Xiao Xiao Is Brought In

Along the official road, lush trees raced backward, stirring gusts of whistling wind.

With Xiao Xiao leading the way, Ning Tian and Wu Feng drove the power within their bodies almost to its limit. Without pausing once along the way, they sped like lightning toward the remote barren mountain outside the city.

"Hmph, that arrogant bastard certainly doesn't hesitate to order people around. When I see him, I'm going to give him a good tongue-lashing, lest he really think our Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect is a pack of servants at his beck and call!"

As they raced along, Wu Feng clenched her teeth, her pretty face brimming with indignation as she muttered under her breath.

Although a special brand had long since been planted deep within her body, the fierce, headstrong streak in the girl's bones still made her instinctively want to reclaim some ground with her tongue.

"Wu Feng, watch your words!"

Ahead of her, Ning Tian's lovely, refined face shifted slightly at those words. She hurriedly turned her head and rebuked her in a low voice, her gaze stern.

"Have you still not grasped how unfathomable Young Master Xiao Dong is? Even someone as hot-tempered as Zhou Yi was brought completely to heel by him. If you recklessly offend him to his face and anger him, I fear even the sect's strongest experts couldn't protect you, even if they were here!"

Under Ning Tian's sharp reprimand, Wu Feng shrank back a little. Though she still felt displeased, she obediently closed her mouth in the end, not daring to say another word.

Whoosh!

The three passed through the last dense stretch of trees and bushes, and the view ahead suddenly opened up. Yet at that same instant, the air around them turned bone-chillingly cold.

"We're here! Just up ahead!"

Xiao Xiao cheered, her two dark-green pigtails bouncing as she hurried toward the clearing ahead.

Seeing this, Wu Feng drew a deep breath and was just about to follow. But when her gaze passed beyond the shade of the trees and took in the scene in the clearing, she froze as though a thunderbolt from the highest heavens had struck her squarely on the head. Her face instantly went deathly pale, and her feet rooted themselves to the spot!

Not only Wu Feng, but Ning Tian beside her also had her beautiful eyes shrink to pinpoints at that instant, the blood draining from her face at an astonishing speed!

At the edge of the open ground, savage beast carcasses as enormous as small mountains lay casually piled atop one another.

A vicious aura of death, so thick and cloying it had nearly become tangible, swept out to blot out the sky and earth. That horrifying, brutal pressure made the air throughout the entire valley shudder and howl!

"How... is this possible?!"

Wu Feng's eyes widened as far as they could. The words that had risen to her lips seemed to be strangled deep in her throat by an invisible hand. Her delicate body trembled, and her legs began to give way beneath her.

Before such a terrifying aura of death, an ordinary ferocious ten-thousand-year soul beast would be as laughably insignificant as an ant!

Beside her, Ning Tian's breathing grew desperately rapid. Horror rising from the very marrow of her bones filled her beautiful eyes, and she murmured involuntarily.

"A thirty-thousand-year Azure Flame Demon Eagle, a fifty-thousand-year Red-Armored Flame Crystal Turtle, a fifty-thousand-year netherworld demon-eyed lizard..."

Ning Tian dug her slender, delicate fingers into her palms. Her gaze finally settled on the enormous carcass at the very top, its head blasted apart, and she reeled back half a step as though struck a heavy blow.

"That's... a mutated ruler of the spiritual-type beasts, an eighty-thousand-year Three-Eyed Purple Spirit Lynx King?!"

Powerful soul beasts over fifty thousand years old already possessed strength comparable to the foremost eight-ring human experts. As for this eighty-thousand-year king of spiritual-type soul beasts, even an ordinary Titled Douluo who encountered him deep in the mountains would have no choice but to avoid his edge, not daring to challenge his ferocity lightly!

Yet now, these terrifying beings, each powerful enough to rampage unchecked through an entire mountain range, all lay dead here!

What made Ning Tian's and Wu Feng's scalps prickle and their bodies turn ice-cold was that, from the moment Xiao Dong had flown away until now, not even half a day had passed!

In so little time, he had charged single-handedly into the treacherous depths of Star Dou, slain several ten-thousand-year soul beasts in succession, and even dragged back an eighty-thousand-year spiritual-type ruler as a trophy!

What sort of heaven-reaching being could possibly possess such terrifying, heaven-defying combat prowess?!

At that instant, the last scraps of pride in their sect lingering in the two girls' hearts were utterly ground into dust and scattered to the winds. In their place came boundless awe that sank deep into their souls.

"Young Master Xiao Dong, we've brought all the medicinal herbs you instructed us to gather..."

Ning Tian swallowed with difficulty, forcibly suppressing the shock churning within her like raging seas. Respectfully, she slipped a lustrous white jade ring from her slender fingers, raised it above her head in both hands, and offered it to him with her head bowed.

Wu Feng, usually so fierce and headstrong, was now as docile as a frightened quail. She followed closely behind Ning Tian with her head lowered, not even daring to breathe loudly.

Up on a branch, Xiao Dong slowly opened his half-closed eyes. With a flicker of his figure, he floated lightly down from the treetop.

He casually accepted the white jade storage ring. A brief sweep of his vast spiritual power brought the mountainlike piles of rare medicinal herbs within it into his perception.

Purple leaf orchid grass, bone-washing flowers, flesh-regenerating vines, and even several high-grade fire ganoderma of considerable age-all were of excellent quality, clearly premium specimens selected with care.

"Mm, you worked fairly quickly. These medicinal ingredients just barely pass muster, I suppose."

Xiao Dong toyed with the ring in his hand, his expression calm and his unhurried tone tinged with nonchalance.

Hearing that offhand assessment, Wu Feng's lips twitched violently, and her chest heaved.

The Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect had mobilized every resource and connection it had in the city to gather these medicinal herbs, practically turning every auction house and merchant association warehouse upside down before finally scraping together the full collection. Yet according to this lofty gentleman, they only just barely passed muster?!

Still, grumble inwardly though she might, after witnessing that bloody mountain of ten-thousand-year soul beast carcasses, Wu Feng would never have dared voice even half a word of objection. She could only obediently bite her red lip and swallow her feelings.

Standing ahead of her, Ning Tian swept her limpid, autumn-water eyes back and forth between the mountainous piles of soul beast remains and medicinal herbs. The doubt and shock in her heart had already reached their peak.

With so many rare herbs gathered, and this heap of soul beast carcasses besides, what exactly was this unfathomable young man planning to do?

Just as Ning Tian's heart filled with uncertainty and alarm, Xiao Xiao bounced up from the side, her two adorable pigtails swaying. Unable to contain her curiosity, she tilted up her exquisite little face, as delicately carved as jade, and asked in a clear, bright voice:

"Big Brother Xiao Dong, what exactly do you need all these medicinal ingredients and the bodies of these scary giant monsters for?!"