Qingxuan sat up to cultivate. He had to be at full power for the ordeal they were about to pass through. He took out multiple healing herbs and Yuan stones to recover to optimum state. After about 3 hours of silent treatment, he arose to meet the duo.
Long Feng had already healed and recovered as well. He looked around, staring at the dark desolate environment, of shattered stone structures. The rocks felt metallic, as if forged, and an oppressive aura weighted on the hearts of everyone.
"I thought you said this was a tomb? It feels like ruins of some ancient Sect or something along the lines…"
He felt chills run down his spine. Meanwhile, Qingxuan opened his eyes beneath the blindfold. 'The Yuan power in the atmosphere is so scarce.. but there's something else in the air. Something dark, corrosive even..'
He crouched low and opened his right eye of Heavenly Essence, studying the dark desolate energy that was choking the Yuan power in the air. He saw the demonic energy break down into particles in front of his eyes, and then he examined them carefully.
They writhed like serpents, chaotic and seized Yuan power particles to empower themselves.
'They were alien, demonic even..' Qingxuan's breath hitched. 'If an ecosystem of demonic beasts found their way to this ruins, the demonic energy would corrupt them, turning them into murderous creatures of savagery..' Qingxuan drew speculations as he watched the air infused with this demonic energy.
"Just what energy in this world could corrupt to such an extent?" He wondered deeply and then shook in realization.
"Yimo Race.." He blurted that out louder than he was supposed to. The Long Feng duo watched him with raised brows. Qingxuan ignored them and reached into his memories. In the Martial Universe novel, ancient Sects or powerful experts who fought against the Yimo without the Devil Destroying Artifacts such as the Ancestral Stone, Ancestral Symbols or the Great Desolate Tablet etc, often had difficulties in killing them, hence they mostly sealed them.
If this truly was Yimo Qi, then….
Qingxuan exhaled deeply. He didn't even want to imagine the kind of evil they had stepped into.
Long Feng looked towards him, seeing the distraught look on his face. "So what do we do from here?" He asked. Qingxuan seemed to have taken up an invisible leadership mantle so they could only hope he could come up with something. Lan Xue also turned and walked to them, as the regrouped.
Qingxuan opened his mouth, but the words wouldn't come out. "This place is far dangerous than I anticipated.. One wrong move and it's over. We need to stay low for now.. There's a cave about a mile from here.. We'll be safe inside for sometime.." He said what he had to say and took the lead.
Long Feng and Lan Xue looked at each other in confusion, but shrugged and followed along.
But…
SCREECH!!
Qingxuan and the duo suddenly paused after the loud screech shook their souls. "What the hell is that?" Lan Xue shivered and raised her head to scan her surroundings.
Meanwhile, Qingxuan raked his head to the sky, his vision peering through layers of clouds and then he saw them. A flock. Huge wingspans, sharp talons and a long beak. They looked exactly like a creature Qingxuan had seen in his previous studies.
The man eating vulture..
"Run!!" He dashed towards the direction of the cave, wasting no time. Long Feng and Lan Xue followed behind, running with all their might.
Qingxuan vision peered towards the flock of man eating vultures and shook. They had been discovered. The vultures' wings flapped, stirring massive winds and then they simply plunged down towards them with incredible speed.
SCREEECH!
SCREECH!
"They're fast!" Qingxuan shivered. The vulture in lead was like an arrow launched from its bow. It tore through the air at incredible speeds, soared past Long Feng and Lan Xue and headed straight for him.
"Shit!!" Qingxuan cursed out, but no matter how fast he run, the bird only drew closer.
SCREECH!
With a loud screech, its speed suddenly increased and then its talons grabbed him from the ground, and went straight into mid air. The rest of the flock simply followed after their leader and flew back into the air.
"No!!! Junior brother Xuan!" Lan Xue roared, wanting to chase after them, but Long Feng held her back.
"We need to go after him!!" She tried to chase again, but Long Feng stopped her. "Even if we did, what can we do?! We'll just get ourselves killed!" He roared and pushed her back.
"Junior brother Xuan has his means! A simply oversized bird will not be able to kill him! Calm down Xue'er.." His words finally calmed her down, but she collapsed into his chest in tears.
Not even a day had passed, and they had lost one person….
*
Qingxuan who was trapped in the talons of the bird felt a force squeeze at his bones, wanting to tear him apart. Blood oozed out from his nose.
He grit his teeth, and resisted, having already formed an escape plan. The moment the bird passed over one of those massive stone sculptures, he sent a silent wave of mental energy slamming into its consciousness.
The bird wavered in mid air, loosening its grip on him and then he grabbed his blade and simply slashed its heel.
SCREECH!
Blood flowed and the bird finally released its hold on him. He fell quickly and heavily, but the Yin Shadow Cloak flapped behind him, slowing down his movements until he fell atop the stone sculpture.
The top of the sculpture was not what he expected. Rather than hard rocky surface, he fell into a small pond, filled with clear spring water even he couldn't believe.
He scanned around him and his eyes gleamed in surprise. He found a plant, a rare one in fact. A twisted ivory root embedded deep under the pond, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
Qingxuan crouched low and touched it, and then laughed in surprise. "It really is the Heaven Splitting Bone Root.." He uprooted it from the pond examined it closely. The Heaven Splitting Bone root could reinforce his body, tendons and bones, granting him physical strength beyond the what the Body Tempering Realm could achieve naturally. But what made him far interested in this was that, it could allow the body to endure extreme Yuan and Mental Energy strain.
He smiled. This was tailor made. The moment it disappeared into his interspatial ring he saw something.
SCREECH!
Another screech shook his soul. Qingxuan took a step back and he saw it. A massive black scorpion with a long hooked tail and pincers that was staring menacingly at him.
"Grade 2?" Qingxuan determined its rank with a glance.
It pounced towards him without hesitation, its tail ripping towards him from above.
Qingxuan wasted no time and went on the offensive. He unsheathed the blade behind him, spun into a whirlwind slash that bisected the body of the scorpion into two and sheathed it in one clean motion.
Qingxuan after killing the scorpion raised his head to leave when his heart shook.
Loud screeches shook his resolve. He saw them. Dozens of the black shelled scorpions. They rushed toward him blindly, readying their deadly body parts for the kill.
Qingxuan exhaled gently and his eyes hardened. The next moment, he loosened his blindfold, freeing his eyes.
His blade was like a storm, unrelenting. It cleared a bloody path through the horde. But their number was simply unending.
Qingxuan shook his head. He couldn't keep fighting for long.
He switched to reverse grip, spun and slashed through the body of one scorpion, and then he took out a special weapon he had gotten a while back.
A kunai like dagger that had been chained at its end with a string.It was part of the items Aunt Lin had assembled for him, but he turned them into this very weapon by himself.
The string wrapped around his arms, the dagger in hand. While his blade rested safely in his other hand. He sidestepped a stab from one's scorpions tail, backflipped over another attack and slashed out tearing through one of them and then simply dashed towards the edge of the sculpture.
The scorpions chased after him relentlessly, but no grade 2 beast could match him in raw speed.
He flipped into mid air at the edge of the cliff, hurled the dagger in his hand towards the side of the huge stone sculpture with pin point accuracy. The beasts chased after him without regards for their lives.
Holding the edge of the rope, he swung all the way down the ground, and then cut off the string in hand and landed into a roll on the ground in one swift move.
Even then, he didn't stop running. Until he made sure he was completely out of their sight, did he stop to rest. He sat down behind one of the massive stone sculptures and rested his back against it, trying to catch his breath.
He was exhausted to the bone and he sighed deeply. Now, he had been separated from the group. He didn't know how Long Feng and Lan Xue would survive without him, but they had to. He wasn't planning on rejoining them. At least not now.
The discovery of the Heaven Splitting Bone Root in this desolate area was sufficient proof that if he headed to vantage points, there'll be life shaking discoveries to be made.
He restricted his vision to a field of about 300 m around him and then closed his eyes to cultivate. The journey had only just began.