Stellar Transformations (星辰变) by I Eat Tomatoes (我吃西红柿) UNABRIDGED

[wandering]

B5C20: Guardians

The Blood-red Cave’s territory is 8 million li in radius and the Blood-red Ridge is at the center of it. Half of the territory’s Xiuyaoists concentrate in this place so it is obviously much more flourishing and beautiful than many other places at the bottom of the ocean.

By now, Qin Yu and Hou Fei have already entered the Blood-red Ridge.

There are approximately 100,000 Xiuyaoists in the 8 million li radius area controlled by the Blood-red Cave. Because only 1 in 1000 Xiuyaoists can reach the Yuanying stage, there are only about 100 Yuanying stage experts within 8 million li of the Blood-red Cave. However, most experts hide in their own caves.

The Blood-red Ridge is actually a huge mountain range at the bottom of the ocean. Various caves and palaces have been built on many peaks of the mountain range. Generally, there are 10-odd Xiuyaoists in a palace. At the same time, there are also several thousand Xiantian-level demonic beasts ready to listen to their orders.

Large palaces even have more than 100 Xiuyaoists and countless demonic beasts each.

“Kaka, these Xiuyaoists really know how to amuse themselves . You see, those caves … kaka, they’re really luxurious.” As Hou Fei looks at the palaces on the mountain peaks in the distance, he cannot help praising them.

Qin Yu takes a glance over those palaces. He is not very surprised: “Xiuyaoists aren’t mortals so it’s very easy for them to create caves and mansions. Also, they can even order some Xiantian-level demonic beasts to help them. A 10,000 jin huge rock is very difficult to move in the mortal world, but it’s nothing to Xiuyaoists here. Oh!”

Qin Yu suddenly shifts his look to a huge mountain peak to the north of him.

Hou Fei’s eyes also brighten and look at that huge mountain peak in the distance. There is an extremely luxurious palace on that mountain peak. It is about the same size as an imperial palace in the mortal world.

That largest palace is located on the highest mountain peak of the Blood-red Ridge. An entire section of the peak has been cut off, leaving behind a flat surface that is several tens li in radius. On this huge flat surface, there is a lofty, luxurious palace -- the Blood-red Cave.

It is located on the highest place, surrounded by the other palaces.

The Blood-red Cave occupies an area that is several tens li in radius. Courtyard houses and pavilions can be seen everywhere in it. Many squads of Xiuyaoists are on patrol outside the palace. There are even some seductive female Xiuyaoists serving as ladies-in-waiting, dancers and so on inside it.

“The Blood-red Cave.”

Qin Yu can see those large words from the distance. Hou Fei also looks at that palace in great amazement. He finds it even more unbelievable than Qin Yu does because he has only seen a bamboo house before whereas Qin Yu lived in a princely mansion when he was little and, at any rate, has seen an imperial palace on the Qian Long continent.

“Damn it, what a waste. A palace so big is used by just some fellas in the Blood-red Cave. But, if they let me live in it … such a big and luxurious palace won’t be wasted.” Hou Fei blinks his eyes and says on one side.

“Idiot.”

3 Xiuyaoists who are passing by them says disdainfully after hearing what Hou Fei said.

In the Blood-red Ridge, Xiuyaoists generally go from one mountain peak to another in groups of 3 to 5. At a glance, Qin Yu can see that nearly 1000 Xiuyaoists are going in all directions. Compared to other places, this Blood-red Ridge indeed has a great number of Xiuyaoists.

“Hey, stop for your grandpa!”

Hou Fei shouts loudly all of sudden and stares at those 3 Xiuyaoists with his shockingly glittering fiery eyes. The 3 Xiuyaoists is unexpectedly startled. It seems the loud shouts Hou Fei uttered just now have scared the life out of them.

Hou Fei’s entire hair begins to stand up: “Damn it, you even dared to insult your grandpa? All of you listen up, your grandpa is Hou Fei …” Before Hou Fei can finish what he is saying, the 3 Xiuyaoists say loudly too.

“Hairy monkey, you’re surprisingly arrogant. In this Blood-red Ridge, there’s no one who doesn’t know about us 3 brothers. Kill him.” After saying, the 3 Xiuyaoists immediately take out their respective weapons and attack.

Hou Fei’s eyes flash with a hint of bloodthirstiness.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

3 silhouettes of a black stick flash by the 3 of them. A series of noises of bones being shattered is heard and the 3 Xiuyaoists are smashed away while crying or screaming in agony.

“Kaka, you must have a death wish to fight me.” Brandishing his black stick, Hou Fei says arrogantly.

Qin Yu makes a sweep with his holy sense and finds out that they have only got their legs broken. Hou Fei has no intention of killing these 3 Xiuyaoists because, after all, this place is the headquarters of the Blood-red Cave. He also knows the serious consequences of killing them here.

“Don’t worry, they’re not dead.” He says while putting the black stick on his shoulder in an unconcerned manner. Suddenly, his fiery eyes start to brighten.

######

With his hands behind his back, Cha Po flies out of the main entrance of the Blood-red Cave. 4 of the 13 guardians are following him, consisting of Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong. Among these 4 guardians, Bai Yin is the leader.

“Let’s go to Mount Yan Lian.” Cha Po immediately says.

“Vice master, the wine on Mount Yan Lian is pretty good. I really don’t know how that geezer Yan Lian can make it.” Bai Yin beside him says with a smile. Clad in a full-length white suit of armor, this guardian looks noticeably elegant, handsome and outstanding.

Ran Lan says with a cold smile: “That Yan Lian even thinks he’s a big shot. Let’s tell him directly, hand over the producing method or get killed.” Half of Ran Lan’s hair is blue while the other half is black. Even his face is also half black half blue.

By contrast, Mu Xu is very quiet.

And Zhuang Zhong looks like a nice old man who always smiles. However, the other guardians all know how ruthless and sly he is.

When these 5 Xiuyaoists are halfway on their journey, suddenly --

Boom!

There is the distant rumble of rock getting shattered. Cha Po and the others immediately look in that direction and see only a dull multicolored source of light. Their eyes brighten and almost instantly they rush towards it together.

“Kaka ~~ what do you think, big brother? Whenever I act, I definitely won’t miss.” Hou Fei has just found another treasure -- a Five Nights Purple Flower. If this flower is not plucked within 5 days of its full bloom, it will automatically lose its medicinal properties.

Qin Yu’s eyes brighten: “A Five Nights Purple Flower, this is a treasure for pill making. It’s absolutely comparable to a high-grade holy weapon.” Hou Fei does not like pill-making-related treasures such as this so he throws it to Qin Yu, who reaches out a hand to receive it.

“Stop your hand!”

Following a loud shout, 5 silhouettes immediately appear in front of Qin Yu. They are none other than Cha Po and his subordinates, who just now were able to see Hou Fei dig out this treasure with their own eyes. Disregarding everything, guardian Ran Lan among them reaches out his hand to try to snatch it.

Qin Yu’s eyes flash with coldness. He shouts angrily: “Scram.” At the same time, he throws a kick like a flash.

Bang!

Both Qin Yu and Ran Lan fly backwards simultaneously. They are unexpectedly equally matched. With a sweep of his holy sense, Qin Yu discovers that the opponent has reached the early Yuanying stage. Every time Qin Yu practices, his physical body is trained and refined, and therefore now it is much stronger than the bodies of ordinary demonic beasts. Even though Ran Lan is at the early Yuanying stage, his body is inferior to Qin Yu’s.

Qin Yu and Ran Lan exchange a look. They both feel that each other is no pushover. Cha Po and the others also realize that Qin Yu and Hou Fei are not easy for them to bully.

Bai Yin however takes a step forwards.

“This 5 Nights Purple Flower belongs to our Blood-red Cave. My vice master already knew long ago that there’s a 5 Nights Purple Flower here, but it is regrettable that it can only be plucked in its full bloom, and this can’t be delayed for too long. If not plucked within 5 nights, it’ll become useless. Now, please return that flower to its rightful owner.” Bai Yin says smilingly in a refined and courteous manner.

“Bullshit!” Hou Fei has already been enraged. The hair on his entire body stands straight up. He laughs strangely and says: “If your vice master had already known long ago that this place got a treasure, why the hell wouldn’t he have transplanted it into his cave? Also, this 5 Nights Purple Flower grew under rocks, how the hell could you have known about it?”

Hou Fei’s eyes are blazing. His aura surges forth from his whole body. It is unexpectedly able to oppress the opponents.

He dug this treasure out by himself but they are attempting to snatch it so how can he possibly keep calm and not get angry?

“Damn you, did you hear what I said? Sod off for me, otherwise I’m going to make minced meat of you.” Hou Fei says angrily while staring at the 4 Xiuyaoists. His violent aura is really terrifying. The aura of a divine beast is indeed no joke.

However, Cha Po and those guardians are not powerful enough to tell that Hou Fei is a divine beast yet.

Generally, divine beasts are recognized based on characteristics such as their physical appearances. But Hou Fei is a Fiery-eyed Aquatic Monkey, whose species is really extremely rare. According to Uncle Lan, he is the only member of this species in the entire underwater Xiuyao world. The opponents have never seen anyone like him so naturally they cannot identify him.

“I’m the Blood-red Cave’s vice master Cha Po. This item belongs to the Blood-red Cave. Didn’t you 2 hear that?” Cha Po’s voice rises. There is a note of absolute insolence in it.

“Cha Po? The Blood-red Cave?” Qin Yu says with a cold smile on one side.

Cha Po and those guardians are top-ranking figures in the Blood-red Cave so normally no one dares to fight them. However, the 2 fellows before them at the moment seem not to think highly of them at all. How can a vice master and 4 guardians possibly endure this mocking tone?

“Fight!”

Cha Po suddenly shouts.

“Kaka, bring it.” Bai Yin and the others are yet to get into action but Hou Fei already laughs strangely in excitement. He then charges at them while waving a black stick. What is Hou Fei’s identity? A middle Yuanying stage divine beast, no less! Of the few Xiuyaoists before him, Cha Po, the strongest, and Bai Yin have reached the middle Yuanying stage too while Ran Lan and Mu Xu are only at the early Yuanying stage and Zhuang Zhong is even at the late Jindan stage. However, Zhuang Zhong is actually somewhat more formidable than Ran Lan and Mu Xu.

A middle Yuanying stage divine beast, which is even comparable to an ordinary Dongxu stage expert, thus charges at them.

Boom!

Carrying an enormous force, the black stick cuts through the water and crashes on Bai Yin’s 2 daggers with a loud noise. It even bends the daggers back and smashes them into Bai Yin’s body squarely. Bai Yin is sent flying at once while spitting out a mouthful of blood.

“Kaka, awesome, awesome!”

Hou Fei cries loudly in excitement. In the past, whether when he fought Qin Yu or when he fought the demonic beasts in the ravine, he never dared to use all his power because he was afraid of killing or wounding them. But now he has no qualms. Just a moment ago, that strike of the stick was executed by him with full force.

The faces of the 4 other Xiuyaoists, Cha Po, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong, all change color greatly.

Middle Yuanying stage Bai Yin was sent flying with just a blow of the stick? And Bai Yin could not even put up any resistance!

“Kaka, come again.” Hou Fei’s eyes glitter. In an instant, his black stick turns into 5 or 6 blurs, smashing towards them. Zhuang Zhong suddenly utters a loud shout. A massive shield appears in his hand. The blurs of the stick smash down on the shield.

With a boom, Zhuang Zhong’s entire body is rammed into the rock.

“Stop, stop, this is a misunderstanding, this is a misunderstanding!”

Cha Po shouts.

“Taste another blow.” Paying no attention to what Cha Po is shouting, Hou Fei smashes his stick towards him. Qin Yu is also amazed by the speed of Hou Fei’s black stick. He feels that when Hou Fei exerts his power, the stick arrives at the opponent’s face almost instantly. Both in power and in speed, it has reached a terrifying level.

A faint wicked smile suddenly appears on the corners of Hou Fei’s mouth. While his stick is coming at Cha Po, he uses the power of his waist and gives it a fierce shake.

The black stick is slightly bent at once then begins to swing violently back and forth between 2 other directions.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! ……

The stick is situated exactly between Ran Lan and Mu Xu so when it swings back and forth, it hits their bodies. Because these 2 guardians’ demonic elemental energy is basically unable to withstand those heavy hits, they are sent flying backwards.

“Taste your grandpa’s stick!”

Hou Fei suddenly jumps up, lifts his black stick then smashes it down at Cha Po’s head with all his might. At this moment, Cha Po transforms into a 100 m long huge blood-red aquatic python. However, giving him basically no time to react, Hou Fei’s black stick immediately connects with his head.

No, to be exact, there is still a distance of 1 or 2 cm left between the stick and the python’s head.

Hu hu!

Because the stick moved extremely fast, it caused strong winds that make the water in the battlefield to surge forth. The blood-red aquatic python blinks his very red eyes and looks at that black stick, which is only 1 to 2 cm away from his head, in stupefaction. He only sobers up after a while then immediately switches to his human form.

Cha Po also knows that the opponent has spared his life, otherwise he would have been smashed to death.

“I am Cha Po. Sir, to be able to meet an expert like you, I can’t help feeling very happy. Just now I was too disrespectful.” Seeing Cha Po shift his ground so fast, even a grim Qin Yu on one side has to give a faint smile. Because Cha Po is acting like this, the 4 guardians also start to flatter Hou Fei.

In his mind, Qin Yu secretly praises Hou Fei for being sensible.

Beating them up is still acceptable, but if Cha Po is killed, the power behind him, Cha Hong, will get into action. Cha Hong is a Dongxu stage expert, and moreover, a blood-red aquatic python. Not even Hou Fei can defeat a blood-red aquatic python that has reached the Dongxu stage for certain.

Hou Fei seems to enjoy his opponents’ flattery very much. And before long, he introduces himself to them and even calls them brothers.

“Brother Hou Fei, do the 2 of you have any dwelling place in the Blood-red Ridge?” Cha Po moves his eyes around and says.

Hou Fei replies in an unconcerned manner: “No, we don’t. I’m still roaming about this place. My big brother and I have come here for a visit. The Blood-red Ridge really has many Xiuyaoists, many more than other places. It’s not bad to stay here.”

Cha Po immediately says with a smile: “Ah, I see. Then why don’t you stay in my Blood-red Cave, brother Hou Fei? With your excellent power, you’re more than qualified to become a guardian of the Blood-red Cave. Once you hold this position, I shall put 1000 guards under your direct control, what do you think?”

“Oh, guardian?” Hou Fei’s eyes brighten, looking as if his interest has been aroused. Suddenly he says to Cha Po: “I still have to ask my big brother Liu Xing about this. His answer will be my answer.”

In the Xiuyao world, power is everything. Seeing Hou Fei’s terrifying power, Cha Po naturally wants to pull him to his side. Now, after hearing Hou Fei’s words, he remembers the exchange just now between Qin Yu and Ran Lan. Thinking that Qin Yu should not be weaker than an ordinary guardian, he immediately works out a plan.

“Brother Liu Xing, if you think my Blood-red Cave deserves your respect then I will also invite you to become a guardian of it. What do you think? You and your brother will be able to enjoy life together with us while having to worry about nothing at all. I can guarantee that nobody within 8 million li of this place will dare to offend you.” Cha Po promises.

“Oh, guardian?”

Qin Yu looks at Cha Po and gives a faint smile.

End of b5c20.

[wandering]

B5C21: As small as a needle

In that moment, Qin Yu thinks about many things in his mind. Should he enter the Blood-red Cave’s headquarters and become a guardian?

“Brother Liu Xing.” Cha Po looks at Qin Yu in expectation.

Qin Yu gives Cha Po a look then suddenly says: “Since vice master is so sincere, and Fei Fei really wants to become a guardian too, it’s unsuitable for me to obstruct him. All right, I agree with this matter.” After this, he says no more.

Cha Po always feels uneasy when talking to Qin Yu.

The reason of this is that Qin Yu is absorbing all of the energies around him like a black hole, which makes him look very worrisome and frightening. Cha Po would rather deal with Hou Fei than deal with Qin Yu. Even though Hou Fei can become furious easily, once he finds out what Hou Fei likes, it will be very easy to handle Hou Fei.

“Ha-ha, brother Hou Fei, brother Liu Xing, please follow me.”

Cha Po thus leads the 2 experts and rushes to the Blood-red Cave. At the moment his heart is very excited. The positions of the big powers in the underwater world were not passed down to them from their ancestors and they had to rely on their own abilities to fight for those positions. The stronger one’s abilities are, the higher his status is.

In Cha Po’s estimation, Hou Fei’s power is definitely comparable to that of the no. 1 guardian Teng Bi, a horned dragon.

Cha Po, Qin Yu and Hou Fei go in the front while the 4 guardians, Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong, go behind them. The 13 guardians are also divided into smaller groups and these 4 Xiuyaoists are a group. Now that 2 new experts have joined their ranks, they also have to calculate a bit for the future.

“Bai Yin, that Liu Xing is still manageable, his power is only comparable to mine. But that monkey …” Ran Lan says to Bai Yin.

Bai Yin strokes his chin, ponders for a while then says: “For the moment we mustn’t provoke Hou Fei. This monkey is too strong. Perhaps only Teng Bi can rival him. As for Liu Xing, humph, that fella …”

Bai Yin’s words are filled with disdain for Qin Yu.

“Don’t be too careless. We better be careful. That Liu Xing fellow should be practicing a special technique. I knew this as soon as I saw that his body wasn’t giving off any energy. In my opinion, his offense must be very strange.” Zhuang Zhong warns on one side.

Mu Xu however says with scorn: “There’s no need to worry so much about them. Everybody should think about what vice master said just now, 1000 guards. But there are only 5000 in total, where are these 1000 going to come from?”

Immediately, these several guardians fall silent.

All guardians value the groups of guards they really control very much because, firstly, the number of guards in a group is a symbol of the respective guardian’s individual power, and secondly, the more guards they are directly in charge of, the higher their levels of status are.

The 13 guardians control different numbers of guards. For example, the no. 1 guardian Horned Dragon Teng Bi alone has 1000 out of the 5000 guards under his command. This represents his individual power, as well as his status!

“Big brother, big brother, I got an urgent thing to tell you!”

Standing outside the secret room, Cha Po calls loudly. However, he is somewhat resentful in his heart: “Big brother is really unreasonable. He’s always doing closed-door training. Also, he doesn’t let anyone disturb him during his closed-door training and doesn’t even carry a transmitter.”

Every time he wants to meet Cha Hong, he must stand outside the door and shout like this.

Following a series of movement noises, the stone door opens. Cha Hong walks out with a cold expression. Seeing Cha Po, he shouts loudly: “2nd brother, I closed the door just a moment ago. What are you making a fuss about out here? What’s your urgent matter? Say it quickly!”

Even though Cha Hong is furious, he knows that Cha Po must have come to find him for some important reason.

“Big brother, I’ve recruited 2 more guardians.” Cha Po says with a mysterious expression. “Plus, one of them is exceptionally strong.”

Cha Hong’s eyes brighten at once.

In the underwater Xiuyao world, the more guardians the better. The big powers here always try to recruit as many guardians as possible. After all, the weakest guardian already has the offense of a Yuanying stage expert so a powerhouse will become stronger as its number of guardians increases.

“Exceptionally strong? How strong is he exactly?” Cha Hong is very happy in his heart.

Since obtaining his black jade case, he has been sure that one day he will eventually have to face the 3 superpowers. But to face them, he must have enough forces and experts. Therefore, he is currently in need of super experts the most.

“I, Bai Yin and 3 other guardians, there were 5 of us in total. We were very strong, don’t you think? But even though we joined forces, that fella beat us in just a while. We basically couldn’t fight back. I feel that he isn’t weaker than Teng Bi!”

Cha Po says contentedly. Having successfully invited such an expert to become a guardian, he is certainly very excited.

“Not weaker than Teng Bi?” Even Cha Hong cannot help smiling. In the past, to persuade Teng Bi to become a guardian of his, he himself had to put in quite a lot of effort. But now he has gained another expert of the same level as Teng Bi.

Cha Po says smilingly: “Big brother, don’t waste time thinking. Just follow me. I want them to be officially granted positions of guardians and Blood-red Crimson Cards as soon as possible!”

Only the cave master is eligible to bestow a Blood-red Crimson Card on someone. Cha Po after all is only the vice master. The cave master must personally deal with important matters such as announcing the appointment of a new guardian.

“Good, I’ll go get the Blood-red Crimson Cards ready. You summon the guardians and the leaders of the guard squads into the main hall right now. I’ll be there immediately.” At the moment Cha Hong is high-spirited and vigorous. He goes straight to the treasury in the rear hall without delay.

The appointment of 2 new guardians is a really important matter.

Not only the 13 guardians, but even the leaders of some guard squads also gather in the main hall. Theoretically, because there are 100 guards in a squad, there should be 50 squad leaders here, but quite a few of them are currently outside hunting for Qin Yu.

……

2 adjacent separate courtyard houses in the eastern part of the Blood-red Cave have become Qin Yu’s and Hou Fei’s dwelling places. Each house has 3 female Xiuyaoists who are all very seductive, clever and obedient.

The several tens courtyard houses in the eastern part of the palace share a garden. At the moment, Qin Yu and Hou Fei are sitting opposite each other at a stone table in the garden and chatting.

“Congratulations, I am Ba Ming. This is my 2nd brother Ba Jian and this is my 3rd brother Ba Shan. Us 3 brothers are also guardians of the Blood-red Cave.” 3 men who are almost identical in appearance and wearing greenish black armor walk up to Qin Yu and Hou Fei and greet them.

Hou Fei’s eyes brighten. He laughs strangely and says: “Black turtles? I’m Hou Fei. This is my big brother Liu Xing. Brothers, the defense of the 3 of you must be very impressive. Spar with me sometime, okay?”

The 3 brothers’ complexions immediately change. Ba Ming says with a forced smile: “Brother Hou Fei, we already heard about your formidability. When even Zhuang Zhong’s Heaven Raising Shell can’t withstand your attacks, us 3 brothers definitely can’t either. Please spare us.”

Ba Ming and his 2 brothers are very smart so they immediately admit defeat.

“So disappointing.” Hou Fei is very disappointed.

“Ha-ha, it’s really rare to see Ba Ming and his brothers admit defeat so easily. But brother Hou Fei is too strong so they can’t be blamed.” Bai Yin says smilingly while approaching from the distance. Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong are going beside him.

Ba Ming and his brothers give Bai Yin a look and utter a cold ‘humph’ but say nothing.

“Oh my, there are really many guardians here today. Who’s this handsome gentleman? A newly-arrived guardian, isn’t it?” 2 enchantingly beautiful women walk up to them. One of the women is dressed in green while the other is dressed in red.

The green-clad woman says with a he-he laugh: “I am Yan Qing. Nice to meet the two of you.”

The red-clad woman also says flirtatiously: “I am Xi Yan. Nice to meet the two of you.”

“Ha-ha, these 2 snake women, who are you seducing? Ha-ha …” Following the loud and clear laughs, 2 large men continuously walk out. With a sweep of his holy sense, Qin Yu discovers that their true forms are 2 tiger sharks.

“Wu Tong.”

“Wu Feng.”

The 2 large men introduce themselves at once.

“Here is my big brother Liu Xing. I’m Hou Fei,” says Hou Fei casually. He then counts at will: “Well, Bai Yin and his mates are 4, 3 black turtles, 2 tiger sharks, 2 babes, so 11 are here already. Who are the other 2?”

At this moment, loud and clear laughs rise.

“Wu Tong, Wu Feng, you 2 unexpectedly didn’t wait for me. Ha-ha, looks like I’m already late. I am Sang Mo. Nice to meet the 2 of you.” Red-robed Sang Mo walks up to them while laughing out loud.

Qin Yu, who has been sitting on one side, slightly raises his head and gives Sang Mo an ice-cold look.

“Sang Mo, I’m Liu Xing.” Surprisingly, he stands up and focuses his eyes completely on Sang Mo. There is a faint unfathomable smile on his face at the moment. The others simply cannot understand why he is smiling.

The smile on Sang Mo’s face freezes.

Just now, when the other guardians came, Qin Yu basically did not say a word. Moreover, there is a frosty air about him so they unconsciously said nothing to him. But now they all become fairly curious because he is talking to Sang Mo.

“Guardian Sang Mo?” Qin Yu continues.

Sang Mo suddenly wakes up with a start. However, only after looking Qin Yu up and down does he says smilingly: “Brother Liu Xing, when I saw you just now, I felt as if I was seeing an old friend so I behaved tactlessly.” He basically can lie without batting an eyelid.

Qin Yu also smiles then sits down again and drinks the tea alone.

Sang Mo however is pondering nonstop in his mind because as soon as he saw Qin Yu moments ago, he got a feeling that he knew him. But no matter how hard he tries, he cannot remember when he met this guardian Liu Xing before.

“This Liu Xing fella is so strange. If I’d met him, I definitely wouldn’t have forgotten him. But, I absolutely have met him before.” Sang Mo is very sure. This is a feeling from the bottom of his heart so he simply does not doubt it.

After some time, a blue-clad middle-aged man comes.

“Brother Hou Fei, brother Liu Xing, this is Teng Bi, the boss. Boss Teng Bi is extremely powerful. Perhaps he’s going to reach the Dongxu stage soon.” Yan Qing says smilingly. She even gives Teng Bi a flirtatious look.

This Teng Bi has an air of iciness and fierceness about his entire body, making him look very frightening.

As Teng Bi looks at Hou Fei, his eyes suddenly brighten. He says: “Teng Bi.” The aura around his body unexpectedly starts to increase. Fighting spirit. Teng Bi knew at a glance that Hou Fei is extraordinary so his fighting spirit has also begun to rise in his heart.

Will Hou Fei be afraid of this?

“Kaka, you’re the one they call Teng Bi, right? Not bad, I’m Hou Fei.” Hou Fei says with a strange laugh, but he does not care about Teng Bi’s aura. At the same time, he sends out from his body a terrifying aura, which seems like the aura of an unmatched ferocious beast.

Feeling Hou Fei’s and Teng Bi’s auras, the other guardians all look at each other with popping eyes.

That’s it! Today, another super expert has joined the ranks of guardians. From now on they can only stand on one side.

“Very good. This place is too small. Let’s find a better place to fight later.” Teng Bi says briefly.

With a shake of his head, Hou Fei waves the black stick in his hand a couple of times and says haughtily: “Kaka, no matter the time, as long as you come find me, I’ll fight you, kaka ~~” He simply does not try to conceal the excitement in his eyes at all.

“Horned dragons are surprisingly gifted. A late Yuanying horned dragon like him should be enough for me to go all out without using berserk mode. I really look forward to this fight.” Hou Fei thinks to himself while licking his lips with his blood-red tongue. His eyes are glittering.

At this moment, Sang Mo, who has been pondering, suddenly opens his eyes wide.

“Xiuxianist, right, it’s that Xiuxianist.” He has suddenly discovered that this guardian Liu Xing gives him a feeling very similar to the feeling that the Xiuxianist gave him before despite the great difference between the general impressions they create.

As Sang Mo looks at the current Qin Yu, he is struck by a thought: “What a strange practice technique. Since it swallows up his entire aura, nobody can tell if he is a Xiuxianist or Xiuyaoist. After all, he doesn’t have a Xiuxian aura or a Xiuyao aura.”

According to his gut feeling, Sang Mo is somewhat suspicious of Qin Yu. Because Qin Yu is not giving off a bit of his aura, it is impossible to confirm that he is the Xiuxianist, but likewise, it is possible that he is the Xiuxianist.

“Brother Liu Xing.” Sang Mo says smilingly while walking towards Qin Yu.

Qin Yu slightly raises his eyes but then he continues to drink tea, basically ignoring Sang Mo.

“If I spar with him, I’ll definitely be able to determine who he is. Even if he has disguised himself, he can’t change the nature of the energy that he has been cultivating for several decades to over 100 years.” Sang Mo is very certain in his heart that if Liu Xing is really the Xiuxianist, even though he has changed his appearance and the air about him, the nature of his internal energy will still be the same as before.

Sang Mo says with a smile: “Brother Liu Xing, you’re brother Hou Fei’s big brother so your power must be exceptional. If that’s okay with you, I want to spar with you for a while.”

Qin Yu casts a glance at Sang Mo: “You?”

As before, Sang Mo responds by smiling.

Qin Yu suddenly stands up and says coldly: “All right, I agree!” The other guardians all concentrate their attention immediately to watch. With his face seemingly full of joy, Sang Mo says: “Then please show me your skills, brother Liu Xing.”

Qin Yu’s eyes brighten. In an instant, a black flying sword starts to float above his head. Seeing Qin Yu’s black flying sword, Sang Mo is slightly disappointed as he remembers that the flying sword the Xiuxianist was using when chased by him was definitely not black.

“Illusion Spreading Sword Art 3rd Move -- Illusion Flurry!”

Right after Qin Yu makes a hand sign of the sword art, the black flying sword moves extremely fast like lightning then disappears. Everybody only sees several black gusts of wind whistling towards Sang Mo, who basically has no time to dodge and consequently is ‘fanned’ by the strong black winds for a while.

When the whole thing is over, Sang Mo’s clothes have been destroyed almost completely. Now he is practically naked and his hair is in a mess.

“Ha-ha … Sang Mo, you’re really white down there.” Ran Lan laughs out loud and says.

Covering her mouth, Yan Qing says smilingly: “Guardian Sang Mo, you’re as small as a needle down there.”

“As small as a needle, bwahaha ~~~” Hou Fei laughs out loud while holding his stomach. The other guardians also burst into loud laughter.

“Don’t overrate yourself.”

After saying, Qin Yu sits down again and slowly drinks the tea by himself, paying simply no attention to Sang Mo’s unpleasant expression.

End of b5c21.

[wandering]

B5C22: Arrest order

“It’s not him? His energy is unexpectedly yin, cold and corrosive rather than burning hot?” Sang Mo is very disappointed in his heart. But he cannot totally believe this because there is an indescribable feeling from his soul that makes him suspect Qin Yu.

In just a moment, Sang Mo wakes up from contemplation.

“Ah!” When he sees that he is in such an embarrassing situation and hears the loud laughs of the other guardians, the color of his face immediately changes. His demonic elemental energy surges forth and enfolds his body at once. He then rushes straight into his own courtyard house using his body-maneuvering skill.

Hou Fei points at Sang Mo’s courtyard house, laughs out loud and says: “Ha-ha … I never thought a masculine fella could be so white. This is laughable. Hey, right, just now you guys mentioned something as small as a needle, what is it actually?”

Everybody bursts into loud laughter again. Yan Qing and Xi Yan also cover their mouths and laugh. Even the ladies-in-waiting not far from there all cover their mouths and burst out laughing. At this moment, only Qin Yu is still calmly drinking tea without laughing or saying a word.

Casting a glance at Sang Mo’s courtyard house, he slightly raises the corners of his mouth.

How could he not have understood Sang Mo’s thinking? That day, when he was ready to conceal his identity, he already thought carefully about many things that could blow his cover.

He knew that an individual’s spiritual awareness is extremely mysterious, just like how he and Xiao Hei can still feel each other’s existence even when they are very far apart. So, he was worried that Sang Mo would suspect his false identity.

Therefore, he already prepared for this long ago.

Qin Yu’s Stellar Flame has 2 forms. Through formations, he can turn it into the Ultra-yang Flame or the Ultra-yin Flame. And the characteristics of his stellar energy can also be changed via formations. Qin Yu thus set up some formations and restrictive spells on the Flaming Sword using purple gold.

When his stellar energy is channeled into the Flaming Sword, as soon as it goes through the formations and the restrictive spells, it will be automatically converted to an ultra-yin type of energy.

Of course, if Qin Yu wants, he can also set up opposite formations and change his stellar energy into an ultra-yang type of energy.

“Ha-ha, my guardians, so all of you are here. Cave master has ordered that you gather in the main hall. The installation of the 2 new guardians is going to start right away. Brother Hou Fei and brother Liu Xing should get ready. Oh? Where is guardian Sang Mo?” Cha Po asks doubtfully.

Yan Qing says smilingly: “Just now guardian Sang Mo sparred with guardian Liu Xing. Perhaps the defeat came as an unbearable blow to him.”

“Big sis, why don’t you go comfort Sang Mo’s bruised heart a bit?” Xi Yan says laughingly to Yan Qing. The latter presses a finger on the midpoint between the former’s eyebrows, saying: “If you want, why don’t you go yourself? I’m not interested in Sang Mo.”

After a ruckus, the 13 guardians, Qin Yu and Hou Fei go into the main hall.

As soon as Qin Yu enters this hall, he cannot help getting somewhat emotional inwardly. In terms of size, this main hall of the Blood-red Cave is even superior to the audience hall of an imperial palace on the Qian Long continent. Just by looking at its huge gold pillars, one can already know this. An imperial palace also has gold pillars, but they are actually just iron pillars wrapped in gold foil.

This main hall’s gold pillars are the real thing.

With a smiling expression, Cha Hong strides onto the raised platform and sits down directly in a grand manner. He then looks down at the guardians and 20-odd squad leaders below him.

“Cave master.” Cha Po and the 13 guardians immediately bow and say. Qin Yu and Hou Fei also copy them and slightly bow. But the 20-odd squad leaders behind them get down on one knee in a very respectful manner.

With a casual wave of his hand, Cha Hong says: “Everybody stand up.”

Those 20-odd squad leaders hurriedly stand up. Actually, there are 50 squad leaders altogether, but more than half of them have gone out to hunt for Qin Yu.

“Where are Liu Xing and Hou Fei? Take a few steps forwards to talk with me.” Cha Hong says smilingly. His manner at the moment is very good. However, the 13 original guardians all know that he is extremely cold-blooded, cruel and merciless.

Qin Yu and Hou Fei walk up.

“Cave master, I’m Hou Fei.” Hou Fei raises his head and looks at Cha Hong with basically no respect.

Cha Hong looks at Hou Fei. After making a sweep with his holy sense, he cannot help but feel very satisfied because he has ascertained that Hou Fei is an expert comparable to Horned Dragon Teng Bi. But when he looks at Qin Yu, he is secretly startled. Qin Yu’s current state, which absorbs all of the energies around him, is indeed shocking.

“I am Liu Xing.” Qin Yu says with neither humility nor arrogance.

“Liu Xing, what techniques did you learn? Why aren’t you giving off any energy?” asks Cha Hong.

In fact, Cha Hong is also somewhat suspicious of him. After all, Xiuyao techniques are less profound than Xiuxian and Xiumo ones. When such a mysterious technique is used by a Xiuyaoist, this Xiuyaoist’s background is definitely not simple.

“This is my school’s secret technique, which can’t be taught to outsiders.” Qin Yu says at once.

He becomes rather worried in his heart: “This Cha Hong fella is extremely powerful. Now I don’t have any auras, whether Xiuyao or Xiuxian. If he suspects my identity, this’ll be pretty troublesome.”


Judging from Cha Hong’s expression, Qin Yu simply has no way to figure out what he is actually thinking.

“Oh, I see. Then let’s forget it.” Cha Hong is still smiling broadly, apparently not angry at all. He only gives Qin Yu a look with a hidden meaning then looks at Sang Mo. Qin Yu is slightly afraid inwardly, but his expression remains unchanged.

“After knowing about the incident just now, could Cha Hong have figured out something?” He ponders.

However, he is not too nervous either because if he cannot win, he can still run. Moreover … Hou Fei, a divine beast, is here so it will not be easy for Cha Hong to deal with them.

“Brother Hou Fei, brother Liu Xing, my Blood-red Cave is really lucky that you have accepted our invitation to become guardians. These are Blood-red Crimson Cards, the authority cards of the Blood-red Cave’s guardians. Once you have these authority cards, nobody within an 8 million li radius of this place will dare to offend you.”

Cha Hong smilingly takes out from his bosom 2 authority cards. The ladies-in-waiting beside him immediately receive the cards and go up to the sides of Qin Yu and Hou Fei.

“Please accept these Blood-red Crimson Cards. From now on, the 2 of you are the 14th and 15th guardians of my Blood-red Cave.” Cha Hong says with a smile. The guardians are numbered not based on their power, but based on the times of their appointments.

Qin Yu and Hou Fei immediately receive the Blood-red Crimson Cards.

“Congratulations, brother Hou Fei, brother Liu Xing.” Teng Bi unexpectedly is the 1st to stand up. After giving Qin Yu a look, he focuses his eyes on Hou Fei: “Brother Hou Fei, you must not forget the agreement between us just now.”

“Kaka ~~~ don’t worry, I can give you a treat anytime.” Hou Fei is totally unconcerned.

The other guardians also congratulate Qin Yu and Hou Fei. Even though some are merely acting, this is something that they must do.

“All right, next we’re going to discuss a matter. Everyone already knows that according to a rule of the Blood-red Cave, a guardian has their own guards. Today guardian Hou Fei and guardian Liu Xing have joined us, so the number of guards each guardian controls has to be adjusted a bit.” Cha Hong says loudly.

In an instant, everyone in the main hall quiets down.

The 13 original guardians look at each other without saying a word. They have gathered in the main hall this time mostly because of this matter. Those Blood-red Crimson Cards merely represent the bearers’ identities. To them, only the guards directly under them are important.

Everybody quietly waits for Cha Hong’s order.

“2nd brother, announce the number of guards directly under each guardian’s command.” Cha Hong says indifferently.

Cha Po takes a step forwards, saying: “The 3 black turtles Ba Ming and his 2 brothers have 800 guards together. The 2 brothers Wu Tong and Wu Feng have 600 guards together. Sang Mo has 300. Yan Qing and Xi Yan are directly in charge of 600 together. Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong have 1200 together. Guardian Teng Bi has 1000. The remaining 500 guards are under my command.”

In fact, the cave master and vice masters do not need guards because they can order guards at will using their Blood-red Black Cards.

Even though those guards are under the guardians’ direct command, the cave master and vice masters still have the right to order them.

“Big brother, how, in your opinion, should the guards be distributed?” Cha Po says respectfully.

The 13 original guardians in the main hall all wait attentively to hear Cha Hong’s order, and Qin Yu and Hou Fei also wait with attention even though they do not care too much about guards. However, the number of guards also decides their status in the Blood-red Cave.

Later they will be able to order and transfer these guards.

“Cha Po mentioned 1000 last time. Let’s see how they’re going to wangle 1000.” With a sweep of his holy sense, Qin Yu sees the expressions of all the Xiuyaoists present. Except for Teng Bi, who is not very worried, the other guardians seem very nervous.

“2nd brother, I remember that after 3rd brother’s death, his 500 guards were distributed to the guardians. How were they distributed?” Cha Hong finally says.

Cha Po thinks for a while then says: “After 3rd brother’s death, among his 500 guards, 100 were given to the Wu brothers, another 100 were given to Yan Qing and her sister, and the remaining 300 guards were given to the 4 guardians in Bai Yin’s group.”

Hearing this, everyone has a vague idea of what is going to happen.

It looks like those guardians are going to have to spit out the extra guards they got.

The expressions of Yan Qing and her sister, Wu Tong, Wu Feng and the 4 guardians in Bai Yin’s group are currently not very pleasant to look at. Previously, they had to negotiate with the other guardians and pay a high price to get these guards. Therefore, if the guards are recalled now, their sacrifices will be a waste.

A faint smile appears on Qin Yu’s face. He can guess what Cha Hong is thinking.

“All right, those 500 guards will be recalled. They and 2nd brother’s 500 guards will amount to 1000 guards. These 1000 guards will be put under guardian Hou Fei and guardian Liu Xing’s direct command. Does anyone have a different opinion?” Cha Hong glances at everybody in the hall.

The 13 original guardians of course accept the order. What can they possibly say in this situation?

“Very good. After everyone returns, those 1000 guards are going to be reallocated this way.” Cha Hong says smilingly.

At this moment, a squad leader runs in from outside, his face full of terror. He says: “Cave master, the situation is bad. Died, all died.”

“Calm your nerves and tell me clearly.” Cha Hong shouts coldly, but his face has already turned pale. When he heard the words ‘died, all died,’ he immediately had a bad feeling. The guardians in the main hall also have a feeling that something bad has happened.

All eyes are focused on that squad leader.

He takes a deep breath then says: “Cave master, after we received your order to come out and hunt for that black eagle, every Xiuyaoist within 8 million li of here also naturally became our eyes and we were able to detect that black eagle very quickly.”

When Qin Yu hears this, his heart beats faster.

Hunting for a black eagle?

“They’re hunting for Xiao Hei?” He ponders very quickly in his mind. “Why do they want to hunt for Xiao Hei? Logically, both Sang Mo and Cha Hong should be hunting for me.” Suddenly, he is struck by a thought and understands this matter at once.

He forces a smile inwardly.

The reason Xiao Hei is being hunted must be that he is connected with him. Sang Mo, who knows about the connection between Xiao Hei and him, must want to capture Xiao Hei to lure him out.

“Say, what happened after you had detected the black eagle?” Cha Hong shouts with a livid face.

The squad leader swallows nervously then continues: “Afterwards, a 50 strong subgroup of my squad and several tens other nearby Xiuyaoists joined forces to capture the black eagle. Who could’ve thought … Who could’ve thought that eagle was too terrifying, too terrifying?”

“The leader of that group was my second-in-command. He was only able to send me a message before dying -- “Black light, all died.” A half day later, I got some messages from the Xiuyaoists who had discovered their bodies. They said that my subgroup and several tens Xiuyaoists were all dead and there were no survivors!”

Now, even the squad leader finds what he just said somewhat unbelievable.

The atmosphere in the main hall immediately becomes oppressive. For so many years, nobody has dared to massacre the Blood-red Cave’s guards in the territory of the Blood-red Cave, much less in such a bold manner. Those experts who have reached the Yuanying stage are capable of such an action but they also know the serious consequences of it.

If they killed any guards, Cha Hong would be provoked, and they would suffer a terrible fate as a result.

Qin Yu however secretly lets out a sigh of relief: “Not bad, nothing has happened to Xiao Hei.”

Cha Po takes a step forwards, saying: “Big brother, that black eagle is very powerful. His offense is roughly comparable to a middle Yuanying expert’s. Those guards weren’t strong enough so they could do nothing but to get killed. To deal with this black eagle, we need to send the guardians.”

Cha Hong also nods.

Indeed, at this point, he has to send the guardians. They exist only to handle hostile experts like the black eagle.

“This time we’ve lost some guards. When this matter has been dealt with, let’s recruit 250 more guards. 50 of them will be used to reinforce the damaged squad while the remaining 200 will be given to the guardian who captures the black eagle as a reward.” Cha Hong’s eyes glitter with killing intent.

Someone has dared to kill his guards so naturally killing intent has begun to surge in his heart.

“I am willing to go.” Bai Yin takes a step forwards and says. He is a middle Yuanying stage expert and close to Cha Po in power. Knowing that Cha Po has defeated the black eagle before, he is certain that he will succeed in this mission. Moreover, he will not go alone.

Copying him, the 3 guardians, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong, also say: “I am willing to go.”

Qin Yu’s heart immediately becomes anxious. Bai Yin and his friends cannot withstand even an attack by Hou Fei, but one must not underestimate their power. Qin Yu exchanged a blow with Ran Lan before and afterwards he has concluded that Ran Lan is about as strong as him.

Facing Bai Yin, who has even reached the middle Yuanying stage, can Xiao Hei win with absolute certainty?

And being ganged up on by 4 experts, can he have even an outside chance of surviving?

“Cave master.” Sang Mo unexpectedly takes a step forwards and says: “You have put 1000 guards under guardian Hou Fei and guardian Liu Xing’s joint command. Guardian Hou Fei is very powerful so no one can say anything about him, but it’s hard to tell how powerful guardian Liu Xing is. In my opinion, guardian Liu Xing should take this opportunity to capture that black eagle, thereby showcasing his power.”

After saying, he looks smilingly at Qin Yu.

“Humph, let’s see how you’re going to answer. If you want to save that black eagle, you’ll probably have to betray cave master, and you’ll die in due course. And if you take the order, you can only watch the black eagle die. Now you have a choice between a rock and a hard place, unless you’re not the Xiuxianist!”

A choice?

To Qin Yu, there is no choice here.

“This lowlife Sang Mo, you’ve dug your own grave!” Hou Fei’s fiery eyes glitter. A terrifying, ferocious aura comes out from his whole body. The black stick has even appeared in his hand. It looks like he is going to kill Sang Mo on the spot if the latter utters a provocative word.

“I am willing to go!”

Qin Yu, however, takes a step forwards and says smilingly. He then gives Sang Mo a look: “I’m going to do as guardian Sang Mo said. I’m going to capture that black eagle and show my own power.”

End of b5c22.

[wandering]

B5C23: Tailing

Sang Mo’s pupils slightly contract.

Obviously the fact that Qin Yu has accepted the mission so simply has amazed him. But after considering for a while, he continues to think to himself: “Liu Xing? I want to see if you’re going to capture the black eagle for real.”

Now that Qin Yu has taken this mission, there are 2 situations that can arise. The first is Qin Yu will kill the black eagle, in which case Sang Mo will not be able to do anything. And the second is Qin Yu will temporarily change sides to kill the other guardians, in which case even if Sang Mo does not have evidence that guardian Liu Xing is the Xiuxianist, he will still be able to persuade Cha Hong to execute Qin Yu for treachery.

“Heh-heh ~~~”

Hou Fei bursts into a strange laughter. A ferocious aura is coming out from his entire body. He glares at Sang Mo then suddenly looks at Qin Yu and says: “Big brother, why do you agree to go as that lowlife Sang Mo said? Screw him. Just who does he think he is? I can squash him with a blow of my stick.”

Immediately afterwards, Hou Fei looks at Cha Hong and raises his head, saying: “Cave master, I became a guardian because I wanted to show my regard for brother Cha Po. 1000 guards or something, even with my abilities alone I’m already eligible to have them. So why can’t my big brother and I be in charge of 1000 guards together? Why does he have to show his power? If you think my big brother isn’t good enough, kaka, that’s ok, big brother and I will leave immediately. This guardian position is nothing rare to me.”

Then, paying no attention to Cha Hong, he turns his head around looking at Cha Po and says in a seemingly very heartfelt manner: “Brother Cha Po, it’s not that I don’t want to treat you with respect, but this anger is too much for me to contain.”

Cha Po hurriedly says: “Please calm down a bit, brother Hou Fei. I know that you’re straightforward. My big brother hasn’t said anything, has he?”

Cha Hong slightly frowns and casts Qin Yu a look.

The 1st thing Qin Yu does is to look at Hou Fei, saying: “Fei Fei, there’s no need fret over this. Isn’t it just to go catch a black eagle? We’ve already become the Blood-red Cave’s guardians so we have to do something. If I am to do nothing as a guardian, I’ll feel terribly uneasy.”

After saying, he also gives Sang Mo a glance.

Sang Mo, however, looks at Qin Yu smilingly and says: “Guardian Liu Xing, you’re so eager to serve cave master. We’re going to have to emulate your loyalty as well.”

“Shut up. Nobody allows you to say. Screw you! You’re getting on my nerves.” Hou Fei’s fiery eyes glitter with ferocity. The black stick in his hands looks like it is going to be used to attack anytime. When Sang Mo hears Hou Fei’s words, his complexion slightly changes at once, but he does not dare to retort.

By contrast, Qin Yu looks at Cha Hong again, saying: “Cave master, let’s settle this matter this way. I’m definitely going to capture that black eagle for you.”

Hou Fei gives Sang Mo a stare but does not say anything again.

“Ha-ha … good, you’re so loyal, guardian Liu Xing. I’m really very happy about this. Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu, Zhuang Zhong, and Liu Xing, the 5 of you listen.” Cha Hong’s voice suddenly becomes imposing and sonorous.

Qin Yu and the 4 guardians in Bai Yin’s group immediately bow to wait for the order.

“I order you 5 to set off in a half day. You must capture that black eagle. But if an urgent situation arises, do not hesitate to kill it.” Cha Hong says in a serious voice that contains killing intent. He has been furious since knowing about the deaths of 50 of his guards.

Qin Yu, Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong bow and say in chorus: “Yes, cave master!”

Cha Hong told them to set off after a half day to give them time to make preparations. Qin Yu and Hou Fei then go back to their houses directly. The 4 guardians in Bai Yin’s group also return to their quarters, but they gather in Bai Yin’s courtyard house instead of going into their respective houses.

At all times, there are various beautiful ladies-in-waiting carrying all kinds of food walking along the walkways and corridors outside every courtyard house in the eastern area of the Blood-red Cave. A red-robed, frosty-faced Sang Mo does not go back to his own courtyard house. Instead, he heads for Bai Yin’s.

Seeing him, a green-clad lady-in-waiting hurriedly stands to one side of the corridor and says respectfully: “Guardian.”

“Humph.” Sang Mo gives a snort. Without looking at the lady-in-waiting at all, he walks straight towards Bai Yin’s courtyard house.

At the moment, Bai Yin and his 3 friends are in his courtyard house and discussing laughingly with each other. Seeing Sang Mo entering, Mu Xu immediately utters a cold humph. His expression seems unhappy.

“Greetings, everybody.” Sang Mo says to the 4 guardians with folded hands.

Bai Yin shows a smiling expression while Ran Lan’s and Zhuang Zhong’s faces are full of unconcern. But Mu Xu says with a cold laugh: “Patriarch Sang Mo, what great day is today that you’ve unexpectedly come to our place? You’ve really terrified me.”

Among the 13 original guardians, both Mu Xu and Sang Mo are octopuses. However, Sang Mo belongs to the Sang clan whereas Mu Xu is a member of the Mu clan. These 2 clans have been vying to become the no. 1 octopus clan so there is a long-lasting feud between them.

Anger surges in Sang Mo’s chest, but he tries hard to suppress it.

“Patriarch Mu Xu, I’ve come here because of the lives of you all. If you don’t care about your own life or the lives of the other 3 guardians, I’m going to leave immediately.” After saying, Sang Mo looks at the other guardians.

Mu Xu however says with a sinister smile: “Oh, our lives? It sounds as if you’ve come here today to benefit us and to save our little lives. Since when have you become so good-hearted? I’ve always been under the impression that you can’t wait for our deaths.”

“Mu Xu, I can’t wait for your death, but not for the other guardians’.” Sang Mo’s eyes flash with coldness. “If not the fact that you’re going to go with the 3 of them this time, why would I tell you about this great secret?”

“Great secret? Humph.”

Mu Xu laughs coldly.

But Bai Yin frowns at once. Hearing Sang Mo say ‘if not for the fact that you’re going to go with the 3 of them this time’, he concludes that Sang Mo should have come here because of the business of catching the black eagle. Objectively speaking, there is absolutely nobody who knows about that Xiuxianist and that black eagle as well as Sang Mo does.

“Maybe Sang Mo really knows some secret?” Bai Yin’s interest is aroused. He immediately says loudly: “Mu Xu, guardian Sang Mo came here willingly so we can’t be discourteous.”

As soon as Bai Yin says that, Mu Xu lets out a cold humph then stands aside and no longer talks to Sang Mo. Bai Yin is the leader of this gang of 4 and is also the strongest among them. Even his thinking is admired by the other 3 guardians.

In contrast, Bai Yin looks at Sang Mo and says smilingly: “Guardian Sang Mo, what’s the meaning of your words, I wonder? What is the secret? And why is it related to our lives?”

“Let’s go inside to talk.”

Sang Mo goes straight into a room. Bai Yin slightly stops then also enters that room. At the same time, he very sensibly sets up restrictive spells so that outsiders cannot spy on them.

“Sang Mo, what’s actually the secret? Just say it.”

Sang Mo is standing in the center of the room with his back facing Bai Yin.

Only when he feels that Bai Yin has set up restrictive spells does he turn around and looks at Bai Yin in satisfaction. Then he slowly says: “That guardian Liu Xing, even though I’m not totally sure, he’s most likely to be that Xiuxianist. Bai Yin, I think you understand the meaning of this.”

Bai Yin’s face immediately changes color.

His first reaction after hearing those words is to think that Sang Mo is trying to fool him, but then he thinks that it is totally useless for Sang Mo to do so. After pondering carefully again, and considering Liu Xing’s body does not give off any bits of aura, he believes that Liu Xing is indeed possibly the Xiuxianist.

If what Sang Mo said is true, then …!

Cold sweat even begins to trickle down his back. The Xiuxianist and the black eagle are on one side. If, when the 5 guardians are ganging up on the black eagle, Qin Yu suddenly attacked them, catching them totally off guard, perhaps 2 of them would be incapacitated in an instant.

Given the black eagle’s and Qin Yu’s power, there is a real possibility that all the 4 of them would die afterwards.

“Guardian Bai Yin, this is just a word of warning from me. I’m not very sure either, but I believe you’ll have your own plan.” Sang Mo says with a smile then removes the restrictive spells directly and walks past Bai Yin on one side to go out of the room.

He knows Bai Yin’s character very well. If there is a little doubt or a little danger, Bai Yin will definitely work out a perfect plan to eliminate them.

Bai Yin’s face has darkened. In an instant, his expression changes several times. Afterwards, he turns around and looks at Sang Mo, who is disappearing at the gate of the courtyard house. A faint smile appears on the corners of his mouth. He has already come to a decision.

……

There are various surging undercurrents at the bottom of the ocean. Qin Yu, robed in black, is rushing extremely fast on his black flying sword. The other 4, Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong, are also using their own techniques to go extremely fast at the bottom of the ocean. The 5 experts are going side by side. Seeing them, all ordinary Xiuyaoists quickly sheer off.

This time, the Blood-red Cave has ordered the green-eyed fish clan members to help them monitor the black eagle’s movements. The Blood-red Cave is not Sang Mo. In the past Sang Mo had to pay to get the help of 30 members of this clan, but the Blood-red Cave has been able to make several hundred members of this clan work for it together with just a command.

When several hundred green-eyed fish clan members monitor together, they can cover an area of a million li in radius.

“Guardian Liu Xing, if we run into that black eagle, how do you think should we attack? After all, there are 5 of us so we should plan ahead a bit.” Bai Yin says smilingly to Qin Yu while approaching him.

Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Zhuang Zhong also come slightly closer to Qin Yu to listen to what he is going to say.

Qin Yu gives Bai Yin a look, seemingly wanting to see through his soul. Bai Yin’s heart skips a beat. He cannot help secretly getting even more alert against this Liu Xing.

Bai Yin does not know that thanks to practicing Xiumo secret techniques, in terms of using spiritual energy, Qin Yu has already far surpassed ordinary Xiuzhenists, who can only use it in the most basic ways. Among those spiritual-energy-related Xiumo techniques, there are some that must be performed through the eyes.

In an instant, Qin Yu withdraws his eyes from Bai Yin and says indifferently: “Guardian Bai Yin, since you already got a plan, why bothered asking me? You’re the strongest in the 5 of us so you’re the leader in this hunting mission. You only need to give orders, I’ll just follow them.”

Bai Yin says smilingly: “If so, I’ll speak up.”

Qin Yu looks at Bai Yin, wanting to know how he is going to deal with Xiao Hei.

“Once we detect the black eagle, guardian Liu Xing, Ran Lan and Mu Xu will attack together. With your combined force, you’ll most probably be able to fight it evenly. I’m the strongest so I’ll seize any chance to use sneak attacks and deliver the finishing blow. We’ll capture it if possible, but if not, we’ll just kill it directly. As for Zhuang Zhong, you will have to be ready for any complications at all times.”

Bai Yin gives the others a look and says smilingly: “If anybody doesn’t agree with my plan, feel free to tell me.”

Mu Xu and Ran Lan exchange a look then nod their heads. They have heard Cha Po talk about the black eagle’s power before so they know that it will not be easy for the black eagle to kill just the 2 of them, much less when they and Liu Xing join forces.

Zhuang Zhong does not have an opinion. He is of course very happy that he will not have to fight.

“Guardian Liu Xing, how about you?” Bai Yin looks at Qin Yu.

Qin Yu also nods his head.

Now the plan has been approved.

At this moment, Zhuang Zhong, who is slightly behind the others, takes a look at Qin Yu then takes a look at Bai Yin. His eyes suddenly flash with cunningness and coldness, but it goes back to normal in an instant and he seems like a nice old man again.

......

Not long after Qin Yu and the other 4 left the Blood-red Cave, Sang Mo also leaves the cave alone and rushes straight in their direction.

“Liu Xing, let’s see what your real face is. You got such a strange technique but nobody has ever heard about you before. It’s very unusual that the Xiuxianist has disappeared since you appeared.” Sang Mo will never give up before a thorough investigation has been carried out.

“Bai Yin, if you can expose Liu Xing’s real identity, you have to give me a chance to hit him when he’s down.” Sang Mo gives a sinister smile then speeds up his chase, looking like a red beam of light.

He has given the green-eyed fish clan some benefits so when this clan’s members tell Bai Yin’s group about the black eagle’s movements, they also conveniently tell Sang Mo.

……

Qin Yu is going nonstop. He can feel that he and the others are getting closer and closer to Xiao Hei.

“This green-eyed fish clan is really nasty. Xiao Hei can’t morph into a human. If he could, he’d be very similar to the other Xiuyaoists and it’d be hard for those green-eyed fish to find him. But his black eagle appearance is too distinguishable. It’s very hard to find another black eagle at the bottom of the ocean.”

Qin Yu is very frustrated in his heart. This time, the entire green-eyed fish clan is keeping watch so Xiao Hei basically cannot escape those fish’s detection.

Suddenly, Qin Yu’s face slightly changes color.

“No good, Xiao Hei is unexpectedly rushing towards me.” Qin Yu can feel clearly that Xiao Hei is going extremely fast in his direction. Xiao Hei should be doing this because he has sensed Qin Yu’s existence. He thinks that Qin Yu is coming to find him so he is also heading for Qin Yu.

At this rate, Qin Yu and the other guardians are going to encounter Xiao Hei soon.

After a while, Bai Yin bursts out laughing and says: “According to the message the green-eyed fish clan just sent me, that black eagle is unexpectedly rushing towards us. Ha-ha, he is seeking his own death. Get ready, everybody. This black eagle is not very easy to slaughter.”

“Since he can’t even wait for us to kill him, there’s no need to show any mercy.” Ran Lan, whose face is half black half blue, says with a malicious smile.

Bai Yin, Zhuang Zhong and Mu Xu also laugh out loud. They seem not worried about whether they will be able to kill Xiao Hei at all. Bai Yin casts a sidelong glance at Qin Yu then immediately looks at his 3 brothers again.

End of b5c23.

[wandering]

B5C24: Revolt

As the 5 guardians keep going, the distance between them and the black eagle grows shorter and shorter. The 4 in Bai Yin’s group can only estimate this distance based on messages sent by the green-eyed fish clan. They are simply unable to know exactly what it is.

But Qin Yu can feel Xiao Hei’s location clearly.

“My holy sense has a longer range than theirs. Now I can only rely on it to tell Xiao Hei in advance.” Qin Yu expands his holy sense. After 3 years of practice in the ravine, during which time his soul was nourished continuously by the Meteoric Tear, by now his soul has reached peak of the late Yuanying stage.

Strangely enough, when he was staying in the ravine, the heat current sent out by the Meteoric Tear was 2 to 3 times larger than when he had been outside. Now that Qin Yu has left the ravine, the speed at which the Meteoric Tear releases the heat current has also slowed down. No matter how he has tried, he has been unable to figure out the cause of this.

At the bottom of the ocean, there are various fast flowing currents and shoals of fish. The 5 guardians are piercing through them extremely fast like 5 light beams of different colors.

“According to the green-eyed fish clan’s messages, that black eagle is only 2000 li away from us. We can run into it anytime from now on. Everybody, let’s stop. We’re going to wait at ease here and get ready to strike that black eagle a crushing blow.”

Bai Yin’s voice rises. In an instant, the other 4 guardians stop.

They are currently in a vast area of nothing but water. There are no obstacles in this area. One should know that the distances from the surface to the bottom of this boundless ocean are normally greater than 10 km. Xiuyaoists generally build their palaces on some underwater mountain ranges because constructing at extreme depths is difficult.

However, a depth of 10 km is nothing.

In this ocean, the depths of some abysses even reach several tens km, or maybe more. The water pressures at those depths are terrifying. Qin Yu is still not strong enough to go down to such depths.

Of course, there are also many treasures at those depths, but one must be very powerful to be able to gather them.

“Guardian Liu Xing, Ran Lan and Mu Xu, the 3 of you should be well prepared. You three are going to fight the black eagle head-on. I’m going to be ready to use sneak attacks and deal the finishing blow.” Bai Yin tells Qin Yu and the others directly.

Qin Yu however is pondering his own sneak attacks in his mind.

“Bai Yin is the strongest among these 4 guys so it’s best to kill him first. Ran Lan is cruel and cunning. Mu Xu is arrogant, but there’s no need to worry about him. As for Zhuang Zhong …” Qin Yu takes a look at Zhuang Zhong. In fact he has been on alert for this seemingly gullible guardian all along.

Zhuang Zhong has only reached the late Jindan stage in power but he was able to become a guardian. In terms of offense, Ran Lan and Mu Xu are not necessarily superior to him.

“Bai Yin is middle Yuanying while Ran Lan and Mu Xu are only early Yuanying. I must sneakily attack Bai Yin, the stronger. After eliminating this formidable fella, it’ll be a bit easier to join forces with Xiao Hei.” Qin Yu gives Bai Yin a look then goes straight towards him.

Seeing Qin Yu coming, Bai Yin immediately becomes alert in his mind.

A light flashes and a shiny silvery suit of armor appears on his body. At the same time, various streams of demonic elemental energy start to move around him. He says loudly: “Even though it’s going to be 5 against 1, we’ve got to be cautious. Protect yourself carefully first, everybody.”

He then looks at Qin Yu and says smilingly: “Guardian Liu Xing, could you be so confident that you don’t want to protect your body?”

Hatred rises in Qin Yu’s heart.

He does not know if Bai Yin’s action was deliberate or not, but following this, it has become much more difficult to kill Bai Yin through sneak attacks.

“Could Bai Yin be suspecting me?” Qin Yu’s heart skips a beat. If this is true, the situation will be very bad for him. At least Bai Yin will always be on guard against him so it will be much harder to eliminate Bai Yin with sneak attacks.

Qin Yu considers in his mind. In the end he says coldly: “Protect my body? You don’t have to worry about this, guardian Bai Yin.”

His eyes sweep over the other 3.

Zhuang Zhong is also wearing a large suit of armor, but Ran Lan and Mu Xu are not. After thinking for a while, Qin Yu understands the reason for this. Zhuang Zhong’s true form is a large-clawed crab and Bai Yin’s is a silvery-shelled lobster so naturally their bodies are protected by armor.

One should know that it requires many kinds of ores in large quantities to forge defensive holy items, and it is also difficult to forge them. Therefore, to Xiuyaoists, armor forging is very difficult. In general, most of the Xiuyaoists who have armor were born with it.

Ran Lan is a black-circle aquatic python and Mu Xu is an octopus. They both do not have innate armor and therefore the best they can do now is to protect their bodies with demonic elemental energy.

“Good, let’s kill Ran Lan and Mu Xu first. Once the 2 of them are eliminated, even though Bai Yin is tough, when I join forces with Xiao Hei, it shouldn’t be a problem to handle the remaining 2.” Qin Yu secretly calculates. At the same time, he pretends to make preparations with Ran Lan and Mu Xu.

He, Ran Lan and Mu Xu are currently side by side. According to the plan, as soon as they see the black eagle, they will come forwards together and attack simultaneously.

……

“Bai Yin, we’re going to let that Mu Xu fella die?” Ran Lan asks Bai Yin through his holy sense.

With his expression unchanged, Bai Yin replies through holy sense communication: “Mu Xu is an aggressive, simple-minded fella. If we told him about this, he’d definitely leak it. You’re different, Ran Lan. You are very cunning and ruthless and don’t have a good ‘tude towards anybody. So, even if you’re hostile to Liu Xing, he won’t suspect you.”

Hearing Bai Yin say that he is “cunning and ruthless”, Ran Lan even feels happy in his heart.

“Humph, humph, let’s see if Liu Xing is the Xiuxianist or not, but I feel sorry for Mu Xu.” Ran Lan says via his holy sense. Even though he said so, he actually does not care about Mu Xu’s life at all.

……

Xiao Hei is rushing northwest extremely fast. He has not seen Qin Yu for a long time. At the moment he can feel Qin Yu’s existence very clearly. There are even only several hundred li left between them. While Xiao Hei’s heart is being filled is excitement,

“Xiao Hei, stop.”

Qin Yu’s voice rises in Xiao Hei’s mind. Hearing that familiar voice, Xiao Hei immediately stops with no hesitation. The current distance between them is nearly 100 li so Qin Yu can say to Xiao Hei using his holy sense but Xiao Hei cannot do the same thing to him.

“Xiao Hei, there are 4 guardians of the Blood-red Cave with me now. They’re ready to kill you and I’m among them. You must remember to rush to the place 10 m west of me with all your power right now. When you see a fella in white armor, kill him for me. Remember to charge with all your power. We must catch them unprepared.”

When Qin Yu finishes saying, Xiao Hei totally understands.

The energy in his body immediately surges. Electric sparks then begin to zigzag on his wings. With a shake of his wings, he disappears straight towards the northwest like a blood-red flash in an instant. His speed is simply shockingly fast.

……

The 5 guardians have expanded their holy senses, ready to spring into action at any time.

Qin Yu, Ran Lan and Mu Xu are furthest ahead. Bai Yin is more than 10 m to the west of the 3 of them and Zhuang Zhong is at the back. None of the 5 guardians says to each other a word because they all know that the black eagle can appear anytime!

“It’s come!”

Bai Yin’s voice rises in the minds of the other. As he has reached the middle phase of the Yuanying stage, his holy sense is theoretically somewhat superior to theirs. However, Bai Yin simply does not know how formidable Qin Yu’s holy sense is.

When Bai Yin’s voice has just risen in the others’ minds, their holy senses detect a blood-red beam of light coming straight at them at an extreme speed. Its speed is simply so fast that they are secretly shocked. In one respect, speed also represents power.

Qin Yu, Ran Lan and Mu Xu charge at that blood-red beam of light almost simultaneously.

As Bai Yin sees this scene, a faint smile appears on the corners of his mouth. But his smile freezes in just a moment because while the 3 silhouettes are rushing at the blood-red beam of light, it suddenly makes a turn extremely fast and shoots at Bai Yin.

“Attack together!”

By the time Bai Yin’s voice rises in everybody else’s mind, the blood-red light beam has already pulled away from Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Qin Yu, who were rushing at it. The black eagle was too fast so Qin Yu and the other 2 basically could not stop him. The 3 of them immediately make a turn and charge at him again.

At this moment!

Qin Yu, Mu Xu and Ran Lan are rushing at the black eagle side by side while the eagle is rushing at Bai Yin and Zhuang Zhong is still behind Bai Yin’s back. In theory, given the current situation, what happens next should be 5 guardians surrounding and attacking the black eagle together.

However, at this moment, the situation changes because Qin Yu finally takes action!

Pu!

In just about an instant, the Flaming Gloves appear on Qin Yu’s hands. His left hand penetrates Mu Xu’s chest directly then crushes Mu Xu’s heart with a grab. As Mu Xu was totally unprepared for this blow, the little amount of demonic elemental energy protecting his body was insufficient to withstand Qin Yu’s Flaming Glove.

Qin Yu then thrusts his right hand at Ran Lan’s back like a sharp arrow.

Bang!

Seeming to have foreseen this strike, Ran Lan blocks it with his hand. But the combination of Qin Yu’s terrifying power and a Flaming Glove is beyond his imagination. With a clack noise, his hand is ruptured immediately, but he is able to make use of the impact force to back away.

“What bad luck!” Qin Yu’s face changes color.

Mu Xu, whose heart has been shattered, looks at Qin Yu in stupefaction. His face is full of disbelief: “You, you, you …” He cannot even say a sentence. His soul then enters the cycle of reincarnation. Too bad Mu Xu has yet to reach the Dongxu stage. Otherwise he would have been able to merge his soul with his Yuanying.

“Liu Xing is the Xiuxianist!”

Ran Lan, whose one hand has been broken, shouts shrilly. At the moment his eyes are filled hostility and hatred because one of his hands has been crushed. Even its bones have been shattered completely so it will never recover unless he can overcome the 9-From-9th Heaven Tribulation and ascend to a higher world.

Bai Yin has been ready to strike an all-out blow for a long time. Originally he wanted to sneakily give the black eagle a killing blow but now, facing the black eagle’s assault, he can only attack openly. The black eagle’s sharp claws and his 2 daggers clash head-on.

Bang!

After the violent collision, the black eagle unexpectedly is not injured in the slightest, but Bai Yin is forced to retreat.

“Kill Liu Xing!”

Bai Yin screams loudly. Zhuang Zhong behind him shouts angrily: “Liu Xing, so you’re the Xiuxianist! Guardian Ran Lan, let’s join forces to kill him. Guardian Bai Yin, hold off that black eagle.”

Bai Yin knows Qin Yu’s power and also knows Ran Lan’s and Zhuang Zhong’s power so he immediately agrees with this suggestion. However, at this moment, a transmitter appears in the hand that Bai Yin has put behind his back. The transmitter disappears almost instantly.

“That Sang Mo fella hates this Xiuxianist the most. Let’s leave it to him.” A faint cold smile appears on Bai Yin’s face. Because Bai Yin is very fast and is hiding this hand behind his back, Qin Yu and the black eagle do not notice this, but Zhuang Zhong sees everything.

A light flashes on Bai Yin’s body. In an instant, he turns into a huge silvery lobster that is more than 10 m long and whose shell looks like rock. A terrifying aura is coming out from his body. With a shake of his tail, the silvery lobster arrives at Xiao Hei’s side instantly.

He then thrusts his 2 large claws at Xiao Hei extremely fast.

While Bai Yin attacks Xiao Hei, Zhuang Zhong and Ran Lan charge at Qin Yu simultaneously in just about an instant. The Flaming Sword appears in Qin Yu’s hand at once. He makes a hand sign, wanting to execute the Illusion Spreading Sword Art, but at this moment, 2 scenes that make his eyes pop out of his head take place almost at the same time.

The first scene!

Bang!

A loud noise is heard as Zhuang Zhong unexpectedly smashes his right fist into the head of Ran Lan beside him. The head is immediately shattered like a watermelon, splattering red blood around. Zhuang Zhong then says smilingly to Qin Yu: “Guardian Liu Xing, this is my surrender present for you.”

The second scene!

The 2 claws of the middle Yuanying stage silvery-shelled lobster are very powerful, as well as extremely fast. But, facing the lobster’s attack, Xiao Hei suddenly dodges away with a shake of his wings. The lobster immediately charges at him again.

However –

A piercing cry comes out from Xiao Hei’s mouth. Concurrently with this, Qin Yu can feel clearly that Xiao Hei’s aura suddenly rises.

Seeing the silvery-shelled lobster’s 2 large claws coming at him, Xiao Hei unexpectedly rushes straight at the lobster like a black beam of light. At the same time, his ice-cold black sharp claws suddenly enlarge tenfold in the blink of an eye, becoming a blood-red pair of eagle claws.

Pu! Pu!

The middle Yuanying stage silvery-shelled lobster gets his head crushed directly by Xiao Hei’s claws like tofu and he dies on the spot.

These 2 scenes happen almost simultaneously and they both amaze Qin Yu.

“Xiao Hei, since when have you become so formidable?” He looks at Xiao Hei in disbelief. Just now, those blood-red claws that were ten times larger than normal gave off a terrifyingly strong killing intent and their sharpness was also at a frightening level. They were able to tear apart the defense of a middle Yuanying stage silvery-shelled lobster directly in an instant.

Only when Qin Yu makes a sweep with his holy sense does he discover that Xiao Hei has already reached the early phase of the Yuanying stage.

“I was already at the late Jindan stage 3 years ago. When I returned to the ravine last time, I had already reached the peak of the Jindan stage. And I’ve made a breakthrough recently. Plus, there are many secret techniques that I can learn in my memories. The move I executed just now is a technique I just learned.” Xiao Hei says laughingly.

He possesses hereditary memories and has experienced a forbidden technique so even though he is only at the early Yuanying stage, his actual offense is very terrifying.

End of b5c24.

[wandering]

B5C25: Zhuang Zhong’s secret!

Sang Mo, who is going very fast, suddenly stops and immediately takes out a transmitter. Right after he makes a sweep with his holy sense, his expression freezes. But in just a moment, his facial muscles move again while his eyes glitter with ferocity.

“Ha-ha ~~~” Sang Mo bursts out laughing viciously. His laughter sounds mad like the piercing cries of a crow.

Sang Mo then suppresses his laughter. His eyes are filled with killing intent and an extremely excitement: “Liu Xing, just as I expected, you’re the Xiuxianist. Ha-ha, Heaven has helped me. You killed my son and my clan’s members and humiliated me in front of the other guardians. Today I’m going to tell cave master about your betrayal. Humph, if I can’t get your soul destroyed, will I still have the face to continue living?”

While he is smiling menacingly, his red robe suddenly flaps, and he rushes straight back towards the Blood-red Cave like a red light beam.

……

There were only moments from Xiao Hei’s appearance to when Bai Yin was finally killed. During this very short period of time, Bai Yin, Ran Lan and Mu Xu were killed and Zhuang Zhong switched sides by killing Ran Lan. What that has happened is really shocking.

“Big brother, when I reached the Yuanying stage, my power increased several times. Killing a middle Yuanying midget is very easy for me. I’m even pretty certain that I can beat early Dongxu stage experts.” Xiao Hei says proudly while flapping his wings.

Qin Yu is secretly astounded.

“Ha-ha, Xiao Hei, you said early Dongxu experts? Don’t brag please. Do you think you’re a divine beast?” Qin Yu says laughingly.

Xiao Hei however becomes furious and says indignantly: “What do you know? This is my secret. Listen, as my power improves, I experience greater transformations. I suffered so much pain when undergoing that forbidden technique before. Do you think I endured it for nothing?”

Qin Yu is very clear about this in his heart.

According to what Xiao Hei told him previously, Xiao Hei must overcome the 9-From-9th Heaven Tribulation to be able to transform into a human. Generally, only divine beasts have to fulfill such a requirement.

But if Xiao Hei is really a divine beast, why 3 years ago, when he had just reached the late phase of the Jindan stage and had used that forbidden technique, he was slightly weaker than that middle Yuanying stage Cha Po? Qin Yu does not understand this point. He always feels that Xiao Hei is a bit weaker than divine beasts.

Qin Yu and Xiao Hei are talking to each other through their holy senses but Zhuang Zhong remains motionless.

“Xiao Hei, how do you think should we deal with this geezer?” Qin Yu deliberately says aloud and looks at Zhuang Zhong at the same time. Hei Yu also turns around and looks at him. His eyes glitter with a blue light. A strange aura from him presses towards Zhuang Zhong.

Zhuang Zhong talks first: “Guardian Liu Xing, I knew that when you and this senior join forces, even with my help, Bai Yin and his mates would still be no match for you. Since I’m no match for you and I don’t want to die either, please allow me to join your side, guardian Liu Xing. Later, even if you want to overthrow Cha Hong, I’ll definitely support you.”

“Oh?”

Qin Yu looks at Zhuang Zhong but says nothing. Then, with a wave of his sleeve, various streams of stellar energy roll out from him and immediately collect the yuanyings of Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Bai Yin, as well as their storage bracelets and holy weapons.

“These 3 fellas unexpectedly didn’t make their yuanyings explode in the end.” Qin Yu cannot help saying smilingly as he recalls how Xiang Yang self-destructed before.

Had the 3 of them self-destructed, at least Qin Yu would not have obtained their yuanyings.

Zhuang Zhong says: “Guardian Liu Xing, only idiots will make their own yuanyings explode.”

“What kind of stupid idea is that?” Qin Yu counters with a question.

Zhuang Zhong says at once: “After a Xiuyaoist is killed, his soul can still stay in this world for a short time. This period of time is enough for him to self-destruct. But, being able to self-destruct is one thing, whether he dares to self-destruct is another thing.”

“Firstly, when the yuanying begins to self-destruct, the enemies near it will immediately notice the undulation of its energy and move away extremely fast. So, even though they can be hurt by the explosion, they will not die from it. The 2nd reason is the most important. When the yuanying self-explodes, his soul will be blown to pieces!” A faint smile appears on Zhuang Zhong’s face.

“Since self-destruction, firstly, can’t kill the enemies and, secondly, destroys one’s soul, what practitioners would dare to self-destruct? They all know the horror of having their souls destroyed very well. Once the soul is destroyed, a creature will really disappear from this world forever.” Zhuang Zhong’s expression becomes a bit solemn.

Qin Yu and Xiao Hei exchange a look.

What Zhuang Zhong said is really not wrong. Generally, it is really difficult to kill an enemy by detonating the yuanying. After all, it takes a short time to ignite the yuanying so the enemy can move away beforehand. Even if the enemy is seriously injured, he will not be killed. Who would be willing to destroy his own soul without being able to kill the enemy?

“The only good thing about blowing up your own yuanying is that the enemies won’t be able to have it.” Zhuang Zhong says smilingly.

Qin Yu immediately laughs.

In this battle, he has obtained 3 yuanyings at one stroke. These are the energy nuclei of those Xiuyaoists. If he uses them to practice after going back, he will definitely make a great improvement.

“Then why didn’t Bai Yin and the other 2 self-destruct?” Qin Yu says. “If they had self-destructed, I wouldn’t have obtained their yuanyings, right? It looks like they were cowards.”

Zhuang Zhong says disdainfully: “Self-destruct, how could they have dared to? Moreover, Ran Lan and Bai Yin simply didn’t have any chance to self-destruct. My punch shattered Ran Lan’s head and destroyed his soul instantly. Senior Black Eagle also crushed Bai Yin’s head and destroyed his soul. Without the souls, they were unable to self-destruct, even if they had wanted to. As for Mu Xu, he was already dead so his yuanying was basically useless to him. As a selfish fella, he didn’t have the courage to blow up his own soul!”

Zhuang Zhong looks at Qin Yu and says doubtfully: “Guardian Liu Xing, could it be you don’t know that the soul is very weak? If hit once by the energy of the explosion, it will be destroyed immediately.”

Qin Yu is surprised.

He has never researched deep into this area of knowledge, but when he thinks carefully about what Zhuang Zhong said, he knows that it is true. When Qin Yu killed Mu Xu just now, he only destroyed the latter’s heart. The neatest way of killing Mu Xu would have been to shatter his head, thereby destroying his soul.

When killing an enemy, one should destroy the enemy’s soul so that they will never be able to stand up again!

“Not only is the soul alone weak, even the yuanying that has fused with the soul is very weak outside the body. Do you know why some super experts who have lost their physical bodies have to practice as loose immortals? The reason is that even though the yuanying has a lot of energy, its defense is too weak. They simply don’t dare to fight their enemies using their yuanyings.”

Qin Yu understands this.

Not even Dongxu stage experts will fly their soul-fused yuanyings out of their bodies to fight their enemies.

The 1st reason for this is that a yuanying’s defense is not strong enough. And the 2nd is that once a soul-fused yuanying is damaged, the soul will very likely be injured as well, which will be fatal. Therefore, after losing their physical bodies, even super experts will have to practice as loose immortals, that is materializing loose immortal bodies to protect their cores, the yuanyings.

Now Qin Yu even has a faint good impression of Zhuang Zhong.

“Zhuang Zhong, this time I’ve betrayed that cave master. If you’re not dead, what can I do when you tell cave master about this? It’s a bad thing to cut the weeds without digging up the roots. I’ve got no reason to spare you.” He ponders and says.

As Zhuang Zhong hears Qin Yu say so, his expression becomes solemn.

He raises a palm and says seriously: “I, Zhuang Zhong, swear to Heaven that if I ever betray guardian Liu Xing or reveal his secret, I shall be struck to death by lightning and get my soul destroyed and never be reborn.” His voice is resounding and very solemn.

At this moment, both Qin Yu and Xiao Hei have a special feeling, one that only their souls can perceive.

A feeling of an undulation in the fabric of nature!

“Good.” Qin Yu gives a smile.

As a Xiuzhenist, Qin Yu knows very well about oaths. If the taker of an oath does not keep it, he will definitely be punished. Some ignorant mortals in the mortal world can swear casually, but a Xiuzhenist like Qin Yu does not dare to do so.

“But you and my 2nd brother Hei Yu will have to go into hiding for a period of time first. When it’s totally safe, I’ll tell you immediately through your transmitter.” Having come up with a plan, he says to Zhuang Zhong at once.

Zhuang Zhong however says smilingly: “I understand your intention, guardian Liu Xing. This time you want to shift the blame onto me, don’t you?”

Qin Yu laughs. It feels really good to have a smart subordinate, especially when this subordinate is absolutely loyal to him.

“Guardian Liu Xing, I’ve got one thing to tell you. This is a very important thing. If you can’t resolve it, perhaps your plan will be no use.” Zhuang Zhong’s face becomes somewhat serious. Seeing his expression, Qin Yu concentrates his attention on listening to him.

“Guardian Liu Xing, before dying, Bai Yin already sent a message about your rebellion through his transmitter.”

The color of Qin Yu’s face immediately changes.

This is bad!

In an instant, cold sweat exudes from his entire back. Once this message about his rebellion reaches the Blood-red Cave, the cave master Cha Hong will definitely hunt him down. This is an early Dongxu stage expert whose true form is even a blood-red aquatic python, an extremely formidable demonic beast.

It is difficult to tell how powerful Cha Hong really is.

“Don’t worry, guardian Liu Xing.” Zhuang Zhong seems to have a card up his sleeve.

Qin Yu looks at him. Seeing Zhuang Zhong’s confident appearance, he cannot help slightly getting his hopes up. He immediately asks: “Zhuang Zhong, what solution do you have? Can you tell me everything about it?”

Zhuang Zhong says with a nod: “Guardian Liu Xing, all the guardians under the Blood-red Cave have their own calculations. Which of them is absolutely loyal? Even if Bai Yin had sent this message to the other guardians, would they dare to tell someone else about it? Guardian Hou Fei’s power is no joke.”

Hearing this, Qin Yu relaxes.

With Hou Fei beside him, would those guardians dare to oppose him?

“Also, must Bai Yin’s words be the truth?” Zhuang Zhong laughs strangely.

Qin Yu is startled. He then also bursts out laughing.

That’s right! Does the message sent by guardian Bai Yin have to be true? Is it impossible that guardian Bai Yin wanted to frame him? Moreover, all the witnesses at the scene have died and the dead cannot provide evidence. At this point, if Qin Yu still did not know what to do, he would be a real fool.

“Bai Yin said I’m a traitor, but can’t I say that he was a traitor? Plus, I also got an attester.”

After Qin Yu knew about this matter, his plan is changed. Originally Zhuang Zhong was not allowed to go back and had to hide outside for a period of time, but now Zhuang Zhong has to return. This is an excellent attester, mostly because other Xiuyaoists in the Blood-red Cave have always considered him to be honest.

Zhuang Zhong also nods his head.

“But there’s someone you must kill, guardian Liu Xing. It’s Sang Mo. There’s a feud between Sang Mo and you. After getting this message, he’ll surely come up with countless ways to persuade cave master. I know cave master. He’s ambitious and powerful, but very suspicious in nature. Once Sang Mo succeeds, then …”

Hearing Zhuang Zhong’s words, Qin Yu also understands.

Other Xiuyaoists will not provoke Qin Yu because they are afraid of Hou Fei’s formidable power. After all, even if they report this message, they will not get any benefit. Instead, they will offend Qin Yu. But Sang Mo is different. He will definitely think of various ways to deal with Qin Yu.

“No good. He’s now in the Blood-red Cave. Even if I go back at my fastest speed, it’ll take me more than a half day.” Qin Yu’s face changes color.

Zhuang Zhong says smilingly: “If my guess is correct, Sang Mo’s definitely been tailing us. Now, you only need to message guardian Hou Fei, telling him to check the cave once. If Sang Mo is in the cave, kill him immediately. If he’s not in the cave, guardian Hou Fei must wait outside to stop and kill him.”

Qin Yu however thinks about a problem.

If Sang Mo informed the cave master through his transmitter right after getting the message, that will be terrible.

Zhuang Zhong, seeming to know what Qin Yu is thinking, says: “Don’t worry, guardian. Cave master definitely hasn’t been told about it. He has often undergone closed-door training for the last 100 years. More importantly, he hates being disturbed during a training session the most and doesn’t even carry a transmitter when training. Almost every guardian knows this.”

Qin Yu gives a smile.

He and Hou Fei have just joined the Blood-red Cave so they are not aware of this matter.

“Fei Fei, quickly check the Blood-red Cave once. If you see Sang Mo in the cave, kill him immediately. If he’s not inside, wait at the entrance to stop and kill him. You mustn’t let him meet cave master no matter what.”

Qin Yu sends this message through his transmitter to Hou Fei.

Hou Fei, who is extremely bold, is the most suitable to handle a task like this. After sending the message, Qin Yu feels very relaxed.

“Guardian Liu Xing, I still have a secret to tell you.” It seems Zhuang Zhong wants to tell Qin Yu everything to show his loyalty. In fact Zhuang Zhong also knows that if he kept some secret, it would be very bad for him if Qin Yu discovered this one day.

He has seen clearly that Qin Yu is helped by 2 super experts, Hei Yu and Hou Fei, who, in his estimation, are at least comparable to ordinary late Yuanying stage experts in power, or maybe even stronger. To surrender to and become dependent on someone with such strong support is no problem to him.

A faint smile appears on Qin Yu’s face: “Oh, what secret?”


At this moment, Qin Yu is very pleased with him.

Zhuang Zhong says solemnly: “Not even a practitioner more diligent than Cha Hong would undergo closed-door training for almost 100 years in a row. Moreover, according to my investigation, Cha Hong wasn’t this hard-working earlier than 100 years ago. Also, more than 100 years ago, the Blood-red Cave got more than 20 guardians, but some incident happened and the number of guardians was suddenly reduced by half.”

“This coupled with the fact that Cha Hong has often undergone closed-door training for the last 100 years makes me think that his closed-door training is related to this incident in which those guardians disappeared all at once.” Zhuang Zhong’s eyes glitter.

End of b5c25.

[wandering]

B5C26: Hou Fei’s fury

In the Blood-red Cave,

“My lord, I’ll massage your shoulders for you.” A lovely gentle lady-in-waiting beside Hou Fei says then massages his shoulders. Another lady-in-waiting carries a tray of fruits to his face and even helps him peel those fruits.

Hou Fei blinks his fiery eyes a couple of times. His entire body seems to turn into stone. But in just a moment, he shouts angrily.

“Go away, go away!”

He glares at the 2 ladies-in-waiting then, seemingly very furious, shoves them away. Staring at them, he breathes heavily through his nose: “Damn it, these women really are great scourges.”

At the moment, the places caressed by them on his body are still having goose bumps.

“That Cha Po fella really doesn’t know anything. Why did he send some women to my place?” He says in annoyance. Suddenly he utters a sound of surprise. “Who sends me a message at this time?” With a turn of his hand, a transmitter appears in it.

After Qin Yu and Hou Fei became the Blood-red Cave’s guardians, they were given a transmitter each.

“Sang Mo?” Hou Fei’s blood-red tongue licks his lips once. As his eyes blaze with fierceness, he says with a strange laughter: “Big brother has finally got his ideas straightened out. Kaka, that Sang Mo fella has already got on my nerves for some time.”

Right after saying, Hou Fei expands his holy sense and begins to search carefully.

This Blood-red Cave occupies a large area but his holy sense can still cover it completely. To search directly this way shows that Hou Fei is very arrogant. In the Blood-red Cave, only 2 Xiuyaoists have holy senses superior to Hou Fei’s, the 1st being Teng Bi and the 2nd being Cha Hong.

At this moment, Teng Bi, who is sitting with legs crossed in his room, opens his eyes and says to himself: “What is Hou Fei searching with his holy sense?” After thinking for a while, he laughs. He does not care about other Xiuyaoists’ business and is only interested in a fight with Hou Fei.

And Cha Hong, who is trying hard to open the seal of his black jade case, is simply in no mood to think about what Hou Fei wants to do.

“He’s not in here!”

Hou Fei lets out a heavy breath through his nose. His eyes glitter with ferocity. “You’re lucky that you can’t die for the moment, brat. But since I’ve already got into action, you have no chance of surviving.” He gives a couple of strange laughs then turns into a blur and rushes out of his courtyard house directly.

The 2 ladies-in-waiting who were shoved away by Hou Fei are complaining about this cruel monkey’s inability to understand flirtatious expressions. They suddenly hear something whistle out of the courtyard house.

“Yan’er, did our lord just go out?” An oval-faced lady-in-waiting blinks her big eyes and says.

The other oval-faced lady-in-waiting nods her head. Both of them are extremely astonished by Hou Fei’s speed because, after all, they are Jindan stage Xiuyaoists, but they were unable to see Hou Fei clearly. This goes to show how fast Hou Fei is.

……

Hou Fei’s body quickly appears outside the main entrance of the Blood-red Cave.

“Sir!”

Seeing Hou Fei, one of the guards at the Blood-red Cave’s entrance hurriedly says with respect: “May I ask if there is something that you want to do? Can we help you in anything?” These guards all know that this newly-arrived monkey-shaped guardian is very formidable.

Hou Fei glances at the guards on his 2 sides then says with a kaka laugh: “I’ve got nothing to do. I’m just here to wait for someone. Right, when did guardian Sang Mo go out?”

One of the guards hurriedly says: “Sir, guardian Sang Mo went out more than a half day ago.”

When Hou Fei hears this, a transmitter immediately appears in his hand. He sends this information to Qin Yu then puts the transmitter away and leans on the outside of the cave’s entrance. With his fiery eyes staring outwards, he waits for Sang Mo’s return.

……

“Big brother, that lowlife Sang Mo isn’t in the cave. He already went out more than a half day ago. But don’t worry, big brother. I’m waiting at the entrance of the cave. As soon as I see him, I’m going to reduce him to mince, kaka ~~” After getting this message, Qin Yu looks at Zhuang Zhong in appreciation.

Zhuang Zhong’s prediction is very precise.

“According to this message, Sang Mo went out more than a half day ago. Looks like he’s really been tailing us.” Qin Yu says smilingly.

Zhuang Zhong’s eyes brighten. He says hurriedly: “Guardian Liu Xing, in terms of speed, who is the faster between you and Sang Mo?”

Speed?

3 years ago, even when Sang Mo was using his true form, he was unable to catch up with Qin Yu. Now, after 3 years, Qin Yu has become much faster than Sang Mo.

“Even if Sang Mo uses his true form, he’ll still be slower than me.” Qin Yu says with a smile.

Zhuang Zhong hurriedly says: “Since Sang Mo has been following us for so long, he shouldn’t be very far from us at the moment. If we chase him now, we’ll still have a chance of catching up with him. If we can kill him before he reaches the Blood-red Cave, that problem will be resolved even better.”

Hei Yu says via his holy sense: “Big brother, your speed is slower than mine. I’m going to go.”

After saying, Hei Yu gets ready to give chase.

“Xiao Hei, you’re being hunted. When going forwards, you can’t enter the Blood-red Ridge’s territory. How about this? You can chase him, but if by the time you reach the halfway point you haven’t caught him then you’ll have to give up immediately and stop chasing.” Qin Yu says with a serious expression.

Hei Yu nods his head.

He certainly knows that Qin Yu wants him to be safe. Now is still not the time for them to face Cha Hong directly.

“Ok, big brother. I’ll give up at the halfway point regardless of whether I’ve caught up with him or not. Afterwards I’ll leave immediately. When you’ve handled this matter in the Blood-red Cave, send me a message. We brothers also need a territory of our own in the underwater Xiuyao world. I think the Blood-red Cave is not bad.” Hei Yu’s eyes glitter with coldness.

Qin Yu gives a smile.

A territory?

If not for the Blood-red Cave’s territory, why would he pretend to be loyal to Cha Hong? After all, with Hou Fei and Xiao Hei around, it will be hard for Cha Hong to deal with him, but if he wants to seize control of the Blood-red Cave openly, there will be some difficulties.

Firstly, the cave has 5000 guards. Even though their individual power is average, they are too many in number. Moreover, Qin Yu suspects that they can attack together through formations. Since there are too many of them, their joint attacks will be terrifying.

Secondly, those guardians are not easy to deal with. If they faced the Blood-red Cave head-on, this would lead the guardians to fight them.

Therefore, dealing with the Blood-red Cave from the inside is relatively easier.

“Don’t worry. Zhuang Zhong, you’re slow so stay at the back, Xiao Hei and I will go ahead of you.” Qin Yu says directly.

Hei Yu utters a sharp cry. Various blood-red electric sparks begins to spread out all over his wings. With a shake of the wings, he leaves Qin Yu very far behind in an instant like a red beam of light. Qin Yu controls his flying sword and uses the Body-Weapon Unification technique to chase after him extremely fast.

……

Sang Mo is going through the water very quickly.

“Really can’t wait to see that Liu Xing fella run for his life and get hunted. This time he definitely won’t escape, ha-ha ~~~” A sharp evil laughter comes out from Sang Mo’s throat. He immediately transforms into a huge octopus.

Now that Sang Mo has switched to his true form, his speed increases a lot in an instant.

When Sang Mo started to tail the 5 guardians, there was already a long distance between him and them. He then returned right after receiving Bai Yin’s message whereas Qin Yu and the others spent some time talking to each other after Bai Yin’s death.

This means that Sang Mo already began to rush back to the Blood-red Cave long before Xiao Hei and Qin Yu give chase.

Sang Mo went leisurely during the outward journey, but when returning, he uses his true form to go extremely fast. There is a great difference between the 2 speeds therefore it also takes much less time for him to return.

……

A red beam of light is piercing through the water. Wherever it goes, the water around it becomes turbulent. Suddenly this red light beam stops.

“I unexpectedly can’t catch up with him.” Hei Yu looks ahead then decides to stop. In fact, he does not want to make Qin Yu worried so he only chases to the halfway point. Given his speed, if he continued to chase, he would definitely be able to catch up with Sang Mo.

However, because Hei Yu is being hunted by the Blood-red Cave, it is better for him to stay away from the cave.

“Given the power of that Fei Fei fella, Sang Mo won’t be able to survive 1 hit. It’s useless for me to keep chasing. We better let Fei Fei handle this.” After sending Qin Yu a message, Hei Yu rushes in another direction.

In his opinion, Sang Mo is definitely going to die at the hands of Hou Fei.

After a while, Qin Yu arrives at the place where Hei Yu just left.

“Where did Sang Mo begin to go back from? He also started some time earlier than me.” Qin Yu does not stop. He heads straight for the Blood-red Cave at his fastest speed. He just wants to try his best. It will not be a big problem even if he cannot catch up with Sang Mo.

……

Hu!

A huge octopus rushes into the Blood-red Ridge like a huge red light beam. Feeling its powerful aura, various Xiuyaoists in the Blood-red Ridge shun it. Sang Mo has already reached the Blood-red Ridge.

Before long, his blood-red eyes see the Blood-red Cave in the distance.

At this moment, Hou Fei, who is leaning on the main entrance of the Blood-red Cave, suddenly opens his fiery eyes. A dazzling beam of light shoots straight at Sang Mo from his eyes. At the same time, he flies up.

“Kaka ~~ Sang Mo, you villain!”

For some reason, fire begins to come out from Hou Fei’s eyes and the hair on his whole body stands straight up. It looks like he is extremely angry. The black stick in his hands is emitting a murderous aura.

Sang Mo, who has put a lot of effort into rushing back, is so scared that his entire body trembles as soon as he hears Hou Fei’s shouts. He has heard about Hou Fei’s power and knows that even Cha Po and several guardians were completely defeated by Hou Fei in an instant when joining forces.

“Hou Fei, what do you want to do?” Sang Mo transforms into a human and shouts at Hou Fei from a distance.

At the same time, a transmitter quickly appears in a hand put behind his back. The transmitter disappears immediately. There is a faint smile on the corners of his mouth. He knows that he cannot face Hou Fei head-on and must be compliant in this situation.

“Do you have to ask what I want to do? Do you still have the face to ask what I want to do?” Hou Fei’s entire body shivers with anger. His violent aura wreaks havoc in his surroundings.

Seeing 2 guardians confronting each other, those guards at the entrance of the Blood-red Cave certainly do not dare to interfere.

“Why is guardian Hou Fei so angry?”

“There’s no need to ask. Guardian Sang Mo must’ve offended him. You know, guardian Sang Mo is very unpopular. Of the 13 guardians, only he and guardian Teng Bi don’t have an ally. Guardian Teng Bi is very powerful so he disdains to have an ally. But in guardian Sang Mo’s case, it’s because he’s too unpleasant!”

“You’re right. The other guardians fear cave master’s might so they don’t dare to do anything to Sang Mo, but guardian Hou Fei seems to be very hot-tempered. Looks like this time Sang Mo has bumped into an iron panel.”

……

Those guards begin to discuss with each other. They know well about every guardian and what they say is true. Among the 13 guardians, only Teng Bi and Sang Mo are alone. Teng Bi is strong and bold, but the reason Sang Mo is alone is that he is a bit too strange and malevolent, and unpopular.

Sang Mo is baffled by Hou Fei’s questions.

“When did I offend him?” He cannot understand. Seeing that Hou Fei is so furious that all of his hair is standing on end, even Sang Mo himself thinks that he somehow offended Hou Fei. But even though he racks his brains, he cannot remember offending Hou Fei.

“Could this be because of Liu Xing? No, it couldn’t. In the main hall, didn’t I only force guardian Liu Xing to go kill the black eagle? That shouldn’t be enough to make guardian Hou Fei this furious.”

Sang Mo cannot think of a reason.

Hou Fei, who is mad with extreme anger, turns his face upwards and roars then shouts: “Sang Mo, listen up, you lowlife. From now on, either you or I will have to disappear. Take this!” Hou Fei waves his black stick once then rushes at Sang Mo like a beam of light and smashes into him like a meteor.

When Sang Mo hears the words ‘take this’, his whole body shakes. Only now does he know that Hou Fei wants to kill him!

Hou Fei wants to kill him!

Someone for whom he is simply no match wants to kill him!

“Yowl ~~~”

Facing death, Sang Mo immediately turns into a huge red octopus. At the same time, he utters an extremely furious and terrified yowl that resounds through an area of several hundred li in radius around him, attracting the attention of a great number of Xiuyaoists.

The black stick quickly lengthens. From a common-looking stick, it becomes one that is over 10 m long.

Boom!

At this crucial moment, his fear of death enables Sang Mo to surpass his limits. With a shake of his 8 tentacles, he moves away extremely fast. However, even though he has surpassed his limits, he is still far inferior to a middle Yuanying stage divine beast!

Boom!

As if he is hit by an explosion, his blood splatters around and fragments of his severed tentacles are sent flying in all directions. The area within several hundred meters of him is dyed red by his blood.

Hou Fei is secretly surprised.

Just now, that blow of the stick unexpectedly failed to kill Sang Mo. Facing death, Sang Mo was able to surpass his limits and move much faster than he should have been able to. Even though 3 of his tentacles were smashed off by Hou Fei with that strike, his head avoided getting hit.

It should be known that Hou Fei was aiming for Sang Mo’s head.

“Sang Mo, you’ve even dared to run away! You even want to run away! Take this!!!” Hou Fei looks even more furious. With a roar, he brandishes the black stick and attacks again. It is smashed towards Sang Mo extremely fast like a huge pillar.

“Stop!” Cha Po rushes out of the cave and shouts loudly.

As Hou Fei hears Cha Po’s shout, a faint smile that is cold and cruel appears on the corners of his mouth. His black stick unexpectedly speeds up. Now it is really too fast, so fast that the water where it goes through cannot even react. The water near the stick is simply not disturbed, as if time has frozen.

“What?!”

Because the huge black stick appears almost instantly at Sang Mo’s face as if teleported, his eyes pop out of his head.

Boom!

The originally undisturbed water suddenly explodes. Concurrently with this, the body of the huge octopus also explodes. It is shattered into countless fragments, which scatter all around. Within a several km radius of the explosion, the water is reddened by blood.

With a shake of his body, Hou Fei returns to the area outside the Blood-red Cave’s entrance.

“Hou Fei, why didn’t you stop?” Cha Po shouts furiously. At the moment, his hand is still holding a transmitter, which contains the message Sang Mo sent him moments ago.

End of b5c26.

[wandering]

B5C27: Cha Hong and Hou Fei

At the moment, the several thousand guards around the Blood-red Cave are watching. According to the Nine Demons Hall’s rules, Xiuyaoists from the same powerhouse are not allowed to kill each other. The Blood-red Cave is Cha Hong’s headquarters, but a guardian has killed another right outside the entrance of the cave. This is an extraordinary incident.

Cha Po is extremely angry because he did not expect Hou Fei to be so bold as to kill Sang Mo.

“Say! Why didn’t you stop after hearing my order?!” He shouts again.

Hou Fei simply pays no attention to him and stares inside the cave. Suddenly he strokes his nose and licks his lips with his blood-red tongue once then tilts his head, looking at Cha Po with his piercing blazing fiery eyes!

“Can you say it again?”

Hou Fei focuses his eyes on Cha Po and says slowly.

Cha Po is unexpectedly startled and becomes speechless. Hou Fei, however, keeps staring at him and presses him with a tremendous aura. In just a moment, beads of sweat begin to stand out on his forehead and his back is also moistened by sweat. Only now does Cha Po wake up with a start.

“Ah, who am I talking to? Because of a Five Nights Purple Flower, didn’t this monkey still fight me even after knowing that I’m the Blood-red Cave’s vice master?” Cha Po recalls how he made friends with Hou Fei before.

Now he feels somewhat regretful because only his big brother can deal with this monkey. Cha Po himself is really no match for Hou Fei.

“Listen up, I don’t care about any rules, if someone provokes me, don’t blame me for being ruthless. Humph, even if that’s a guardian, my stick won’t show any mercy. Remember, I won’t touch anyone who doesn’t offend me. But those who do should get ready to be turned into minced meat by my stick!”

Hou Fei says with a cold laugh while staring at Cha Po then unexpectedly stands at the center of the Blood-red Cave’s entrance.

Hearing Hou Fei’s words and seeing fragments of the octopus’s exploded body floating in the water in all directions, Cha Po secretly draws a cold breath. Now he knows even more clearly that this monkey fears nothing.

“Guardian Hou Fei, as the cave’s vice master, I want to ask you why you killed Sang Mo?” At the moment his voice has become milder.

Hou Fei laughs kaka strangely then turns around and looks at Cha Po with his fiery eyes, saying: “You asked why I killed him? But I don’t feel like answering.” Hou Fei is behaving in a very arrogant and wild manner, which greatly amazes the guards around.

Cha Po’s expression starts to become unpleasant.

Hou Fei is showing a complete lack of respect for him.

All of a sudden, Hou Fei says laughingly and playfully: “Vice master Cha Po, actually, do you still have to ask about this matter? The answer is very simple -- he angered me. Do you understand? He pissed me off. If he hadn’t offended me, why would I have killed him?”

Cha Po frowns. What kind of answering is this? It is the same as saying nothing.

Immediately, Cha Po wants to open his mouth to continue questioning on how Sang Mo offended Hou Fei.

Seeing that Cha Po is about to ask again, Hou Fei immediately uses holy sense communication: “Brat, this is a public place. I’ve already let you save face so we should be friendly to each other. Otherwise, you’ll provoke me and lose face. That won’t be very good.”

Hearing this, Cha Po swallows back what he is about to say.

At this moment --

“Fei Fei!”

A familiar voice rises and a black blur shoots towards them extremely fast. Only when it stops can everyone see clearly that it is Qin Yu on his black flying sword. But as soon as they see Qin Yu’s current appearance, they are all astonished.

At the moment, there is a frightening wound on his stomach. The wound is very shocking. His face has gone miserably pale and his lips have turned purple.

“Big brother, are you ok?” Hou Fei’s entire body becomes agitated. All of his hair stands straight up.

Even Cha Po takes a cold breath when seeing Qin Yu’s injury. After all, he is a middle Yuanying stage expert so he can conclude at a glance that Qin Yu’s injury must have been caused directly by someone’s sharp weapon when it penetrated into his stomach.

Qin Yu is truly lucky to be able to return alive after suffering such a serious wound.

“Big brother, who injured you?” Hou Fei has become anxious. He immediately holds and supports Qin Yu. It is really fortunate that Qin Yu has been able to get back here on his flying sword. Hou Fei’s eyes glitter with fierceness: “Big brother, who is it? I’m going to destroy whoever injured you!”

A raging aura erupts from his whole body.

“Forget it, Fei Fei.” Qin Yu says with a faint smile with great effort.

“Who’s the attacker, guardian Liu Xing? Just tell me everything. Our Blood-red Cave definitely won’t let those who dare to provoke any guardians go unpunished.” Now Cha Po has also come forwards, but he is thinking about Sang Mo’s message in his mind.

Qin Yu says while trying to endure the pain: “Vice master, this time we went out to hunt that black eagle down according to cave master’s order. But who could’ve thought that guardian Bai Yin and guardian Ran Lan would collaborate with the black eagle and attack us instead? In the beginning, guardian Mu Xu was struck by guardian Bai Yin with a sneak blow and died tragically on the spot.”

Hearing Qin Yu’s words, Cha Po frowns.

“You mean that you and guardian Zhuang Zhong were able to defeat Bai Yin, Ran Lan and the black eagle?” He questions.

Qin Yu says with a shake of his head: “Luckily guardian Zhuang Zhong is sharp and alert. When guardian Mu Xu was killed, he immediately attacked Ran Lan while I attacked Bai Yin. Fortunately, when I left my master, I was given a precious Thunder Talisman to use when my life is in danger. And I immediately killed guardian Bai Yin with it. This wound was inflicted on me by the black eagle. But I have my special skills too so it was also injured. Perhaps because it didn’t want to go all out against me, it snatched guardian Bai Yin’s and guardian Mu Xu’s yuanyings and ran away. Guardian Zhuang Zhong was able to get guardian Ran Lan’s yuanying. I’m faster than him so I returned first to tell cave master about this.”

As he finishes saying, a lustrous purple yuanying appears in the palm of his hand.

“Please take this yuanying, vice master. Now I have to go treat my injury quickly.” Qin Yu’s face becomes even a bit paler.

After hearing what Qin Yu said, Cha Po looks at the yuanying before him and thinks about Sang Mo’s message. He then looks at Qin Yu’s wound again. For the moment, his mind is somewhat confused.

“Stop saying, big brother. Quickly go back and treat the wound.”

Without letting Qin Yu say anymore, Hou Fei immediately rushes him to his house. But he puts Ran Lan’s yuanying in front of Cha Po instead of taking it with him.

Cha Po clenches his teeth and immediately gets the yuanying. He then goes into the cave immediately as well. After a while, guardian Zhuang Zhong returns with some minor injuries and goes straight back to his dwelling place in the Blood-red Cave.

……

Outside the secret room wherein Cha Hong is doing closed-door training,

Cha Po, who is standing with a very urgent expression, calls loudly: “Big brother, quickly come out. Something serious has happened. Quickly come out!” His worries have become too much for him to bear. As soon as he thinks about what has happened, his mind becomes nervous.

In just a while, the door of the secret room opens.

“Why so urgent? These days I can’t even do closed-door training in peace. Quickly say it. What’s happened? Now I don’t have time to waste on you.” Cha Hong shouts coldly.

He has now entered the final stage of removing that seal.

Cha Po says angrily: “Have no time to waste? Big brother, do you know a serious incident has happened? Guardian Bai Yin is already dead, and so are Mu Xu and Ran Lan. Besides these 3 guardians, even guardian Sang Mo has been killed.”

Cha Hong’s face freezes.

After his expression changes several times, he calms down and says indifferently: “Tell me everything about this incident.”

Seeing his big brother so calm, Cha Po is also affected and calms down a bit. He immediately says: “This incident is pretty confusing. I’m going to tell you the main details. According to guardian Liu Xing, among the 3 guardians who died first, Bai Yin and Ran Lan were in league with that black eagle. They wanted to kill the 3 guardians Liu Xing, Zhuang Zhong and Mu Xu. Guardian Liu Xing then killed Bai Yin with the Thunder Talisman his master had given him. Also, he went all out against the black eagle and scared it away.”

“Liu Xing’s master? Thunder Talisman?” Cha Hong frowns deeply.

When he first saw Qin Yu’s special practice technique before, he asked about Qin Yu’s school, but Qin Yu did not reveal it.

“However, guardian Sang Mo messaged me, saying that guardian Liu Xing is … is the Xiuxianist!” Cha Po pauses for a moment then continues: “Immediately afterwards, guardian Hou Fei got mad for some reason and killed guardian Sang Mo!”

Cha Po looks at his big brother, waiting for his response.

Cha Hong slightly narrows his eyes, which glitter with coldness.

“You can continue.” Cha Hong calms down again.

Cha Po says: “But when guardian Liu Xing returned just now, he was wounded, and even very seriously. Something had penetrated into his body through his stomach. If that attack had been a little more powerful, perhaps guardian Liu Xing would’ve died on the spot. Even though guardian Liu Xing is still living, it will take him about a year to recover.”

“Big brother … at first I suspected that guardian Liu Xing had injured himself but that injury was too frightening. Just a bit careless and he would’ve killed himself. I don’t think anyone can harm themselves like that. Plus, he even handed Ran Lan’s yuanying over to me. But about the message guardian Sang Mo sent before his death …”

Cha Po says while frowning.

Cha Hong stares at Cha Po and shouts: “2nd brother, listen up, the information about this incident must be contained. You must keep your mouth shut. At the same time, you also don’t have to care about it. Just leave everything to me and immediately go tell the guardians to gather in the main hall.”

“Yes!” Cha Po nods then turns around and leaves at once.

Cha Hong however mumbles to himself: “Master? Thunder Talisman? Who knows if they are real? That guardian Liu Xing is almost certainly the Xiuxianist. A Xiuxianist naturally doesn’t want a yuanying. Oh my, time, now I need time the most. If this incident happened 1 year later, I would be able to response with drastic actions.”

……

All of the remaining 11 guardians have gathered in the main hall. The incident that happened this time is very serious because it involves the deaths of 4 guardians consisting of Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Sang Mo. Moreover, guardian Sang Mo was killed openly by Hou Fei just outside the Blood-red Cave.

The 3 black turtle brothers, the 2 tiger shark brothers, the 2 snake women, the horned dragon Teng Bi, Zhuang Zhong, Qin Yu and Hou Fei, 11 guardians in total, are standing on the lower part of the hall. Cha Po has also arrived. Everyone is waiting for Cha Hong, the Blood-red Cave’s master.

In a short while, Cha Hong walks up to the throne, flings his robe and sits down directly.

He then casts a glance at the guardians below him and says solemnly: “Gentlemen, this time, a disaster of an order of magnitude not seen for 100 years has happened to our Blood-red Cave. Guardian Bai Yin and 3 others have unexpectedly all died. And guardian Sang Mo has even been killed by guardian Hou Fei at the Blood-red Cave’s entrance.”

“Hou Fei!” Cha Hong suddenly shouts.

Hou Fei takes a forward step, raises his head and looks at Cha Hong with a faint strange smile on the corners of his mouth.

“The Blood-red Cave and the 7 other powers of its caliber have always followed the rule made by the Nine Demons Hall that Xiuyaoists of the same powerhouse are not allowed to kill each other. But you, as a guardian of my Blood-red Cave, have unexpectedly killed Sang Mo openly in front of a great number of Xiuyaoists. Didn’t you think about the Blood-red Cave? Didn’t you think about the Nine Demons Hall? Didn’t you think about me?” Cha Hong shouts furiously.

An enraged Cha Hong makes his terrifying aura surge forth.

As if the end of the world has come, a shockingly powerful aura covers the whole main hall in the blink of an eye. It presses on Hou Fei, restraining him. As Cha Hong has not got into action for many years, a lot of people have questioned his power.

However, now, judging from the eruption of his aura alone, the guardians below him no longer have any doubts.

Hou Fei licks his lips with his blood-red tongue once then unexpectedly raises his head even higher and looks at Cha Hong angrily. His eyes are blazing with fighting spirit. He has never had a chance to fight a super expert like Cha Hong.

“Fei Fei, are you certain of beating him?” Qin Yu asks via his holy sense.

Still glaring at Cha Hong, Hou Fei says through his holy sense: “Without using berserk mode, I don’t think I stand a chance. But if I go berserk, I’ll have a 50-50 chance. This Cha Hong fella is very strong, exceptionally strong, but ... I like that!”

His eyes start to become even more blazing and his fighting spirit even more rampant!

End of b5c27.

[wandering]

B5C28: Cha Po’s death

At the moment, the atmosphere inside the main hall is very oppressive. Hou Fei and Cha Hong are confronting each other. It seems they can fight anytime now.

Cha Hong is secretly surprised: “This monkey is unexpectedly so strong. He should be a match for ordinary Dongxu stage experts, but if he really fights me, he’ll stand no chance.” He is very confident.

“Cave master, I came here to be a guardian, and not to be insulted. That Sang Mo fella dug his own grave by offending me. If he hadn’t offended me, why would I have killed him?”

Hou Fei’s voice resounds through the hall.

“Oh, he offended you?” Cha Hong ponders for a while. “Guardian Hou Fei, well, this rule is indeed somewhat problematic. If he threatened or offended you, it’ll be unfair if instead of punishing him you have to suppress your anger due to this rule.”

Right after these words are said, the atmosphere in the hall is no longer as tense as it was a moment ago.

Hearing Cha Hong say so, Qin Yu secretly relaxes a bit.

“All right, for the moment, this matter is put on hold. I’ll examine it carefully later.” Cha Hong then turns to Qin Yu, saying: “Guardian Liu Xing, the 3 guardians Bai Yin, Ran Lan and Mu Xu are already dead, but you unexpectedly said that Bai Yin and Ran Lan had collaborated with the black eagle?”

“That’s indeed what happened, cave master.”

Qin Yu’s face looks pale, but he still says with a cough.

As soon as Cha Hong scans Qin Yu’s wound with his holy sense, he is secretly astonished. After being told by Cha Po, he already thought that Qin Yu’s injury was very serious, but he never thought that it would be this serious. He even wonders how Qin Yu can still stand with such a severe wound.

Qin Yu, however, feels frustrated inwardly.

“Meteoric Tear, your healing ability is too strong. After I rested in my house for just a short time, the wound had already almost healed so I had no choice but to injure myself again.” Qin Yu’s wound of course was caused by himself.

His wound was indeed shockingly serious.

However, because the Meteoric Tear’s healing ability is too strong, after he rested in his courtyard house for some time, more than half of the wound had already healed. Therefore, he had to tear it open again.

“Your injury is indeed very serious, guardian Liu Xing. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but guardian Bai Yin has served the Blood-red Cave for many years and he’s never shown any disloyalty before. This time … I really can’t believe it.” Cha Hong says in a seemingly sincere manner: “How about this? Can you describe the fighting process again, guardian Liu Xing?”

Qin Yu slightly gasps for breath and says: “Cave master, I and 4 other guardians went out to hunt for that black eagle together. When we ran into it, we began to attack it according to our plan, but Bai Yin suddenly sneakily attacked guardian Mu Xu.”

When the other Xiuyaoists in the hall hear this, their hearts cannot help but skip a beat.

Middle Yuanying stage Bai Yin sneakily attacking a completely defenseless Mu Xu, the result of this is easy to imagine.

“Guardian Mu Xu died instantly. Guardian Zhuang Zhong was on high alert so when seeing this scene he noticed that Ran Lan was also attacking him. Guardian Zhuang Zhong then fought guardian Ran Lan and in the end killed him. Meanwhile, I attacked guardian Bai Yin. Using the Thunder Talisman that my master had bestowed on me, I killed Bai Yin immediately.”

Qin Yu has told a lie without batting an eyelid.

The Thunder Talisman is no ordinary talisman. Talismans and seals are also divided into classes. Generally, only expert talisman or seal makers who have reached extremely high levels in power can create this Thunder Talisman.

“Thunder Talisman!”

Teng Bi, who has been keeping his eyes shut on one side, suddenly opens his eyes, looking completely astonished.

Qin Yu, however, secretly laughs. He does not have any Thunder Talismans and has only read about how to make this kind of talisman and its power in some Xiuzhen books. This formidable kind of talisman is extremely difficult to make and its materials are also extremely difficult to obtain.

“Guardian Liu Xing, your master is really powerful.” Cha Hong praises then says: “Most probably afterwards you fought the black eagle and scared it off despite getting seriously injured.”


Qin Yu nods his head.

From beginning to end, guardian Zhuang Zhong does not say anything, but his expression looks somewhat unpleasant.

The remaining guardians have always thought that Zhuang Zhong is a very nice fellow. He has treated every one of them very well and therefore is extremely popular.

“Guardian Zhuang Zhong, was the course of events the same as what guardian Liu Xing said?” Cha Hong looks at Zhuang Zhong and asks. Qin Yu and the others also look at him. It is impossible to confirm based on Qin Yu’s account alone. Zhuang Zhong’s account is also very important.

Zhuang Zhong lets out a sigh: “Alas, cave master, my heart is in a lot of pain.”

Everyone present begins to guess what is going to happen if Zhuang Zhong refutes Qin Yu’s words.

“Everybody knows that there’s a very good relationship between Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and me.” His answer is beside the point. The other guardians all nod their heads. They all know about Bai Yin’s gang of four. Zhuang Zhong continues: “Bai Yin was a bit of a hypocrite but he treated us pretty well. Ran Lan was bitter and cruel but he was also fairly loyal.”

The other guardians, however, secretly curse.

Loyal?

Who does not know about Ran Lan’s cunningness and ruthlessness? Bai Yin was even more adept at toadying and was extremely hypocritical. Therefore, after Qin Yu said that they were in league with the black eagle, some of the guardians in the hall believed him at once.

“But, I never thought that the 2 of them would collaborate with the black eagle to kill me, Mu Xu and guardian Liu Xing. I think they wanted our yuanyings and jindan and guardian Liu Xing’s high-grade holy weapon.”

Zhuang Zhong sighs: “Who could have thought that they were so greedy. From beginning to end, they didn’t tell me anything.”

The 3 black turtle brothers, the 2 snake women and the others all secretly sneer.

Tell an honest fellow like you?

At the same time, they look at Qin Yu in amazement. They never thought that he has a high-grade holy weapon. Even though he used the black flying sword to fight Sang Mo before, it is very difficult to evaluate flying swords based on appearance alone.

Cha Hong also says with a sigh: “Don’t be upset, guardian Zhuang Zhong. They are unworthy of your grief.”

“Alright, now the matter has practically been cleared up. Bai Yin and Ran Lan coveted the other guardians’ yuanyings, jindan and holy weapon so they collaborated with the black eagle, thinking that nobody would know about this. Not even death can expiate their crime. Cha Po, give guardian Liu Xing Ran Lan’s yuanying. Guardian Liu Xing has been seriously injured. After refining this yuanying, he will probably improve a bit in power. This is the compensation for his injury.”

Hearing Cha Hong say so, Cha Po reaches out a hand. Ran Lan’s yuanying appears on his hand.

The other guardians, however, pay no attention to it.

Not many Xiuyaoists absorb yuanyings because, firstly, other yuanyings’ energies are different from their own energies. Absorbing others’ energies will defile the energies inside their bodies, which will be harmful to them in the future.

Moreover, a practitioner who refines and absorbs a yuanying in the right way can only obtain 10% of its energy.

Most of the other guardians are at the early Yuanying stage so they do not really care about absorbing the yuanying of someone of this power level. Even if they only absorbed its essence, their power would improve by just 10% at most.

“Guardian Liu Xing, take it. This is a gesture of goodwill from my big brother.” Cha Po hands over the yuanying but his mind is suspicious of Qin Yu: “Humph, let me see if you’ll dare to refine and absorb this yuanying. They say Xiuxianists can’t absorb yuanyings. In just a while, everything will become clear because of this yuanying.”

“Thank you, cave master!”

Qin Yu immediately receives Ran Lan’s yuanying.

……

In the secret room of the Blood-red Cave, there are only Cha Hong and Cha Po at the moment.

“Big brother, why didn’t you tell that guardian Liu Xing to refine the yuanying in the main hall so that we could see with our own eyes? Humph, if he didn’t dare to refine it, or if his energy misbehaved badly after the absorption, that would mean he’s the Xiuxianist!”

Cha Po has always been suspicious of Qin Yu’s identity.

Cha Hong gives an indifferent smile. He does not want to confront Qin Yu for the moment.

The reason for this is that the black jade case is going to be opened within several months. To him, no matters can be as important as the black jade case.

“2nd brother, listen. In the next half year, you mustn’t provoke Liu Xing and Hou Fei. Just pretend that you trust them and consider them friends. No matter what happens, you have to wait for a half year. I want the Blood-red Cave to be stable in this half year!” Cha Hong says solemnly.

Hearing his big brother say in such a serious manner, Cha Po immediately nods.

“All right, 2nd brother, you can leave. Don’t disturb me during this period of time. I want to finish my practice without a break.” Cha Hong says smilingly.

With his eyes brightening, Cha Po says: “Big brother, could it be you’re going to make a breakthrough within a half year?” He simply does not know about the black jade case so after hearing Cha Hong say that no accidents are allowed to happen in the next half year he thinks that his big brother is about to make a breakthrough.

Cha Hong gives a smile and nods.

Indeed he is going to make a breakthrough in power soon. But it is going to take him from 2 to 3 years instead of a half year.

Do not think that he has only been spending his own energy to drain the energy of the black jade case’s Dust Removing restrictive spell. While using his energy, he has also been absorbing the holy energy in nature to practice. His yuanying has been gradually improving for the past 100 years and Cha Hong has already reached the peak of the early Dongxu stage.

……

Qin Yu’s injury has healed completely in less than a half day.

“Fei Fei, I’m going to do closed-door training for some time. Don’t let anyone disturb me during this period of time unless something serious happens.” Qin Yu entrusts the task of guarding to Hou Fei on one side of him.

Hou Fei says with a smile: “Don’t worry, big brother. This time we got the 4 yuanyings of Bai Yin, Ran Lan, Mu Xu and Sang Mo. But I’ve already reached the middle Yuanying stage so it’s basically useless for me to absorb them. They aren’t even very useful to Xiao Hei either. So, they can only be given to you.”

A faint smile appears on Qin Yu’s face.

“There’s no hurry to refine them. Of the 4 yuanyings, I only need Bai Yin’s. It’s totally enough for me already. Let’s put the other yuanyings away for the moment.” It is not necessarily a good thing to refine as many yuanyings as possible. When the refiner’s power reaches a certain level, he should stop.

Now Qin Yu wants to reach the 2nd of the 6 stage of the Stellar Transformations, the Meteor stage.

“All right, big brother. I’m going to help you by guarding outside. No one will be able to disturb you.” Hou Fei leaves while laughing kaka. Qin Yu immediately goes into his own bedroom and sits down with legs crossed on the bed. His mind starts to recall the contents of the Stellar Transformations.

The Stellar Transformations is divided into 6 stages, Nebula, Meteor, Core, Planet, Dujie and Star. The Nebula stage is about consolidating the foundation so its offense is not strong at all. However, once the practitioner reaches the Meteor stage, his offense will begin to increase by leaps and bounds.

In the past, when Lei Wei was still at the middle Dujie stage, he was able to single-handedly kill a Dacheng stage Xiuzhenist, several loose immortals and several tens Dujie stage and Kongming stage Xiuzhenists. Afterwards, he overcame 8 of the 9 thunderbolts of the 9-From-9th Heaven Tribulation before unwillingly failing to withstand the 9th thunderbolt in the end.

His power was shockingly strong.

Lei Wei was definitely a humanoid divine beast, or even something stronger. However, Qin Yu is currently not so formidable like that because he has only reached the foundation-strengthening stage, Nebula.

“To reach the Meteor stage, I have to combine a very great number of silvery grains into a golden particle of essence. It will become a core inside my body -- a Meteor.” Qin Yu gives a faint smile. The gap between the late Nebula stage and the early Meteor stage is really too big.

The Meteor stage focuses on speed, condensation and instantaneous explosiveness!

At the moment, Qin Yu’s stellar energy is still in its most common form. By the time he reaches the Meteor stage, a myriad of silvery grains will have already been refined down to a single golden particle of essence called a Meteor. Energy will come out from the Meteor in the form of thin threads that looks like rays of light.

Their thinness also represents a high level of energy condensation.

His offensive force will be focused on one point so it will be extraordinarily powerful. The golden stellar energy will also fuse with his body so he will progress at least 10 times faster than he is at the moment, or maybe even more.

“Theoretically, at the Nebula stage, a practitioner of the Stellar Transformations should stay in a certain place to practice. Only when he has reached the Meteor stage can he wander around and fight other Xiuzhenists!”

As soon as Qin Yu remembers the descriptions of the Meteor stage and the later stages in the Stellar Transformations, he cannot help feeling himself burning with excitement. Now he is weaker than Xiao Hei and Hou Fei, but this will change once he reaches the early Meteor stage.

“Alright, let’s start practicing.”

Qin Yu closes his eyes.

However, at this moment, the noise of an explosion reaches him from inside the Blood-red Cave. Afterwards, the cave is in turmoil. All the guarding Xiuyaoists begin to run in all directions.

“Guardian Hou Fei, vice master has been killed by a mysterious figure. That mysterious figure has disappeared. Please chase and capture the killer quickly.”

A guard runs up to the side of Hou Fei and says respectfully. Hou Fei’s face changes color. He says: “You can leave first.” He then runs towards Qin Yu’s room at once. But Qin Yu has already come out of the room. He also heard clearly what that guard said just now.

“Big brother?” Hou Fei looks at Qin Yu.

Qin Yu feels that the current situation is somewhat bad. Cha Po, the cave’s vice master, has unexpectedly been killed at this time. However, the wound on his stomach has healed completely and he cannot let anyone discover this.

“Fei Fei, no matter what happens, if someone comes to find me, just tell them I am doing closed-door training and can’t be disturbed. I feel that the situation has already become a little chaotic. I must quickly improve my power.” He immediately says to Hou Fei.

Hou Fei nods then sits down in the courtyard of Qin Yu’s house at once. He will not let anybody disturb Qin Yu.

Disregarding everything, Qin Yu goes back into his room.

At this crucial moment, the most important thing to do is improve his power! Once he reaches the Meteor stage, his hands will no longer be tied as they are now.

Meanwhile, an extremely furious deep voice resounds through the Blood-red Cave.

“Listen up, 5000 guards and 11 guardians. From now on, keep a close watch everywhere. Nobody is allowed to enter the Blood-red Cave. Whoever violates this rule must be killed!” All of the guards and guardians immediately become much more alert. The looks in their eyes become even fiercer as well.

End of b5c28.

[wandering]

B5C29: The Meteor stage

Various guard squads are continuously patrolling everywhere in the Blood-red Cave. Even those beautiful ladies-in-waiting on the walkways or in the corridors have also become cautious and no longer dare to banter flirtatiously with the guards as before. The current atmosphere in the Blood-red Cave is very oppressive.

The guardians, consisting of Yan Qing and her sister, the 3 black turtle brothers, the 2 tiger shark brothers, Teng Bi, Qin Yu, Hou Fei and Zhuang Zhong, all stay in their own houses. None of them strolls outside.

Day after day of such a high level of vigilance and pressure passes …

……

In the Nine Demons Hall’s main hall,

There is a throne on a raised platform. Below it, there are 4 thrones on either side. At the moment, 8 men who are dressed in purple brocade robes are sitting in the thrones. Only the 2nd throne on the left among the lower thrones is vacant.

The man sitting in the highest throne in the main hall has thick eyebrows and big eyes. His body naturally gives off a lordly air.

This purple-robed man is examining a 3-cun long jade sword in his hand. After looking at it carefully several times, he says: “This is the 6th of the legendary 9 Swords. It’s indeed a good sword, very good.” As he exclaims nonstop, his eyes blaze with excitement.

The 1st purple-robed man on the right below him, however, says critically: “Big brother, what’s good about it? Isn’t it just a top-grade holy weapon? Though top-grade holy weapons are pretty precious, this sword doesn’t deserve such fame. Except for some special functions, what’s good about this jade sword itself?”

“What do you know?” The higher purple-robed man says laughingly.

The true forms of the Nine Demons Hall’s 9 brothers are Purple Demon aquatic dragons. Even though they are not divine dragons, they are close to divine dragons in power. A Purple Demon aquatic dragon can defeat 5 or 6 Xiuxianists of the same power level as it. Therefore, by joining forces, these 9 Purple Demon aquatic dragons were able to become one of the 3 superpowers at the bottom of the ocean.

The higher purple-robed man is the big brother among them, Di Long!

Di Long looks at the jade sword with glittering eyes: “Brothers, you all know about those special functions. But this jade sword itself is also extraordinary. Let me tell you something. The material used to forge it was only a chunk of icy jasper.”

“How is this possible?”

Below him, his 7 brothers are all astonished.

It is common knowledge that icy jasper is only a material to make middle-grade holy weapons and cannot be forged into high-grade holy weapons, let alone top-grade holy weapons.

Di Long says with a faint smile on the corners of his mouth: “Don’t doubt it. This jade sword is only a key to open an immortal mansion. It’s simply impossible for you to imagine how powerful the immortal that forged this jade sword was. They certainly had the ability to perform miracles.”

“The fact that this immortal was able to forge top-grade holy weapons from a middle-grade material reflects their power. What things are there in the mansion of an immortal like this? When even the keys to it are already 9 top-grade holy weapons, what treasures is it storing?” Di Long’s eyes glitter.

The eyes of his 7 brothers also glitter. It seems they are also thinking about the treasures in the immortal mansion.

The 3rd brother Di Xu says: “Big brother, according to our intelligence, 7 of the 9 jade swords have appeared. The Xiuxianists of the Penglai Immortal Region got 1. The Purple Flame Devilish Dungeon’s Xiumoists are lucky; they unexpectedly got 2. That azure dragon of the Azure Dragon Palace got 1. We got 1 and that 3-eyed old freak of the Blue Water Mansion also got 1. It seems Azure Dragon and 3-Eyed are contending for the 7th jade sword.”

Underwater Xiuyaoists are very powerful and the number of jade swords they have obtained also partly reflects this.

The big brother Di Long slightly nods and says smilingly: “There are many Xiuxian schools in the Penglai Immortal Region but they only got 1 jade sword so perhaps there’ll be an internal struggle among them for a while. As for the 7th jade sword that has just appeared, we won’t get involved with it. We’d better let Azure Dragon and the old freak 3-Eyed fight each other.”

Azure Dragon of the Azure Dragon Palace and the 3-Blue-Eyed Toad of the Blue Water Mansion are 2 extremely powerful divine beasts. To put up a fight against either of them, the Nine Demons Hall will have to go all out.

“Big brother, now that the 7th jade sword has appeared, where are the remaining 2?” The 9th brother Di Nai asks.

Di Long says very confidently: “Nobody knows where the 9th sword currently is. But … I know where the 8th sword is. This time, 8th brother personally went out because of it. If my prediction is correct, 8th brother will succeed with ease.”

The 3rd brother Di Xu says smilingly: “9th brother, I know about this business too. Big brother told me to send subordinates to gather information about different camps and at the same time search for the jade swords. And I accidentally obtained the information about the 8th sword.”

Searching for the jade swords.

Not only has the Nine Demons Hall been searching for them, the Penglai Immortal Region, the Purple Flame Devilish Dungeon, the Azure Dragon Palace and the Blue Water Mansion have all sent experts to search for them everywhere as well. They have been searching the islands and the ocean and have even gone to the Qian Long continent to search.

Luckily those Xiuyaoists, Xiuxianists and Xiumoists entered the Qian Long continent only to search for the jade swords rather than to take part in its internal affairs, or else the 3 big kingdoms on the continent would not be able to enjoy such a high level of stability.

“The more jade swords the better. If we can obtain more jade swords, when the 5 superpowers unlock the immortal mansion later, our opinions will carry more weight and we’ll get more treasures. We’ll definitely obtain the 8th jade sword, so now we must try our best to find out where the 9th sword is!”

Di Long stands up and glances at his brothers below him, saying: “Brothers, let’s try your hardest to gather information about the 9th sword now!”

“Yes, big brother!”

The other 7 purple-robed men accept the order in unison.

……

3 months has already gone by. The Blood-red Cave is still as calm as before.

At the moment in the secret room of the cave,

Cha Hong is sitting with legs crossed. A black jade case is floating in front of him. It is continuously sending out many rays of light. And Cha Hong’s powerful demonic elemental energy is neutralizing the energy of the case’s Dust Removing restrictive spell nonstop. At this point, even Cha Hong has become emotional.

He withdraws his hands and stops sending his demonic elemental energy into the case. There are various beads of sweat on his forehead at the moment.

“Whew.”

Cha Hong’s eyebrows are drenched with sweat. Having been in possession of this black jade case for 100 years, today he has been able to ascertain that the case is going to be opened very soon. At that time he is going to obtain the treasure in the case and, as a result, have something to rely on to achieve his ambitions.

Xiuxianists’ Penglai Immortal Region, Xiumoists’ Purple Flame Devilish Dungeon, the Azure Dragon Palace, the Nine Demons Hall, and the Blue Water Mansion are absolutely the 5 strongest superpowers in the overseas Xiuzhen world.

The Blood-red Cave is only one of the 8 minor powers under the Nine Demons Hall. It is simply not in the same league as the 5 superpowers. Because of this, Cha Hong has been trying to lie very low and be very cautious, especially after obtaining the black jade case.

“After 100 years, this bloody restrictive spell is finally about to break. The immortal that set it up was really ridiculous. Isn’t it just a dust-removing spell? Casually using a little power would’ve been enough. Why gave it so much energy?” Cha Hong says smilingly with a sigh.

At the moment he is in a fairly good mood.

However, as soon as he remembers his 2nd brother Cha Po’s sudden death, he has a tinge of a bad feeling.

“Hopefully nothing unexpected will happen at this final juncture. But … I definitely won’t let anyone snatch my treasure.” Cha Hong’s eyes glitter with coldness. Afterwards, he rests for a while to replenish his demonic elemental energy then continues to drain the energy of the Dust Removing restrictive spell.

……

In Qin Yu’s courtyard house in the eastern part of the Blood-red Cave,

Hou Fei is sitting with legs crossed and eyes closed in the courtyard. There is a black stick next to him. He has been practicing this way for 3 whole months. But he has not been practicing with full concentration because he has been watching the surroundings closely using his holy sense.

He definitely will not let anybody interrupt Qin Yu’s training.

Qin Yu is practicing in the room guarded by Hou Fei. At the moment, his body is radiating an indistinct light similar to starlight. Stellar energy has formed a huge nebula that is enfolding him. Qin Yu is sitting with legs crossed above the bed.

He is currently sitting in midair.

Suddenly!

The nebula spins faster. At the same time, the sun above the ocean unexpectedly shoots a blazing stream of energy down towards a deep place in the ocean through the water. This blazing energy stream comes straight into Qin Yu’s room in the Blood-red Cave then fuses with the nebula.

Immediately, the color of the nebula becomes golden. Qin Yu is being surrounded completely in the golden light.

A series of small sounds comes out from his entire body. His whole forehead is being covered in large beads of sweat. He has even begun to convulse due to acute pains but he is still trying to endure the pains because he knows he has reached a crucial point in practice.

Inside his body,

The density of the silvery grains in his dantian has unexpectedly increased by 100%. Countless silvery grains are rotating very quickly. At the same time, various blazing streams of energy are entering the body from the outside. The muscles and bones in Qin Yu’s entire body are undergoing rapid and drastic transformations.

Every muscle, every bone and even every cell in his body are transforming very quickly. The toughness and flexibility of his body are being improved again and again.

Hot!

The Stellar Flame is blazing nonstop inside Qin Yu’s body, as if it is roasting him. The countless silvery grains in the space of his dantian start to spin extremely fast. Unlike in the past, they are now spinning towards a central point.

Chi chi ~~

Enhanced nonstop by the real sun, the Stellar Flame has become much stronger. Being refined repeatedly by it, those silvery grains spin with ever increasing speed. As time passes, the silvery grains spin faster and faster.

Moreover, all of them are quickly spinning towards the center.

Of course, the more silvery grains there are in the outer parts of the dantian, the more silvery grains will spin towards the center with time. In the huge space of the dantian, all of the silvery grains are converging towards the center like mad.

While enhancing the Stellar Flame, the powerful and extremely pure solar fire continuously refines Qin Yu’s body as well.

Concurrently with this, various clear streams flow to every place in Qin Yu’s body from the Meteoric Tear, enabling his body to recover very fast. But as soon as it recovers, it is burnt and refined by the fire yet again.

Thanks to getting burnt and healed repeatedly by the fire and the Meteoric Tear, the toughness and flexibility of Qin Yu’s body improve very quickly.

Lei Wei created the practice method of making use of solar fires, but he could only rely on his body’s natural recovery ability, which was much inferior to the Meteoric Tear’s healing ability. It should be known that the faster a practitioner can recover, the greater the number of times his body will be refined.

……

Outside, Hou Fei suddenly opens his eyes, stands up and stares at Qin Yu’s room.

At the moment, even Hou Fei is very astonished by a powerful undulation of energy.

“Guardian Hou Fei, what has happened?” Guardian Zhuang Zhong runs up to Hou Fei and asks. He has also felt the energy undulation at this place. The 2 snake women, amazed by such a powerful amount of energy, have run into Qin Yu’s house as well.

Generally, nobody will release such a great amount of energy while practicing.

“Bugger off!”

Hou Fei suddenly stares at them and growls loudly, looking frighteningly violent. His fierce look makes Zhuang Zhong, Yan Qing and her sister trembles in their hearts. Immediately, they no longer dare to say anything. They all know that he killed Sang Mo right outside the main entrance of the Blood-red Cave.

Hou Fei then turns around and looks at the room.

“Just now how could that fire come down from the sky?” He is somewhat doubtful in his heart. Actually, there were restrictive spells around Qin Yu’s room so the energy Qin Yu sent out should not have alarmed the other guardians. But that fiery stream of energy just now unexpectedly destroyed the restrictive spells with ease.

Because of this, at a crucial moment to Qin Yu, the energy surged forth from his body caught the other guardians’ attention.

And they have begun to gather in his house.

“Hey, great beauty Yan, what’s happened inside?” Wu Tong of the 2 tiger shark brothers asks Yan Qing. Seeing Hou Fei guarding outside Qin Yu’s room, he does not dare to go into it without permission. Who does not know about Hou Fei’s wildness and insolence?

Yan Qing says with a shake of her head: “I don’t know, but it should be guardian Liu Xing practicing.”

“Practicing? Why didn’t he set up restrictive spells? All of us can feel the undulation of his energy. Could it be he doesn’t know that the Blood-red Cave is in a very tense situation?” Ba Ming of the 3 black turtle brothers frowns and says doubtfully.

When these several guardians are discussing,

The energy coming out from the room suddenly withdraws.

Inside the room,

A faint smile appears on the face of Qin Yu, who is sitting with legs crossed in midair. He opens his eyes then slightly opens his mouth and takes a breath. The remaining third of the yuanying, which is yet to be refined, is swallowed up by him directly.

The outer nebula also disappears in an instant.

In Qin Yu’s dantian,

There is a blue Stellar Flame in the center of the dantian. Inside the Stellar Flame, there is a dazzling golden source of light. By observing carefully, one would find out that it is a very small golden grain. It is called a meteor. This shining meteor is being burnt by the Stellar Flame. Around the shining golden grain, there are a few silvery grains.

Even though their number has become much smaller, they are occupying much more space in the dantian than before.

The remainder of the yuanying has been swallowed up by Qin Yu at a gulp.

A series of cracking sounds rises as the Stellar Flame burns and refines that third of the yuanying completely. Those silvery grains then begin to revolve very fast. They have also become slightly bigger.

“With the help of the solar fire, I had to refine a great number of silvery grains to get a golden grain. This solar fire is really exceptionally powerful. I didn’t think it’d be able to refine a third of the yuanying completely in a breath!” Qin Yu thinks to himself emotionally.

All of a sudden, a faint smile appears on the corners of his mouth: “Let’s see how much faster I’ve become.” A golden ray of light then shoots out from the meteor in his dantian. It fuses with the channels in his entire body instantly.

Whizz!

With a shake of his body, Qin Yu disappears from the room like a golden ray of light. He is at least 10 times faster than before. His speed has reached a simply frightening level. Outside the room, Hou Fei blinks his fiery eyes in disbelief. He suddenly feels Qin Yu’s aura disappear from the room in an instant.

“Fei Fei.”

Qin Yu suddenly appears in front of an astonished Hou Fei and looks smilingly at him.

End of b5c29.

[wandering]

B5C30: The mantis stalks the cicada

Seeing Qin Yu appear before him, Hou Fei’s eyes suddenly glitter and unexpectedly shoot out 2 visible beams of light, which enfold Qin Yu. After just a moment, Hou Fei’s expression becomes even more astonished and shocked.

“Big brother, you ate some immortal pill, didn’t you?”

Hou Fei looks at Qin Yu and asks. At the moment he is very curious because, theoretically, even when a practitioner makes a breakthrough, he will not improve so much in such a short time. Hou Fei even feels that Qin Yu can now give him a good fight and at least pose a threat to him.

“What are you staring at? Scram!”

Hou Fei turns around and shouts at those guardians. Guardian Zhuang Zhong among them says smilingly to Qin Yu: “Congratulations, guardian Liu Xing. It seems after cave master granted you guardian Ran Lan’s yuanying, you’ve improved a lot in power thanks to refining it. Could it be you have reached the middle Yuanying stage?”

Yan Qing says with a frown: “That’s impossible. Ran Lan was only at the early Yuanying stage. Absorbing his yuanying shouldn’t have been able to improve guardian Liu Xing’s power very much. Could it be guardian Liu Xing had already reached the peak of the early Yuanying stage before? Somehow I feel that guardian Liu Xing’s energy is not very powerful.”

Qin Yu gives a smile.

At the Meteor stage, his body’s energy is contained even better. Moments ago, he had just reached the Meteor stage so his energy surged forth. But now, most of his energy is being concentrated in that shining meteor in the center of his dantian.

Moreover, because he is using the Xiumo secret technique Northern Darkness, his body is not giving off a bit of his aura, and therefore it is even more difficult to estimate his power.

“My fellow guardians, your power levels are about the same as mine, but my brother Fei Fei surpassed me long ago. As his big brother, of course I must try hard. I still have something to discuss with Fei Fei so all of you please leave here for the moment.” Qin Yu does not say exactly what level he has reached.

An air of mystery,

This is what he needs.

Yan Qing and Xi Yan slightly salute him: “Then we take our leave first. But can you go to our houses later to have some fun, guardian Liu Xing?” These 2 seductive sisters then give Qin Yu a flirtatious look and leave immediately.

“Guardian Liu Xing, congratulations on a big improvement in power. The 3 of us take our leave too.” The 3 black turtle brothers leave with big smiles on their faces.

The guardians leave one after another. Their attitudes towards him are all very good. Previously, they also treated him fairly well but it was only because of his relationship with Hou Fei. At this place, personal power is the most important thing. A strong individual here will naturally earn the respect of Xiuyaoists.

Last time Qin Yu said that he had been able to seriously injure the black eagle by going all out so those guardians estimated that he was approaching a middle Yuanying stage expert in offense. Now that he has made progress in practice again, they think that they know very well about his power.

In fact, at the moment Qin Yu is stronger than they think he is.

Horned Dragon Teng Bi looks at Qin Yu with glittering eyes and says in amazement: “Originally I thought that except for cave master only guardian Hou Fei could fight me. But now it looks like guardian Liu Xing is already strong enough to fight me after making a big improvement in power.” His words are very direct.

Qin Yu responds with a smile.

“I take my leave, guardian Liu Xing. Later you must have a spar with me.” Teng Bi leaves at once.

Now there are only Qin Yu and Hou Fei left in the courtyard.

Hou Fei casually sets up a restrictive spell then looks at Qin Yu, saying: “Tell me clearly, big brother. How did you practice? My Fiery-eyed Aquatic Monkey clan is a harmonious fusion of water and fire, and we also attach great importance to the physical body so my body is extremely strong. But when I used the Fiery Eyes to take a look at you just now, I found that your body is approaching mine in toughness.”

Hou Fei is a middle Yuanying stage divine beast while Qin Yu is at the early Meteor stage, but the toughness levels of their bodies are close to each other.

“The reason for this is my practice technique. It’s called Stellar Transformations. Training the body is its basis. The stronger the body is, the faster the progress will be. This time, when I made a breakthrough to the Meteor stage, due to a special cause my body toughness improved rapidly and surpassed the level recorded in the Stellar Transformations.” Qin Yu does not hide the Stellar Transformations technique from Hou Fei at all.

Actually, the Stellar Transformations has basically been unheard of in the Xiuzhen world.

It did not exist until Lei Wei created it. And after Lei Wei came to this Xiuzhen world, he never tried to publicize his own technique either.

“Stellar Transformations? I’ve never heard of it. It seems not to exist in my hereditary memories either. It should be an ordinary practice technique, right?” Hou Fei blinks his eyes a couple of times and says.

Qin Yu is startled.

Hereditary memories?

He has met someone with hereditary memories again! Hei Yu has hereditary memories. Hou Fei also has hereditary memories. Could it be all divine beasts have hereditary memories? However, because Qin Yu has seen only a very small number of divine beasts, it is certainly impossible for him to draw a conclusion. Without communicating with divine beasts, how can he know if they have hereditary memories or not?

“A strong body is very beneficial for close-quarters offense. Big brother, I feel that your speed just now was very fast. Using your physical power alone, you should already be able to beat ordinary Yuanying stage experts.” Hou Fei says very positively.

Qin Yu is of course clear about this. According to the descriptions in the Stellar Transformations, now he should even be able to fight early Dongxu stage experts. Moreover, thanks to the Meteoric Tear, his body was refined more than usual by solar fire during practice, and therefore it is currently much stronger than the Stellar Transformations says it is.

The energy of the Meteor stage is many times more condensed than that of the Nebula stage. At the Meteor stage, stellar energy is sent out in the form of golden threads. Because it is extremely pure and concentrated, it is highly destructive.

“Fei Fei, for the next few days I’ll have to consolidate my power level a bit. You don’t need to guard me during this period. Right, has the investigation into Cha Po’s death achieved any results?” Qin Yu always feels that Cha Po’s death is very strange.

Previously, because he was busy practicing, he did not care too much about it.

Hou Fei says with a shake of his head: “Nothing has been found out. According to the other guardians, a mysterious figure attacked Cha Po and killed him directly in one hit. Cha Po was basically defenseless. When other guys came to see what was happening after hearing the explosion, the killer had already disappeared.”

“Fei Fei, you mean, from beginning to end, nobody saw that mysterious figure?”

“Yes, it should be so according to the other guardians.” Hou Fei says with a nod.

“Where did Cha Po die?” Qin Yu asks with glittering eyes.

“It was outside the secret room in which Cha Hong often undergoes closed-door training.” As Hou Fei says this, he also becomes doubtful. “Also, Cha Hong was inside the secret room at that time. Cha Po got killed right outside the room but Cha Hong unexpectedly couldn’t catch the killer. This killer is a bit too strong already.”

“Right outside the secret room?” Qin Yu ponders for a moment. His eyes suddenly brighten.

He then says smilingly with a nod: “All right, Fei Fei, you should return to have a rest first. After keeping watch over me during this period of time, you must be tired, right?” Hou Fei stretches his sluggish waist, saying: “Well, I’m actually a bit tired. Kaka, I’m going back to rest now.”

He becomes lively again.

During a short stretch of time afterwards, Qin Yu strengthens his power level and familiarizes himself with the offensive techniques of the Meteor stage a bit. There are detailed descriptions of many offensive techniques in the Stellar Transformations. To put it simply, the Meteor stage’s techniques belong to the type that allows the user to rely on speed to detect the enemy’s weaknesses then deal a crushing blow or to escape if the enemy is unbeatable.

Of course, the user can also come at the enemy head-on, but this will be a waste of his superior speed.

After a few days,

“I’m going to practice. All of you listen up! Nobody is allowed to enter my house. Fei Fei, help me to keep watch outside and don’t let anyone disturb me. This closed-door training session is very important so you should just beat away anyone who comes here.” Qin Yu tells Hou Fei. At the same time, he gives the ladies-in-waiting sent to his courtyard house on one side an order.

“Yes!” Hearing Qin Yu say in such a serious manner, the ladies-in-waiting immediately accept the orders.

Hou Fei, however, winks at him a couple of times and says loudly: “Don’t worry, big brother. Whoever dares to disturb you is going to be reduced to mince in a blow of my stick!”

Qin Yu gives Hou Fei a smile then turns around and goes into his room at once.

Right after entering the room, he uses the most basic escaping technique in his Xiuxian secret books -- underground escaping art -- to go into the ground. He then quietly and secretly leaves his own courtyard house. Very soon after coming out of the house, he surfaces.

“I want to see what secrets there are in that secret room!”

There is a faint smile on the corners of his mouth. He immediately controls the turning speed of the Northern Darkness talisman in his head. After a small adjustment, he no longer absorbs the energies around him and only does not give off his own aura. This is absolutely the best way of containing aura.

To be safe, he does not even use the stellar energy in his body and only relies on his physical power.

With a movement of his body, he rushes towards the northern part of the Blood-red Cave like a black beam of light. As he is not sending out a bit of his aura, those guardians who are staying in their courtyard houses cannot detect him either. After getting out of the eastern part, he easily avoids the guards in other places because the strongest among them are only at the late phase of the Jindan stage.

After entering the northern part, he follows a curved path to approach an artificial mountain. It is none other than the entrance to the secret room.

“Since Cha Po was killed right outside the secret room, someone must’ve approached it. But why did they approach it? They can’t have made a trip to the entrance of the secret room just to kill Cha Po.” A faint smile appears on his face. He still remembers Zhuang Zhong told him that Cha Hong had often undergone closed-door training in the secret room for the last 100 years.

There must be some secret here!

This coupled with Cha Po’s death near the secret room at the hands of a mysterious killer has made Qin Yu decide to secretly scout this place out. He does not dare to approach the entrance in that artificial mountain straight from the front so he goes around it in a large curve then moved towards it extremely fast like the wind from another direction. All the while, he does not use a bit of stellar energy.

However, when coming near the artificial mountain, Qin Yu feels the presence of something dangerous here. This feeling of fear from the bottom of his heart is very unpleasant. He immediately stops his approach and goes into the ground at a corner of the artificial mountain. He can feel that someone is hiding in the surroundings.

Moreover, this is a very powerful being. Therefore, Qin Yu does not dare to use his holy sense and suppresses his aura completely with the Northern Darkness. He relies only on his hearing to observe.

Qin Yu thus remains motionless under the artificial mountain as time passes. All along, he has an intuitive feeling of danger. For the moment, he must be patient.

……

In the Blood-red Cave’s secret room,

Cha Hong is sitting with legs crossed on a bulrush mat. Various streams of demonic elemental energy are continuously wearing away the Dust Removing restrictive spell. The light on the surface of the black jade case is getting increasingly dull. Cha Hong’s eyes are blazing. There are indistinct blood-red lines in his eyes. Obviously he is extremely excited at the moment.

Poof!

A very soft noise is heard. But to Cha Hong, it is no different from a crash of thunder. His whole body shakes. In an instant, he withdraws his demonic elemental energy and focuses his glittering eyes entirely on the black jade case.

“I’ve finally succeeded!” Cha Hong opens the case with shaky hands.

It requires no special techniques to open the black jade case. After opening it, he sees a 3-cun long jade sword inside. This jade sword is lustrous throughout. There is a seal character for ‘Eight' written on it. A jade slip is put on the jade sword. Cha Hong immediately gets that jade slip. Right after he makes a sweep with his holy sense, an ecstatic expression appears on his face.

“Ha-ha, indeed, it’s indeed the same as the legend. The 9 Swords Immortal Mansion, oh my, a mansion left behind by an immortal. And this is none other than the 8th sword.”

Cha Hong’s entire body is extremely excited.

Who would not get excited upon succeeding after spending their own energy to wear away that Dust Removing restrictive spell almost every day for more than 100 consecutive years like Cha Hong? Moreover, this jade sword will also make his dreams a bit more attainable.

Even the jade sword itself is already a treasure to Cha Hong, because it is a top-grade holy weapon.

The 5 superpowers, Penglai Immortal Region, Purple Flame Devilish Dungeon, Azure Dragon Palace, Nine Demons Hall and Blue Water Mansion, regard top-grade holy weapons as treasures, but they do not lack these weapons. However, in the eyes of Cha Hong, this jade sword is a top-class treasure. His own holy weapon is only a high-grade one.

Boom!

Following an explosion, a silhouette appears in the secret room. The defense of the room was totally useless against this figure. The arriver is a stalwart man who is dressed in fitted purple clothes. This man stares at Cha Hong. His eyes are full of amusement.

When Cha Hong suddenly sees this purple-clad man, his face changes color at once.

“Di Tong!”

His face darkens as he sees this 8th brother of the Nine Demons Hall. At the same time, he also becomes somewhat flustered inwardly. The Nine Demons Hall’s 9 brothers are not equally powerful. The big brother among them, Di Long, is the strongest. And this Di Tong can definitely rank 3rd among them in power.

“Cha Hong, I have to thank you for spending the past 100 years helping the Nine Demons Hall break the restrictive spell of this black jade case.” Di Tong says smilingly.

Cha Hong calms down in the blink of an eye and says: “8th Majesty, I was absolutely sure that nobody alive knew I got one of the 9 Swords. How did you know about this?”

Di Tong says with a smile: “Nobody alive knew about this, but couldn’t the fellas you killed write it down?” Hearing these words, Cha Hong cannot help forcing a smile. In the past he also thought about the possibility of those victims recording this information, so he destroyed all of their belongings.

However, must those victims have carried the things they wrote it down on with them? Erasing all the information about this therefore was not something that could be done.

“Alright, Di Tong, it’s said that you’ve reached the middle Dongxu stage. Looks like I’m no match for you!” Cha Hong says in such a defeatist manner on the outside, but he fuses a drop of blood with the jade sword in the blink of an eye. Now he has already personalized the sword. With this top-grade holy weapon, his power has been enhanced quite a bit.

Di Tong has noticed this, but he is not worried. There is a hint of disdain on the corners of his mouth.

However, at this moment, someone is quietly eavesdropping in a dark corner just outside the secret room. It is none other than Qin Yu.

When Di Tong set up a restrictive spell, he only covered the entire artificial mountain from above with it. He did not know that a man had been hiding silently in the ground under the mountain for a long time. After Qin Yu heard the door of the secret room blasted open, he waited for a moment then quietly came in after Di Tong.

End of b5c30.

[wandering]

B5C31: Underground battle

The artificial mountain in the northern part of the Blood-red Cave occupies a very large area. The secret rooms under it are constructed next to each other in a systematically irregular manner like a maze. Together, they occupy an area that is at least 1 km in both length and width.

Qin Yu is standing with his back against a corner.

“Black jade case? One of the 9 Swords? 8th Majesty Di Tong?” Hearing what Cha Hong said inside, he has a rough idea of what is going on.

Obviously the black jade case was relatively difficult to open. Cha Hong had to spend 100 years to open it and there is one of the 9 Swords in it. However, now 8th Majesty of the Nine Demons Hall wants to rob him of that sword.

“Cha Hong had to spend 100 years to open that black jade case, plus he’s been very careful, but in the end it’ll still be snatched by 8th Majesty of the Nine Demons Hall himself.” Qin Yu feels his heart beating slightly faster. When even the Nine Demons Hall is so eager to have that jade sword, what kind of treasure is it?

Because he is holding his breath completely and is using the Northern Darkness, his body is not giving off a bit of his aura.

“I can’t observe with my eyes. Both Cha Hong and Di Tong are Dongxu experts and highly gifted, if I look at them, perhaps this’ll make them notice me.” At this point, Qin Yu definitely cannot afford to make a mistake.

He stands closely to the wall and focuses his entire attention on his ears. Now he can only eavesdrop on the conversation between the 2 of them to guess the situation inside.

In the secret room,

Di Tong is neither arrogant nor impatient. He is not worried in the slightest either. He looks casually at Cha Hong. In his view, Cha Hong is basically defenseless against him and once he gets into action, he will succeed with ease. Therefore, even though Cha Hong has personalized the jade sword by blood, Di Tong is not worried by this at all.

“That jade sword has fused with your body. Are you ready yet?” Di Tong looks at Cha Hong with a mocking smile. His manner is not fierce or imposing but there is an air of absolute sureness about him.

Facing Di Tong, Cha Hong, who has personalized the jade sword, is not frightened in the least.

“Di Tong, did you kill my 2nd brother?” Cha Hong asks.

Di Tong nods smilingly.

“Why? My 2nd brother was only at the middle Yuanying stage. He wasn’t a threat to you at all, why did you kill him?” Cha Hong’s expression changes to the point where it looks very unpleasant. Di Tong, however, laughs out loud coldly.

“Ha-ha, such deep brotherhood. Ha-ha … this is really laughable as hell.” There is a note of disdain in his hysterical laughter.

He then looks at Cha Hong and says coldly: “Don’t pretend you care deeply about your brother like that. Just now you personalized that jade sword but you basically haven’t finished familiarizing yourself with it using your internal flame. Perhaps now you’re burning it with your demonic spiritual flame, right?”

“Humph, you’re talking to me here only to buy some time to familiarize yourself with the sword so that you can control it more easily.” Di Tong has quickly figured out Cha Hong’s goal.

However, Cha Hong’s expression is unchanged. He does not deny or admit it.

“All right, I can wait for you.” Di Tong folds his arms before his chest and slightly raises his chin. He stares coldly at Cha Hong while waiting for Cha Hong to familiarize himself with the jade sword. He is totally confident that he is going to win this fight.

In terms of true forms, a Purple Demon aquatic dragon is certainly stronger than a blood-red aquatic python.

In terms of power levels, he is at the middle Dongxu stage whereas Cha Hong is only at the early Dongxu stage.

In terms of weapons, he also has a top-grade holy weapon. Moreover, it is the weapon that he is most adept at using. By contrast, Cha Hong cannot choose his weapon. The jade sword is the only top-grade holy weapon available to him.

And in terms of practice techniques, the technique of the Nine Demons Hall’s 8th Majesty is of course more profound than that of Cha Hong!

It can be said that Di Tong is superior to Cha Hong in every aspect.

“Di Tong, you and your 8 brothers can be so arrogant only thanks to your true forms as Purple Demon aquatic dragons and your combined force. Today you’re here alone. I want to see how strong you are individually.” Cha Hong says coldly. At the same time, the look in his eyes becomes so fierce that it seems as if it can pierce through rock and metal.

Cha Hong knows that as the underdog he can only rely on courage and momentum.

All out!

Being the underdog, Cha Hong has to go all out and risk his life to fight a battle. He cannot afford to lose no matter what. Once he loses, he will end up with nothing. Even his life will be taken, let alone the jade sword.

He has been lying low for so long so how can he possibly admit defeat easily?

Cha Hong looks at Di Tong with his eyes full of tenacity. No matter what happens, he is going to give his all in this fight first. In the Xiuzhen world, losers have no say in anything.

“Good, looks like you still got some courage. But, if you want to be ambitious, not only must you have brains, you must also have real power!” Di Tong’s voice suddenly becomes resonant while his eyes glitter with coldness. “The most important thing is your fists must be tougher than mine!”

Di Tong and Cha Hong focus their eyes on one another.

Oppressive, the atmosphere in the secret room is frighteningly oppressive. The 2 of them are fixing their entire attention on each other, observing every movement of each other. Whoever slightly relaxes his concentration first will probably suffer nonstop attacks by the opponent.

Even though Qin Yu is outside the secret room, he can still feel an oppressive atmosphere.

Suddenly --

A noise that sounds as if it is made by a sharp sword piercing through the air rises and destroys the oppressive atmosphere in an instant. Immediately afterwards, a series of resounding metallic noises is heard. Concurrently with this, there are also deep noises of the air getting torn through. Qin Yu simply does not dare to see with his eyes. He can only hide in a dark corner and rely on his ears to listen.

In the secret room,

Di Tong, dressed fully in fitted purple clothes, is holding a long spear. The spear is extremely dynamic in his hands. Di Tong’s close-quarters spear technique is not inferior to Xiang Yang’s in the least. Moreover, when it comes to using the long spear to execute long-distance attacks, Di Tong is even more formidable than Xiang Yang.

Sometimes the spear leaves his hands and thrusts at vital points on Cha Hong’s body like a flash. Sometimes, while he is holding it, it springs forth like various aquatic dragons and surrounds Cha Hong completely at once. Cha Hong simply cannot run away.

Facing this move, Cha Hong has no choice but to go all out!

“Ah ah ~~~ Break!”

Put at a disadvantage as a result of being surrounded by countless silhouettes of the spear, Cha Hong opens his eyes wide and shouts furiously all of a sudden. That jade sword also enlarges and becomes a huge sword. Holding the huge jade sword, Cha Hong immediately makes a horizontal sweep at the enemy. He wants to counter finesse with brute force.

Various silhouettes of the spear vanish but Di Tong gives a cold laugh. Suddenly, the long spear shakes once.

The tip of the spear immediately begins to oscillate. In an instant, it hits the huge sword rapidly several hundred times. The entire energy of the huge sword is quickly neutralized. Di Tong then reaches out his hand and the spear suddenly moves along the sword like a snake to come at Cha Hong.

“No good!”

Cha Hong’s face changes color. No matter how he moves the huge sword, the tip of Di Tong’s spear keeps sticking to it. Moreover, in just about an instant, the spear tip thrusts at his body extremely fast along the sword like a snake spitting venom.

“Majesty Di Tong, your close combat techniques are excellent!”

Cha Hong says loudly. At the same time the huge sword becomes 3 cun long again. Cha Hong himself then retreats straight to a corner of the secret room. Instead of chasing after him, Di Tong pulls back the spear and stands still. However, various halos of purple light begin to rise from his body.

“Cha Hong, you still dare to use your human form to fight me? Looks like you’ve got a death wish. In this case, I won’t show any mercy. I’ll let you taste my special skill.” Various purple halos enfold Di Tong. His aura increases at a frightening speed.

Cha Hong’s face changes color: “No good. Looks like I should use that move in advance.” He immediately lets out a shout then disappears from his original place.

Afterimages!

Several afterimages instantly appear around Di Tong. They surround him in just a moment. Concurrently with this, various streams of sword energy are shot out extremely fast. Di Tong stands firmly in the center. He uses his spear so skillfully that his whole body seems to be shrouded in silhouettes of the spear. There are simply no openings in his defense. A vacuum has even formed in the area surrounded by Di Tong’s spear.

“Growl ~~”

A terrifying deep growl rises. At the same time, a huge python head appears in front of Di Tong out of thin air. It opens its mouth wide and bites at him, seemingly wanting to swallow him up directly.

“Child’s play!”

Di Tong is not worried in the least. He swings his spear at the python head ruthlessly like a long whip. However, at this moment --

Whizz!

A green beam of light shoots out from the python’s mouth like lightning and arrives at Di Tong’s face in an instant. Di Tong has basically no time to block it. The best he can do is to move his body to one side a bit. But his shoulder blade is still penetrated by the jade sword.

In the blink of an eye, Di Tong’s expression becomes unpleasant.

Di Tong, who has been fooling around since the beginning, has finally become angry. Just now, when Cha Hong bit at him using the python form, he did not care about this. But who could have thought that the bite was just a camouflage for the real attack -- the shot of the jade sword from the mouth?

Di Tong has been wounded and has become furious as well!

“Cha Hong, you dug your own grave!”

His originally calm expression has been distorted completely. His eyes have reddened indistinctly and blue veins have even stuck out on his face, making him look frighteningly ferocious. He suddenly opens his mouth and his body starts to transform into a terrifying aquatic dragon extremely fast.

“Growl ~~”

A raging sound rises.

“Boom ~~~” Smashed into by the huge body of the Purple Demon aquatic dragon, the walls of the secret room shatter, creating a series of loud explosions. The huge purple body keeps rocking, hitting one wall after another. The underground secret rooms therefore have to suffer an unprecedented amount of damage.

Moments ago, Qin Yu, who was eavesdropping outside, knew that the situation was not good when he noticed the tail of a blood-red aquatic python sticking out of the secret room’s door.

“These 2 fellas have transformed!” He immediately moved outwards extremely fast.

He no longer dared to stay just outside the secret room because if he kept staying there, when Di Tong transformed, the secret room would definitely be destroyed and he would be detected as a result. If he was discovered by 2 these furious fellows, his life would be in danger.

Even though he has reached the early Meteor stage, it is uncertain whether he can compare with Di Tong or Cha Hong.

Right after Qin Yu moved away from that wall, Di Tong turned into a Purple Demon aquatic dragon and smashed the wall into pieces with a shake of his tail. As a furious Di Tong twisted his body like mad, he destroyed every obstacle. Immediately, only a series of noises of walls getting shattered could be heard.

“Boom ~~”

Qin Yu does not dare to use stellar energy to run. But even if he used stellar energy, Di Tong and Cha Hong, who are furious at the moment, would not necessarily detect him. However, he does not want to take any chances. Therefore, he is only relying on his physical power to move out through the rubble like a blue wisp of smoke.

In a moment, he has already reached the entrance of the secret floor. He then leans against it and looks inside.

The destruction is still going on. Both the Purple Demon aquatic dragon and the blood-red aquatic python are twisting like crazy. One secret room after another is smashed into pieces by them. Luckily, the artificial mountain is being surrounded by a restrictive spell so the loud noises inside cannot be heard by anyone outside.

After a short while, the underground noises of explosions stop.

By now, half of the underground secret rooms have been destroyed. An especially large secret room that is about 600 to 700 m in both length and width has appeared on the secret floor. 2 huge snake-like monsters are facing each other in this newly-formed underground secret room.

Qin Yu moves silently to one side of a pile of rubble and peeps through a hole in the pile.

At a glance, he draws a cold breath.

In this empty area that is 600 to 700 m in length and width, there is a huge wriggly red python on the right hand side. It is none other than a blood-red aquatic python. Using his eyes, he estimates that it must be over 100 m long. Its mouth is as large as a water tank’s and its scales all radiate a cold light.

On the left hand side, a purple aquatic dragon is twisting in midair. It is 70 to 80 m long and has a mouth as large as the opening of a water tank. Compared to divine dragons, this dragon has only 1 horn. There is also a line of purple spikes sticking up on its back. Each spike is about the same size as the long spear Di Long used before.

“The blood-red aquatic python is on the right. The Purple Demon aquatic dragon is on the left.”

Qin Yu is greatly shocked when he feels the tremendous auras of these 2 demonic beasts.

If Cha Hong does not use his true form, Qin Yu can still handle him with some certainty. But after he transforms, if fighting him, Qin Yu will have to rely on the Meteoric Tear to go all out, and even so, the outcome will be unpredictable. As for Di Tong, he is even more powerful than Cha Hong!

The Purple Demon aquatic dragon is glaring at the blood-red aquatic python. His purple eyes are filled with furious anger.

The blood-red aquatic python is also glaring furiously at the Purple Demon aquatic dragon with its red eyes, unwilling to lose to the enemy in manner a bit. Its tongue keeps coming out of and going back into its mouth, ready to attack at any time.

Qin Yu remains motionless beside the pile of rubble. He simply does not dare to focus his eyes on these 2 huge beasts and only uses the corners of his eyes to peek at them. However, even if he now stared at them directly, they would not be able to notice this because they cannot afford to split their concentration.

“Growl ~~~”

The Purple Demon aquatic dragon, which suffered a stab wound moments ago, suddenly utters a loud growl. With a swing of its tail, it charges at the blood-red aquatic python like a purple billow. At this moment, the python also lets out a deep growl. It then shoots his head forwards extremely fast and opens its blood-red basin-like large mouth to bite at the Purple Demon aquatic dragon directly.

End of b5c31.

[wandering]

B5C32: 3 strikes of life or death!

The Purple Demon aquatic dragon and the blood-red aquatic python shoot out 2 beams of light from their tank-sized mouths almost simultaneously. The light beam comes out from the Purple Demon aquatic dragon’s mouth is actually the spear used before, only that it is now much shorter. And the light beam comes out from the blood-red aquatic python’s mouth is actually that jade sword.

Boom!

The spear and the jade sword collide head-on. They then whirl about and collide with each other again and again.

While controlling their holy weapons to attack, the Purple Demon aquatic dragon and the blood-red aquatic python also use their own bodies to attack. After all, to Xiuyaoists, their true forms are the most powerful weapons. The Purple Demon aquatic dragon’s black horn pierces through the air to thrust at the blood-red aquatic python’s head, creating a sharp whistle.

This attack with the black horn executed by the Purple Demon aquatic dragon is frighteningly powerful. It can definitely breach the blood-red aquatic python’s defense with ease. The python’s red tail has also reached a shocking level in speed. It swings at the Purple Demon aquatic dragon extremely fast like lightning.

An observer would only see a huge purple blur and a huge blood-red blur keep chasing after, intertwining with and attacking each other at extreme speeds. Even though these 2 beasts have large bodies, they are terrifyingly fast.

Poof!

The Purple Demon aquatic dragon hits the blood-red aquatic python’s body with a claw swipe. Despite their hardness, various scales of the python are still cracked then shattered into pieces. The python’s skin is immediately mangled. Blood splatters around and fragments of flesh are scattered.

The blood-red aquatic python lets out a painful growl in an instant. At the same time, a red blur swings at the Purple Demon aquatic dragon and hits it.

The aquatic dragon is unexpectedly unable to resist the force of the python’s tail and is sent flying. But it comes back with a sweep of its tail while still flying outwards and attacks the blood-red aquatic python again.

Di Tong and Cha Hong control the spear and the jade sword respectively to attack each other nonstop. Neither of them dares to relax a bit because top-grade holy weapons are still a great danger to them.

Pu!

Cha Hong opens his blood-red python mouth and shoots out a yellow beam of light straight at the spear. Even though the spear dodges, that yellow light makes a turn to chase after it then sticks on it directly. The spear immediately slows down.

Right after getting stuck on with the yellow venomous mucus, the spear’s responsiveness drops to a shocking level. It seems no longer under Di Tong’s control.

“Poison, that’s the blood-red aquatic python’s deadly poison!”

Qin Yu, who is hiding behind a pile of rubble, recognizes that yellow poisonous liquid instantly. When he was fighting Cha Ge before, Cha Ge also used this move. This poisonous liquid is extremely strong. And now, used by a Dongxu stage expert like Cha Hong, its toxicity is naturally even stronger.

“Growl ~~”

Cha Hong lets out an excited deep growl. At the same time, his voice rises in Di Tong’s mind through holy sense communication: “Purple Demon aquatic dragon, prepare to die!” That jade sword immediately thrusts straight at Di Tong’s head like a green beam of light.

The Purple Demon aquatic dragon spurts a flame from its mouth towards the spear, but now the jade sword is already shooting at it.

Pu! Pu! Pu! Pu! Pu! ……

Several sharp whistles are heard. Those spear-like spikes on the back of the Purple Demon aquatic dragon have unexpectedly left its body and shot forwards extremely fast, piercing through the air like javelins.

With a resounding clang, the jade sword is hit simultaneously by 3 spear-like spikes and is knocked aside.

The blood-red aquatic python immediately twists its body and swings its tail extremely fast at those spikes. However, because those spear-sized spikes are too many and each of them carries a frighteningly powerful offensive force, the python can only avoid more than half of them and 20 to 30 spikes are still shooting at its body.

The swing of the python’s tail is fast like lightning, but despite its speed, the tail can only knock away 10-odd spikes. The nearly 10 remaining spikes penetrate into the python’s body directly.

Nearly 10 spikes shatter the python’s scales and pierce through its body completely in quick succession. Not even the blood-red aquatic python can endure such serious injuries.

A light flashes and the python turns into Cha Hong in the blink of an eye.

His body is now full of bloodstains and many small holes have appeared on his body. It is obvious that he has been badly wounded.

“Ah ~~~~ Heaven, I am highly gifted and has even reached the Dongxu stage, why can’t I have just one of the 9 Swords? I did everything I could but in the end my secret was still discovered. Heaven wants to destroy me. I was wrong to hold on to something I shouldn’t!”

Cha Hong turns his face upwards and laughs like crazy. At this point, he already knows that he is done for.

A light flashes and the Purple Demon aquatic dragon also transforms into the human Di Tong. At the moment, Di Tong’s face is also very pale. The spikes on the back of a Purple Demon aquatic dragon cannot be shot out easily unless it is in great danger because shooting them out is especially harmful to the body.

“Still want to run?”

Di Tong immediately moves his body and penetrates the floor with a claw strike. A stream of demonic elemental energy rushes into the ground. In just a short while, that stream of demonic elemental energy breaks through the floor to rush out. Now it has coiled around a purple yuanying. Judging by appearance, this is Cha Hong’s yuanying.

“Humph, Cha Hong, you even wanted to run away with your yuanying by using that outburst of emotions to attract my attention.”

Holding Cha Hong’s yuanying in his left hand, Di Tong says with a cold laugh.

Cha Hong’s purple yuanying shows a terrified expression and says in a shrill voice: “Di Tong, my true body has been punctured in several vital points and basically can’t be used anymore. Now I can only form a loose immortal body to practice. Can you let me go this time?”

Right at this moment!

A green light beam unexpectedly shoots out from the purple yuanying. It is none other than the top-grade holy jade sword. Di Tong immediately feels an acute pain in his left hand. Cha Hong desperately controls the jade sword. In an instant, the bones in Di Tong’s left fingers are cut into pieces and his blood and fragments of his flesh are scattered around.

Cha Hong flies out extremely fast like a purple beam of light at once.

This is his last move!

“Die!”

An extremely furious Di Tong sends out a terrifying stream of demonic elemental energy, which sweeps across Cha Hong’s fleeing yuanying in an instant. His demonic elemental energy attacks Cha Hong’s yuanying fiercely. The yuanying gets a violent shock and the soul it is containing is immediately shattered.

Because Di Tong has just had a hand destroyed, he now shows absolutely no mercy.

Cha Hong was only at the Dongxu stage so it had not been long since he had been able to fuse his soul with his yuanying. Because the yuanying’s defense was really too weak, the soul was immediately shattered after that violent attack of Di Tong’s demonic elemental energy. Di Tong reaches out his right hand and catches Cha Hong’s yuanying with a grab. Now the yuanying no longer has a soul and is merely a crystal of energy. He sucks it in his spatial ring at once.

“Cha Hong, you even dared to destroy my hand.” Di Tong’s head is full of fury at the moment.

Unless he can achieve ascension, his body will not regenerate. But Cha Hong was already killed by him, how can he possibly revenge himself on Cha Hong anymore?

With a wave of Di Tong’s sleeve, the top-grade holy jade sword and Cha Hong’s storage bracelet fly into his hand. Only when Di Tong looks at the jade sword does he calm down a bit, but as soon as he turns around and sees Cha Hong’s corpse, his eyes are filled with anger again.

He opens his mouth and shoots a flame at Cha Hong’s body.

Even though Cha Hong’s soul has been shattered, Di Tong still wants to destroy the body to ease the hatred that has built up in him since his hand was cut into pieces.

“No good!”

When the flame has just come out of Di Tong’s mouth, his face changes color because at this moment can he feel an exceptionally concentrated and sharp force approaching him from behind at an extreme speed. His holy sense naturally finds out the enemy’s appearance. It is a black-robed stern young man.

This is none other than Qin Yu.

Golden threads of energy are flowing through all of the channels in his body, allowing him to flash through the air like a golden beam of light. From the pile of rubble that is several hundred meters away, he follows a mysterious trajectory and arrives at Di Tong’s back in an instant. His speed is shockingly fast.

Qin Yu clenches his teeth. His blue veins stick out. His eyes are full of killing intent!

“Break!”

Qin Yu’s left hand is wearing a Flaming Glove. At the same time, his golden stellar energy has been concentrated on its 5 fingers, making them look like gold fingers.

He forms a finger sword with his left hand and thrusts it at Di Tong’s back like lightning, wanting to penetrate the enemy’s body and grab the yuanying directly at one stroke. However, what kind of expert is Di Tong? He has detected Qin Yu instantly. It is only because Qin Yu’s speed is too fast that he has not been able to react.

Even though Di Tong’s left hand has been severed, his abundant experience allows him to make the optimal judgment.

He immediately lets go of the top-grade holy jade sword and the storage bracelet in his right hand. As they fall to the floor, Di Tong reaches his right hand out backwards without turning his head. A short spear appears in his hand at once. It is none other than that top-grade holy spear of his.

He can resize the spear at will. At the moment, it is only as short as a dagger. Holding this spear, Di Tong thrusts it at Qin Yu’s dantian. He wants to destroy Qin Yu’s dantian and yuanying directly!

“You want to kill me, but I’m going to kill you!”

Di Tong has become ruthless. When he is attacking, a purple layer of armor that every Purple Demon aquatic dragon has appears on the surface of his body. This purple layer of armor is formed from the scales of his Purple Demon aquatic dragon body so its defense is extremely powerful.

Attacking and defending at the same time, this is Di Tong’s instantaneous reaction.

Seeing this thrust coming, Qin Yu is greatly shocked.

Even though he does not have a yuanying, that shining meteor in his body is still his energy nucleus. If it is hit by this strike, what can he do when his energy suffers a huge loss? However, at this moment Qin Yu does not dodge in the least. Instead, he grabs at the spear with his right hand.

When the right hand, protected by a Flaming Glove, has just been reached out, the Flaming Sword appears in its palm.

Clang!

The Flaming Sword and the spear collide with each other. As Di Tong is in a desperate situation, this strike that he is performing with the spear carries a terrifying force. The spear is a top-grade holy weapon whereas the Flaming Sword is only a high-grade one so the Flaming Sword is shattered into countless fragments almost instantly!

Covered in a Flaming Glove and charged with a large amount of golden stellar energy, Qin Yu’s left hand’s finger sword thrusts at the purple armor like a golden meteor!

Bang!

Di Tong’s purple armor gets a shock but it is not shattered and only sustains small cracks. Di Tong cannot help giving a faint smile. Meanwhile, that spear smashes into the Flaming Glove on Qin Yu’s right hand.

After that finger sword attack, Qin Yu immediately changes the form of his left hand!

He straightens his left fingers and executes a spear hand strike, which has the most powerful penetrating force!

Bang!

The attacked area of the purple armor is completely broken into pieces. But at the same time, the Flaming Glove on Qin Yu’s right hand is also penetrated by the spear. Qin Yu unexpectedly changes the form of his left hand again, as if he does not feel any pain in his right hand!

He curls his left fingers up, forming a claw, and thrusts it into Di Tong’s body. But just about when his left hand begins to pierce through Di Tong’s body, Di Tong’s yuanying quietly enters the ground through a foot.

Bang!

Qin Yu’s right hand is penetrated by the spear, but his entire body still moves. At the same time, a golden thread of energy shoots into the ground from his left hand. After a moment, another area on the floor is shattered into pieces and a thread of energy flies out with yuanying coiled around by it.

That golden thread of energy then penetrates into the yuanying and destroys Di Tong’s soul directly.

Qin Yu reaches out his left hand to grab that yuanying but his whole back breaks into a cold sweat. The spear that pierced through his right hand remains motionless.

Too strong, this Purple Demon aquatic dragon was too strong.

It had fought the blood-red aquatic python before fighting Qin Yu, and was even using its human form. It should be known that in his human form, Di Tong was not as powerful as he was in his true form. Even so, Qin Yu was still in great danger when he suddenly launched a sneak attack on Di Tong.

“If he hadn’t been injured and had a hand cut off in the previous fight, if he had used 2 hands to attack me at the same time, perhaps it’d have been hard for me to kill him.” Thinking back, Qin Yu is frightened. Meteor stage experts should rely on speed to evade blows so he was really risking his life by sneakily attacking Di Tong in such a bold manner.

When that purple armor appeared, he was truly shocked. The armor’s defense was too frightening, but luckily Qin Yu reacted very fast and executed 3 strikes in quick succession.

He used a finger sword strike first then a spear hand strike and, lastly, a claw strike. His left hand basically did not stop for a moment. Only by attacking quickly 3 times in a row was he able to pierce into Di Tong’s body.

However, his right hand was still penetrated and is dripping a lot of blood.

“Though I used a sneak attack, the Flaming Sword was still destroyed, one Flaming Glove was damaged and my right hand was punctured.” Qin Yu lets out a long breath. But when he looks at the loot, he finds it difficult to hide the excitement on his face.

He has obtained a jade sword, which was the underlying cause of Cha Hong’s death. This is one of the legendary 9 Swords.

Another item he has obtained is Di Tong’s spear, a top-grade holy weapon.

Cha Hong’s storage bracelet is now his. Cha Hong was the Blood-red Cave’s master, so how can there possibly not be any treasures in this bracelet?

Di Tong’s spatial ring has also come into his possession. Judging from this item of storage alone, it is obvious that Di Tong was in a high position of power because not many Xiuzhenists in the overseas Xiuzhen world have a spatial ring. What are the things inside this ring?

Moreover, he has obtained Di Tong’s middle Dongxu stage yuanying and Cha Hong’s early Dongxu stage yuanying. To Qin Yu, these 2 yuanyings are more valuable than the other items. After all, real power is more important than treasures.

He immediately sucks everything in his own spatial ring.

“These corpses …” Then, he looks at Cha Hong’s and Di Tong’s corpses and thinks for a while. Afterwards, he sucks these corpses in his spatial ring as well. When the bodies have been removed, even if someone else discovers the emptiness at this place, they will not be able to figure out what happened for some time.

Nearly half of the underground secret rooms have been destroyed but, due to the restrictive spell, nobody outside knows about this yet. After getting out of the secret floor, Qin Yu gently breaks the restrictive spell. He simply does not care what someone will think when they discover the battlefield at this place.

He then immediately uses his body-maneuvering skill. With the golden stellar energy running through his whole body, he rushes straight back to his courtyard house in the eastern part like a golden beam of light.

End of b5c32.

[wandering]

B5C33: 9 guardians

In Qin Yu’s courtyard house in the eastern part of the Blood-red Cave, Hou Fei is sitting with legs crossed on the floor, quietly guarding ‘Qin Yu’ in the room behind him. Even though he knew long ago that Qin Yu immediately slipped away after entering the room, because they had already talked this over before, naturally he has been acting as if Qin Yu has been inside all along.

Suddenly, he opens his eyes and looks at the silhouette that has just appeared before him.

“Big brother!” There is a hint of happiness on Hou Fei’s face at once.

But as soon as he sees Qin Yu’s right hand, his face cannot help changing color. Qin Yu’s right hand has been penetrated and there is now a horrifying hole in it. Qin Yu, whose face is slightly pale, hurriedly says: “Don’t ask too much, Fei Fei. Just follow me into the room.”

After saying, he goes straight into his room with just a shake of his body. Hou Fei also comes into the room at once doubtfully. At the same time, he waves his hands, setting up a restrictive spell around the room so that nobody outside can know what happens inside.

Right after entering the room, Qin Yu sits with legs crossed on his bed then lets out a long breath. He does not care about his penetrated right palm at all for the moment. When he fought Di Tong moments ago, life and death were decided in the blink of an eye. Only now, when he has returned to his own room, can he totally calm down.

“What happened, big brother?” Hou Fei hurriedly asks.

Qin Yu recalls what he has gained this time. He cannot help but smile: “Fei Fei, you have to spring into action when you should. You can’t be overcautious. Otherwise, you won’t even have time to regret when the opportunity slips away. If you want to make a profit, you must be willing to take a risk.”

Hou Fei is dumbfounded. He blinks his eyes and says doubtfully: “What do you mean, big brother?”

“Awesome, this is so awesome!”

Qin Yu does not answer. With a wave of his hand, 2 yuanyings appear and float before him. These yuanyings have lost their souls therefore they are now merely a kind of energy crystal. They also radiate an indistinct purple light.

Hou Fei’s fiery eyes brighten at once. 2 beams of light that seem solid shoot at the yuanyings.

“Such strong energy!” Hou Fei is astonished. “These are at least Dongxu stage yuanyings. When did you get them, big brother? They’ll be a big help to you.” He exclaims in admiration.

Qin Yu looks at Hou Fei, saying: “You’re right. But not only can they help me, they can help you and Xiao Hei too.” He has never thought of keeping them all for himself.

“One of these 2 yuanyings belonged to a middle Dongxu stage Purple Demon aquatic dragon. The other belonged to an early Dongxu stage blood-red aquatic python. They have quite a lot more energy than the yuanyings of ordinary Xiuxianists of the same levels. Cha Hong’s yuanying is already enough for me so you and Xiao Hei can refine Di Tong’s yuanying together.”

Hou Fei shakes his head: “Impossible. This yuanying of a middle Dongxu stage Purple Demon aquatic dragon has too much energy for me to absorb. After leaving the ravine, I made a little mental breakthrough when I was guarding you so my soul is only just enough to match the late Yuanying stage. Do you understand what I mean, big brother?”

Hou Fei is currently at the middle Yuanying stage in power but his soul has reached the late Yuanying stage.

He continues: “I can only absorb energy until I reach the late Yuanying stage at most. If I absorbed too much, my power level would surpass my spiritual level, which would very easily make my internal energy become uncontrollable, or even become chaotic. If it got serious, I would suffer energy deviation and my soul would be destroyed!”

Qin Yu also knows this very well.

The soul is the foundation. Even though his mental control is so strong, if his energy exceeds his ability to control it, firstly, unlike when it is insufficient, he will have difficulty keeping it in check during a battle, and secondly, it can become chaotic.

“I know this. But you’ve been at the middle Yuanying stage for a long time. If you want to reach the late phase, you’ll only have to refine a portion of the yuanying. As for Xiao Hei …” As soon as Qin Yu thinks about Xiao Hei, he takes out a transmitter.

Seeing Qin Yu take out the transmitter, Hou Fei knows that he is messaging Xiao Hei.

“Xiao Hei, keep waiting for some time. After I have dealt with the matters in the Blood-red Cave, I’m going to tell you to come through a message. Right, I got a Dongxu stage yuanying. How much energy can you absorb?” Qin Yu is also doubtful about Xiao Hei’s absorption capacity.

In just a while, Xiao Hei replies with a message.

“Dongxu stage? Did you kill some big shot, big brother? It can’t be that lowlife Cha Hong, right? As for how much I can absorb, I’ve undergone that forbidden technique and had my body transformed drastically so my current progress in practice is much faster than before, including the progress of my soul. But … it’s been a very short time since I could improve so fast. Now my soul is only at around the early Yuanying stage. I don’t dare to absorb energy anymore.” Qin Yu does not know what to do after receiving Xiao Hei’s reply.

In the overseas Xiuyao world, there are Xiuyaoists who refine jindans and yuanyings, but the real experts do not dare to let their power levels surpass their spiritual levels. Both Hou Fei and Hei Yu know that Qin Yu is willing to let them absorb a yuanying he obtained, but they do not dare to bite off more than they can chew.

In the past, even though Lei Wei was able to kill enemies of higher power levels, he did not dare to absorb yuanyings casually also because his spiritual level improved slowly.

There are different ways of improving power. The first is to gather various kinds of precious herbs to concoct power-up pills. There are a few problems that lie at the root of this way, namely, it is rather difficult to find precious herbs and the producing methods are fairly complicated.

The 2nd is to refine and absorb other Xiuzhenists’ jindans and yuanyings.

But it is difficult to improve the soul rapidly. At least there have never been any known methods for raising the spiritual level suddenly. Therefore, not many Xiuzhenists refine others’ jindans or yuanyings. After all, a Xiuzhenist will only dare to absorb more energy when they have reached a spiritual level high enough for this.

“But I’m staying in the ravine, big brother. When I listen to Miss Li’er’s zither music, I feel my soul improve very fast. Perhaps it will reach the middle Yuanying stage soon. At that time I’m going to come to find you.” Hei Yu says through his transmitter.

“Good, I also got many things to deal with in the Blood-red Cave for the moment.”

Qin Yu and Xiao Hei then stop communicating.

“Fei Fei, this is the middle Dongxu stage yuanying. Your power level is higher than mine so you should refine part of it first.” Qin Yu himself is in no hurry. Instead, he lets Hou Fei refine a yuanying first. Hou Fei does not decline either and sits down with legs crossed immediately.

He opens his mouth. A flame is shot out at once and enfolds Di Tong’s yuanying.

Burnt by the flame, the yuanying gradually melts. Various purple streams of liquid flow out from it then fuse with Hou Fei’s body. In terms of refining speed, Hou Fei is at least 10 times faster than Qin Yu, who is quietly keeping guard on one side.

After a half day,

About 20% of the yuanying has been refined. Hou Fei, who is sitting with legs crossed, suddenly opens his fiery eyes, sending out a brilliant light.

With a sweep of his holy sense, Qin Yu discovers that Hou Fei has reached the late Yuanying stage. He immediately says smilingly: “Congratulations, congratulations, you’ve reached the late Yuanying stage. Perhaps now you could even fight that Purple Demon aquatic dragon Di Tong.”

Very excited, Hou Fei says with strange laughter: “Di Tong? He was at the middle Dongxu stage but his true form was a Purple Demon aquatic dragon so he was much stronger than Xiuxianists of the same level. I must’ve been no match for him before, but now, kaka ~~~”

He looks very contented.

“You should start practicing quickly, big brother. I really don’t know how your soul can improve so fast. If the level of my soul was as high as yours, I would’ve refined the entire yuanying without a break.” Looking at Qin Yu, Hou Fei cannot help praising him.

Qin Yu gives a smile.

The Meteoric Tear, even now he still knows absolutely nothing about it and cannot even control it to do anything. It has sent out different kinds of energy all by itself. He was very lucky to obtain this treasure. Or it can also be said that he was ‘destined’ to get the Meteoric Tear.

“Alright, Fei Fei, stand guard outside for me. I want to absorb this yuanying with my entire concentration!”

Di Tong’s yuanying, 20% of whose energy has been absorbed by Hou Fei, then starts to be refined and absorbed again by Qin Yu. By now his soul has reached the early Dongxu stage. In fact, even Qin Yu himself is amazed by the high speed at which his spiritual level has improved too.

However …

Is Qin Yu the only one whose soul can improve fast?

After Xiao Hei underwent his forbidden technique, his soul has leveled up extremely fast too. In just several years, he has already reached the early Yuanying stage from the early Jindan stage. And when a Xiuzhenist has a momentary experience of intuitive enlightenment, it is very usual for their spiritual level to improve rapidly and suddenly.

But moments of insight come randomly and are totally beyond a Xiuzhenist’s control whereas Qin Yu’s soul improves steadily all the time.

From now on, he begins to refine the yuanying with no worries in his own room, disregarding whatever happens outside. Hou Fei keeps guard near the room, determined to stop anyone who wants to go into it.

……

In the northern part of the Blood-red Cave,

Even though half of the secret rooms under the artificial mountain have been destroyed, because they are built underground, everything on the ground seems to have remained completely unchanged. The only visible change is that the mouth of the cave leading to the secret floor has been broken into pieces.

But that cave faces towards the inside of the artificial mountain so no one will see this without looking carefully.

Even the guards of the Blood-red Cave have to go around these underground secret rooms every time they patrol to here. The reason for this is an order given by cave master Cha Hong. In the past Cha Hong usually stayed in a secret room trying to open the black jade case so he naturally did not want this place approached by anyone.

It has been more than a half day since Qin Yu broke the restrictive spell to come back to his room. There have been several tens patrol sessions during this period of time but because those guards have to bypass the artificial mountain, they simply have not noticed that the cave leading to the secret floor has been destroyed.

Another squad is currently on patrol. The squad leader is very large and muscular with eyes as big as copper bells. At the moment, he is looking around with his wide opened bull eyes. But he suddenly stops.

“What’s happened, leader Xuan Kui? Why did you stop?” A short, stout guard asks.

Xuan Kui, however, looks at the artificial mountain in disbelief. In fact, because all of the guard squads on patrol have to go around this place whereas that entrance to the secret floor faces inwardly, the place that Xuan Kui is standing on is the only place on the patrolling route from which a small part of the entrance can be seen. If he moves away from this place a bit, that entrance will no longer be visible to him at all.

“Follow me!”

Squad leader Xuan Kui shouts loudly and rushes extremely fast towards the artificial mountain.

“Leader, the patrolling route doesn’t allow us to go through that place.” That short stout guard hurriedly calls. But Xuan Kui, who has come near the artificial mountain, suddenly shouts: “This is bad! The entrance to the secret floor has been destroyed! Quickly go inform the guardians!”

The entrance to the secret floor has been destroyed?

There is immediately a clamor among the guards at the scene. They all understand the seriousness of this incident. If nobody had gone through the entrance illegitimately, why would it have been destroyed? All of the guards then leave extremely fast at once to tell the guardians about this.

Holding a broadax, squad leader Xuan Kui stares into the entrance. The ground of the passage connecting to it is currently covered in countless pieces of rocky debris.

“What’s happened, Xuan Kui?” Zhuang Zhong is the first to hurry to this place. He immediately shouts to squad leader Xuan Kui, who is a guard directly under his control. Xuan Kui hurriedly bows and says: “I don’t know either. I discovered this situation only moments ago and immediately sent the guards to inform you and the other guardians.”

In a while, the 3 black turtle brothers, the 2 tiger shark brothers, the 2 snake sisters and Teng Bi also come.

“Where are guardian Hou Fei and guardian Liu Xing?” Yan Qing says doubtfully.

Zhuang Zhong says smilingly: “Little sister Yan Qing, it seems guardian Liu Xing has been doing closed-door training again for a half month. Guardian Hou Fei has been watching over him. Perhaps guardian Liu Xing hasn’t finished his training yet.” After talking to each other, the 9 guardians go into the entrance.

Seeing the broken stones in the entrance, they all have a bad feeling.

They go along the sloping passage to enter the underground secret floor. But as soon as they enter the secret floor, they all look at the scene in front of them with popping eyes.

Various secret rooms have been destroyed completely. Their rubble has been swept to the edge, leaving behind a large empty area that is 600 to 700 m in both length and width in the middle of the remaining secret rooms. The fragments of the destroyed rooms’ walls have all been piled up around this area.

“Look! There’s a bloodstain!” The snake woman Xi Yan points to a place in this empty area and shouts.

The other 8 guardians also look in the direction she is pointing. There is indeed a huge bloodstain, which was created when the blood-red aquatic python and the Purple Demon aquatic dragon were fighting each other.

“That deep mark should have been made when a huge python swung its tail and hit the floor.” Teng Bi points to a deep mark on the floor and says coldly.

The 3 Ba black turtle brothers, the 2 tiger sharks, Wu Tong and Wu Feng, the 2 snake women, Yan Qing and Xi Yan, Zhuang Zhong and Teng Bi, 9 guardians in total, carefully examine the scene. They can certainly conclude that a fierce battle took place here.

Moreover, one of the main participants was very likely to be Cha Hong, who was doing closed-door training in this place.

The 9 guardians look at each other. A fierce battle happened here but they knew nothing. Now they do not even know if Cha Hong is dead or alive. This incident coupled with Cha Po’s death some time ago gives them a bad feeling.

“Go! Let’s see if cave master’s soul jade slip is still intact!”

The most powerful among them, Teng Bi, shouts an order. The 9 guardians leave the secret floor at once and head for the room in which everyone’s soul jade slip is put. This room is checked once every day by someone and is also guarded on the outside.

As the 2 guards see the 9 guardians arriving together, they are immediately shocked.

“Sirs! Madams!” They get down on one knee and say.

Teng Bi looks at the 2 guards. Yan Qing shouts impatiently in a lovely voice: “You two quickly open the door.” This room’s door is closed with a restrictive spell so she and the others do not dare to force it open. They have no choice but to order those guards to open it.

“Yes, Madam.”

A guard stands up and shoots several streams of demonic elemental energy at the door. A blue light flashes and the door slowly opens automatically.

When it has been opened, from outside, the 9 guardians all look at the old-wood counter in the center of the room on which every soul jade slip is put. And by now, the soul jade slip in the highest position has already shattered into tiny bits. That soul jade slip belongs to Cha Hong!

The 9 guardians’ faces change color greatly.

Cha Hong is already dead!

End of b5c33.

[wandering]

B5C34: New cave master

Seeing that Cha Hong’s soul jade slip has broken into pieces, they all know what this means!

Cave master Cha Hong is dead!

The Blood-red Cave has become a group without a leader. For the moment, basically nobody cares who Cha Hong’s killer is. Even if they were to investigate, what would they possibly achieve? How can these guardians deal with someone who was able to kill Cha Hong? Now, the thing that needs to be done is to choose a new cave master!

The looks on the 9 guardians’ faces begin to change irregularly.

The 3 black turtle brothers, with Ba Ming being the eldest, look at each other. Wu Feng and his brother Wu Tong, Yan Qing and her sister Xi Yan, Teng Bi, and Zhuang Zhong also have their own ideas.

“Everybody, now cave master is already dead, and we don’t even have a clue about the killer. But judging from the battlefield on the underground secret floor, it can be concluded that they fought cave master head-on. And both sides even switched to their true forms,” says Ba Ming, the big brother among the 3 black turtles.

Wu Feng nods: “That’s right. To be able to kill cave master openly, the killer must’ve reached the Dongxu stage at least!”

“Oh my, Dongxu stage, you put it too simply. There are only a few Dongxu stage experts in the territory of the Nine Demons Hall. Why did someone who has reached this level want to kill our cave master?” Yan Qing says ambiguously. “Even cave master was killed, what can we do as guardians?”

Teng Bi says coldly: “Retreating without trying, that’s too gutless.”

Zhuang Zhong, however, says with a smile: “Boss Teng, you’re very powerful and about to reach the Dongxu stage so you can put up a fight against the killer, but we will have absolutely no chance. Now, the most important thing isn’t to seek revenge but to choose a new leader, that is, a new cave master.”

After he said this, the other guardians’ eyes all brighten.

What they said just now is just rubbish. Selecting a new leader is the most urgent thing to do.

“The new cave master must at least have convincing power. I think if boss Teng becomes cave master, the rest of us will definitely endorse him. Given boss Teng’s power, perhaps only cave master Cha Hong could defeat him.” Ba Ming says smilingly.

The snake woman Xi Yan immediately says with a flirtatious smile: “Boss Teng’s power is beyond doubt. If he becomes cave master, we sisters will definitely be the first to follow his orders.”

Wu Tong also says: “We’ve got no objection. It’s common practice for whoever is the strongest to become cave master. Boss Teng is more powerful than us brothers so we certainly won’t hinder his becoming cave master.” He has declared his and his brother Wu Feng’s stand on the matter.

Zhuang Zhong gives a couple of coughs and says smilingly: “Everybody knows the rule that the strongest will become cave master. Boss Teng is stronger than us so we won’t have any objections to his becoming cave master. But this doesn’t mean that the other guardians will have no objection. We shouldn’t forget that 2 guardians haven’t come yet.”

Teng Bi is not eager to become cave master, but he does not refuse to become cave master either.

If he becomes the leader, he will be able to order his subordinates as he pleases, which will certainly feel better than being a mere guardian. Teng Bi craves personal power so he will not mind even if he cannot become cave master. However, whoever wants to contend for this position will have to defeat him.

“That’s right. There are still 2 other guardians. Guardian Hou Fei almost fought cave master in the main hall last time. It’s hard to say how powerful he really is. And his big brother is so mysterious. He definitely isn’t as simple as he looks.” Yan Qing also says.

At the moment, these guardians are all thinking about who will become cave master, totally ignoring Cha Hong’s death. Cha Hong is already dead. The 3 brothers, Cha Hong, Cha Po and Cha Ge, have become a thing of the past so the guardians no longer care about them and also do not want to avenge them. Most importantly, these guardians do not dare to seek revenge for their deaths.

Teng Bi says with an ice-cold expression: “It’s pointless to talk too much. Let’s go straight to guardian Liu Xing’s house. Everybody should go together. We’ll decide who will be cave master right there whether by fighting it out or doing something else. Is this okay?”

“Good idea. Let’s go together, everybody.” Yan Qing says with ringing laughter.

Immediately, the 9 guardians fly straight to Qin Yu’s courtyard house in the eastern part together. The Blood-red Cave is not very large to them and their speed is fast so it takes them only moments to reach Qin Yu’s courtyard house.

3 ladies-in-waiting are chatting with each other outside the house. They behave respectfully as soon as they see the 9 guardians land together.

“Sirs, madams, our lord is still doing closed-door training. He already gave us the order not to let anyone come in.” A green-clad lady-in-waiting hurriedly says. These girls remember Qin Yu’s order very clearly.

Guardian Teng Bi frowns. The other guardians seem to feel irritated as well.

They want to quickly decide who will become the new cave master but guardian Liu Xing is unexpectedly doing closed-door training and does not even let anyone enter.

“All of you get out of the way. We guardians come here together this time certainly because of an important matter.” Wu Feng shouts at the 3 ladies-in-waiting. Seeing his ferocious expression, they are so frightened that they move aside. As mere ladies-in-waiting, how could they possibly dare to block these guardians?

One by one, the 9 guardians go through the gate to enter the courtyard house.

Hou Fei is sitting with legs crossed just outside the door of the hall. Obviously he is blocking the way leading to Qin Yu’s room. Even though the 9 guardians have come into the house, he keeps sitting with legs crossed and eyes closed. He basically does not move at all.

The 9 guardians stand in a straight line. Seeing what happening before their eyes, they look at each other.

“Guardian Hou Fei, cave master Cha Hong is already dead. These guardians and I have been discussing who will assume the role of new cave master. Therefore we have come here to find the two of you. After all, one can only officially become cave master if they are approved by every guardian.”

Zhuang Zhong says in a loud and clear voice.

Hearing what he said, Hou Fei opens his eyes, from which 2 seemingly solid beams of light shoot out. Those light beams slowly sweep across every guardian. They alone put these guardians under a huge pressure.

Not even Teng Bi can keep his face from changing color when he feels the oppressiveness of the light beams.

“Congratulations, guardian Hou Fei,” says Teng Bi. He has a feeling that if he had fought Hou Fei before, he would have had a chance of winning, but now he stands no chance. However … he still wants to have a fight with Hou Fei.

This is just like how he wanted to fight Cha Hong before.

“Oh my, guardian Hou Fei has unexpectedly made a breakthrough. Looks like this battle will be even more awesome. With such a big improvement in power, perhaps guardian Hou Fei will become the new cave master.” Yan Qing says laughingly, but Hou Fei only smiles.

“I won’t become the new cave master.” He finally utters.

Everyone is startled.

Ba Ming, the eldest of the 3 black turtle brothers, immediately says: “Guardian Hou Fei, it seems you are being modest. Or perhaps you’re not confident you can defeat boss Teng? This is impossible. At that time you weren’t even afraid of cave master. Now your power has improved greatly, why should you be unconfident?”

The other guardians also say that Hou Fei is being modest.

“I’ll be the new vice master!” Hou Fei says another sentence.

Everyone is startled again.

After pondering on Hou Fei’s words, the 9 guardians eventually understand his meaning. Who can be vice masters? In general, only a cave master’s brothers can become vice masters. And who is Hou Fei’s brother? Of course, he is that mysterious guardian Liu Xing.

“Guardian Hou Fei, what you said is wrong. Even if you were stronger, even if you are more powerful than all the other guardians, while you can become cave master, this doesn’t mean that guardian Liu Xing can. The cave master position is to be taken with power and not to be given to someone else!” Yan Qing says with a little dissatisfaction.

Hou Fei gives a ha-ha laugh but says nothing.

“Guardian Liu Xing is pretty strong, but if he wants to become cave master, he’ll have to defeat me at least.” Teng Bi says coldly.

He admires strong individuals. If someone weak only relies on their own brother to become cave master, he definitely will not accept this and will not take orders from them. Not only him, the other guardians also have this opinion.

In the Xiuzhen world, everything depends on individual power!

“Oh, looks like you want to fight my big brother?” Hou Fei gives a strange smile. “Don’t worry. My big brother is practicing but he’ll come out in 2 to 4 hours. You can use this period of time to prepare yourself.”

Teng Bi, however, looks at Hou Fei and says in an ice-cold voice: “Prepare myself? He poses no threat to me. I want to challenge you first!”

“Challenge me?” Hou Fei is startled.

The other guardians all burst out laughing. Ba Ming says with incitement: “You should accept the challenge, guardian Hou Fei. Boss Teng is very powerful. The 2 of you are the 2 strongest guardians. It’ll definitely be very awesome if you fight each other.”

Yan Qing, Xi Yan, Wu Tong, Wu Feng and every other guardian all look at Hou Fei and Teng Bi.

Hou Fei looks at everybody. Only after thinking for a while does he say unwillingly: “Alright. You attack first.” Holding a black stick, he stands at his place in a totally careless manner and gives Teng Bi an unconcerned look.

Teng Bi reaches out his 2 fists. Various silvery rays of light radiate from them.

“Good! Watch out!” At the moment Teng Bi is full of fighting spirit. He can feel Hou Fei’s pressure on him but it only makes him even more excited. His eyes gradually redden. He suddenly opens his fists, forming 2 claws.

With a movement of his body, Teng Bi turns into a blur and arrives at Hou Fei’s face instantly.

Hou Fei moves his right arm. The black stick, which originally is not moving, immediately smashes into Teng Bi’s blur head-on at a frighteningly fast speed like a black flash. With a bang, Teng Bi is sent flying.

Absolutely no resistance!

The other guardians are dumbfounded because Teng Bi has been an absolutely formidable expert in their eyes for so many years and is even approaching the Dongxu stage. But they simply do not know that late Yuanying stage Hou Fei is actually comparable to ordinary late Dongxu stage Xiuzhenists.

The gap in power between them is too great!

Teng Bi’s body stops after flying several tens meters. He then flies back and lands beside the other guardians.

“Guardian Hou Fei is really powerful. I admit defeat.” Teng Bi has no dismay at all. But he continues: “I have a feeling that you should be even stronger than cave master Cha Hong. If you want to become cave master, I’ll certainly have no objection. But if guardian Liu Xing doesn’t have enough power to convince everybody, I definitely won’t accept him as cave master.”

Hou Fei gives a kaka laugh: “You fool. If you want to get a taste of my big brother’s power, that’s okay. Just wait for a while. Alright, don’t waste your time. Just now that strike of my stick already caused you some injuries. You should treat them quickly. When you become healthy, my big brother will also come out.”

Teng Bi nods then immediately sits down with legs crossed and starts to practice.

The other guardians are secretly shocked by Hou Fei’s power. Seeing him have such confidence in Qin Yu, they also begin to feel curious about Qin Yu’s power. To these guardians, Qin Yu is indeed fairly mysterious.

Hou Fei, however, laughs inwardly: “Don’t look down on my big brother. Now there is very little time so he’ll only be able to reach the middle Meteor stage in a while. If he had several days, he’d reach the late Meteor stage. At that time, to defeat him, even I would have to use berserk mode to fight. But perhaps big brother can already surpass Cha Hong at the middle Meteor stage!”

Just now Hou Fei said that he wanted to become vice master because Qin Yu had immediately told him to through his holy sense after hearing what the 9 guardians had said.

To become cave master, Qin Yu certainly has to personally show his power!

Inside his room, Qin Yu is sitting with legs crossed and being enfolded in many golden rays of light. That purple yuanying has no longer been refined. At the moment Qin Yu is at a critical juncture -- reaching the middle phase of the Meteor stage from the early phase.

In his dantian,

A great number of silvery grains in the seemingly boundless space of the dantian have formed a blurry nebula that is spinning extremely fast. There is a golden bead about the size of a quail egg in the center of the nebula. Various golden rays of light are shooting out from it nonstop.

Clack!

Following a crisp noise, that golden bead unexpectedly splits into 3 parts, which then become 3 golden grains. When the 3 golden grains have become spherical, they begin to revolve and affect each other. The Stellar Flame is at the center of the 3 golden grains.

As the golden bead broke into 3 pieces, countless silvery grains also split in half. Immediately, the number of silvery grains was doubled.

After a while, calmness is restored in Qin Yu’s dantian.

He opens his eyes. With a faint smile on the corners his mouth, he says in a loud and clear voice: “Please get ready, guardian Teng Bi. I’m about to attack.”

In the courtyard,

Qin Yu’s voice resounds through the air. Every guardian can hear it clearly. The 3 black turtle brothers, the 2 snake women, Wu Tong and Wu Feng, and Zhuang Zhong focus their attention to observe at once. Teng Bi, whose minor injuries have already healed, also begins to concentrate his energy.

The aura around Teng Bi is fierce at the moment. His entire body’s energy has risen to its limit. He is fully prepared to attack Qin Yu with his most powerful strike anytime.

Suddenly --

A golden blur shoots out from inside the room at a frighteningly fast speed. Teng Bi can feel clearly that it has Qin Yu’s aura so he throws a fierce punch immediately. However, before this punch can be fully executed, his body is knocked away.

He is sent flying more than 100 m like a sandbag. His blood even spurts out.

Only now can everybody see clearly that Qin Yu is standing at Teng Bi’s original place.

“What a frightening speed!” The eyes of every guardian pop out of their head. Even Hou Fei is startled as well. When Qin Yu was still at the early Meteor stage, his speed was already able to amaze Hou Fei. Now his speed has become even more terrifying.

At the Meteor stage, he has to rely on his speed and highly concentrated golden stellar energy to fight.

“My fellow guardians, do you still have any objections to my big brother becoming cave master and me becoming vice master?” Hou Fei says smilingly to the shocked guardians, including Teng Bi, who has just frown back seriously injured with a face full of disbelief.

Black-robed Qin Yu sweeps his eyes over the guardians. Seeing their reactions, he slightly curves the corners of his mouth up. He already knows what they are thinking.

……

In the place where the soul jade slips of the Nine Demons Hall are put,

A specifically assigned Xiuyaoist comes here to check once every day to see if any members of the Nine Demons Hall have died. Now is today’s checking time. The leader of a guard squad opens the restrictive spell and enters the room.

The soul jade slips are put on a multi-level counter. The highest level has 9 jade slips. They represent the 9 majesties of the Nine Demons Hall.

As a matter of routine, the squad leader takes a look at the highest level because the 9 majesties’ soul jade slips are put there. Suddenly … his pupils dilate. With a shocked expression, he stares at that top level in stupefaction.

He sees that the 8th soul jade slip on that level has already shattered.

“8th Majesty is dead!”

His face goes miserably pale. Afterwards, he wakes up and immediately rushes to Great Majesty Di Long’s place at his fastest speed like a beam of light. The squad leader does not know who killed 8th Majesty, but he can anticipate the other majesties’ fury and the killer’s fate!

End of b5c34.

End of book 5.

[wandering]

Book 6: The Nine Demons Hall

B6C1: Nine Demons Hall’s fury

In an enormous mountain range at the bottom of the ocean with a great number of ravines, many beautiful and magnificent buildings have been constructed successively on the mountain peaks, or on the mountainsides, or on the flat ground. At first glance, there are tens of thousands of buildings and very many Xiuyaoists coming and going at any time.

Heaven knows how much more flourishing than the Blood-red Ridge this place is.

The massive Nine Demons Hall is built on a mountain in the center of this huge underwater mountain range. The other mountains appear small to anyone who views from the Nine Demons Hall. None of the other buildings is at a greater height than it is. And it occupies an extraordinarily large area.

The Nine Demons Hall as a whole forms a Twelve Capital Gates formation. 12 palaces are built on the 12 formation eyes. There are various gardens, courtyard houses, multi-storied buildings and so on in any of the palaces. The guards of the entire Nine Demons Hall have reached a shocking number of several tens thousand.

It can be said that the Nine Demons Hall alone is comparable to the whole Blood-red Ridge in terms of numbers of Xiuyaoists.

In Di Long Palace of the Nine Demons Hall, where Great Majesty Di Long lives,

Dressed in a purple robe, Di Long is sitting casually in a chair, slowly drinking the wine in his cup. He appears to be enjoying himself very much. Even though he is relaxing, his body still naturally gives off an oppressive air.

After he has finished a cup, a beautiful lady-in-waiting on one side immediately fills it for him.

“Life is endless, and one should enjoy every moment of it as much as he likes. Girls, do you think what I said is right?” Di Long strokes his hard beard then casually asks the 2 beautiful ladies-in-waiting beside him.

The lovely-looking one of them hurriedly says: “What Great Majesty said is true. Great Majesty is brilliant.”

Di Long nods his head in satisfaction.

The brows of the 2 ladies-in-waiting have been beaded with sweat. This Great Majesty is very eccentric and lordly. If their answer had not satisfied him, perhaps they would have suffered the fate of … Just thinking about this makes them shudder. When Di Long is enjoying his fine wine,

“Great Majesty, Great Majesty, something bad happened! Something bad happened!” Suddenly there are shouts outside Di Long Palace.

Di Long frowns. His eyes flash with coldness.

“Who’s that? This is Di Long Palace. Trespassers will be killed on the spot!” The chief guard of Di Long Palace shouts.

The squad leader, who has just rushed to this place, stops abruptly. His heart trembles. Just now, after knowing that 8th Majesty is dead, he was so terrified that he unexpectedly forgot the Nine Demons Hall’s rules. Entering any of the 12 palaces without permission is punished by death!

“Great Majesty, I am the squad leader in charge of the soul jade slips …”

“Let him come in!”

As soon as Di Long hears the words ‘soul jade slips’, his heart trembles. The leader of the guards who protect the soul jade slips has come here with such tenseness so something serious must have happened. Hearing the order, the squad leader goes into Di Long Palace at once.

“Say, what’s happened actually?” Di Long says coldly.

The squad leader suddenly gets down on one knee. Beads of sweat begin to stand out on his face. He says in a frightened manner: “Great Majesty, something bad happened. Today, when I went to check the soul jade slips, I discovered that … discovered that …” He becomes stuttering and even feels that his throat has dried.

“Say it quickly and clearly, or else I’ll kill you right away!” Seeing the squad leader unable to say the most important sentence completely, Di Long cannot help getting furious.

The squad leader takes a hard swallow then says: “8th Majesty, it is 8th Majesty.”

“What happened to 8th Majesty? Don’t talk nonsense. You can’t talk nonsense about this matter. Be careful or your soul will be destroyed!” Di Long suddenly stands up and shouts angrily. He has already made a guess, but he is unwilling to believe his own guess.

“8th Majesty is dead. His soul jade slip has shattered.” The squad leader is frightened. “Great Majesty, I absolutely do not lie. I saw this with my own eyes.”

Di Long’s face immediately turns pale.

In an instant, he remembers how the 9 little aquatic dragons relied on each other to struggle for survival when they were young. Their lives were constantly in danger at that time but they united to either kill and steal goods or eat other demonic beasts.

The 9 brothers always helped each other kill one enemy after another. They walked over the dead bodies of many to ascend to higher positions of power.

Eventually, after several millennia, the 9 aquatic dragons overcame the 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation and transformed into humans. At the same time, they also became one of the 3 superpowers of the underwater Xiuyao world. In the Nine Demons Hall, the 9 brothers are addressed as ‘majesties’ and equal to each other. Majesty Di Long is the most powerful but he is only one of the majesties rather than the hall master!

Because they are 9 blood brothers, the affection they have for each other is immeasurably deep.

“8th brother!” Di Long’s deep voice rises. His eyes begin to redden.

“Ah ~~~~” He suddenly raises his arms and growls like crazy in anguish.

His raging energy surges forth from him in all directions violently. The 2 ladies-in-waiting behind him are immediately blown to pieces without being able to put up any resistance. The kneeling squad leader hurriedly dodges but one of his legs is still destroyed.

In the blink of an eye, Di Long Palace is splattered with blood.

“Di Qing, Di Xu, Di Yang, Di Feng, Di Jian, Di Luan, Di Nai, the 7 of you immediately come to the place of the soul jade slips.” Di Long suddenly shouts coldly. His voice resounds through the entire Nine Demons Hall unceasingly.

Di Long himself whistles through the air, heading straight to where the soul jade slips are kept.

The soul jade slips are put inside a multi-storied building, which has been frequented by only few, who are the guards responsible for protecting the soul jade slips. The 9 majesties have seldom come here but now various purple beams of light descend to this place from the air.

Each light beam turns out to be a man. In an instant, 8 majesties have landed outside the building where the soul jade slips are kept.

The other 7 majesties look at each other. They all have a bad feeling. In a normal situation, their big brother Di Long will always call them very enthusiastically 2nd brother, 3rd brother and so on, but just now he called them by their real names.

“Big brother, what’s happened?” The 2nd brother Di Qing hurriedly asks.

“Big brother, did you call us to this place because someone has died? But those subordinates are already dead, why did you still tell us to come? Is this worth doing?” The 4th brother Di Yang curls his lips and says. Suddenly, he seems to figure out something and his face changes color: “Big brother, could it be …”

Di Long has a frighteningly unpleasant expression at the moment. He throws a kick. His powerful demonic elemental energy tears the restrictive spell apart directly.

Bang!

The door of the building is shattered. All of the 8 majesties can see clearly that the 8th soul jade slip on the top level has already broken into pieces. When the other 7 majesties see this, their faces change color almost at the same time.

Wrath, killing intent, agony …

In a while, their expressions have changed completely. Their hearts are in crushing agony and their killing intent has risen to the skies. Now, outside the building where the soul jade slips are put, all of the 8 majesties are filled with killing intent. They give off a terrifying pressure that covers the entire Nine Demons Hall.

For several thousand years, the 9 brothers have always helped each other. They are extremely cruel and merciless to enemies and do not bat an eyelid when killing enemies but their brotherhood is so deep that they can sacrifice themselves for each other.

“Tell us, big brother. Who killed 8th brother? Who? I’m going to tear him to shreds!” Di Xu growls at Di Long. His eyes have become very red and his whole body has begun to tremble.

Di Long, however, remains silent.

“Who? Who killed my 8th brother? I’ll definitely avenge his death. I’m going to take revenge for 8th brother!” The 2nd brother Di Qing cannot suppress the fury in his heart either.

The 8 remaining majesties of the Nine Demons Hall are all itching to eat the killer’s flesh and drink their blood. But Great Majesty Di Long, who is being questioned by his brothers, has not got a clue about the killer. He knew that his 8th brother is dead just a moment ago too.

In the 90 million li radius territory of the Nine Demons Hall, who can kill a middle Dongxu stage Purple Demon aquatic dragon?

“Big brother.” A cold voice rises. This is none other than the 6th brother Di Jian.

When it comes to power, among the 9 Purple Demon aquatic dragon brothers, the big brother Di Long ranks first and has reached the late Dongxu stage. The 8th brother Di Tong ranked 3rd and had reached the middle Dongxu stage. And the one that ranks 2nd is the 6th brother Di Jian, who is often relatively reserved and has also reached the late Dongxu stage!

“Tell me who the killer is. I’m going to capture and bring him back!” The cold look in Di Jian’s glittering eyes is like an icy arrow.

The other brothers all understand his meaning. Why should they kill? They should capture and bring the killer back then slowly make him suffer a fate worse than death through tortures. They will force the killer through various cruel tortures so that he would rather be killed than be kept alive. Only then will they feel satisfied.

Di Long takes a look at his brothers, who are full of killing intent at the moment, and says powerlessly with a shake of his head: “The killer? For the moment I don’t know who he is either. Everybody knows how powerful 8th brother was. Who could possibly kill him? But I know one thing, 2 years ago I sent him to infiltrate the Blood-red Cave because of one of the 9 Swords. Now an accident has happened to him so it should have something to do with the Blood-red Cave.”

“The Blood-red Cave?” The 2nd brother Di Qing frowns. “Its master Cha Hong is pretty strong, but he’s no match for 8th brother.”

Di Jian says coldly: “Why talk so much? Let’s go to the Blood-red Cave for an investigation first. We’ll definitely find out some clues. If we can’t find the killer, then … anyone there can be the killer so we’ll kill them all!” The look in Di Jian’s eyes is piercingly cold.

Their brother has been killed so they shall not let this matter pass.

None of the other brothers disagrees with Di Jian’s words. Their eyes even glitter with frightening killing intent.

To them, even all the other experts in the whole underwater world of Xiuyaoists put together cannot compare to their 8th brother alone. Whoever dared to kill their brother is their enemy.

Di Long immediately gives an order: “Very well. 8th brother had reached the middle Dongxu stage so the killer must be at the Dongxu stage at a minimum. And not many Xiuyaoists in the entire underwater world have reached the Dongxu stage. But ... massacre is the last resort. We should investigate first. Only when we can’t find the killer will we carry it out. Brothers, who want to go to the Blood-red Cave to investigate?!”

“You should guard the Nine Demons Hall, big brother. I’ll go.” Di Jian says coldly.

The other brothers also secretly agree with him. In terms of power, this frosty Di Jian is absolutely just below his big brother. Moreover, some brothers have even suspected that he has surpassed their big brother. After all, both Di Jian and Di Long are late Dongxu stage experts.

Since Di Jian will personally get into action, everybody feels relaxed.

“I’ll go too.” The 2nd brother Di Qing also says.

The 7th brother Di Luan also says: “I’ll go with you as well. I want to see who killed my 8th brother.” He is seething with killing intent.

Seeing that the other brothers all want to go investigate, Di Long immediately says: “6th brother, 2nd brother and 7th brother will go together. This is already enough. Perhaps nobody can kill the 3 of them. The other brothers guard the Nine Demons Hall with me.”

When Di Jian and the other two join forces, their offense is indeed very powerful. Perhaps only Azure Dragon, the overlord of the Azure Dragon Palace, and the old freak Three-Eyed of the Blue Water Mansion can take their lives. But they are the 2 supreme figures of the underwater Xiuyao world, how can they possibly lower themselves by killing members of the Nine Demons Hall at will?

“Big brother, the three of us have no time to lose so we’re leaving now.” The 2nd brother Di Qing folds his hands in salute. Di Jian and Di Luan also fold their hands and say farewells to their brothers.

“2nd brother, 6th brother, 7th brother, please avenge 8th brother’s death.” Di Long says solemnly. Di Xu, Di Yang, Di Feng and Di Nai also fold their hands and say goodbye to Di Jian and the other two.

Afterwards, Di Jian, Di Qing and Di Luan leave the Nine Demons Hall at once like 3 beams of light.

……

In the Blood-red Cave’s main hall,

Qin Yu flings his robe and sits down in a throne in the main hall. There is another throne on either side of him. Hou Fei is sitting in one of these thrones. The other throne is still vacant. Qin Yu reserves it for none other than Xiao Hei.

“Cave master.”

The 3 black turtle brothers, the 2 tiger sharks Wu Tong and Wu Feng, the 2 snake women Yan Qing and Xi Yan, Zhuang Zhong and Teng Bi, 9 guardians in total, bow and say respectfully in unison. After Qin Yu defeated Teng Bi in one hit, they no longer had any doubts about his power. And Hou Fei’s power is even more indisputable.

“Cave master!”

The 50 squad leaders get down on one knee and say at the same time. These 50 squad leaders represent the 5000 guards. Now they, too, already know that Cha Hong is dead and the new cave master is none other than former guardian Liu Xing.

“I’m going to declare some new rules here.” Qin Yu looks down at the 9 guardians and the 50 squad leaders below him.

They all respectfully show that they are ready to listen to his orders.

“From now on, the Blood-red Cave no longer has the chief master and vice master positions. The new ones are 1st master, 2nd master and 3rd master. The 3 cave masters are absolutely equal to each other. This rule follows the Nine Demons Hall’s example, do you understand, my guardians?”

Everybody below Qin Yu is shocked by his first order.

To Qin Yu, this cave master position is not very important. He took over the Blood-red Cave mostly because he wants to give his brothers a place to establish themselves. He himself does not want to serve under or be ordered by anyone. Moreover, he knows very well that the Nine Demons Hall will definitely not ignore Di Tong’s death.

Facing the Nine Demons Hall, Qin Yu and his 2 brothers will naturally work together as a team. Even if disasters befall them, once they join forces, what obstacle will be too difficult for them to overcome?

However, Qin Yu still does not know at all that the brotherhood between the Nine Demons Hall’s 9 brothers is very deep, that the remaining 8 majesties are full of fury and hatred for him, and that Di Jian is even leading 2 other majesties rushing to his place.

End of b6c1.

[wandering]

B6C2: Nine Swords’ secret

In the Blood-red Cave’s main hall, the 9 guardians and 50 squad leaders are still amazed by Qin Yu’s first order. It is equivalent to weakening his own authority as cave master, no less! In general, even a cave master’s brothers can only become vice masters.

“Well, my guardians, could any of you have an objection?” Qin Yu says coldly.

Only now do the 9 guardians below him wake up from their amazement.

“I’ve got no objection. Of course I’ve got no objection. Cave master is really broad-minded. I’m very happy to serve such a cave master like you. Why should I have any objection?” Ba Ming, the eldest of the 3 black turtle brothers, flatters him smilingly.

The other guardians all say that they also have no objection.

To them, this question is bullshit and should not even have been asked. Changing from a system with a chief master and vice masters to a system with a 1st master, a 2nd master and a 3rd master only weakens the cave master’s authority. As guardians, they are not affected by this at all.

“There are 3 cave masters. We know that brother Hou Fei is 2nd master, but who is 3rd master?” asks Teng Bi.

Qin Yu, however, basically does not give a direct answer: “For the moment all of you don’t need to care about 3rd master’s identity. You will naturally know who 3rd master is when the time comes. My guardians, do I have to obtain your approval when I appoint someone as 3rd master?”

Noticing the coldness in Qin Yu’s words, the guardians all shake their heads hurriedly.

“Very well, then I’ll give my second order.” Qin Yu looks down at the 9 guardians and says.

The 9 guardians and the 50 squad leaders all begin to guess in their minds. When the 1st order is already so astonishing, what can the 2nd order be?

“From now on, we stop hunting for the black eagle and the Xiuxianist. Humph, Sang Mo’s and Cha Hong’s feuds have nothing to do with me. Are you clear about this, my guardians?” Qin Yu expresses very clearly his lack of respect for the previous cave master.

Hearing this, the guardians do not mind in the least.

It does not matter how formidable Cha Hong was, he is already dead, so why should they care about him anymore?

Sang Mo and Cha Hong are dead so it is only natural that the order to arrest the black eagle and Xiuxianist is invalidated.

“I’ll follow your order closely, cave master. That Xiuxianist and black eagle should also thank you for your generosity.” The eldest of the 3 black turtle brothers Ba Ming flatters him again.

Qin Yu does not care about this either.

“The 3rd order,” his voice rises again.

The guardians and the squad leaders all focus their attention to listen to him. This is the 1st time Qin Yu has sat in the throne in the main hall and exercised his power as cave master so these guardians naturally attach great importance to their behavior towards him.

“When I fought the black eagle last time, I felt that it wasn’t weaker than guardian Teng Bi. We should invite such an expert over here to strengthen the Blood-red Cave. Spread this order, my guardians, and if anyone discovers traces of the black eagle, let me know about this.”

This is Qin Yu taking precautions.

He has shown his intention of pulling the black eagle to his side in front of the 9 guardians so, when Xiao Hei comes here later, they will not be very surprised by this.

“Yes, we will follow cave master’s order.”

The guardians immediately bow. In fact, they are very happy. Previously, they still had to hunt for the black eagle, but now that the reigning cave master has given this order, it is very likely that the black eagle will become a member of the Blood-red Cave. There are really strange things in this world.

However, the 9 guardians are not too surprised. After all, in the Xiuyao world, it is possible for enemies to become friends in the blink of an eye.

“That’s very good. The last thing, you shouldn’t make wild guesses outside. Liu Xing is only my nickname. My surname is Qin. I’ll undergo closed-door training for some time from today on. So, if something happens during this period, you can report to 2nd master. Alright, everyone can leave now.” Right after saying, Qin Yu stands up, turns around and leaves the hall. Following him, Hou Fei also leaves.

“Farewell, cave master.”

The 9 guardians bow and say. Only when Qin Yu has left do these guardians begin to discuss with each other in a relaxed manner.

“It turns out cave master’s family name is Qin. He’s really mysterious. Even now I still can’t see clearly how powerful he is. After all, it’s hard to tell if he was using his full power or not when he fought boss Teng. What do you think, boss Teng?” Zhuang Zhong looks smilingly at Teng Bi.

Teng Bi says curtly: “He shouldn’t have been!”

“Oh my, boss Teng, what does shouldn’t mean? Could it be you didn’t feel anything?” Yan Qing says discontentedly.

Teng Bi says with a nod: “When I fought cave master, his speed was too fast, far exceeding my expectation. I was knocked away even before I could block his attack. Also, I felt that his energy was very fierce and concentrated. It seemed he wasn’t wasting any energy.”

The faces of the other guardians change color.

When experts execute a powerful attack, generally they will cause turbulence in their vicinity and give off a massive aura. The existence of this great aura also means that a large amount of the attack’s energy is being used ineffectively instead of being directed at the opponent’s body.

“Cave master didn’t waste any energy when he fought boss Teng?” Wu Feng says in shock.

Wu Tong says with a nod: “Cave master is really unfathomable.”

These guardians marvel at Qin Yu’s power but they simply do not know about the characteristics of the Stellar Transformations technique. At the Meteor stage, Qin Yu’s energy has been condensed into thin lines. Therefore, when he attacks, his energy is highly concentrated and does not seem to be wasted in the least.

“Everybody, just now cave master said he’d undergo closed-door training. Oh dear, the previous cave master Cha Hong often underwent closed-door training, and the current cave master also often undergoes closed-door training. Really, could it be a cave master has to do closed-door training frequently?” Xi Yan says in a lazy manner.

The other guardians nod.

Qin Yu became cave master yesterday but he is about to start doing closed-door training again.

“Humph, all of you still can’t figure out something from this?” Teng Bi says coldly.

The other 8 guardians all look at him.

“To maintain his position, cave master must have enough power to control everybody. So, naturally he wants to keep his power in peak condition and often does closed-door training to achieve this. You all can only see that he is overwhelmingly powerful but don’t understand how he has become so powerful. If you keep being so lazy, when can you catch up with him? I’ll also prepare to do closed-door training. I take my leave.”

After saying, Teng Bi turns around and leaves the main hall immediately.

The other guardians are startled by his words. But what Teng Bi said indeed has some truth in it. And these guardians have also been moved a bit by it.

……

Qin Yu and Hou Fei are going side by side on a road leading to the northern part.

“Fei Fei, I’ll leave the entire Blood-red Cave in your hands when I start my closed-door training. Now the most important thing to us is to stabilize it internally. If the inside is unstable, once members of the Nine Demons Hall come, we’ll be in some trouble.”

Qin Yu says through his holy sense.

Hou Fei agrees with him: “Don’t worry about this, big brother. The Blood-red Ridge is only that big so it won’t be difficult to stabilize it at all. But you already killed Di Tong, and his 8 brothers definitely won’t let this matter pass. Facing them, those ordinary fellas will be useless. We need experts.”

Qin Yu knows very well that Purple Demon aquatic dragons are so gifted that at the late Dongxu stage they can even rival Kongming stage Xiuxianists! He really has no confidence that he can handle that kind of super expert without relying on the Meteoric Tear to go all out.

But he will not necessarily be able to go all out. If the opponent quickly destroys his head, shattering his soul, even if the Meteoric Tear was more formidable, it would still be useless. Or if the opponent destroys his dantian, this will be disastrous for him as well.

Therefore, he must not fight unless he is forced into a tight corner.

“Late Dongxu stage Purple Demon aquatic dragons, well, according to the assessments in my hereditary memories, they are very tough.” Hou Fei is also frustrated. “Even if I ignore the serious consequences to go into berserk mode and fight desperately, I’ll only have a 50-50 chance of winning against one of them.”

Qin Yu and Hou Fei discuss for a long time. In the end, they both feel that the Nine Demons Hall is too powerful.

But they know that they now have enough power to wipe out the other 7 big caves under the Nine Demons Hall. After all, at the moment the Blood-red Cave has Qin Yu, Hou Fei and Hei Yu, who have all become much more powerful than they were.

“1st master, 2nd master.”

Seeing Qin Yu and Hou Fei, some guards who are on patrol immediately bow and say.

“Ha-ha, this order has spread really fast. I gave it in the main hall just now, but these guards already know to call you 2nd master.” Qin Yu praises. Actually, after leaving the main hall, those squad leaders immediately told their subordinates about this order through holy sense communication.

Hou Fei’s eyes glitter with excitement: “Kaka, now I got subordinates too. Well, when there’s nothing to do, it won’t be bad to train these brats a bit.”

When those patrolling guards hear what he says, their hearts cannot help but skip a beat. 2nd master will train them? How will this look like? They all know that this 2nd master is terrifyingly powerful.

……

On the secret floor under the northern part of the Blood-red Cave,

Nearly half of the secret rooms were destroyed in the fight between Cha Hong and Di Tong but quite a few of them are still good. Qin Yu tells his subordinates to take the rubble out while he himself goes into a secret room to start practicing once more.

This secret room has a round roof and a square floor. There is a rectangular soft mat made of oceanic soft grass in the center of the room. He sits down on it.

Di Tong’s yuanying then flies out and floats in front of Qin Yu. Because part of its energy was absorbed by him before, it is now one size smaller than it was. He enfolds the yuanying in an internal flame and begins to refine it again.

Various golden rays of light radiate from his body, making him look like a sun.

The golden rays of light cover him completely, forming a nebula that rotates nonstop. Meanwhile, the purple yuanying sends out many purple streams of liquid, which rotate along with the nebula then get absorbed into Qin Yu’s dantian continuously.

In his dantian,

The 3 golden grains are revolving unceasingly in the center of the huge inner nebula. If the orbits of these grains are put together, they will form a perfect sphere. Those purple streams of liquid are continuously burnt by the Stellar Flame until all of their impurities are removed.

As time passes,

The 3 golden grains gradually become bigger and bigger. The spherical silvery grains in the huge nebula also keep increasing in size, looking like countless stars …

Qin Yu is quietly practicing without being disturbed by anyone.

3 days later,

“Clack!” A very crisp noise is heard. In his dantian, the 3 golden grains, which have become as large as quail eggs, now split in three each again. Immediately, they have turned into 9 golden grains, which also revolve around in orbits that form a sphere together.

Once more, the countless silvery grains split in half as well, doubling their number.

The late Meteor stage!

Qin Yu has finally reached the late phase of the Meteor stage. But nearly half of Di Tong’s yuanying remains unrefined. Qin Yu of course will not waste it so he keeps refining and absorbing its energy. Time goes by. After about one and a half days, he eventually finishes absorbing Di Tong’s yuanying completely.

However, he is still at the late phase of the Meteor stage.

It indeed takes a lot of energy to reach the early Core stage from the late Meteor stage.

Si si ~~~

In his dantian, the 9 golden grains are revolving around nonstop. Because of their fantastic orbits, a mysterious induction has been created between them. Various brilliant electric sparks have unexpectedly been generated in the center of the 9 golden grains’ orbital sphere.

Those electric sparks are connecting the golden grains with each other but the grains’ revolving orbits have remained unchanged.

“When the 9 meteors are united, the core will be formed. But I’m still some distance away from the unification of the 9 meteors.” Qin Yu opens his eyes and says to himself smilingly.

After he reached the late Meteor stage, an attractive force has been created in the center of the 9 meteors’ orbital sphere. When this force reaches its peak, it will pull the 9 meteors towards their orbital center and unify them. At that time it will be possible for Qin Yu to reach the Core stage.

However, before he can, he will have to overcome the 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation.

“Since I’ve killed one of the Nine Demons Hall’s aquatic dragons, the other eight will definitely come here to investigate. The Blood-red Cave is very close to the Qian Long continent. That Nine Demons Hall is 80 million li from here in the south. So, even with their Dongxu stage power, those Purple Demon aquatic dragons will possibly need a year to arrive.”

There is a year left but Qin Yu still feels that he has too little time.

He is confident that he would be able to reach the early Core stage if he had 10 years. Once he has reached the Core stage, he would be able to face the Nine Demons Hall head-on without worries. However, at the moment, he does not have enough power for a head-on conflict with the Nine Demons Hall.

“There’s no point in thinking too much. I’ll come up with solutions as problems arise. Once Fei Fei, Xiao Hei and I join forces, what’s there for us to fear?” Qin Yu stops thinking about the menace of the Nine Demons Hall then takes out from his spatial ring some things.

They are a top-grade holy class spear, one of the 9 Swords and a black jade case.

After opening the jade case, he sees a jade slip. He makes a sweep with his holy sense.

“Oh, there are 9 keys to the 9 Swords Immortal Mansion. According to what this jade slip says, this 9 Swords Immortal Mansion is really extraordinary. Looks like the jade sword I got is the 8th key. However …” Qin Yu bursts out laughing. “Even if they can gather the other 8 jade swords, without mine, they won’t be able to open that immortal mansion.”

He has quickly figured this out accurately.

His camp’s power is weak for the moment but it will be okay if he does not bring the jade sword out. Even if other Xiuzhenists can gather the other 8 jade swords, they will still be unable to open the immortal mansion. And Qin Yu will lie low and wait until the Blood-red Cave has enough power to confront the Blue Water Mansion, the Azure Dragon Palace and the Nine Demons Hall to show the jade sword.

However, he still does not know that the Nine Demons Hall’s brothers care very deeply about each other. How can they possibly give him time to lie low? How can they possibly give him time to improve his side’s power? At the moment, 3 of them are coming to his place with Di Jian being the leader. Even Hou Fei will have difficulty fighting a late Dongxu stage Di Jian!

End of b6c2.

[wandering]

B6C3: Internal disorder

Deep in the ocean, Di Jian, Di Qing and Di Luan, all robed in red, are rushing side by side through the water. They cause great turbulence and surges wherever they go.

“7th brother, 8th brother’s death is very strange. The Blood-red Cave is at the northernmost part of our territory and next to the Qian Long continent of mortals. The Blue Water Mansion and the Azure Dragon Palace are even farther from it than us. Given such great distances, the killer shouldn’t be from the Azure Dragon Palace or the Blue Water Mansion.” Di Qing ponders for a long time then opens his mouth and says.

What he just said is reasonable. After all, Di Tong leaving for the Blood-red Cave was a secret and not even all of his 8 brothers in the Nine Demons Hall knew about this. How could outsiders possibly have known?

Even if in the end the Blue Water Mansion’s and the Azure Dragon Palace’s subordinates were able to discover that Di Tong had gone to the Blood-red Cave, perhaps they would still not have enough time to chase and kill him.

Among the 9 brothers, Di Luan is fairly good at stratagems. After thinking for a while, he says with a nod: “2nd brother, do you still remember that we sent Cha Hong a message but he unexpectedly hasn’t replied?” When Di Luan set off, he messaged Cha Hong to ask.

However, the message was like a clay ox entering the sea and went unanswered.

“There are only 2 possibilities. First, Cha Hong is already dead. And second, he used some unknown wicked method to kill 8th brother then went into hiding, in which case, he certainly doesn’t dare to reply to our message.” Di Qing continues.

But, for the moment, Di Qing and the other 2 also have no way to find out if Cha Hong is dead or alive.

In fact, the Nine Demons Hall has basically never thought that the 8 caves under it are important. These 8 caves are merely the managers of its 8 large areas. The Nine Demons Hall has been using them only to govern its 90 million li radius territory and has never collected the soul jade slips of the 8 caves’ masters.

“We’ll know after an interrogation. What’s the point of making wild guesses here?”

The grim 6th brother Di Jian says.

Di Luan’s eyes brighten as he hears his 6th brother’s words. He says: “2nd brother, I’ve got a method. Not only will it find out if Cha Hong is dead, it’ll also be a big help to us in finding 8th brother’s killer.” After saying, he takes out a transmitter.

Both Di Jian and Di Qing feel happy at once and look at Di Luan.

“First, let’s message the Great Shell Cave, which is the one nearest the Blood-red Cave. The Great Shell Cave’s master must know some matters related to the Blood-red Cave. There’s another step that can be taken after questioning the Great Shell Cave’s master.” Di Luan says smilingly.

He then sends a message to the Great Shell Cave. In just a while, the Great Shell Cave’s master replies.

As soon as Di Luan takes a look at it, a faint smile appears on his face: “Just as I expected indeed, the Great Shell Cave’s master said that the original master of the Blood-red Cave, Cha Hong, is already dead! This news has spread throughout the entire territory of the Blood-red Cave so the Great Shell Cave has also heard it.”

“Cha Hong is dead?!” Hearing this, Di Qing makes a deduction in his mind. “Who’s the new cave master?”

He knows very well that it is probable the new cave master killed Cha Hong to seize his position. As they can kill Cha Hong, they can also kill Di Tong.

“Wait for a while, 2nd brother. I’m questioning him.” Di Luan is waiting for the Great Shell Cave’s master to reply. After a while, he says frowningly: “2nd brother, 6th brother, according to the message of the Great Shell Cave’s master, the new cave master is a former guardian called Liu Xing. But he doesn’t know anything about how Cha Hong died.”

“Guardian Liu Xing?” says Di Qing to himself.

Di Jian, Di Qing and Di Luan are all pondering.

“2nd brother, 6th brother, do you remember that old turtle Qing Xuan of the Blood-red Cave? Do you still remember that fight several hundred years ago?” Di Luan suddenly says smilingly to Di Jian and Di Qing. He has already come up with an idea.

Di Jian is startled: “Old turtle Qing Xuan? I’ve never heard of him.”

“6th brother, you never pay attention to what happens outside so it’s normal that you know nothing about him. How about you, 2nd brother?” Di Luan looks at his 2nd brother Di Qing.

Di Luan says with a nod: “I’ve heard of that old turtle Qing Xuan. In the past, when we were choosing a manager for the territory of the Blood-red Cave, both he and Cha Hong strived for this position. In the end they fought each other. Cha Hong won a narrow victory, but the defense of that old turtle Qing Xuan was so astonishing that Cha Hong couldn’t kill him.”

Di Luan says smilingly with a nod: “Exactly. That old turtle Qing Xuan’s defense is outstanding. Now he is also a Dongxu stage expert. Most of the 8 caves under our Nine Demons Hall have been unable to completely control their territories, and the Blood-red Cave is one of those.”

There are many experts in the territory of a cave, how can all of them possibly submit to the cave?

The Blood-red Cave rules an 8 million li radius area in name, but in fact it only has complete control over the Blood-red Ridge and cannot completely control some distant valleys and ravines.

“Even now, Qing Xuan’s turf, the Qing Xuan Ridge, is not under the Blood-red Cave’s control. It’s weaker than the Blood-red Ridge but Cha Hong is already dead so Qing Xuan definitely won’t accept the new cave master’s authority. We can …” Di Luan bursts out laughing in a sinister manner.

Di Qing’s eyes brighten: “Ha-ha, you’re really smart, 7th brother. That’s right. Nobody knows that new cave master Liu Xing very well. It won’t be bad to let that old turtle Qing Xuan have a go at him. If that guardian Liu Xing can kill Qing Xuan then … he’ll be a major suspect!”

Di Luan also nods his head.

Cha Hong is dead so naturally the new cave master will be suspected. If that mysterious new cave master killed Cha Hong then he can have killed Di Tong too.

“There’s some friendship and contact between the Great Shell Cave’s master and Qing Xuan.” Di Luan says smilingly. “Why don’t we directly back this old turtle Qing Xuan, 2nd brother, 6th brother? We’ll tell him that the Nine Demons Hall has decided to let him become the new ruler of the Blood-red Cave’s 8 million li radius territory.”

Hearing this, Di Qing cannot help pointing at Di Luan and scolding laughingly: “7th brother, you’re really wicked!”

In the past, Qing Xuan fought Cha Hong for this position but eventually lost. He has always considered this defeat a disgrace to his life. If he knows that Cha Hong is dead and that the Nine Demons Hall has appointed him as the new ruler of the Blood-red Cave’s territory, will he possibly be able to sit tight?

“Ah, 7th brother, that Liu Xing fella is just a suspect. If, after we say that we’ve appointed Qing Xuan as the new manager of the Blood-red Cave, he beats Qing Xuan, it won’t be good for our investigation. After all, we will have appointed Qing Xuan as the new manager.” Di Qing says with a frown.

Di Luan, however, says smilingly: “Will we? We’ll only let the Great Shell Cave’s master tell this to Qing Xuan. If he succeeds, we won’t have to do anything. But if he fails, we certainly can shift the responsibility onto the Great Shell Cave’s master. I think he won’t dare to say a word even if he’s wrongfully blamed.”

That’s right. If the Nine Demons Hall’s majesties cause him to be wrongfully blamed, will he dare to speak out?

“Clever! Clever! 7th brother, quickly tell the Great Shell Cave’s master to message Qing Xuan, making him rebel and fight for that cave master position. That Liu Xing, I’ve never heard of him before. Now I want to see how powerful this mysterious fella is!” Di Qing’s eyes flash with coldness.

If this Liu Xing can kill Qing Xuan, Di Jian and the other 2 will have to consider him their no. 1 suspect.

The purpose of this maneuver is to estimate Liu Xing’s true power. If he is not strong enough and gets killed, of course Di Jian, Di Qing and Di Luan will not pay attention to him anymore.

……

In the Blood-red Cave’s territory, there is a particular mountain range that is several times smaller than the Blood-red Ridge. There are nearly 10,000 Xiuyaoists here. This Qing Xuan Ridge can be said to be a country within a country. In name, it is under the Blood-red Cave’s control, but in fact, it does not take orders from the Blood-red Cave.

In the mansion of the old turtle Qing Xuan in the Qing Xuan Ridge,

Old Founder Qing Xuan is sitting in an armchair. There is a lady-in-waiting gently fanning him with a fan on either side of him. He is all smiles at the moment. His nearly 1 m long bluish flaming hair is slowly flowing. His blue eyebrows are also flowing.

“May I ask why you are so happy, Old Founder?” A white-clad handsome man comes in then says respectfully on one side.

Qing Xuan does not answer but his expression changes irregularly, sometimes looking frighteningly ferocious, sometimes looking excitedly murderous: “Ha-ha, Bai Yan, have you heard of the Nine Demons Hall?”

“Of course I have. The Nine Demons Hall is the real ruler of a 90 million li radius area and one of the 3 underwater superpowers. How could I not know about it? But why did you mention it, Old Founder?” Bai Yan says doubtfully.

Holding his eyebrow between his forefinger and middle finger, Qing Xuan slowly arranges his thoughts then says: “You know, the Nine Demons Hall has told the Great Shell Cave’s master to message me that Cha Hong is already dead and I’ve become the new cave master. Ha-ha, Heaven has helped me. Heaven has helped me! That guardian Liu Xing or something, a brat from some small mountain range, has unexpectedly made an absurd attempt to become cave master without checking if he’s eligible.”

“Now I’ve been appointed by the Nine Demons Hall, I’m legitimate.” Qing Xuan suddenly stands up.

The white-clad man bows and waits for his orders.

“Bai Yan, spread the news that I have become the new cave master for me, saying that this is an appointment made by the Nine Demons Hall itself and that Liu Xing is illegitimate.” Qing Xuan’s lustrous green eyes radiate viciousness. “Disturbance, disturbance, cause a disturbance for me, those rebellious fellas. I want to plunge the Blood-red Ridge into absolute chaos and blood splattered everywhere. When the time is right, I’ll reappear and put everything back in order at one stroke.”

Bai Yan immediately bows: “Old Founder is really brilliant.”

……

In the Blood-red Cave,

“Ha-ha, Xiao Hei, you rushed to here from the ravine but didn’t even tell me about this. I really got a pleasant surprise …” Qin Yu laughs out loud. At the moment, the 3 brothers, Qin Yu, Hou Fei and Hei Yu, are drinking wine in a building in the northern part.

Hei Yu stretches his wing and sweeps a cup up with his energy. He then drinks all the wine in it.

“Ha-ha, Fei Fei, I heard that you’re 2nd master. How is this possible? When we were in the ravine, we didn’t decide who ranked higher and who lower. How about this? I’ll be 2nd master and you’ll be 3rd master.” Hei Yu says to Hou Fei through his holy sense.

Hou Fei, who is happily drinking wine, immediately gives a glare when he hears this: “Damn you. What did you just say? I always listen to Master’s words. At that time he told me to call Qin Yu big brother so I accepted this. Now you hairy bird also want to be one up on me? Dream on!”

He has never dared to disobey Uncle Lan’s orders.

“You hairy bird, Master never told me to call you 2nd brother.” Hou Fei says haughtily.

Hei Yu is furious: “Step aside, you monkey. What are you being aggressive for? Uncle Lan didn’t say who the second is or who the third is but he didn’t say you can get one up on me either.” Hei Yu is very proud. He is simply unwilling to yield.

Qin Yu immediately has a headache.

Hei Yu and Hou Fei already fought each other before when they were staying in the ravine. Both of them wanted to be one up on each other.

Because Hou Fei is stubborn and Hei Yu is proud, they do not easily admire someone. Hei Yu has been following Qin Yu since he was little so naturally he listens to Qin Yu. As for Hou Fei, he calls Qin Yu big brother due to Uncle Lan’s order. But only now, when Qin Yu has made quick improvements in power, does he approve of Qin Yu.

“All right, don’t quarrel. Neither of you is higher-ranked or lower-ranked than the other. You are equal, okay? As for the 2nd master and 3rd master positions, they are just titles. Xiao Hei, you weren’t here in the beginning so you should accept your position. All right, don’t argue over this matter anymore.”

Qin Yu has no choice but to say so.

“Humph,” Hei Yu utters a cold humph.

Hou Fei also gives Hei Yu a fierce stare.

Even though these two bicker over their positions, they do not fight over the other matters. The 3 brothers then drink wine and chat excitedly to each other again. They chat nonstop about many things, for example their experiences and their respective fantastic techniques. This drinking session lasts for 3 whole days and is very enjoyable.

The life of a Xiuzhenist is almost endless so a 3 day long drinking session does not mean anything.

Qin Yu now looks around. There are 6 beautiful ladies-in-waiting standing respectfully behind him. He says with a wave of his hand: “All of you can leave. Don’t let anyone come in.”

“Yes, cave master.” These girls bow and say then leave deferentially.

When the 6 ladies-in-waiting have left, Qin Yu waves his hands, setting up a restrictive spell around the 3 of them, then says mysteriously to Xiao Hei: “Xiao Hei, that lowlife Cha Hong had reached the peak of the early Dongxu stage and was also a blood-red aquatic python so his yuanying has a lot of energy, enough for you to reach the middle Yuanying stage. For the moment, because of your soul, you should stop absorbing at the middle Yuanying stage. Don’t absorb more than that before your soul has made another breakthrough.”

He waves his hand and a purple yuanying floats out. It is none other than Cha Hong’s yuanying.

Xiao Hei does not decline and receives it immediately.

Hei Yu has been Qin Yu’s companion since he was very young so they seem to share everything. It does not matter how valuable a treasure is, to them, what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours. Hei Yu also knows that Qin Yu has reached the late Meteor stage.

Right at this moment --

“Cave masters, something bad happened.” Zhuang Zhong’s voice rises outside.

Qin Yu knows that Zhuang Zhong will only behave like this in a serious situation. He immediately removes the restrictive spell with a wave of his hand. Zhuang Zhong hurriedly rushes in from outside and says respectfully: “My 3 cave masters, word has spread through the Blood-red Ridge that 1st master’s position is illegitimate and that the Nine Demons Hall has appointed the old turtle Qing Xuan as the new cave master directly. These rumors have made everyone in the Blood-red Ridge anxious and severely dented our Blood-red Cave’s reputation. Quite a few formidable Xiuyaoists don’t even listen to our orders anymore.”

The faces of Qin Yu, Hou Fei and Hei Yu change color at once.

However, Qin Yu does not know that this is a test that Di Jian and his 2 brothers have given him.

End of b6c3.

[wandering]

B6C4: Old Founder Qing Xuan

“Old turtle Qing Xuan? Tell me Zhuang Zhong, what is this fella’s background? I can see that this turbulence definitely has to do with him.” Hou Fei suddenly throws his cup on the floor and says furiously. His eyes radiate a golden light.

Hou Fei cannot contain his anger. In any case, he is the Blood-red Cave’s 2nd master so how can he possibly let someone come and seize his position?

Zhuang Zhong says respectfully: “My 3 cave masters, this old turtle Qing Xuan is also an outstanding expert. In the past, when the Nine Demons Hall was choosing a manager for this 8 million li radius area, he and Cha Hong had a fight against each other. In the end Cha Hong won a narrow victory, but Qing Xuan’s true form is an old turtle so his defense was extremely strong and Cha Hong couldn’t kill him. Now that Cha Hong is dead, Qing Xuan must want to stage a comeback.”

Qin Yu slightly nods.

Hou Fei, however, winks a couple of times and says with strange laughter: “Kaka, this old turtle couldn’t even beat Cha Hong yet he still wants to become cave master. Laughable, man! I’ll smash his black turtle shell directly with a blow of my stick, humph, humph.”

The look in Qin Yu’s eyes turns cold too: “Zhuang Zhong, as far as I know, quite a lot of Xiuyaoists in the Blood-red Cave’s territory don’t approve of me occupying this cave master position, right?” He is indeed not well-known in the 8 million li radius territory of the Blood-red Cave so naturally Xiuyaoists here do not revere him.

Zhuang Zhong says respectfully: “Those fellows don’t know about your abilities yet. If they know, they definitely won’t dare to be like that.”

“Don’t know?” Qin Yu says smilingly: “That old turtle Qing Xuan doesn’t want to live his worthless life in peace and is even attempting to take my position. Could it be he doesn’t know that in the Xiuzhen world, not having enough power will lead to death? This is good too. I’ll take this chance to showcase my power.”

He then says with a wave of his hand: “All right. There’s no need to report to me when those small fries cause trouble. But when that old turtle Qing Xuan appears, tell me about this. You can leave now.”

“Yes, cave master.”

Zhuang Zhong says respectfully at once then leaves.

From beginning to end Hei Yu did not say anything. Because he heard Zhuang Zhong say that Qing Xuan is approaching Cha Hong in power, he does not care about this old turtle.

Now, in the eyes of the 3 brothers, Qin Yu, Hou Fei and Hei Yu, ordinary Xiuyaoists are no longer a threat to them. Their greatest enemies for the moment are the Nine Demons Hall’s 8 remaining Purple Demon aquatic dragons.

“Xiao Hei, you should do closed-door training to refine the yuanying first. Our lives will become much more interesting some time later. If you aren’t strong enough, you won’t be able to take part in that grand meeting.” There is a faint smile on the corners of Qin Yu’s mouth. His eyes flash with fierceness.

The 3 brothers of the Qin clan, whether Marshal Qin Feng, the reigning emperor Qin Zheng or Qin Yu, will show no mercy once they have become ruthless.

Qin Yu has already thought about what can happen in the future and has considered the worse-case scenario. Since he has prepared for the worst, what is there for him to be afraid of? Now he, Xiao Hei and Hou Fei have all become strong. They are no easy meat for anybody.

“Want to touch us 3 brothers? Be careful or your hands will be cut off.” Qin Yu looks outside the room.

……

Qin Yu is standing in midair above the artificial mountain in the northern part of the Blood-red Cave.

He makes a wave of his hand and a building appears out of thin air. This is none other than Lei Mountain House, created by Lei Wei. He flies straight into this building. As soon as he enters it, he sees a huge pool before his eyes.

Qin Yu goes around the pool and comes into a drawing room.

“Training Hall,” he looks at the Training Hall and gives a faint smile. He is remembering the past. At that time, to protect his father, he risked his life to kill Wu Xing and afterwards he was teleported into this building and regained consciousness in the Training Hall.

Suddenly various beautiful flowers appear in the drawing room. There is a kitten in the middle of the flowers.

“Master,” Starlet says while wagging its tail.

Qin Yu gives a smile: “Starlet, do you feel lonely when I’m not here?” Even though thanks to the book explaining the techno-scientific civilization left behind by Lei Wei he already knew that Starlet is an artificially intelligent being, he is still unconsciously treating it as a living creature.

Starlet blinks its eyes a couple of times and says: “Lonely? What is it?”

Qin Yu is slightly startled. Only now does he remember that Starlet is not a living creature at all and therefore cannot have humanlike feelings. He cannot help giving a smile. Taking a look around, he quickly sees the door of the storeroom and feels frustrated.

The storeroom is comparable to the Training Hall in size. It has such a large area but more than half of it is packed with top-grade crystals.

He walks to the door of the storeroom and gives it a thought. This door then automatically opens. He takes a look inside and sees that more than half of the room is full of various ores of different colors. These ores must be counted by the ten thousand and, moreover, every chunk is a top-grade crystal.

Blue, crimson, green, golden, silvery, black …

The crystals flicker nonstop with attractive glows. Qin Yu can even feel their surging auras. Lei Wei had to roam countless places to be able to gather so many treasures.

Not even superpowers like the Blue Water Mansion and the Azure Dragon Palace have so many top-grade crystals. After all, top-grade crystals are very rare. They can be forged into top-grade holy weapons. There are so many top-grade crystals before Qin Yu but he has no way to take them out.

“Master set up a restrictive spell and said it can only be broken when I’ve reached the early Core stage. Now I’m at the late Meteor stage. I’ll have to overcome the 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation to reach the early Core stage.” Qin Yu cannot help giving a faint powerless smile.

After getting out of the storeroom, he goes towards the back of the building.

The Pill Making Chamber and the Weapon Forging Chamber appear in front of him. While he was in the Wilderness, he forged his own holy weapons in the Weapon Forging Chamber. However, when he killed Di Tong, his Flaming Sword was destroyed and one of his Flaming Gloves was badly damaged.

“This time I want to forge top-grade holy weapons.”

Qin Yu makes a wave of his hand. 5 top-grade crystals immediately appear. They come from none other than the spatial ring that Di Tong left behind after getting killed. The Nine Demons Hall’s brothers put their ordinary treasures in Treasure Storing Palace but they all bring highly valuable treasures like top-grade crystals with them.

“The Flaming Gloves need very little top-grade crystal. 2 chunks are enough. As for the Flaming Sword … I can forge it from that long spear.” Because Di Tong’s spear is also a top-grade holy weapon, Qin Yu will not waste it. However, he cannot use it openly. If he did, this would be no different from announcing that he killed Di Tong.

With a stride, he enters the Weapon Forging Chamber. The chamber’s metal door then automatically shuts.

After sitting down with legs crossed on a bulrush mat, he points with a finger. A deep blue flame flies into the Eight Diagrams Furnace in the center of the chamber. The furnace is set ablaze instantly. At the same time, a spear flies to the area just above the furnace. It is none other than Di Tong’s top-grade holy spear.

“Heavenly Gate, 8 Diagrams, Orthodox!”

Qin Yu shouts in a deep voice. Several golden rays of light shoot out from his finger and fly into several holes on the side of the 8 Diagrams Furnace. Their respective written talismans and signs immediately brighten. Even the light inside the furnace also becomes much more dazzling.

The ultra-yang form of the Stellar Flame!

The spear slowly melts. As it is burnt by the Ultra-yang Flame, its many impurities are removed and it also becomes increasingly smaller.

……

After 7 days, Qin Yu finally succeeds in making his holy weapons. The top-grade holy spear has been re-forged into a short sword, which is still called Flaming Sword. His forging technique is obviously more advanced than that of the Nine Demons Hall.

Compared to the spear, the sword is not even half as large in volume because all of the impurities have been got rid of. Now the Flaming Sword is also a top-grade holy weapon and is even sharper than before. Some written talismans and restrictive spells made of liquid purple gold have been fused with its surface.

The entire short sword is dark blue and there are purplish golden markings on its surface. Liquid purple gold is indeed an extremely good material for making written talismans and seals. The Flaming Sword is now even much more powerful than Qin Yu’s expectations.

The new pair of Flaming Gloves took him 2 top-grade crystals to forge. These Flaming Gloves are exceptionally thin, just like a layer of skin attached to his fingers. However, they are much more powerful than the high-grade holy-class Flaming Gloves in the past.

After forging the holy weapons, Qin Yu quietly reads books on the balcony of the study. He also practices nonstop internally at the same time.

……

On the balcony of the study on the 2nd floor of Lei Mountain House, Qin Yu is leaning back in a chair reading the secret books that talk about many secrets of the Xiuzhen world left behind by Lei Wei.

He can see patrolling guards in the distance from this balcony.

“Cave master, someone is secretly stirring up trouble in the Blood-red Ridge. Many Xiuyaoists have begun to gossip about you at will. Obviously they have very little respect for you. Quite a few Xiuyaoists even think that old turtle Qing Xuan should become the cave master.” Zhuang Zhong says while standing outside Lei Mountain House.

Qin Yu keeps reading the old book in his hands and simply does not look at Zhuang Zhong. He says indifferently: “There’s no need to care about them. You only have to tell me when that old turtle Qing Xuan has appeared.”

The guardians are worried but Qin Yu is still as stable as a mountain. He continues to read the old books quietly on the balcony.

Looking at Lei Mountain House before him, Zhuang Zhong exclaims in wonderment inwardly: “Where did cave master get this building from? It appeared all of a sudden. Even though this building’s door is open, nobody can come in except for 2nd master and 3rd master. This is really very fantastic.”

Lei Mountain House certainly can identify arrivers. Therefore, other than Qin Yu and his 2 brothers, no one can enter it.

……

As the days pass, the several tens thousand Xiuyaoists in the Blood-red Ridge also secretly gossip about Qin Yu. In addition to this, Old Founder Qing Xuan has sent subordinates to spread rumors so most Xiuyaoists do not think highly of this new cave master at all.

At this moment, a white-clad man goes up to the entrance of the Blood-red Cave.

“Give this to your cave master.” The white-clad man hands a jade slip to a guard then says arrogantly: “Our Old Founder has said, according to the Nine Demons Hall’s order, the new cave master is our Old Founder. If this Liu Xing or something is sensible, he should quickly abdicate. Otherwise, there’ll be a war and he’ll lose his life.”

After saying this, the white-clad man immediately turns around and leaves like a beam of light.

The guard who is holding the jade slip is still dumbfounded. Only after a while does he wake up with a start.

This guard is greatly shocked: “This is bad. That Old Founder Qing Xuan is coming. What those brothers said is right. This Qing Xuan must want to come here and seize the cave master position. Now he already intends to get into action. I wonder if cave master can be a match for him.”

The guard has heard that Qin Yu can defeat guardian Teng Bi in one hit, but he has never seen this with his own eyes. Moreover, Old Founder Qing Xuan is stronger than guardian Teng Bi.

……

In just a while, the jade slip is delivered to Qin Yu.

He is leaning back in his chair, holding an old book in one hand and the jade slip in the other. After making a sweep with his holy sense, he laughs.

A challenge letter!

This is the challenge letter that Qing Xuan has sent Qin Yu. That Qing Xuan thinks that he himself is an expert of the same tier as Cha Hong and that Qin Yu, being a former guardian under Cha Hong, is weaker than Cha Hong so he is confident of killing Qin Yu.

“Junior Liu Xing,

I’m Old Founder Qing Xuan. You must have heard that in the past I had some connection with your previous cave master Cha Hong. At that time I was careless for a moment and suffered a narrow defeat. I’ve been training hard for several hundred years, intending to fight Cha Hong again soon. Who could have thought that he would die so suddenly? This can be considered his luck.

But this is also a good thing. Junior, hand over the cave master position to me immediately, I don’t want to argue with a junior like you. If you don’t listen, I’m going to burn you to death with my internal flame, destroying your soul.

Take your time considering this.

I don’t mind telling you that the Nine Demons Hall has appointed me as cave master. I’m not fooling you. Plus, I don’t feel like fooling a junior like you. I’m going to the Blood-red Cave 3 days later. Whether you’ll live or die then depends on your choice!

Old Founder Qing Xuan.”

Looking at this jade slip, Qin Yu cannot help bursting out laughing. A deep blue flame comes out from his hand and burns the jade slip to ashes.

“Don’t overrate yourself!”

He remarks indifferently then continues reading the old book in his hand without any anger.

……

3 days later,

A massive group of several thousand Xiuyaoists comes. Highest among this group is a chair carried by 4 Xiuyaoists. An old man is leaning back in the chair. His long hair is flowing like a bluish flame. Old Founder Qing Xuan occasionally holds his long eyebrows between his index fingers and middle fingers. His slightly closed eyes sometimes flash with coldness.

A great number of the Blood-red Ridge’s Xiuyaoists are watching from a distance. The Xiuyaoists who have been living for a long time all know about Qing Xuan. They know that he is formidable. Qin Yu was only a guardian under Cha Hong, how can he possibly be a match for Qing Xuan, who is on the same level as Cha Hong?

A crowd of Xiuyaoists stands in midair in front of the Blood-red Cave then uniformly turns around and looks at Qing Xuan and his large entourage. This crowd of Xiuyaoists is led by none other than the white-clad man Bai Yan.

“Old Founder!” Bai Yan gets down on one knee and says respectfully.

“Old Founder!” The nearly 1000 Xiuyaoists behind him all get down on one knee and say. Quite a few Xiuyaoists in this crowd came to the Blood-red Ridge together with Bai Yan to manipulate other Xiuyaoists here. It is only because of this that today many Xiuyaoists are standing on Qing Xuan’s side.

Qing Xuan, who is leaning back in the chair, opens his eyes and takes a glance at the Blood-red Cave.

“Junior Liu Xing, quickly come out to welcome your Old Founder!”

His loud and clear voice immediately resounds through the whole Blood-red Cave. The power contained in his voice even causes the faces of the Blood-red Cave’s guards to change color greatly. Seeing this, the Xiuyaoists under Qing Xuan become arrogant.

Hearing this voice, Qin Yu, who is quietly reading a book in Lei Mountain House, cannot help but burst out laughing.

“Oh? That old black turtle has come. Let’s play with him a bit.” He puts the book down and disappears from Lei Mountain House with a movement of his body.

End of b6c4.

[wandering]

B6C5: A sword through the throat

Followed by a large entourage, Old Founder Qing Xuan is indeed in a very great position. Even though by now all of the Blood-red Cave’s guardians have appeared, he is still leaning back in his chair without looking straight at them, which makes him appear all high and mighty.

“Qing Xuan, being so arrogant at the Blood-red Cave, you’re really a bit much.” Teng Bi says coldly.

Qing Xuan gives Teng Bi a sideways glance then says with an evil laugh that sounds like the cry of an owl: “So it’s you, Horned Dragon Teng Bi. If you join me, I’ll make you my deputy. What do you think?” He certainly wants to recruit a subordinate like Teng Bi because he also knows that Teng Bi is powerful.

“Oh my, old turtle Qing Xuan, you’re even tempting boss Teng in front of the Blood-red Cave’s main entrance, isn’t this a bit too disrespectful to our cave master? This is simply …” Yan Qing curls her lips, looking very disdainful.

Qing Xuan’s face darkens. His eyes flash repeatedly with coldness.

Yan Qing hurriedly hugs Teng Bi’s arm, saying: “Boss Teng, that old black turtle scares me. I’m really frightened. You have to protect me.” She looks very terrified but actually there is a hint of derision in her eyes.

Seeing Yan Qing acting like that, Teng Bi cannot help giving a faint smile.

“You strumpet, I’ll definitely take your yuanying and peel your snake skin off, making you die in a world of pain.” Qing Xuan says in furious anger.

This Old Founder Qing Xuan hates being called old turtle Qing Xuan or old black turtle the most and likes being called Old Founder. However, Yan Qing has insulted him more than once by calling him what he hates so how can he possibly not become furious?

“Oh my, I’m so scared.” Yan Qing says again in a flirtatious voice.

Qing Xuan is so angry that his eyebrows tremble.

“Don’t waste your time here, old black turtle. You want to seize the cave master position with your puny power? Don’t overrate yourself so shamelessly.” Wu Feng and Wu Tong laugh coldly while looking at Qing Xuan. They are not afraid of him in the least.

The 3 black turtle brothers, however, say nothing.

Their true forms belong to a relatively rare species of black turtle whereas Qing Xuan is just a common old black turtle. He has reached his current level only because he has been practicing for a very long time. Therefore, the 3 black turtle brothers actually look down on him.

“All of you prepare to be burnt to death and have your souls destroyed by my internal flame!”

Qing Xuan points at the 9 guardians and angrily rebukes. Now he has become really angry. Coming here with a large entourage, originally he imagined how the Blood-red Cave’s guardians would get terrified when they see him.

But his imagination has proven to be wrong. These guardians do not care about him at all.

Teng Bi, Yan Qing, Xi Yan, Ba Ming and his 2 brothers, Wu Feng and his brother, and Zhuang Zhong, the 9 guardians, are not afraid of him in the least after they saw him. Other Xiuyaoists do not know about Qin Yu’s real power, but these guardians do.

Moreover, both 2nd master Hou Fei and 3rd master Hei Yu are already terrifyingly powerful, not to mention Qin Yu.

“Oh, if you want to burn my guardians to death, you’ll have to ask me, the cave master, if I like that first. You’re really a bit much, Old Founder Qing Xuan.” Qin Yu’s voice resounds through an area of several hundred li in radius in which all the Blood-red Ridge’s 50,000 to 60,000 Xiuyaoists have gathered to wait and see.

Countless Xiuyaoists all turn their heads looking at the Blood-red Cave.

They only see black-robed Qin Yu get in front of the 9 guardians in just 2 steps and face Old Founder Qing Xuan directly. He is now different from when he was a still a guardian. There is a faint smile on his face at the moment, making him look very calm and collected.

He is standing straight like a javelin. His black robe is fluttering gracefully even though there is no wind.

As soon as Qing Xuan sees Qin Yu, he slightly frowns: “Looks like this brat is no ordinary at all. It won’t be simple to beat him.” After seeing Qin Yu, Qing Xuan is no longer completely confident.

But he changes his mind again, thinking: “Humph, this brat was only a guardian under Cha Hong so he must be weaker than Cha Hong. Even if Cha Hong himself were here, he wouldn’t be able to harm me, let alone this brat, who is inferior to him.”

When Qing Xuan thinks about this, he becomes much more relaxed at once.

“Brat, have you read the jade slip I prepared and sent to you? What’s your choice? Obediently stepping down and giving the Blood-red Cave to me? Or stubbornly resisting till the end so that I’ll have to personally get into action, kill you and destroy your soul.”

Qing Xuan looks very arrogant.

Qin Yu frowns.

“Qing Xuan, you’ve overrated yourself a bit,” says he. Now he already feels that Old Founder Qing Xuan has overestimated his own abilities too much.

“Humph!”

Qing Xuan suddenly utters a cold humph. With a movement of his body, he flies out of the chair and stands in midair. His long blue hair straightens like sharp arrows and flaps wantonly. He looks coldly at Qin Yu. His eyes are radiating a strong green light.

“Brat, I’ve given you a few chances to save face but you still think that you’re cave master and have been very arrogant in front of me. Good, then don’t blame me for being merciless.” Qing Xuan says with evil laughter. His words are containing killing intent.

However, Qin Yu gives a laugh and looks at him.

Qing Xuan is enraged by Qin Yu’s look: “Brat, could it be you don’t know that real power is the most important thing in this underwater Xiuyao world? You think you’re cave master just because those guardians and guards have accepted you as cave master? Alright, I’m going to let you know what real power is!”

Qin Yu frowns.

“Oh, Qing Xuan, so you’re finally ready to get into action?” He looks disdainfully at the Xiuyaoists in Qing Xuan’s entourage below him then looks at Qing Xuan.

“Could it be you’re scared?” A hint of satisfaction suddenly appears in Old Founder Qing Xuan’s heart.

What he has been hoping for is that the current cave master willingly bows his head and subordinates himself to him. This will make him feel even prouder than killing Qin Yu to seize the cave master position.

“No, I’ve already been waiting for your attacks. It’s just that you’ve been too noisy.” Qin Yu clenches his fists. A series of cracking noises is unexpectedly heard. The faces of some Yuanying stage Xiuyaoists and above change color greatly at once, including Old Founder Qing Xuan.

The reason for this is that these experts know those noises are simply not caused by the bones in his fists but by the explosions of the air in his palms when he suddenly clenches his fists. Those noises show how extremely powerful and fast his hands are.

One should know that in general when ordinary experts clench their fists, they cannot make the air in their palms explode because it flows out too fast. Only when the clenching speed of the hands surpasses the escaping speed of the air can such a phenomenon occur.

“Very well, you’ve got some power indeed. Too bad, you still won’t be able to take one hit from me.” Qing Xuan’s long eyebrows flutter. A large octagonal hammer immediately appears in his hand. It is a high-grade holy-class heavy hammer. A black suit of armor then appears on his body.

A great cheer goes up from below at once.

Those Xiuyaoists under Qing Xuan seem to have already seen him kill Qin Yu.

“Big brother, it’s time to get rid of this old black turtle.” A strange voice comes out from inside the Blood-red Cave. A monkey that is carrying a black stick on his shoulder then walks out while shaking his head. His body naturally gives off an extremely ferocious aura.

Old Founder Qing Xuan’s face immediately changes color.

“Qing Xuan, don’t you want to burn me to death with your internal flame?” Qin Yu suddenly gives a laugh.

Everybody at the scene can only see that he turns into a golden beam of light in an instant. Qing Xuan opens his eyes wide in terror and hurriedly swings his large hammer out. However, his movement suddenly comes to a halt.

Qin Yu’s body appears again right in front of Qing Xuan. He reaches out his right hand. A dark blue short sword in his right hand then penetrates Qing Xuan’s throat.

“Old Founder! Old Founder!” Bai Yan cries in a terrified voice.

Bai Yan knows that Old Founder has reached the early Dongxu stage and therefore, in theory, his soul can merge with his yuanying to escape. However, Bai Yan simply does not know that when Qin Yu’s Flaming Sword pierced Qing Xuan’s throat, a portion of the Stellar Flame immediately entered his body.

Before Qing Xuan’s yuanying can flee, that portion of the Stellar Flame enfolds it.

“Spare me, please spare me.”

Qing Xuan’s yuanying cries in terror.

“Don’t you want to burn me to death with your flame? I’m going to give you a taste of your own medicine.” Qin Yu says through his holy sense. He has excellent control of his own flame so even though part of his flame is currently inside Qing Xuan’s body, it does not damage Qing Xuan’s body.

With an anguished cry, Qing Xuan’s soul is finally shattered. Qin Yu sucks that yuanying into his spatial ring directly. He cannot help giving a faint smile because he has just obtained another early Dongxu stage yuanying so easily.

Pu!

He pulls his sword out. Blood immediately spurts from Old Founder Qing Xuan’s throat. However, Qin Yu has already moved away several meters instantly as if he has used teleportation.

Bang!

Qing Xuan’s corpse falls down powerlessly then drifts nonstop in the ocean’s water.

Stupefied!

The several thousand Xiuyaoists under Qing Xuan are stupefied by this scene, so are the Blood-red Cave’s 5000 guards, the 9 guardians and the 50,000 to 60,000 Xiuyaoists in the Blood-red Ridge as well.

“How is this possible?” Bai Yan says to himself in disbelief.

The other Xiuyaoists, however, are so shocked that they are speechless.

Qing Xuan was an early Dongxu stage expert but he was unable to survive just one move executed by Qin Yu and got his throat penetrated. The most shocking thing is Qin Yu’s speed. Except for Hou Fei, all of the experts at the scene were not able to see how Qin Yu moved at all.

Previously, they all thought that energy and strength were the most important things to an expert. But now they have realized that an extreme speed is also a terrifying weapon.

“Everybody.”

Qin Yu’s voice rises. All of those Xiuyaoists no longer dare to make a noise. They focus their attention to listen to what he is going to say. They revere strong individuals the most so who among them would not respect Qin Yu after he has shown that he is so powerful?

“Today Qing Xuan wanted to seize my cave master position, but,” his voice turns cold, “to do this, you must have enough power! If you attempt to fight for this position with insufficient power like Qing Xuan, you’ll only get yourself killed!”

He coldly sweeps his eyes across everyone at the scene.

“I don’t want to see another place like the Qing Xuan Ridge in the Blood-red Cave’s territory. I want everybody in this 8 million li radius area to be clear that there is only one ruler, that is, the Blood-red Cave. Anyone who defies me shall be reduced to nothing and have their soul destroyed!”

Overbearing!

No resistance is allowed!

“There are nearly 100 Yuanying stage experts in the Blood-red Cave’s territory. 40 to 50 of them live in the Blood-red Ridge even though they’re not guardians. They will also listen to the Blood-red Cave’s orders in serious situations. It seems the Qing Xuan Ridge has 20 to 30 Yuanying stage experts.”

Qin Yu suddenly goes up to Bai Yan.

“I ask you all. Do you want to continue following Qing Xuan’s old path? You should know that you will suffer the same fate as him walking this path.” Right after saying this, he turns around and returns to the Blood-red Cave.

Bai Yan is smart so he understands what Qin Yu said.

In the beginning Qin Yu said he did not want to see another rebellious place like the Qing Xuan Ridge and if such a place appeared, it would be destroyed completely. So, now, judging from what Qin Yu just personally said to him, the leader of the Qing Xuan Ridge, he knows that he has been given 2 paths.

Obeying Qin Yu, he will live!

Defying Qin Yu, he will die!

Bai Yan clenches his teeth. He has made a decision.

……

After entering the Blood-red Cave, Qin Yu and Hou Fei walk back to Lei Mountain House side by side.

“Ha-ha, it was awesome, big brother, really awesome. A sword through the throat.” Hou Fei is very excited. He is violent and bloodthirsty so if someone annoys him, he will only want to smash them to death with his stick. If in the beginning Qin Yu had not told him not to get involved, he would have killed someone so arrogant like Qing Xuan early on.

Hearing Hou Fei’s words, Qin Yu does not know what to say.

This time he has behaved in such an overbearing manner but actually he did not want to do so. He is the type who only cares about those who are on his side, so why would he want to control those strangers? However, this is the Xiuzhen world and Qin Yu knows that if he appears to be soft and harmless, those Xiuyaoists will look down on him.

It is a rule in the Xiuzhen world that only strong individuals are respected. Therefore he had to subdue everyone with such imperiousness to make them understand that he is the ruler of this 8 million li radius area. Now no one here will dare to revolt against him because any rebel will be utterly destroyed.

He can only gain total control of this 8 million li radius territory by doing this.

As time passes, the results confirm that Qin Yu’s method is correct.

The population of the Blood-red Ridge quickly increases. Not only do the Qing Xuan Ridge’s Xiuyaoists immigrate to the Blood-red Ridge, some other Yuanying stage Xiuyaoists also move over here because they are scared of Qin Yu. Some Yuanying stage Xiuyaoists even ask to become guardians.

In just a month, the whole Blood-red Ridge has become stable like an iron panel with every Xiuyaoist here listening to the Blood-red Cave’s orders. It can be said that the Blood-red Cave’s persuasiveness is now much stronger than it was during Cha Hong’s time. The reason for this is that cave master Qin Yu is even more powerful than Cha Hong!

However, this news spreads very fast and the Great Shell Cave, which is near the Blood-red Cave, quickly hears it.

End of b6c5.