Chapter 99: The Hunter and the Prey
Thousands of feet in the sky, Li Yu’s spirit boat was flying quickly.
From time to time, one or two spirit boats would fly past his spirit boat and then disappear into the clouds ahead.
That was a spirit boat controlled by the sect's foundation-building elders. Kunlun Sect and Tiandao Sect offered a total bounty of sixty Tongmai Pills, which could be obtained only by killing Zhou Tian. No one knew how many people wanted it. If you went earlier, you could naturally seize the opportunity.
Li Yu could only watch others surpass him and could do nothing about it.
It's not that his spirit boat is not good enough, but the maximum speed of the spirit boat is related to the mana of the operator. Although the amount of Li Yu's mana is not much weaker than that of the Foundation Establishment Period, the mana of the Qi Refining Period exists in the spirit veins in a gaseous state. The mana of the Foundation Establishment Period has been compressed to the extreme and has long been in liquid form. It is more condensed than his mana and has a stronger burst.
After he has opened up the 72 acupoints of each spiritual vein, he can try to compress the magic power and make preparations before building the foundation.
With the speed of the spirit boat, they arrived at the smoky and miasmatic area of Nanzhao half a day later.
This was not the first time Li Yu came here, but last time he only wanted to kill the disciples of the Five Poison Sect and did not go too deep. This time, he drove the spirit boat, flying at an altitude of hundreds of feet, going deeper and deeper. Soon, he saw a crack that stretched for several miles deep in a mountain range in the miasma land.
Thick smoke and miasma poured out from the crack and flowed towards the nearby mountains. Inside the crack was the Thousand Poison Cave, which was also the cause of the smoke and miasma in Nanzhao.
Nanzhao a thousand years ago was actually not like this.
At that time, there was still a country here, but one day, a small and independent world was suddenly connected to the big world, and it happened to border Nanzhao. The smoke and poisonous gas of the small world poured into the big world from the space interface. Ordinary people and low-level cultivators of Nanzhao died in a short period of time, and high-level cultivators left here one after another, making this place completely uninhabited within a thousand years.
However, today, the space crack in the Thousand Poison Cave is very lively.
Spirit boats and flying ships were parked outside the rift. From time to time, figures passed through the rift and entered the Thousand Poison Cave. Other figures were waiting outside. They all exuded the aura of the Foundation Establishment Period.
Nanzhao is a land of smoke and miasma that belongs to neither the righteous nor the evil ways, and it is a hive of good and bad people. The elders from the big sects are naturally worried about them coming alone, so they will send some foundation-building elders to accompany them for protection.
Those who are eyeing Zhou Tian’s head are not only those on the righteous side, but also those on the evil side.
After all, the Tiandao Sect has announced that whoever can kill Zhou Tian will be rewarded with fifty Tongmai Pills.
The Thousand Poison Cave is different from the ordinary first-level secret realms. The connection with the big world stretches for several miles, and the space is extremely stable. Except for those in the Foundation Establishment Stage, any number of disciples in the Qi Refining Stage can enter. This time, all the major sects intend to use this opportunity to train their disciples.
Outside the crack, the strong men of both the righteous and evil paths formed two distinct factions, and were wary of each other.
Li Yu collected the spirit boat from afar and flew all the way here. Without joining up with other disciples of Kunlun, he flew into the space crack alone.
After passing through the space crack, before he could see the situation clearly, a light flashed slightly on Li Yu's protective fairy clothes, and a protective shield automatically formed outside his body.
The wisps of smoke in the space came into contact with the invisible shield, and Li Yu could clearly feel that the shield was gradually being corroded and weakened.
At this rate, the spiritual energy automatically stored in this second-grade immortal robe will be used up in no more than an hour.
If it is in a place with sufficient spiritual energy, it can extend its usage time by absorbing the spiritual energy from the surrounding space, but the spiritual energy here is very thin, and the fairy clothes cannot replenish spiritual energy from the outside world. After the spiritual energy is exhausted, Li Yu's magic power will be needed.
The poisonous smoke also blocked the vision. Li Yu could vaguely see within ten feet, but beyond ten feet, he could hardly see anything.
Li Yu is now in a dense jungle. The surrounding flowers, plants and trees are very lush and the colors are extremely bright. They look poisonous at first glance.
Before Li Yu took a step, he suddenly heard the sound of breaking wind.
call out!
A strong wind shot out from behind him at an extremely fast speed. Li Yu's internal energy surged under his feet, and his body flexibly moved sideways several inches. Then a stream of black liquid fell on the place where he had just stood.
Sizzle...
The liquid fell on the ground and instantly burned a big hole in the ground. It not only corroded some flowers and plants on the ground, but even melted the two stones on the spot. It can be seen that the corrosive power of the venom is very strong.
If that venom directly fell on an unprotected Qi Refining cultivator, their physical body would probably be destroyed instantly.
Li Yu turned around and saw two fist-sized red lights in the fog behind him, staring at him.
He used the Qi-forcing technique, and although the fog was still there, there was a long energy trail in the fog. It was obvious that there was a demon python on the opposite side, and from its aura, it seemed that there were fluctuations of magical power above the seventh level of Qi Refining.
The skin and blood of this demon python are both materials for making talismans. If it were in other secret realms, it would have been beaten to death by disciples from various sects who had reached the ninth level of Qi Refining. Only in the dangerous Thousand Poison Cave would it be hunted by anyone.
Facing this restless demon python, Li Yu simply released some of the aura of the 40th level of Qi Refining, and the demon python in the mist trembled and disappeared in a flash.
Having reached the seventh level of Qi Refining, it has already acquired a certain level of intelligence and knows that the person in front of it is not someone it can afford to offend.
Li Yu did not do anything to the demon python. Firstly, it was to save his mana. Secondly, he had no shortage of spirit coins. If he killed the demon python, he would have to skin it and take its blood just to exchange for a few spirit coins. It would also pollute his storage ring, which he could not accept.
After the python escaped, Li Yu just took a step forward when a giant tree next to him suddenly shook. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was not a giant tree, but a giant man-eating plant. The thick trunk was just its rhizome, and a huge and amazing flower on the top opened its bloody mouth and swallowed Li Yu in an instant.
And on the ground at its roots, there were a lot of bones piled up, which were the prey it had swallowed.
After the flower closed, it shook a few times and then rose again, continuing to wait for its next prey.
But the next moment, several sword lights suddenly appeared from the inside of the flower, and the huge flower instantly broke into pieces. The carnivorous plant also shook and fell heavily to the ground.
Li Yu fell to the ground. Fortunately, he was protected by the fairy clothes. Although the carnivorous plant could not hurt him, if he was exposed to the disgusting venom, he would definitely chop this stupid flower into a hundred pieces.
Putting away the sword, Li Yu continued to walk deeper into the poisonous fog.
No wonder so few people come to the Thousand Poison Cave. Compared with Xu Ling Cave and Qing Yu Secret Realm, this place is full of murderous intentions. Even a cultivator of the ninth level of Qi Refining will die here if he is not careful. Li Yu was worried that Zhou Tian of the Soul Refining Sect might be in the stomach of a monster or had been digested by a man-eating plant.
After Li Yu left, some small flowers quietly poked their heads out from the ground, devoured the giant man-eating plant that had just fallen, and quietly burrowed into the ground again...
At this time, fierce battles were taking place in various places in the Thousand Poison Cave.
Several giant pythons several meters long wrapped their bodies around the tree and madly spewed poisonous mist at the two people in the woods below. Although the fairy clothes on the two people could temporarily block the erosion of the poisonous gas, the light on them was constantly dimming, and it was obvious that they could not last long.
A tall man frowned, and with a "clang" sound, a flying sword behind him was unsheathed, and several sword shadows were separated. The next moment, the corpses of several demon pythons separated and fell to the ground weakly.
The flying sword automatically returned to its sheath. The two Shushan disciples ignored the python corpses on the ground and continued searching deeper into the fog.
Ten miles away, four disciples of Tiandao Sect with the mark of Bagua on their chests had their immortal robes glowing with light, and the magic weapons in their hands were also shining brightly. Even though they had accidentally entered the forest of carnivorous plants, they did not show any sign of being nervous. After a moment, they had killed dozens of carnivorous plants.
"Where did that guy from the Soul Refining Sect hide?"
"Take your time to search. The elders said that it's best not to let the monster fall into the hands of others."
"With his strength, he must have been eaten by the poisonous creatures here a long time ago. If he encounters a group of carnivorous plants, we won't even be able to find his body..."
The four Tiandao Sect disciples continued searching while communicating with each other.
In another direction, three girls who looked exactly the same, led by two older girls, were groping in the mist little by little. One of the girls suddenly asked, "Do you think Senior Brother Li will come here?"
Another girl asked, "It's only been a few days since I last saw Senior Brother Li, and you want to see him again?"
The young girl said, "I am asking this on behalf of my sister. If I were my sister, I would have been Senior Brother Li's dual cultivation partner a long time ago. But she is so reserved that she has missed out on all the good things..."
…
Somewhere in the Thousand Poison Cave, Li Yu looked at the three corpses on the ground with a suspicious look on his face.
Judging from the clothes the three people were wearing, they should be disciples of the Five Poison Sect of the evil sect. They died about three days ago. Three days ago, the disciples from various sects had not yet arrived in large numbers. So these three people were most likely the three disciples of the Five Poison Sect who entered here to hunt down Zhou Tian.
Li Yu used the Qi-gazing technique to check and found that although the three of them were cultivating a single spiritual vein, many of the acupoints in the spiritual veins were opened up, and they had all reached the eighth level of Qi Refining. Even if they met someone at the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining, they could still fight with him and would not necessarily suffer a loss.
Logically speaking, with a combination like theirs, there shouldn't be any accidents in the Thousand Poison Cave.
The Five Poison Sect is good at using poison. They have been using various poisons to temper their bodies since they started practicing. They themselves are poisonous creatures. The miasma and poisonous gas here do not have such a big impact on them, but even so, they still died here.
What’s even more strange is that Li Yu didn’t find any wounds on their bodies.
This shows that they did not die from the monsters here, nor did they die in a fight with humans. Judging from the appearance of the three people, it can be seen that they died peacefully.
Li Yu could not think of any other way to die peacefully except the Soul Refining Sect's method.
After all, cultivators of both the righteous and evil paths mostly rely on physical and magical damage. Once they die in a fight, it is difficult to leave an intact corpse.
Only the Soul Refining Sect took a different approach, raising ghost spirits that specialized in attacking people's souls. People who died at the hands of the Soul Refining Sect seemed to have no external injuries, but in fact they had long since become soulless bodies.
But three days ago, Zhou Tian was chased into the Thousand Poison Cave. Unless there were disciples of the Soul Refining Sect lying in ambush there, as far as Li Yu knew, many disciples of the Soul Refining Sect could not resist the temptation of the fifty Tongmai Pills and wanted to take Zhou Tian's head.
Just as Li Yu was wondering, the fog in front of him suddenly began to fluctuate.
Three figures walked out of the fog. Seeing a figure in the fog ahead, they immediately dispersed and surrounded Li Yu from three directions.
However, when they saw the faces of the people surrounding them, their expressions suddenly changed, as if they had seen something extremely terrifying.
"Not Zhou Tian!"
"It's him!"
…
Li Yu was not unfamiliar with the three people who emerged from the fog. They were the three geniuses of the Soul Refining Sect that he captured in the Qingyu Secret Realm.
I don’t know what kind of agreement the Soul Refining Sect and Emei reached, but Li Yu saw them here again.
Xu Yi and the other two were also terrified at this moment. They thought it was Zhou Tian, but it turned out to be Li Yu. The three of them actually besieged Li Yu. Isn't this courting death?
Xu Yi shuddered all over and immediately said, "Misunderstanding, it's all misunderstanding!"
Li Yu looked at the three corpses of the Five Poison Sect disciples on the ground, then looked at the three people and asked, "Did you kill these three people?"
Xu Yi immediately shook his head and said, "No, no, we are here to arrest Zhou Tian, not to kill anyone..."
Li Yu was just asking casually. These three guys couldn't have two ghost spirits on them, so they couldn't occupy the bodies of three Five Poison Sect disciples at the same time. It was impossible for the three to die at their hands.
Li Yu asked again: "Zhou Tian is from your Soul Refining Sect, why did you arrest him?"
Xu Yi explained respectfully: "He violated the ban and massacred the city to gather the Ten Thousand Souls Formation. He has been expelled from the Soul Refining Sect. Several disciples of our sect were also killed by him. This time, the three of us were ordered to clean up the sect..."
"Besides you, is there anyone else from the Soul Refining Sect who came in?"
"No……"
…
Apart from these three people, there is only one disciple of the Soul Refining Sect in the Thousand Poison Cave.
That is Zhou Tian himself.
The three disciples of the Five Poison Sect had originally chased Zhou Tian here, but they did not expect to be killed by the other side. From the postures of the three when they died, it is not difficult to see that their souls must have been taken away in an instant. To achieve this, at least three spirit ghosts at the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining are needed.
It seems that everyone has seriously misjudged Zhou Tian’s strength.
If they only regarded Zhou Tian as an opponent at the fourth or fifth level of Qi Refining, then this time, many people would probably suffer.
After asking clearly what he wanted to know, Li Yu did not make things difficult for the three people from the Soul Refining Sect and waved his hand to let them go.
Although these three people are from the demon path, there is no evil aura on them. I think they are geniuses who have lived in the ivory tower of the sect since childhood. After all, he is not the kind of person who is easy to kill. When he sees the disciples of the demon path, he will kill them all.
He had to find the Kunlun disciples as soon as possible, otherwise, they might get into an accident.
After Xu Yi and the other two left, they were all a little bit unable to believe it.
"He really let us go?"
"I thought I was dead!"
"My legs are still shaking, and I don't have any spirits left. If he wants to kill us, none of us will be able to escape today..."
"There aren't many righteous disciples who are this kind. If I had met someone from the Heavenly Dao Sect, I would have been in danger of death today..."
"It would be great if he was really a disciple of our Soul Refining Sect. With a fellow disciple like him around, we would never have to endure the bullying from those guys from the Heavenly Dao Sect!"
…
Li Yu certainly had no idea what the three evil disciples were thinking. At this moment, he was continuing to search in the Thousand Poison Cave. Just to the north of him, thirty miles away, two disciples of the Puppet Sect were being chased by their spirit corpses.
The Puppet Sect is famous for controlling corpses. Originally, the spiritual corpses they sacrificed would never get out of control unless their bodies were occupied by more powerful ghosts. This was a fatal flaw in the Puppet Sect's corpse controlling technique. Therefore, in the magic world, the Puppet Sect was always suppressed by the Soul Refining Sect.
This time, they were also attracted by the bounty offered by the Tiandao Sect. The Tiandao Sect had made it clear that no matter whether they were disciples of the righteous path or the evil path, as long as they could kill Zhou Tian, they would be rewarded with fifty Tongmai Pills. How could the evil path disciples resist such temptation?
Compared with the righteous disciples, they lack the resources for cultivation. There are only a few people in the entire Puppet Sect who can refine the Tongmai Pill. The refined pills are all supplied to the disciples and descendants of the elders, and they can't get a single one.
Not to mention them, even the disciples of the Soul Refining Sect were coveting Zhou Tian's head.
The news they received was that Zhou Tian was just a small cultivator at the fourth level of Qi Refining. But when they actually met him, they found that Zhou Tian was not at the fourth level of Qi Refining at all, but at the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining. Not only that, several of his spirit ghosts were also at the ninth level of Qi Refining, and there were more than one of them. They instantly invaded the bodies of their spirit corpses and took control...
In an instant, the hunter became the prey. A dignified disciple of the Puppet Sect was hunted down by his own corpse.
While the two were distracted, two shadows suddenly flew out from the fog behind them at high speed and penetrated into their bodies.
The two men paused and stood there in a daze, with painful expressions on their faces, but soon their eyes lost focus and the expressions on their faces became calm.
Soon, four phantoms emerged from their bodies. Two of them looked exactly like the two Puppet Sect disciples, except that their expressions were dull and they had obviously lost their minds.
A young Taoist priest walked out from the mist behind, and several phantoms slowly flew over and sank into his body one after another.
He curled his lips in disdain and said calmly: "If you want to kill me, you can..."
After a moment.
Li Yu stood in a forest somewhere, looking at the bodies of the two Puppet Sect disciples on the ground, and fell into deep thought.
Two Puppet just died just like that. They had no external injuries on their bodies and their expressions were peaceful. It was obvious that their souls had left their bodies, just like the three Five Poison Sect disciples.
Their bodies were still warm and they had been dead for no more than an hour.
Obviously, they also fell victim to Zhou Tian's murder.
Li Yu also saw two lines of footprints on the ground nearby.
These two lines of footprints are very deep. Most people would not leave such footprints. They were obviously left by a spirit corpse. Generally speaking, the body of a spirit corpse would have undergone many sacrifices and would be much heavier than that of a normal person.
The bodies of the Puppet Sect's disciples were here, but their spirit corpses were missing. They should have been controlled by Zhou Tian. Li Yu continued searching forward along the footprints on the ground.
At the same time, in another part of the Thousand Poison Cave, a disciple from a small sect of the righteous path watched helplessly as two of his fellow disciples were sucked dry of blood by two spirit corpses. The corpses fell to the ground helplessly, and the two spirit corpses turned their eyes to him...
Li Yu followed the traces on the ground, his expression gradually becoming solemn.
Along the way, he found many corpses, some from the evil path, some from the righteous path. Among them were even two disciples of the Beast Taming Sect who were at the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining. At this moment, they had become two peaceful corpses.
This place has obviously become Zhou Tian's hunting ground.
Li Yu even suspected that this incident was just a play directed and acted by this person.
After all, Li Yu had experienced his insidiousness and cunningness deeply.
And twice.
Perhaps, he deliberately attracted everyone to come for the purpose of this hunt.
There was a fluctuation of magical power coming from the fog ahead. Li Yu didn't waste any time and hurried over.
At this time, somewhere in the Thousand Poison Cave, a young Taoist priest controlled several spirit corpses and countless spirit ghosts to attack a protective formation. He praised: "As expected of the Emei Sect, the immortal clothes can actually set up a formation. However, I wonder how long you can hold out..."
Not far ahead, the three Zhao sisters and two other Emei female practitioners were standing in five different positions. The protective fairy clothes they wore were glowing and connected to each other, forming a protective shield that temporarily prevented these evil creatures from entering the palace.
However, maintaining this formation consumes a huge amount of magic power. The spiritual energy stored in Xianyi itself had long been used up, and their magic power was almost consumed. Even with the recovery pills, the attacks of the spirit corpses and spirit ghosts were becoming more and more violent, and the formation would soon be unable to hold on.
This time they came here just for training, but they didn't expect that this demon disciple could actually control so many corpses and ghosts.
Even a Foundation Establishment Stage disciple cannot withstand this level of attack, let alone the first-level secret realm that cannot be entered by a Foundation Establishment Stage disciple. This person is simply invincible among the Qi Refining Stage disciples.
The formation formed by the immortal clothes was already crumbling, and the women in the formation all had expressions of despair on their faces.
However, at this moment, a bright sword light suddenly fell from the sky.
The sword energy was so powerful that several corpses were cut in half in an instant. Several weak ghosts were instantly killed by the sword. Only the powerful ghosts had sharp perceptions and their souls dispersed and condensed again, thus avoiding this shocking sword.
Inside the formation, the three girls turned around and saw the figure that fell from the sky. They immediately felt safe and said in surprise, "Senior Brother Li!"
Li Yu landed in front of the formation and looked at a figure not far ahead.
He was a young Taoist priest, who looked to be about twenty years old, with an ordinary appearance, not good-looking, but not ugly either. He looked exactly like the one on the sect's wanted poster.
It was Zhou Tian, a disciple of the Soul Refining Sect.
It was also a year ago that he was the culprit who plotted against them behind the scenes, causing Zhou Zixuan to be injured and Chen Ming to be possessed by a ghost twice.
