Overwhelming Strength

"Why is your spiritual sense so strong? Don't try to fool me with that Sand Camel Beast. Third Brother's Earth Evasion Technique had long reached the level of moving underground without a sound. A mere Sand Camel Beast could never have detected his tracks!"

Before the battle had even begun, they had already lost one man. The two black-robed cultivators attacking Zhou Yang were both shocked and furious, and when they looked at the young man in white, their gazes could not help carrying a trace of wariness.

This was simply too bizarre!

They both knew their companion's capabilities. Although his cultivation was not as high as theirs, being only at Qi Refining Layer Seven, he had spent more than thirty years immersed in the Earth Evasion Technique. Once he deployed it, even a Ninth Layer Qi Refining Cultivator would suffer badly if caught unprepared.

Over the years, the three of them had worked together and relied on this move to trick and kill countless formidable enemies. Who knew how many seasoned veterans had fallen to this tactic? Yet today, they had stumbled on a young man who looked no older than twenty or thirty. It was downright uncanny!

"You talk too much!"

Zhou Yang looked at the two stunned sand bandits. With a flick of his hand, he directly hurled two Tier 2 Talismans at them.

Of course, he would not tell anyone that, because he was a reincarnator, his spiritual sense had been innately far stronger than that of cultivators at the same level. Thus, although his mana realm was the same as the two sand bandits', at Qi Refining Layer Eight, even the legendary Qi Refining Layer Ten Perfection cultivators might not match him in spiritual sense.

He had once asked elders in the Lineage who were also at Qi Refining Layer Eight and learned that ordinary Qi Refining Layer Eight cultivators could only extend their spiritual sense seventy or eighty meters. Some could reach a few meters farther, while others fell a few meters short, but the difference generally did not exceed ten meters.

Yet his current spiritual sense already extended beyond one hundred and fifty meters!

This distance might be utterly incomparable to the spiritual sense range of Foundation Establishment Cultivators, which often stretched over a thousand meters, but to ordinary Qi Refining Cultivators, it was already a height they could scarcely hope to reach.

One had to know that even Zhou Xuanhao, before Foundation Establishment, had only barely broken through the hundred-meter mark with his spiritual sense!

Perhaps spiritual sense was not as important to cultivators as mana cultivation, but the benefits of powerful spiritual sense were plain for all to see.

With powerful spiritual sense, Zhou Yang could detect many dangers invisible to the naked eye faster and earlier than other cultivators. The attack range of his artifacts also far surpassed those of cultivators at the same level.

Moreover, cultivators with powerful spiritual sense possessed far greater resistance to many mind-bewildering and heart-confounding spells and divine abilities than ordinary cultivators. In the future, it would even be easier for them to Open the Violet Palace and Form the Golden Core.

In short, powerful spiritual sense brought many benefits. Zhou Yang had not even told his parents about his innately powerful spiritual sense, so how could he casually reveal it to outsiders?

Since childhood, the elders of the Lineage had warned juniors like them that if they wished to survive long in the Cultivation World, they had to leave themselves more trump cards. The more trump cards they had, and the stronger those cards were, the greater their odds of victory when fighting enemies.

And the reason a trump card was called a trump card was because no second person knew about it besides the cultivator himself. Once others knew of it, it could no longer be considered a true trump card!

The two sand bandits before him had assumed that his youth made him easy prey. Seeing that they were all at Qi Refining Layer Eight and that they held the advantage in numbers, they believed victory was firmly in their grasp.

What they did not know was just what kind of existence the young man they had provoked today truly was.

Zhou Yang did not have much else on him, but he had plenty of talismans, plenty of pills, and plenty of artifacts!

It could not be helped. Who told him to have a good adoptive mother who was a Second-tier High-grade Artifact Forger, a father who was a Foundation Establishment Realm alchemist, while he himself was also a Second-tier High-grade Artifact Forger?

At this moment, once he made his move, various Tier 2 Talismans rained down upon the two sand bandits like a storm, covering their heads and faces.

With his Qi Refining Layer Eight cultivation, using Tier 2 High-grade talismans consumed less than half a percent of his mana, while the combined number of various Tier 2 High-grade talismans on him exceeded twenty.

The market price of such Tier 2 High-grade talismans was around thirty low-grade spirit stones each. Defensive talismans and certain special types of talismans were even more expensive.

An ordinary Late Qi Cultivation Rogue Cultivator would already be fortunate to keep one or two Tier 2 High-grade talismans on hand. They were treasured as trump cards for turning the tables. Who would be willing to throw them out like trash to blast people from the very start as Zhou Yang did?

Explosive Flame Fireball, Ice Spear Technique, Geng Metal Sword Qi...

When they saw several different Tier 2 High-grade spells of varying attributes roaring toward them, the faces beneath the two sand bandits' black scarves turned pale. How could they not realize they had kicked an iron plate?

"Damn it! Who would have thought this brat was a Foundation Establishment Seed of some Lineage? We've suffered a huge loss this time!"

The two sand bandits inwardly cursed their rotten luck. As they hurriedly took out life-saving talismans and activated them, they desperately poured mana into their defensive artifacts.

For sand bandits like them, who made their living through robbery, personal cultivation strength was certainly important, but discernment was sometimes even more important.

Sand bandits with good judgment never provoked enemies who looked difficult to handle. They would rather let prey escape than place themselves in danger.

Speaking of which, these two sand bandits had been in the robbery trade for quite a few years. Their judgment was not poor, or they would not have survived until today.

Before making their move, the three sand bandits had secretly followed Zhou Yang for half a day. Only after repeated investigation confirmed that Zhou Yang was indeed alone did they formulate this nighttime ambush plan.

Logically speaking, with three against one, even if Zhou Yang possessed excellent artifacts, he should not have been able to withstand their joint assault.

After all, having served as sand bandits for years, the artifacts in their hands were not bad either. The crimson banner held by the black-robed cultivator was even a Tier 2 High-grade Artifact.

But as the saying went, if one often walked by the river, how could one avoid wetting one's shoes? Who had never misjudged someone?

No matter how carefully the three calculated, they could never have imagined that the prey they selected would actually be a Foundation Establishment Seed from a Cultivation Family!

A so-called Foundation Establishment Seed was a Family Cultivator like Zhou Yang, a family genius upon whom the elders of their respective Cultivation Families placed great hopes. Strictly speaking, they were Family Cultivators who, so long as they did not die prematurely, would be able to take a Foundation Establishment Pill and achieve Foundation Establishment in the future.

These Foundation Establishment Seed cultivators normally rarely left their family territory. Even when they did, they usually traveled together with family elders, and they would certainly carry life-saving items bestowed by those elders.

When sand bandits operating in the desert encountered such groups of elders and youths, they generally kept far away. No one wished to invite the frenzied revenge of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator over a single job.

Zhou Yang was alone, and his cultivation was only at Qi Refining Layer Eight. Before he made his move, the three sand bandits had merely taken him for an ordinary Family Cultivator who had come out alone to adventure and train. How could they have known his true identity?

Only now, after witnessing his ferocious moves and seeing him unleash several Tier 2 High-grade talismans at once, did the two sand bandits facing him belatedly discover this fatal fact.

Once they realized it, the two sand bandits immediately knew that today's job could no longer be done.

Thus, after expending their stockpiled defensive talismans and combining them with defensive artifacts to block Zhou Yang's round of attacks, the black-robed cultivator holding the crimson banner immediately shook it, releasing seven or eight crimson fireballs the size of human heads toward Zhou Yang in counterattack. At the same time, he shouted, "Second Brother, this target is tough. The wind is tight—run!"

Before his shout had even faded, he slapped a Tier 2 low-grade Divine Speed Talisman onto himself to boost his movement speed. Then he turned and fled outright.

"Big Brother, wait for me!"

When the sand bandit wielding the conical artifact saw this, his eyes turned green. He hastily slapped a Divine Speed Talisman onto himself and chased after him, terrified that if he left even a step too late, he would never get away.

Zhou Yang, who was using the Silver Gang Shield Artifact to block the barrage of fireballs, saw this and his expression immediately changed. His face darkened as he roared angrily, "After wasting so many of my talismans, you think you can still run? Stay right there!"

As soon as the shout fell, he raised his right hand and launched a dark-red flying needle about a foot long.

Amid the vast darkness of night, the flying needle, no bigger than a toothpick, was utterly inconspicuous. Neither of the fleeing sand bandits had expected Zhou Yang to possess such a sinister artifact.

By the time their spiritual sense detected the disturbance created by the dark-red flying needle tearing through the air, it was already far too late to react to a Flying Needle Artifact traveling faster than sound.

"Ah! Big Brother, save me!"

A flash of dark-red spirit light streaked through the air, and the sand bandit wielding the conical artifact pitched forward, instantly screaming as he fell to the ground.

Under the attack of the Tier 2 High-grade Flying Needle Artifact, which specialized in piercing protective barrier spells, the golden protective light around him was no thicker than a sheet of paper and could not provide any defense at all.

When the sand bandit wielding the banner saw this from ahead, he immediately fled even faster. As he ran, he also summoned a black shield artifact behind himself. Clearly, he had learned from his companion's fate and feared Zhou Yang would give him a needle as well.

But he was overthinking it. Once Flying Needle Artifacts lost their concealment and suddenness, they became difficult to use effectively again.

Furthermore, Flying Needle Artifacts were difficult to forge, and their bodies were far more fragile than flying sword artifacts of the same tier. If he rashly used it and it was intercepted, it could easily be destroyed. Zhou Yang did not wish to ruin an artifact of immense sentimental value to him merely to kill one sand bandit.

Besides, that was not the only trump card in his hand.

"Making me waste a rare lightning talisman—your death is worth it!"

He looked at the sand bandit, who was about to flee beyond the range of his spiritual sense. A flash of pain crossed his face before he gritted his teeth and activated the talisman in his hand, which flickered with faint blue electric light.

Rumble!

A sudden clap of thunder sounded in the pitch-black night sky. Then lightning flashed, and an arm-thick bolt of blue lightning crashed down from the heavens onto the sand bandit, who had already fled to the top of the sandy slope.

Before this terrifying heavenly punishment, the sand bandit's defensive artifact and defensive spells became a complete joke. They did not last even a breath before both artifact and man were directly blasted into a pile of charred remains.

I wrote until dawn. Please comfort me with recommendation votes, join the new book investment group, and add it to your collection...