Chapter 32 – Evil Looming
There weren't any major obstacles in the first level in the nest with Tung Xuan and Lu Feng protecting them. All the Mo beasts were killed in an instant by the two king realm fighters. Even though most of the beasts were at the master level, their strength still varied. The beasts they faced before were all among the weakest of the bunch.
On the first level, around ten thousand Mo beasts were destroyed. Xuanyuan had seventy two elixirs from this harvest.
Tung Xuan and Lu Feng claimed that they didn't need more elixirs, so they were giving them all to Xuanyuan, in the hope that he would recommend them to the sect when he established his power. Xuanyuan of course had no shame when it came to money and would happily accept their bribes. He knew that if people weren't acting like their usual selves and acting against their usual nature, he knew they must be planning something. He might be frightened if they attacked him directly, but he wasn't afraid of them using tricks.
Tung Xuan's plan was to beg Xuanyuan to forgive them when everyone was watching, so he wouldn't be on guard when they acted on their plans. Then Tung Xuan and Suntao would go their separate ways and ambush Xuanyuan, in order to force him into a deeper level of the nest.
On the first level, the enemies were weak, but once you entered the second level, there were many creatures, such as white ghouls, that were as strong as the most powerful master realm fighters.
They arrived at the second level.
It didn't look much different than the previous level. The grass was still glowing faintly, tall Mo plants were growing everywhere, and many Mo creatures were lurking around the shadows.
The only difference was that the creatures on this level were more intimidating and powerful. The air was thick with evil. The evil air in the nest was like a source of nutrition for the Mo race, but poisonous to humans and ordinary beasts. These Mo creatures were all once normal beasts which stumbled into the nest and were infected by the air. The stronger ones that weren't killed by the air would become the demented Mo creatures. They would slowly lose their mind and become killing machines.
The mission at hand was to kill all these evil creatures inside the nest.
Battle broke out once again, without any warning.
Tung Xuan and Lu Feng were at the very front. Their swords lit up like cold, sharp beams of moonlight that cut through the creatures in their way.
Xuanyuan's weapon of choice was his rusty dagger. He heard the voice of the greedy old bugger ringing in his mind, "Kill! Kill! Kill! The more you kill, the faster my power will be restored! This is not enough, now...You have to go find me more fighting stones, jades and crystals. Go and see if there's anything in the mines on the third level..."
Xuanyuan rolled his eyes. The Boots of Floating Clouds allowed him to stroll through the air like a flying dragon, swift and light. With his incredibly sharp dagger, he butchered the creatures in front of him one by one.
He killed a creature with each strike.
The battle in the second level was clearly more exhausting and difficult than the previous ones. Creatures were attacking them from every direction. Even though the true disciples were protecting them, a few dozen inner disciples were killed.
Just when Xuanyuan was finishing his thirty-seventh kill, a terrifying power approached him from behind at an alarming speed.
He felt his scalp going numb. He turned around and pierced through the enemy with his dagger. A pair of bloody red eyes were glaring at him. The face rotted, the hands had sharp, long claws. It was an evil creature, a white ghoul, and it possessed the strength of a dragon. With its white, dirty hair and rotten flesh, it was a terrifying sight.
But Xuanyuan's dagger pierced right through the ghoul, while his own clothes were torn from those sharp claws, but he was unhurt, because he had the armour for protection.
"Hahaha, Xuanyuan, my boy. You've got all those elixirs from the losers, I'll take the essence from these creatures. I'll devour all of their power!"
The battlefield was chaotic, it was not possible to check all of the dead creatures to see if there were elixirs inside, so Xuanyuan didn't argue with the greedy old bugger.
The white ghoul froze once the dagger thrust into its heart. All the essence of its strength was absorbed by the dagger, it was left with nothing but an empty shell.
Another white ghoul ran towards him. Xuanyuan didn't run away, he instead used the technique "Fist of the Heavenly Dragon" and combined the power of his refined skin, flesh and bones, then punched a hole straight through the ghoul's body. The dead creature fell a few metres away.
On the other hand, Yan Ziyun's power was enhanced by the top ranked spiritual instrument, Moon Wheel. She wielded the wheel and cut through the creatures in front of her, leaving them in two pieces.
The second level of the nest was tainted with the stench of blood.
The battle ended when they finally approached the entrance to the third level. They had been fighting for twelve hours. The Body of All Creation absorbed the evil air and converted it into energy to fuel the body. If not for that, Xuanyuan would have been exhausted long ago.
Nearly forty thousand Mo creatures were killed, among them were many white ghouls, but the disciples also paid the price, almost a hundred inner disciples were killed.
However, many of the top disciples broke through to the spiritual realm during the battle. Liu Piaoxu and Shi Congyu were among of them.
Xuanyuan face was drained of colour. He sighed when he saw the carnage,
”Luckily, these white ghouls were only strong in body and didn't know any techniques or special methods. Otherwise, even more people would have been killed.
Xuanyuan's strength improved from a hundred and seventy two bulls to a hundred and seventy eight from the twelve hours of fighting. The connection between his skin, flesh and bones was becoming stronger. But he knew that he had yet to reach the limit of his strength for this realm.
Guxing had reached ninety nine bulls strength. It had released and absorbed the power of the ghost wolf elixir during the fight. The wolf was wounded and blood tainted its silvery fur. Xuanyuan took out the medicine he bought and quickly gave it to Guxing. The blood stopped flowing from the wound and it quickly started to heal.
"How about we rest a while before going to the next level. The disciples won't be able to go on like this." He said to Tung Xuan and Lu Feng.
"Young master is right." They replied, and took out a hundred and eighty master level elixirs and ten spiritual level elixirs from the white ghouls and handed them to Xuanyuan. Xuanyuan was not shy to accept even more gifts. He accepted the bribes with open arms and said he would remember them when entered the Sect.
Tung Xuan and Lu Feng smiled as they left. But Yueteng and Yuezen were not happy to see that they gave all the elixirs to Xuanyuan.
"Brothers, those elixirs are the proof that we killed all those creatures. Aren't you being too nice to him?"
Tung Xuan was annoyed at Yueteng. He said with a cold smile, "When he's dead, we'll get our things back. You think I would just give him what's mine?"
Knowing Tung Xuan's plan, Yueteng smiled as well, "That's right, we'll get to keep everything when he's dead. Keep him happy for now. It's won’t last."
"The Judgment stand can sense how many Mo creatures we've killed, and it knows if we're lying. It always ends badly for those who lie." Lu Feng had seen people who claimed that they had killed more than they actually did. The consequences made him shiver.
They continued to rest for four hours and the remaining eight hundred disciples headed towards the third level of the nest.