Black Feathered Python

By the water pool, aside from the few Song Family cultivators responsible for setting up the formation, everyone else had sustained injuries to varying degrees. They each chose a spot by the pool and slowly recovered using Healing Pills.

Song Qingming, First Elder Song Gubo, and Twelfth Aunt Song Changyun had not been injured. The three of them were collecting the remaining Demonic Beast Materials by the water pool.

In this battle, the Liu Family had also lost one cultivator. An elderly cultivator put away his clansman's body and was about to ask the clan head how to handle it when he realized that, after searching for a long while, he had not seen the clan head anywhere. The few Liu Family cultivators who knew what had happened hurriedly pulled the old man aside.

Like the Song Family, the Wu Family had been relatively fortunate. No cultivators had died; only one clansman had been seriously injured, while everyone else had suffered merely light wounds. Taking on this mission had earned them quite a bit. Clan Head Wu Xiyun was smiling as he urged the Wu Family members to hurry and collect the Demonic Beast Materials.

Du Shaokang, who led the Du Family, was not smiling as easily as Wu Xiyun. Although the Du Family cultivator who had died was not highly cultivated, he was a close junior relative of the Du Family's clan head. To think that he had fallen here through a moment of carelessness. Though so many clansmen present had witnessed it and could testify for him, their clan head happened to be the sort who shielded his own. Once they returned, he, as the leader of the group, would inevitably be blamed. At that thought, his tightly furrowed brows never relaxed.

The Liu Family's reward for this mission was generous. Each family received two hundred Spirit Stones, and with the Level 1 Demonic Beast Materials divided among the three families, each family also received materials worth roughly another hundred and fifty Spirit Stones. If no clansmen had died, this single trip would have equaled a year of the family's income.

High returns meant high risks. Apart from young cultivators like Song Qingming, who were leaving home for the first time, everyone else had long grown accustomed to such bloody battlefields.

Just as everyone was about to finish collecting the remaining Demonic Beast Materials, several bubbles suddenly rose from the center of the water pool. Liu Tianlong, his face deathly pale, leaped from the pool and shouted at the Liu Family cultivators by the water's edge as he ran.

"Run! There's another Level 2 Demonic Beast down there!"

The water pool, which had been utterly calm moments before, suddenly formed a massive Black Vortex after Liu Tianlong leaped out. Several people with lower cultivation by the pool were instantly sucked into the vortex.

Seeing that something was wrong, Song Gubo hastily grabbed Song Changyun, who was closest to him, and quickly leaped onto the shore.

After fleeing the water pool, everyone turned back to look. The Black Vortex widened as it spun, then abruptly vanished back into the pool after a short while. Not long afterward, a huge black head slowly emerged from the center of the water, opening a pair of blood-red eyes that stared fixedly at everyone on the shore.

"It's a Black Feathered Python! Everyone, run!"

The moment Wu Xiyun saw that enormous head, he recognized the Demonic Beast's origins. He immediately led the Wu Family cultivators away without looking back.

This Black Feathered Python came from the depths of the Floating Cloud Mountain Range. It was a Level 2 Mid-grade Demonic Beast. Two years ago, it had arrived at this water pool, occupied the Cave Abode that had originally belonged to the Silver Armored Crabs, and even devoured many of their kind. The Silver Armored Crabs could not defeat this demonic python and could only swallow their anger, moving to another Cave Abode within the pool.

Every half year, the Liu Family sent people to investigate this water pool, but they had never dared venture deep into it. Thus, they had never noticed the changes at the bottom of the pool.

The Black Feathered Python cultivated every day atop the water vein at the bottom of the pool. It had planned to wait until its breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment Late Stage before devouring the Water Spirit Fruits on the Water Spirit Fruit Tree to aid its advancement. Yet Liu Tianlong and the other two had stuck their feet in, picking the Water Spirit Fruits ahead of time. Enraged, it finally burst from the water pool and bared its sharp fangs at the cultivators on shore.

The cultivators on shore were all startled when they heard the name Black Feathered Python. Seeing that the Demonic Beast was already at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, they no longer had the courage to resist. Led by the Wu Family cultivators, they scattered in all directions like birds startled by the twang of a bowstring.

The Black Feathered Python let out an angry roar, flew from the water pool, and twisted its huge body as it pursued the Liu Family cultivators ahead.

Song Qingming only felt himself, along with the Demonic Beast corpse beneath him, instantly dragged into the center of the vortex by an enormous force. In an instant, he sank with the current to the bottom of the pool.

After a spell of dizzying darkness, Song Qingming felt as though he had fallen into a cave at the bottom of the pool. He took out a fist-sized luminous pearl from his Storage Bag. By its faint glow, he discovered that he was sitting inside an underwater cavern.

The luminous pearl was merely a mundane object. Though such a large pearl would be a priceless treasure in a mortal town, to cultivators it was no more than an amusing trinket. When Song Qingming had set up a stall at Caolu Mountain, he had traded a single low-grade Spirit Talisman for it from an elderly cultivator at the mid Qi Refining Stage.

Using the faint strands of light emitted by the luminous pearl, Song Qingming cast a Water Repelling Spell, separating the water from his body. Just as he was about to stand, a burst of pain came from his abdomen. It seemed several bones had been broken. After checking the rest of his body, he found injuries everywhere and hurriedly poured out several hemostatic pills to swallow.

Looking at the pitch-black Cave Entrance ahead and the piled Demonic Beast bones beside him, Song Qingming could not help feeling afraid. It seemed he had been swept into some Demonic Beast's lair. Before being dragged into the vortex, he had clearly heard Liu Tianlong's shout. There seemed to be another Demonic Beast beneath the water, and the place ahead might be that Demonic Beast's Cave Abode.

I need to leave this place quickly and find somewhere to heal and recover my spiritual power. Otherwise, if that Demonic Beast returns, I'm afraid my little life will be forfeit.

After walking more than a dozen zhang toward the cave exit, Song Qingming soon left the cave and arrived at the bottom of the pool. Fortunately, the Demonic Beasts in this water pool had basically all been slain by everyone earlier. Otherwise, if even a single Mid-grade Demonic Beast appeared in this water, Song Qingming would have no road to heaven and no door into earth.

After carefully examining his surroundings and finding no danger, Song Qingming left the cave and swam upward through the pool. He had only swum several zhang when his gaze was caught by several stalks of spirit herbs growing on a reef not far away.

Song Qingming swam over for a closer look. They appeared to be several Level 1 Profound Nether Flowers, each with a Medicinal Age of roughly fifty or sixty years. These spirit herbs would fetch at least seven or eight Spirit Stones in the Marketplace. After looking around and seeing no movement, he happily plucked the herbs and put them into his Storage Bag.

Just as he was about to leave, he noticed an exquisite little red pouch hanging on the other side of the reef.

"This looks like... a Storage Bag."

Song Qingming picked up the red pouch and examined it carefully. It was indeed a cultivator's Storage Bag. However, ordinary cultivators' Storage Bags were protected by Restrictions, and he could not open it now. He did not know who had dropped it here, but he could be certain it did not belong to anyone from the Song Family, because all Song Family cultivators, including himself, used the same uniform yellowish-green Storage Bags.

It was probably dropped here by some unlucky cultivator like me when they were swept into the pool just now.

Song Qingming looked over the Storage Bag's style. It seemed to be of even better quality than the low-grade Storage Bag he used.

The Storage Bag Song Qingming used was the one he had received from the family's Treasury Pavilion when he broke through to the Mid Qi Refining Stage. Such low-grade Storage Bags had limited space, only about three feet across inside. The Storage Bag in his hand, however, should be a high-grade Storage Bag, with several times more space inside—six feet across.

Once he went back up, if someone came to ask about it, he would certainly have to hand it over voluntarily. But if that person had already died in this water pool, then naturally he could deny everything. This pool was fraught with peril and even had unknown Demonic Beasts; being swallowed whole along with one's Storage Bag was perfectly normal. They might not even dare come down to search. A Storage Bag like this could sell for at least a hundred Spirit Stones in the Marketplace. Even if it were empty, it was worth taking this risk.

He had worked bitterly for two years selling Spirit Talismans and had only saved a little over a hundred Spirit Stones. The value of this one Storage Bag was equal to what he had earned from two years of making talismans day and night.

After carefully checking his surroundings and confirming that no one was nearby, Song Qingming quietly put away the Storage Bag and swiftly swam toward the surface.

When he leaped from the water pool, he found the shore in utter disarray, but there was not a single person in sight. There was only a pile of Demonic Beast Materials they had not yet managed to collect, along with the bodies of two Liu Family cultivators not far away.

Only then did Song Qingming realize in alarm that they must have encountered some terrifying Demonic Beast. Even the Demonic Beast Materials, which normally seemed priceless to him, no longer mattered. He hurriedly turned and ran.