"Hall Master, Xiao Yan really is going to starve to death." Saint Hun Qing's scalp prickled. He dared not imagine how furious Hun Tiandi would be when he learned that they had botched the mission.
Perhaps Hun Tiandi would not kill him, but punishment was inevitable.
As for the other Heavenly Venerables, apart from Gu You, a Half-Saint, and Old Man Mu Gu, an eighth-tier Alchemist, none would escape death.
With the Nihility Devouring Flame at its disposal, the Hun Clan had no shortage of Dou Zun.
Thus, these Heavenly Venerables were the most nervous of all, each looking toward Hun Miesheng with near-pleading eyes.
Hun Miesheng did not want these Heavenly Venerables to die either. They were all his own men. If Hun Tiandi executed them all, his influence within the clan would suffer a severe blow.
"Mu Gu, do you have any edible Heavenly Treasures on you? Take them all out. Once we return to the Hall of Souls, I'll compensate you from our stock." Hun Miesheng rubbed his brow helplessly. He was already considering whether he should open a spatial passage himself and send Xiao Yan back to the Dou Qi Continent.
But doing so would inevitably leave a flaw. If Xiao Yan was alert enough, he might realize that someone had been setting him up.
"Hall Master, all these Heavenly Treasures of mine are very high-grade. It's not that I'm reluctant to part with them. I'm just afraid that brat Xiao Yan will explode and die after eating them," Old Man Mu Gu said after a moment's hesitation.
"Don't worry." Hun Miesheng waved a hand.
Old Man Mu Gu then took more than a dozen Heavenly Treasures from his Storage Ring. Every single one was worth a fortune, enough to warrant a dedicated auction in the Central Plains.
Looking at the rare Heavenly Treasures before him, Hun Miesheng slowly drew a knife from his Storage Ring. Then, with swift strokes, he cut the Heavenly Treasures into a fruit platter.
Old Man Mu Gu: ???
Xiao Yan stepped into the cluster of buildings with extreme caution. Wandering ghosts roamed everywhere, ready to swarm at the slightest hint of a living person's presence.
As it turned out, searching for anything edible in the Netherworld was nothing more than a fool's dream.
Everything around him gleamed with an eerie, blood-red light. Most of the halls were empty, containing nothing apart from the ghosts that wandered through them.
During this time, he encountered Netherworld Soldiers several times, but most of them were not particularly strong. Xiao Yan could now sense that quite clearly.
The Netherworld Generals, however, were entirely beyond his ability to provoke.
Most of the Netherworld Generals were masses of pitch-black mist clad in savage, terrifying armor, with no facial features visible at all.
Xiao Yan sensed auras comparable to Dou Wang from these Netherworld Generals. Some whose auras were more restrained might even possess the strength of a Dou Emperor or higher.
The only reason he could remain undetected was the thin layer of black flames covering his body. These flames came from the Dou Qi transformed by the Nihility Devouring Flame and possessed an extremely powerful devouring ability. Covering his body with them concealed his presence.
This was something Xiao Yan had discovered by accident. Shortly after entering the cluster of buildings, he had immediately been surrounded and attacked by a group of soul bodies.
After using the Dou Technique Earth Flame Counterattack, he was surprised to discover that although the Nihility Devouring Flame itself never responded no matter how he called to it, he could still harness it through the effects of Earth Flame.
One of the Nihility Devouring Flame's traits was its ability to devour anything. Auras, light, and soul bodies-none could escape it.
Although it lacked the earth-shaking, ghost-weeping might he had witnessed at the beginning, it still gave him a tremendous boost.
Was Earth Flame really an advanced Black Tier Dou Technique? How had such an outrageously powerful technique ended up in the Jia Lie Family's hands?
Judging solely by Earth Flame's effects so far, its destructive power fell far short of the Flame Splitting Wave Ruler. In terms of practicality, however, the early Earth Tier Flame Splitting Wave Ruler could not catch up to the advanced Black Tier Earth Flame even on horseback.
Xiao Yan continued exploring, slipping through blind spots where the Netherworld Soldiers and Generals were unlikely to notice him as he searched for buildings he could enter.
Heaven did not fail the persevering. At last, such a target appeared.
He slipped into a great hall containing very few soul bodies. No Netherworld Soldiers or Generals patrolled its surroundings, and it looked utterly ruined and desolate. Even the soul bodies wandering inside were weak, insignificant creatures.
Xiao Yan controlled the black flames and burned every soul body in the hall to nothing. Wisps of cool energy seeped into his body, nourishing his soul.
This was another application of the Nihility Devouring Flame's properties. Since it could devour all things for its own use, it could naturally devour soul bodies to strengthen him as well.
The soul power produced by this conversion was exceptionally pure, with no risk of contaminating his own.
The only pity was that his steadily growing soul power could not ease his hunger. If he could not find food and water, he would still die all the same.
Xiao Yan began searching the hall impatiently. His lips were unbearably dry, and blood had even begun trickling from the corners of his mouth.
One thing was certain: he did not have much time left.
No food, no water, nothing!
Xiao Yan grew increasingly frantic. If he went into shock in a place like this, the next time he woke, his own fresh corpse would surely be lying before his eyes.
Just as he was about to collapse, a splash of vivid color entered his hazy vision. Beneath a fallen statue sat a platter of neatly cut fruit.
"This is..." Never in his wildest dreams had Xiao Yan expected to find a platter of cut fruit.
It was as absurd as a starving, thirsty traveler finding a KFC family bucket with a Coke in the middle of a desert.
But Xiao Yan, already on the verge of going into shock, could no longer afford to care. He rushed over, grabbed a handful of the cut Heavenly Treasures, and stuffed them into his mouth.
These "fruits" tasted sweet and contained tremendous amounts of energy. Had Xiao Yan not already been a Dou Ling, they would certainly have made his body burst.
His hunger rapidly eased, and his mind gradually cleared.
"The immortals really do live extravagantly, cutting Heavenly Treasures like these into a fruit platter. Still, thank goodness it was a fruit platter. Only after these Heavenly Treasures lost so much of their energy could I eat them. Otherwise, I'd have burst and died." The Heavenly Treasures were extremely filling. After eating only a little, Xiao Yan lay on the floor, stuffed, and muttered to himself.
He automatically supplied a perfectly reasonable explanation for the fruit platter's origins: an offering to an immortal.
Xiao Yan looked toward the half-collapsed statue in front of the platter. He could vaguely make out a towering demon god, though he had no idea which deity it represented.
Once he had digested some of the food, Xiao Yan contentedly tore down a curtain from the hall and wrapped up the remaining fruit platter, preparing to take it back with him.
With this fruit platter, he would not have to worry about finding food for at least two months.
That was not all. Under the conversion effects of his Nihility Devouring Flame Dou Qi, the energy contained within these Heavenly Treasures was fully absorbed and transformed into his own cultivation.
Kill soul bodies to improve his soul power; eat the fruit platter to improve his cultivation. Thus, Xiao Yan entered an upward spiral.
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