Spirit-Devouring Beast

Because Jiang Youfu made a point of bringing him a portion of food every day, he never knocked on the door and disturbed him.

Still, whenever the food container appeared outside the door, it would inevitably vanish before long.

Then, at some unknown point, it would reappear outside the door.

Only, whenever it reappeared after disappearing, everything inside would be gone—not even a few drops of oil remained.

Everyone in the Lingxian Sect was left with the illusion that Lin Xiao had gone into seclusion again.

The only difference was that this time, Lin Xiao’s seclusion came with meal service.

While everyone in the Lingxian Sect, from top to bottom, was so busy that they barely had time to set their feet down, far away, on the road linking the cultivation world to the mortal world, a group of people was being ambushed by a pack of spirit-devouring beasts.

The spirit-devouring beasts varied greatly in both size and shape. Some were large, standing ten meters tall, while the smaller ones were no bigger than ordinary wolfhounds.

Their forms were also wildly irregular and inconsistent. Some were round, some flat, and all of them were pitch-black, with viscous liquid dripping from their bodies.

They looked utterly disgusting.

The beasts opened and closed their enormous mouths at the group of people surrounded in their midst, hissing incessantly. Black, sticky strands of liquid stretched between their teeth.

A foul, dark stench erupted from their mouths, making the surrounded people dizzy in waves.

There were ten people in the group, and every one of them possessed cultivation.

The weakest among them was only at the early Golden Core stage, while the strongest had already reached the great circle of the Nascent Soul stage.

Even so, the ten of them were at a loss against the pack of spirit-devouring beasts.

It was not that the spirit-devouring beasts were particularly powerful.

In fact, they were merely a type of low-level demon beast with no intelligence. If there were only one, even a Foundation Establishment cultivator would have more than enough ability to deal with it.

Not to mention that this group had a cultivator at the great circle of the Nascent Soul stage.

But as the saying went, even the cleverest housewife could not cook without rice.

At present, nearly all the cultivators had very little spiritual energy left in their bodies.

The spiritual energy they had remaining was not enough to wipe out the enormous number of spirit-devouring beasts surrounding them.

Perhaps some of them actually had enough spiritual energy.

For example, the Nascent Soul grand completion cultivator.

His name was Yao Yuchang, and he was the Second Elder of Three Phases Peak in the Frostveil Sect of the Profound Extremity Domain.

This time, he was responsible for leading the team to the mortal world to investigate the Jishi incident that had occurred at the Northern and Southern Domains’ Talisman Master Tournament three years ago.

The ten cultivators making this journey to the mortal world all came from major sects in several great spiritual domains.

After all, the matter involved the Jishi. Small sects had no say in the matter, while the major sects did not trust them enough to hand over the investigation.

However, because the level of cultivation in the mortal world was too low, the major sects all felt there was no need to send out elders at the Deity Transformation or Void Refinement stages.

Instead, they dispatched a few trusted individuals who held some status and authority within their sects, but whose cultivation was comparatively lower.

None of the ten had ever been to the mortal world, and everything they knew about it had been gathered only recently.

That was because the regions they came from were different from the Northern and Southern Domains. The Northern and Southern Domains directly bordered the road leading to the mortal world.

From time to time, a few cultivators who had achieved a certain level of cultivation and successfully traveled from the mortal world to the cultivation world would appear there.

As a result, the Northern and Southern Domains knew somewhat more about the mortal world.

For other regions, information could basically only be obtained through Wanwantong’s intelligence channels.

But clearly, no cultivator in the cultivation world would be bored enough to learn about affairs in the mortal world.

Thus, the ten had originally assumed that traveling to the mortal world would be a simple matter.

Of course, they had not failed to make preparations.

They had all spent several hundred spirit stones with Wanwantong to learn the direction in which the mortal world lay, as well as the fact that there was no spiritual energy along the road leading there.

They simply assumed that “no spiritual energy” meant that spiritual energy was scarce and thin.

They had never imagined that it would actually be a completely spiritless land!

And that it would also contain huge numbers of spirit-devouring beasts that hated spiritual energy!

The moment these beasts caught the scent of spiritual energy, they would swarm toward it and devour it all, returning their living environment to its original state of having no spiritual energy.

Thus, the ten cultivators now found themselves in a situation where the little spiritual energy remaining in their bodies would diminish with every use.

Along the way, they had gone from recklessly wasting their spiritual energy at the beginning to carefully calculating every expenditure later on.

The Spirit-Gathering Pills they had brought with them were running low.

But who knew how much farther the road ahead stretched?

Given the present circumstances, none of them dared to use any more of their spiritual energy than absolutely necessary.

After all, they not only had to guard against the spirit-devouring beasts, but also against the other nine members of their own team.

However, the spirit-devouring beasts steadily closing in around them were clearly growing restless. It seemed they were about to launch an attack on the group of cultivators.

With the situation growing urgent, Yao Yuchang glanced over the other nine people before fixing his gaze on the youngest cultivator among them—the one with the lowest cultivation, at the early Golden Core stage.

He spoke up, “This whole matter began with your Talisman Sect. Now that everyone has almost exhausted their spiritual energy, we need to conserve what remains for self-defense. As a disciple of the Talisman Sect, shouldn’t you step forward and think of a solution?”

He Yi, the one who had been singled out, swept his handsome features over Yao Yuchang with an expression of utter indifference.

He let out an almost imperceptible snort, as if mocking him, but no one heard it clearly before it vanished. Then everyone heard him say, “All right. Since Grand Elder Yao has spoken, how could a humble Golden Core disciple of the Talisman Sect dare disobey?”

As he spoke, he raised a hand and swept it through the air. Talisman papers shimmering with golden light floated out one after another, released with elegant, effortless movements.

The talismans were clearly high-grade, yet He Yi sent them flying as if they cost nothing. In the blink of an eye, they had attached themselves to the foreheads of every spirit-devouring beast.

Then He Yi lightly snapped his fingers.

Before the spirit-devouring beasts could react, all the talismans detonated in an instant!

For a moment, dust billowed into the sky.

The soil and stones on the ground were blasted in every direction.

The viscous, pitch-black bodies of the spirit-devouring beasts were blown apart.

The impact of the violent explosions was immense, forcing the other nine cultivators to circulate their spiritual energy to protect themselves.

Several cultivators who reacted a little too slowly were caught off guard and splashed in the face by the liquid from the exploding bodies of the spirit-devouring beasts.

“He Yi! You did that on purpose!”

Someone shouted furiously.

“Did you really need to use so many high-grade explosive flame talismans to kill these spirit-devouring beasts?”

Others said nothing, but they were all grumbling inwardly: Having money doesn’t mean you can waste it like this. They say people from the Talisman Sect are idiots with too much money. It looks like it’s true!

He Yi raised an eyebrow and looked at them with an innocent expression.

“Sorry about that, everyone. These explosive flame talismans are all I have on me.”

Yao Yuchang shot He Yi a sideways glance, full of disdain for this Talisman Sect genius.

Bah!

What prodigy?

He was nothing more than someone from the wealthy Talisman Sect, whose talent had been piled up with spirit stones.

A false prodigy who merely relied on having a sect master for a father and actually believed that he possessed extraordinary potential.

But they had already been traveling for a year. He could not afford to waste any more time on the road. He still had to hurry to the mortal world, complete the investigation, and return to the sect as soon as possible.