Chapter 705: Fierce Beasts! (1.3 for 1 Chapter)
Translator: Noodletown Translations Editor: Noodletown Translations
The Nine Dragon Palace at midnight was engulfed by darkness. The place was filled with all kinds of uncertainties and dangers while fierce beasts roared.
“I have a blanket in my storage ring.” Leaning her head on Hao Ren’s chest, Su Han said suddenly.
She lifted her slim finger toward Hao Ren.
“Ok…” Hao Ren took her smooth hand with his left hand and opened her storage ring with his right hand by circulating the hundun energy, taking out a thin knitted blanket.
Despite the big s.p.a.ce in his necklace, Hao Ren could only store stuff with nature essence. In contrast, Su Han’s storage ring couldn’t store a lot of things, but she could place some ordinary objects in it.
While he drew out the blanket, Hao Ren’s spiritual senses felt around in her ring and found elixirs, bandages, and even ordinary medicines such as pills for the common cold.
She was well prepared for the adventure.
The reason that she had prepared some ordinary medicines was that she couldn’t activate her nature essence in the Nine Dragon Palace. If she caught a cold, she probably needed to take some medication.
Thinking that the usually cold Su Han, a Qian-level cultivator who had never worried about being ill, was now reduced into a weak mortal girl who had to prepare medicine for the common cold, Hao Ren felt like he had to care more about her.
“Hand,” Su Han lifted her eyes and said coldly.
Hao Ren gathered his thoughts and suddenly realized that he was still holding her slim fingers after drawing out the knitted blanket from her storage ring.
“Ok! Ok!” Hao Ren cleared his throat and withdrew his hand in embarra.s.sment.
He hadn’t been holding her palm on purpose; he had just wanted to see what other stuff was in her storage ring and had been distracted by other thoughts in this misty environment.
If they had been outside the Nine Dragon Palace, Su Han would have put her longsword against his neck for not releasing her hand. But now, she was more lenient to him.
Hao Ren spread out the blanket and covered Su Han.
Since Su Han leaned her body in Hao Ren’s arms, the blanket was covering both of them.
Su Han remained silent while she curled up in Hao Ren’s arms.
It wasn’t her intention to reveal her weakness, but she didn’t want to get sick after just getting into the Nine Dragon Palace; it would be a worthless show of strength.
The time ticked away, but the darkness didn’t show any sign of receding.
While practicing the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll, Hao Ren continued to strengthen the hundun energy in his body. With the abundant natural hundun energy that was nowhere to be found outside of the palace, it was a good place for Hao Ren to cultivate if not for the fierce beasts around them.
Lying in his arms, Su Han seemed to have fallen asleep.
While her back and shoulders touched him, he felt warm.
Hao Ren placed his hands on Su Han’s belly over the blanket. In this icy cold night, Hao Ren kept his clear mind and didn’t dare to think that he was holding a fragile woman.
Outside of the Nine Dragon Palace, Su Han was still a Qian-level master who overpowered other cultivators, and Hao Ren would look up at her.
Su Han’s chest rose and fell with her long and peaceful breathing.
Hao Ren filled his meridians with hundun energy and tried to make a breakthrough. He cultivated the five elements simultaneously with the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll and formed hundun energy with lightning cultivation.
When Hao Ren came here last time, the Nine Dragon Palace had been very peaceful, probably because the fierce beasts hid after the array formation was opened.
At that time, Hao Ren could do nothing but throw out random hundun sword energies, but it gained him a great advantage in that journey.
As a demon beast, Little White could also move around in the Nine Dragon Palace. Its level 5 strength was powerful in the eyes of human cultivators, but it was weak in front of the level 10 demon beasts in the Nine Dragon Palace or the Demon Sea.
That was why Hao Ren didn’t bring Little White this time. Hearing the fierce beasts’ roars around them, he knew that Little White was no match for these fierce beasts.
The midnight mist in the Nine Dragon Palace even blocked sounds, which meant that the roars were earth-shaking since they could enter Hao Ren’s ears.
This time, Hao Ren had reached top-tier Dui-level and thus could use the hundun sword array by combining five elements, making his power dozens and even hundreds of times more powerful than the last time.
When the four ocean dragon clans opened it together, the Nine Dragon Palace allowed only low-level cultivators to enter. At Dui-level, Hao Ren and Su Han would face dangers dozens of times greater than before.
Roar… Roar… A large group of fierce beasts suddenly let out low roars.
Leaning on Hao Ren’s chest, Su Han was woken up by the low roars and she sat up warily, listening to the sounds around them alertly.
Hu!
A huge gust blew over, and even Hao Ren was blown to the ground by such a powerful wind.
Without nature essence, Su Han fell onto Hao Ren’s body with her black hair in a mess.
In the dark night, Hao Ren couldn’t see where the gust came from but could feel that a huge, fierce beast had swept over them in the high sky!
The strong wind that could blow people to the ground was caused by the fluttering wings of that flying fierce beast!
“It’s ok…” Su Han said and sat up with her hands pressing on Hao Ren’s chest.
The nearby roaring fierce beasts quieted down finally.
Instead of savoring the tempting sensation when Su Han fell onto his body, Hao Ren sat up alertly and released tiny sword energies around them within a range of 100 meters.
He suddenly realized that they probably would find themselves surrounded by dozens of fierce beasts when the Sun appears.
The dark night made it impossible for them to move, but it was also a layer of protection because the fierce beasts wouldn’t move around in the night either.
The Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll which Hao Ren cultivated combined Hao Ren’s spiritual senses into the sword energies, and the sword energies were planted around them within 100 meters, able to alert him of dangers.
However, he didn’t release sword energies to areas further away, afraid that they would trigger the sleeping fierce beasts.
“You rest, and I’ll keep guard,” Hao Ren turned to look at Su Han and said.
“Ok.” Su Han pulled the blanket back over her and leaned into Hao Ren’s chest.
Hao Ren placed his hands lightly on her shoulders and exhaled silently.
Nestling in his arms to fend off the cold, Su Han wasn’t troubled with other thoughts, but Hao Ren felt unsettled.
In the darkness, the fierce beasts would occasionally roar together in low voices probably because some flying beasts had disturbed their sleep.
With Su Han in his arms, Hao Ren kept his mind on the faint sword energies that he had planted in the ground without a moment of relaxation.
When Hao Ren felt numbness in his hands and feet, a radiant light suddenly appeared in the East.
Instantly, thousands of beasts roared.
Feeling like the daytime was coming, Hao Ren immediately pushed Su Han up, rolled up the knitted blanket, and put it into her storage ring.
Hao Ren beckoned, and the hundreds of sword energies that were scattering around returned to his palm.
The Nine Dragon s.p.a.ce was in a secluded s.p.a.ce without the Sun, the Moon, and other stars. This blinding light must have come from the array formation which was circulating automatically in the Nine Dragon Palace.
Feeling like the fierce beasts would wake up from their sleep soon, Hao Ren tossed out the purple gold hairpin to leave on it, but he realized that he couldn’t use it.
Since the five elements were blocked in the Nine Dragon Palace, he couldn’t activate the metal-elemental and water-elemental nature essence alone, which meant that he couldn’t use this powerful dharma treasure.
The white light lit up all the corners in the Nine Dragon Palace almost instantly.
Hao Ren saw all kinds of huge beasts walking on the broad plain! In the valley and forests farther away, there were also big and small fierce beasts!
In the misty high sky were huge birds that were as wide as thousands of meters! Their sharp beaks spat out flames!
The rolling mountains were endless!
Stepping on mountaintops, some unknown fierce beast bit off a tree trunk that had a cross-sectional diameter of about six meters and chewed it up!
They were all prehistoric fierce beasts!
If he didn’t witness it himself, Hao Ren could never imagine such a magnificent sight!
“The ancient cultivators had faced such fierce beasts! How could the present-day cultivators do any damage to these fierce beasts?” Hao Ren thought.
“Roar…” A black-skinned fierce beast by the lake raised its head and roared with fury, and dozens of grey jackals that had flames emitting from their paws immediately retreated from the meadow.
The black-skinned fierce beast raised its thick front leg and crashed a dozen jackals into meat pies.
Frightened, Hao Ren took Su Han’s hand and flew toward a nearby forest by releasing hundun sword energies under his feet.
While the light was still spreading across the land, the plains, valleys, and forests were just struggling out of darkness. Everything was engulfed in dark, red lights.
Swoosh… From the forest that Hao Ren was heading toward flew out about a dozen weird birds.
These weird birds looked ugly and evil with colorful feathers, which gave people a sense of danger instead of beauty. After all, poisonous snakes were usually colorful!
Bang! Bang…
Hao Ren released his hundun sword energies.
The dozen weird birds had their heads pierced by the sword energies and fell dead before they could slash their sharp claws at Hao Ren.
Suddenly, their bodies released colorful vapor which was highly toxic; it could even numb and kill the huge beasts that were as tall as one hundred meters!
Sensing the killing power in the vapor, Hao Ren hurried out of the area.
In the area within hundreds of meters of the spot where the weird birds dropped, the trees withered quickly before rotting to the ground.
If Hao Ren had acted one-second slower, he would have ended up the same!
Hua… Hao Ren shot sword energies into the dense forest to investigate even though he didn’t see any fierce beasts with his eyes.
Each sword energy carried his spiritual senses, and he instantly knew that no fierce beasts were lurking inside. Then, he landed in the forest with Su Han.
From shooting out the sword energies and killing a dozen weird birds to sending the sword energies into the forest before landing with Su Han, Hao Ren’s movements were smooth and quick without any hesitation.
However, Hao Ren didn’t feel as calm as he looked. When he landed on the soft soil in the forest, his clothes were soaked by sweat.
When those dozen weird birds dashed out, he would have died if he had reacted half a second slower or were not alert enough!
It was a narrow escape, and the adventure had just begun!
Seeing the birds and beasts all over the place, Hao Ren realized that the number of fierce beasts in the Nine Dragon Palace far surpa.s.sed his imagination!
In the Demon Sea, demon beasts all lurked under the sea. But in the Nine Dragon Palace, the demon beasts ran around freely, and there were even flying beasts!
It was hard to determine the realms of these beasts, but Hao Ren guessed that they were at least level 6 or level 7. Hao Ren couldn’t handle them with ease!
“There are no directions such as east, south, west, and north in the Nine Dragon Palace, but I think we are on the edge of this world.” With one hand resting on a huge tree, Su Han said calmly while she looked into the valley and observed the terrain and lights carefully.
“We need to cross this plain and the mountain on the other side to see if we can find a route,” Su Han said.
The information about the inside of the Nine Dragon Palace was the top secret among secrets, but she had gathered enough fragmented information from the ancient scrolls in the Dragon G.o.d Shrine to get a vague layout of the Nine Dragon Palace. That was why she knew her whereabouts even though she had never been in the Nine Dragon Palace before.
While she was talking with her eyes staring into the distance, she suddenly felt Hao Ren getting close behind her.
Su Han raised her head slightly and saw Hao Ren insert the purple gold hairpin into her hair.
“This is Lady Zhen’s treasure and carries her aura. It means that it probably has some suppressing effects on these beasts. You will be safer wearing it.” Hao Ren looked at her and said.
Su Han froze for a moment and then nodded.
She knew that the purple gold hairpin was Lady Zhen’s treasure and thus had some suppressing effects on the demon beasts, but she was surprised that Hao Ren had placed it into her hair to give her protection instead of keeping this useful treasure for himself.
As the token from Lady Zhen, the purple gold hairpin could fend off the high-level demon beasts in the Demon Sea.
Although the demon beasts in the Nine Dragon Palace probably didn’t know about the power of the purple gold hairpin, it was a dharma treasure that an eternal demon king carried with her. It would fend off some low-level demon beasts.
“Let’s go!” After getting a clear idea of the layout of the demon beasts in the valley and on the plain, Hao Ren circulated the hundun sword energy and pulled Su Han onto it with him before flying toward the mountain on the other side.
Boom… The moment that Hao Ren flew up, he suddenly saw the black Origin Dragon Grand Palace moving swiftly in the sky above the mountain on the other side!