roundabout method? He would have simply robbed them of their platform the moment Yang Kai put up that shield.
Yang Kai had to admit, this old bastard’s plan was quite good.
Yu Qing and the other Free And Unfettered Sect disciples, witnessing this sudden development, couldn’t help but let out a burst of laughter, “Senior is such a magnanimous man, Junior greatly admires!”
Earlier, Yu Qing was quite confused by the old man’s actions and was even somewhat angered, but now he realized that the old man had obviously been aware of the existence of that Soul Type Evil Spirit and had planned this out from the beginning, ordering them to sacrifice their Charmed Slaves to give him enough time to execute his plan.
“Haha, how could this old master have survived so many battles without some means? You’d do well to learn from this old master!” The old man smiled deviously, and his four Juniors also applauded loudly, obviously very respectful of him.
On the other side, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples frowned deeply. All of them were extremely angry but were unable to say anything back.
“Little friend, have you considered well?” Confidant he had won, the old man wasn’t rushed and instead boasted arrogantly as he waited for Yang Kai and others to beg him to help them.
In his opinion, this group of True Element Boundary brats would bow to him sooner or later unless they wanted to die! Having not cultivated their Souls, and with only a single Soul defence type artifact, it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to the Soul Type Evil Spirit’s assault.
After a short time, their Souls would begin to take serious damage,and by then the old man could gain even more advantages from them, so he was in no rush to offer assistance and instead just casually asked if they wanted help.
Yang Kai wrinkled his brow and grunted but eventually didn’t respond.
On the other side, Yu Qing whispered to the old man, “Senior, Junior wonders if you could propose another condition to them.”
Raising his brow, the old man curiously asked, “Oh? What condition?”
Yu Qing’s gaze immediately shifted to the Hu Sisters, his eyes filling with an obscene light as he licked his lips and said, “Let them offer up that pair of twins to us!”
The old man looked at Yu Qing with great meaning. He was quite well informed about Free And Unfettered Sect’s Charmed Slaves and knew that they also had different grades. If this pair of twins was turned into Charmed Slaves, then they would undoubtedly provide their Free And Unfettered Sect male masters with greater aid, especially since they seemed to also possess extraordinary strength. It wasn’t hard to understand why Yu Qing would pay special attention to them.
This group of Free And Unfettered Sect disciples had even chased them into this Evil Cavern regardless of the risks. This alone showed how attractive the Hu Sisters were to them.
“I’m afraid that’s not a good idea.” The old man frowned, although he didn’t consider Yang Kai and his group as anything serious, but at this moment he really did need Yang Kai’s help. If he added too many excessive demands, it would only be counterproductive and cause him to lose his rice before catching the chicken.
“If Senior is willing to help, Junior can offer another four Charmed Slaves to Senior, alright?” Yu Qing whispered.
“This old master can consider it…” The old man nodded with satisfaction. “Very well, this old master will help you get all those women over there, but four more Charmed Slaves aren’t enough, you must offer this old master eight additional Charmed Slaves, agreed?”
“Eight Charmed Slaves is really too much, those twins are certainly worth four Charmed Slave, but the other two women… Junior can offer Senior six Charmed Slaves for all of them, it cannot be more.” Yu Qing’s face flashed a hint of hidden pain, like he was suffering a big loss.
“Good, six then, remember, you now owe this old master fourteen Charmed Slaves!” The old man grinned and said happily.
“Naturally Junior remembers.” Yu Qing nodded, also very satisfied with the outcome of this negotiation, and he quickly wore a complementary smile, “Senior is such a powerful master, yet seems to not care much for beauty.”
If he really cared about beautiful women, he wouldn’t have offered up the four women on the other side so easily.
Needless to say, the twin sisters on the opposite pillar possessed country destroying beauty. While that Ghost King Valley’s Leng Shan was also an extraordinary vision, and lastly the last girl’s innocence and cute appeal, although not comparable to the other three, was also a unique and delicious flavour.
However, the old man just contemptuously smirked and arrogantly said, “Beauties? Only you young brats who only have lust on your brains will care about such things, with this old master’s strength, if Old Master wants any woman, what kind of woman can I not get?
“Yes yes yes, Senior is wise.” Yu Qing nodded repeatedly, unable to refute this statement, and he suddenly thought this old man was more pleasing to the eye after he agreed to help him obtain the Hu Sisters. A smug smile even began to creep into his expression as he imagined capturing those four, bringing them back to Free And Unfettered Sect, and subjecting them to various drugs and Soul Skills to train them into loyal slaves.
With the negotiations finalized, the old man and Yu Qing were both happy; the old man’s four juniors also had delighted expressions.
They knew that when the old man received those fourteen Charmed Slaves, they would each receive one as a reward.
Charmed Slaves! Not only would they willingly warm their beds, at a critical moment they could be sacrificed to drastically increase their strength. Who wouldn’t want such a convenient tool?
With a Charmed Slave to accompany them, they would never be lonely again.
“Little friends, don’t blame this old master for not reminding you, if you don’t want to cooperate, you and your friends will definitely die!” The old man casually taunted Yang Kai with a victorious grin plastered all over his face.
“Senior need not worry!” Yang Kai replied indifferently.
“Hah, seems you can’t appreciate kindness!” The old man’s expression twitched, and he sneered as he said, “If you don’t beg this old master for help, this old master won’t take action!”
Yang Kai no longer paid attention to the old man, and his eyes stared towards the Soul Type Evil Spirit floating just outside his light curtain.
The three disciples from Treasure Instrument Sect also held the Five Dragon Entangling Seal, nervously preparing.
While Yu Qing was negotiating with the old man, Yang Kai’s group was also discussing their next course of action.
“Brother Yang, are you certain?” Tao Yang asked, worry apparent on his face, and he quickly offered up his ring shaped Soul defence type artifact, “You should also bring this with you.”
“That’s right, just in case,” Leng Shan agreed, her brow thoroughly furrowed.
When Yang Kai said he wanted to go out and kill the Soul Type Evil Spirit, everyone was taken aback. All of them thought he was crazy. The Hu Sisters were even more alarmed and repeatedly tried to discourage him.
Hu Mei Er even had her enchanting pair of eyes overflow with tears of worry.
“Don’t worry, I have a sense of proportion, even if I really can’t beat it I have confidence in drawing back.” Yang Kai stated plainly.
“Good, then you must be careful.” Chen Yi said.
Yang Kai nodded firmly.
Right then, the Soul Type Evil Spirit opened its mouth again, preparing to display its screaming Soul Skill.
“Now!” Yang Kai roared as he shot out.
The three Treasure Instrument Sect disciples promptly poured their True Qi into the Five Dragon Entangling Seal.
The five dragons spat out their light ropes towards the Soul Type Evil Spirit and bound it in place just as it launched its Soul Skill.
Forming a sword with his Yang Qi, Yang Kai charged towards the Evil Spirit like lightning and crashed through the purple halo it sent out.
“HA!” Tao Yang simultaneously activated his Soul defence type artifact to counteract the Soul Type Evil Spirit’s attack.
“So fast!” Chen Yi couldn’t help but call out in surprise when he saw Yang Kai reach the Soul Type Evil Spirit and land multiple slashes on its body within a single breath.
Suffering this sudden attack, the sharp howling from the Evil Spirit became more violent as it sent out purple halos one after another, which greatly taxed Tao Yang’s Soul artifact again and again to the point where he could barely resist.
Paling instantly, Tao Yang soon spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground.
Nearby, Chen Yi acted quickly, picked up the Soul artifact, and took over for Tao Yang.
“Is he trying to get himself killed?” The old man obviously witnessed Yang Kai’s bold actions, and his pupils shrunk involuntarily as he muttered in surprise.
Normally he wouldn’t care whether Yang Kai lived or died, but right now, if Yang Kai died, he wouldn’t be able to open the same light curtain for him.
However, Yang Kai completely ignored his overtures and continued his reckless assault on the Soul Type Evil Spirit.
Within a few breaths, the Soul Type Evil Spirit’s purple body had dimmed significantly.
However, its true strength was obviously much stronger than an average purple Evil Spirit, so even though it was restrained by Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi, it was still difficult to defeat it in short order.
“We can’t hold on!” Zhao Rong suddenly cried out, the next moment her and her fellow Treasure Instrument Sect disciples paled, and the Five Dragon Entangling Seal in their hands quickly lost its radiance.
Immediately, the Soul Type Evil Spirit’s bindings collapsed.
Regaining its freedom, the Soul Type Evil Spirit became even more violent. Its distorted facial features twisted in rage as it shot a purple beam of light towards Yang Kai.
Unable to dodge in time, Yang Kai was struck head on. The purple beam penetrating into his mind.
Severe pain spread from his head, as his Soul Palace was unable to resist such a focused strike.
Although his Soul Palace had reached the minor accomplishment stage and completely engulfed his Knowledge Sea, in that moment a large gap had been blasted through it.
Yang Kai’s expression stiffened, his arms froze mid-air before drooping to his sides. Seizing this opening, the Soul Type Evil Spirit crashed towards him.
The Evil Spirit swiped at Yang Kai with its ethereal claws, tore apart his robes, and opened a series of long wounds on his chest, which caused his blood to spurt out.
“Brother Yang!” The group behind him called out in panic. Their faces filled with horror.
“Hmph, courting death!” The old man coldly snorted, his expression quite ugly; he had hoped to coerce Yang Kai into helping him, but had apparently underestimated this young man’s stubbornness, which caused his well laid out plot to backfire and lose all meaning.
Against such a potent targeted Soul Skill, a speciality of Soul Type Evil Spirits, even an Immortal Ascension Boundary master would have his consciousness destroyed.
Yang Kai was only a True Element Boundary Fifth Stage youth, how could he survive?
[He got what he deserves!] The old man sneered to himself, not feeling the slightest bit of compassion, only a slight regret.
Since Yang Kai was dead, his own situation had become a bit more troublesome.
“Ha!” Yang Kai suddenly roared, and his falling body stabilized mid-air, as he hurriedly dodged the Soul Type Evil Spirits next attack.
A cool sensation flooded his head, and although the pain was excruciating, the Soul Warming Lotus had once again saved him.
“Impossible!” The old man cried out, as an Immortal Ascension master, he was well aware of how powerful the focused Soul Skill Yang Kai had taken was just now. Even if it was him, he wouldn’t have dared take such an attack head on, so how could the youth before him have accomplished such a feat?
Everyone from Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect also couldn’t help but breath a sigh of relief. All of them were surprised to see Yang Kai survive, and they thought he must have some kind of high-end Soul defence artifact.
However, they also realized that even if Yang Kai had such an artifact, it was certainly only able to protect himself, or else he would have taken it out earlier.
“Bind it again!” Yang Kai yelled to his comrades behind him as he re-engaged the Soul Type Evil Spirit.
“Right!” Leng Shan and the Hu Sisters arrived at Zhao Rong’s side, picked up the Five Dragon Entangling Seal, and together, filled it with their True Qi.
With these three supplying it their True Qi, the Five Dragon Entangling Seal’s strength rose dramatically, after all, Leng Shan’s strength wasn’t low and the Hu Sisters together were even stronger, incomparable so to the three Treasure Instrument Sect disciples.
As the five dragons re-appeared, thick white beams of light shot from their mouths towards the Soul Type Evil Spirit.
In the next instant, the Soul Type Evil Spirit was once again bound in place!
Knowing that the Five Dragon Entangling Seal wouldn’t be able to hold it for a long time, Yang Kai went all out.
Forming a set of hand seals, Yang Kai activated his White Tiger Seal and Divine Ox Seal and summoned two crimson red beast phantoms composed completely of True Yang Yuan Qi which swiftly attacked.
One hand slashed out with his Yang Liquid sword while the other sent out a Burning Sun’s Three Layer Blast. Yang Kai threw everything he had at the Soul Type Evil Spirit.
It was a ferocious offensive, which completely disregarded his own defence!
Watching this scene, everyone sucked in a cold breath!
This way of fighting, it was simply overwhelming and gave those watching a soul stirring feeling. The Soul Type Evil Spirit’s body once more rapidly dimmed, but even as it faded it continued to use various Soul Skills and viciously attacked Yang Kai’s Knowledge Sea over and over again.
Why were True Element Boundary cultivators always helpless before Soul Type Evil Spirits? Because they had no way to defend themselves against Soul Skills!
Even ordinary Immortal Ascension Boundary masters would do their best to avoid such attacks, so Soul Type Evil Spirits inside the Evil Cavern had always been a very troublesome existence.
On top of that, even if one could ignore its Soul Skill attacks, Soul Type Evil Spirits were also significantly more powerful than average Evil Spirits of the same colour.
With the piercing pain in his head getting more and more intense, veins and cold sweat began to appear on Yang Kai’s forehead, but despite all this his onslaught never slowed, as he continued to bombard the Soul Type Evil Spirit with every attack in his arsenal.
As the old man watched this spectacle, a stunned light flashed across his eyes.
Never in his wildest dreams had he expected Yang Kai to possess such outrageous strength. This True Element Boundary Fifth Stage youth’s combat effectiveness had far exceeded anything he had ever heard of.
If this continued, he really could kill that Soul Type Evil Spirit, and… the time it would take would definitely be less than if he had taken action himself!
Thinking so, the old man quietly shifted more and more of his attention to this battle.
Sure enough, after the time it would take to drink half a cup of tea, the Soul Type Evil Spirit let out a final anguished howl before its purple radiance dissipated completely.
Seeing Yang Kai’s overwhelming abilities, everyone from Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect involuntarily cheered. The Hu Sisters also covered their mouths, and their beautiful eyes teared up in joy.
When the Soul Type Evil Spirit faded from existence, it left behind a large lump of sparkling pure white Evil Spirit Essence which even to the naked eye obviously contained a massive amount of energy.
The crowd hadn’t even finished celebrating Yang Kai’s triumph before this lump of essence caught their eyes, and all of them exclaimed, “A Special Evil Spirit Essence!”
The old man across the way also had his eyes light up, and a greedy look was apparent on his face.
Special Essences were many times more valuable than ordinary Evil Spirit Essences, after all, who knew what kind of wondrous treasures were hidden inside? However, when the old man probed this particular group of essence, he clearly felt his Divine Sense being attracted to it, like a cat smelling a fish. This was a kind of instinctual desire!
At that instant, the old man understood that this Special Evil Spirit Essence contained something which could increase the strength of one’s Soul and their total amount of Spiritual Energy.
This made sense as it was left behind by a Soul Type Evil Spirit which specialized in Soul Skills.
Knowing this, the old man’s greed increased greatly!
If it was an ordinary Evil Spirit Essence, or even another kind of Special Evil Spirit Essence, the old man wouldn’t be so tempted, but treasures which could increase one’s Spiritual Energy were simply too rare and were worth him fighting for.
Not hesitating at all, the old man shouted towards Yu Qing, “Protect yourselves!”
The next instant, he shot out like a meteor towards Yang Kai.
“This shameless old dog!” Chen Yi raged.
“Yang Kai, watch out!” Everyone shouted.
Yang Kai was still dazed, although with the help of the Soul Warming Lotus he had somehow withstood the torrent of attacks on his Soul, he had still suffered a great deal of damage, so after killing the Soul Type Evil Spirit, he hadn’t even checked its essence to see what it had left behind and instead quickly withdrew a drop of Myriad Drug Liquid from the Black Book space and swallowing it.
But upon hearing these shouts, Yang Kai instinctively pushed his True Qi, stretched out his hand towards the Evil Spirit Essence before him, and circulated his Secret Art to absorb it directly into his palm.
“Courts death!” The old man no longer had any scruples, and since he had already completely torn face with Yang Kai, he didn’t need to bother being polite any more. Grimacing fiercely, he sent out a full powered strike towards Yang Kai.
The enraged strike of an Immortal Ascension Boundary Fifth level definitely wasn’t something Yang Kai could withstand unharmed, even if he could reluctantly resist it.
In the limited time he had, the best he could do was to extract a drop of Yang Liquid from his dantian and shape it into a shield.
*Peng…*
With a loud crash, Yang Kai’s shield was shattered, and he was subsequently sent flying by the old man’s strike, which hurled him into the sea of Evil Qi below, and he disappeared instantly!
Seeing this, the old man hovered mid-air, grumbled under his breath for a moment before letting out a sigh, and turned around to head back to his former position.
He was obviously upset that he failed to snatch that Special Evil Spirit Essence from Yang Kai.
“Yang Kai!” Hu Mei Er cried out in despair and instantly became pale, like she had lost her soul, as she leapt without any hesitation off the platform towards the place where Yang Kai had fallen.
But after taking only a few steps, she felt someone grab hold of her.
Looking back, Mei Er saw her elder sister shaking her head in panic.
“Let me go…” Hu Mei Er entreated Jiao Er with a whimper.
But Hu Jiao Er still just shook her head, and her eyes gradually becoming red.
Ever since they began cultivating the Twin Qi Shared Spirit Divine Art, the two sisters had gradually started to share their thoughts and emotions, so how could Hu Jiao Er not feel the intense sorrow and confusion in her sister’s heart at this moment?
Even Hu Jiao Er was also grief stricken, but even so, she wouldn’t allow these rampant emotions to cloud her judgement and let her little sister jump into the jaws of death.
Atop their pillar, whether it was the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples, all of them stood silently and were unable to process their shock.
None of them had thought that this old man would not give any consideration to his face and act so shamelessly.
A moment later, Leng Shan suddenly shouted, “We fight!”
Spitting out these words, she quickly formed a set of seals. Her cold eyes were now filled with unparalleled anger and madness, and she did not hesitate to activate her Ghost King Seal.
With a ghastly howl, she launched a fierce assault towards the other platform.
With her strike as the trigger, all of the Ghost King Valley disciples also used their strongest Martial Skills while the four from Treasure Instrument Sect hurriedly took out their artifacts and sent a flurry of attacks at the old man and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
Doing their best not to damage the True Yang Yuan Qi defensive shield Yang Kai had left for them, their group ruthlessly vented their rage.
On the opposite side, as they received this barrage from the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect groups, the old man’s group fell into an even more precarious situation.
Yu Qing’s look distorted greatly, and he shouted out in anger, “Leng Shan! Do you even want to attack my Free And Unfettered Sect people? Free And Unfettered Sect and Ghost King Valley have always been friendly neighbors and besides, we had nothing to do the attack on that little brat! Why must you act so indiscriminately!?”
However, Leng Shan’s cold piercing gaze remained indifferent. She sneered as she ignored Yu Qing’s overtures and instead pushed her True Qi even more.
“Impudent Juniors!” The old man raged, immediately discovering that he had underestimated this group of young people. In their anger, they held nothing back, which caused their attacks to become powerful and sharp. If it were just one or two he wouldn’t care, but with so many of them acting together coupled with the continued attacks from the Evil Spirits around him, the old man suddenly found himself being pushed to his limit.
In particular, a few of the artifacts that their side used were extremely powerful, which made even him pale slightly.
“If you brats don’t stop messing around, this old master won’t hold back any longer and directly crush your light shield!” The old man roared, if he wasn’t in such a precarious situation, instead of trying to negotiate he would have just directly taken action.
In his heart he secretly held regret. Although he was upset at not being able to grab that Special Evil Spirit Essence, he shouldn’t have gone so far as to kill that little brat. Even a rabbit would bite if cornered, much less this group of youths.
“Wait wait, stop!” Tao Yang suddenly shouted, as his his vision fixed on a spot down below them. Then he cried out in surprise, “Brother Yang didn’t die!”
Hearing this shout, everyone froze, and their True Qi suddenly stagnated as they all gazed in the direction Tao Yang was looking, and indeed amongst the torrent of Evil Qi they saw a vague figure exuding a flickering black light.
Yang Kai! Not only did he not die, but he was also leisurely standing there inside the Evil Spirit Spring.
Suddenly, all the scattered Evil Spirit Essences in his surroundings were drawn towards him and soon disappeared into his body.
“Brother Yang …” Tao Yang shouted half excitedly half worriedly.
“Hah… haha…” Amongst the turbulent flow of Evil Qi, Yang Kai suddenly began to laugh. His voice somewhat ominous and sent shivers down the spines of those who heard it.
Gradually, this laughter became bigger and bigger and grew louder and louder.
“Brother Yang … what happened?” Tao Yang expression sank slightly as he stared below nervously.
Quickly, from within Yang Kai’s body emerged a pitch black energy; even inside the Evil Spirit Spring, this blackness was quite conspicuous, like a void in the universe had opened up and instantly devoured all light within its range to plunging the world into darkness.
After waking from their shock, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples realized that the only light within this abyssal darkness was a pair of scarlet eyes which exuded an overwhelming madness.
“Devil’s Practices!” The old man shouted, thinking that Yang Kai had swallowed up too many Evil Spirit Essences and failed to refine them before they corrupted his mind and plunged him into the Devil’s Practices.
Given the circumstances, the old man’s thoughts were reasonable. With such a massive influx of Evil Qi into one’s body, even if it were him he wouldn’t be able to withstand it, so although he knew Yang Kai cultivated a potent Yang attribute True Qi which could suppress these Evil Spirits, it was difficult to imagine him being spared.
Hearing the old man’s shout, the relief Yang Kai’s comrades had felt suddenly gave way to anxiety again.
Only Leng Shan’s eyes flashed brilliantly, as she stared towards Yang Kai suspiciously with serious doubts floating about her thoughts.
Of everyone here, only she knew that in addition to his True Yang Yuan Qi, Yang Kai could also use a different, extremely overbearing Evil Qi.
When she and Zi Mo had traveled together with him in that Isolated world, she too had thought Yang Kai had succumb to the Devil’s Practices, but in the end it turned out that the whole time he remained completely unaffected. The only difference now was this darkness was much more profound than last time.
[Has he really fallen into the Devil’s Practices?] Leng Shan asked herself, somewhat unsure of herself.
“Mei Er, go back, I’m fine!” Yang Kai’s voice came from below, his tone as frigid and ice but still quite calm.
Hearing his voice, Leng Shan couldn’t help but smile happily, now knowing that Yang Kai was really alright.
Hu Mei Er was stunned, but under Hu Jiao Er’s urgings the two sisters fell back to the centre of the light curtain. Nonetheless, both of them still gazed below, unable to hide their surprise.
As they stood atop the high pillars, staring down below, everyone noticed that the Evil Qi erupting from the Evil Spirit Spring had already risen to a very high point.
This Evil Qi wasn’t actually a liquid or gas, but instead only had the appearance of pitch black water, almost akin to sludge with an aura of malice and danger radiating from it.
The Evil Spirits relished below as they continued to swim through the Evil Qi and greedily absorbed this energy to enhance their strength, but if a cultivator were to fall into it, they would certainly suffer horrific torment followed closely by a gruesome death.
But now, Yang Kai, who was wrapped in an even more profound layer of darkness, was not only un affected by this Evil Qi at all, but he had essentially become a fish swimming through water.
Wherever he went, all the scattered Evil Spirit Essences in his immediate surroundings were sucked into his body.
Occasional he would encounter an Evil Spirit, but it was as if these demonic creatures were blind to his presence, and they totally ignored him as if he was part of the ambient Evil Qi.
Everyone watched with their mouths agape and were completely dumbstruck!
The same was true even of the old man atop the opposite plateau, and his mouth twitching because he was unable to believe what he was witnessing.
This little brat was in a very strange state right now. The aura he released was completely different from the one he had previously displayed, and instead of a radiant burning light, he seemed akin to a lump of cold malicious darkness now, like a crazed murderous great devil lord, who struck fear into the hearts of all who gazed upon him.
What was even more shocking to the old man though was how many Evil Spirit Essences Yang Kai was harvesting. Down below, the Evil Spirits continued fighting one another, so the number of scattered unclaimed Evil Spirit Essences was enormous, and in just a few breaths worth of time, that little brat had inhaled some ten odd lumps of essence, which provoked a maddening amount of jealousy from all who saw this scene.
What’s more, he inhaled all of these Evil Spirit Essences directly, as if he didn’t need to worry at all about the inherent dangers hidden within them.
“Ha ha ha ha ha…” Yang Kai kept laughing merrily, as if he was taking a leisurely stroll through this Evil Spirit Spring while casually eating a snack.
Contained within his laughter was madness, surprise, but most of all excitement.
Both his body and mind were stimulated to an abnormal level, and even his blood felt like it was boiling, as if he was embracing a supreme beauty stripped naked, his hands wandering up and down her exquisite body as he tasted her wondrous flavour.
His Unyielding Golden Skeleton also seemed to be trembling with joy, as it relished in the taste of the many Evil Spirit Essences he had just swallowed while simultaneously gulping down the surrounding Evil Qi which gushed from the Evil Spirit Spring at an astounding pace. This Evil Qi seemed to very much suit the Golden Skeleton’s taste.
Yang Kai’s body had become akin to a huge whirlpool, drawing in all the energy around him.
However, this didn’t give Yang Kai the slightest uncomfortable feeling, and instead brought him a deep sense of happiness and satisfaction.
He had no idea why his Golden Skeleton enjoyed this Evil Qi so much, but for the moment, he didn’t bother trying to figure it out and instead just focused on absorbing as much as he could.
After inhaling this Evil Qi and numerous Evil Spirit Essences, Yang Kai suddenly had a feeling of saturation.
It was not that his Golden Skeleton had been sated. The Golden Skeleton was a bottomless pit, so no matter how much energy it absorbed it would never reach saturation. Rather, he had reached his current realm’s limit.
If he didn’t break through again, even if the Golden Skeleton absorbed more energy, it would only become a burden to Yang Kai instead of a boon.
Aware of this, Yang Kai couldn’t help but feel some helplessness.
During this brief crazy period of absorption, not only had Yang Kai greatly added to his Golden Skeleton’s reserves, he had also stored nearly a hundred Evil Spirit Essences in his dantian. Right now, Yang Kai didn’t have time to refine all of these essences, so he could only temporarily store them as such.
Likewise, this was the limit of what he could currently store.
In particular, the essence left behind by the Soul Type Evil Spirit was of special concern to Yang Kai as he could clearly feel that it had some distinctive differences compared to the others.
Since he needed to spend some time refining these essences in order to make space to gather more, he could also take this opportunity to break through his current realm.
Thinking so, Yang Kai’s dampened mood quickly lifted.
Turning around, he saw his comrades worried looks from atop the high pillar. Especially the Hu Sisters, both of them had undisguisable concern filling their beautiful eyes.
Suddenly feeling his heart warm, Yang Kai quickly made his way to the base of the pillar and waved to them as he shouted out, “Give me all the Purifying Spirit Bottles you have on you.”
“Haha…” Chen Yi’s eyes flashed delighted light as he grinned, “I always knew Brother Yang was a great man!”
Smiling happily, all of them hurriedly took out their Purifying Spirit Bottles and tossed them down to Yang Kai.
Between them they only had five Purifying Spirit Bottles, three of them were brought by the Treasure Instrument Sect group while two belonged to the Ghost King Valley disciples. The Hu Sisters who had simply escaped here obviously and didn’t have any Purifying Spirit Bottles.
Although there was only five bottles, each one could hold up to twenty Evil Spirit Essences; that meant he could collect a hundred in total!
Such a large number was enough to tempt anyone.
Receiving these bottles, Yang Kai continued to swim through the Evil Spirit Spring, wantonly collecting the essences dropped by these Evil Spirits and soon filled up one bottle before taking out the next.
Only moments later, all five Purifying Spirit Bottles had been filled.
On the other pillar, the old man and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples all watched this scene with greedy eyes.
Even though they had been constantly killing these Evil Spirits, they had never had time to collect their essences. Now seeing Yang Kai wander through this thick Evil Qi casually harvesting over a hundred Evil Spirit Essences, how could they not feel extremely jealous?
Between their two situations, how could they not be envious?
The old man now regretted so much his intestines went green, and a cramped expression was plastered all over his face, while his heart twisted in discomfort.
If he had only known that this little brat had so many strange and powerful methods, how could he have continuously provoked him over such minor issues? But now, after having witnessed all these profound abilities being displayed one after another, even if he regretted, it was useless.
That last sneak attack he had launched had completely ruined any hope he had of cooperating with Yang Kai.
Even if he couldn’t get Yang Kai to help put up that magical light defensive curtain, simply letting him help them collect a few bottles of Evil Spirit Essence would have been a huge harvest! Right now, it was obvious that, for Yang Kai, collecting essences was as simple as picking melons!
[Fuck! Such dog shit luck! Ruining such a good opportunity!]
At that moment, the old man ground his teeth in frustration and his guts ached as his stomach churned. His breath became slightly rapid as he felt extremely unwell.
After finishing his melon picking, instead of hurrying back, Yang Kai took the five filled bottles and tossed them back up to his group and then turned around, hovering slightly above the sea of Evil Qi as he glared maliciously towards the old man.
The old man felt his heart jump when his eyes met Yang Kai’s.
He saw Yang Kai’s lips curl into a grin as he stared at him with his scarlet eyes filled with cold murderous light as he slowly flew towards where he stood.
Everyone atop the old man’s pillar readied themselves to counterattack as their nerves began to fray. They were already overwhelmed just handling the Evil Spirits around them, so if Yang Kai were to take the chance to add insult to injury now, it would all be over.
This was really a case of when it rains, it pours.
Yu Qing was also secretly blaming the old man’s recklessness, doing his best to smile towards Yang Kai as he called out, “Fellow brother, we Free And Unfettered Sect bare you no grudge against you, please think twice before acting hastily!”
Seeing Yu Qing lower his head like a beat dog, all the Ghost King Valley disciples couldn’t help but secretly grin, thinking Yang Kai didn’t look like an evil demon right now, but instead like a dark domineering hero.
Without needing to say anything, without taking any action, simply by standing there he could make his enemies dread and fear him.
“Brother Yang is a real man!” Chen Yi voiced his thoughts with a bit of worship apparent on his face.
Leng Shan just snorted as she rolled her eyes, though if one looked closer they would notice a slight blush upon her face.
“This friend, I have something to say.” Yu Qing seeing Yang Kai remain silent, he became more and more nervous about what his aims were and was only able to dryly laugh as he continued his overtures.
Next to him, the old man’s face had turned sour. Listening in silence as he let Yu Qing whimper, hoping to use his cheap mouth to probe Yang Kai’s intentions.
“I want something!” While Yu Qing nervously laughed, Yang Kai finally spoke.
Yu Qing heart clenched, quickly replying, “What is it that this friends wants? Please say, as long as we Free And Unfettered Sect brothers can we will certainly offer it to this friend!”
“I want all your Purifying Spirit Bottles!” Yang Kai said flatly, grinning maliciously as the profound darkness swirled around him.
“Good, by all means, please!” Yu Qing didn’t hesitate, quickly taking out all of their Purifying Spirit Bottles and tossing them over.
Yang Kai knew these Free And Unfettered Sect disciples had two Purifying Spirit Bottles, and inside these two bottles there were already several Evil Spirit Essences.
Casually putting these bottles away, Yang Kai shifted his gaze towards the old man and sneered as he slowly narrowed his eyes. Then he snickered, “Do I need to repeat myself?”
The old man coldly snorted, and his expression was extremely unpleasant.
He was an Immortal Ascension Boundary Fifth Stage master! Although he knew that Yang Kai possessed many amazing methods and had strength far beyond what his realm suggested, it was still not enough for him to fear him, but under these circumstances while still needing to protect his four juniors, without being certain he could kill Yang Kai in short order, the old man didn’t dare to act rashly again.
Yang Kai so blatantly ‘asking’ for something from him in front of his juniors, the old man obviously felt like he had lost a great amount of face.
Glaring back and forth at each other, the old man finally decided that he didn’t want to stir up Yang Kai any more, so snorting as he did his best to hold back his anger, “Give them to him!”
“But…” One of the old man’s juniors hesitantly objected, obviously unwilling to hand over their bottles so easily.
“I said give them to him!” The old man coldly ordered.
“Yes!” The young man glared at Yang Kai bitterly, then gritted his teeth as he took out two Purifying Spirit bottles and tossed them to Yang Kai.
Yang Kai caught these two bottles and stored them away, while always maintaining his aloof indifference.
“I’ll remember you, watch yourself from now on!” The young man threatened, as he stood beside the old man and sneered towards Yang Kai.
Yang Kai’s expression became even colder. His scarlet eyes flashed a murderous intent.
But before he could take action, the old man actually gave a slap to this young man’s face.
*Pa….*
With a crisp bang, the young man was thrown several meters away and flipped through the air a few times before crashing onto the ground. His cheek swelled up greatly.
“Will you die if you stop talking?” The old man glared at him coldly.
[Fuck!, this old master didn’t want to stir up this strange little brat, but now you can’t even hold back your damn grumblings. If he really decided to go all out right now, none of you damn brats would see tomorrow’s sun!]
The young man who had his face slapped was dumbstruck, and his eyes were full of humiliation and anger. Never having thought that his own teacher would strike him across the face to support some unknown junior. His face changed from red to green, but he didn’t dare to say anything and swallowed down the blood and rage in his mouth.
“Is little friend satisfied now?” The old man glazed coldly towards Yang Kai.
“Ha ha ha ha!” Yang Kai laughed wildly and unscrupulously and nodded firmly, “Satisfied!”
“Then please draw back!” The old man quickly said. Yang Kai standing next to their platform always gave the old man a feeling of having a blade hanging over his head, which forced him to divert a portion of his attention in case Yang Kai all of a sudden decided to attack, which made it even more difficult for him to handle the surrounding Evil Spirits.
“There’s no rush!” Yang Kai slowly shook his head, his demeanor extremely relaxed.
The old man’s expression sank, and he did his best to hold in his anger.
Yang Kai then brought out one of his newly acquired Purifying Spirit Bottles and began slowly absorbing the Evil Spirit Essence floating above their platform.
These essences were precisely the ones that had condensed from the Evil Spirits the old man’s group and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples had killed. The fruits of their life and death labour, but because they had no spare time to absorb them they had simply been left floating there.
Watching Yang Kai strut around in front of them while casually collecting Evil Spirit Essences made Yu Qing smile as hard as he could, occasionally opening his mouth, but eventually not saying anything.
The old man’s face was also quite ugly, and he was also doing his best to resist his urge to spit blood.
After what seemed like a long time, Yang Kai glanced around at the remaining Evil Spirit Essences floating near the plateau and nodded as he smiled happily, “Keep it up, I’ll be back soon!”
Hearing these words almost made everyone die from rage.
Although his four newly acquired Purifying Spirit Bottles weren’t full yet, Yang Kai decided to first return to his group’s side before continuing his collection.
Landing amongst his comrades, Yang Kai offhandedly threw the four Purifying Spirit Bottles to the Hu Sisters, “Take however much you want.”
“En.” Both Hu Sisters smiled sweetly, like they were staring at their sweetheart.
Although all four of these Purifying Spirit Bottles were given to Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er, none of the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples complained.
Both of their groups had already harvested two full bottles of Evil Spirit Essence.
The debt Yang Kai owed Ghost King Valley had been paid back ten times over with some extra as gifts.
As for Tao Yang and the other Treasure Instrument Sect disciples, their four Brothers and Sisters had only come here because their Master wanted to try using Evil Spirit Essence to refine an artifact.
Their original plan was to kill a few red Evil Spirits and then leave having completed their task, but now they had forty purple Evil Spirit Essences, a huge harvest. Thus, how could they have any complaints?
What’s more, they had all seen how Hu Mei Er did not hesitate to jump into the Evil Spirit Spring to find Yang Kai, so it was obvious that the relationship between these two sisters and Yang Kai wasn’t simple. At the very least, they weren’t recently acquainted strangers.
If so, it was no wonder that Yang Kai had been able to convince them to join their group so easily, even though they had a prior enmity.
Thinking till here, all of them glanced back and forth between Yang Kai and the Hu Sisters, and an ambiguous and snide look appeared on their faces.
“Sure enough, he’s really just a no good playboy!” Leng Shan secretly gnashed her teeth as a strange bitterness rose in her heart.
Originally, in that isolated world, this little bastard gained so many cheap advantages from both her and Zi Mo. Had it not been for an enemy showing up at the last moment, he and Zi Mo would have already…
At that time, if Zi Mo had really been eaten by him, Leng Shan was certain she wouldn’t have escaped his grasp either.
She had never thought that this trip to the Evil Cavern would reunite them, and that they would then run into a pair of country destroying beauties, twins at that, who also happened to be his sweethearts!
Just how many women did he have? For them to run into them in this random forsaken place, what kind of probability was that?
As these thoughts rampaged about her head, Leng Shan became more and more confused and secretly decided to do her absolute best to avoid entangling herself with Yang Kai in the future. Although she truly felt he was a good person, her intuition was constantly warning her not to get involved with him.
She felt, if she kept walking near him, she’d one day find herself lacking her purity without even knowing how it happened.
Even she had dreams of wanting to marry into a good family. Feeling a sense of kinship with the Hu Sisters, she wanted to say something to them and thus opened her mouth to speak.
But after a moment, no words came to mind, and instead she just flapped her lips before sighing and turning away.
Atop the pillar, Yang Kai sat cross-legged on the ground and withdrew the evil energy back into the Unyielding Golden Skeleton while allowing the True Yang Yuan Qi in his dantian to re-fill his meridians.
The Evil Qi that erupted out of the Evil Spirit Spring could be swallowed directly into the Unyielding Golden Skeleton, but the Evil Spirit Essences first had to be refined with his True Yang Yuan Qi before he could truly absorb them.
Carefully inspecting the essences stored in his dantian, Yang Kai found that there were exactly one hundred, and one of which was distinctly different from the others.
It was the essence left behind after the Soul Type Evil Spirit’s death.
After considering for a moment, Yang Kai decided to refine this unique essence last.
The best things should always be enjoyed at the end of one’s meal.
Extracting the other essences from his dantian into his meridians, Yang Kai began using his True Qi to refine them all while meditating over his own Martial Dao.
As he cultivated, Yang Kai felt his understanding of the world’s principles being shackled by some ethereal force, but he remained unconcerned. This was, after all, a normal occurrence when a cultivator attempted to make a breakthrough.
After breaking free of these shackles and surmounting this layer of resistance, a cultivator’s strength would increase once more, and if they failed to do so, their cultivation could only halt where it was. The higher one’s strength became, the more intense this resistance would be.
This was one of the reasons why the growth of a cultivator slowed as their realm rose.
Sometimes a cultivator would sink into a meditative state all year round precisely because the limitations of their aptitude prevented them from reaching a higher realm.
This bondage was especially noticeable when one reached Peak Immortal Ascension Boundary.
It was because of this, that in this world very few cultivators could make the breakthrough to the Above Immortal Ascension Boundary, so anyone who made the breakthrough to Above Immortal Ascension Boundary was considered an overlord! At the very least, they would be the head of a first-class force.
There was only one obvious exception, Ling Tai Xu, after all, High Heaven Pavilion was only a second-class Sect, although now it had been disbanded.
As Yang Kai meditated, he used his Soul and Spiritual Essence to constantly impact this layer of shackles.
Time passed by slowly.
After who knows how long, the restraints holding Yang Kai back suddenly ruptured, and his whole body immediately emitted rays of light, and like a caged beast that had suddenly broke free, his mind, body, and soul all experienced an indescribable sense of freedom.
It seemed like this world’s rules could no longer stop his ascent to the peak of martial arts.
An intangible aura, with Yang Kai as its center, exploded outwards and sent out waves of visible ripples above the pillar.
Those around him who were still laughing and smiling about their amazing good fortune were shocked by this unexpected movement and quickly turned to look towards Yang Kai.
When they realized that these vibrations had come about because Yang Kai was making a breakthrough, all of them are exposed strange expressions.
Daring to break through in this dangerous environment, Yang Kai really had guts!
True Element Boundary, Sixth Stage!
Even though he had successfully broken through, Yang Kai didn’t immediately get up. He still circulated his Secret Art as he continued to refine the remaining Evil Spirit Essences and absorb them into the Unyielding Golden Skeleton.
Since Yang Kai had just make a breakthrough, the Unyielding Skeleton no longer felt saturated, which resulted in a whirlpool like suction that quickly inhaled the purified Evil Spirit Essences.
Although he had only broken through a moment ago, but because of this devouring of pure energy, his realm was quickly consolidated.
However, within his dantian, there was still a single Evil Spirit Essence left.
It was the Special Essence he had obtained from killing the Soul Type Evil Spirit.
Yang Kai grinned and unconsciously became excited as he stared at this Special Essence, and he was anxious to see what kind of benefits it would bring him.
As he drew this essence into his meridians, Yang Kai instantly used his True Qi to smelt it.
Slowly removing the impurities, the essence became more and more sublime.
This lump of energy lived up to its name as a Special Evil Spirit Essence; Yang Kai actually spent a whole hour purifying it.
After finally refining this Special Essence, it began to circulate throughout Yang Kai’s meridians and brought a strange euphoric feeling with it wherever it went, which once again clearly distinguished it from other ordinary Evil Spirit Essences.
Then, suddenly, this mass of pure energy quickly flowed through his meridians straight to his head, and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The next moment, Yang Kai noticed that his Spiritual Energy had grown significantly.
This Evil Spirit Essence could actually increase his total amount of Spiritual Energy!
Not only that, but as he continued to observe the changes in his body he noticed he had also gained something more.
Yang Kai’s eyes shot open as lightning seemingly flashed across them and then sparkled as he stared off into the distance, like he was lost in thought, and then his mouth slowly curled in a strange grin.
As he slowly got up, Yang Kai turned his gaze towards the old man atop the other pillars.
“Brother Yang, are you okay?” Chen Yi hurriedly asked.
“En, I couldn’t be any better.” Yang Kai nodded firmly, while still staring towards the old man with a dangerous light that slowly crept into his gaze.
Seemingly detecting Yang Kai’s hostile gaze, the old man couldn’t help but turn around to meet eyes, and he wrinkled his brow after a moment.
He found that this strange youth had somehow undergone some kind of subtle change. Compared to just before, he now seemed to be more confident, more arrogant, and more domineering.
[Only having promoted a single Minor Realm and now wanting to hit back against this old master?] The old man sneered to himself and really wondered what gave this brat the confidence to act so presumptuously before him.
Yang Kai really was thinking about dealing with this old man.
This old dog, in order to snatch that Special Evil Spirit Essence, had struck to kill Yang Kai a moment ago. If it weren’t for Yang Kai’s physique being far more tenacious than an average True Element cultivator, and the True Qi within his body being exceptionally pure, which allowed him to condense a Yang Liquid Shield at that last moment, he really would have ended up dead.
Although he had already extracted a bit of interest right now, the original debt had still yet to be paid, and fully collecting on what he was owed had always been Yang Kai’s philosophy. Enduring such a slight was simply not in his nature.
But as his eyes flashed, Yang Kai gradually withdrew his hostility.
Right now, he still wasn’t completely confident he could kill this old man. After all, the other party’s realm was much higher than his own, so even with the new ability he had just acquired, he didn’t have a hundred percent grasp of success.
[Seems that I still have to use strategy.]
“Brother Yang.” Tao Yang interrupted his train of thoughts, and his expression was dignified as he looked at Yang Kai, “All of us just discussed a moment ago; we think staying here long-term isn’t a solution.”
“En.” Yang Kai thought so too. Before they couldn’t escape because all the nearby Evil Spirits had come flooding towards here, which forced them into a situation where they could only seek refuge atop these giant stone pillars, but now that all of the surrounding Evil Spirits had gathered here, no doubt it would be safer outside rather than continuing to wait here, “What do you want to do?”
“All of us want to leave here,” said Chen Yi, his brow quickly furrowing, “But once we leave this plateau, all of the surrounding Evil Spirits will likely attack us, making it very dangerous to move about.”
“Then what do you propose?” Yang Kai had undoubtedly become the core of this group, so it was natural for them to place their hopes upon him.
“Brother Yang, can you fly while still maintaining such a large defensive shield?” Chen Yi asked somewhat embarrassedly. Wanting Yang Kai to shelter all the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples along with the Hu Sisters was a rather excessive request.
On top of that, they didn’t even know if Yang Kai had enough True Qi to accomplish such a feat right now.
“I’ve never tried something like that, but I should be able to manage it.” Yang Kai thought for a moment before replying, thinking that maintaining such a wide area shield would cost him a lot of True Qi, but he calculated that he should still have enough Yang Liquid in his dantian to accomplish it.
“If so, then we’d like to take a chance,” Chen Yi nodded.
*Dong dong…*
Just as their group was deliberating their escape plans, suddenly, from nearby, a series of deep powerful thumps, like the beating of a huge heart, rang out.
Everyone suddenly wore the same expression and turned their gaze towards the direction from where the sound originated.
After waiting for a moment, the pounding sound came again.
This time, everyone had clearly seen where the sound had come from The epicentre of the Evil Spirit Spring, the place where all of this turbulent Evil Qi had erupted from.
*Pu pu pu…*
The thick turbulent Evil Qi below them suddenly seemed like it was boiling. One giant bubble after another emerged from its surface, only to burst a moment later and release large amounts of Evil Qi into the air.
As these bubbles began bursting, the entire sea of Evil Qi actually surged and roiled more violently than ever before.
At that moment, the thick black Evil Qi began to rise at an incredible rate, like it was exploding.
Watching this, everyone couldn’t help but turn pale.
After three short breaths, this raging sea of Evil Qi had already started to approach the top of the pillars where they stood and showed no sign of slowing.
“Bad!” Tao Yang shouted, his expression completely aghast.
Everyone quickly retreated towards the centre of the plateau, fearing they might accidentally be contaminated by this potent Evil Qi.
With the Evil Spirit Spring suddenly becoming so unstable, even if they wanted to go now it was likely too late, and all of them nearly fell into a panic, having no idea what to do now.
Even the old man was also frightened by this sight; although he knew about the existence of the Evil Spirit Spring, this was still the first time he had encountered it, so, now that the situation had exceeded his knowledge, he was also at a loss about what he should do.
Seeing that the Evil Qi would sooner or later engulf them, the old man knew that staying put and waiting this crisis out was no longer an option, roaring angrily as he cursed his rotten luck, he quickly glanced around at his juniors and the remaining Free and Unfettered Sect disciples and loudly shouted, “If you don’t want to die, follow me!”
Done talking, the old man unleashed a vicious palm strike, forced open a gap in the surrounding Evil Spirit’s, quickly wrapped his True Qi around his four juniors, and then shot off the pillar towards Yang Kai’s direction.
The few Free And Unfettered Sect males also hurried to keep up, using all kinds of Martial Skills and artifacts to protect themselves and temporarily safeguard their lives.
Yang Kai remained indifferent. Narrowing his eyes as he watched the old man rapidly approach them, his eyes flashed a ruthless light.
The purpose of the old man flying in their direction was self-evident.
A moment later, this entire space would be flooded by the Evil Spirit Spring’s Evil Qi, by that time, the high pillar where Yang Kai and his group were located would be the only safe haven.
With the Light Curtain formed from twenty overlapping layers of True Yang Yuan Qi, it would hopefully be enough to resist the Evil Qi’s corrosion.
In this life or death crisis, the old man took decisive action.
Flying right up beside them, the old man did not immediately take action and instead called out to Yang Kai and plead, “Little friend, although there are many unpleasant matters between this old master and yourself, but at this time, the old master still must ask you if you can open a few spaces for us?”
Yang Kai just gazed at him cynically, lightly quipping, “Old man, don’t you see that our side is full?”
The old man’s expression immediately sank, as he hurriedly said, “That’s why this old master is asking you to open up a few seats! With the Evil Spirit Spring acting up like this, no one here knows what will happen next. If you have this old master, an Immortal Ascension Master’s help, you’ll have a higher chance of survival, right? The strength of the different members of your group varies greatly, you should simply kick out a few of the weaker ones! In this life or death crisis, one should know who they can use and who they can discard!”
“Senior…” Yu Qing urgently cut in, clearly understanding what the old man’s meaning was. He had likely not planned to allow all of their Free And Unfettered Sect disciples to remain, which naturally sent him into a panic.
Of course, no one here was a fool, and all of them understood, as they quickly directed angry glares towards the old man. How could they not figure out that this old dog was intending to sacrifice some of them so he could live?
However, Yang Kai just sneered and lightly shook his head, “I’m fine with the way things are right now, so I’ll have to reject Senior’s gracious offer!”
“Arrogant Junior! You’ve brought this upon yourself!” The old man angrily shouted.
With the Evil Qi still rising higher and higher, he had no more time to waste.
“This old master by himself is insufficient! You Free And Unfettered Sect brats help this old master drive them out then we can all occupy this light shield! It’s our best chance to survive!” The old man commanded
“Good!” Yu Qing replied overjoyed, not hesitating in the slightest as he readily agreed.
Everyone gathered atop the platform’s expression became dignified. Even if this old man was a shameless bastard, he was still an Immortal Ascension Boundary Fifth Stage master, none of them knew if they, with their True Element Boundary cultivations, could repel him.
Only Yang Kai continued smiling lightly, as he stared back scornfully at the old man, seeming to ridicule him with his gaze.
*Boom … * A fire dragon phantom suddenly sprang up from the pillar, and flew towards the old man, which seemed to signal the start of their battle.
Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi curtain atop the high pillar had now become the only safe haven in this entire cavern, and obviously no one was willing to surrender it, so facing the old man’s rampant aggression, naturally no one held back their strength.
The next moment, a variety of Martial Skills and artifact strikes illuminated the dark cave.
The old man’s group didn’t back down either and stuck out fully as well.
But after only a single confrontation, everyone atop the platform frowned.
The old man, the sole Immortal Ascension Boundary master here, had single handedly intercepted all of their attacks.
Although this caused the old man no small amount of effort, he nevertheless had successfully blunted their full assault.
Meanwhile, the True Element cultivators behind him remained free to attack and quickly suppressed Yang Kai’s group.
Everyone atop the pillar couldn’t help paling; with an Immortal Ascension Boundary defending before them, even if they wanted to kill the weaker ones behind him they were unable to.
In a short time, the sea of Evil Qi had again risen a lot and would soon swallow up anyone outside the Light Curtain.
The old man’s four juniors and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples also went all out, pushing their True Qi to the limit as they relentlessly attacked.
As for the old man himself, he was like a hovering hawk, with his gaze firmly locked onto Yang Kai. His intuition told him that this unusual young man was still concealing his full strength and would certainly use his hidden methods soon.
If it were normal circumstances, he would proceed carefully, probing this kid’s depths once or twice lest he find himself suddenly taken by surprise, but in this moment of crisis, how could he still have the leisure to do so?
Condensing his True Qi while pushing his hand forward, the old man sent out a huge palm towards Yang Kai in an attempt to end things with this single strike.
Yang Kai coldly snorted and pointed his finger forward to condense a flaming red shield in front of himself.
*Boom…*
As the old man’s palm landed on the Yang Liquid shield, although the shield instantly fragmented, it still managed to block the blow.
Not waiting for the old man to recover, an invisible wave of energy burst out from Yang Kai’s mind. Silent and undetectable, it bypassed the old man’s blockade and arrived at the crowd of juniors behind him instantly.
The old man’s expression stiffened, in that moment, he had faintly perceived a foreign Divine Sense sweep past him.
Not understanding what had happened, he quickly turned back only to see a burst of purple light suddenly appear behind him.
This purple fan-shaped halo immediately engulfed the old man’s four disciples and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples.
Having been struck by this silent strike, these True Element Boundary juniors suddenly trembled, and their faces contorted in pain.
In the next breath, another burst of purple light emerged…
Followed by a third …
“AH!!” Yu Qing clutched his head and screamed in pain as he staggered. His True Qi’s circulation was thrown into disorder, which sent him plummeting from the air.
When Yu Qing’s body fell into the sea of Evil Qi, a burst of sizzling noises burst out as his body was quickly corroded. His flesh and blood festered as it melted, and soon only bleached bones were left behind.
In addition to Yu Qing, all of the other Free And Unfettered Sect disciples and the old man’s four juniors also shared similar fates. Some of them fell to their deaths while others were ripped apart by nearby Evil Spirits.
In the blink of an eye, the old man’s group had been reduced to him alone. A look of absolute shock was plastered all over his face.
*Deng deng deng deng…*
The old man backpedalled hurriedly and stared at Yang Kai in horror, “A Soul Skill!”
Yang Kai simply smiled back at the old man brightly.
“Impossible!” The old man’s face looked like he had seen some kind of unfathomable monster, and he was absolutely unable to believe what was happening even though it was right in front of his eyes.
This youth was no doubt a True Element Boundary Sixth Stage cultivator, yet just now he had definitely used a Soul Skill! Moreover, this Soul Skill was quite familiar to the old man; it was clearly the attack the Soul Type Evil Spirit had used just now, and the only difference between them was that scope of this youth’s attack was somewhat narrower.
“Correct, a Soul Skill!” Yang Kai stared at the old man provocatively. “From that Special Evil Spirit Essence. Old dog, face your death!”
“No… that’s impossible!” The old man still hadn’t recovered from his shock. Although the three halos hadn’t affected him much, nevertheless his Soul had taken some minor damage, which caused a faint lingering pain in his head, “Even if you obtained that Soul Skill from that Special Essence, without first cultivating out your Divine Sense you couldn’t have used it!”
Muttering these words, the old man’s eyes flashed brilliantly, and he pointed towards Yang Kai as he stuttered, “Could it be… that lump of essence allowed you to awaken your Divine Sense!?”
“Well, something like that.” Yang Kai snickered and didn’t bother to explain any further.
In truth, Yang Kai had begun cultivating his Divine Sense a long time ago, and by now his Soul and Spiritual Energy were by no means weak, or else he wouldn’t have been able to use this new Soul Skill of his three times in a row while still looking calm and relaxed
Even if it was an ordinary initial stage Immortal Ascension Boundary master it would normally be impossible to cast such a powerful Soul Skill three times consecutively.
Atop the high pillar, all of Yang Kai’s comrades also couldn’t hide their shock, and none of them thought that at this critical moment Yang Kai would pull out such unbelievable methods to once again turn the tide.
Although most of them had only encountered Yang Kai recently, but in this short period of time they had traveled and fought together, they had watched him repeatedly reveal unfathomable skills and phenomenal strength over and over again, as he frequently produced what could only be described as miracles one after another.
Everyone knew that if they hadn’t come across Yang Kai on this trip to the Evil Cavern, they all would have likely died a long time ago.
Even if he wasn’t their life’s benefactor, Yang Kai’s immense and profound strength alone was enough for everyone present to secretly swear to themselves to befriend him, or at the very least never become his enemy.
The old man stared down at the Evil Spirit Spring painfully for a moment; the four juniors he had so desperately protected all this time had all just died like that, naturally his hatred towards Yang Kai had reached an extreme level now.
His expression becoming incomparably cold. He hesitated for a while before suddenly turning away and roaring, “Little brat, you better survive this so that one day this old master can flay your skin and crush your bones!”
Even if Yang Kai had somehow mastered a Soul Skill, the old man still didn’t fear him.
In the old man’s opinion, the only thing here worthy of his attention was the Evil Spirit Spring below!
Unable to quickly occupy the Light Curtain atop Yang Kai’s pillar, the old man decided to make a run for it, hoping that now he was alone he would be able to escape with his life.
“Want to leave? You think you can get away so easily?” Yang Kai coldly shouted and directly soared off the plateau. Catching up to the old man quickly, a burst of Spiritual Energy shot out from his brow, but this force and the one he had released earlier were somewhat different, instead of an invisible wave, it was more akin to a ray of purple light that immediately sank into the old man’s head.
This was the other Soul Skill the Soul Type Evil Spirit had used before; instead of a wide range dispersed attack, this one was a focused strike. While the two were similar in nature, their uses were quite different.
Obviously, the old man hadn’t expected Yang Kai to give chase, much less use a second, more potent Soul Skill against him, which caught him off guard. As the purple light struck his soul, the old man’s body crumpled and fell, and half of his body immediately submerged into the thick roiling Evil Qi below.
A fizzling sound resounded; it was like the old man’s lower half had fallen into a burning hot pot of oil. The Evil Spirit Spring had an unparalleled corrosive effect, so although it had only been a moment, it had already eaten away a large part of the old man’s body.
The old man screamed in pain and circulated his True Qi furiously as he tried to resist the Demonic Qi that invaded his body.
However, no matter how hard he tried, the thick black Demonic Qi continued to spread unabated.
Still, the old man gritted his teeth and persevered, doing his best to fly upwards to escape, but it was as if the Evil Spirit Spring was exuding an enormous suction, like an invisible hand that was fiercely trying to pull him down into the depths.
It was almost as if he had fallen into a demonic swamp. The harder he struggled, the faster he was pulled under.
Yang Kai didn’t waste this opportunity and flew straight above the old man’s head before sending out a double palm strike, exerting a mountain like pressure on him in an attempt to force him down.
With a combination of his Burning Sun’s Three Layer Blast and his newly acquired Soul Skill, the two palm prints sent out brilliant crimson purple hue.
A Heaven shaking blow!
Although the old man had the power of an Immortal Ascension Boundary Fifth Stage master, right now he was nothing more than a caged tiger unable to display any of his strength. With an extremely unwilling roar, he was helplessly submerged into the sea of Demonic Qi by Yang Kai’s attack.
Along with a series of pitiful howls, the old man’s faintly visible outline could still be seen struggling beneath the Demonic Qi’s surface, but unable to break free of the Evil Spirit Spring’s shackles, he simply continued to sink deeper and deeper before he gradually disappeared.
Only a few breaths later, the old man’s voice disappeared, silenced forever.
Even Yang Kai’s expression was a bit grim as he watched this scene. He hadn’t expected that this Evil Spirit Spring’s corrosive power would be so overwhelming, even able to dissolve the body of an Immortal Ascension Boundary master within mere seconds. With his Unyielding Golden Skeleton, he could swim freely through this demonic sea, but if anyone else were to fall into it, they would only have one fate, death!
[Can my True Yang Yuan Qi shield on the platform… really withstand this?]
With a dignified expression upon his face, Yang Kai hurriedly returned to his group.
Using his Spiritual Energy so many times had really exhausted him, but outwardly Yang Kai didn’t show any signs of fatigue.
Landing back atop the pillar, Yang Kai noticed that everyone was gawking at him, obviously unable to believe that he had managed to kill an Immortal Ascension Boundary Fifth Stage master, let along accomplish the feat so easily.
Although they all knew that this was not Yang Kai’s own ability, and most of the credit belonged to the Evil Spirit Spring, it was still an extremely shocking matter.
“Ahem… well, it appears that we’re the only ones left here,” Chen Yi said lightly after awkwardly coughing, which woke the crowd of youths from their stupor.
“Yeah, everyone else died…” Leng Shan glanced over at the empty platform opposite them, not completely convinced she wasn’t dreaming.
The matter of her Ghost King Valley seriously offending Free And Unfettered Sect this time worried Leng Shan greatly, and she feared that when they returned her master would punish all of them, but she had never expected that Yu Qing and his group, who was the only ones who knew about this, would all die here. It was quite a favourable result.
If no one from Free And Unfettered Sect made it back alive, naturally nobody would report what had transpired here.
“It’s reached us!” Tao Yang suddenly shouted, his eyes fixedly stared outside the Light Curtain.
With the Evil Spirit Spring erupting even more violently now, the Demonic Qi sea had now finally exceeded the height of their refuge and continued upwards at an astounding pace until it had completely flooded the Evil Cavern.
As they gazed around, the only thing Yang Kai and his group could see was an endless ocean of darkness, a think black liquid that blotted out all light, which churned restlessly about them.
Outside the Light Curtain, they occasionally spotted some Evil Spirit wandering about aimlessly within the Evil Qi.
Everyone couldn’t help but thank the Heavens that they hadn’t rashly tried to escape from this cavern, or else once they had left this defensive shield, they would have soon been swallowed up by this sea of Evil Qi.
*Fssst…* As the Evil Qi scraped past Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi shield, a constant sizzling sound rang out as the two energies collided and rapidly consumed one another.
As time passed, everyone’s nerves became taught as they stared at the Light Curtain and prayed it held.
Now, if this Light Curtain were to fail, everyone here knew that except for Yang Kai, all of them would certainly die.
*Dong dong…*
An even more violent sound echoed from the Evil Spirit Spring as its eruption became more and more intense, which caused everyone’s heart to pound even faster and all but sent them into a panic, terrified of what might happen next.
*Pu…* Suddenly, the sound of something breaking reached everyone’s ears.
Zhao Rong, the first to notice, immediately went pale as she called out in fright, “The outermost layer just broke!”
“Are you sure?” Cheng Ying’s face also turned green as he quickly questioned.
It had only been so long yet a layer of the Light Curtain had actually been shattered. That meant if this pace kept up, it wouldn’t be long before this platform was no longer safe!
“It’s true, I just saw it!” Zhao Rong cried out in a trembling voice.
Sometimes death was not so terrible, like when someone was suddenly slashed by a sword and died before realizing it.
What was truly terrifying was the feeling of waiting for death, the kind of long drawn out suffering, anxiety, and helplessness that grated against one’s will.
“What happens if all of them break?” Cheng Ying asked with a mournful face.
“Shut your mouth!” Leng Shan reprimanded loudly.
Immediately everyone turned and looked at Yang Kai.
All of them hoped he could once again create a miracle and save them from this crisis.
Yang Kai took a deep breath before saying, “I can condense more of these defensive shields!”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Chen Yi letting out a happy laugh, “See, didn’t I say Brother Yang would surely have a way, hahaha! With this there’s nothing for us to worry about.”
As long as they hid behind this Light Curtain, aside from it being unnerving, they were actually quite safe.
However, Tao Yang’s brow slightly wrinkled, as he looked at Yang Kai thoughtfully and quietly asked, “How many layers can Brother Yang put up?”
Quickly checking the amount of Yang Liquid in his dantian, Yang Kai lightly said, “Fifty layers shouldn’t be a problem.”
Hearing this, Tao Yang coughed as he choked up and stared at Yang Kai like he was some kind of monster.
The True Qi contained in a single layer of this defensive shield was enormous, as for fifty layers… Tao Yang simply couldn’t fathom how much True Qi Yang Kai had within him.
But immediately after, his brow furrowed again, and he muttered with worry, “Regardless, the problem is how long it will take before this Evil Spirit Spring eruption ends. Even if Brother Yang goes all out, I’m afraid that this shield will only last about half an hour, if the Evil Qi hasn’t receded by then…”
Yang Kai’s brow also wrinkled. This was the point he was worried about as well.
Although he didn’t have to worry about his own safety, but the Hu Sisters were still here, and there was no way he could simply sit back and watch them die.
This pair of twin sisters had been very good to Yang Kai even back when he was still a weak little brat, so they no doubt held a special place in his heart.
Fifty additional layers was actually Yang Kai’s most conservative estimate.
If they really arrived at a critical point, he would shield the Hu Sisters in his remaining True Qi and fly the two of them out of here.
The reason he chose to stay here for now was because Yang Kai was trying his best to get along well with everyone from Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect.
But ultimately, he was just one man and was unable to take on the responsibility for everyone here. Although escaping at the end was somewhat selfish, in a life or death crisis Yang Kai would still prioritize those closest to him.
For a time, everyone on the platform’s mood was tense and restless.
Hu Mei Er quietly looked at Yang Kai, but seeing no signs of worry on his face, she subconsciously leaned towards him.
Hu Jiao Er, aware of her little sister’s thoughts, simply smiled and glanced elsewhere.
“That’s right, do you have any news about my Grand Master?” Relatively unconcerned with their current situation, Yang Kai decided to inquire about his other worries and softly asked Hu Mei Er about any news related to his Sect.
“Your Grand Master?” Hu Mei Er looked at him in confusion before quickly blushing and averting her gaze as their faces were too close.
“Ling Tai Xu.”
“Oh.” Hu Mei Er nodded softly and quickly collected her thoughts, “We don’t know much, only that one night a great battle erupted inside High Heaven Pavilion. It seemed like the Qiu Family lead a group of people to seize control of your Sect and then a fight broke out. I heard daddy say that Sect Master Ling seemed to have made the breakthrough to the Above Immortal Ascension Boundary. Sect Master Ling is really amazing!”
“What was the outcome of that war?” Yang Kai nervously asked.
“Sect Master Ling used his incredible strength along with your four Elders to push back all of the Qiu Family’s masters, but after that, Sect Master Ling and the four Elders seemed to have disappeared.”
“That’s good.” Yang Kai couldn’t help but breath easier, though he knew that his Grand Master wouldn’t have any issues escaping that situation, but after such a long time of not hearing any news about Ling Tai Xu, he inevitably had some worries.
“While your High Heaven Pavilion people might have been able to get away, those of us from the Blood Battle Gang and Storm Hall didn’t have such luck.” Hu Mei Er stared at Yang Kai, and her tone was slightly harsh but without any real sense of blame.
“What happened?”
“The Demon Lord came from High Heaven Pavilion, then the team sent by the Qiu Family to suppress your Sect was knocked back, on top of that it seems a very important figure from the Qiu Family went missing during the battle with no contact from them as of yet. So the next group that came were extremely overbearing, shifting the blame onto our Blood Battle Gang and Storm Hall after they couldn’t discover any traces of your Sect, therefore the members of our Sects were forced to come to the front lines of the battle against the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land to prove our innocence, or else, why would Elder Sister and I be here?” Hu Mei Er softly explained.
Listening to her story, Yang Kai finally understood why these two treasured daughters of Heaven would suddenly appear in the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land. They had been forcefully conscripted to fight in this war and had apparently been separated from their Sect at some point.
Unfamiliar with this place, they inadvertently moved deeper and deeper into these lands and eventually came across those Free And Unfettered Sect scum, fleeing until they wound up here at the Evil Cavern.
“I’m just joking with you, I don’t blame High Heaven Pavilion for all of this, it was the Qiu Family that were being too unreasonable!” Hu Mei Er frantically explained after she saw Yang Kai go silent and worried that he was upset.
“Good, I understand.” Yang Kai replied listlessly before suddenly asking, “Su Yan? Have you heard anything about Su Yan after that?”
“No.” Hu Mei Er shook her head lightly, apparently not knowing that Su Yan and the other High Heaven Pavilion Sect members had passed through the Void Corridor and had escaped some ten thousand kilometers away, “There’s been no word about where your High Heaven Pavilion disciples and elders have gone now, and that important figure in the Qiu Family is also still missing, so the ones who came to later to investigate took out their anger on your High Heaven Pavilion… all that’s left now is charred ruins.”
Yang Kai sighed deeply and nodded, “A-alright.”
“Um… well… don’t mind it…” Hu Mei Er couldn’t bear seeing Yang Kai looking so depressed, but not knowing how to comfort him, she simply leaned against him and gently held his hand.
Yang Kai couldn’t help but glance over in surprise.
Hu Mei Er lowered her head in silence. In her mind she thought to herself: [We are about to die anyway. Since I already have him by my side, I don’t want to let go. At least, not now. After cultivating the Twin Qi Shared Spirit Divine Art, I began to get influenced by my Elder Sister’s perception and way of living. Ah… in the past, when I first met him, I can’t believe I was so bold as to try and seduce him! To think I would feel embarrassed now…]
Time seemed to pass by extremely slowly.
Facing the pressure of death made everyone’s mood incredibly serious, and all of their hearts raced as cold sweat dripped down their brows.
All of them maintained a heightened state of vigilance and constantly monitored the True Yang Yuan Qi shield’s situation.
Every time one of the Light Curtain layers ruptured, a shiver was sent up everyone’s spine.
Not long after the Evil Qi Sea had enveloped them, all twenty layers of the defence shield had broken. Fortunately, Yang Kai had pre-emptively put up a new set of shields, for which everyone was immensely grateful.
As the Demonic Qi swirled around them, Evil Spirits constantly wandered about just outside the shield as massive bubbles of frigid Yin Qi welled up from below.
The temperature dropped rapidly.
Everyone inside the Light Curtain was a True Element Boundary cultivator, so with their True Qi protecting their bodies a simple chill wouldn’t affect them in the slightest. However, now those with slightly lower cultivations soon had frost developing on their hair as they began shivering from the cold, and even their breath became a visible, fine white fog.
Even the strongest of them also couldn’t help but feel chilly, and aside from Yang Kai who was indifferent to this cold, no one else could ignore it.
Outside the Light Curtain, the sea of Evil Qi had seemingly transformed into an icy hell, capable of freezing the soul of anyone who had the misfortune of straying into it.
*Dong dong…*
The pounding sound that originated from the core of Evil Spirit Spring never stopped, and instead only increased in magnitude with time until eventually every pulse shook and rattled the pillar upon which everyone stood.
*Pa pa pa…*
The giant bubbles of Yin Qi continued to burst around them one after another, stirring up all kinds of cold black evil energy.
As each True Yang Yuan Qi layer burst, Yang Kai’s expression gradually became heavier.
A little later, a series of loud thumps echoed from the Evil Spirit Spring’s core.
After this burst of sound though, everything went silent.
Everyone glanced back and forth at one another with anxiety and confusion apparent on their faces.
However, before they could figure out what was going on, a sudden surge of cold energy crashed towards them, like the frigid winds from an eternally snow-capped mountain, carrying a bone-chilling Yin Qi that seemed to originate from the ninth level of purgatory, which instantly caused everyone who felt it to shudder.
*Kacha…*
In an instant, the True Yang Yuan Qi shield was covered in a layer of ice, which was a seemingly impossible occurrence that left all who saw it aghast.
This frigid Yin Qi, coupled with the Demonic Qi, both smashed against the Light Curtains and doubled the pace at which they were being shaved away.
“Not good!” Cheng Ying muttered with his mouth agape and his eyes full of bitterness. Everyone was already on edge but had somehow managed to hold out hope through all of these hardships, but now this sudden change was almost like a sign that the Heavens had abandoned them.
His voice had hardly fallen through when suddenly all the Evil Qi began to flood backwards towards the core of the Evil Spirit Spring, and even the numerous Evil Spirits who floated nearby were drawn in as well.
Instead of an erupting spring, it now seemed like a giant whirlpool had formed, which devouring everything inside the Evil Cavern.
Countless piercing howls rang out as all of these Evil Spirits struggled desperately.
Even Yang Kai’s group atop the platform were also attracted by this suction, but fortunately, the Light Curtain offsets a large portion of this force or all of them would have already been drawn into this whirlpool.
As long as they circulated their True Qi slightly, they could offset the remaining suction force.
“What’s happening?” Chen Yi frowned as he glared towards the outside and noticed a ghostly light now pulsating a short distance away from where the Evil Spirit Spring’s core once was.
This light was not bright, but in this profound darkness, it seemed to emit a penetrating radiance.
Evil Spirit Essence! No doubt this was the Evil Spirit Spring’s Essence!
It was the Precious Treasure the old man had wanted before, a pity he had died before even being able to see it for himself.
As everyone observed this giant Evil Spirit Essence, they noticed that it was actually beating like a heart and was rapidly absorbing the surrounding energy with each pulse.
Slowly, this light disappeared, seeming to drown in the darkness of the Demonic Qi rushing towards it.
*Pa…*
Atop the pillar, another layer of the Light Curtain shattered.
Just as Yang Kai was about to spend another twenty drops of Yang Liquid to enhance the Light Curtain, Leng Shan cried out in surprise, “The Evil Spirit Spring is receding!”
At these words, everyone suddenly became ecstatic and turned their eyes towards the direction she was gazing, and sure enough, they saw a faint light shining in from the opposite side of the Evil Cavern.
With all the Demonic Qi rapidly flowing towards the Evil Spirit Spring’s core, naturally, there was a place it would drain from.
“Hahaha! The Heaven’s haven’t abandoned us after all!” Chen Yi shouted happily, just as everyone had felt death’s cold embrace wrapping around them, this light in darkness had once again ignited their hope for survival.
At the rate at which the Evil Spirit Spring was draining, it would only be a few dozen breaths before the Demonic Qi engulfing the high pillar receded.
Yang Kai, however, frowned and called out to everyone hastily, “The moment it’s clear we need to leave, this place is about to become extremely dangerous.”
“What do you mean?” Leng Shan asked, somewhat startled.
“Something or someone incredibly powerful is forming!” Yang Kai said with an intensely profound expression as he stared towards the Evil Spirit Spring’s core.
The others couldn’t yet use their Divine Senses, so all they could feel was the massive energy fluctuations radiating from the core, but Yang Kai could sense much more than they could.
All of the remaining Evil Spirits, as well as all of the Demonic Qi, was being sucked into the Evil Spirit Spring’s core and transformed into a single massive lump of energy, and as this energy gathered it was condensing into a coherent form.
The massive Evil Spirit Essence that had appeared in the centre of the spring was actually shaping into a body!
With so much energy being used to form this unknown entity, once it was finished forming its strength would be absolutely terrifying!
A moment later, the Demonic Qi had finally drained enough for them to leave.
“Go!” Yang Kai shouted, as he leapt off the platform and shot towards the Evil Cavern’s exit. Everyone else followed closely behind as well.
Now that a chance to escape had finally appeared, whether it was the Ghost King Valley or Treasure Instrument Sect disciples, everyone scampered as quickly as rabbits, cursed the fact that they were only born with two legs, and pushed their True Qi to the limit, not hesitating to use their Movement Skills and even their auxiliary artifacts to gain even the slightest bit more speed.
In terms of speed, Yang Kai was the fastest and led the way. The Hu Sisters used some kind of mystical ability that seemed to link their True Qis together and followed right behind him, effortlessly keeping pace.
But after only escaping some ten or so kilometers a terrifying roar resounded from somewhere behind them.
This roar caused the entire Evil Cavern to shudder like a slumbering beast had awoken after a long imprisonment.
A powerful blast of wind brushed past them a moment later. If they hadn’t already escaped this far, they would have been swept away by this shockwave.
Now acutely aware of just how outrageously powerful this unknown creature was, everyone’s faces drained of all colour, and they desperately channelled more of their True Qi in an attempt to increase their speed.
With such single-minded effort, everyone was naturally travelling quite quickly.
“Over there! The exit is over there!” Cheng Ying who had been serving as a scout before now and was the most familiar with the Evil Cavern’s terrain quickly pointed towards the exit.
In the direction he indicated, Yang Kai really could see a faint point of light different from the Evil Cavern’s gloomy illumination; not hesitating, Yang Kai quickly led the crowd towards the light.
Seeing this faint trace of sunlight, everyone couldn’t help but feel relieved, and all of them were eager to escape from this hellish experience.
However, when they were just about two kilometers from the exit, a group of Immortal Ascension Boundary masters suddenly appeared and flew towards them.
Yang Kai’s brow furrowed, and he secretly increased his level of vigilance.
These Immortal Ascension Boundary masters all possessed a dense Evil Qi, and an undisguised malicious and murderous aura radiated from their bodies. These people were definitely nothing good.
Of course, with such a large scale event happening inside the Evil Cavern it was only natural that it would attract nearby Immortal Ascension experts, but what depressed Yang Kai was that these people obviously realized he and his group were coming out of the Evil Cavern and would thus have information regarding what had happened.
The distance between the two groups rapidly shrunk as these Immortal Ascension Boundary masters locked their sights on Yang Kai and his group and called out to them as soon as they approached, “You brats over there, stop for this old master!”
Listening to this shout, which was nothing short of a command, made everyone’s heart sink.
After experiencing such a crisis and now finally seeing the path to escape within reach but being blocked at the final step, of course, they wouldn’t feel good.
“They’re the Ghost King’s Four Monsters and Demons!” Leng Shan’s expression darkened as she quickly whispered to Yang Kai, “All of them have reached the Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh or Eighth Stage. We absolutely can’t fight them!”
She was afraid that Yang Kai might accidentally offend these four without knowing who they were, so she hurriedly explained their identities. Moreover, these four individuals were regarded as real devils who had committed all kinds of atrocious acts, and they had extremely notorious reputations even amongst those who inhabited the Ash-Gray Cloud Evil Land.
The four of them were very proficient in group combat, so even though they were only Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh or Eighth Stage masters, together they could hold their ground against even Peak Immortal Ascension Boundary masters for some time, so even though their enemies were incredibly numerous, they still lived relatively rich and indulgent lives.
What’s more, the four of them had close ties to the Profound Yin Ghost King!
Their temperaments were also ruthless, and if they were displeased in any way, they wouldn’t hesitate to massacre people in cruel and vicious ways.
Yang Kai naturally understood what to do, so when the man shouted out to them, although he was anxious and unwilling in his heart, he had no choice but to quickly stop.
The four old men flew side by side while wearing similarly designed robes that only differed in colour, which allowed each one of them to be easily identified.
These Four Monster and Demons wore blue, green, yellow, and purple respectively.
All of these old men stood above Yang Kai and looked down upon them in an arrogant manner, and then the blue-robed one started to interrogate them in a commanding tone, “Who are you? What happened here?”
Yang Kai’s brow furrowed lightly as he replied, “Seniors, we are disciples from Ghost King Valley who came here for life experience, as for what just happened, we don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” The blue-robed old man coldly snorted, clearly believing that Yang Kai was lying.
“Enough nonsense, just make him spit out what he knows on the way.” The green-robed old casually said.
“Good.” The blue-robed old man nodded and arrived in a flash beside Yang Kai.
Yang Kai instinctively began circulating his True Qi for a moment but quickly suppressed this urge. In the face of a single Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh or Eighth Stage master, he had no hope of resisting, let alone four of them.
Acting rashly would only make things worse!
The blue-robed old man easily seized Yang Kai, not even bothering to seal his cultivation before flying forward again, seemingly extremely confident this kid wouldn’t be able to resist him in the slightest.
“All of you exit first! When I come out I’ll find you.” Yang Kai shouted towards his comrades just before he and the four old men disappeared from sight.
“Yang Kai!” Both Hu Sisters paled in fright; they had been so close to escaping this forsaken place, yet now, how could this have happened?
The blue robed old man dragged Yang Kai along as the four Immortal Ascension masters quickly raced towards the interior of the Evil Cavern.
The green robed old man however couldn’t help but glance backwards, and then he grinned evilly, while his eyes flashed with a wicked green light, akin to a snake which had found its prey.
The two Hu Sisters’ delicate bodies that were reflected in the green robed man’s eyes trembled and suddenly began to give off a faint green glow.
Immediately, the two sisters discovered this change and hurriedly examined themselves, but soon found that they had not suffered any injuries, nor was their True Qi circulation obstructed in any way.
Leng Shan’s expression however became extremely ugly as she involuntarily muttered, “Shadow Marking!”
In fact, everyone from Ghost King Valley couldn’t help glancing sympathetically towards the Hu Sisters.
“Shadow Marking? What is this?” Hu Jiao Er asked nervously.
Leng Shan face was filled with a mix of worry and helplessness, and she hesitated for a while before finally explaining, “Of those Four Monsters And Demons, the one wearing green robes is extremely lascivious, and unfortunately, it looks like you two have caught his interest. This Shadow Marking is his unique technique, once he’s hit you with it, he’ll be able to sense your position and use it to influence your thoughts and emotions. If you’re close enough he’ll even be able to exert a certain amount of control over you directly.”
Listening to this, the two Hu Sisters’ beautiful faces suddenly lost all colour.
“What’s worse, the faint green aura your bodies are radiating right now signify that you’ve been marked by that old man’s technique. As long as you go outside, anybody who sees this colour will know that you’ve been hit by that bastard’s Shadow Marking,” Leng Shan suddenly continued, “Right now, he’s occupied with figuring out what happened inside the Evil Cavern, but since he’s left his Shadow Marking on you now, once they’re done he’ll definitely seek you out.”
“Even if he doesn’t come find you in person, some people will no doubt capture you and bring you to him in order to gain his favour. In short, you’re situation right now is quite grim!” Chen Yi followed up, his expression extremely dignified.
“Is there any way to break this technique,” Hu Jiao Er asked, her expression visibly distressed.
“Masters at the Immortal Ascension Boundary Ninth Stage aren’t necessarily able to remove it. You only have two options, kill him or find someone of even higher strength!” Leng Shan bit her lip and replied.
Hearing Leng Shan’s conclusion, both the Hu Sisters’ hearts instantly sunk.
The Hu Sisters’ exact situation wasn’t known to Yang Kai, but the obscene light which had flickered past the green robed man’s eyes was clearly seen by him.
Immediately, Yang Kai’s expression became both sharper and colder.
The green robed old man pulling this little trick was apparently something commonplace, so it hadn’t even drawn the attention of the other three Monsters and Demons.
All of them had treated it simply like the passing breeze.
With the extremely fast speed of Immortal Ascension Boundary masters, it wasn’t long before the Four Monsters and Demons and Yang Kai had flown from the Evil Cavern’s entrance back to the room with the high pillars.
When they arrived nearby the two high platforms, the Four Monsters And Demons all narrowed their eyes and looked forward with a dignified expression.
At this moment, the Evil Spirit Spring has completely receded, and in its place was an exceptionally dark cocoon.
Atop this chrysalis were numerous blood red lines, like human veins, that pulsed with a kind of inexplicable energy.
However, this cocoon like object was incomparably massive and stood some fifteen to twenty meters tall, radiating a profound icy aura that seemed to even freeze one’s soul. Swirling about outside of it were tentacle like filaments composed of rich Demonic Qi.
*Dong dong…*
The sound of a heart beating inside the cocoon pounded one’s ears and produced shockwaves that caused the Souls and Divine Senses of the four Monsters And Demons and Yang Kai to tremble.
The blue robed old man, who was still gripping Yang Kai, furrowed his brow and waved his hands a few times before himself to block these residual waves.
“What is this?” The yellow robed old man muttered, as his expression switched between being confused and concerned.
All four of them had lived long lives and possessed vast experience and keen insight, but although they could feel just how enormous the pressure radiating from the cocoon in front of them was, and that it was definitely not something to be provoked lightly, none of them actually knew what it was.
The Evil Qi it gave off was so potent it was actually visible to the naked eye.
The four of them had only ever witnessed a similar phenomenon once before.
When they had met the new Demon Lord!
A few months ago, when the four of them were accompanying the Profound Yin Ghost King, they had the privilege of witnessing the new Demon Lord.
The Demon Lord’s Evil Qi had similarly reached this kind of height. The Profound Yin Ghost King had even told them that he was an actual Demon, a real Devil!
All of their so called Devil Path cultivators were only cheap imitations before him.
“Little brat, I’ll ask you once more, what exactly transpired here? If you dare say you don’t know again, this old master will cripple you and leave you here to die. Only if you tell me everything you know will this old master let you leave.” The blue robed old man spoke in a cold tone as he looked down at Yang Kai.
Yang Kai’s expression was ugly when he heard the old man’s threat, but eventually chose to answer, “This thing appeared from inside the Evil Spirit Spring.”
“The Evil Spirit Spring?” The Four Monsters And Demons’ expressions all changed, and even the blue robed old man’s voice suddenly became more animated.
The words Evil Spirit Spring were undoubtedly quite attractive to them.
“Yes.” Yang Kai nodded, as he simply described what had happened earlier while omitting a few key details.
The more the four old men listened, the more excited they became, and their originally unfriendly and ugly expressions were slowly replaced with looks of greed as they gazed towards the cocoon radiantly.
When Yang Kai had finished, these four old men no longer bothered to keep up appearances, and clear looks of avarice were plastered all over their faces.
“What do we do?” The other three looked nervously and expectantly at the blue robed old man while waiting for him to make a decision.
The blue robed old man was obviously also very excited. The Evil Spirit Spring rarely appeared, but every time it did it would bring forth many wondrous treasures. Things that even high level Immortal Ascension Boundary masters like themselves would be desperate to snatch.
However, this time the Evil Spirit Spring had actually bred such an unusual thing, something completely beyond their knowledge and understanding.
Given this unknown situation, the blue robed old man hesitated to make a hasty decision that might implicate his life.
“All of us aren’t far from breaking through the Immortal Ascension Boundary Ninth Stage, but until now we have yet to find a suitable source of energy to assist us. If we miss this opportunity, who knows when we’ll have to wait till.” The purple robed old man obviously wanted to take the risk, eagerly trying to convince his comrades.
“Agreed.” The green robed old man and the yellow robed old man both nodded as well.
With all three of them clearly expressing their intentions, the blue robed old man couldn’t flatly reject them. What’s more, he himself also felt that the potential reward outweighed the risks and was only holding back because his intuition was faintly warning him things weren’t as simple as they seemed.
After silently hesitating for a moment, the blue robed old man’s eyes flashed and his expression became firm, and he nodded firmly, “Good!”
Having made his decision, the old man casually threw Yang Kai away, tossing him some thirty meters or so.
Before he had even landed though, Yang Kai felt an overwhelming force surge through his body. This force was filled with malicious intent so strong that even his True Yang Yuan Qi couldn’t fully offset it.
With a loud thud, Yang Kai smashed onto the ground and vomited a mouthful of blood. Several of his bones were. clearly broken, and his face was completely pale.
Seeing this, the blue robed old man simply sneered, “Hey, this old master kept his words, you’re free to go!”
Yang Kai glared back silently, and his eyes were filled with undisguised hatred.
How was this letting him leave? If not for his True Yang Yuan Qi being unusually dense and pure, simply that malicious Qi, which was injected into his meridians, would have been enough to crush Yang Kai’s dantian, completely wasting his cultivation and transforming him into a cripple.
If he was left here with the strength of an ordinary mortal, the only end he would have was death!
Fortunately, having been tossed this far and with the blue robed old man not paying him any mind, he didn’t discover that Yang Kai hadn’t actually been crippled. If the old man were to know, considering his wicked nature, it was more than likely he would come finish what he started.
Not daring to waste a single moment, Yang Kai hurriedly struggled up into a meditative position and adjusted his breathing while quietly extracting a drop of Myriad Drug Liquid and swallowed it.
A moment later, that sounds of a fierce battle erupted.
Each of the Four Monsters And Demons was powerful on their own, and when the four of them worked together, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say they were invincible in the Immortal Ascension Boundary, and right now they were engaged in combat with the odd dark cocoon.
A loud roar came from inside the cocoon and then the sound of something breaking rang out.
Immediately, the blue robed old man cried out in a shocked and excited voice, “Sure enough! It’s a real devil, a real devil!”
After this shout, the battle became fiercer. Obviously whatever was inside that giant dark cocoon had been forcibly awoken by these four old men and was now fighting back.
Soon after the entire cavern was seething with Demonic Qi, and the faint traces of light were blotted out, like they had been drowned in darkness.
Yang Kai did his best to ignore all of this though and concentrated on recovering.
However, Yang Kai noticed that there was something in his body that was pulsing incessantly, even causing his True Qi circulation to become somewhat turbulent.
Surprised, Yang Kai hurriedly investigated his body and soon discovered that something within him was reacting in response to something.
Stunned for a moment, Yang Kai quickly decided to split some of his attention to observe the outside situation.
The battle scene was fierce. Although Yang Kai couldn’t see exactly what was happening, just the sounds that reverberated from the Four Monsters And Demons’ attacks was enough to tell that even if the creature that had emerged from the dark cocoon hadn’t fully matured, it was still not a foe that could be easily killed.
This devil was obviously much stronger than they had anticipated.
Even if the Four Monsters And Demons now understood that they had underestimated their opponent, it was too late for them to withdraw, and their only option was to grit their teeth and fight it out.
As time passed, Yang Kai’s injuries were quickly restored.
Suddenly, a loud roar rang out from the other side. It seemed like that devil had suffered a big loss, but at the same time, the Four Monsters And Demons also cried out; however, two of their voices were abruptly silenced.
Died!
Yang Kai’s eyes flashed as a chill gripped his heart.
“Retreat!” The blue robed old man shouted in a panic-stricken voice, and sounds of exhaustion were apparent in his tone.
Immediately afterwards, two streaks of light flashed by, obviously the two remaining old men had decided to flee.
However, the devil didn’t pursue and instead just let out an unwilling roar as it remained nearby.
Yang Kai tensed up, and a myriad of thoughts flashed through his head as his heart pounded.
That unknown something in his body was still pulsing, almost like it was urging him forward.
After hesitating for a while, Yang Kai steeled his will, stepped out, and quickly walked in the direction of the devil.
More than a dozen kilometers away, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples along with the Hu Sisters all were flying back.
“Why are all of you here?” Hu Jiao Er grinned as she asked, all while continuing to race forward.
“Same to you, why did you come back?” Leng Shan shot back.
“Our relationship with him is different than yours!” Hu Jiao Er replied, but when she realized exactly what she had just said, and how many awkward stares it had earned her, she quickly followed up, “We sisters met him a long time ago, our Blood Battle Gang and his High Heaven Pavilion were neighboring sects.”
Listening to her hurriedly explain herself, all of them finally understood why the Yang Kai seemed to be so intimate with them. They actually had such a past.
“It’s likely you’ll all die if you go back!” Hu Jiao Er said solemnly.
However, Leng Shan simply spat disdainfully, “If you two can go back there then so can we! We’re all disciples of Ghost King Valley who belong to the Profound Yin Ghost King’s dominion; those Four Monsters And Demons won’t necessarily kill us for no reason.”
Chen Yi nodded in agreement, “That’s right, but brother Tao, you should consider carefully first before joining us.”
Tao Yang calmly smiled though and said, “We four are from Treasure Instrument Sect’s, there’s no way we’ll die. As long as those four old guys have any sense, they’ll not affront us too seriously.”
“All of you…haa…” Hu Jiao Er sighed but eventually said nothing. She knew that this group of people were simply making excuses for themselves when in fact they just wanted to help.
After all, Yang Kai had saved their lives numerous times already, so now that he found himself in dire straits, if they were to simply abandon him, it would definitely go against their consciences.
Unfortunately, what were all of them in the face of those four masters?
Nothing more than ants trying to shake a tree!
As they all flew towards the Evil Cavern’s entrance, suddenly an enormous roar rang out in front of them. Immediately afterwards, the faint green hue that was radiating from the Hu Sisters’ bodies faded and disappeared.
All of them staggered slightly as they came to an abrupt halt, staring at this unexpected phenomenon curiously.
“What happened?” Hu Jiao Er muttered, also quite puzzled, “Didn’t you say that this Shadow Marking would only break if that old bastard died?”
Everyone was stunned, suddenly recalling everything that had just transpired, glancing back and forth in shock.
“It can’t be, right? It’s barely been a quarter of an hour…” Chen Yi almost couldn’t believe what was happening in front of his eyes.
Since they had separated from those Four Monsters And Demons, hadn’t it been less than half an hour? But if it wasn’t really like that, why else would the Shadow Marking on the Hu Sisters suddenly disappear?
Exactly what kind of danger did those four old men who were said to be invincible in the Immortal Ascension Boundary encounter? How could they lose their lives in such a short period of time?
*Shua shua…*
Hearing two gusts of wind, the crowd quickly looked up and saw two of the Four Monsters And Demons quickly approaching them.
One of them was the blue robed old man who had taken Yang Kai away while the other was the purple robed old man. The old men wearing yellow and green were nowhere to be seen.
Moreover, the two men no longer carried the same arrogant and aloof air, both of them were incredibly pale at the moment, and traces of blood leaked from the corners of their mouths, as a residual black gas lingered around their bodies. These residual wisps of black gas were like venomous snakes that coiled around the two old men, a ghastly sight to behold.
It was clear that both of these two were heavily wounded, one of the blue robed old man’s arms hanging limply by his side, apparently broken, while the purple robed old man had a fresh wound upon his chest. If one looked carefully they wound notice that this wound was actually a set of five bloody holes, like someone had sunk their hand into him; as he gasped for breath, the five punctures continued to ooze blood.
When all of them noticed that Yang Kai was nowhere to be seen, all of them felt their hearts sink.
The two old men whizzed past them, not even bothering to spare this group of youngsters a single glance; from their expressions it was obvious that they were extremely frightened of something.
Seeing these two masters fleeing in panic, the crowd of youths couldn’t help but feel their nerves go taut.
In less than half an hour, two of these four famous old masters had died while the other two were heavily injured and forced to flee whatever danger had arisen. Ahead of them was something that was far beyond the scope of these youth’s ability to handle, so continuing forward would certainly lead to their deaths.
Whether Yang Kai was still alive was also unknown, but having just witnessed the state of these two old men, it was highly likely that Yang Kai had already died.
“Big Sister…” Hu Mei Er gently whispered, as her gaze became firm.
“En.” Hu Jiao Er nodded, her expression extremely solemn, not saying anything more before she and her little sister both shot forward towards the Evil Cavern’s entrance like lightning.
The Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples all exchanged a quick glance before not hesitating to follow them.
Yang Kai circulated his True Qi rapidly as he slowly walked forward, cautiously approaching the battlefield.
Not long ago, the bodies of the green robed old man and yellow robed old man had appeared before him. Seeing these two old men already dead, Yang Kai couldn’t help but shiver.
Although these two didn’t posses unmatched individual strength, they were still Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh or Eighth Stage masters whom Leng Shan had specifically acknowledged as very powerful.
This so called ‘real devil’ being able to break these Four Monsters and Demons’ formation and kill two of them in such a short amount of time proved beyond any doubt how frightening its strength was.
The deaths of the green robed old man and the yellow robed old man were both miserable. One of them was beaten to a pulp while the other was literally ripped apart. Just seeing their injuries, it was clear that they were killed by that devil extremely swiftly, without the ability to respond at all.
Not far ahead, the sound of heavy breathing could be heard, which caused Yang Kai to quickly look up.
Only a few dozen meters away, a burly, naked, wild-looking man was nailed to the ground by a several meters long spear.
True Devil!
This was the demon that was born from that dark cocoon; it was the amalgamation of all the thick Demonic Qi that had erupted from the Evil Spirit Spring as well as hundreds of Evil Spirit Essences.
However, unlike those Evil Spirits, this devil already had a complete body with four limbs and five features, in fact he appeared almost no different from an ordinary person.
The only distinctive trait he possessed was a set of black tattoos that covered his entire body. Each one of them seemed to contain a horrifying amount of Demonic energy.
When he noticed the arrival of Yang Kai, this devil only glanced at him lightly, clearly not considering this youth to be any kind of threat.
At the same time, the demonic aura which drifted about him surged towards Yang Kai.
As this Devil Qi surged forth, Yang Kai stood firmly, stretched out his hands and condensed a True Yang Yuan Qi shield to defend himself.
*Pu pu pu…*
As the Devil Qi crashed against this barrier, it pushed Yang Kai back a few step but ultimately did not break through his defense.
The devil once again glanced towards Yang Kai, apparently surprised that this weak little brat had somehow withstood his casual strike. Freezing for a moment, he quickly let out a grim chuckle.
Immediately after, his hand strongly gripped the spear, which was impaling his chest, and slowly began to pull it out.
This spear was an artifact that belonged to the Four Monsters and Demons. The four of them had relied on this high level artifact to pin this devil to the ground in order to gain them a chance to escape, unfortunately for them only two of them succeeded.
As the spear was pulled out bit by bit, the devil didn’t show any signs of discomfort, instead his face showed clear traces of excitement, even as blood flowed from the wound. What was noticeable was that the blood that leaked from this devil’s injuries wasn’t red, but instead a deep shade of purple, which gave it an eerie and unsettling appearance.
Not waiting for this devil to free himself, Yang Kai quickly took action.
The clinking sound of a chain rang out as Yang Kai tossed an artifact towards the devil, and the air suddenly filled with a pure radiant heat.
Affected by this hot energy, the devil actually trembled, and the wisps of black Demonic Qi swirling about him immediately shrank back into his body.
*Tsss…*
This chain artifact instantly let out a loud and crisp sizzling noise which seemed to contain some kind of magical power that greatly disturbed the devil.
In an instant, the chain had completely unraveled. It was less than a meter long and was attached to a metal collar. It was quite simple in shape, almost resembling an ordinary dog collar.
Devil Sealing Chain! Yang Kai had long ago obtained this artifact from the bottom of the Coiling Dragon Stream and had been tempering it with the True Yang Yuan Qi in his dantian ever since. It had never shown any signs of awakening until a moment ago when it all of a sudden began to pulse.
Had it not been for the existence of the Devil Sealing Chain, there was no way Yang Kai would have stepped forward this time.
The Devil Sealing Chain was an artifact left behind by High Heaven Pavilion’s Ancestral Founder. It had been used to seal the Devil Qi of a Devil Lord at the bottom of the Coiling Dragon Stream, so naturally it could be used on this devil as well.
When the Devil Sealing Chain fully emerged, the devil suddenly became frightened as he immediately became wary of Yang Kai, and his expression warped madly as he shouted, “A pure Yang artifact! One designed specifically to suppress Devil Qi!”
While the devil roared out in panic, his hand, which was gripping the spear type artifact, suddenly jerked, pulling the rest of the spear out directly, then, disregarding his own injury and using all of his remaining strength, he hurled the spear at the Devil Sealing Chain.
With a loud cracking sound space was shattered as the spear shot forward so quickly it appeared to teleport and instantly arrived in front of the Devil Sealing Chain.
But although this blow was enough to shake the Heavens, it was still a pointless struggle.
The Devil Sealing Chain suddenly radiated a brilliant golden light, which allowed the spear to pass through it without the slightest hindrance. Then in the next moment, this golden light flashed and before anyone could see what happened, the Devil Sealing Chain had already appeared on the neck of the demon.
Instantly a loud hissing noise rang out as the devil suddenly appeared like he’d been splashed with boiling hot oil, and his body continuously emitted white smoke. Whatever black Devil Qi remaining outside of his body was immediately suppressed.
As this sizzling continued, the devil’s huge body staggered about. Both his hands gripped the Devil Sealing Chain, as he desperately tried to pry it open, but no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t able to remove it. Instead, all he managed to accomplish was to burn his palms.
The Devil Sealing Chain flickered brilliantly.
The black Demonic Qi surrounding the Devil’s body also surged and waned.
Both of these opposite forces were obviously struggling fiercely for supremacy.
Yang Kai reacted swiftly and quickly receded, while curiously observing this unusual battle.
He hadn’t expected that this devil could communicate, much less speak the same language as him.
After all, he had witnessed the birth, or rather formation of this devil with his own eyes, so as far as he knew it was an amalgamation of the Evil Spirit Spring’s energy and hundreds of Evil Spirit Essences.
Such a creation shouldn’t posses a broad knowledge base and intellect, and instead it should be akin to a blank slate that only acted based on instinct.
However, this devil had only taken one glance to recognize that this Devil Sealing Chain was the bane of all Demonic Qi! The situation was obviously more complex than he had imagined.
Yang Kai’s eyes flashed, and he was unsure of how to explain everything that was happening in front of him.
The battle between the devil and the Devil Sealing Chain didn’t last long. After about the time it would take to burn a stick of incense, the victor was decided.
The Devil Sealing Chain had completely suppressed the Demonic Qi, which caused the devil to stop struggling in vain. Instead, this devil sat cross-legged on the floor with white smoke spewing out gently from his body and smirked as he glared towards Yang Kai.
There was no panic or fear of death apparent in his expression, but rather a deep sense of curiosity and interest surfaced on his face.
“Little brat, I am Devil General Meng Ge, since you’ve dared harm my Soul Clone, this lord will definitely not forget you! If there is a chance in the future, my main body will personally make you experience a fate worse than death! Hahahaha!”
When the Hu Sisters arrived at the scene of the battle, both of them couldn’t help but gasp. The residual rubble and scars stood as a testament to just how intense this conflict was, and the mangled bodies of the green-robed and yellow-robed old men on the ground nearby only served to emphasise this fact.
As the two beautiful sisters trembled nervously, they suddenly spotted Yang Kai in a place not far away.
He seemed to be holding some kind of chain in his hand and was just standing there completely motionless, as a cold and terrifying energy fluctuated around him.
*Shua Shua Shua…*
Soon after the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect crowd also arrived, and all of them quickly took note of the strange atmosphere surrounding Yang Kai, which sparked all of their curiosities.
However, the situation at the moment was much better than everyone had expected, at the very least, Yang Kai did seem to have any obvious injuries and his aura was calm and steady. Obviously, he wasn’t anywhere close to dead.
After observing this point, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
The arrival of these people hadn’t gone unnoticed by Yang Kai, but he still couldn’t stop pondering the last words the devil had spoken to him before he had disappeared.
Although it was just a few sentences, but the amount of information it contained was incredibly substantial.
Devil General Meng Ge! This was what the devil called himself. From that point alone it wasn’t difficult to infer from this title was something that belonged to a person of great status and origin, definitely not a newly formed entity.
Moreover, this devil had said that he was only something called a Soul Clone.
The Four Monsters and Demons working together had failed to last a stick of incense worth of time against this devil before two of them were killed and two were forced to flee. They had managed to pin him to the ground by driving their spear type artifact through his chest, yet afterwards, this devil had pulled this spear out like it was nothing.
This Soul Clone already possessed such awe-inspiring power, if instead, it had been this devil’s main body, just how terrible would he be?
This devil’s true strength was beyond the limits of Yang Kai’s knowledge, and even far surpassed anything he had ever imagined! This caused no small amount of shock to him.
Fortunately, this entity just happened to be a true devil so his Devil Sealing Chain had been able to play a role, if not, even if Yang Kai was ten times stronger he still would have been utterly unable to resist.
After Devil General Meng Ge finished his final sentence, he seemed to know that his Soul Clone wouldn’t last much longer and resolutely chose to give up all resistance and simply disintegrated.
All that was left behind was something that resembled a massive frigid Evil Spirit Essence.
This essence was precisely the treasure condensed from the Evil Spirit Spring.
Right now this essence had already been sucked into Yang Kai’s meridians.
The Devil Sealing Chain in his hands also seemed to have lost its spirituality in this battle, and now only appeared like a dull iron chain; however, Yang Kai could still feel a hidden trace of vitality within it, so as long as he continued to temper it with True Yang Yuan Qi it would surely be restored again eventually.
After all, this was a treasured artifact left behind by High Heaven Pavilion’s Ancestral Founder, and despite its old age, there was no way it would be so easily damaged.
Letting out a faint sigh of relief, Yang Kai suddenly felt a fire burn in his chest. Today he had seen Devil General Meng Ge’s Soul Clone, a being who possessed the strength that greatly exceeded the boundaries of this world, and it had once again inspired him to seek the peak of martial arts.
Clenching his teeth, Yang Kai’s expression became solemn as his gaze firmed.
“Yang Kai…” Seeing him not respond to them for a long time, the Hu Sisters finally couldn’t help calling out to him worriedly.
“I’m alright.” Yang Kai let out a long breath and stowed the Devil Sealing Chain back into his dantian, turning to the crowd and saying, “I need to find a secluded place to cultivate.”
“I know the perfect place, it’s not far from here!” Cheng Ying hurriedly said.
“Good, lead the way.”
Inside a hidden cave within the Evil Cavern, Yang Kai sat down cross-legged, alone and began to refine the energy in that giant essence.
This hidden cave was inadvertently discovered by Cheng Ying while he had been scouting, it was indeed the perfect place to rest and recuperate within the Evil Cavern as almost no Evil Spirits ever ventured close to it.
Both the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples knew that Yang Kai had surely obtained some kind of significant harvest, and since they were also in no hurry to leave, all of them sat down and finally got some rest.
During this idle time, everyone also began refining the Evil Spirit Essences Yang Kai had gathered for them.
Both the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect groups had obtained two full Purifying Spirit Bottles, a total of forty essences each! Therefore, after dividing them up equally amongst themselves, all of them obtained at least five.
The Hu Sisters, on the other hand, obtained a full five bottles.
Both the sisters kindly offered both the other groups a full Purifying Spirit Bottle each but were firmly rejected.
The various youths had already gained significantly more than they could have hoped for, how could they possibly accept even more from the Hu Sisters now? What’s more, those were things Yang Kai had given them.
After facing such strong opposition, Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er no longer tried to force the issue. The two sisters sat down and circulated their Twin Qi Shared Spirit Divine Art to refine these essences. The speed at which they absorbed these Evil Spirit Essences was several times faster than the others, and although it couldn’t be compared to Yang Kai’s freakishly abnormal pace, it was still much quicker than an average cultivator.
As everyone sat and refined these Evil Spirit Essences, Yang Kai was similarly processing the essence he obtained.
However, the giant essence Yang Kai was refining had significant differences from these ordinary Evil Spirit Essences.
Even the essence left behind by the Soul Type Evil Spirit paled in comparison to this Evil Spirit Spring Essence.
During the refining process, the Unyielding Golden Skeleton would shiver and pulse as it relished in the vast amount of energy is absorbed.
His True Yang Yuan Qi completely receded into his dantian, and Yang Kai was currently enveloped in black Demonic Qi, incredibly similar to how Devil General Meng Ge appeared.
However, there was still a distinct difference between the two, Meng Ge could obviously completely control his strength and restrain his Devil Qi, but Yang Kai was unable to do so, so instead he appeared as a human shaped cloud of darkness, and only when he blinked would one be able to notice a red glow radiating from his eyes.
A frigid demonic aura spread out from Yang Kai as bursts of crackling noises echoed throughout the cave. The walls quickly frosted over and became encased in a thick layer of ice.
The people outside quickly noticed something was odd. This intense cold soon seeped out from the cave’s inner reaches and rapidly advanced towards them.
With a series of loud exclamations, all of them hurriedly fled, backing off almost a thousand meters. Looking back, their hearts couldn’t help but clinch as they watched all the moisture in the air condense and freeze as ice rapidly expanded across the cave floor and walls.
It was like they had suddenly been thrown into a frozen primordial world.
Even though they had retreated so far from this strange phenomenon, all of them couldn’t help shivering as the chill seemed to penetrate deep into their souls.
“What’s happening?” Chen Yi muttered in confusion, “Why does this chill feel so similar to what we experienced inside the Evil Spirit Spring?”
Before, when they were stranded atop that high pillar, everyone had acutely felt this frigid sensation, but compared to that time, what was happening before them right now was even more frightening.
“Is Yang Kai going to be okay?” Hu Mei Er whispered to her big sister.
Hu Jiao Er nodded her head calmly, “This situation should be something he caused, as long as it continues like this he shouldn’t have any issues.”
In fact, Jiao Er was also uncertain about Yang Kai’s condition, but she could only speak such words to soothe her little sister.
Leng Shan nodded in agreement, “Good people don’t live long but a scourge lasts a thousand years, how could he possibly die from this.”
“Hmm…” Chen Yi narrowed his eyes as he quipped, “Junior Sister, how come your words sound so bitter?”
“Will you die if you shut up?” Leng Shan glared angrily at him.
“Hey hey…” Chen Yi simply laughed.
Inside the cave, Yang Kai’s expression remained temperate, completely indifferent to the frigid air around him. This icy coldness seemed to perfectly conform to his current condition, not only did it not cause him any discomfort, it instead gave him a pleasant sensation.
When he had used the energy stored inside the Unyielding Golden Skeleton in the past, Yang Kai had always felt it had a distinctly evil aura, now though, it had both an evil and a frigid air to it. These two energies mutually complemented one another and amplified their already tyrannical power.
Inside this cave is hidden from the sun and the moon, an unknown amount of time passed by.
When the last drop of energy from the giant essence was refined, it was like a spark had been lit, which awakened the Unyielding Golden Skeleton from its innumerable years of slumber.
At that moment, the bonds that had imprisoned the Unyielding Golden Skeleton were completely shattered.
A furious Demonic Qi burst forth spreading out across the entire cave, plunging it into darkness. As this Demonic Qi churned and billowed, it was like a soaring dragon had risen, sending out ferocious howls and terrifying roars.
Yang Kai’s eyes jerked open, and the crimson hue within them quickly receded, returning to their original black and white.
At the same time, all kinds of profound mysteries about the Golden Skeleton were thoroughly comprehended by Yang Kai, greatly enlightening him.
Within this roiling Demonic Qi, Yang Kai’s eyes shined.
Slowly lifting his gaze, Yang Kai stretched out a finger and gently drew it across his forehead as he softly chanted.
“Devil Transformation!”
Suddenly, his body became akin to a bottomless pit and madly swallowed the black Demonic Qi surrounding him.
All of this Demonic Qi condensed to the point it could be seen with the naked eye and quickly covered Yang Kai.
In just a breath worth of time, all the Demonic Qi in the air had disappeared and instead a series of black tattoos had appeared on Yang Kai’s skin.
These tattoos were densely arranged in various strange patterns, occupying almost ninety percent of his skin, and only his face was exempted.
Slowly standing up, Yang Kai’s expression and aura remained indifferent. No joy or sadness was apparent on his face, and his eyes exuded a deep ice like chill.
However, he could clearly feel that his current state was very different from just before.
Instead of being wrapped in and surrounded by that thick black Demonic Qi, his form and face were completely unobstructed. Now if Yang Kai didn’t remove his robes, he would simply appear no different from usual.
The biggest difference though was his combat effectiveness had greatly increased compared to his normal state.
Although his cultivation hadn’t changed, his realm had not risen at all, but refining the massive Evil Spirit Essence from the Evil Spirit Spring had seemingly unlocked the hidden potential of his Unyielding Golden Skeleton.
As Yang Kai stood the world seemed to shudder, and ripples spread out through the air around him. All of this gave the illusion that everything around him would collapse.
An unparalleled demonic aura also radiated from him, which clearly alerted everyone who stood watching a thousand meters away. Their eyes widened as they trembled unconsciously in fright.
Gently thrusting his fist out, a crisp bang resounded.
It was like this casual punch contained the power to shatter the Earth.
Standing there, Yang Kai was filled with an intense self-confidence; he felt that if an ordinary Immortal Ascension Boundary master were to stand before him right now, he could send them flying with a single blow.
Flicking his wrist, a bolt of Demonic Qi flew out like a striking snake, drilling a perfectly round hole into the frozen wall in front of him. Using his Divine Sense, Yang Kai followed the bolt as it drilled several dozen meters through solid rock before finally dissipating.
[Such power!] Yang Kai grinned, extremely pleased with this newfound strength.
In addition, Yang Kai felt that his vitality and Blood Force had also reached an unprecedented height! If his estimate were correct, it was at least four or five times stronger than before.
The most potent benefit of a stronger Blood Force was that his restorative and healing powers would correspondingly increase. Physical strength and speed were also inextricably linked with the strength of one’s Blood Force.
After entering this Demon Transformation state, it seems that all the Blood Forces in his body had entered an extremely active state and had even been amplified!
Outside the cave’s entrance, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples along with the Hu Sisters silently waited with an air of anxiety lingering about them.
Since Yang Kai had begun his retreat it had already been half a month, yet he had still yet to appear. Instead, an area stretching out tens of meters from where he was secluding himself was now completely covered in a thick layer of ice.
“How come Brother Yang still hasn’t emerged yet? He couldn’t have had an accident, right?” Cheng Ying paced back and forth as he nervously muttered.
However, as soon as he had spoken these words, Cheng Ying felt three cold piercing gazes fall upon him, which caused his neck to shrink up before an awkward sneer appeared on his face.
Chen Yi helplessly grinned, “Unfortunately, none of us has reached the Immortal Ascension Boundary. If someone amongst us could use their Divine Sense we could find out what happened inside.”
Tao Yang in reply just shook his head and said, “No, even if one of us could use their Divine Sense I’m afraid whatever thread they sent out would be frozen solid before discovering anything.”
Listening to this remark, everyone couldn’t help but feel shocked, and all of them grew more and more worried.
After what seemed like an eternity, all of the ice around the Yang Kai’s cave suddenly began to crack. Immediately afterwards, the entire ice-field shattered and transformed into a burst of brilliantly shimmering crystals which fluttered about the cavern.
Seeing this, everyone wore a smile and hurriedly called out.
“You finally came out; if you’d stayed in there much longer we wouldn’t have been able to stop ourselves from barging in!” Chen Yi saw Yang Kai and let out a burst of laughter.
Yang Kai smiled lightly, after taking a quick look around the crowd, and said, “Sorry, I’ve worried you all.”
“Since you’ve come out, we should leave here quickly. The situation around the Evil Cavern is a bit uneasy right now.” Leng Shan said, a hint of urgency apparent in her voice.
Tao Yang also nodded in agreement.
With such a powerful energy fluctuation having emanated from the Evil Cavern, two of the Four Monsters and Demons having fallen inside, and the news of the emergence of a true devil, numerous Immortal Ascension Boundary masters had arrived to investigate the situation while Yang Kai had been in retreat.
Staying here any longer would undoubtedly be troublesome.
Thirty kilometers away from the Evil Cavern’s entrance.
A group of youths stopped to rest.
Chen Yi finally couldn’t hold back his curiosity and asked, “Brother Yang, the Four Monsters and Demons all wound up heavily wounded or dead, so how come you managed to emerge unscathed? On top of that, it looks like you even profited quite a bit.”
Hearing this, everyone couldn’t help but turn their eyes towards Yang Kai. They too wanted to know exactly what had happened.
Yang Kai simply grinned and said, “A just managed to pick up some small benefits after those four old guys and that devil fought. Both sides were severely injured, so I got lucky and managed to gain something after they both retreated.”
“Uh…” Chen Yi stuttered, and a wry grin spread across his face, “Sure enough, Brother Yang’s luck is too good, seems like such ridiculous things can actually happen in this world.”
Tao Yang chuckled and added, “It looks like those Four Monsters And Demons taking you in with them was actually them sending you a gift. Those old bastards went to steal a chicken but ended up losing their rice, haha!”
“How come they didn’t pick me to go?” Cheng Ying grumbled, clearly envious.
Leng Shan snickered, “Besides Yang Kai, if any one of us had been captured, they’d have certainly died. Do you really think gaining such a chance is that easy?”
Cheng Ying simply laughed, “I just said it casually.”
How could anyone not understand that Yang Kai obtaining such benefits was more difficult than ascending to the Heavens? Although he didn’t elaborate, everyone knew he must have faced numerous unknown dangers, and even keeping his life after falling into the Four Monsters And Demons’ hands could be considered as astonishingly good fortune.
During their brief time together, all of them had witnessed Yang Kai’s formidable strength and shocking methods many time,s and knew that he was by no means an ordinary True Element Boundary cultivator.
“Anyways,” Chen Yi smiled warmly and patted Yang Kai’s shoulder, “During this time’s trip to the Evil Cavern, my Ghost King Valley owes Brother Yang many lives. In the future, if there is ever something that Brother Yang needs, although I can’t guarantee anything else, my fellow brothers and I will offer our utmost to help, even if it means laying down our lives!”
All the other Ghost King Valley disciples also nodded firmly.
Tao Yang also laughed and said, “Count us in as well! Although we brothers and sisters aren’t the strongest fighters, when it comes to artifacts, heh… If Brother Yang ever needs an artifact refined, just come to Treasure Instrument Sect and look for me.”
“Good!” Yang Kai nodded happily.
“We’re not far from Ghost King Valley right now. If it’s convenient, why doesn’t Brother Yang come join us for some fun for a few days?” Chen Yi enthusiastically invited.
“He can’t come.” Leng Shan stated neither warmly or coldly.
“Junior Sister, you’re being too cold.” Chen Yi sighed, suddenly suffering from a headache. He wanted to communicate more with Yang Kai to deepen their friendship, but he hadn’t thought Leng Shan would suddenly not give him the slightest bit of face.
“What do you know? I’m saying this for his own good.” Leng Shan glared back at him, “Master knows him, if he goes to Ghost King Valley, he won’t live to see the sun rise tomorrow.”
Chen Yi was startled for a moment but quickly remembered that their elder Gui Li and High Heaven Pavilion’s Sect Master had a massive grudge between them.
Thinking so, he dared not bring Yang Kai back with them. He shook his head and turned to Tao Yang instead, “How about you, what are Brother Tao’s plans?”
Tao Yang laughed, “Isn’t Brother Chen going to invite us to travel with you? I’m also a bit curious about what kind of place Ghost King Valley is. I wonder if it would be possible for us to visit?”
“I’d like nothing more.” Chen Yi laughed heartily.
“Then I guess we’ll be separating here, you take care of yourself.” Leng Shan glanced towards Yang Kai and said.
Yang Kai simply smiled and nodded.
“Let’s go. Brother Yang, two Young Ladies, may we meet again!” Chen Yi called out on behalf of everyone and cupped his fists towards Yang Kai and the Hu Sisters.
“En, take care of yourselves.” Yang Kai cupped his fists in return as he watched his new friends from Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect leave together.
“These so-called devil’s path cultivators aren’t all bad,” Hu Mei Er suddenly said once it was just the three of them left, “At least, these people from Ghost King Valley are very good.”
Hu Jiao Er also nodded deeply and remarked, “Good or bad is only a matter of perspective.”
Yang Kai glanced towards her with a dull smile, causing Hu Jiao Er’s face to blush slightly as she glared back at him, “Smelly brat! I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
“Forgiven me? For what?” Yang Kai was suddenly confused.
Looking at him bitterly, Hu Jiao Er didn’t have the nerve to bring up his previous slights towards her and simply shook her head, “Never mind, where do you plan to go now?”
Yang Kai suddenly couldn’t help but feel somewhat hesitant and stood there awkwardly for a moment wondering where he should go.
Looking at his vacant, confused eyes, the Hu Sisters couldn’t help feeling a twang of pain in their hearts.
This powerful and mysterious young man in front of them was no longer the domineering and confidant warrior who stood before them inside the Evil Cavern but was more like a lost child, not knowing where he was or which road he should take next.
Affected by his change in mood, Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er also felt somewhat lost.
“We should leave the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land first.” Hu Jiao Er hurriedly broke the silence, somewhat unable to bear the sight of Yang Kai being so dispirited.
“Good!” Yang Kai’s eyes soon restored their former clarity and firmness. Although he didn’t know where he would go next, what he could affirm was that he must keep growing stronger. Seeking the peak of the martial dao was something he had always been clear about, and nothing that happened would ever cause him to falter in his pursuit of it.
Pausing for a moment, he then asked, “Where are you two going? Back to Blood Battle Gang’s territory?”
“No,” Hu Jiao Er smiled wryly, “We can’t go back until the war is over. If we do, things will become difficult.”
Their Blood Battle Gang and the nearby Storm Hall were both implicated because of the incident regarding High Heaven Pavilion and were forced by the Great Han Dynasty’s various great forces to participate on the frontlines of the war. If they went back at this time they would only cause more trouble for Blood Battle Gang.
“Then let’s find the others from the gang.” Hu Mei Er suggested, “Fifty or so of our members were deployed to the same region where we were fighting, they should still be there now.”
“What about you?” Hu Jiao Er glanced over at Yang Kai.
“I’ll follow your lead.” Yang Kai shrugged his shoulder. He also wanted to find a place with people he could ask about High Heaven Pavilion’s current situation, especially about Ling Tai Xu and Su Yan.
Glancing at the Hu Sisters, he suddenly grinned, “But before that, you two should disguise yourselves.”
“Hm, what do you mean?” Hu Jiao Er wrinkled her brow.
“Haven’t you learned your lessons yet after being targeted by those guys from Free and Unfettered Sect?”
Suddenly understanding, Hu Jiao Er first blushed then angrily glared at Yang Kai, “Being beautiful isn’t our sister’s fault! If there weren’t so many horny men like you out there how could we be so troubled!? All of you going about provoking us sisters, bothering us no matter where we go, it’s all so annoying!”
In spite of their resentment, Hu Jiao Er and Hu Mei Er still followed Yang Kai’s suggestion.
After all, this was the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land, the number of unscrupulous characters was definitely higher than in the outside world.
A short while later, the two beauty’s stunning faces were covered up a lot. Although they didn’t have any suitable tools on the hand and couldn’t do a perfect job, the sisters had at least made it so they wouldn’t be coveted on first sight.
The elder sister now looked something like a dirty villager, her hair a mess and her clothes quite sloppily arranged, while the younger sister’s face was now full of pockmarks, no doubt deterring most people’s appetites.
Finished with their disguises, the two sisters looked at each other and couldn’t help but laugh.
Although their enchanting faces were now covered up, it was still difficult not to notice the exquisite lines of their perfect figures.
The three proceeded cautiously as they traversed the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land, doing their best to avoid contact with people.
Yang Kai’s greatly enhanced Spiritual Energy played a huge role at the moment, allowing him freely use his Divine Sense to scout an entire thirty kilometer radius around them in a single breath. By periodically sweeping the area around them, Yang Kai could almost always detect danger long before encountering it, which gave him and the Hu Sisters plenty of time to either hide or avoid.
Without him, the Hu Sisters would never have been able to escape the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land so easily.
After an entire month of time, having traversed several thousand kilometers, the trio finally left the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land.
One month of constant running, fighting, and hiding had pushed Yang Kai and the Hu Sisters to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion.
Although this trip had its fair share of perils, fortunately, the most dangerous incident was only meeting an Immortal Ascension Boundary Fourth Stage expert. Using Yang Kai’s Soul Skill to catch this expert off guard, the trio managed to deal a heavy blow to him, and then quickly fled, escaping relatively unscathed.
During that battle, Yang Kai was also seriously injured; however, under the care of the two sisters and after consuming a number of drops of Myriad Drug Liquid, he managed to make a full recovery after only two or three days.
Having passed this one month together with him, the Hu Sisters gradually became more dependent on Yang Kai, believing in and trusting him almost absolutely.
Even the more aggressive Hu Jiao Er didn’t dare to treat Yang Kai like the little brat she had met two years ago. After witnessing him not hesitate to stand before them and protect her and her sister, creating one miracle after another, her perception of this youth had slowly changed.
Without his protection, Hu Jiao Er couldn’t imagine what kind of horrible fate would have befallen her and her little sister.