"Gao Sha, being careful is necessary, but if we proceed like this, we'll be overtaken by others, or passed from another direction. Then we won't be the first to find the entrance to the inner valley, hahaha..."
"Exactly. Those Falling Star Valley cultivators just now were prey that delivered themselves to our door. They didn't even last thirty breaths before being easily slaughtered. If they didn't have the formation to aid them, allowing a few to escape, wouldn't we have killed as many as there were..."
"Hehehe, they're just a bunch of cowards who only know how to launch sneak attacks. Otherwise, with the Grand Elder's strength, killing Tianxingzi would be no problem..."
After hearing Gao Sha's words, the three Foundation Establishment cultivators were the first to speak up. They were all at Mid-stage Foundation Establishment or higher, with flecks of blood still on them. From their agile movements, it was clear they were not injured themselves. What was most chilling was that two of them had two bloody heads hanging from their waists. These Foundation Establishment cultivators clearly had storage pouches, yet they deliberately did not put the heads away. The faces on the heads were still frozen in expressions of terror and unwillingness.
As he spoke, one of them even patted the head at his waist, shaking it so that blood dripped like raindrops from the severed neck, splattering onto his robes and the ground. The man, however, was completely unconcerned. Instead, he laughed with even greater satisfaction. The scene was utterly horrifying.
Just like these few Foundation Establishment cultivators, the Qi Condensation cultivators they led also had one or several bloody, wide-eyed heads hanging from their waists. Hearing the grotesque laughter of the Foundation Establishment elders, they too chimed in with loud laughter, for a moment shattering the quiet atmosphere of the wind rustling through the reeds.
They had just fought a group of cultivators. The enemy had launched a sudden ambush, and the battle had instantly reached its climax. The Wind-Severing Clan, at the cost of seventeen Qi Condensation cultivators, had killed more than forty of the enemy, including two powerful Foundation Establishment cultivators. In the end, only one enemy Foundation Establishment cultivator escaped, wounded and carrying four others. If the enemy hadn't prepared a backup plan beforehand, and they hadn't been tied down by some small formations, those five would have also become ghosts under their blades.
Therefore, they felt that their Grand Elder, who had earlier appeared as a phantom, was right. The enemy was just a bunch of insignificant clowns, a group of cultivators who only knew alchemy and artifact refining. Although they had managed to injure their Grand Elder with a sneak attack, wasn't the Grand Elder of the Falling Star Valley also grievously wounded by their own Grand Elder? Right now, the Falling Star Valley was just fish on a chopping block.
Seeing his companions, who like him had only a name but no surname, acting so recklessly, Gao Sha frowned. They had only just fought one battle. But he also knew the reason. It was nothing more than the long-standing dissatisfaction many outside clans held towards the human race. They had always been spreading the idea that human cultivators, aside from their cunning plots and schemes, were good for nothing. The human race had relied on these petty, underhanded tricks to deceive the Sacred Demon Palace into looking at them differently. But once a real fight started, they were nothing but a group of fragile chickens and pottery dogs.
Under the influence of this propaganda, although there had been instances of human cultivators fighting and winning against foreign clans, the news was quickly suppressed by the combined efforts of some foreign clans, preventing it from reaching a wider audience. Attacked by the masses like this, the human cultivators, aside from maintaining good relations with a very small number of foreign clans, had all their glory suppressed.
"Those people were not cultivators from the Falling Star Valley, just their vassal sects. So we should still be careful. It's said that the cultivators of the Falling Star Valley are experts at refining poison pills and mist barriers. That is extremely difficult to deal with."
Gao Sha's cultivation was only slightly higher than these three, and his status in the clan was no different from theirs. He could only offer another reminder.
"Gao Sha, you're right. It's just that we've searched this area several times already and found nothing. So it's better to walk faster and find the entrance to the inner valley as soon as possible," one of the fierce-looking, but dark, lean, and capable Foundation Establishment cultivators said casually.
Although he verbally agreed with Gao Sha, he had long been unwilling to walk so slowly. If the Wind-Severing Clan found the entrance to the inner valley first, could the other three clans possibly not count it as their merit?
As they traveled, they had already searched this expanse of reeds with their Divine Sense several times. Although they took turns, the consumption of Divine Sense here was too great. The recovery of Divine Sense was not like recovering Spirit Power, where one could just hold a Spirit Stone and absorb it. It required a long period of meditation to slowly recover.
And what made them most confident was that when they encountered the group that ambushed them earlier, they had still managed to react the moment the attack began. The result was that almost all of the attackers were killed, while their side only lost a dozen or so disciples.
What's more, they were not without formation experts among them. A massive formation like this definitely required a powerful cultivator to control it. Relying solely on the automatically triggered restrictions of the grand formation, it was impossible to be comprehensive. Therefore, unless their group was specifically targeted by the enemy, with so many teams today, the chances of being targeted had been invisibly diluted.
Fortune is found in danger; this was a risk worth taking.
However, although the three Foundation Establishment cultivators spoke this way and quickened their pace, they still spread their Divine Sense from time to time, having taken Gao Sha's words to heart. They were greedy for merit, but they were not truly foolish. Most importantly, they had already sensed a team about a dozen li behind them, coming from a forked road to their side and merging onto their path. Although there were other forked roads leading elsewhere within those dozen li, it was not impossible that the other party was heading in their direction. That team was no smaller than theirs, and it was a group of cultivators from the Cangyu Sect.
Whoever walked in front would naturally face greater danger, but with it came great benefits. In the last battle alone, Gao Sha and his group had obtained two storage pouches, as well as many Spirit Stones, Spirit Artifacts, medicinal pills, and talismans. Although most were of ordinary grade, they were all Spirit Stones.
And so, as the small team from the Wind-Severing Clan advanced again, it once more fell into silence. The "shaa, shaa, shaa" sound of the swaying reeds once again filled the world.
Looking down from the sky, their small team moved quickly along the winding path. At times they were hidden by the tall, swaying reeds, and at times their figures were revealed again, like a silent, long snake.
By the time they reached the halfway point of this entire reed marsh area, everyone's Divine Sense was becoming increasingly fatigued. As they walked, they began to perform cursory sweeps of their surroundings with their Divine Sense in a desultory fashion. Even Gao Sha felt he was being a bit too cautious. A faint, stabbing pain was coming from his Sea of Consciousness. He also wanted to take this opportunity to rest and recover his Divine Sense to cope with the rest of the journey. If he wasted all his Divine Sense here, would they need to stop completely to meditate later?
Aside from most of his own arts which only required Spirit Power, if he were to deploy Spirit Artifacts or Magical Treasures, how could he do so without the command of his Divine Sense? They had to maintain their ability to exert the strongest attack power when controlling their artifacts or treasures.
Thinking of this, Gao Sha slightly adjusted his breathing and conveniently retracted the range of his Divine Sense to a few zhang around him, just enough to maintain a minimum alert range.
At this moment, a slanting reed swayed with the wind and brushed towards him. These reeds and thatch grew so tall that as they walked, a few would often lean over the middle of the path. So, when encountering this situation, people walking through would either duck their heads, lean to the side to avoid it, or raise a hand to brush it away, and then continue forward. This situation happened to someone in the group almost every breath they took while traversing the entire reed marsh.
Gao Sha had lost count of how many long leaves of reeds or thatch he had pushed aside with his hand. This time, of course, was no exception. The long, broom-like black shadow of the reed gradually grew larger in his vision. He instinctively raised his hand to push it away.
But just as his hand was about to make contact, a sudden, inexplicable palpitation rose from the bottom of his heart.
At the same time, his peripheral vision caught sight of dozens of reed or thatch leaves bowing down towards the path at almost the same instant. Although there was a wind blowing at that moment, the movement of some of these reeds and thatch was somewhat at odds with the wind's direction.
This thought had just risen in Gao Sha's mind when he was already shouting and striking out.
"Careful...!"
He only had time to shout two words. His outstretched palm changed from a push to a smash, and he punched fiercely at the long broom.
As he threw the punch, a series of explosions erupted all around. Colorful lights instantly filled the entire space. Mixed in were furious roars, shocked cries, and several extremely shrill screams.
It all happened so suddenly. The battle between the two sides reached its climax in an instant. A true life-and-death struggle was just this chaotic, completely without prelude.
Gao Sha only felt that his punch seemed to have hit a soft, pliable membrane, causing his strength to dissipate into nothing. The long broom at the tip of the reed seemed completely unaffected. This feeling of his power being misplaced caused the blood and qi in Gao Sha's body, which had just struck out with all its might, to surge upwards. Unable to vent the Spirit Power that had struck empty air, his meridians began to throb with a sharp pain.
And at the same time, that feeling of heart-pounding palpitation grew stronger and stronger. And this intense sense of crisis was actually coming from beneath his feet.
Although he didn't know what had happened, Gao Sha, before he had time to change his move, disregarded the suppression of the no-fly restriction. A brilliant spiritual light erupted from his body, and he had already flown several zhang off the ground, intending to land diagonally on the other side. Gao Sha truly lived up to his original form as a Black-Feathered Eagle. Although there was a no-fly suppression here, his speed was still astonishingly fast.
Just as Gao Sha's body rose and shot to the side, a thick, green-haired arm shot out from the ground. Amidst flying pebbles from the shattered earth, it grabbed for Gao Sha's left leg.
Not only was Gao Sha's speed beyond his opponent's estimation, but his cultivation was also abnormally profound. In the midst of this sudden turn of events, despite suffering one setback after another, he still managed to dodge by relying on his cultivation alone.
But he had only managed to dodge with his body. His right hand, which had just thrown the punch, was now entangled by the reed that seemed to be swaying with the wind. If Gao Sha retracted his right hand now, the reed would follow like a maggot on a bone. So, while in mid-air, he had no choice but to continue blocking the erratically approaching reed.
Instantly, Gao Sha's soaring body was turned sideways in the air. But he still relied on his rich experience to force himself to calm down. With his body horizontal, his right fingers quickly formed a hand seal in the air. A ball of black flame suddenly formed in his hand, and he threw it straight at the reed.
The pursuing reed was instantly covered by the black flame, but a wave of yin-cold energy emerged from within the black flame. The reed did not ignite. But it was delayed by the black flame for a moment. Gao Sha used this opportunity to swiftly retract his right hand, and his body had quickly adjusted to a normal posture, floating backward.
And the thick arm under his feet had only just broken through the ground and grabbed at him. All of this happened in the blink of an eye, unbelievably fast.