A frigid aura rapidly pervaded the cave, freezing all of the ghouls that had been enjoying their feast, along with everything else in the wide mountain cave.
As this happened, the sickening rotten smell became much fainter.
The eighth grade Frost Blood Python was indeed powerful, as it took care of the problem in the blink of an eye.
However, its ice armor seemed to be under great pressure from the tremendous amount of tainted energies converging on it from all directions.
The Frost Blood Python rapidly flew back to Yin Yanan and became a tattoo on her waist. Its vigorous flesh aura vanished as soon as it did.
Eyebrows furrowed, Yin Yanan hastily took out medicinal pills from within her ring of holding and stuffed them down her throat.
The Frost Blood Python, who had consumed a significant amount of power, then started recovering with the medicinal pills in her stomach.
At the same time, Mu Biqiong walked over the frozen cave ground to the place where she had seen something s.h.i.+ning brightly, her face still hidden behind a veil.
As she separated her hands, the frozen sculpture-like ghouls moved to the side.
The ghouls had only lost all mobility, but they hadn’t died yet.
Without paying much attention to the ghouls, Mu Biqiong gazed down at the empty ground where the ghouls had been.
A black ring was lying on the ground.
That had been the thing that had been emanating bright light.
“A storage ring.” Mu Biqiong extended her hand and picked the ring up. Then, she sent a wisp of her soul awareness into it and took something out. “There’s only one item inside the ring.”
What she took out of the storage ring turned out to be a black egg that was about two meters tall, and giving off black light.
The black light seemed very special and mysterious, as if it could swallow all other light. Even the light sparkling off everything within the cave dimmed as soon as the egg appeared.
The cave instantly grew dark.
Yin Yanan’s eyes lit up as she trotted to Mu Biqiong’s side. Putting her hand on the egg, she said, “This is probably the egg of some ancient beast.”
“Even unhatched, it’s wreathed in a rich dark aura, but from the look of it, it’ll die soon,” She muttered to herself.
At this moment, Nie Tian and Xie Wanting also stepped over to the large egg.
Nie Tian copied Yin Yanan and also placed his hand on the black egg. With the help of his bloodline power, he sensed that there was a very faint life force within the large black egg, which meant that the unhatched creature in it had so little flesh power left in it that it might never hatch.
Yin Yanan was from the Beast-controlling Sect, so she had a rather thorough understanding of all kinds of spirit beasts and ancient beasts.
With a thoughtful expression, she said, “What a pity.”
“What do you mean?” Nie Tian asked.
“If this egg could actually hatch, then it’d be a perfect match for your little lover, Dong Li,” Yin Yanan said. “She practices dark power, which very few people practice, but is said to be very mysterious and wondrous. It’s beyond most Qi warriors to just gasp the basics of dark power cultivation, let alone become an expert in it.
“But some outsiders and ancient beasts are born with dark power as their bloodline power, with the profound truths of dark power branded in the depths of their bloodline.
“For example, among Ancientbeast races, some phoenixes were born with dark power as their bloodline power. These phoenixes are called black phoenixes.
“Some dragons are also born with dark power, and they’re called black dragons.
“As for outsider races, some Demons also carry dark power bloodlines, among all sorts of other powerful bloodlines.
“There are countless types of power in this world. Dark power and light power are two kinds that are very rare, but very mighty.
“To be honest, the fact that Dong Li mastered dark power came as a surprise to me. If this egg could somehow hatch and give birth to a creature blessed with a dark power bloodline, then it would be a perfect match for her.
“I doubt that even the spirit beasts my sect finds her will agree with her so perfectly,” Yin Yanan said, shaking her head.
Eyes narrowed, Nie Tian took a deep look at the large black egg before him. He pondered in silence for a few seconds before saying, “I’ll take this egg. Do either of you also want it?”
“You wanna give it to your little lover, right?” Yin Yanan asked with a meaningful smile. “But like I told you, the creature inside is almost dead. There’s no way you’ll be able to hatch it.”
Mu Biqiong and Xie Wanting then expressed that they had no interest in the egg, and that they had no problem with Nie Tian taking it.
“Even if it won’t hatch, it still contains some dark power,” Nie Tian said with a plain tone.
Yin Yanan nodded. “Oh, so you want to give it to her so that she can absorb its residual dark power. Well, if that’s case, go ahead. But it seems to me that this egg is going to lose the little residual dark power it holds. I don’t know how much power will remain by the time you leave the b.l.o.o.d.y Grave Mountain Range and put it in Dong Li’s hands.”
“It’s still better than nothing,” Nie Tian said.
“So it seems that this Dong Li girl is the one you truly care about.” Yin Yanan said, curling her lips. “But it’s a pity that, as a human, she chose to practice dark power of all powers. Of course it’ll be good if she becomes an expert in it, but I’m afraid that most people can’t grasp the profound truths of dark power, even after giving their whole lives, and live their lives in disappointment.”
“Fate is a profound thing,” Nie Tian said. “No one can explain it. Perhaps she’ll find a path that suits her well. Who knows?”
With these words, Nie Tian made a grabbing motion in the air with his large hands, and the huge black egg disappeared into his ring of holding. Then, he glanced around at the corpses scattered in the cave and said plainly, “All of the valuables on these corpses are yours to take. I won’t take any, no matter how high their grades are.”
“Alright. Let’s take a look. Perhaps we’ll actually find something valuable.” Yin Yanan proposed.
While Nie Tian stood in place, the three girls brought themselves to poke around with spiritual swords or sticks, and found a few rings from the mangled corpses. Some were rings of holding that had belonged to humans, but more were storage rings that had belonged to outsiders.
With disgusted expressions, they wiped blood and gore off them and examined them with their soul awarenesses.
“A bunch of materials that normally only outsiders would use, along with some spirit beast bones and hearts... Not too bad.” Muttering these words, Yin Yanan put away the three storage rings she had collected.
Xie Wanting and Mu Biqiong each found one ring. They both examined their rings, and then put them away without saying anything.
As they did, Mu Biqiong remained expressionless. Clearly the materials she had gained weren’t quite satisfying.
Xie Wanting, however, had a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth as she put away the ring of holding she had found.
“We don’t have to waste our power on killing these ghouls. We might as well leave them here, since they’re frozen and can’t do anything.” With these words, Yin Yanan gazed ahead, and saw an intersection of several tunnels that stretched downwards. Pointing randomly at one of them, she said, “Let’s go and see what we can find in that tunnel.”
Then, the four of them set out again.
As they marched deeper, they ran into more evil spirits and ghouls.
Every time they encountered evil spirits, Nie Tian would take the Spirit Pearl out after they came close enough for the Spirit Pearl to absorb them.
As for ghouls, he would leave them to the girls. Even though it would take the three of them more time to get rid of the ghouls, they didn’t encounter anything they couldn’t handle.
During this time, Nie Tian secretly sent wisps of his flesh aura into his ring of holding to examine the large black egg.
As his flesh aura infused into the egg, the unhatched creature within it seemed to be instantly vested with some life force, like a dried-up tree that was given a scoop of water, so that it wouldn’t die within a short time.
He had long since known that his unique bloodline power had the incredible effect of bringing things back to life.
Long ago, the Flame Dragon Armor’s Blood Core had awakened by secretly absorbing his flesh aura.
Later, his Blood Essence had helped reforge Bloodline Crystal Chains in the Bone Blood Demon’s heart, and had helped the Blood Core grow and upgrade.
The reason why he had been so keen to gain the egg was because he knew that his special flesh aura would keep the creature inside alive.
However, since dangers could be lurking everywhere in the b.l.o.o.d.y Grave Mountain Range, and he had only a limited amount of Blood Essence, he didn’t use any of it to nourish the egg.
He thought that all he had to do now was keep it from dying. Then, after he left the b.l.o.o.d.y Grave Mountain Range, he could nourish it with his Blood Essence and see if he could get it to hatch.
Since he intended it to be a gift to Dong Li, he attached great importance to it.
A few hours pa.s.sed...
As they marched down the increasingly complicated tunnels, the sounds of people fighting caught their ears, so they instantly picked up speed.
As they approached the source of the sounds, they saw more and more corpses along their way. Some belonged to outsiders, while others belonged to humans. Many of them must have died recently, as they still carried noticeable residual flesh power.
However, Nie Tian didn’t summon the Bone Blood Demon to absorb and refine the flesh power, since he didn’t think it was worth the effort. Instead, the four of them marched on at a faster speed.
Soon, they came to a very s.p.a.cious place in the tunnel.
It seemed to be the empty belly of the mountain peak, which was more than a dozen meters high, and as wide as several football fields.
Many humans and outsiders were engaged in fierce battles in it. Even more had died, and lay scattered all over the place.