Chapter 141 – Fighting Evil Sect
The fog was very thick in the Sea of Devils and it was filled with Ying energy. Wang Lin had only been here for a short while, but his clothes were already soaked. The sticky feeling of his clothes clinging to him was very uncomfortable.
As for Li Muwan, her face was no longer pale but slightly red, and her skin was silky smooth. Her clothes were also soaked by the fog, revealing her exquisitely charming body.
Wang Lin took one look and withdrew his gaze. His heart wasn’t moved at all. If it wasn’t for the fact that Li Muwan could make the Distance Heaven’s Pill and various other pills, he wouldn’t have allowed her to follow him.
The Sea of Devils was a huge basin. After descending for a long time, he still hadn’t seen the bottom. However, he noticed that the deeper he went, the stronger the Ying energy was.
Soon, strange creatures started to appear in the fog, some of them even had spiritual energy fluctuations. This made Wang Lin very surprised, but luckily, he was able to detect them soon enough, so there were only a few scares and never any real danger.
Li Muwan was extremely nervous as she had heard too many rumors about this Sea of Devils. There was no reasoning with people here as power was the only thing that mattered. There was also a lack of female cultivators, so unless she had a powerful backing, she would likely have a very miserable fate.
Before the upheaval in Hou Fen, there were always a lot of cultivators stationed at the border of the Sea of Devils. This often included Nascent Soul cultivators. Their sole purpose was to prevent demonic cultivators from raiding their country.
Luckily, the powerful forces in the Sea of Devils were all in the center. The groups on the edges were all small, so as long as they were careful, nothing too big would happen.
Wang Lin didn’t know how long they had been flying for when he suddenly stopped. Li Muwan wasn’t able to react fast enough, so she ran into his back. Wang Lin coldly looked at the fog in the distance and said, “Come out, now!”
Three thin and tall figures appeared in the fog, but the fog was too thick for Wang Lin to see their exact figures, though it was obvious that they were three male cultivators. One of them shouted in a sharp voice.
“Arrogant! This area belongs to my Fighting Evil Sect. If you are smart, leave behind the female cultivator or else…”
Before he finished speaking, Wang Lin let out a cold snort. “Noisy! Die!” The map had stated that there was no reasoning in the Sea of Devils; only the strong were respected. He waved his right hand and his Ji Realm Divine Sense spread out. Those three were only mid stage Foundation Establishment cultivators, so Wang Lin could kill them at will.
The red lightning suddenly flashed by the three of them. Their eyes became dimmer and dimmer before their souls shattered and died.
Wang Lin walked forward and grabbed their bags of holding. He then kicked their bodies into the thick fog and left without taking another look.
Li Muwan was horrified as she looked at what occurred before her. This was the first time she had seen Wang Lin act. The other three were all at the mid stage of Foundation Establishment just like she was, but they had all died mysteriously without any means to resist.
She was shocked as she looked at Wang Lin’s back, then she suddenly thought back to half a month ago, when her brother Li Qiqing said something about the great battle over the spirit vein where thousands of cultivators participated.
During the early stage of that battle, something strange was happening to the cultivators of Xuan Xu. All of the Foundation Establishment cultivators of Xuan Wu were mysteriously dying and falling from the sky.
If it was only one or two, then it wouldn’t be so bad, but Xuan Wu only had 200 or so Foundation Establishment cultivators, and almost half of them died mysteriously like this. When she initially heard of this, she didn’t believe it; she thought that it was only rumor, but looking at how those three Foundation Establishment cultivators had died, she couldn’t help but remember that story.
She followed behind Wang Lin and asked, with a trembling voice, “Senior… senior apprentice brother, back in the Hou Fen Union, which army were you part of?”
Wang Lin didn’t turn his head as he coldly said, “The tenth army.”
The moment the words “The tenth army” entered Li Muwan’s ears, it was like lightning had struck her mind. She clearly remembered that her brother had said that the 10th army was the one that fought that battle. Now she was almost certain that this cold-looking youth was the one responsible for massive amounts of deaths of the Foundation Establishment cultivators of Xuan Wu.
Thinking about this, her last sliver of will to resist evaporated completely. She couldn’t even summon the strength to back out. But just then, she suddenly remembered a description of a strange technique that she had read back in the Lou He Sect and blurted out, “The technique you just used, was it the death spell?”
Wang Lin’s heart was slightly startled, but nothing showed on his face. He calmly replied, without turning his head, “You also know about the death spell?”
The moment Li Muwan heard Wang Lin’s words, she was even more certain that he knew the legendary death spell. The death spell was known as a technique from the ancient cultivation world that was incredibly hard to master. However, once mastered, all one had to do was look at someone, say the word “die,” and that person would immediately die.
This type of technique was considered to be one of the most evil techniques among demonic cultivators. It requires one to fuse three types of energy. The first is Yin energy, which comes from female cultivators’ Nascent Souls, using the Yin harvesting technique. The second energy is death energy, which is obtained by absorbing energy from the bones of the dead. Although this is similar to Ying energy, the quality is very different. The third energy is killing energy. Once someone has killed enough, their body will produce its own killing intent. Once this killing intent gains its own consciousness, it becomes the killing energy needed.
Fusing the three energies pushes the person to have to survive a trial to continue cultivating this technique. However, every night, the user suffers unimaginable pain, and they have to survive this trial again every three years.
Only after having gone through this cycle countless times can an early stage of the death spell be considered complete. If one wishes to continue cultivating it, the chance of death is even higher. According to some calculations, the chances of completely mastering the death spell are basically zero. Although this technique is very powerful, it is simply too vicious. Only a few demonic cultivators were willing to try to learn it.
After listening to Li Muwan describe the death spell with her trembling voice, Wang Lin’s expression slightly changed and he remained silent. This silence caused Lu Muwan to became even more scared and her heart pounded violently.
After traveling in the Sea of Devils for a while, Wang Lin had finally entered the sea part of the area. The fog was much thicker now and the Ying energy was a lot stronger.
Staring at the ground below him, Wang Lin muttered a bit before taking a few steps back. He jumped around until he found a mountain peak. He stood on a rock that was protruding from the mountain as he took a flying sword out of his bag of holding and then pointed at the mountain. The flying sword flew toward the mountain and began carving.
Sounds of metal scraping rock entered Wang Lin’s ears. He couldn’t help but frown as the mountain was too tough and the flying sword was very weak.
He let out a snort and then slapped his bag of holding again. This time, more than 30 flying swords came out. His Ji Realm Divine Sense entered each sword and the swords rained down upon the mountain.
This way, the progress immediately sped up, and a cave appeared on the side of the mountain. Li Muwan had gotten used to Wang Lin during their travels. Since this guy could complete the death spell, then controlling 30 flying swords wasn’t really anything surprising.
She knew that the amount of flying swords one could control was dependant on a cultivator’s divine sense.
Time slowly passed and a cave with four rooms was slowly carved out. Thus, a simple cultivation cave was formed. Wang Lin took out spirit stones and set down various formations around the cave.
After Li Muwan saw the formations, she revealed a surprised expression, but after seeing the formation, the surprise disappeared and a sliver of disdain appeared. However, that sliver of disdain quickly disappeared as she hid it.
However, this sliver of disdain was still caught by Wang Lin. Although he was focused on placing the formation, his divine sense had never left Li Muwan. Even on the way here, it was still the same. If Li Muwan had made any unusual movement, Wang Lin wouldn’t care that she was a woman; he would’ve mercilessly killed her.
After Wang Lin finished placing down the spirit stones, he didn’t even turn around as he coldly said, “I plan to stay in this cave for a long time. If the formation is broken, I can easily escape, but you will have to rely on yourself.” With that, he turned around and looked at Li Muwan.
Li Muwan clenched her teeth and moved up without a word. She took out black flags from her bag of holding and placed them around the cave. However, she still felt unsafe, so she placed more formations down around the cave and even organized Wang Lin’s formations to connect them all.
After doing all of this, she clenched her jaw again and took out a blue, crystallic, beast bone. She used her flying sword to cut it into pieces and, after calculating for a while, she placed one piece down.
She continued to place them. When all 18 pieces of the beast bone were in place, three hours had passed. Li Muwan’s forehead was covered in sweat. She looked very tired as she said, “Including the formations you have placed, there are a total of 214 formations. However, they are only beginner formations that can only stop Foundation Establishment cultivators from entering. I just used the bone of a crystal beast to lay down the nine skeleton formation. Although the formation is only at 30% power due to the lack of bones, it can still block a Core Formation cultivator for one hour.”
“I only have this many crystal beast bones. If you want the formation to be even more stable, then we need more spirit beast bones.”
With that, she waved her right hand and tossed out a piece of jade. Wang Lin caught it and scanned it with his divine sense. Inside was information on how to enter the formation. After he finished reading it, he crushed the jade, then looked at Li Muwan and pointed forward.
Li Muwan knew that she couldn’t trust him, but there was nothing she could do, so she walked into the formation. Wang Lin left a sliver of his divine sense on her and followed behind.
After safely passing through the layers of formations and entering the cave, Li Muwan took out another small flag. She gently waved the flag and all the formations activated, releasing a thick fog. From the distance, one couldn’t see anything at all, and even if they were to take a closer look, they would only see the mountain.
Inside the cave, Wang Lin examined Li Muwan, which caused her face to became even more pale. She took a few steps back and whispered, “Senior apprentice brother, should I refine the Distance Heaven Pill for you now?”
Wang Lin shook his head and said, “I don’t dare to eat the pills you refine.”
Li Muwan’s eyes immediately became red as she silently lowered her head. After a long time, she raised her head, revealing a crying face, and whispered, “Senior apprentice brother has saved my life. Just tell me what I need to do for you to believe me.” The current her was very beautiful and alluring.
Wang Lin wasn’t effected by Li Muwan’s beauty at all. His expression was still calm as he said, “I don’t like forcing people, so I won’t demand too much from you. All I need you to do is refine enough pills for me to reach the Core Formation stage. Once I have reached the Core Formation stage, I’ll escort you out of the Sea of Devils. But during this period of time, I’ll need you to hand over your soul essence blood to ensure nothing goes wrong with the pills during this period of time.”
Li Muwan pondered for a bit, then nodded. She pointed her finger at her brow and forced out her soul essence blood. Then she sent the drop to Wang Lin.
After Wang Lin received the soul essence blood, he threw out several bags of holding and said, “All of the materials are here. See what kind of pills you can refine.”
Li Muwan checked the bags with her divine sense and immediately exclaimed, “This… this is desolate wood root, and there is yellow core grass. This… there is burning golden root and heaven spirit grass…” The more she looked through the bags, the more shocked she was. A large majority of the materials were for refining pills, and some had long been extinct in Hou Fen. Only disciples that came back from the foreign battleground every 100 years would bring back some.
Wang Lin rubbed his chin and threw out more than ten bags of holding. These were his recent spoils. After removing all the treasures and spirit stones, all that was left were materials he didn’t know about, so it was perfect to have Li Muwan identify them.
After checking all of the bags of holding, all of Li Muwan’s grief from before disappeared and her face was now glowing. Her face was filled with excitement as she raised her head and asked, “Senior apprentice brother, I can freely use all these materials?”
Wang Lin nodded. “I only want pills. As for the process, you can do whatever you wish.”
Li Muwan smiled at Wang Lin for the first time. Her smile was very sweet as she said, with confidence, “Senior apprentice brother can rest assured. I have calculated that I can make 300 Yellow Spirit pills that can help increase cultivation, 50 Poison Avoiding pills, and various other pills with various effects. Once I have finished, I’ll hand them to senior apprentice brother. Senior apprentice brother, among the materials you have, the most valuable one is this demon blood vine.” With that, she took out a very ordinary looking red wood strip.
“This red wood strip is one of the ingredients for making the Distance Heaven Pill and one of the most important. I have only seen this demon blood vine in ancient records. With this, I have confidence in refining one Distant Heaven Pill; however, the effect will be a bit weaker as I need to find replacements for the other materials.”
Wang Lin’s expression remained dull as he calmly said, “I won’t ask much about matters relating to refining pills.” He pondered a bit and said, “I plan on making a trip outside. At least three days and at most half a month. Watch out for yourself.”
With that, he was ready to leave. Li Muwan hesitated for a bit, then quickly said, “Senior apprentice brother, when you go out, can you find me a pill furnace? I’m fine with the materials, and the pill furnace I carry is fine for normal pills. However, if I were to use my current pill furnace, the success rate of the Distance Heaven Pill would only be 50%. Normally, the completion of the Distant Heaven Pill uses the sect’s Heaven Fusing Furnace.”
Wang Lin slightly frowned. He looked at Li Muwan, then left without a word.
Li Muwan secretly sighed. She originally didn’t want to lie, but she was afraid that if she had told the truth earlier, he would have left her. However, now that they had reached this stage and she had even turned over her soul essence blood, she decided to bring up the matter of the Distance Heaven Pill’s success rate. If anything were to happen in the future, he might kill her in a moment of rage.
After leaving the cave, Wang Lin checked his direction and looked toward where Zhao was. His eyes became cold as he muttered, “Teng Huayuan, I’m about to reach the Core Formation stage. Once I reach the Nascent Soul stage, I’ll kill my way back to Zhao and uproot your entire clan. Teng Huayuan, you better not die early. Live and wait for my return…”
The coldness in his eyes slowly disappeared. He took a step, activated the earth escape technique, and quickly charged into the distance. The reason he was going out was to find more spirit beast bones. According to Li Muwan, only by adding more spirit beast bones could the nine skeleton formation be at max power. Wang Lin knew that he was in a rush to reach the Core Formation stage, and in a place as dangerous as the Sea of Devils, he needed a relatively safe place to ensure nothing went wrong.
Another reason was that he needed the skulls of spirit beasts to make the reaction furnace for the refining technique of the War God Shrine. With both the formations and the reaction furnace, spirit beast bones were now a necessity for Wang Lin. According to the description given in the map jade, there were spirit beasts within the fog and spirit beasts bones at the bottom of the sea.
However, many of those spirit beast bones had already been dug up by others, so even after walking for a long time, Wang Lin still hadn’t found any. Also, the fog was very thick at the bottom of the sea, so his eyes were useless and he could only see with his divine sense.
As he moved, his expression suddenly changed and he took a step back. Then a flying sword, flying in a wavy pattern, flashed by where Wang Lin was.
Wang Lin was at the peak of late stage Foundation Establishment, the pseudo Core Formation stage, so he was able to completely see through this 40 something year old man who was only at the early stage of Foundation Establishment. This person’s face was dark purple and his breathing was very rough. It was clear that he had been hit with a powerful poison, causing him to not be able to fully control his spiritual energy.
The moment that flying sword passed by, another ray of light chased closely behind it.
Wang Lin’s face became very strange as the person chasing the early stage Foundation Establishment cultivator was a young man at the peak of the 15th layer of Qi Condensation. This person’s face was snow white, had slender eyes, and had a hint of evil on his face.
The evil-looking young man was holding a black beast bone. As he leisurely chased after the middle-aged man, he kept on blowing on the bone. Every time he blew on it, black smoke would come out.
The moment the black smoke appeared, it would quickly catch up to the Foundation Establishment cultivator and enter his body.
“Senior apprentice brother, run faster. Your junior apprentice brother wants to see how long you can last with those 16 deadly poisons inside your body.” The young man blew at the black bone again and continued, in a creepy voice, “Senior apprentice brother, junior apprentice brother here has spent a very long time preparing these 16 different deadly poisons for you. How else would I dare to act against you with your Foundation Establishment cultivation? Senior apprentice brother, you won’t be able to run away.”
The middle-aged man clenched his teeth and remained silent as his flying sword crookedly flew up the mountain.
“Senior apprentice brother, you are already very old. How about you accept death and let me devour you with the foundation stealing technique?” The evil looking youth said very slowly as he closed in on the middle-aged man.
Wang Lin was interested in the beast bone in the young man’s man. He moved forward and silently followed behind them.
After the middle-aged man heard what the young man said, he didn’t even turn his head as he cursed with a raspy voice, “Sang Muya, you bastard. If it wasn’t for me pleading for you back then, how could master have accepted you as a disciple? You dare to do such a vicious thing to your fellow disciples? Are you not afraid of master finding out?”
The evil youth let out a hysterical laugh and said, “Master? If master didn’t agree to this, how would I dare to openly ambush you like this?”
The middle-aged man’s body trembled as he coughed out a mouthful of black blood. His body weakened and he fell off his flying sword. The evil youth let out a cold snort and stopped three feet away from the body on his flying sword. He stabbed the corpse several times with this flying sword to make sure it was dead before grabbing it to leave.
However, he suddenly stopped as he stared at a dark figure in the fog. Cold sweat covered his forehead. When he was chasing his senior apprentice brother, he had his divine sense spread out and didn’t notice anything. However, this person now appeared silently before him, meaning that this person’s cultivation level was far above his own.
He threw the body on the ground, then immediately clasped his hands and bowed. The evil expression disappeared from his face and was replaced with a simple and honest expression as he said, “Junior is the Fighting Evil Sect’s disciple, Sang Muya. What has senior stopped junior for? Junior will do his best to help senior.”
Wang Lin slowly walked out of the fog and coldly glanced at the youth.
The youth felt like his simple and honest expression was seen through at a glance by Wang Lin, so he suddenly felt terrified.
He had only felt like this when he was faced by his master, but his master was at the peak of late stage Foundation Establishment and had foot in the Core Formation stage. Could this young man, who didn’t look much older than him, be at the pseudo Core Formation stage already…
The youth’s heart trembled and his expression became even more respectful.
“Bring your beast bone here.” Wang Lin’s voice was cold and void of any emotion.
The more Wang Lin acted like this, the more Sang Muya panicked in his heart. He had grown up in the Sea of Devils and had heard of all kinds of demonic techniques. Although his cultivation level wasn’t high, he had managed to cultivate a pair of Demonic Knowledge eyes. He knew that those powerful demonic cultivators were cold and ruthless, and although he had seen many demonic cultivators with those eyes, most were only an imitation. But this senior before him seemed to be cold and ruthless from the soul, especially that pair of eyes that caused even his heart to feel cold.
He quickly threw out the beast bone that was in his hand as he didn’t dare to have any thoughts of resisting.