“The powerful Immortal Vampire behind you is Qi Xiaotian?” asked Zhang Ruochen.
“That is right.”
“What blood pill is he making?” asked Zhang Ruochen thoughtfully.
“The Millennium Blood Pill. It requires the blood of three thousand three hundred and thirty-three humans and a vast number of sacred herbs to make that thing,” said Qi Sheng.
“Once the pill is successfully made, attaining the Precept Domain level would be like a walk in the park for Qi Xiaotian. By then, no one around the Yunwu Commandery and Qianshui Commandery would be his match, and he would start making them even more potent Mega Blood Pill.”
“The amount of blood needed to make the Mega Blood Pill is ten times that of the Millennium Blood Pill.”
“So, Zhang Ruochen, your enemy is him, not us. If you want to kill Qi Xiaotian and take the semi-finished Millennium Blood Pill, we can be your guide. We just hope you would spare our lives.”
Ying Huo knew what Qi Sheng was thinking: he was actually leading Zhang Ruochen into a death trap.
Zhang Ruochen was powerful now, no doubt. But compared to Qi Xiaotian, the difference was still too huge.
Knowing what Qi Sheng was up to, Zhang Ruochen shot him a sideways glance. “The Millennium Blood Pill is invaluable to the Immortal Vampires. But it is the root of all evils in my eyes. Even if I got it, I would only destroy it.”
He used to refine the blood of the Supreme Kings and divine blood, but things made from the blood of thousands of ordinary people really disgusted him. He would destroy it. He could not imagine consuming it.
“I guess Kai Shi is also with Qi Xiaotian?” asked Zhang Ruochen.
There was a fleeting sense of delight in Qi Sheng’s eyes, and he saw that Zhang Ruochen was not killing them at the moment. “He is. Qi Xiaotian has found Kai Shi an ancient vein to help heal his wound and break through into Nine-step Saint Kinghood.”
“An ancient vein? Where?” Zhang Ruochen’s heart skipped a beat.
“In Dark Wasteland, east of Luoshui.”
Almost every cultivator of the Yunwu Commandery knew that Dark Wasteland was a piece of desolate wilderness on the far side of the Eastern Region. It was said that it bordered the East Sea.
If Dark Wasteland has an ancient vein, Zhang Ruochen would definitely want to check it out.
He was not going to kill Qi Sheng and Ying Huo for now, but just blocked off their meridians and bloodline and held them into his Qiankun Realm. He then headed straight to the polar region to rendezvous with Ji Fanxin.
As he approached the polar region, the stone column erected on the earth started to block his field of vision.
The column stood like a wall towering into the sky.
The giant beast bound on the stone column still looked incredibly powerful. Zhang Ruochen felt some invisible force was suppressing his strength, preventing him from even using a tenth of his power.
Dimension was also becoming denser as he kept going.
He could not perform a Dimensional Shift here. All he was left of was riding the Golden Dragon Carriage to move ahead.
As he rode the Dragon Carriage and carefully observed the patterns on the stone column, he found that those patterns contained some mysterious Path, just like the gods’ engravings in the Celestial Domain of Truth.
But he knew for sure that these were not the Path of Truth.
250 miles from the stone column, beautiful flowers suddenly grew out of the black earth. Green leaves and gorgeous colorful petals made the place look like a dreamland.
Ji Fanxin, wearing a white dress, gracefully walked out of the sea of flowers and then hopped onto the Golden Dragon Carriage.
“Why are you appearing in your true form, Fairy?” Zhang Ruochen looked at her with surprise.
Ji Fanxin pressed her lips together and let out a smile of boundless elegance. Zhang Ruochen was awestruck and could not take his eyes off her.
Many figures of higher stature than Zhang Ruochen in the Celestial Court were trying to court this Fairy of a Thousand Flowers, yet they all hit a brick wall with her. The biggest accomplishment of any man was to get Fairy to smile at him.
Seeing Ji Fanxin getting closer, and as the tip of her hair fluttered past his face with a light floral scent, Zhang Ruochen became restless. “Fairy… you…”
“Shh, don’t say anything.”
Her soft voice came as her soft body leaned in his arms. Her soft hand touched his face while the other curled around his waist.
His every muscle stiffened. “Fairy, did-did you get rid of the drug of that old man from your body?”
“That drug is too strong. You gotta help me…”
Her pink lips moved closer to his ear, and her enticing breath was rubbing against his skin, exciting his every nerve.
At that moment, her hands turned into petals, extending from his face and waist and wrapping around his body.
As he could not move a muscle, he suddenly came to his senses.
This is not right. She is not Ji Fanxin. Who is using spiritual power against me?
Boom!
A scorching Divine Purification Flame burst out of his body, blowing the petal wrapping around him away. The petals went up in flames and were burned to ashes.
Following immediately, he lunged up in the air and went several hundred feet away.
As soon as he landed, he saw Ji Fanxin standing not far away.
She looked different this time. Not that alluring anymore, but in the exact look of after she changed her appearance.
“Who are you?”
The roar of a dragon rose from within his arm as he struck his palm.
There was a fleeting sense of puzzlement in Ji Fanxi’s eyes. She raised her two fingers to his palm.
Boom!
A powerful energy storm burst out between them, causing heaven and earth to rumble.
Ji Fanxin and Zhang Ruochen broke away. “Why are you attacking me?”
Is she really Ji Fanxin?
Zhang Ruochen’s brows were knitted together tightly as he activated his Heaven’s Eye, trying to see the true form of this woman in front of him.
Ji Fanxin looked upset. She raised her hand and a spiritual power-vortex formed in the air, blocking the preying vision of Heaven’s Eye.
She knew that using Heaven’s Eye, Zhang Ruochen could see through her sacred clothes.
She was really upset. “How could you do this, Zhang Ruochen?”
He realized that using Heaven’s Eye on her was not a decent thing to do, but he was still wary. “Who are you, really?”
Things suddenly hit her. She had probably figured out what Zhang Ruochen was experiencing just now and looked at the Golden Dragon Carriage not far away.
She saw a demonic tulip on the roof of the Dragon Carriage releasing its pollen to engulf the carriage.
Zhang Ruochen also looked over at the Golden Dragon Carriage. But what he saw was Ji Fanxin, dressed in white clothes, sitting on the carriage with a sensuous smile on her face.
Now he knew that it was a trap, yet he still could not calm himself down.
He could not help it. The woman on the carriage was so different from the ethereal version of Ji Fanxin he used to know. This one was too irresistibly tantalizing.
“Break!”
As Ji Fanxin raised her finger and tapped lightly in the air, a spiritual power-storm shot out.
All illusions disappeared from Zhang Ruochen’s eyes.
The woman who sat on the carriage and appeared to be Ji Fanxin had disappeared and turned into a demonic tulip.
Zhang Ruochen forced a smile and did not know what to say.
“Don’t feel frustrated. This demonic tulip has a spiritual power of 59th order. It was normal that you failed to see through it.”
Ji Fanxin paused, then continued. “You looked nervous and anticipatory just now. What illusion did the thing make you see?”
Zhang Ruochen was embarrassed. “I accidentally inhaled its scent. It must have weakened my judgment and self-control. Erm, anyway, we should first think of a way to get rid of it.”
This demonic tulip was not the same one that he encountered the last time he came to Luoshui. It had yet attained the hundred-thousand-year-level kind of ancient sacred herb.
So Ji Fanxin could harvest it easily with her spiritual power.
With his level of cultivation base, Zhang Ruochen was confident of getting away, even if he was not as good as Ji Fanxin. But Ji Fanxin’s spiritual power was unfathomably powerful—so powerful that even a 59-order spiritual power-cultivator looked like a sitting duck in front of her.
She had cultivated the Path of Truth to a level higher than what Zhang Ruochen had done. She was truly a force to be reckoned with.
Ji Fanxin handed the demonic tulip to Zhang Ruochen. “I went to the polar region just now and found a blood lake under the stone column. It should be the Lake of the Divine Blood specifically.”
“The Lake of the Divine Blood?”
Ji Fanxin looked back over her shoulder at the corpse of the giant beast on the stone column, her expression grave. “That’s right. It was formed by the blood flowing out of that beast, which seemed to be a legendary sub-divine beast. But… it is hard to understand. Really hard to understand.”
“Did you collect the divine blood from the lake, Fairy?”
Ji Fanxin shook her head. “I left before reaching the blood lake.”
“Why was that?”
“There are many sacred herbs growing on the shore of the lake. They all look like a beast in shape. Those sacred herbs could attack the saint souls and spiritual power of the cultivators. Among the sacred herbs are the hundred-thousand-year ancient sacred herbs, the spiritual power attack of which is terrifyingly powerful.”
“With your level of saint soul and spiritual power, they wouldn’t have posed a threat to you, Fairy.”
Ji Fanxin shook her head again. “Besides, there is also an army of corpses and skeletons roaming around the shore. Among them are the corpses of the Supreme Kings. The beast-shaped sacred herbs release their souls and spiritual powers and put these corpses and skeletons under their control.”
Zhang Ruochen’s expression turned serious at hearing this strange phenomenon.
How could sacred herbs control the corpses of the Supreme Saints? The pertinent question was, how the corpses of the Supreme Saints ended up here, and who killed them?
“Have you ever thought about a question, Zhang Ruochen? How did those sacred herbs attack the saint souls and spiritual power of the cultivators? And why are they in the shape of beasts?” asked Ji Fanxin in her mind.
“You suspect that the divine soul hasn’t entirely left the beast’s corpse bound to the stone column, Fairy? And those sacred herbs have absorbed the divine soul, and that is why they have become this horrifying?” asked Zhang Ruochen.
“Whatever the reason, we mustn’t mess with them for the moment. In fact, there is an abundance of sacred herbs on this planet. As long as you could collect more of them, you will attain Seven-step Saint Kinghood in no time,” said Ji Fanxin.
“I wouldn’t go there too since even you, Fairy, are wary of them.”
He paused, then continued, “Could you go somewhere else with me, Fairy?”
It was equally urgent to stop Qi Xiaotian from making the Millennium Blood Pill and to search for the Godstones in the ancient veins. If Ji Fanxin could lend him a hand, then things would be a lot easier for him.
