Just then, Xiaobai, who had been sleeping in the corner, seemed to have been awakened by the commotion. With elegant feline steps, Xiaobai walked over to Qin Chen's feet and affectionately rubbed against his trouser leg.
"Awake? Come on, I'll take you out for a feast."
Qin Chen scooped Xiaobai into his arms. In a flash, he became a streak of silver light, soaring through the hole he had just blasted open and flying straight off the deserted island.
Hovering in midair, Qin Chen took the Eastern Sea Chart he had obtained from the Liu Family elder out of his robes.
He extended his spiritual sense into it, and an immensely vast and complex chart of the seas unfolded in his mind.
His current location was merely on the outermost fringes of the Chaotic Star Sea.
"The Chaotic Star Sea... demonic beasts run rampant, independent cultivators gather, and there are no rules to speak of. Nothing but the naked law of the jungle."
Qin Chen's gaze swept swiftly across the chart before settling on a dark red region roughly thirty thousand li away.
"The Blood Reef Sea."
The chart marked this stretch of sea as extremely dangerous. Dark red, bloodthirsty reefs covered its seabed, and its spiritual energy was violent, mingled with dense blood fiend energy.
It was a paradise for high-level sea demons, with demonic beasts at the Golden Core stage and even the Nascent Soul stage frequently appearing.
At the same time, its abundant supply of a rare spiritual herb called "blood spirit coral" attracted large numbers of desperate outlaws and evil cultivators, who hunted demonic beasts and murdered others for their possessions.
"The inner cores and flesh of high-level demonic beasts, evil cultivators' Storage Rings, and rare spiritual herbs..."
An icy smile curved Qin Chen's lips.
For others, it was an Asura slaughterground where nine out of ten would die. But for him, desperately in need of vast resources to fill the bottomless pit that was his heavenly cycle star body, it was nothing short of an enormous, untapped treasury!
"That's where I'll go."
Qin Chen put away the chart, and the late Golden Core stage true essence within him erupted.
Boom!
He stamped a white ring of sonic vapor into the air, his body hurtling toward the Blood Reef Sea at a terrifying speed like a meteor tearing through the sky.
Fierce winds howled over the sea, and enormous waves churned.
After roughly half a day of flight, the surrounding seawater gradually began to change color, its original deep blue slowly taking on a faint, dark red tinge.
The spiritual energy permeating the air was no longer pure, either, but carried a trace of an irritating bloody odor.
"I've reached the edge of the Blood Reef Sea."
Qin Chen slowed down, spreading his spiritual sense in all directions like ripples across water as he vigilantly probed his surroundings.
Splash!
Just then, the previously calm, dark red sea below suddenly burst open.
A column of water several zhang thick shot skyward. Immediately afterward, an enormous sea python over thirty zhang long, covered in black scales and bearing a single horn on its head, surged out with a nauseating, fetid wind. Opening its enormous bloody maw, it lunged savagely to swallow Qin Chen in midair.
"A One-Horned Blackwater Python at the peak of the late Golden Core stage?"
Hovering in midair, Qin Chen looked at the enormous maw, large enough to swallow a small hill. There was not a trace of panic on his face; instead, he revealed a faint, satisfied smile.
"Someone brings me a pillow just as I'm nodding off. I'll be taking your inner core."
Facing this ferocious sea demon, Qin Chen advanced instead of retreating.
He neither deployed a magical treasure nor used any true essence techniques. He simply clenched his right fist.
The five motes of micro star-dust within him flashed simultaneously, and an utterly terrifying surge of physical strength instantly gathered in his right arm.
"Die!"
Qin Chen's figure flashed, appearing directly above the One-Horned Blackwater Python's head, and he slammed his fist down.
Boom!
A tremendous crash shook heaven and earth.
The One-Horned Blackwater Python, powerful enough to dominate a stretch of the Blood Reef Sea's outskirts and deter even ordinary Golden Core Paragon cultivators from provoking it, did not even have time to scream. Beneath Qin Chen's punch, its enormous, iron-hard head exploded like an overripe watermelon!
A rain of blood mixed with shattered bone poured down from the sky.
Qin Chen reached out and grabbed, and a fist-sized black inner core radiating dense water-attribute spiritual energy fell into his hand.
"My first earnings."
After casually tossing the One-Horned Blackwater Python's inner core into his storage pouch, Qin Chen turned his gaze toward the enormous headless snake corpse below.
"The flesh of a demonic beast at the peak of the late Golden Core stage may be impure, but even the tiniest fly is still meat."
His hands swiftly formed seals, and the domineering devouring power of the Primordial Ancestral Dragon Art erupted.
The enormous, thirty-zhang-long snake corpse on the sea shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye. The essence of its blood and vitality was forcibly extracted, ultimately condensing in Qin Chen's palm into a drop of dark red blood essence that radiated astonishing heat.
Qin Chen put the blood essence into his storage pouch, planning to send it to the Qin Family along with the inner core later to earn return rewards.
"Keep going deeper!"
Qin Chen moved, becoming a streak of light. Without concealing his powerful late Golden Core stage aura in the slightest, he plunged into the depths of the Blood Reef Sea like a sharp sword.
Such a brazen display in the danger-ridden Chaotic Star Sea was practically a beacon in the night.
Sure enough, before he had traveled even three hundred li farther in, several sinister, eerie laughs suddenly rang out from the dark red sea mist ahead.
"Heh heh heh... where did this greenhorn come from? A mere late Golden Core stage cultivator dares swagger through the Blood Reef Sea like this? You truly have no idea what death means!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Accompanied by the sound of rushing air, three figures radiating dense blood fiend energy darted out of the sea mist and surrounded Qin Chen in a triangular formation.
All three wore blood-red robes, their faces withered and their eyes filled with cruelty and greed.
The two on the left were at the late Golden Core stage, while the one-eyed elder leading them in the middle possessed an aura that had reached the half-step Nascent Soul realm!
"Boy, now that you've run into us Three Blood Fiend Elders, hand over your storage pouch obediently. Perhaps I'll leave your corpse intact and spare you some of the suffering of having your soul extracted and refined!" The one-eyed elder laughed sinisterly while secretly making a hand signal.
Boom!
Without any warning, the calm sea below suddenly burst open. An enormous blood-colored net formed from countless wronged souls and blood fiend energy shot skyward, instantly enclosing Qin Chen.
This blood-colored net was extremely corrosive. Once an ordinary Golden Core cultivator came into contact with it, their protective true essence would melt away in an instant.
"Attack!" the one-eyed elder shouted fiercely. All three deployed their magical treasures at once, sending three deadly streaks of blood-colored light straight at Qin Chen's vital points.
Faced with such a lethal trap, Qin Chen showed no trace of panic. Instead, a mocking, cold smile appeared on his face.
"You think this shabby net can trap me?"
Qin Chen did not deploy any magical treasures at all, nor did he even raise his protective true essence.
He slowly lifted both hands.
Riiip!
Qin Chen grabbed the Blood Fiend Net, which could corrode even a supreme-grade spirit artifact, with both hands and violently tore outward.
Amid a teeth-grating sound of tearing, he ripped the enormous net cleanly in half like a rag, using nothing but sheer physical strength!
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