Note:
Because NG has trouble with power outages and I'm not at home, chapters are coming a bit slow right now, sorry :(
The peak foundation stage disciple, who was almost killed under the foot of the earth attributed beast and was at his last breath, wasn’t able to hide anything when faced with Yang Chen’s soul stunning technique. Yang Chen didn’t even need to use his killing intent, just asking what he needed to know was enough.
The Greatest Heaven Sect had several disciples training here, most of them were wood and earth attributed, but this was not very strange as most of the cultivators who came here were wood or earth attributed. Also, since these disciples had been sent to train here, the Greatest Heaven Sect also had a few JieDan stage experts keeping watch and provide support, which was also completely logical, it was also said that there was also a YuanYing stage expert among these overseers.
On the front, everything seemed normal, but Yang Chen knew about the most important matter here. The matter related to the great spell, most likely these low level disciples didn’t know anything about it.
The matter regarding Chu Heng had not been concealed by the Greatest Heaven Sect. In order to make friends with Li Chen Qian of the Greatest Heaven Sect, Chu Heng had tried to suppress Yang Chen, because of which he was expelled from the Pure Yang Palace, so most disciples of the Greatest Heaven Sect were in support of Chu Heng and although the Greatest Heaven Sect couldn’t support Chu Heng openly, they could still hide him at a region where nobody could investigate.
At least in the Desolate Valley, Chu Heng was living very comfortably, the Greatest Heaven Sect supplied him with everything he needed and he had also obtained their support. In these few years, Chu Heng had already become familiar with almost all disciples of the Greatest Heaven Sect at the Desolate Valley. If anything happened, these disciples of the Greatest Heaven Sect were the ones to notify him.
The news that the Pure Yang Palace had sent JieDan stage experts to look for him had also reached him before they arrived because of these disciples, leading to those experts returning back in failure. In addition to that, Chu Heng was properly hidden within the Desolate Valley and was also increasing his strength with the help of the Greatest Heaven Sect.
As for the Greatest Heaven Sect, they were secretly assisting Chu Heng, so that they could ruin the reputation of the Pure Yang Palace to take revenge for their previous defeat, when they had to admit their mistakes and apologise, now they could turn the Pure Yang Palace into a joke at the same time. This kind of gentle act was precisely a business where they could invest little and reap many rewards.
“Chu Heng is in the Desolate Valley, very good!”
The smile on Yang Chen’s face widened more and more, the originally incomparably arrogant youngster was lying down on the ground like an idiot, without saying anything.
Yang Chen jumped up onto the foot of the beast and lightly waved his hand to turn around and depart. The ferocious beast opened its mouth and swallowed the youth lying on the ground.
Currently the earth attributed beast had a cultivation comparable to the JieDan stage, adding onto that the strength of its body and its huge size, even human cultivators at the same stage were not its rival. Fortunately the temperament of the earth attributed beast was mild and it did not take initiative to attack cultivators. When Yang Chen was lying on its back, he was able to establish a connection with it in the first attempt.
The Beast Controlling Secrets were really a remarkable ability of the demon race. Yang Chen hadn’t intended to control this demon beast and had only intended to establish a connection, so that he could obtained the information he needed. Once the link was established, the remaining matters were very easy.
The fate of the three cultivators had already been sealed after running into the demon beast. Although the earth attributed beast had a mild nature and did not take the initiative to attack, it did not mean that it lacked the strength to attack. Yang Chen had asked it for help and it had taken care of them with ease.
Soon afterward it spat out their qiankun pouches and their magic weapons as it could not refine them, before Yang Chen on the ground. These three people were earth attributed, so they were the best kind of tonic for the earth attributed beast. Naturally, Yang Chen didn’t take this help without returning anything and immediately gave it a thousand year old ginseng. Although it was said that it was a thousand years old, it had actually already matured to two thousand years, so even for the JieDan stage earth attributed beast, it was a rare item.
After giving it these benefits, Yang Chen’s request to know about the distribution of Spirit Power in the surroundings and its direction was easily handled, very soon a complete map of several hundred miles radius in the surroundings appeared within his mind. The earth attributed beast had seized this place for a long time, some even said for a thousand years. A few times per year it would patrol its territory, so it was completely familiar with its surroundings, and its cultivation was also high, so it could clearly recognize the distribution of Spirit Power in the surroundings.
Such a detailed description of the distribution of Spirit Power immediately gave Yang Chen a basic foundation of knowledge over the huge spell hidden within the Desolate Valley. After all, this huge spell had to rely on the natural terrain and this area was at the corner of the huge spell, Yang Chen was already roughly able to estimate the general direction of spell, as well as the direction in which its critical points were.
His interactions with the earth attributed spirit beast were quite pleasant, and after asking about some powerful neighbours, Yang Chen quickly took his leave and flew towards another direction. If there were four or five more demon beasts as powerful as this earth attributed beast, then Yang Chen could draw an outline of the huge spell, so when the times came, everything could be covered in a glance.
The three young talents of the Greatest Heaven Sect, from the inside to the outside, from flesh to bones, they had completely disappeared without a trace in this short time. The earth attributed beast also threw the three qiankun pouches towards Yang Chen without any hesitation, in all likelihood, it was also aware that these kind of big sects could use qiankun pouches to locate their disciples.
After seeing its intelligent actions, Yang Chen would absolutely not believe in rumors that this earth attrited spirit beast was mild in nature and did not take the initiative to attack cultivators. Perhaps this earth attributed spirit beast had established its reputation as being harmless for a very long time, but if it could make these kinds of judgements, then there was no way that it had only ever killed these three people. In all likelihood there had been many solitary cultivators going missing in this region, only nobody had paid attention and investigated it.
Yang Chen didn’t care much about the qiankun pouches and neither did he care much about killing one or two people of the Greatest Heaven Sect, so he threw them into his Achievement Ring, as he didn’t want to face trouble in the future.
After quickly flying to the edge of the earth attributed beast’s territory, Yang Chen slowed down his speed. According to the information of the earth attributed beast, its neighbour at this side was not very friendly, not only was it extremely violent, its strength was also higher than the earth attributed beast by far. Its territory was very large, at least four to five times larger than its neighbour.
This caught Yang Chen’s interest even more, this kind of powerful strength, could it be that it was at the YuanYing stage already? The demon race were not ranked like this, this was merely used for comparison. But if it was really true, wouldn’t its domain be even larger? As long as he could obtain information about the terrain of this region, Yang Chen would not have work much.
Naturally, this demon beast, Meadow Viper, was not that easy to convince. Its strength was formidable, so if they couldn’t come to an agreement, Yang Chen estimated there would be some problems. Therefore, Yang Chen had to prepare properly in advance, so that he was not at a loss of what to do when the time came.
The reason which gave Yang Chen the confidence to confront the Meadow Viper, apart from the Beast Controlling Secrets, was that the speed of the Meadow Viper was slower and Yang Chen had flying sword in his collection, the speed of which was amazingly fast. Although it could not compare to the speed of a magic weapon especially made for speed, but according to the description of the Meadow Viper, fleeing from it wasn’t much of a problem.
Even the earth attributed beast could escape using its earth evasion, if the affair did not go well, then Yang Chen could also flee in time to a secure region. Because of this guarantee for safety, Yang Chen had become brazen enough to go and meet the Meadow Viper after he had made enough preparations.
Compared to the mildness in the area of the earth attributed beast, in this area, a berserk breath rippled through the atmosphere. Within the Desolate Valley, there were some regions where the low levelled disciples who had come to train were not allowed to enter by any means, this region was one of those.
Yang Chen was using the Beast Controlling Secrets to the pinnacle, requesting to establish a connection with the idea of asking for directions wrapped within his Spiritual Awareness and released it in a long range. He himself was standing on the flying sword, carefully and slowly flying forward, so that if he sensed anything abnormal, he would immediately escape.
The territory of the Meadow Viper was huge. In half a day, Yang Chen could completely traverse the territory of the earth attributed beast, but he had to spend one whole day in the territory of the Meadow Viper. It certainly also had something to do with his caution, but this clearly illustrated the magnitude of the Meadow Viper’s territory.
The sky became dark and bright again; the next day appeared and the blazing sun was heating up the ground, steam was rising in the surroundings, even without a trace of moisture.
Yang Chen did not pay any attention towards this kind of atmosphere, but he had already manipulated the Beast Controlling Secrets for a whole day and night now, yet there wasn’t a trace of a response, as if there wasn’t any demon beast which Yang Chen could connect to within this huge territory.
This was clearly not possible, even if it was a powerful demon beast, within its own territory it still required food, so it required some coexistence on some level, otherwise, wouldn’t the already lonely demon beast be even more lonely?
But in such a long time, no kind of demon beast had surprisingly established a connection with himself, clearly this was not right. There was only one possible cause: the master of this territory.
According to the description given by the earth attributed beast, Yang Chen had reached the core of the Meadow Viper’s territory, but until now there hadn’t been any signs of something appearing, this already indicated a lot of problems.
Finally, after this step, Yang Chen no longer moved forwards. Under the probing with his Spiritual Awareness, there was no demonic beast in his surroundings, which were dreadfully calm. Wrinkling his brows, he had only stopped the flying sword for a single moment, when he suddenly turned around and rapidly left.
As soon as he did this, an enormous pressure suddenly appeared in Yang Chen’s surroundings. The sand below his feet had become similar to a flowing river and began to divide in two halves, while a huge body suddenly appeared, penetrating through the ground and started to rise steeply. The fierce demon beast rushed towards Yang Chen’s direction with its mouth open, if Yang Chen had been even a little bit slower, he would have been in its mouth.
Naturally Yang Chen would not not rush into mouth of the Meadow Viper, the flying sword turned around swiftly and rushed into another direction, but after changing directions, he discovered that he had been surrounded by the body of the Meadow Viper on all sides. Regardless of where he turned, he would run into the body of the Meadow Viper everywhere.
In addition to that, at this moment, the huge mouth of the Meadow Viper was not facing towards Yang Chen, but rather rose high into the air and afterwards looked down from a height. Yang Chen was trapped between the mouth and the body of the Meadow Viper. Its two blood red eyes were as if shooting death rays, attentively staring at Yang Chen, its long tongue incessantly flicking.
Yang Chen hadn’t anticipated that the body of the Meadow Viper would be so huge, after all, he hadn’t had much contact with demon beasts in his previous life and even when he had, that was after ascending. The demon beasts of the Spiritual World and Immortal World were also completely different, they did not depended just on their body to fight in the least.
The long body was already more than thousand meters long, the thinnest region of its body was several tens of meters in diameter. It was coiling on the ground as if huge walls twisted around to form a confinement. The scales on its body were emitting a black halo, like a natural body protecting armour. The essence of earth attributed Spirit Power wrapped its entire body. Yang Chen was completely sure, even if he used the most powerful flying sword he had to attack these scales, he would be able to break at most ten or so scales, before suffering a critical attack from the Meadow Viper.
At this moment, Yang Chen could not retreat and could only remain hanging within the sky, motionless. But there wasn’t even a trace of fear of Yang Chen’s face, he was transmitting the intent to establish a connection to ask for some things using the Beast Controlling Secrets as before, his eyes staring at the two huge eyes, not swaying for even a single moment.
Yang Chen had spread his Spiritual Awareness widely, but he was not able to discover the location of the main body of the Meadow Viper. This clearly explained one thing, that the cultivation realm of the opponent exceeded his, and it was also possible that it knew a technique to hide its presence. No wonder that the frightening name of the Meadow Viper had spread far, just this technique alone was enough to make cultivators at the same realm go green with envy. It had to be known that demon beasts did not care about being honorable or sinister, confronting the enemy, their only aim was to kill the enemy, it basically did not care about the method.
“You are a Fellow Daoist from my demon race, why do you have the appearance of a cultivator?”
Within his Spiritual Awareness, a voice was suddenly transmitted with a cruel will, basically not paying any attention to Yang Chen’s intent to ask for information, as if interrogating him and moreover not tolerating Yang Chen not giving answer.
“What kind of benefits will I have by informing you?”
As long as the other person had established the connection, then there would not be any great problems for Yang Chen. Releasing the Spiritual Awareness which had passed through Beast Controlling Secrets, he rapidly transmitting his intent without opening his mouth.
Yang Chen knew that the best method to communicate with the demon beast was to get directly to the point, at this stage, they still hadn’t learned a method for tactful communication, so to approach them, one had to be straightforward and get directly to the point. Directly expressing his intentions was the best method, which would also not create any misunderstandings.
Once it understood Yang Chen’s intent, a chill flashed through the eyes of the Meadow Viper, its eyes were as if shooting blades, rushing towards the bottom of Yang Chen’s heart, it had never intended to communicate with Yang Chen, it only wanted to force Yang Chen into submission.
Due to this, a formidable killing intent encased in Spiritual Awareness attacked Yang Chen, but Yang Chen didn’t care at all, he widely opened his own Spirit Sea and forced this threatening killing intent to go in.
Once it entered Yang Chen’s Spirit Sea, ripples suddenly emerged in the blood colored river and in a flash it turned into a huge blood colored hand, seizing this Spiritual Awareness and dissolving it completely.
The Meadow Viper immediately sensed its killing intent being dissolved. It immediately stopped its movement and, leaning its head with its gaze fixed on Yang Chen, transmitted a thread of consciousness:
“What do you want?”