Chapter 274: Entering Early

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

There was no sun in the sky, only hazy white lights.

Daoist Kumu said that on Demonic Mountain, spiritual aura and devil aura were all over the sky, so sunlight couldn’t shine through. These white lights were, in fact, from intermingling spiritual aura and devil aura.

For that reason, there was no day or night in the Demonic Mountain area. It was always like this—one couldn’t differentiate the time.

The gales in the air got increasingly fierce, and the residual restrictions also became stronger. The number of corpses on the ground increased as they walked. Most of the clothing on those corpses had already rotted away, but some were still preserved. After taking a more careful look, they discovered that the items that were still well-preserved were either spirit tools or magic tools.

All of these corpses no longer had any meat left on them—they were nothing but dry bones. The bones were still very white, even rather transparent. Obviously, it hadn’t been too long since they died. Maybe these were cultivators who died the last time Demonic Mountain opened. None of them had any Qiankun Bags. Normally, things like Qiankun Bags wouldn’t decay even if several thousand years passed, so it seemed they must’ve been taken by other cultivators.

Daoist Kumu stopped and looked around. He then asked Tong Tianyun: “Is this the place we passed through last time?”

Mo Tiange also turned to scan her surroundings. Their surroundings just consisted of rocks with some weeds growing sporadically. She really couldn’t tell the difference between this scene and the previous scene.

Tong Tianyun was probably thinking the same as her. After looking all around for a moment, he said, “I can’t tell.”

Thus, one after another, everyone took out their maps, looking for their current location by comparing their surroundings with their maps.

Daoist Kumu said gales blew on Demonic Mountain from time to time, so whatever marks people left behind would be useless. They could only try to figure out their location based on their memories.

Mo Tiange looked around. Qin Xi had a very heavy expression. He gazed into the distance with a frown etched on his brows. Seeing this made Mo Tiange feel rather uncertain. Although she knew Qin Xi wouldn’t necessarily answer, she still asked under her breath: “Senior Martial Brother Shoujing, what’s wrong?”

Qin Xi didn’t answer. It was only a long time later that he finally withdrew his gaze and said faintly, “This time, I’m afraid the restrictions on Demonic Mountain aren’t stable.”

Shocked, Mo Tiange gazed in the direction he looked in a moment ago.

Qin Xi continued on: “Take a look at the sky. If the spiritual aura and devil aura were balanced, there wouldn’t be lightning.”

Mo Tiange squinted, doing her best to look into the distance. In the horizon, there was a mass of extremely bright white light which flashed from time to time. It looked just like lightning.

This time, they weren’t speaking telepathically, so everyone else heard them. Daoist Kumu and Tong Tianyun also directed their eyes towards that distant spot. Their expressions grew graver as time passed.

After watching for a while, Daoist Kumu sighed and said, “Fellow Daoist Shoujing’s right. Last time, our situation could already be considered very dangerous. Our journey on Demonic Mountain also doesn’t seem simple this time. In the event a big, unstable restriction ruptures, we might all be buried inside.”

The possibility he spoke of was too grave. None of them had even a sliver of a smile on their faces now. Even Jing Xingzhi wrinkled his brows, saying: “Could this still be more dangerous than our situation last time?”

Tong Tianyun smiled. “We withdrew on time last time, but what about this time? It hasn’t been easy for us to finally encounter a disappearance of the Demonic Mountain restrictions again; I presume you also won’t give this opportunity up either, right?”

Jing Xingzhi didn’t answer. With a gloomy expression, he turned to gaze at the lightning in the horizon, then his gaze moved around the rest of the group.

He was obviously assessing the group’s strengths. The first one he excluded was precisely Mo Tiange. Then his gaze swept past Madam Feng and Lei Dongqing, eventually falling on Qin Xi, Daoist Kumu, and Tong Tianyun. The first one he looked at was Qin Xi, but when he caught sight of Mo Tiange standing next to Qin Xi, he sighed inaudibly. He then looked at the two Daoists, but in the end, he still shook his head, seemingly giving up.

Jing Xingzhi withdrew his gaze, but right after he shifted his line of sight, he caught Mo Tiange staring unblinkingly at him. A hint of surprise flitted across his face, but he soon smiled and winked his flirtatious eyes at her.

Mo Tiange ignored his flirting and moved her line of sight.

The seven of them were really quite interesting. Jing Xingzhi’s tiny actions obviously meant he was looking for partners. Unfortunately, he got nothing.

Mo Tiange’s strength wasn’t enough. As for Madam Feng and Lei Dongqing, maybe he felt they were unsuitable because of their temperaments and so on. Qin Xi, who was taking Mo Tiange along, was also ruled out from his options. However, the fact that Jing Xingzhi also ruled out Daoist Kumu and Tong Tianyun really surprised her. Daoist Kumu and Tong Tianyun had both the strength and the experience. No matter the aspect, they ought to be the most appropriate candidates, so why did Jing Xingzhi look like that in the end?

Although Mo Tiange’s experience in handling matters was far less than Daoist Kumu and the others, she’d handled quite a lot related to guessing matters of the heart ever since she was a child, and she’d also encountered a lot of people. Even if her conjecture wasn’t completely right, it should be close to the mark. Besides, even though Jing Xingzhi was a bit scheming, it was impossible for him to completely not understand these principles.

Not to mention Jing Xingzhi, but even Madam Feng and Lei Dongqing also quieted down upon entering Demonic Mountain. Although it hadn’t been long since they’d been acquainted, Mo Tiange still felt their behavior was rather unusual. Could it be that what they experienced last time was too terrifying? This wasn’t impossible. Judging from what Qin Xi said up till this point, luckily they retreated early last time. Otherwise, they’d have also been buried on Demonic Mountain. Since the matter was important, it was only normal that their expressions looked solemn.

Last was Daoist Kumu and Tong Tianyun. These two people were very strange. According to Qin Xi’s theory, they wanted a ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plant perhaps because they wanted to exchange it with a certain Nascent Soul cultivator, and the timing was just before their trip to Demonic Mountain. It sounded like the spiritual plant was prepared specifically for this trip. Of course, this was nothing but a guess. Mo Tiange also didn’t dare to be certain of this. The only thing she could be certain of was that these five people weren’t simple.

When they arrived in Kunzhong City and met these people, Qin Xi once said they were quite trustworthy, but their characters were a bit odd. Without taking their characters into consideration, they were quite trustworthy… In other words, disregarding significant benefits that might trigger them, these people were trustworthy companions. However, if there were significant benefits present, a falling out was also very likely.

Once her thoughts reached this point, she cautiously looked at everyone again, attentively examining their expressions and movements.

During this short period, they had already finished discussing the next step to take. No matter where they wanted to go in the end, they eventually had to climb halfway up the mountain, because the upper half of Demonic Mountain was the real treasure-seeking destination for Core Formation and Nascent Soul cultivators.

As for the routes and so on, they’d long discussed them. Now that they already had an agreement, the seven people were once again on the move.

Demonic Mountain was extremely tall, and the air above it was full of restrictions and spiritual aura traps. In this kind of environment, flying was obviously not an option. No matter what cultivation level they had, every cultivator had to proceed ahead on foot cautiously. Furthermore, Demonic Mountain was incredibly huge, and the landscape also didn’t have a single tiny reference point—before long, they couldn’t see anyone else around them. They could only vaguely sense other cultivators’ spiritual aura fluctuations on the periphery of their divine sense ranges.

“Wait,” Tong Tianyun suddenly said.

The group of people stopped and looked at him.

Tong Tianyun closed his eyes, apparently spreading his divine sense. In response, Mo Tiange also focused herself to examine the area. As soon as she did, however, a wrinkle formed on her brows.

Upon seeing the change in her expression, Qin Xi asked in a whisper: “What’s wrong?”

Mo Tiange didn’t answer him straight away. Instead, she looked at Tong Tianyun, who had now opened his eyes.

Tong Tianyun said, “There’s an extremely violent spiritual aura fluctuation in the vicinity, but I don’t know whether it’s because some kind of unique treasure has appeared or whether it’s some restriction rupturing.”

Spiritual aura… was the foundation of cultivating and fights of magical power. Whether it was restrictions or unique treasures, both were inseparable from spiritual aura. Restrictions were extremely dangerous, but unique treasures, on the other hand, were the top priority of the people who entered Demonic Mountain. One was heaven, and one was earth; everything depended on what they chose.

In a split second, everyone already made their choice; no one drew back. Since they’d entered Demonic Mountain, this could be the greatest fated chance they’d been searching for. How could they be unwilling to take the risk?

Tong Tianyun wasn’t surprised by everyone’s choice. After taking a moment to determine the direction, he said, “This way.”

This time, they no longer walked. They flew closely together instead. Since they’d come across this kind of matter, they naturally had to act faster than others in the vicinity. It wasn’t worth the risk to walk slowly just to end up having others seize that opportunity.

After they entered Demonic Mountain, Mo Tiange no longer tried to keep a low profile to hide her weaknesses. She flew high in the air, holding the White Silk Handkerchief in her hand. The speed of the Cloud-Treading Boots didn’t lose out to the others at all. In fact, they made Daoist Kumu take several glances at her in amazement.

“Senior Martial Brother Shoujing.”

Mo Tiange’s voice rang in Qin Xi’s ears. He whispered back, “What’s wrong? Did you discover something?”

Mo Tiange said with uncertainty, “The spiritual auras over there are very unstable. It’s like there are many strands of them.”

Qin Xi was stunned. He took a glance at her then nodded gently. “I know. You should pay a bit more attention.”

Although Tong Tianyun had the strongest divine sense among them, Qin Xi was, after all, a peak stage Core Formation cultivator, so his divine sense wasn’t much weaker than Tong Tianyun. Just now, he also sensed that spiritual aura, but he didn’t sense it as clearly as Mo Tiange did. This was no longer a matter of whether one’s divine sense was strong or not. Rather, this was a matter of one’s subtle control over their divine sense.

As expected, the Soul-Refining Art was indeed powerful. Although the early stage of the Core Formation realm and the peak stage of the Core Formation ream were both in the Core Formation realm, the strength they each possessed differed greatly. Nevertheless, Mo Tiange, who’d just formed her Gold Core, surprisingly had a more sensitive divine sense than him.

The group of people forged ahead at an extremely high speed. All of a sudden, a soft “zing” rang out followed by Madam Feng’s scream.

Six people stopped and turned to look at her.

Madam Feng was holding her arm, which was already drenched in blood. With a pale face, she said, “I ran into a drifting restriction.”

The others immediately understood. Restrictions came in many sizes. The large ones could look like the lightning on the horizon, while the small ones could be the size of a grain of dust and were very hard to see. But this kind of drifting, tiny restriction was very rare. Madam Feng was really unlucky. Fortunately, it was only a small wound.

From his lapel, Lei Dongqing took out a jade bottle and tossed it to her. “Endure it for a while. There’s not much time; we have to go faster.”

Madam Feng nodded then opened the jade bottle and smeared the powder-shaped thing inside it on her wound before throwing the jade bottle back to Lei Dongqing. She then fumbled for a medicinal pill, took it then tidied up her clothing. “Let’s go.”

Since they were adventuring, men and women were treated equally. The men didn’t have any compassion towards her just because she was a woman, so they immediately proceeded with haste.

Even though they had to travel several thousand kilometers, they arrived at their destination very quickly. When everyone saw the things lying on the ground, amazement flitted on their faces.

It was actually a boat. It wasn’t like Tong Tianyun’s flying small boat. Rather, it was an extremely gorgeous pleasure boat with many carvings and decorations. This boat was already very dilapidated and lost its bright colors. However, its body was still in very good condition. The spiritual aura fluctuations they felt back then emitted from inside it.

Seven people stopped before the ship, but none of them stepped forward.

They knew well what kind of place Demonic Mountain was. This was a battlefield—how could there be a ship here?

After watching the ship for a while, Daoist Kumu frowned and said, “Fellow Daoists, can you tell what this is?”

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