Zhou Yang knew very little about the legendary Demonic Cultivators. He only knew that the cultivation methods practiced by Demonic Cultivators differed vastly from those of orthodox Immortal Cultivators, and that their cultivation was said to be accompanied by immense pain, making Qi Deviation all too easy.
The Cultivation World seemed extremely wary of Demonic Cultivators, keeping information about them tightly sealed. Zhou Yang only knew that whenever traces of a demonic cultivator were discovered anywhere in the Cultivation World, high-level cultivators would immediately be dispatched to eliminate demons and defend the Dao.
He had once vaguely learned from the autobiography of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator who had taken part in a demon-slaying war that Demonic Cultivators were divided into several branches according to their cultivation methods. Those skilled in refining and controlling corpses were called Corpse Demons; those skilled in refining souls and commanding ghosts were called Ghost Demons; and then there was the Blood Demon branch he had learned of this time from the black jade slip.
The black jade slip contained no record of the Blood Demon branch's cultivation methods, only three secret arts: Blood Arrow Technique, Blood Boil Technique, and Blood Escape Technique.
The Blood Arrow Technique had the lowest cultivation requirement. Even Qi Refining Stage cultivators could practice and use it. However, without the support of a Blood Demon branch cultivation method, the power it displayed in an Immortal Cultivator's hands was far inferior to that in the hands of a Blood Demon cultivator.
The Blood Boil Technique and Blood Escape Technique had much higher cultivation requirements. An Immortal Cultivator needed Foundation Establishment Realm cultivation to use either of these secret arts.
The Blood Boil Technique was a life-risking secret art. It burned the cultivator's own essence blood in exchange for a temporary increase in spiritual power, raising it by several times at most.
The Blood Escape Technique, meanwhile, was an escape art. It likewise burned the cultivator's essence blood. Once used, it could flee at least a hundred li. When employed by a Foundation Establishment Late Stage Cultivator, escaping alive from beneath the hands of a Purple Mansion Stage Cultivator would not be too difficult.
After studying these three Demonic Secret Techniques, Zhou Yang could only sigh. The demonic path truly deserved to be called demonic—it was not only cruel and vicious toward others, but toward itself as well.
A cultivator's essence blood was not ordinary blood. It was the refined essence containing the three vital energies of a cultivator's essence, qi, and spirit.
Even if all the essence blood in a Qi Refining Cultivator's body were gathered together, it would not fill a small drinking cup. Losing even a single drop would leave one weak for several days.
And if too much essence blood was lost, not only would a cultivator's cultivation regress, but their lifespan would also decrease. If it was not replenished in time, their Dao Path would essentially be finished.
Therefore, unless they stood at the brink of life and death, cultivators would basically never expend essence blood to perform life-risking arts classified as forbidden techniques.
Yet from the jade slip he had obtained, Zhou Yang learned that most spells of the Blood Demon branch were related to essence blood, and the more essence blood consumed when casting them, the greater their power.
Take the Blood Arrow Technique as an example. According to the information Zhou Yang had seen in the jade slip, if a Qi Refining Layer Nine Demonic Cultivator who practiced a Blood Demon branch cultivation method was willing to abandon all the essence blood in their body to use this secret art, the blood arrow's power would surpass that of an ordinary Tier 3 Low-grade spell. If a Foundation Establishment Early Stage Cultivator was careless, they could very well fall to this strike.
For a Qi Refining Stage cultivator to use a secret art to kill a Foundation Establishment Cultivator across realms—even at the cost of their life—was astonishing enough.
From the time Zhou Yang had first come into contact with cultivation until now, everything he had heard and learned told him that unless one possessed a treasure bestowed by a high-level cultivator, or the enemy was already severely wounded and their cultivation had greatly declined—
Otherwise, it was simply impossible for a Qi Refining Stage cultivator to kill a Foundation Establishment Cultivator across realms, or for a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to kill a Purple Mansion Stage Cultivator across realms. Even those legendary cultivators born with spirit bodies could not accomplish it.
As a Qi Refining Layer Nine cultivator, Zhou Yang understood better than anyone just how vast the difference was between the Qi Refining Stage and the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Speaking only of the simplest measure—spiritual power—even ignoring the difference in quality and counting only quantity, a First Layer Foundation Establishment Cultivator who had just established their foundation possessed at least five times the spiritual power of a Qi Refining Layer Nine cultivator!
With such an enormous disparity, what could a Qi Refining Stage cultivator possibly use to kill an opponent across realms?
"No wonder the upper echelons of the Cultivation World keep news of Demonic Cultivators sealed away. If those Rogue Cultivators, especially the sand bandits, learned that Demonic Secret Techniques could let them kill enemies across realms, they would be fools not to practice them!"
"And once they began cultivating demonic cultivation methods and secret arts, how could they not want to refine demonic artifacts and pills?"
"But are demonic artifacts and pills so easily refined? At every turn, tens or hundreds of thousands of mortals are blood-sacrificed to refine artifacts and pills; at every turn, cultivators' essence blood and souls are used to concoct pills. If Demonic Cultivators like that became numerous in the Cultivation World, what kind of state would it be in?"
Having understood the crux of the matter, Zhou Yang could not help shuddering. He almost immediately wanted to destroy the jade slip in his hand, erasing this harmful thing from the world forever.
But in the end, he stopped himself.
His reason for stopping was simple. Just as when he had previously set traps to scheme against people, methods themselves did not matter as being sinister or righteous. So long as they did not violate the bottom line he held in his heart, they could be used.
As long as he only used the three secret arts recorded in the jade slip and did not practice demonic cultivation methods, he would have no need to worry about being influenced into harming others.
Besides, spiritual pills that restored essence blood and vital energy were not exclusive to Demonic Cultivators. Among the spiritual pills refined by Immortal Cultivators, there were also some specifically meant to restore essence blood and vital energy.
Of course, Zhou Yang had to admit that he simply coveted the effects of the Blood Escape Technique.
Although this secret art had severe aftereffects, its results were undeniably excellent. If he established his foundation in the future and learned this secret art, then with the world so vast, he too could venture out and roam it.
For the next half month or so, Zhou Yang quietly hid in the underground chamber and read. He carried quite a few Grain Abstinence Pills on him, so he would not fear starvation even if he stayed there for half a year.
More than half a month later, Zhou Yang reckoned that the sand bandits should have settled down and withdrawn, so he quietly escaped to the surface to investigate the situation.
Of course, for safety's sake, he still traveled by water using a Water Evasion Technique talisman this time.
The White Sand River ran from south to north through the entirety of White Sand River Oasis. So long as the sand bandits had not left the oasis, Zhou Yang could follow the river and eventually discover some trace of their movements.
Yet even after following the river all the way to Golden Water Lake at the northernmost edge of the oasis, he found no trace of any sand bandits—or even a single cultivator—along the way. This finally convinced him that the sand bandits had truly left.
The sand bandits' departure was naturally good news. Once Zhou Yang confirmed it was true, he immediately hurried toward Golden Glow Mountain.
Before fleeing the market, he had discussed with his adoptive mother, Zhou Xuanyu, and the others that if they were fortunate enough to escape alive and confirmed the sand bandits had left the oasis, they could return to Golden Glow Mountain and reunite.
At that time, everyone had basically agreed on one point: since the sand bandits had only dared attack the oasis after Old Ancestor Chen left it, they certainly would not dare occupy the oasis's spirit veins and remain there permanently.
Therefore, once it was confirmed that the sand bandits had left the oasis, Golden Glow Mountain—their first target—would instead be the most suitable place to reunite.
However, when he hurried all the way to the outskirts of Golden Glow Mountain, the sight before him made his expression change drastically.
The Golden Glow Mountain that had once stood several hundred meters high and brimmed with spiritual energy had now become a dead land entirely devoid of spiritual energy.
Not only had the mountain's spirit vein completely vanished, but the entire peak had collapsed, losing several dozen meters in height. The buildings, flowers, grass, and trees that had once covered the mountain had all disappeared without a trace, leaving only marks of scorched earth from a great fire.
"Utterly heartless! Utterly heartless!"
Zhou Yang stared at the scene with a livid face, thoroughly enraged by Golden Glow Mountain's condition.
The importance of spirit veins to cultivators was beyond doubt. Generally speaking, battles between cultivators—even wars between sects—would not destroy the enemy's spirit veins. At most, they would seize them for themselves.
After all, one more spirit vein meant being able to support many more cultivators on one's own side. No sect or Lineage would ever think it had too many spirit veins.
Even in the past, when sand bandits conquered small oases, they would not destroy the spirit veins within them.
For the sand bandits also knew that without spirit veins to support other cultivators, they would have no one left to rob. Moreover, only by leaving the spirit veins in place could they draw other cultivators over for plunder.
But now, the sand bandits who had invaded White Sand River Oasis had broken this taboo!
Zhou Yang could already imagine the expression Old Ancestor Chen would wear when he returned and saw Golden Glow Mountain burned by earthfire into a barren white wasteland!
There was no need to explain Golden Glow Mountain's importance to the Chen family. The Chen family's greatest source of income had been the market here. This market had consumed far too much of the Chen family's effort; only after the labor of more than ten generations of Chen family members over several centuries had Golden Sand Market achieved its present prosperity and reputation.
Now, everything was gone!
"The skies of White Sand River Oasis are about to change!"
Zhou Yang raised his head to gaze at the azure sky, as if he could already see a storm brewing.
With Golden Glow Mountain burned into barren ground, the Storage Bags Zhou Yang and the others had buried there could naturally no longer be recovered. This made his heart ache terribly.
Those Storage Bags had contained spiritual resources worth several thousand spirit stones.
But aching or not, matters had come to this, and there was nothing he could do. He could only keep this debt in his heart and collect it from those sand bandits when the chance arose.
Over the following days, Zhou Yang wandered around the vicinity of Golden Glow Mountain, hoping to find members of the Zhou Lineage who had come to reunite.
In truth, he was not the only one wandering nearby in search of kin. Other survivors from various families who had likewise broken out of the market had, without prior arrangement, all chosen Golden Glow Mountain as their postwar meeting point and were also searching the area for their own relatives.
After meeting with several people and exchanging the intelligence they possessed about the sand bandits, he found that quite a few of them, like himself, seemed to have sensed something from the sand bandits' series of abnormal actions. Each was deeply guarded, unwilling to speak much about the matter.
After four or five days of searching, Zhou Yang found Zhou Yuanchun, Zhou Yuanzhen, and Zhou Xiong, three members of the Zhou Lineage, one after another.
From his conversations with the three, he learned that after everyone had fled separately that day, their relatively low cultivation meant no sand bandits had specifically pursued them. After escaping Golden Glow Mountain, they had, like him, found some remote wilderness to hide in, only daring to emerge and wander about recently.
But apart from these three, there was still no news whatsoever of his adoptive mother Zhou Xuanyu, whom he worried about most. Even her husband, Wu Tao, had completely vanished without a trace.
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