But it seemed he had made the wrong choice.
Mu Lingxi was a Sword Cultivator at the Shattering Void Ninth Realm, while Liu Min was a Talisman Cultivator at the Heaven Burning First Realm.
However, Mu Lingxi was the cream of the crop among the younger generation.
Choosing her as a target seemed rather unwise.
After Mu Lingxi and the others had swiftly dealt with the miscellaneous soldiers, she had been keeping part of her attention on Dong Qi’s battle.
Seeing a black shadow speeding over from the collapsed building and confirming it wasn’t Dong Qi, she had been on guard.
Sure enough, that Evil Cultivator was coming for her!
Seeing this, Mu Lingxi actually swung her sword toward his direction before his attack could arrive.
This sword strike contained an extremely terrifying amount of ice-attribute Spiritual Power.
The Evil Cultivator couldn’t help but widen his eyes to the extreme.
He slammed on the brakes and raised his arms to try and block, but it seemed ineffective against Mu Lingxi’s sword light.
Indeed, the extremely cold ice blade cleanly severed his forearms.
Blood splattered, and his body was sent flying back by the impact force!
“Ah!”
The whole process happened in just a few seconds.
By the time Dong Qi rushed out from the building debris, he saw the Evil Cultivator’s body flying toward him!
Perhaps it was a reflex.
Seeing something attacking him, Dong Qi hurriedly threw a punch, landing a heavy blow on it and sending the Evil Cultivator flying back again.
After these two consecutive attacks, the Evil Cultivator leader had not only lost both forearms but also had his internal organs churning violently.
The cold air invaded his body through the smooth cuts on his arms, intimately colliding with the surging hot blood inside.
That feeling definitely couldn’t be pleasant, right?
A truly pitiful state~
The last Evil Cultivator on the field was now lying on the ground, devoid of fighting strength.
However, his vitality was still tenacious.
Despite the massive bleeding from his wounds, he kept squirming on the ground.
Mu Lingxi and the others exchanged glances and walked toward him.
Jiang Luoqi had also withdrawn from her hidden state.
Mu Lingxi urgently wanted to know where Yun Fei was at this moment.
Holding her sword, she stepped on his chest, driving the longsword viciously into his shoulder blade.
Her tone was icy and bone-chilling.
“Where is Yun Fei?”
“…Ugh… Hah, that guy is probably in dire straits. A mere Shattering Void Fourth Realm nobody. Even though those two wolves were only at most Shattering Void First Realm, through their unique Secret Soul Technique, the one at the Star-Plucking Realm can forcibly obtain combat power equivalent to Heaven Burning Ninth Realm! The one at Shattering Void Realm can obtain combat power equivalent to Xinghe Fifth Realm! Hahaha! Just now! I felt the fluctuation of that technique! That guy is probably deader than dead!”
The Evil Cultivator coughed up a mouthful of blood, his face twisted into a grimace, sweeping a highly provocative gaze over everyone.
“Once they finish over there, they’ll come here! Even if I die, you’ll all be buried with me! Hahaha!”
Hearing this, Mu Lingxi’s heart tightened.
Even the expressions of everyone present turned grim.
Xinghe Fifth Realm.
That was a whole major realm higher than the highest cultivation among them, Dong Qi!
If it came here, no one would be able to leave.
Just as Mu Lingxi was growing anxious, a deafening, earth-shaking explosion suddenly sounded from not too far away.
The explosion was so immense it actually made the entire mountain shake!
“Wha… what’s going on?”
The Evil Cultivator lying on the ground, with more breath going out than coming in, looked in terror toward the direction of the explosion.
He knew that was where the two werewolves were operating.
And as far as he knew, they shouldn’t have such an exaggerated method…
But if it was a commotion caused by that little girl, it also seemed unlikely?
What realm was she at?
While everyone was puzzled, Mu Lingxi suddenly thought of something, and a flash of joy crossed her face.
“This… this is Yun Fei’s Twin Co-Explosion Pill! She’s fine!”
“Wha… what thing?!”
Everyone was full of surprise, especially after hearing Mu Lingxi’s words and learning this commotion was caused by Yun Fei.
“This power… With my current strength, I’m afraid I could only barely survive the explosion…”
Dong Qi had always been extremely confident in his physical constitution.
After sensing the residual shockwave, he roughly estimated and came to this conclusion.
“No way? Dong Qi, isn’t your body strength already comparable to an ordinary Xinghe Realm cultivator? And that’s still not enough?”
Liu Min and Dong Qi were acquaintances.
Knowing him well, hearing such information still caused him considerable shock.
As for the dying Evil Cultivator on the ground, after listening to their discussion, his eyes rolled back, his breath cut off, and he immediately departed for the west.
After his complete death, gradually, the mist lingering in the mountains began to dissipate, and the view became clearer.
Seeing this, Mu Lingxi hurriedly ran toward the direction of the explosion.
The others were stunned for a moment but quickly followed.
By the time they reached the location, the mist had completely cleared.
Yun Fei’s figure was not in the area.
There was only a white-furred werewolf with its head severed.
Not far away, there was a charred, blackened creature kneeling on both knees.
Preliminary judgment suggested it was the same species as the decapitated one.
“My heavens! This thing… a humanoid body curve, but a wolf? An upright wolf? A werewolf? My goodness, I’ve never seen this in any book. Could this be a groundbreaking discovery for us?”
Liu Min’s eyes sparkled as he poked the wolf head that had rolled to the side, marveling.
“It seems Yun Fei isn’t here. Let’s split up and search. Be careful. If you encounter a fight, don’t get drawn into a prolonged battle.”
Dong Qi looked around.
Seeing no one for now, he gave this order.
—
“This is… an altar? Such a strong smell of blood.”
Yun Fei was currently standing before an altar, pondering something, when she suddenly noticed the mist beginning to dissipate.
She could now see the objects on the altar more clearly.
The altar wasn’t very large, but in the middle stood over a dozen wooden crosses.
The crosses bore bloodstains that hadn’t completely dried.
Several frames still hung with human skeletal remains, tattered cloth strips fluttering in the wind on the bones.
Seeing this, Yun Fei’s face remained calm and unperturbed.
She had seen scenes like this many times.
In the Demon Realm, the Evil Cultivator strongholds she or her mother had raided more or less all had such things.
The first time she saw one, she vomited up two days’ worth of meals and couldn’t eat for several days afterward.
Later, after seeing many more, she could even sit near the altar after raiding a stronghold and have a celebratory dinner with her companions.
Yun Fei walked onto the altar.
As she suspected, beneath the altar was a pool of blood.
Each person would be hung on a cross, their remaining life force drained.
Their blood would seep through the altar surface to the bottom, nourishing some unknown existence.
This had become very popular among Evil Cultivator groups in recent decades.
Such cruel things didn’t exist in the past.
She had heard from her mother that in the past, Evil Cultivators mostly practiced the Life-Draining Technique, absorbing the yin-yang energy from normal people to supplement themselves.
People deprived of their yin-yang energy would rapidly lose their life force, turning into shriveled corpses—perhaps one could say they were “drained.”
Now, however, Evil Cultivators had completely abandoned this Life-Draining Technique, switching to a cultivation method that directly devoured life force and flesh and blood.
They had also somehow learned a mysterious Blood Sacrifice Ritual.
Compared to their previous methods, this ritual affected a much larger scope.
Sacrificing dozens of people at once was considered the lowest-level ritual.
Yun Fei didn’t know what they were trying to summon through this ritual, but every altar they built always had a pattern on the ground resembling a bat.
It was said that once this pattern lit up with a pillar of bloody light shooting toward the sky, the sacrifice was considered successful.
But in the Demon Realm, due to the Demon Sovereign’s continuous attention, these Evil Cultivators had never succeeded once.
Over in the Profane Realm, however, she hadn’t really heard any news of such disturbances.
Perhaps this chance encounter of hers happened to be the first instance in the Profane Realm?
Anyway, since it happened, she should mention it to her Master when she returned.
As for the Academy, once Dong Qi and the others arrived and learned the situation, they would report it too.
No need for her to bother.
What concerned Yun Fei more now was the two werewolf creatures she had just faced.
They seemed to be in a cooperative relationship with the Evil Cultivators?
And this bat pattern favored by the Evil Cultivators—could it be somewhat connected to the werewolves?
Thinking about it, those intricate crimson patterns on the werewolf’s body earlier, were they also related to this?
Unfortunately, she had originally wanted to keep one alive.
After extracting information, she planned to break its limbs and send it to the Demon Capital Commerce Association.
Through their channels, they could deliver the werewolf to her mother’s hands.
With her connections, she might be able to contact professionals in the field to research it and obtain more accurate information.
But looking at the situation now, that werewolf still couldn’t withstand her Twin Co-Explosion Pill…
It seemed killing a Heaven Burning Realm cultivator shouldn’t be a problem.
However, this pill was extremely precious.
Since it was a self-developed pill… perhaps it couldn’t be classified strictly as a “pill,” but if forced to categorize it as one, it seemed to have reached the fifth-tier standard.
She could only produce one pair of such pills per furnace, and the failure rate was extremely high.
The consequence of failure?
Nothing more than blowing up one of her palaces.
She had none left in her possession.
These two pills, plus the two used against “Jiang Qing” a few days ago, were all her assets.
They were refined back in the Demon Realm.
She couldn’t afford to refine this stuff at the Academy.
Just as Yun Fei stood on the altar thinking, urgent footsteps sounded from behind her.
Yun Fei turned her head to look.
It was actually Mu Lingxi, but she seemed to be alone.
Before Yun Fei could even feel puzzled, she saw Mu Lingxi directly pounce on her, holding her tightly in a hug.
This hug was quite tight, pressing uncomfortably against her chest!
Yun Fei knew that during her absence and uncertain fate, Mu Lingxi’s heart had probably been in great torment.
But that didn’t stop her from trying to peel Mu Lingxi off her body for the sake of living more comfortably.
It had to be said, Mu Lingxi’s strength was too great!
Did Body Cultivators at the same realm have this kind of strength?
Yun Fei didn’t know.