Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 41

After Mu Tian sent out an attack, a blurry and pathetic-looking figure flew out from his hiding place with a shriek. He was furious that he had been exposed so quickly by Mu Tian.

“He’s right in saying that,” came a bright voice from afar. A bird squawked suddenly and a man coolly hopped off the back of a large bird.

As more and more noises came from all directions and the glow of weapons filled the air, the Seven Kill Sec disciples became more and more uneasy. Things had gotten more serious now.

“It’s getting more crowded around here,” said Mu Tian as his heart began to sink.

“Hoho, who do these people think they are anyway? They’re all hoping to get into the secret realm and get something good for themselves,” spat Yan Wuheng disdainfully. “In that case, they can all go in together. But all of you had better remember what sort of disciples the Seven Kill Sect has!”

The three senior Seven Kill Sect disciples had scanned their surroundings and realized that even though the three of them were more powerful, it was impossible for them to kill all the wandering cultivators that had already gathered.

Since that was the case, it was easier to just let them all go in together. After all, most of them were only at the Qi Activation stage and nowhere near Foundation Establishment. The three seniors could handle the few more powerful ones themselves.

“That’s a good suggestion,” agreed the man who had jumped off the large bird earlier.

Just when the atmosphere was getting tenser and tenser by the second, a loud boom suddenly echoed in the air. The insane storm of Qi within the valley immediately surged towards the wooden figurine in the middle as if they had received a command to do so.

The light purple beam of light also became thicker and more solid as it was filled with more Qi, pulling the shadow it was clinging onto like a chain closer and closer into the valley.

Bam! The wooden figurine let out a booming sound and the gigantic formation compass began to rotate. The Spiritual Stones placed on top of the compass exploded one after another.

As the Spiritual Stones exploded, the Qi they gave off slowly gathered together to slowly form a whirlpool that was a little larger than three meters in diameter.

The whirlpool glowed with a deep and terrifying purple color, as cracks in the space around it appeared, mended itself to look normal again, then repeated the cracking and mending process.

“This secret realm can only withstand cultivators with a maximum cultivation level of around Foundation Establishment or so. In other words, it will be able to take either only one Origin Core cultivator or at best, a few dozen Foundation Establishment cultivators. Anybody who’s too powerful will have to seal up some of your power, otherwise it will interfere with the laws that keep this realm going. If anything happens…I’m sure all of you know what will happen better than we do,” said Hang Chulong with a sinister smile on his face as he looked at the clamoring crowd of wandering cultivators around him.

A secret realm was governed by many laws and parameters. If it were a self-contained world, it wouldn’t have a problem even if an Origin supreme-ruler cultivator were to enter it. But this secret realm was small and badly damaged, so the amount of external power it could hold up against was decreasing over time. The laws governing its existence were also fairly fragile and cracks could appear easily if one wasn’t careful. If you were lucky, the crack would just turn you into dust. In a worst-case scenario, you would be sent into the space where the realm actually belonged in, get trapped in there, and die. So, unless you were at the Origin supreme-ruler stage and could see what the laws governing the space itself were, there was no way you could find a way out at all.

Secret realms that were as big as a world itself were like a vast ocean, while a small one was like a small lake. The former could contain hundreds of rivers, while the latter could only hold a few streams.

After hearing what Hang Chulong said, the expressions of the wandering cultivators fell. They were surprised that all that commotion with the purple beam of light and Spiritual Stones explosions was only to open a small secret realm. Yet, they had no choice but to believe it. A middle-sized secret realm would have a teleporting entrance at least 15 to 18 meters in diameter and would also have multiple entrances.

Moreover, this three-meter-odd entrance was clearly having trouble even existing, since those cracks in the space around it kept recurring. Some of the cultivators who weren’t as adventurous started contemplating if it was worth the risk.

“That’s a shame. Looks like I was happy for nothing,” said the man who had hopped off the bird earlier with a sigh. He immediately got back onto his bird and flew off without even looking back.

“Go in now!” Yan Wuheng suddenly started speaking to the Seven Kill Sect disciples via telepathy. “This entrance will only last for about 15 minutes and you can remain in the secret realm for one month. We’ll give you a jade token that will show you the way out of the realm and it may appear at a random time and place. For now, staying alive is the most important. The wandering cultivators are many, but they are not united. You might gain something in this process even.”

The three seniors quickly gave out those jade tokens and all the juniors took turns to walk into the tempting purple crackling entrance after exchanging nervous glances.

Gu Suihan slowly rubbed the jade token in his hand and a faint but mirthless smile appeared on his lips. As he glanced at everyone else, his left hand trembled slightly inside his sleeve, then went back to normal again. He leaped into the entrance without any expression on his face and disappeared in an instant.

His world spun for a moment before he found himself standing inside a cave.

The first thing that hit him was a terrible stench. It smelled like someone had left a lot of dead animals outside to rot for a long time.

“It’s the smell of magical beasts.” Gu Suihan wasn’t bothered by the smell. He looked carefully at the mess inside the cave and his gaze stared hard at a skeleton in a corner. It was all dry and had a little bit of flesh and dried blood on it.

He gently ran his fingers across the thick spine of the skeleton and clinked brightly.

“This was a Lapis-lazuli Fire Wolf.” Gu Suihan narrowed his eyes as he confirmed what this skeleton used to be.

Lapis-lazuli Fire Wolves naturally loved fire and it was covered in white and blue fur, which was poisonous. Adult wolves were slightly over three meters in height, and some had the ability to cast fire-type spells. They could be as powerful as cultivators at the Qi Activation stage.

Gu Suihan looked grimly at the top of the skeleton, where he could see a skull that had been smashed in by a great force. “This wolf had been killed with one hit, so whatever attacked it was very strong. This cave is only three meters high and very spacious, so it was probably a Steel-backed Demon Monkey or it was a Frosty Sky Bear.”

In short, it wasn’t safe to hang around here.

Gu Suihan pulled his saber out and hung it on his belt. He quickly pasted a Breath-Holding Talisman on himself, then cast a Spirit Concealing Spell. Once he had gotten rid of any trace of himself inside the cave, he flew right out.

“Oh?” Gu Suihan hadn’t made it very far from the cave when he suddenly stopped and smiled. “I’m a pretty lucky one!”

When stepping into the secret realm, his left hand had secretly scattered some Shadow Tracking Powder onto the cracks surrounding the entrance to the secret realm. The movement of the Qi around the entrance had helped to get the powder onto the clothing of the other junior disciples.

This was a simple trick that most people didn’t care for, but Gu Suihan knew that this seemingly simple trick was the sort that ensnared so many geniuses since time immemorial.

Gu Suihan stomped his foot against the tree next to him gently and nimbly ran in the other direction. He was going to try his best to kill all the external disciples belonging to the Nobles Clan, the Way Seekers Alliance, and the Four Directions Court.

That was his revenge plan. He had no schemes or elaborate ploys. He was just going to kill them all. Simple as that.

“I seem to have gotten lucky this time. I successfully infiltrated the disciples, and because some of them wanted to keep those Spiritual Stones for themselves, it caused extra trouble for themselves by attracting those wandering cultivators and forcing them to compromise.”

His gaze slowly grew distant again. “And if nothing goes wrong, all of them still think that I’m still locked up in my room and cultivating. If that’s the case, I’m definitely the one who’s going to benefit the most from this expedition.”

Gu Suihan gently touched the saber that he had named Red Dust and smiled faintly.

“Wow, there’s even a Heart Cleansing Lotus in here. It’s got all the treasures that a secret realm ought to have.” The sound of someone mumbling to himself reached Gu Suihan’s ears as he hid in the shadows.

“Ghostly Shadow Seven Stars!” Gu Suihan held his saber and shuffled his feet in a strange manner as he dashed out from the shadows so quickly, he was nothing but a blur.

“Who’s there?” The young man in the cave was quite alert and reacted almost instantly.

But he was still too slow compared to his attacker.

The young man’s head flew off his own neck with an astonished look on his face. Gu Suihan stabbed Red Dust into the young man’s headless body deftly, then sent his Spiritual Sense out to remove the seal on the young man’s magic storage bag to look at what he had inside.

Red Dust buzzed and trembled as it drained the young man of his flesh and blood.

“What a pauper!” Gu Suihan made a face as he stared down at the ground that had nothing but a dried skeleton wearing clothes with the Seven Kill Sect logo on it. He didn’t feel guilty even though he had clearly killed someone much weaker than himself.

He washed the bloodied head in the waters of a nearby stream, then stuffed it into his magic storage bag.

Then, he flung a Blazing Flames Talisman onto the ground to burn any traces left behind before disappearing into the distance.

“One down!”

There was nothing left in that quiet forest except for the gentle echoes of that voice.