Plundering the Heavens

Baby tiger, zoysia, red crystal, bird eggs, honey… Hentian Ning was confused at the sight of such random stuff in front of Fang Xing, and she didn’t know what he intended to do. How could these things be used to perform a magic trick? She asked about one after another, but Fang Xing didn’t answer; he only sat down, took out and swallowed a lotus seed, and then began quietly meditating—as though waiting for something.

“Twenty hours. All of this took a total of twenty hours…” Fang Xing muttered to himself as he quietly began to think. ‘Twenty hours. This means my big doggie would have received ten Cleave Nails. It must be incredibly anguished right now…. When we first arrived inside the Guixu Ruins, it still had battle prowess enough to match a fourth-tier peril beast despite its wounds, and its battle prowess should still be much stronger despite being pierced with the nails. Based on what I felt before, in order to temper the living soul, the Cleave Nails actively avoid the internal organs so as to not prematurely kill the person, which would disperse their soul and cause the tempering to fail. With this, it can be said that before all eighteen Cleave Nails are used, the person might look heavily wounded, but the wounds are all superficial and the core is unharmed…. Of course, after enduring those nails for so long, bleeding is certain and the body should be a bit weak….

‘The Cleave Nails were pierced into the body primary to hold on to the soul. I only took four Cleave Nails and felt that my soul was being affected, and since that big doggie has taken ten, I imagine the effect would only be worse….’ Details flashed through Fang Xing’s mind as he considered every possible scenario and detail he might have forgotten. ‘Since its soul isn’t very conscious to begin with and it’s left with only a little intelligence, it’s actually less likely it would be completely controlled by the nails. I can pretty much confirm that as long as it still has some of its soul remaining, it would be enough to sense my calls….’

The enormous blood essence from the Blood Lotus Seed dispersed throughout all his organs, and the Script of Revered Sense activated madly to turn the blood essence into Qi, fusing it into his eight meridians and storing the rest in his ninth.

Ever since he’d obtained the Ying of the dragon girl and formed the ninth meridian, the amount of Qi he wasted wasn’t as great as before. Simply put, the ninth meridian was like a spirit vein within his body, and any excess Qi could be stored inside it and saved for future use. It could store so much Qi it was terrifying, and other than that time in the Thousand Stream Sea where he’d taken an the Qi of an entire spirit vein, this ninth meridian had never been full and was in a perpetually empty state.

In the forest filled with peril beasts, Fang Xing hadn’t dared to use the Blood Lotus Seed even if he happened to use up all of his Qi. The blood essence within the seed was too strong and his presence-concealing ability might not be able to hide it completely, so he had no choice but to forcibly endure it for the sake of avoiding the beasts’ attention. In the short period of time afterwards, he’d swallowed it and started madly refining the essence, using some to heal his wounds and the rest to replenish his Qi. Any excess was stored in his ninth meridian in preparation for what was to come to ensure he had the strength to carry out his plan….

“Hm? What’s that smell? Why is the scent of blood so strong?” Hentian Ning was still ignorant and continued chatting. “Big Brother Xing Fang, what did you eat?”

Fang Xing suddenly opened his eyes and looked off into the distance.

The dark night stretched off into the distance, but a large area of shadow—like a giant cloth was covering the heavens—flew towards the Hentian clan’s gathering spot. Its body was so large that unless someone used Mystic Eye, they wouldn’t be able to actually see the peril bird that caused it and would only feel that the sky had become strangely heavy and particularly dark—so dark as to leave people uncomfortable and unwilling to breathe.

“A peril bird is passing?” Hentian Ning suddenly closed her mouth and looked up towards the giant dark shadow in the sky. All children growing up in the Guixu Ruins had a habit of becoming quiet when they saw a terrifying scene like this out of fear they might alert the peril bird passing by and cause it to come down for unwanted trouble. Of course, such worries weren’t necessary—even disregarding the protection from the Illusion Formation, their words were so soft the peril bird wouldn’t hear it regardless.

This time, however, the peril bird seemed to hear. It started flying in closer and closer, lower and lower, until it actually flew right towards the Hentian clan’s gathering spot. Hentian Ning was shocked and completely unable to believe the sight in front of her, but she suddenly lowered her head to look at the pale blue bird eggs as though realizing something….

She looked at Fang Xing while trembling and shakily asked, “You… what did you do?”

Fang Xing smiled with glistening eyes.

After a long while, Fang Xing suddenly let out a loud laugh and jumped to his feet. He took out his giant black sword and stood at the peak of the mountain with an impressive presence while waving the sword at the people below. “All Hentian clansmen, listen up!” he shouted, “Not a single person has dared to take something from your little grandpa here; for you to dare take my big doggie, you sure have some guts! Today, your little grandpa has brought his subordinates to wipe your clan away clean….”

As he shouted, he activated his Qi to allow his voice to travel as far as ten miles away, leaving Hentian Ning even more dumbstruck. This insolent guy was screaming madly and brandishing a giant black sword, and the giant sword was pointed directly at the peril bird heading towards them like a moving mountain. It truly looked as though he was calling the black peril bird over for the sake of revenge against the Hentian clan….

Of course, this peril bird had indeed been “called over” by Fang Xing. Combat and death was a constant affair in the forest of peril beasts, and the prevailing mindset was “if you’ve eaten my baby, I’ll take your eggs”. The peril beasts were extremely vigilant and fierce, and they also had extremely strong connections with their own kind. Placing something in a storage sack which was isolated from the realm would somewhat obstruct things, but the likes of an Illusion Formation was not enough to block this connection.

For Fang Xing to place so many things on the mountaintop was the same as telling all these maddened peril beasts that their children, their treasures, or even their favorite food was all here, and that if they were good enough, they should come and take them back….

The Hentian clansmen on lookout naturally saw the peril bird drawing closer and immediately sounded the alarm. “Not good; the peril bird is is approaching! Quick, hide!”

The clan fell into chaos in mere moments. A dozen shadows flew into the sky—all Exalts of the clan—but most of them were early Foundation Stage and none of the true masters showed up. These exalts were all utterly shocked when the peril bird began to loom closer, and rather than daring to provoke such an existence, they all started screaming and fleeing in all directions….

” Gaaah ….”

The peril bird swooped down but instantly froze when it saw what was on top of the mountain peak. There was a blue bird egg, yet its shell had been shattered and its egg white had been spread all over the area….

” GAH GAHH ….”

The peril bird was immediately enraged and let out a mournful cry. When it saw the insects flying chaotically all over the place, it clawed out and its steel-like wings spread across to destroy large swathes of buildings at a time. Everywhere its talons passed, a countless number of Golden Cores’ lives would end….

“Activate the formation! Quick, activate the formation! No matter how many Spirit Stones it’ll use, we must stop it!” someone continued to yell amidst the chaos; they had to stop this maddened peril bird even if they had to use up all the Spirit Stones they had left.

But soon, all hope was lost.

ROAR ….

A small mountain-sized Stone Roar Tiger jumped from the darkness and roared at all the Hentian clansmen..

A scorpion larger than an elephant emerged from the soil and began sweeping its terrifying poison stinger in all directions.

A fat and vicious Tri-Tailed Crocodile crushed a mountain peak before crawling towards the peak Fang Xing was at.

Fist-sized poisonous wasps covered the crescent moon in the sky and flew towards the clan….

Every inch of the surrounding area was filled with the most powerful peril beasts. Normally, even just one of these peril beasts was something the Hentian clan wouldn’t dare to provoke without good reason. These beasts were all in the fifth tier, and even someone with full mastery of Golden Core Stage wouldn’t be able to fend them off if they were enraged like this. The only hope was to use two against one, yet there were so many all at once today….

The Hentian clansmen all began to panic. Everyone shouted terrified cries for help before fleeing in all directions like a fly without its head.

Within the chaos, Fang Xing continued to grip his black sword and maintained an unnatural calm. He walked into the disarrayed crowds and casually killed anyone he saw while secretly activating a spell within him….

The most powerful cultivators—the clan master and those who were at full mastery of Golden Core Stage—were all at the gathering spot’s back mountain. They were using their full power to control a giant formation, and within that formation was the red dragon locked inside a cage. The side of the cage had been shattered by the dragon earlier, and they’d been forced to maintain the formation they’d prepared in advance in order to suppress it.

Three old cultivators with full mastery of Golden Core were in charge of maintaining the formation to suppress the red dragon, while the Head Exalt alongside another old cultivator were in charge of driving the Cleave Nails into the dragon’s body and filling it with Qi to prevent its soul from being damaged. All five of them were covered in sweat, and some had faces that were even redder than the dragon’s scales; it was obvious they’d used a rather large amount of Qi throughout the day. With the sounds of chaos coming from the front, the Head Exalt immediately turned and snapped, “Why is it so chaotic over there?!”

The only person who hadn’t gotten involved yet was the clan master, so he immediately shouted back, “I will go have a look!” He leapt into the air and took off, but he returned all too quickly. His face had lost all of its color and even his words were trembling. “Esteemed Elders… we’ve got a big problem. Beast tide… sixth-tier peril beasts… are all here….”

” Aoooo ….”

The red dragon had been suppressed and stopped struggling long ago, but it suddenly let out a long howl towards the sky. It seemed to regain some awareness, and its eyes turned bloody red as they filled with violent excitement. Its body curled inward and its scales began to mend together as a terrifying amount of energy and power began to burst out from inside its body. All the Cleave Nails lodged in its flesh began to slowly come out one inch at a time….

Within its mind was the sound of a familiar and very dear voice. “Big doggie, your little grandpa has come back for you!”