Rooting Out the Demonic Scourge (Please Bookmark, Please Vote)

By the time his spiritual power had recovered, it was already early the next morning.

He opened his eyes, absorbed the First Sun Power for a while, then hurried up to the mountaintop.

Seeing that the six mu of Spirit Fields atop the mountain had suffered no great harm despite not being watered yesterday, he finally relaxed.

After casting Spirit Rain over each of the six mu of Spirit Fields, pulling out the weeds throughout them, and burning them all, he returned to the cave halfway up the mountain and plunged back into his busy routine.

Studying the sword formation, studying the Lingxiao Ripening Technique, studying spells... refining Azure Bamboo Swords, and all manner of other trifling matters still awaited him.

As for the time spent washing away the spiritual sense imprints within the four Storage Bags, he had squeezed it out of his nightly cultivation hours.

With Shen Hu and the demonic cultivator both dead, the spiritual sense imprints inside those four Storage Bags were like rootless duckweed, with no power to sustain them. After half a month of Ling Pengyun's spiritual sense scouring, he finally opened all four Storage Bags.

Shen Hu was quite the pauper. Of the two Storage Bags that belonged to him, one was filled entirely with clothes and miscellaneous junk.

The other Storage Bag held only sixteen spirit stones, three Qi Refining Pills, one Yellow Sprout Pill, one bottle of Qi Recovery Powder, and the first six levels of the common "Golden Spirit Art."

Other than those, there was nothing else.

The demonic cultivator's two Storage Bags had somewhat greater value, but they contained only demonic pills, Soul Gathering Bottles for storing souls, and other items used by demonic cultivators. There were only thirty-five spirit stones.

"Shen Hu and that demonic cultivator together had only fifty-one spirit stones. Thankfully, Shen Hu's Golden Flying Sword and Armor Piercing Needle are both decent. Otherwise, this time would have been a huge loss."

Ling Pengyun frowned as he looked at everything he had summoned from the four Storage Bags, muttering to himself.

In the battle half a month ago, he had used up seven Water Shield Talismans, five Fire Arrow Talismans, and one superior-grade Flame Blade Talisman.

The seven Water Shield Talismans were worth thirty-five spirit stones, while five Water Arrow Talismans were worth fifteen spirit stones.

As for that superior-grade Flame Blade Talisman, its power was formidable. On the market, it was worth at least twice as much as an ordinary Fire Arrow Talisman, selling for no less than thirty spirit stones. Though Ling Pengyun had not bought it himself, using it was still a loss.

Combined, the three types of spirit talismans expended in that battle were worth a full eighty spirit stones.

Shen Hu's Golden Flying Sword was a First Grade Middle Rank Magic Tool. Though secondhand, it was still worth at least seventy or eighty spirit stones.

The Armor Piercing Needle had a peculiar effect and was likely worth ninety to a hundred spirit stones. Added to the sixty-one spirit stones obtained and several bottles of pills, the haul was worth at least two hundred and fifty or sixty spirit stones.

Such gains meant that Ling Pengyun's life-risking battle had not been in vain.

As for Shen Hu's copy of the "Golden Spirit Art," it was common stock. Unless he found someone who had just stepped onto the path of immortality to swindle, it could not be sold at all.

The cultivation resources in the demonic cultivator's Storage Bags, such as the demonic pills, were burned clean in a single blaze by Ling Pengyun. However, he kept the containers used to store souls. Souls did not belong to humans alone—demonic beasts had them as well.

Righteous Path Cultivators also often needed Soul Gathering Bottles to store the souls of demonic beasts.

Now that the matter of the four Storage Bags had been resolved, Ling Pengyun could spare time to refine the Armor Piercing Needle.

During the half month Ling Pengyun spent using his spiritual sense to scour away the spiritual sense imprints within the four Storage Bags, a campaign to exterminate demons swept through Peaceful An County, where the Cloud Mist Wen Clan resided.

From mortal villages to the desolate lands within Peaceful An County, the more than twenty Wen Clan members stationed there searched every corner. They found over twenty Middle and Late-Stage Qi Training demonic cultivators hidden in mortal villages, towns, and remote mountains throughout Peaceful An County.

Had the more than twenty Wen Clan members searching for demonic cultivators not been led by the Foundation Establishment expert, Wen Clan Head Wen Xianyun, their losses would surely have been immense.

Though the more than twenty demonic cultivators had been slain, such a number of them still left the Wen Clan members deeply shocked.

They had never imagined that so many powerful demonic cultivators had been hiding within their own territory.

Had one demonic cultivator not caused trouble this time, they would likely have remained completely unaware.

This strange development also aroused the Wen Clan members' suspicions. After the Wen Clan higher-ups interrogated a captured Qi Training Completion demonic cultivator, they learned news extremely unfavorable to the Wen Clan.

At the summit of Cloud Mist Mountain, the Wen Clan's ancestral mountain, inside the Wen Clan Council Hall.

The three elders and the Clan Head currently within the clan were all gathered there.

Wen Xianyun, the Wen Clan Head seated at the head of the long table in the Council Hall, wore an incomparably grim expression. After several breaths, he began to explain in detail.

"Because of Nian Qing, we learned in advance that Old Devil Li, who had been causing havoc in Cloudwater County, intended to strike against our Wen Clan. He plans to use fifty-three Wen Clan cultivators and sixty thousand mortals to refine a demonic artifact. In a sense, that is fortunate."

"Old Devil Li is a disciple of the Ghost Shadow Sect, one of the five great Nascent Soul Great Sects of the demonic path. His methods are endless, and his cultivation has reached Late-Stage Foundation Establishment. Many demonic cultivators have also pledged themselves to him."

"Whether it is Old Devil Li's own strength or the demonic cultivators under his command, neither is something our Wen Clan can withstand by our strength alone."

"In the current situation, only one path to survival remains for our Wen Clan... seeking aid."

"Indeed, only that path remains. Now we can only see whether the other four great clans of Huai River County will help us this time." Wen Ruofei, the Wen Clan's Grand Elder, sighed helplessly.

Wen Xianyun spoke with absolute firmness, snorting angrily. "If they refuse, their clans will be the next to perish. Once Old Devil Li uses the souls of our Wen Clan cultivators and tens of thousands of mortal clansmen to refine his demonic artifact, his strength will surely soar. At that point, how could those clans possibly withstand Old Devil Li?"

"If our Cloud Mist Wen Clan were not the weakest clan in Huai River County, how would we be bullied like this? The other four Foundation Establishment families of Huai River County bully our Wen Clan, and now even demonic cultivators bully our Wen Clan."

"One day, I will make all of you pay the price."

Half a month later, the Cloud Mist Wen Clan led a grand battle to exterminate demons.

For secrecy, and to achieve the effect of a sudden attack in this clan-destroying battle, each of the Five Great Clans of Huai River County sent one Foundation Establishment expert, for a total of five Foundation Establishment Cultivators. Following the guidance of the Qi Training Completion demonic cultivator captured by the Wen Clan, they found Old Devil Li and his hundred or so demonic cultivator subordinates hidden within a desolate mountain range at the border of Huai River County.

The battle swiftly began. Even with three Early-Stage Foundation Establishment cultivators, one Middle-Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, and one Late-Stage Foundation Establishment expert from the Five Great Clans attacking Old Devil Li together, they found it difficult to kill him. They only managed to grievously wound him, sending him fleeing in a miserable state.

However, of the hundred or so Qi Training demonic cultivators under Old Devil Li's command, nearly ninety percent were slain by the five Foundation Establishment experts once they were free to act. That was at least a fortunate outcome.

With his wings clipped and grievous injuries upon him, Old Devil Li would be unable to strike against the newly established Five Great Foundation Establishment Clans of Huai River County, whose strength and foundations were still weak, for at least several decades.

This was precisely the outcome the Five Great Clans, whose Foundation Establishment lineages had only recently been established and whose roots were still unsteady, wished to see.