Soul Searching, Nameless Spirit Jade

Unfortunately, imagination was beautiful, but reality was cruel. Fang Xiao had naturally seen the extraordinary nature of the stone pillars, yet he gave the man no chance to complete the array.

Fang Xiao shifted the Sword Art in his hand and drove the Great White Sword Pellet at full force toward one of the stone pillars. Perhaps all eight pillars together were wondrous and extraordinary, but a single pillar could hardly withstand the Great White Sword Pellet's might.

Before one strand of Essence Blood could touch the stone pillar, the silver-white sword light formed by the Great White Sword Pellet had already slammed into it. Within a breath, cracks crawled across the entire pillar. Then, with an explosive crash, it shattered into countless chunks of stone.

At this sight, the demonic cultivator's eyes nearly split with rage. Without one stone pillar, the Eight Fiends Blood Refining Array could not be activated, and its power would naturally be too miserable to behold. Forget refining Fang Xiao to death—even whether he could preserve his own life was uncertain.

"I do not know how Peng has offended you, Fellow Daoist. I am willing to compensate you with generous gifts. I only ask that you show mercy and let me leave."

Seeing that things could not be done, the demonic cultivator surnamed Peng began to speak softly, though he was actually watching for a route of escape.

"You..."

Before Fang Xiao could speak, the man abandoned even his stone pillar magical artifact. He immediately transformed into a streak of blood light that shot into the sky and sped toward the horizon, so fast that it carved a bloody line through the heavens.

"Heh, you think you can escape?"

Fang Xiao sneered. With Body Integration with Sword, a startling sword light tore through the sky, pointing straight at the bloody figure ahead. The distance between the white light and red light steadily shrank.

The demonic cultivator surnamed Peng panicked, but no matter what he did, he could not shake off the sword light behind him.

Fang Xiao judged that the man's blood-colored escape art must have a tremendous flaw. Sure enough, before long, he fled straight down to the ground and revealed himself, his face white as paper. He dropped to his knees and begged for mercy.

"Spare my life, Fellow Daoist! I have treasures to offer, as well as several hidden estates with many things stored inside!"

Fang Xiao did not give him the chance to continue. A flash of white sword light swept past, and his head flew high into the air. Blood gushed from his severed neck like a fountain. Thinking of his father's safety, Fang Xiao had to kill this man.

Demonic cultivators rarely appeared in the Eastern Domain. This man even seemed to possess an inheritance, which stirred Fang Xiao's curiosity. He drew over the man's head and pressed his hand atop it. That was right—Fang Xiao intended to perform Soul Searching on him.

In the Cultivation World, the distinction others made between righteous and demonic paths was something to listen to and leave at that. Anyone who truly fancied himself righteous would not go far, no matter how gifted he was. So long as an art was useful, Fang Xiao saw no harm in cultivating it. The Soul Searching art was one he had specifically sought out to learn.

The man's divine soul was not weak. It took more than an hour to finish the Soul Searching, and even Fang Xiao found it somewhat taxing. Fortunately, he uncovered quite a few things.

This man was named Peng Kai, a disciple of the Blood River Sect's demonic path in the Northern Plains. In the Northern Plains, bandit cultivators were everywhere. Though he was a sect disciple, he was no exception.

During one excursion, he had casually pulled off a robbery. He had thought he was slaughtering a small fat sheep, only to discover that it was the direct descendant of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator. He had also been struck by the Demonic Soul Mark the other party had planted on that descendant. Under such circumstances, his sect would never offend a Nascent Soul Cultivator for his sake. If he remained in the Northern Plains, he would be dead beyond all doubt.

Originally, he had planned to flee to the North Sea before turning toward the East Sea. As long as he went far enough, even a Demonic Soul Mark planted by a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator would surely be unable to sense him.

Unfortunately, the other party had issued a high-priced bounty. At the same time Peng Kai learned of it, countless people also discovered his trail. From then on, it was as if he had been targeted by a pack of hyenas. They chased, surrounded, and intercepted him, to the point where even Qi Condensation Stage cultivators dared to ambush him.

After fleeing and fighting all the way, he was driven to the eastern edge of the Northern Plains, at the border with the Eastern Domain. Apart from the Southern Wilderness, which was separated from the various domains by the Hundred Thousand Mountains, the other domains were divided by a Gale Belt. This gale was not the gang wind above the Ninth Heavens and could not be refined into Gang Qi.

It was said to have been formed by a great divine ability unleashed by an almighty expert from the Upper Realm, filling it with countless spatial rifts. Yet after innumerable years, the Gale Belt had also nurtured treasures of heaven and earth beyond count.

The Cultivation World never lacked adventurers. Wave after wave entered the Gale Belt in search of treasure, but those who truly gained something and escaped intact were few and far between.

In the end, Peng Kai was driven into a corner with nowhere left to flee. Left with no choice, he decided to make one desperate gamble and leaped straight into the Gale Belt.

By all rights, his death should only have been a matter of time. Yet he had some fortune. He had stolen an unknown spirit jade from someone, and it possessed the extraordinary ability to sense spatial rifts in advance.

Afterward, relying on this Nameless Spirit Jade, he carefully traveled along routes where the gale was weaker and spatial rifts were fewer. Even so, he paid with every magical artifact he possessed apart from the Eight Fiends Blood Refining Array, along with his left arm. It took him a full half year before he barely managed to escape the Gale Belt and reach the Eastern Domain.

When he first arrived in the Eastern Domain, he was unfamiliar with the terrain and stumbled by chance all the way to Golden Jade City. By then, however, he was already an arrow at the end of its flight. Fortunately, Zheng Xiu saved him. He then deceived Zheng Xiu by claiming he could lead him onto the path of cultivation, using him to capture the people of the city and help restore his injuries. In truth, once he recovered, the first person he intended to kill to silence was Zheng Xiu.

Zheng Xiu, meanwhile, had been blinded by greed. He believed that he too possessed the aptitude for cultivation and was merely older in age. So long as he could step onto the path of cultivation, he was willing even to become a demonic cultivator.

Unfortunately, Peng Kai ultimately perished at Fang Xiao's hands. Naturally, Fang Xiao would not spare Zheng Xiu either—not for the sake of the city's mortals, but because Zheng Xiu had threatened his father.

It had to be said that Zheng Xiu was quite adept at reading the situation. When Fang Xiao found him, he tried to curry favor with him again. Fang Xiao could not even be bothered to respond. With a flick of his finger, he sent out a streak of sword light and sent him on his way.

After finishing all this, Fang Xiao used sword escape to leave Golden Jade City. Yet he did not head toward Tianyun City, instead choosing to travel to the place where Peng Kai had escaped the Gale Belt.

This was because, according to Peng Kai's memories, he had indeed encountered several places that seemed to contain treasures while fleeing toward the Eastern Domain, but his injuries had been too severe at the time for him to concern himself with anything else.

After Soul Searching him, Fang Xiao naturally obtained the locations of those places. He could forget about everything else, but one Sha Pit nurtured Sha Qi. Peng Kai had not approached closely enough to determine what kind of Sha Qi it was, but he had clearly seen the five-colored radiance emanating from within the Sha Pit.

Among the various kinds of Sha Qi in the Cultivation World, there were not many that gave off five-colored radiance, but there were still some—for instance, Five Poisons True Malevolence, Five-Colored Peach Blossom Malevolence, Primordial Mirage Illusion Malevolence, and, of course, Five Elements True Malevolence.

What Fang Xiao found hardest to resolve now was the Sha Qi required for his Dual Divine Abilities. No matter what, he had to inspect this Sha Pit. If it truly contained Five Elements True Malevolence, it would mean he had essentially completed one divine ability. As for Gang Qi, he would only need to spend some time refining it.

That Sha Pit was not deep within the Gale Belt, and he had obtained from Peng Kai this spirit jade capable of sensing spatial rifts. Otherwise, he would not dare go even if beaten to death. The Taibai Sword Sect had stood there for tens of thousands of years without anyone daring to touch it, which showed just how terrifying spatial rifts were. Should he encounter a rift containing a spatial storm, even a Spirit Transformation True Lord would likely perish within it.

He would only take a look at that Sha Pit. No matter how good the other things were, he would not go after them. After all, his little life mattered most.