It slowly revolved in midair, tearing at the vital essence between heaven and earth.
Ignoring everything else, Shi Qingyun flung the Dao diagram in his hands to his side, sending it forth with terrifying might.
It flew from between Shi Qingyun's hands. Wherever the Dao diagram passed, any Ferocious Beast blocking its path, whether in the Cave Heaven Realm or the Blood Moving Realm, was torn to pieces in an instant.
Severed limbs mingled with blood as they scattered across the ground, paving a bloodstained road.
Still in midair, Shi Qingyun looked somewhat pale, and his body swayed unsteadily. Yet he forced himself to execute the Eight Directions Step, swiftly following the bloody path out of there with Yu Tian.
The lunar star hung in the sky, shedding streams of sacred radiance as strands of silver lunar power were drawn down.
The dense lunar power seemed to pour straight from the lunar star. Beside the river, Shi Qingyun slowly withdrew his Yin-Yang Cave Heavens.
His nighttime cultivation had proven astonishingly effective. Shi Qingyun suspected it had something to do with his Yin-Yang Dao Body.
He had not properly cultivated since entering the secret realm. It seemed his understanding of the Yin-Yang Dao Body was still far too shallow.
But this was not the time to dwell on that. It was time to enter the core region.
He called over Yu Tian, who was still resting nearby, and the two began walking upstream along the creek.
When they reached a valley, Shi Qingyun briefly surveyed his surroundings, streaks of divine light gleaming in his eyes.
A moment later, he kicked a huge boulder beside him, sending it hurtling toward the valley.
Yu Tian did not quite understand what he was doing, but in the next instant, he saw the boulder vanish from sight.
Shi Qingyun rubbed his chin and nodded. Back at the creek, he had already noticed that the river water contained a higher concentration of the vital essence of heaven and earth.
Sure enough, a passage into the core lay upstream. Shi Qingyun poured streams of divine power into the valley before him.
As he infused it with divine power, a barrier resembling an enormous mirror slowly appeared within the valley.
"I've found the entrance to the Core Mountain Range."
He grabbed Yu Tian, who was still standing there in a daze, staring at the mirror that had suddenly appeared. Runes flashed beneath his feet, and he plunged straight through.
Upon entering, he immediately discovered that the interior looked utterly different from the outside. At the core of the Starfall Mountain Range lay a broad plain, with only a colossal mountain rising at its center.
That had to be where everything ended!
Thank you all for your support, brothers.
Chapter 43: Battle
Shi Qingyun gazed at the scene before him, momentarily lost in thought.
Yet his footsteps never slowed. With wind seemingly springing beneath his feet, he raced toward the great mountain in the center.
Now that he knew his destination, everything had become very simple.
He wanted to see just what was there.
What could have made this secret realm so strange and unnatural?
Carrying Yu Tian in one hand and gripping the fan in the other, he sped onward.
But before he could approach the mountain, waves of battle cries reached Shi Qingyun's ears.
Shi Qingyun stopped abruptly and set Yu Tian down, then gave him a look warning him to be careful.
Yu Tian had only just steadied himself and had yet to recover from his earlier fright.
When Yu Tian raised his head, he saw Shi Qingyun turn toward him and give him a baffling look.
Come to think of it, paired with Shi Qingyun's still-childish face, that look is actually rather cute. What's going on? Yu Tian silently thought.
Shi Qingyun: ...
What's with that innocent gaze? Did I knock his wits loose by tossing him around? Why does that look feel so familiar?
He paid no further attention to Yu Tian, whose mind was still wandering.
Shi Qingyun slowed his steps and cautiously approached the source of the noise.
At the same time, he considered finding an opportunity to ditch this fellow.
Coming into this forbidden land with such meager strength was bad enough, but he kept acting like an idiot, too. Shi Qingyun did not even know what to say.
He was beginning to regret bringing Yu Tian along.
The Rain Clan had probably only told him to stay by Shi Yi's side, not to protect him. Shi Qingyun really wanted to ditch him right then.
While grumbling inwardly, Shi Qingyun soon reached the source of the battle cries.
Shi Qingyun nimbly leaped onto a patch of high ground nearby, intending to survey the situation below.
Just as he arrived, an exceptionally clear voice, tinged with bold, unrestrained spirit, rang out.
It immediately caught Shi Qingyun's attention, and he looked over.
"Yuan Sheng, what do we do now? At this rate, everyone our Primordial Roc Mountain sent here will die!"
A spirited girl dressed in gold, her hair tied high, fiercely swept her sword through a Ferocious Beast lunging at her.
Then she called to a bare-chested youth whose body was covered in mysterious runes as he swung his arms with all his might.
Hearing the girl's question, Yuan Sheng's strange, exposed black markings flashed.
With one punch, he shattered the skull of a Cave Heaven Realm Ferocious Beast pouncing at him from behind, brutally killing it.
Divine power surged within him, and mysterious runes flashed across his body.
The next instant, he appeared beside the girl and said:
"Wan'er, hold on a little longer! Before long, I'll definitely slaughter every one of these brutes!"
Jin Wanwan offered no response as she looked at the rather smug youth before her. She had long since grown accustomed to this.
Even so, Jin Wanwan was deeply dissatisfied with Yuan Sheng's answer.
She surveyed their surroundings. An endless stream of Ferocious Beasts was rushing toward them from afar.
She saw that nearly everyone on their side was fighting several Ferocious Beasts at once.
Jin Wanwan immediately gritted her teeth and stamped hard on the ground, unleashing ripples that blasted away the Ferocious Beasts charging at her.
Her figure swiftly rose into midair. A gentle breeze stirred the tips of her hair, and her eyes brimmed with resolve.
The five Cave Heavens behind her made her look like a battle-hardened War Goddess.
The next instant, she raised the treasured sword in her right hand and held it horizontally before her, murmuring an incantation.
As obscure, incomprehensible words left her lips, runes like tiny sprites slowly appeared behind her.
Those runes linked together to form a gigantic five-pointed star, from which countless runic chains gradually extended.
An enormous, intricate, and profound formation rose above Jin Wanwan's head.
Within that formation, Order Divine Chains flashed past, and the figures of various mighty exotic beasts seemed trapped inside.
They flickered through the formation. Watching everything from his elevated vantage point, Shi Qingyun sensed a trace of danger in the technique the girl was executing.
He had thought that was the end of it, but it was not over yet.
The next moment, streams of divine power surged from her body like a raging flood, pouring ceaselessly into the sword.
Streams of the vital essence of heaven and earth also flowed from her Cave Heavens, replenishing what she expended.
The formation overhead slowly shrank, turning into a golden ribbon that imprinted itself upon the sword in her hand.
A tiny five-pointed star glittered at the sword's hilt.
The sword seemed unable to bear such immense divine power all at once. It trembled and hummed uncontrollably before Jin Wanwan, its buzzing reverberating through the air.
The runes engraved on the treasured sword flickered uncertainly, but then the golden ribbon slowly released a clear radiance that enveloped the blade.
The sword, which had been trembling incessantly a moment earlier, gradually settled.
Seeing this, Jin Wanwan immediately lifted the sword high above her head and shouted:
"Starfall Sword Slash!"
She brought the sword, shimmering with specks of clear radiance, down in a heavy slash before her.
The longsword in her hand blazed with light, and a five-pointed star formed from sword light burst from its edge.
It tore through the sky, hurtling straight toward the horde of beasts before her.
The snarling Ferocious Beasts poised to pounce instantly turned to ash beneath the silver radiance.
Boom! The rumbling echoed across the battlefield.
As the dust slowly cleared, a gigantic trench appeared before Jin Wanwan.
Wherever the silver radiance had passed, nothing remained alive.
Hundreds of Ferocious Beasts had died beneath that single attack. Although most had been in the Blood Moving Realm, unleashing such a strike at her age was already something to be proud of.
After delivering that slash, Jin Wanwan's face turned deathly pale.
She circulated her divine power and slowly descended from midair to the ground.
The girl braced her sword against the ground and panted heavily. Then, as though she had just remembered something, she snapped fiercely at Yuan Sheng:
"The Ferocious Beasts are nearly wiped out, but our clansmen are nearly dead, too."
At the end, she shot Yuan Sheng a furious sideways glance. He was just about to say something when his vision blurred, and the girl vanished before him.
Only a lingering fragrance remained, along with the girl's cold words: "And don't call me Wan'er!"
When Yuan Sheng turned again, he saw the girl rescuing someone from beneath a Ferocious Beast.
Chapter 44: Genius
Standing on the slope, Shi Qingyun watched the power of the technique the girl had unleashed.
He had to admit that her technique had impressed him.
She could kill so many Ferocious Beasts with a single attack, and there had been no shortage among them of beasts at the same level as her.
Shi Qingyun thought that she truly lived up to being a prodigy of the Primordial Divine Mountain. This had certainly broadened his horizons.
She could already be considered a genius in this lower realm, but what her future held remained unknown.
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