The wind in the valley carried the scent of blood, along with the rank musk unique to demon beasts.
Yi Yang stood beside the Azure-Scaled Serpent's enormous corpse, his chest rising and falling slightly.
Using Vermilion Bird Burns the Flame just now had consumed thirty percent of his true qi. Against a thick-skinned, heavily built demon beast in the Profound Connection Realm, it had been worth it.
He did not rush to pick the True Essence Lotus at the center of the lake.
Just then, intermittent clashes of weapons drifted on the wind from the other side of the valley.
The sounds were distant, yet clearly audible in the silent mountain forest.
Hearing the distant noise, Yi Yang frowned slightly before his expression returned to normal. With a turn of his wrist, the Mysterious Abyss Saber slipped soundlessly back into the sheath on his back.
Pulling down the hood of his gray cloak to conceal most of his face, Yi Yang slowly blended into the shadow of the boulder behind him. Even his breathing became barely audible in the mountain forest.
The two concealment arts he practiced, the Thousand Illusions Mask and the Concealed Breath Formless Art, circulated simultaneously.
Under their cover, Yi Yang's aura became indistinguishable from the dead leaves, rocks, and soil around him.
Only after finishing these preparations did Yi Yang move like a true ghost, hugging the shadows along the mountain wall as he crept toward the sounds of fighting.
His divine sense spread like invisible feelers, sweeping across a fan-shaped area ahead of him. A cautious hand could steer a ship safely for ten thousand years.
His Illusion-Breaking divine sense allowed Yi Yang to clearly "see" the veins of every leaf and the antennae of every ant within a hundred zhang.
As he advanced, his