Chapter 21 - Crisis From All Around
To obtain advantages and avoid disadvantages are all species" natural instinct.
However, in front of absolute benefits, even if one knows it"s an almost hopeless situation, there will still be a lot of people willing to take a chance. Like now facing a treasure such as the Yin Yang Double Gateway, which could permanently increase one"s cultivation speed, all the cultivators present were glaring like tigers watching their prey.
In a central area of the Demon Beast Forest, this place was filled with trees and the branches of the tall, ancient trees were quite dense. They covered the sun entirely making the forest dark and gloomy.
A black bird with a long, narrow, and razor-sharp beak which resembled a peac.o.c.k"s stood on a branch. Its body seemed to shine with a twinkling light, but when one came closer, there seemed to be no light at all. The bird stared at a place where the surrounding spirit power was twinkling, and its eyes were filled with a humanized greedy look. Behind it were hundreds of the same kind of bird, but they were not as big as the one up front.
There was another bird sitting opposite to this black bird a thousand zhang away. Its body was only a meter long and it was shaped like a Eurasian magpie. This bird had a fiery aura and an intense heat radiated outwards from this bird and all behind it. Their bright, red eyes were staring straight ahead as well.
In the middle of these two birds was a small plant shorter than a meter. There were two fruits on top of it that were connected like a cherry.
These two fruits were about the size of one"s thumb and one was fiery while the other was ink-black. Intense spirit waves swept outwards from these interconnected fruits alternating between scorching hot and freezing cold. At a glance, one could tell that these fruits were extraordinary.
"It turns out that the Yin Yang Double Gateway is actually a fruit. I thought..." Lin Haoxue stared at that weird interconnected fruits and spoke in a low voice to Shen Molian.
"Not exactly," Shen Molian looked at that fruits and explained to Lin Haoxue. "I once saw this in a book. It said that the Yin Yang Double Gateway could increase one"s cultivation speed and that it was a heavenly treasure only seen every thousand years. The way it appears varies so sometimes it"s a spirit medicine, sometimes it"s an artifact, but ..."
"But what?" Lin Haoxue saw Shen Molian frown and looked worried so she asked in haste.
"I remember the book said that all the top ten heavenly treasures on the Ten Thousand Treasure rankings all had the characteristic of "before they fully form, their power is restrained". But take a look at this fruit, it just emitted such a ma.s.sive spirit wave. Could it be that I misunderstood?"
"In any case, let"s go check out the situation first. I feel something big will happen today." Lin Haoxue looked ahead while speaking. Even though Shen Molian"s past wasn"t ordinary, and she had more knowledge than herself, Lin Haoxue didn"t mind. She simply listened quietly.
"Sure," Shen Molian nodded her head, calmed herself down, and waited. She knew that every time such a treasure appeared, it would arouse a b.l.o.o.d.y storm, and this time wouldn"t be any different.
At this moment within this area of the Demon Beast Forest not only had hordes of spirit and sun birds gathered but many powerful groups from near Demon Execution town had come as well. The weakest people present were Late-stage Profound Grand Master realm while there were several Profound Ancestor realm cultivators here as well. Compared to them, Lin Haoxue and Shen Molian"s cultivations were the lowest of everyone present.
Now the middle area of the Demon Beast Forest was extremely quiet. Everyone gathered there including the spirit and sun birds didn"t make a move towards the treasure in front of them.
Time pa.s.sed as the fruits in the center continuously shone brightly causing spirit waves as its aura gradually increased. The spirit Qi in the area also increased as time went on which caused many to almost go crazy with greed. Even Shen Molian almost acted on her desires so she looked at Lin Haoxue. But she saw Lin Haoxue with her closed as if she didn"t feel anything. Seeing this, she couldn"t help but respect her even more.
Finally, someone couldn"t help it and they laughed out loud saying, "Haha, if y"all don"t want this wonderful treasure, I, Wan Huzi will gladly take it."
Suddenly, Lin Haoxue opened her eyes and she gazed in front of her. She saw a man rippling with muscles and a full beard fly towards the plant. Even though his actions looked clumsy, his speed was extremely fast.
A few cold snorts could be heard and then several tens of figures flew up toward the plant at the same time. Unexpectedly, these up-and-coming youths surpa.s.sed the older generation Wan Huzi!
"That Wan Huzi meant to slow down," Lin Haoxue had good eyesight, so she clearly saw that Wan Huzi let the others pa.s.s him.
"This person acted like he was taking the lead and then secretly slowed down to let others find a path for him. His scheme is quite ingenious." Shen Molian obviously noticed this as well.
"Later on we need to be careful." These two took a look at each other and said at the same time.
"Kaaaa!!"
"Kaaaa!!"
In a split second, horrific screeching could be heard. It turned out that those spirit birds weren"t happy about someone longing for their treasure. Therefore, under the order of the head spirit bird, several spirit birds flew out towards those people, and they were slapped back a few meters by their wings.
Amongst those who were slapped back, two cultivators suddenly screamed out and fell to the ground. Their bodies withered at a visible speed, and in an instant, their flesh was completely gone as if it had been sucked off by a demon or monster. All the others who saw this scene hastily stepped back. However, why would these spirit birds let them go? They flew toward these cultivators quickly, flapped their wings, and a few more people became dried-out skeletons.
In the end, except for that Wan Huzi all the other cultivators weren"t able to escape. Seeing this, Wan Huzi who was at the Profound Ancestor realm became even more cautious. He glanced at all the others who were hiding from those spirit birds then flew away. It seemed like since he escaped with his life, he decisively gave up fighting for the treasure and ran away.
"Ghost Fire really is terrifying."
Everyone who knew something about spirit birds had the same thought in their mind.
Because of that b.l.o.o.d.y scene just now, everyone gave up any thought of breaking through this horde of spirit birds to get to the fruits. They didn"t want to become a desiccated corpse as well. Therefore, most of the cultivators present were thinking about getting past the sun birds who were in front of the spirit birds.
"They dare to look down on the raging flames of the sun bird? Then let"s just watch. Since the sun birds were able to be described as the arch-enemy of spirit birds, they definitely aren"t ones to be pushed around easily. Those cultivators who want to force their way past the sun birds will end up even worse off. I"m afraid that they won"t even make it anywhere close to them, and will be burnt to ash," Shen Molian said while smirking coldly.
Lin Haoxue gazed at her with surprise as she felt that Shen Molian was familiar with sun birds and had a good understanding of them. But she didn"t inquire further, she just looked in the direction of the sun birds.
Lifelong friends who didn"t doubt each other, this was their mutual understanding.
As expected, when someone tried to break pa.s.sed the sun birds, they were burned to ash immediately. As some people died, n.o.body dared to look down on their flames, and they even felt that their fire was far more terrifying than the spirit birds.
Knowing how terrifying the spirit birds and the sun birds were, n.o.body dared to act blindly without thinking.
Suddenly, the spirit power coming from the fruits rapidly increased in density and it spread out into the forest. Spirit power gradually covered all the spirit beasts and cultivators in the area.
"Heavens! My profound power is freezing," Someone yelled out loud.
"Mine as well."
"Mine as well."
Everyone felt the change in their profound power as it was gradually solidifying. A cultivator"s profound power could turn to shadow, vaporize, liquefy, and so on. Their profound power could change into several states, but they could never let it solidify since this would cause their elemental profound veins to freeze over making them unable to be awakened ever again.
Now, what did this mean? If this kept up, their elemental profound veins would wither.
"It"s… It"s the Yin Yang Double Gateway! It"s absorbing our profound power and vitality!" Someone shouted.
Everyone looked at the plant and found out that those two fruits were no longer emitting spirit power but instead a strange absorption force.
This kind of force not only absorbed all the energies from its surroundings but also the profound power a cultivator"s body. All the surrounding trees around the Yin Yang Double Gateway were wilting rapidly.
"Run!" Without knowing who said it, this was exactly what everyone was thinking. If they didn"t escape now, it wasn"t certain that they would be able to leave later. This place was terrifying! This Yin Yang Double Gateway was as expected, a very odd treasure, and it really wasn"t something that these people were able to obtain. Now since there was no way to obtain it, why stay here and wait for death.
In a flash, those people whose profound power hadn"t entirely solidified rushed out of the forest with all their might.