At that moment, both Tiger Wing Kings turned their eyes toward Bai Xueyou.
They seemed to know that Bai Xueyou was the leader of this group and wanted to attack her.
If the attacks of two Second-Order Initial Stage Beasts came at Bai Xueyou simultaneously, even if she did not die, she would suffer severe injuries.
In the end, she would still be unable to escape death.
After all, she had already expended too much energy and was extremely weak at this moment.
Even at the peak of her strength, she would have been unable to contend with these Second-Order Beasts.
At this final moment, Bai Xueyou knew she could not escape and had already given up resisting.
She slowly closed her eyes, filled with unwillingness and overwhelming regret, and prepared to welcome death.
The two Second-Order Beasts pounced toward Bai Xueyou at the same time, moving as swiftly as lightning.
At the instant she awaited death, in that split second between lightning and flint—
Two attacks radiating a terrifying aura suddenly shot into the heads of the two Tiger Wing Kings that were lunging toward Bai Xueyou.
At once, terrifying energy exploded, directly blowing the heads off the two Second-Order Beasts.
Then, the two enormous beast bodies crashed down from midair and slammed into the ground.
The sudden turn of events startled Bai Xueyou. She stood rooted to the spot, staring dumbfounded at the two beast corpses on the ground.
Her entire face was filled with deep terror and disbelief, and her heart was shaken to its core.
These were Second-Order Beasts, yet they had been killed outright by two attacks coming from across the distance.
Just how powerful did one have to be to accomplish that?!
Gradually, she recovered from her shock, and then became incomparably excited.
The sensation of surviving a calamity thrilled her. She knew that some powerful senior expert had intervened.
Bai Xueyou took a deep breath to steady herself, then bowed deeply toward the air.
"Thank you, senior, for saving me. You not only saved me, but also saved our Bai Family."
"Our Bai Family will never forget this immense kindness."
After speaking, she walked toward the two beast corpses, intending to extract their hearts.
Those two attacks had been launched by Yang Lingtian.
When he sensed the Second-Order Beasts inside the cave emerge, he knew that Bai Xueyou's group would be unable to hold them off.
Thus, under the pretext of going to the bathroom, he came to a secluded place.
Only then did Yang Lingtian mobilize his cultivation power, circulating the Spiritual Power within his body to condense two attacks.
Although he was only at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, the purity of the Spiritual Power in his dantian was comparable to that of the Foundation Establishment Late Stage.
Therefore, the might of these two attacks reached the level of a single strike from a Foundation Establishment Late Stage cultivator. Naturally, they were enough to kill the two Second-Order Early-Stage Beasts in one blow.
Most importantly, Yang Lingtian possessed a Divine Soul comparable to that of the Golden Core Stage.
He could control the two attacks and precisely direct them at targets more than ten li away.
Otherwise, even someone at the Foundation Establishment Peak would have been unable to kill two Second-Order Early-Stage Beasts from such a distance.
However, Yang Lingtian's body had yet to recover to its peak.
Launching these two attacks had worsened his injuries.
The expenditure was enormous for him, and a wave of weakness immediately swept over him.
His face instantly paled, and a trace of weariness appeared in his expression.
"Looks like I still can't act so easily. The expenditure is too great, and it's detrimental to my injuries. The lost essence will be difficult to replenish."
Yang Lingtian sighed, his face revealing exhaustion.
Fortunately, the medicinal pill gift pack rewarded by the system last time still contained some low-grade spiritual pills that could restore a little of his injuries and expended Spiritual Power.
But that was still not enough. He needed to refine higher-grade spiritual pills.
Thus, Yang Lingtian decided that his next goal would be to search for spiritual herbs and refine high-grade spiritual pills.
However, with only his own strength, it would be very difficult to gather all the necessary medicinal ingredients in the vast Tianshan Valley.
It seemed he could only follow the Bai Family members back to a nearby small town and make further plans from there.
Before long, Yang Lingtian returned to the Bai Family's encampment.
By then, some people had already fled back to the encampment, looking utterly bedraggled.
However, the people who had remained at the encampment all assumed that they had successfully killed the Second-Order Beasts and returned.
Their arrival instantly roused the previously silent encampment.
Many members of the Bai Family gathered from all directions. Unaware of what had happened, each of them wore an expression of expectation.
"Why have only you returned? Where are the others? What about Miss Bai Xueyou?" Bai Zi asked.
The faces of those people were all filled with dejection. They stammered, unable to utter a complete sentence.
From their reactions, Bai Zi suddenly felt a bad premonition rising in her heart.
She anxiously pressed them again, "Speak! What about Miss Bai Xueyou?"
At that moment, one of them seemed to have lost all his strength. He collapsed onto the ground, his emotions low and his gaze vacant.
He said sorrowfully, "They're dead. Everyone who didn't escape is dead."
"Only those of us here managed to escape. The others are all dead."
The news struck everyone's ears like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, instantly freezing their expressions.
"What... What did you say? Miss Bai Xueyou is so powerful, and there were so many people with her. How could she possibly have died?"
Bai Zi's face was filled with disbelief. She could not believe it was true, and even her voice trembled.
"Alas, our previous intelligence was wrong. There were two Second-Order Beasts inside the cave." The man's eyes were vacant as he continued.
"We were already struggling desperately against one Second-Order Initial Stage Beast. Then a second one appeared, and we couldn't withstand them."
The moment they heard that there had been two Second-Order Beasts in the cave, everyone's expressions changed. Despair and grief welled up in their hearts.
They all knew what two Second-Order Beasts meant.
Bai Zi and Bai Qing were also so stricken with grief that they lost themselves for a moment. Suddenly, they thought of what Yang Lingtian had said.
"There really were two Second-Order Beasts. That guy was actually right." Bai Zi regretted it inwardly.
"If I had told Miss about this beforehand, none of them would have come to harm."
Bai Qing, meanwhile, looked at Yang Lingtian in astonishment. He had mocked Yang Lingtian earlier for being ignorant.
Now he had been slapped hard in the face. There really had been two Second-Order Beasts.
Just as everyone believed that Miss Bai Xueyou and the others had all died horribly at the hands of the Second-Order Beasts and were sinking into utter despair—
A figure slowly appeared before the crowd. It was Bai Xueyou.
She was covered in blood, her aura weak, and she looked severely wounded.
Everyone stared in shock at Miss Bai Xueyou as she walked toward them, their eyes wide.
"Miss! Miss isn't dead! Miss Bai Xueyou actually came back!" Once they recovered, the crowd cried out one after another.
The entire encampment instantly erupted, and many people cheered excitedly.
Bai Xueyou was their backbone. Her return greatly lifted everyone's spirits.
However, they all assumed that Bai Xueyou had merely escaped by a hair's breadth from the two beasts.
The people who had fled back earlier were all stunned, their faces filled with disbelief.
They had never expected Bai Xueyou to escape from the claws of two Second-Order Beasts.
"Miss, we thought you had already met with misfortune. It's wonderful that you escaped!" Bai Zi said excitedly.
"We truly miscalculated. We never expected there to be two beasts inside," Bai Qing said.
"We definitely can't contend with them. We can only make long-term plans and return later to kill the Tiger Wing Kings."
"What a pity. It'll be even harder to kill them next time. We can only wait until those two Second-Order Beasts separate before taking action," another person added.
Bai Xueyou looked at everyone. After calming her lingering fear, she said, "There's no need."
"Those two beasts are already dead, and I successfully obtained their hearts. We have the main ingredient."
"Now that all the medicinal ingredients needed to refine the Spirit Restoration Pill have been gathered, our Bai Family is saved."
She then took out a box. Inside lay two hearts that still radiated a dense aura of life.
Everyone's eyes instantly snapped toward the two hearts, and they all stood there dumbfounded.
"Miss, are these really the hearts of Tiger Wing Kings? And there are two of them?"
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Two Second-Order Beasts appeared, and the difference in strength was so immense."
"Under those circumstances, escaping alive would already have been a blessing. How could you possibly have killed them?"
"Miss, how exactly did you kill two Second-Order Beasts while facing them at the same time?"
After their shock, those who had escaped began firing questions at her in a babble, their words filled with astonishment.
They found it impossible to believe that Miss Bai Xueyou, with the strength of Qi Refining Level 9, had ultimately killed two Second-Order Beasts.
Yet the truth was right before their eyes. Miss had genuinely returned, and she had brought back the hearts of two Second-Order Beasts.
It was simply too bizarre!
However, Bai Xueyou did not answer them directly, because she could not explain where those final two terrifying attacks had come from.
By refusing to explain, she could preserve her air of mystery and make everyone believe that she possessed an enormous trump card.
Only then would these people remain utterly loyal to her and allow her to establish her prestige.
"All right. Our most urgent task now is to take all these medicinal ingredients back. The clan leader can't wait any longer."
Bai Xueyou swept her gaze around and began issuing orders. "We're setting out for the city now."
The crowd then packed their belongings and followed Bai Xueyou on the road back to Central City.
Bai Zi also pulled Yang Lingtian along with them. Yang Lingtian happened to want to continue learning about the situation in Tianshan Valley.
Along the way, Yang Lingtian learned more about the distribution of forces in Tianshan Valley through their conversations.
Tianshan Valley had four major cities and towns: Qianshan City, Yining City, Chunliu City, and Central City.
Qianshan City, Yining City, and Chunliu City were each controlled by one of three Foundation Establishment Peak experts, known as the three overlords of Tianshan Valley.
Central City lay between the three cities, serving as a buffer zone between the territories controlled by the three overlords.
Each of them had three Foundation Establishment Late Stage subordinates known as Heavenly King-level experts.
Thus, Tianshan Valley had only three Foundation Establishment Peak experts and nine Foundation Establishment Late Stage experts in total.
The so-called overlords and Heavenly Kings were merely flattering titles for powerful cultivators in this isolated place.
This left Yang Lingtian speechless. "This small place actually has an entirely different system."
"Anyone who reaches the Foundation Establishment Late Stage can be called a Heavenly King, while anyone at the Foundation Establishment Peak can be called an overlord."
"It really is a remote and impoverished place. They've never seen much of the world, yet they dare call themselves Heavenly Kings and overlords."
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