“It’s the two missing Yi family members.” Qin Yun confirmed at a glance that they were the ones he was looking for.
His sword intent domain enveloped the duo and silently entered their bodies. There were sinister, blood-colored fiend auras inside of them.
“Fiendish auras have entered their bodies. They chose to seal their souls?” Qin Yun nodded gently. “Perhaps their souls have already been tainted slightly. In order to prevent themselves from fully losing themselves, one option would be to seal their own souls. Thankfully they are Connate True Core realm cultivators. They have a tremendous amount of Dharmic powers that can ensure that they will be fine without eating or drinking for more than half a year. If this continued on for another year or two, they would really starve to death.”
Connate cultivators could survive on consuming the wind and imbibing the dew.
It sounded good but, in fact, they were absorbing the spirit energies of the Heaven and Earth to convert into Dharmic powers, replenishing the body’s expenditures! At the same time, water was still needed or their bodies would be severely dehydrated. If Connate cultivators sat there without eating, drinking, or absorbing the spirit energies of the world, they would eventually die after two years of hunger or thirst.
“They would be fine even a few months from now. I’ll enter and take a look around first.” Qin Yun continued striding in.
“Kill! Kill!”
The deeper he went in, the more fiendish auras he encountered.
Qin Yun’s sword intent was swift and powerful and his sword intent domain spanned a thousand feet. The fiendish auras swarmed him but dissipated before they could even touch him.
“The fiendish aura is increasing?” Qin Yun traversed many halls. Occasionally, he would find weapons and treasures left behind by Water demons on the ground. Many of them were damaged while some were low-grade items at the Dharma artifact level. There were also some Dharma treasures at the eighth or ninth-grade. At one point, he chanced upon a fifth-grade trident which left Qin Yun pleasantly surprised. “Back when the ancient Skydragon fought the Other Realm Fiendcelestial, many of the Water demons in the palace probably died from the aftershocks. Many of the Dharma treasures were destroyed and can only be used by melting them into their base components. Furthermore, the Dharma treasures have not been conserved well since ancient times. The weaker Dharma treasures would be severely damaged. Yet, this trident remains intact. That’s rare.”
Qin Yun only took the Dharma treasures that were intact.
He walked leisurely the entire time.
“This must be the periphery of the entire Ancient Skydragon Palace. I haven’t even encountered any array formations that impede my progress.” After walking a kilometer or so, Qin Yun was still walking in the periphery of the Ancient Skydragon Palace.
Just outside a golden door, there was a black-scaled monster hanging above the door. When Qin Yun walked over, the monster suddenly opened its eyes. Its pupils were amber-green in color.
“Kill!” The black-scaled monster resembled an ape as it pounced over.
“Go.”
Qin Yun casually pointed his finger.
An extremely sharp sword beam tore through the air. As a Paramount realm sword immortal, any sword beam he produced was at the level of an ordinary Connate Golden Core.
“Pew.” The sword beam struck the black-scaled monster, producing grinding sounds as it hit the monster’s armor. However, it was not injured in any way. It landed on the ground and continued its charge towards him.
“What monster is this?” Qin Yun was baffled. However, he waved his hand and sent a misty flying sword shooting out. Instantly, the surrounding Heaven and Earth powers condensed sword flashes that pursued it. Dozens of sword flashes accompanied the Intrinsic Flying Sword as they swarmed towards the monster.
Puah! Puah! Puah!
Successive cracking sounds were heard as the black-scaled monster had its armor split open. However, it did not perish. Instead, it continued charging straight for Qin Yun.
“Its body is already more powerful than typical Connate Golden Core great fiendish demons.” Qin Yun was alarmed. “Bright Moon Over River, go!”
River waters roared around.
A bright moon rose!
The moon-like sword beam bolted towards the black-scaled monster, bringing along with it dozens of sword flashes. In a blink of an eye, it struck six times before the monster stopped completely. Its body was covered in wounds when it began to disintegrate with a fizzle, dissipating into nothingness.
“Why did its corpse completely disintegrate?” Qin Yun was perplexed. “I didn’t use my sword intent domain to destroy its corpse. Also, I could sense that it lacked sentience but its strength was so formidable.”
Qin Yun was baffled but it made him even more careful.
As he advanced, the sword intent domain began passing through the back of the golden door. Immediately, he ‘saw’ two more black-scaled monsters. Following that, his sword intent domain could not proceed any further. It was suppressed by a more terrifying domain.
“What? The sword intent domain has been suppressed?” Qin Yun quickly walked through the golden door.
It took one glance to see everything ahead of him.
The passage behind the golden door led to a hall. But the entire hall was in ruins. The columns had collapsed and amid the hall’s ruins, he could see more than ten black-scaled monsters clinging to different spots. Some were on the collapsed columns while there were others leaning against the broken crystalline walls. None of them were moving.
When Qin Yun walked through the golden door, the black-scaled monsters opened their eyes and turned their heads towards him.
But at that moment, Qin Yun was staring at the middle of the hall.
Sitting there was a red-scaled gigantic arm that spanned 390 feet! The arm was thick and mighty and the palm was in the shape of a gigantic claw. The fingers resembled sharp sickles! Every finger’s blade ranged from sixty feet to more than a hundred feet long! On second look, every runic fractal on the scaled arm would remain profound even when magnified thousands of times. It was many times more profound than Patriarch Crocdragon’s scales.
The five sickle-like fingers made Qin Yun shudder just from the sight of them. He felt a baffling sense of horror.
Furthermore, the arm seemed to form a natural suppressive domain!
It suppressed Qin Yun’s sword intent domain, preventing it from approaching the arm.
Around the wrist area of the arm, there were three black bangles that suffused a special aura.
“These bangles must form a Dharma treasure set.” Qin Yun made an instant judgment. “And these three bangles alone give off the feeling that they are not inferior to the transcendent-grade Golden Core Cauldron. If there are other bangles, the entire Dharma treasure set might be a Numinous treasure.”
Qin Yun swept his gaze over the room.
He locked his gaze on a pool of red-colored blood that suffused golden light in the middle of the hall. Even after all this time, the blood continued emitting a lofty suppression effect. Furthermore, there were five blood crystals the size of fingertip segments in the blood.
“Skydragon Blood Crystals? They are identical to the figures given to me by the Myriad Temple.” Qin Yun was excited. “It’s obvious that this gigantic arm doesn’t belong to the ancient Skydragon. It must belong to the Other Realm Fiendcelestial. This Other Realm Fiendcelestial is equally terrifying, for its battle with the ancient Skydragon to end with mutual destruction.”
“Roar—”
“Roar—”
More than ten scaled monsters stared at Qin Yun. Some emitted a low growl. In addition, the gigantic arm began to emit black mist that condensed to form more black-scaled monsters. In just a blink of an eye, there was a dense horde of black-scaled monsters that numbered in the hundreds. Six of them were clearly larger than the other monsters.
“No good!” Qin Yun’s expression changed as he turned to flee.
As he fled, Qin Yun released his Intrinsic Flying Sword. The sword flash bolted towards the Skydragon Blood Crystals that were in the large pool of red-colored blood.
“Whoosh!” The dense black-scaled monsters began moving, as well as the six leaders!
“They are fiendmonsters! Servants of fiendcelestials!”
“Legends speak of fiendcelestials that have extremely powerful bodies. Their auras would naturally form slaves that are known as fiendmonsters. However, fiendmonsters cannot be killed completely! After the fiendish aura disperses, it will condense again to give birth to new fiendmonsters,” thought Qin Yun. “However, fiendmonsters cannot be too separated from the fiendcelestial. Secondly, they are usually very weak…but why are these fiendmonsters almost equal to a Connate Golden Core great fiendish demon?”
“Is it because the Other Realm Fiendcelestial is overwhelmingly powerful? Even the fiendmonsters its corpse generates are so powerful?”
Qin Yun cast the Cyclic Sword Flash with the first-grade Seven Kills Sword as he sent his Intrinsic Flying Sword to steal the Skydragon Blood Crystals away as it was easier to control and more agile.
“Bam! Bam! Bam!” The fiendmonster leader disapparated and was extremely fast. Soon, three leaders were holding back Qin Yun’s Intrinsic Flying Sword.
The moon-like sword beam was extremely fast.
But the three fiendmonster leaders ignored it and used their bodies to resist the attack. Only small cracks appeared in their scale armor.
“Samsara! Kill!”
Qin Yun did not hesitate.
After all, no matter how powerful his Cyclic Sword Flash was, it could not withstand an assault from hundreds of fiendmonsters since all of them were in no way inferior to a Connate Golden Core realm great fiendish demon.
Boom! Boom!
The Intrinsic Flying Sword was blinding as it led hundreds of sword flashes to rip through the three fiendmonsters’ bodies, as well as another fiendmonster leader. However, it lost its momentum and was unable to do a thing to the second fiendmonster leader.
“Whoosh! Whoosh!” Black mist rose again from the gigantic arm, reviving the dead fiendmonster leader and the three fiendmonsters again.
Qin Yun knew that he was unable to kill all the fiendmonsters. Any that died were simply instantly revived. The only solution was to eliminate their source—the fiendcelestial’s body.
“Bam!”
The first-grade flying sword, the Seven Kills Sword, cast the Cyclic Sword Flash and blocked the passage but after the relentless assaults of more than three hundred fiendmonsters, it shattered.
As for Qin Yun himself, he had already begun fleeing. The second-grade flying sword, Heavy Sand Sword cast the Cyclic Sword Flash once again.
“Time to leave!”
Qin Yun put away his Intrinsic Flying Sword and the Seven Kills Sword. By the time the Cyclic Sword Flash from the Heavy Sand Sword shattered, Qin Yun had already escaped more than half a kilometer away. As for the fiendmonsters, they could only rush out a few hundred feet from the golden door before they had to stop.
“Why did they stop?” Qin Yun frowned. “I was planning on deliberately luring them out and sneaking into the hall through a different path.”
The hall had collapsed so he could naturally circle around it.
…
Qin Yun made several attempts and even tried storming the area through open holes from the ruins by circling around the main entrance.
These fiendmonsters were bound to the vicinity of the hall and the furthest they could go was just slightly more than a thousand feet from the arm. They were guarding it, as well as the five Skydragon Blood Crystals, as though they were their owner’s spoils of war.
“They are too powerful. Just the number of fiendmonsters add up to 666. This number must mean something. Each of them has a strength that matches that of a great fiendish demon. There are also six leaders, each matching Nine Mountain Island Lord in strength. Even though their bodies aren’t as powerful as Nine Mountain Island Lord’s, they are undying. They are classic examples of fiendmonsters as recorded in canon but even so, I have never heard of them being this strong!” Qin Yun was momentarily at a loss. He could clearly see the Skydragon Blood Crystals and the Other Realm Fiendcelestial’s arm. The latter was priceless as well! The three bangles were probably in no way inferior to the transcendent-grade Golden Core Cauldron.
But Qin Yun was out of options.
His strength was insufficient!
“If I stepped into the Dao, my strength could match immortals and fiendcelestials. Even hundreds of fiendmonsters would not be able to crack my Cyclic Sword Flash. However, how long will it take for me to step into the Dao?” Qin Yun stood a distance away as he looked at the massive red-scaled arm through the collapsed walls.