Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 121

“What’s this?” murmured Gu Suihan to himself as he pulled out a strange-looking rock from one of the storage rings he had taken from one of the cultivators he had killed earlier.

The rock was about as large as an infant’s head and was black and shiny all over. Runes had gathered naturally on top of it and formed the picture of a strange-looking ferocious beast. In the sunlight, it seemed like he could see a faint flickering glow through the surface of the rock. It looked really mysterious.

“Could this be the egg of some beast?” mumbled Gu Suihan as he didn’t think too much about it and just stuffed it back into the storage ring.

After that, he gathered his spiritual energy into his eyes as he made a hand seal. A bagua compass appeared in his hands and it gleamed faintly.

“Heavenly Spirit Searching Technique!” This was a spell used for locating natural treasures. Given the current strength of his spiritual sense, Gu Suihan had just barely managed to gather all the qi from around him and use the compass to sense how dense the surrounding qi was, which would lead him to treasures.

“Here!” Gu Suihan’s eyes flickered as he saw the compass needle move slowly and shake slightly as it pointed to the left.

He put the compass away and flew rapidly toward where the needle had pointed.

“Since there’s so much qi over there, it must be guarded by some ferocious beast.” A purple light shot out from his eyes and swirled about in the air.

“So what if you’re from the War Demon Sect? We discovered this place first!” The sound of people arguing could be heard from the place he was headed for. There was much anger and indignation in their voices.

“There are people there?” Gu Suihan paused, then flew into the trees nearby to look at what was going on through the leaves.

There were three parties involved. One was Li Xiaoyao and his fellow disciples from the Youthful Clarity Sect, a group of Seven Kill Sect disciples, and the last group was from the Ethereal Court.

Gu Suihan’s lips curled upwards into a snicker. The Youthful Clarity Sect was supposed to be in an alliance with the Ethereal Court and other sects, but that was a decision made by the higher-ups, which had nothing to do with all these small fries. If they were in danger, then they wouldn’t mind joining forces to fight the enemy. But if there was something they could benefit from, then the selfish greed hidden deep within these cultivators would definitely show itself.

There was an icy lake next to where they were arguing, and frosty air would bubble to the surface from time to time. An odd-looking rock could be seen peeking out from the surface. The bright green stem of a lotus was sprouting from the rock and the pretty green color was very pleasant to look at.

“Hmm?” Gu Suihan could sense two sources of life coming from the rock. One belonged to the lotus, so where was the other one coming from?

He filled his eyes with spiritual energy again. The bloodied symbol began to spin, forming a reddish glow over his eyes. This seeing spell helped him to see everything clearly. He noticed a sliver of gold next to the rock and tried to take a closer look.

It was a small black and brown snake that measured about 30 centimeters long. It had one gold stripe that ran down its back. Its sinister eyes reflected a wave of very human anger and frostiness. It kept flicking its narrow and long tongue, and the saliva that dripped out from its mouth had corroded a deep hole in the rock.

“Is that a Gold Striped Black Killer Snake?” Gu Suihan’s eyes widened in surprise. “But why is it so small? It’s not a purebred?”

Gold Striped Black Killer snakes were creatures from ancient times. Its venom was especially strong, so even a cultivator at Divine Soul could not hold up against it. A gold stripe ran down its back, its eyes were blue and its scales were black and brown. It could even exude venom from between its scales and the souls of anybody who came into contact with the venom would be corroded completely. This was a fairly famous magical beast from back then.

“What a bunch of idiots. This tiny thing might not be purebred, but there’s no way you Foundation Establishment cultivators can hold up against its venom. Instead of running, they’re just standing around and waiting to die.”

As Gu Suihan mumbled these things, he pasted a few more talismans on himself, concealed his presence, and kept his eyes on what was happening below.

SSSS! The snake that was coiled around the rock suddenly raised its head, flicked its tongue, then used its tail to launch itself into the air. It moved too quickly to see anything else except its bright gold stripe cutting through the air.

“That’s fast.” Gu Suihan raised an eyebrow in shock. If he hadn’t also kept a close eye on this snake, he might have been caught by surprise as well.

“Ahh!” Just as Gu Suihan had expected, a Youthful Clarity disciple let out a howl. A dark green color instantly spread from his wrist where he had been bitten and covered his entire body in seconds. That howl had been the last sound he could make before breathing his last.

“What was that?” Everyone paled as they raised their weapons and looked around them cautiously.

“Were you the ones who did that?” One of the Youthful Clarity disciples glared angrily at the Seven Kill Sect disciples.

It wasn’t really his fault for immediately concluding it was the Seven Kill Sect disciples. The Seven Kill Sect taught their disciples way too many types of cultivation methods, including sword cultivation, body cultivation, magic cultivation, ghost cultivation, and many more. It would not be surprising if someone had learned some technique to poison another person.

“what the .... are you talking about? If I were formidable enough to poison you like this, I wouldn’t have to stand here and argue with you!” retorted a Seven Kill Sect angrily. He scanned his surroundings carefully and looked like he was also trying to find out who was behind this.

Before the Youthful Clarity Sect disciple could say more, Li Xiaoyao had already taken a look at the body on the ground and waved his arm about. “It’s not them. They couldn’t possibly have used such an aggressive poison. Also, there was no gathering of qi before the attack either, so I think it’s a magical beast of sorts that did this.”

“But…” The Youthful Clarity Sect disciple wanted to say more when they heard another tragic howl.

Everyone was horrified and quickly pasted talismans all over themselves and put up a thick layer of spiritual energy to protect their bodies. They stared at the dead Ethereal Court disciple and gulped in fear.

They looked at each other, only to find that everyone had an equally terrified look on their faces. They scanned the area with grim expressions but could not find any traces of what could have done this.

“It’s a snake,” said Li Xiaoyao confidently as he inspected the wound on the body and used some spell to confirm this.

The other Ethereal Court disciples were trembling a little, but they looked rather relieved since at least they knew what they were up against now. Having an unknown attacker was even more frightening.

“What sort of snake is it?”

“No idea. But it should be some ferocious beast from ancient times.” Li Xiaoyao had drawn his sword and was looking around with a bright gleam in his eyes.

Just then, there was a flash of gold in the air, accompanied by yet another howl before a Seven Kill Sect disciple collapsed onto the ground.

“It’s here!” Li Xiaoyao’s sword rang loudly as it gave off a glow that measured a meter in width. The icy gleam of his blade came hurtling toward the incredibly quick gold light in the air.

“It’s really just a dumb animal after all.” Gu Suihan looked at the snake in disdain as he watched the events below unfold.

The Gold Striped Black Killer Snake was quite smart for a snake, but it was not considered sentient and its instinct was to scare them away by killing a couple of disciples. Unfortunately, it had grossly underestimated the greed that cultivators had toward such natural treasures and how unaffected they were by the death of their companions in such situations.

“Gu Suihan, since you’re here, come on out. Why do you hide like some coward?” Li Xiaoyao suddenly stared intensely at where Gu Suihan was hiding and sent a beam of sword qi toward Gu Suihan with the wave of his arm.

This startled Gu Suihan a little as he quickly raised a finger to block the sword qi. He jumped down from the tree in a leisurely fashion, then covered the short hundred-meter distance between himself and the rest. He didn’t look embarrassed by the fact that he had been discovered at all and asked rather curiously, “How did you discover me?”

Li Xiaoyao chuckled. “My sword sensed a threat and it was a little more difficult than usual to circulate my sword will.”

“But you wouldn’t have known that it was me,” said Gu Suihan immediately.

“Didn’t you notice that this thing is about to evolve again?” Li Xiaoyao removed a hexagonal ruby from his belt. There seemed to be gold lines swirling about inside the gemstone.

“shit!” Gu Suihan’s expression fell. His eye twitched as he took out his crescent-shaped secret key.

Ever since he got this thing, he had never really observed it very carefully. To him, this was just a domain that a cultivator at Divine Soul had created. Even if there was really some legacy left behind inside, that didn’t hold much attraction for him.

He was only interested in the demonic script from ancient times and the history buried within it.

He didn’t expect this stupid secret key to give him away again and again.

“Does this thing communicate with the other keys?” asked Gu Suihan in a puzzled voice.

Li Xiaoyao nodded slightly and explained, “Yes, the secret keys can sense each other. I realized this not too long ago myself.”

“How many keys have appeared so far?”

“There should be seven now. Both of us have one each, Li Tian from the War Demon Sect has one, Wan Xin from the Wonderful Sound Sect has one, apparently, someone from the Seven Kill Sect has one and there’s also one in the Vast Sky Sect. The Ethereal Court had one too, but Wan Xin snatched that one away. I have no idea who has the one that’s just appeared,” replied Li Xiaoyao honestly.

“You’re Gu Suihan?” the Ethereal Court disciple who had been looking on from the side suddenly spoke up.

“Why, you want this?” It didn’t take a genius to know that this fellow was after the key in his hands. He turned to look at the other man curiously, tossing the key into the air and catching it again with a nonchalant look on his face.

“That’s right. Name your price.” The man kept away his folding fan and looked solemnly at Gu Suihan. He didn’t intend to try and snatch it from Gu Suihan. After all, Gu Suihan was someone whom a cultivator at Li Xiaoyao’s level spoke to with such politeness. If he tried to force Gu Suihan to hand the key over, he might end up getting injured or even die.

Most importantly, after observing the interaction between Gu Suihan and Li Xiaoyao closely, he noticed that Gu Suihan didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in this legacy. That observation tempted him to try and negotiate for the key.