“I wasn’t devoured?”
After a long time, Zhuo Fan opened his eyes and saw the clear blue sky.
When the Qilin leg connected to his shoulder, he felt a terrible resentment tearing at his soul.
But what had him shocked was that a mere Qilin leg, dead for god knows how long, was still bearing such strong resentment.
As it came from a sacred beast, the magnitude was amplified.
It had instantly cut off his consciousness before he could even cry for help. The last thought that went through his mind was a lament for having failed it all.
The sacred beast’s resentment pierced his soul, yet it didn’t get destroyed?
[How am I still alive? Did the Qilin resentment turn noble and let me off?]
Even he found that impossible. Resentment was a mass of rage, how could it develop a conscience?
Zhuo Fan just couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He shook his head in the end, crawling to his feet. Then he realized he had done that with his right arm…
He looked at his right hand in shock and a glowing red arm entered his eyes.
[The refining succeeded.] He had turned the Qilin leg into a sky-piercing Qilin arm!
Overjoyed, Zhuo Fan took in all the details of his new arm, yet it wasn’t one bit different from his other arm. But when he moved his fingers, he could feel the space itself vibrate.
The power behind his right arm was just as freaky as Gu Santong’s!
Zhuo Fan was confident that no one in Tianyu could match this arm of his. He wouldn’t balk even against Gu Santong’s attacks.
Zhuo Fan was ecstatic and jumped in glee. But he could only jump to a thousand feet of height above the mist.
Zhuo Fan had forgotten that he had lost his wings and couldn’t fly as a Bone Tempering expert. So why was he still hovering here?
[I… have advanced!]
Zhuo Fan checked his cultivation in a rush.
Sure enough, the refining had jumped his cultivation into the 3rd layer of Profound Heaven Stage. Not to mention the dragon soul’s power within him had already fused with him and brought his body to a new level.
Through the dragon power tempering and with the dragon soul within him, the power in his body shot had through the roof. Not even Huangpu Qingtian could match him now.
And that wasn’t even half of it. He found with great delight that Blood Infant had advanced as well. It had broken the shackles and advanced into the Profound Heaven Stage.
The Profound Heaven Stage Blood Infant’s speed had reached an unprecedented level. Not even a Discerning Field could catch up to it.
Squinting, Zhuo Fan flexed his mind.
Whoosh!
A red glow flew out of him, took a tour of Blackwind Mountain’s surroundings for a hundred miles and was back inside in the blink of an eye.
At the core of Blackwind Mountain, watching over the arrays, Xue Qingjian and Qiu Yanhai, were cultivating with closed eyes when they felt a chill pass through them.
“Old hag, did you feel that?” Qiu Yanhai’s eyes trembled.
Xue Qingjian nodded and gulped, “A-as if something passed by. But why couldn’t I sense it? It’s all based on my instinct.”
“You too?”
Gasping, Qiu Yanhai’s aged face shuddered, “Then it mustn’t have been just a coincidence. I felt the same. But why? Is there anything in this world that can fly past our divine sense without getting detected? If not for the instincts we honed through battles for a century, we wouldn’t have felt the danger either.”
“Yeah, just what was that? If it was a human, how dreadful would he be? We could never hope to reach him.”
Qiu Yanhai sighed, scratching his head, “I only hope he has no ill will towards the Luo clan…”
In another area, the Four Scheming Demons were on duty, to fend off anyone going into the Misty Forest where Zhuo Fan lay.
But were these pygmies that bored? It didn’t take fifteen minutes before they were back to squabbling and fighting. And they had kept at it all this time.
Whoosh!
When the red glow flashed by, the four pygmies stopped mid swing.
“Bro, did something pass by just now?” Sly Demon frowned.
Violent Demon’s punch faltered, his eyes roaming about, “No way. What could possibly pass us four heroic demons without so much as a sound? Such a thing doesn’t exist in this world.”
“Yeah, there’s absolutely no way!” Wimp Demon shook his head.
The other two paused for a second before doing the same.
“That settles it. Now, where were we?” Violent Demon swung his hand with a grin.
Sly Demon said, “Uh, you were about to punch my face.”
Bam!
And that was what Violent Demon did, smacking Sly Demon’s nose, “Ha-ha-ha, now I remember. I really wanted to bash your face in.”
Sly Demon returned blows of course, right at Violent Demon’s head. Thus, the four resumed their ever bustling bonding.
But just then, Zhuo Fan’s dignified voice came from above Blackwind Mountain, “Elders, come to the Misty Forest.”
Steward Zhuo was out!
Xue Qingjian and Qiu Yanhai rushed post haste. Yan Song came out of the Alchemy House as well, flying to the forest.
The Four Scheming Demons stopped their sharing tough love and gathered at Misty Forest.
Soon, all of the Luo clan’s elders were watching the forest. Zhuo Fan walked out of the bloody fog and nodded.
The elders saw that Zhuo Fan didn’t only recover his arm but had also reached the 3rd layer of Profound Heaven Stage.
Leaping four layers in just one month? His speed was faster than a rocket!
Monster!
The word was on everyone’s lips. [How could Huangpu Qingtian possibly compare? He was just a novice.]
Zhuo Fan smiled, “How long was I away?”
“A month.” Yan Song bowed.
Nodding pleasantly, Zhuo Fan said, “Perfect, I just let my demonic creature check your situation. You’ve done well this month.”
“What, it was you just now?” Xue Qingjian cried out, “What is that demonic creature that moves so fast?”
“Ha-ha-ha, I have many more tricks up my sleeve. You will get to see them in time.”
Zhuo Fan replied with a vague smile, which only made the others more baffled. [Just how many tricks is Steward Zhuo Fan hiding to catch everyone off guard? Truly frightening.]
Even though they were Radiant Stage experts, they were like kittens in front of a tiger when Zhuo Fan was around.
“From what I saw, that was a quick reaction. Elder Qiu and Elder Xue, you’re quite sharp. Elder Yan is still in Profound Heaven Stage so it’s fine, and he is quite dedicated to alchemy too. Only you four, what the hell is wrong you shits?”
Zhuo Fan’s smile turned demonic as he glared, “I told you to defend this place yet all you do is squabble. Talk, how should I punish your negligence of duty?”
Shuddering, the four put on hurt looks in sync.
“Uh, Steward Zhuo, anything but the Bloodworms. Any other punishment is fine. How about you beat us up?” Sly Demon pleaded.
Raising an eyebrow, Zhuo Fan laughed, “You must be thinking I can’t hurt you, to ask for that, right? Fine, we’ll do it your way. I’ll beat you silly!”
The four were ecstatic.
With Zhuo Fan’s tiny cultivation in comparison to theirs, in the 6th layer of Profound Heaven Stage, he couldn’t even make it sting. As long as the Bloodworms were out of the picture.
Even standing there and taking Zhuo Fan’s hits, they figured Zhuo Fan’s fist would be the one hurting in the end.
The four showed crafty smiles.
Zhuo Fan didn’t mind, merely eying them coldly as he spread his arms, “Take your pick, left or right?”
“Ha-ha-ha, whichever you wish.” Violent Demon laughed nonchalantly.
With a snicker, Zhuo Fan stretched out his left arm and said, “Left it is, so I won’t beat you to death and waste all the effort dumped into you the past five years.”
[Transformation!]
Zhuo Fan roared in his mind…
