The flourishing Qi and Blood of a Body Cultivator was something a Dharma Cultivator of the same rank could not hope to match. When burned, the power they could erupt with in a short time was something no one would dare to face directly.
But by the same token, an art executed by a Body Cultivator through the consumption of Essence Blood was also more than twice as powerful as one from a Dharma Cultivator; everything required an equivalent price.
For several breaths, she had single-handedly resisted three people, one of whom was a Pseudo-Nascent Soul Realm cultivator, a realm above Zhao Min's own.
To instantly kill an opponent of the same rank while under siege was easier said than done. Among those who found themselves in such a predicament, how many could actually accomplish it?
And yet, Zhao Min had done it all in the shortest possible time.
"That Daoist we ran into this time was far too strange. Take these pills first. I'll go check on Wusitu."
Just now, Li Yan had used his poison qi to seal Wusitu's Golden Core.
Li Yan placed an azure jade bottle into Zhao Min's delicate hand. These were the best pills he currently had for replenishing Qi and Blood.
While Rongsun was good, it was a supreme-grade sacred item for replenishing magical power.
Zhao Min nodded. She gently withdrew her hand and opened the jade bottle, though in truth, she had already taken a pill.
It was a fifth-rank Fire Blood Pill, specifically given to her by the Sacred Demon Palace, and its effects were far superior to what was in Li Yan's bottle.
But she still took out three pills and placed them in her mouth.
"Gather all the nearby Storage Pouches and Spirit-Storing Pouches, including the things on that person I killed several hundred li away!"
Li Yan instructed Zi Kun before flashing through the air to the foot of the mountain across the river. Lying there, unconscious and covered in blood, was Wusitu.
Li Yan had been preoccupied with Zhao Min's injuries and hadn't even had time to collect the treasures from the man in the black cloak.
A Golden Core master was sure to have some valuable items; he certainly couldn't let them fall into someone else's hands.
Wusitu lay motionless on the cold ground. The gravel on the riverbank had been washed completely smooth by the water.
After sliding down the mountainside, the lower half of his body was submerged in the river, the tattered scraps of his clothes drifting gently with the current.
A large amount of blood from his shoulders seeped into the river water, instantly diluting and spreading out before quickly vanishing.
Wusitu's eyes were slightly closed. If Li Yan hadn't come for him, he would have soon died, either from the potent poison or frozen to death by the bone-chilling river water.
Li Yan, who was in mid-air, extended a hand, his five fingers forming a claw. Palm facing down, he gently curled his fingers inward, and a powerful suction force instantly emerged.
With a splash, Wusitu's lifeless body shot straight up from the water.
In the next moment, Li Yan's hand clamped down on his Celestial Crown. Blood and river water dripped continuously from his clothes.
At the same time, Li Yan waved his other hand, and the few Storage Pouches on Wusitu's body flew out, hovering silently at Li Yan's side.
Without even looking at the pouches, Li Yan waved his hand again, and an abyssal-black talisman appeared before him.
Following his movement, the black talisman slapped onto Wusitu's mouth.
Then, spirit power began to flicker rapidly between the five fingers pressed against his head, casting Li Yan's face in an alternating dance of light and shadow.
The originally unconscious Wusitu's head first trembled. Then, his neck stiffened and went rigid. His slightly closed eyes shot wide open, his eyeballs looking as if they would pop out of their sockets in the next instant.
He had been jolted fully awake, but his body was restrained by Li Yan. Aside from some slight movement in his head and neck, the rest of his body was completely immobilized.
As spirit power continued to surge from between Li Yan's fingers, Wusitu's entire face became extremely contorted. After only five or six short breaths, two lines of startling bloody tears streamed from his eyes.
Li Yan was performing a Soul-Searching Art on him without any courtesy, but he had no desire to hear the agonizing screams at such close range.
The pain of a soul-search originated from the deepest parts of the soul. Wusitu had, of course, searched the souls of others before and had plenty of experience, but now that it was his turn, he finally understood just how cruel this art was.
He wanted desperately to break free from the demonic palm on his head, but it was all in vain. After a few more breaths, blood gushed from his nostrils and mouth.
At the same time, an invisible ring of light appeared at Wusitu's feet, catching the yellow filth that was being expelled from his body.
Li Yan was naturally very familiar with soul-searching and had long anticipated these results. He had already sealed Wusitu's body below the neck within a light shield to prevent the filth from spreading.
Soon, with a blank expression, Li Yan tossed Wusitu into the river below.
Splash!
Amidst the spray of water, Wusitu, his breath as faint as a gossamer thread, quickly sank to the river bottom. A Golden Core expert would never be seen again.
Li Yan collected the few Storage Pouches floating beside him and flew to a spot in the air, where he once again hovered silently.
He looked up at a patch of empty space and began to form a series of hand seals, casting one art after another at that transparent area.
It wasn't until several dozen breaths after Zi Kun had returned that Li Yan finally cast the last art.
As this final art was sent out, the previously transparent space emitted a low hum, and a faint red light flickered into view.
Zhao Min and Zi Kun looked on from below. A palm-sized, light-red formation plate had just materialized, only to be snatched by Li Yan in the next instant.
With another flash, he was already flying back down. The moment he landed beside Zhao Min, he spoke quickly.
"They had a set of extremely powerful concealment formations. It belonged to that female cultivator you killed, and it's called 'Trace Burial'. We couldn't detect them before, and they were able to sneak up on us because of this formation. Senior Sister, you can try refining it later!"
Li Yan passed the light-red formation plate to Zhao Min. It was the treasure of the female cultivator named An Die, but she would never be able to retrieve it now.
Li Yan himself possessed the Stealthy Night Art, which, when used, was even stronger than Trace Burial.
However, the Stealthy Night Art had a weakness: it was most effective when Li Yan used it on himself alone.
If he tried to apply the art to others simultaneously, the effect was inferior to Trace Burial. Of course, this would improve as Li Yan's cultivation grew stronger in the future.
Zhao Min nodded. She was, of course, aware that Li Yan had a powerful concealment art; he had used it to hide after killing Dongli Qing.
With Trace Burial in her hands, Zhao Min's strength would increase by more than double. She naturally wouldn't be modest about accepting something from Li Yan.
"Right, bring me the old Daoist's Storage Pouch. Let's see if we can find a technique called 'Severing Words'. That art is bizarrely profound. I was hit by it earlier and actually felt disheartened, with the urge to give up all resistance."
"That sounds a lot like the 'Words become Law' of Confucian Immortal Arts."
Hearing this, Zhao Min finally understood why Li Yan had been standing there motionless earlier. It turned out he had been struck by such a malicious technique.
Li Yan turned and gave an order to Zi Kun, who simply scratched the back of his head. He had just gathered all the Storage Pouches together without a second thought.
Now, trying to figure out which pouch belonged to whom was impossible, except for the few on Li Yan that had belonged to Wusitu.
Thus, the three of them had no choice but to open the dozen or so Storage Pouches one by one to search. However, after going through them all, they were greatly disappointed.
They found several other techniques, and a huge pile of Low-grade Spirit Stones. They even found over thirty High-grade Spirit Stones and one thousand six hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones in these pouches.
There were also quite a few third-rank and higher magical treasures and medicinal pills, but the Immortal Art "Severing Words" was nowhere to be found.
Unwilling to give up, Li Yan checked the few Spirit-Storing Pouches they had collected as well. Apart from finding another type of second-rank demonic beast, there was nothing else.
"It seems that secret art is very precious. He didn't carry a copy of it on a Jade Slip."
Li Yan shook his head helplessly. He had truly wanted to obtain the old Daoist's technique.
But he hadn't dared to hold back against the old Daoist earlier, fearing that giving him even a moment's respite would allow him to turn the tables. Thus, he had forgone the chance to perform a soul-search.
"For now, Senior Sister should enter the space to recover her cultivation. Zi Kun and I will search for the Howling Cold Stone outside. But before that, Zi Kun and I need to go and capture a type of demonic beast called a 'Black Cloud Frost Condensation Worm'!"
Li Yan thought for a moment and decided it was best for Zhao Min to enter the Earthen Patch to recover the Qi and Blood in her body. This matter could not be delayed any longer.
"A 'Black Cloud Frost Condensation Worm'? What kind of demonic beast is that?"
Zhao Min had no objection to Li Yan's arrangement. She couldn't afford to be stubborn in this secret grotto; being injured would only put her in greater danger.
But neither she nor Zi Kun had ever heard of the "Black Cloud Frost Condensation Worm" Li Yan mentioned, so she couldn't help but ask for more details.
Li Yan then recounted the information he had just obtained from Wusitu's soul-search.
"So it's an extreme-cold demonic beast. Those people wanted to get its demonic core and air sac. That stuff is probably no worse than the Howling Cold Stone and might be of great help to Qian Ji's cultivation."
After hearing the explanation, Zi Kun immediately understood Li Yan's plan. The Snow Mosquito King was still cultivating diligently every day, but it was clearly stuck at a bottleneck.
"Yes, that's what I was thinking. In a moment, you'll enter the space as well, Zi Kun. That 'Black Cloud Frost Condensation Worm' is exceptionally vigilant. I have the confidence to conceal my own aura, but concealing multiple people might not be enough to fool it. Once it comes out, you can emerge and join me."
"Yes, Master!"
Zi Kun nodded in agreement.
Four days later, in a certain section of the secret grotto's underground river, the originally calm water surface suddenly split open without a sound. Bizarrely, not a single ripple disturbed the surface.
Then, a black head the size of a bowl emerged.
The head was covered in smooth, glossy black fur, so slick that water droplets couldn't linger for even a moment, sliding off silently.
On its head was a pair of soybean-sized eyes, and next to its mouth and nose were several long whiskers like a dog's.
Its small eyes first darted around, and then a faint, almost imperceptible wave of Divine Sense quickly spread across the surrounding area.
After a moment, the black head slowly sank back into the water. For a time, the area returned to its previous tranquility.
Ten breaths later, in another part of the river facing the plain, the water once again split open silently, and another black, snake-like creature swiftly drilled out.
Judging by its head—the small eyes, the dog-like whiskers, and other features—it was the same black head that had peeked out of the river earlier.
This time, about half a foot of its body was also revealed along with its head.
It was about the same thickness as its head and pitch-black all over, but its skin was coated with a layer of faint grey, frost-like substance, which gave it a slippery, hard-to-grasp appearance.
The moment it appeared, it quickly swam towards the bank. In the blink of an eye, its body was more than six feet out of the water.
But then, just as suddenly, the black, snake-like creature shot back into the river and disappeared once more...
A few dozen breaths later, several hundred feet away from where the black, snake-like creature had appeared, the water once again split open without a sound, and another black head emerged.
Again, its small eyes darted around, and a faint wave of Divine Sense swept the area before the head slowly sank back into the river...
Ten breaths later, at another spot on the bank, the black, snake-like creature silently crawled towards the shore again. This time, when only three feet of its body was out of the water, it abruptly retracted back into the depths...
This scene repeated itself over and over in this section of the river!