Lin Cheng's gaze turned cold. He drew a deep breath but didn't attack at once.
His divine sense continued probing the other two locations.
The second was a secret chamber.
It was sparsely furnished, with only an ordinary stone bed. An ominous-looking old man sat cross-legged upon it.
Judging by the fluctuations radiating from him, he was a powerful expert at the seventh level of the Xiantian realm.
The old man wore a black-and-white Daoist robe. His eyes were shut as a sinister current swirled around him, streaming into his body.
Over and over.
"Yin-Yang Elder."
At a glance, Lin Cheng recognized him. He was none other than the ancestor of Yin-Yang Valley.
He was no good, either.
Among the Ten Great Sects, the Blood-Oath Sect, Yin-Yang Valley, and Mystic Pill Sect could all be called scourges of the Southern Region.
Even though the Mystic Pill Sect appeared righteous, in truth, it was always making a fortune from war.
It monopolized pills and drove up prices.
Whenever the front lines saw a major battle, the elders and disciples of the Ten Great Sects bled and died, while the Mystic Pill Sect made its fortune.
But pills were necessities in wartime.
And they were consumed in vast quantities.
So however dissatisfied the other sects were with the Mystic Pill Sect, most of the time they could only hold their noses and put up with it.
What could they do? Who could afford to offend alchemists?
Sometimes these rotten apples within the human race were even more despicable than those cruel, bloodthirsty foreign races.
Before Lin Cheng could examine the third location closely,
Yin-Yang Elder suddenly opened his eyes.
At first, Lin Cheng thought the man had noticed him spying and was startled.
But after a closer look, he realized that wasn't it.
There was a sound outside the chamber, like someone knocking.
Yin-Yang Elder's gloomy face twitched. He seemed excited, though only faintly.
Soon, the chamber door opened.
A bizarre-looking old witch walked in. It was none other than the witch-demon foreigner Lin Cheng had observed earlier.
"Patriarch Xue, sorry for the wait."
The old witch's laugh was hoarse. From the way she addressed him, Lin Cheng learned that Yin-Yang Elder's surname was Xue.
Yin-Yang Elder stood up, his gaze burning with anticipation. He asked urgently, "How is it? Are the Blood-Qi Pills ready? This old man can hardly wait any longer! A congenital physique, the Ice-Fire Dual Essence Body... Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!"
As he spoke, a look of rapture appeared on Yin-Yang Elder's deeply wrinkled face.
"She's practically a cauldron born for my Yinyang Sect. As long as I use dual cultivation to harvest yin and replenish yang, I'll surely have a chance to reach Foundation Establishment in this lifetime!"
"I never expected such a pleasant surprise on this trip to Beast Taming Mountain. This must be the will of Heaven!"
Just thinking of the girl's exquisite flavor sent Yin-Yang Elder into a frenzy of excitement.
"Patriarch Xue, rest assured. Everything's been prepared for a while now. Unfortunately, extracting so many Blood-Qi Pills in such a short time has badly shortened that Black Qilin's lifespan. I'm afraid it won't live much longer," the old witch said regretfully.
She wasn't mourning the beast's life.
She regretted that it would be hard to find another source capable of supplying such perfect Blood-Qi Pills.
If they'd been careful, it could have lasted at least a few years.
Now, it had been used up in just a few months.
Xiantian demon beasts weren't cabbages. They were powerful, and capturing one alive was no easy feat.
Yin-Yang Elder, a seventh-level Xiantian expert, had played a major role in making it happen.
At that, Yin-Yang Elder snorted disdainfully. "It's only a fourth-level Xiantian demon beast. As long as it helps me reach Foundation Establishment, I'll make sure you're well rewarded! And the ten million human livestock we agreed upon will be delivered in full."
"Of course," the old witch replied happily.
A cruel smile crept across her face. "It's true. It's only a beast. To be of use to Patriarch Xue is its good fortune!"
Every word of their conversation reached Lin Cheng's ears.
In an instant, fury blazed within him!
So that was it. This old bastard was after Meng Tangtang's Ice-Fire Dual Essence Body!
Lin Cheng had meant to wait a little longer before making his move.
But now, seeing someone insult his disciple, he couldn't let it slide!
The next moment,
the two of them, who had been chatting merrily, suddenly felt their hearts seize.
They sensed an invisible, overwhelming terror drawing closer, closing in around them.
"Who!?"
Yin-Yang Elder was the first to sense something was wrong. The formidable power of his seventh-level Xiantian cultivation erupted.
But it was useless.
The terrifying spiritual energy of a seventh-level Xiantian expert surged only a few yards from his body before silently vanishing.
Like a mud ox plunging into the sea, it left not the slightest ripple.
In that instant, the chamber seemed cut off from the world. No matter what force they tried to unleash, nothing could get out.
The moment he realized this, cold sweat poured down Yin-Yang Elder's back.
He grew restless and frantic.
The old witch beside him was even more terrified. She felt as if an invisible pair of eyes had fixed on her, and that she could die at any moment.
This ceaseless torment clung to them both.
It was like torture.
Lin Cheng was doing it on purpose.
Death took only an instant. The most terrifying part of an execution wasn't the head falling, but that moment just before the blade came down.
The true terror lay in the space between life and death.
"Yin-Yang Reincarnation!"
Yin-Yang Elder unleashed his strongest technique, furiously attacking the chamber door, but it did nothing. An indescribable despair settled over his heart.
"Damn it! Damn it, what is going on?"
He had never known such despair. Yin-Yang Elder felt as though he were about to go mad.
He knew someone had to be nearby, and that person's strength was surely far beyond his own.
Anyone who could toy with him so effortlessly without even showing their face had to be a terrifying Foundation Establishment Venerable.
Even a Xiantian expert at the peak of the realm couldn't do this!
"Impossible! When did I ever offend a Foundation Establishment Venerable? Why would one come all this way just to deal with me?"
Yin-Yang Elder felt he'd been wronged. He believed he'd done nothing at all, yet somehow he'd suffered this calamity out of nowhere.
He didn't think he'd done anything wrong in the slightest.
In his eyes, taking Meng Tangtang, a woman with a congenital physique, as a cultivation cauldron was only natural.
Weren't the weak meant to serve the strong?
That was the law of survival!
"Senior, surely we can talk this over!"
"I'm the patriarch of the Yinyang Sect in the Southern Region. If you'd be so kind as to spare me, name your price. I'll go through fire and water for you without hesitation!"
Yin-Yang Elder shouted.
But no one answered. Only the invisible power sealing the area continued to torment him.
All was silent.
He felt as if he'd been cut off from another world, alone and abandoned, with nothing to do but wait for death.
"No!"
Thinking of the horrifying fate awaiting him, Yin-Yang Elder went mad. He began attacking everything around him with all his might, holding nothing back.
He unleashed every ounce of his seventh-level Xiantian cultivation.
The foreign old witch was caught in one indiscriminate blast. She was reduced to a cloud of blood on the spot, dying with her eyes wide open.
Gradually, after his outburst, Yin-Yang Elder fell into utter despair.
The mysterious being had no intention of answering him.
Nor did they kill him. They simply kept him trapped.
They left him with a sliver of hope so that he wouldn't collapse outright, yet filled his heart with despair.
He was made to hover endlessly on the edge between hope and despair.
Yin-Yang Elder felt as if ants were biting every inch of his body. The agony was unbearable.
And that was exactly what Lin Cheng wanted him to suffer.
Simply killing him would have been far too easy.
Only letting him die in endless despair could somewhat appease Lin Cheng's fury.
Before you continue