Chapter 139 -Pseudo Core Formation Stage
The flying swords were fast, but the earth escape technique was even faster. Wang Lin trailed them from a distance as the 100 plus cultivators flew across the sky and arrived at the location of the spirit vein.
There were powerful spiritual energy fluctuations coming from the many holes on the ground. There were limbs all over the place and a strong stench of blood covered the area.
The moment the 100 cultivators arrived, countless cultivators from Hou Fen appeared and the battle began.
At the same time, eight rays of light charged in and a powerful aura surrounded the area. Wang Lin’s eyes squinted. Those eight were all Nascent Soul cultivators.
The moment they came close, they were targeted by the patrolling Nascent Soul cultivators of Hou Fen. Nascent Soul cultivators from both sides began fighting. The earth shook and the sky changed colors.
Shortly after, 100 more teams appeared in the distance and joined this battle.
Wang Lin’s eyes became cold. After looking for a while, his Ji Realm Divine Sense shot out from the ground and charged into the battlefield.
A Foundation Establishment disciple of Xuan Wu had just killed a 15th layer disciple of Hou Fen. Just as he was about to attack again, a red light flash past him. He felt like his head was hit with a giant hammer and lost consciousness. His soul was destroyed without any resistance and he fell from the sky.
Eight Foundation Establishment cultivators of Xuan Wu used a sword formation to trap a Core Formation cultivator of Hou Fen, but after a red light flashed by, the eight of them trembled and their faces froze. They felt their souls being stirred into a mess and lose their shapes as their bodies fell from the sky.
The trapped Core Formation cultivator was startled, but the current situation didn’t give him time to think as he charged toward the enemies.
After a pseudo Core Formation cultivator of Xuan Wu killed several cultivators of the same level with the help of a Nascent Soul rank flying sword, he grabbed the neck of a female early stage Foundation Establishment cultivator. He ripped off her clothes, revealing her pink pocket. She let out a scream, which sounded very weak in this messy battle.
The pseudo Core Formation cultivator licked his lips. His eyes revealed an evil look as he quickly backed up with the female cultivator in his hand. However, a red light flashed by him and his body trembled. He let go of the female cultivator and his body fell from the sky.
After he died, not only did his flying sword not stop, it charged toward the ground. Just as it got near the ground, a hand came out, grabbed the sword, and retreated back into the ground.
As more and more Foundation Establishment cultivators from Xuan Wu fell from the sky for seemingly no reason, the cultivators of Xuan Wu began to pay close attention to this matter. A purple-robed Core Formation cultivator from Xuan Wu stared at the ground and pointed with his finger. He used some unknown method to send out a message. Then, ten late stage Foundation Establishment cultivators charged toward that direction.
Wang Lin’s expression was calm. He turned around to leave at a leisurely pace using the earth escape technique. One of the ten cultivators held a compass and chased after Wang Lin.
After moving more than ten kilometers, Wang Lin stopped and sent out his Ji Realm. Before Foundation Establishment cultivators, Wang Lin was king, with full control over their lives and deaths. The ten of them didn’t even have time to react as their souls were destroyed.
The current Wang Lin no longer had the naive nature or the kind heart of a village boy; he would now kill anyone who dared to get in his way.
There was no right or wrong on the battlefield; only life and death. If he had a sliver of pity, then the person to die would be him. Along with the power that the Ji Realm had brought him, it also quietly changed his nature. The Ji Realm focused on the extremes. If the user planned to walk the path of good, then he would be a hero of the generation who would fight all evil.
If one walked the path of evil, then that person would definitely be a demon king; evil enough to even cause the demonic cultivators to fear him and be worthy of the title of demon king.
Under the influence of the Ji Realm, it was impossible to have a personality that switched between good and evil.
Wang Lin, with his honest personality, wanted to become an immortal hero and create a righteous path to honor his ancestors. Unfortunately, Situ Nan’s appearance caused his personality to slowly change, which eventually led to disaster.
What family was there to honor when his family had been wiped out? The Ji Realm caused his personality to change. Since he couldn’t become a hero of his generation, then he would become a demon king.
Wang Lin’s eyes were emotionless as he collected the bags of holding without even looking at the bodies. He returned to the ground and headed toward a different part of the battlefield.
But soon, he came out again. He looked at the battlefield, then took out a few spirit stones, formed a formation, and threw the ten bodies inside it. Each body exploded into a bloody pulp before being absorbed by the formation.
When the last body exploded, Wang Lin bit the tip of his finger and flicked a drop of blood onto a spirit stone.
Suddenly, a sliver of purple smoke came out of the formation and circled it once. The purple smoke disappeared along with the spirit stones. If one didn’t look carefully, they wouldn’t notice any difference.
After finishing all of that, Wang Lin sank back into the ground and returned to the battlefield.
The battle had become even more tense as everyone was engaged in the fight. The battle between the Nascent Soul cultivators also became more intense, forcing the rest of the cultivators to avoid them.
Just at this moment, Foundation Establishment cultivators of Xuan Wu started to mysteriously fall from the sky. Their bodies became bloody messes as they hit the ground.
As more and more Foundation Establishment cultivators of Xuan Wu died due to mysterious circumstances, the cultivators of Xuan Wu panicked. The cultivators of Hou Fen took this opportunity to attack.
The purple-robed middle aged man who had sent the ten Foundation Establishment cultivators to kill Wang Lin frowned. His eyes swept the ground like lightning before locking onto a spot on the ground. He pointed at the location and an early stage Core Formation cultivator charged out without a word.
The moment the Core Formation cultivator charged over, Wang Lin quickly escaped. The Core Formation cultivator sneered as he slammed his hand into the ground. A huge handprint appeared on the ground, forcing Wang Lin to come out. Wang Lin came out from underground and quickly ran toward the formation he had set up.
The Core Formation cultivator revealed a mocking smile. He believed that Wang Lin was only able to kill so many Foundation Establishment cultivators because he was using a powerful magic treasure. He thought that with a bit of caution, he could easily kill Wang Lin.
With that in mind, he waved his hand and a golden awl appeared before him. It paused for a moment before lunging toward Wang Lin. The awl’s speed was too quick. It created ripples in the air as it travelled.
Wang Lin didn’t even turn his head as he threw out the treasure passed out by Hou Fen. The treasure turned into a silver fist and attacked the awl.
The moment they collided, the awl spun even faster and pierced through the silver fist. The awl dimmed, but it didn’t slow down. It continued to chase Wang Lin.
Wang Lin was calm. As the awl caught up to him, he jumped into the ground again. He activated the earth escape technique to move a few dozen meters before coming out again. Wang Lin did this several times before arriving at the formation he had laid down.
The Core Formation cultivator casually caught up. His eyes were filled with disdain as he shouted, “You little rat! Do you have no other ability besides ambushing people?”
Wang Lin didn’t say a word. He charged through the formation without pausing. After going past it, he stopped and turned around to see the Core Formation cultivator above the formation.
Wang Lin’s eyes became cold and he shouted, “Open!”
The moment he shouted that word, purple smoke came out of the formation and trapped the Core Formation cultivator inside. If someone were to look from a distance, they would be unable to see what was going on through the thick, purple smoke.
Wang Lin sat down cross-legged and sneered as he threw out the treasure Yang Sen had gifted him. Suddenly, a ring of energy came out from the treasure and surrounded Wang Lin. The awl hit the ring of energy, but it only caused it to ripple slightly.
Wang Lin didn’t even pay attention to the awl as he stared at the purple smoke and took out his flying sword. After he touched the sword, red smoke escaped from it and the devil appeared. The devil stared at the purple smoke with greed in his eyes. He wanted to go devour the person inside, but he was hesitant because of Wang Lin.
Wang Lin took a deep breath and closed his eyes without a word. Rays of red light came together to form a red cloud, which charged out of Wang Lin’s consciousness.
This was the first time the Ji Realm had gone all out and left Wang Lin’s body. The moment the devil saw the red cloud, his face became filled with fear and he stepped off to the side.
The red cloud immediately turned into a circle and circled the devil once before dragging it into the purple smoke. The Core Formation cultivator sat cross legged inside the formation with a dark expression on his face. There was a gourd floating around the cultivator. It was slowly absorbing the purple smoke.
This was a very vicious formation called Heaven Devouring Demon Formation. The key ingredients were the bodies of cultivators to use as the base of the formation. Wang Lin used ten Foundation Establishment cultivators to set up this formation, so it wasn’t too big of a deal to trap a Core Formation cultivator for a while.
If he had the bodies of Core Formation cultivators, then he would only need five to kill any mid stage or lower Core Formation cultivator. But this formation had a high requirement for the bodies. He had to have killed the people himself, making this formation very inconvenient to use.
The moment Wang Lin’s Ji Realm Divine Sense entered the purple cage, the Core Formation cultivator noticed that something was off and opened his eyes. Wang Lin quickly charged into the Core Formation cultivator’s consciousness with the devil while completely ignoring the gourd.
Inside the Core Formation cultivator’s consciousness, the cultivator’s soul took the form of a giant and angrily roared at Wang Lin. The Ji Realm Divine Sense activated its full power against the cultivator’s soul. Wang Lin commanded the red cloud to send out countless bolts of red lightning to attack the Core Formation cultivator’s soul.
The giant revealed a painful expression and his body shrank. He quickly waved his hand and a chunk of red lightning was split in half.
Shortly after, the red cloud turned into more red lightning bolts and once again charged toward the giant. The giant’s body became smaller and smaller, but his fists became more and more deadly. Every time he punched, a large number of red lightning bolts were destroyed.
With Wang Lin’s cultivation level, he could barely handle early stage Core Formation cultivators. If he were at the pseudo Core Formation stage, it would be much easier for him.
But Wang Lin was not a reckless person. Why would he take a fight he only had a chance of winning? As the fight reached its peak, the devil received an order from Wang Lin and reluctantly attacked.
The giant panicked. He immediately hit the devil with his hand and the devil shattered into pieces. The giant let out a sigh of relief before panic filled his face again. He saw the devil reappear on his hand. The devil began taking large bites out of his soul.
No matter how hard the giant swung his arm around, the devil clung onto him like it was part of his body. Eventually, the giant gave up on fighting the red lightning and used his other hand to constantly smash the devil. Every strike would cause the devil’s body to dim a bit, but the devil not only never let go, it began to devour even faster.
The truth was the devil was also in a pretty sorry state. If he were to let go now, Wang Lin would surely kill him. If he let go, he would die, but if he held on, there would be a chance for him to survive. If he could devour this Core Formation cultivator, there would be a chance for him to become powerful enough to deal with Wang Lin. Once he deals with Wang Lin, he will be free to do as he pleases.
With that idea in mind, the devil became determined and started to devour even faster. It can be said that the devil focused all of his power on devouring.
The giant began to weaken. His strikes became weaker and weaker. His giant body rapidly shrank until it became a smaller, golden soul, which was devoured by the devil.
The devil revealed a look of ecstasy as he attempted to quickly devour this soul, but the red cloud suddenly surrounded the devil. The devil let out frustrated roars as it slowly spat out the Core Formation cultivator’s soul.
After having passed through the devil’s body, the soul’s consciousness had been wiped out. It had become divine sense without an owner. Wang Lin controlled his Ji Realm to leave the collapsing consciousness with the divine sense and returned to his body.
Wang Lin suddenly opened his eyes and let out a cold smile. The Core Formation cultivator’s divine sense was floating in his consciousness and being slowly devoured by his Ji Realm.
The golden awl attacking Wang Lin lost its glow and fell to the ground. Wang Lin put away the treasure that had been protecting him. He grabbed the awl and, after examining it, put it away.
Then he walked forward and stopped at a corner of the formation. He dug out a piece of spirit stone from underground and crushed it. The purple smoke dissipated, revealing the corpse of the Core Formation cultivator.
Wang Lin stood next to the corpse. His hand pointed at the corpse’s brow and he shouted, “Come out now or I’ll immediately kill you!”
A ray of red light unwillingly came out of the cultivator’s head and turned into the shape of the devil. His eyes were filled with hatred, but he soon let out a sigh and obediently returned to the flying sword in Wang Lin’s bag of holding.
Wang Lin stared at the cultivator’s body. Ideas flashed through his mind. He took the cultivator’s bag of holding and waved his hand. The body was lit on fire and burned to ashes, but within the ashes there was a shiny, golden core. The golden core was rapidly shrinking and its color was becoming dim. It seemed like it was about to disappear.
Wang Lin grabbed the golden core and put it into his mouth without any hesitation. He then took a step back and sunk into the ground.
Wang Lin sunk more than 1,000 feet into the ground and sat down cross legged. He began digesting the core. The core immediately dissipated and spiritual energy surged through his body.
This spiritual energy was too powerful for Wang Lin’s body to handle, so he bled out of his mouth and nose. Wang Lin pointed at his brow and the heaven defying bead appeared. He grabbed it and disappeared into the heaven defying bead’s space.
Inside the heaven defying space, Wang Lin immediately flew to Situ Nan’s Nascent Soul and began to cultivate. He began bleeding all over his body and his veins began to show through his skin.
Wang Lin’s hands formed a seal. He entered a weird position where one hand was on his forehead and the other on his stomach. This formed a complete loop.
The large amount of spiritual energy rapidly cycled through his body, and with each cycle it would strengthen his body.
After two months had passed inside the heaven defying bead, Wang Lin suddenly opened his eyes. However, his eyes were cloudy and it took some time before they became clear again.
“The jade from the Evil Demon Sect said that one can raise their cultivation level by devouring cores. This seems to be true as long as I follow the seal and chant in the jade. Sadly, I have to use the same cultivation method as them to absorb more than 20% of the core’s spiritual energy. Right now, I can only absorb 10%”
Wang Lin stood up and checked his cultivation. He secretly thought, “I only absorbed 10% of the core’s spiritual energy, yet it allowed me to break past the mid stage of Foundation Establishment into the peak of the late stage of Foundation Establishment, putting me at the pseudo Core Formation stage.”
The two months in the heaven defying space were like ten days outside. Once Wang Lin left the heaven defying bead, he immediately moved away with the earth escape technique. It was currently late at night.
Wang Lin arrived at the scene of the battle. There were many corpses strewn about and the spirit vein had been pulled out of the ground by someone, leaving a bottomless chasm.
After checking for a bit, he quickly charged toward the mountain the Hou Fen Union was at. Once he arrived at the foot of the mountain, he came out of the ground and jumped on his flying sword.
There were a lot of cultivators patrolling the area, but once they saw the jade Wang Lin used to record his kill count, none of them stopped him. Wang Lin went straight to one of the side buildings at the mountaintop. This was where Fen Luo had summoned him last time.
There are two female Core Formation cultivators cultivating outside. They opened their eyes as he walked toward them, but when they noticed that it was Wang Lin, they closed them again.
Wang Lin stood outside the building and loudly said, “Disciple greets master.”
“Come inside.” Fen Lou’s gentle voice came from inside the building.
Wang Lin walked in without a word and saw Fen Lou sitting on a stone bench. There was another person beside her, Yang Sen. He nodded at Wang Lin before turning his gaze back outside and furrowing his brow.
Feng Lou’s expression seemed tired as she looked at Wang Lin and asked, “What is it?”
Wang Lin didn’t say a word, he only threw out the jade. Feng Lou was startled. She hadn’t checked the jade yet, only Wang Lin. After her divine sense entered the jade, her expression became strange.
Yang Sen took the jade from Feng Lou and scanned it with his divine sense. His face brightened up and he smiled. “Not bad. You killed 61 Foundation Establishment cultivators and one Core Formation cultivator. If you can continue this, then you have a chance of getting the Distant Heaven Pill. But I am very curious. You were only at the mid stage of Foundation Establishment before. How did you reach the pseudo Core Formation stage so quickly? And even so, it should be almost impossible for you to kill a Core Formation cultivator. How did you do it?” Near the end, his voice became more serious.
Wang Lin had already expected these questions before he came here. His expression was calm as he plainly said, “That Core Formation cultivator was already heavily wounded by other people before escaping. I was lucky to catch him off guard and took his core. Then I used the Evil Demon Sect’s technique to devour his core to reach the pseudo Core Formation stage.”
“Devouring technique…” Yang Sen’s eyes pierced through Wang Lin. He noticed the trace of core spiritual energy inside him. This made him believe Wang Lin’s story a bit and he remained silent.
Feng Lou shot Wang Lin a meaningful look, then threw the jade back to him. She said, “This is the second piece of the map. I’ll count that Core Formation cultivator as ten Foundation Establishment cultivators. If you manage to kill 150 Foundation Establishment cultivators, then you can come to me for the third piece.
Wang Lin nodded. He checked the jade with his divine sense and found that it was indeed the map. If he were to combine the two maps, then he would have a clear understanding of Hou Fen’s surroundings.
Hou Fen bordered the Sea of Devils. According to the map, there was no Zhao around Hou Fen. According to the description on the map, there was another continent on the other side of the Sea of Devils. He believed that on the 3rd piece there would be some information on that other continent.
There was also a detailed description of the Sea of Devils, but Wang Lin didn’t pay much attention to it as he withdrew his divine sense.
Yang Sen looked at Wang Lin in a favorable light and said, “The cultivators of Xuan Wu have gathered together for a big fight. If you want to get credit, then this will be your best chance.”
Wang Lin was about to speak when a scream suddenly came from outside. Yang Sen and Feng Lou immediately disappeared as they charged outside.
Wang Lin quickly walked out and saw a Nascent Soul that had many wounds. It was leaking spiritual energy everywhere. The Nascent Soul said, “Fellow cultivators, the country sealing array has been broken… the fire beasts are on their way…”