Chapter 681: Ruined Lands
A a streak of watery blue light travelled slowly through the sea of clouds.
Qin Lie was seated quietly inside the crystalline war chariot with narrowed eyes as he absorbed the rich blood fiend aura inside the Demon Sealing Tombstone. He was improving his blood power this way and using it to refine even more lifeblood essences.
He was tens of thousands of kilometers away from Flaming Sun Island right now.
Through Blood Fiend Sect and Gold Sun Island, he learned that the Land of Chaos had been relatively peaceful as of late. It was true that the Copper rank forces were, as always, embroiled in endless wars and committed all kinds of atrocities and slaughter against each other, but the Silver rank forces who lorded over them hadn’t done anything big for the past years.
Black Voodoo Cult and the three great families hadn’t organized a new wave of offense immediately after their failed invasion on Setting Sun Islands.
Jiang Zhuzhe and his subordinates had vanished once more and were nowhere to be found.
Blood Fiend Sect and Gold Sun Island were gradually getting on the right track and putting down their roots on Setting Sun Islands. All kinds of cities and special defensive barriers and formations were being constructed with their current stock of spirit materials.
Song Tingyu had obtained the acknowledgement of both Lang Xie and Mo Hai on the two islands subordinate Flaming Sun Island, and she was now shouldering the heavy responsibility of distributing the resources.
Lang Xie concentrated on training the Blood Spear martial practitioners, while Mo Hai and Tang Siqi were using the spirit materials they obtained to deepen their understanding of artifact forging. They also taught the new disciples how to cultivate.
Flaming Sun Island continued to develop in an orderly fashion.
There was nothing that Qin Lie needed to worry about.
Therefore, after notifying Song Tingyu, Mo Hai, and Lang Xie about his departure, he quietly left and went on a journey to the Heavenly Silence Continent alone.
Heavenly Silence Continent was situated at the northeastern side of the Setting Sun Islands. In reality, the fastest way to reach the Heavenly Silence Continent was to go to Illusory Demon Sect first and utilize their large-scale teleportation formation. It would teleport him directly to the Terminator Sect at the Heavenly Silence Continent, allowing him to meet Forefather Terminator quickly.
If he did this, he would only need six to seven days to be able to reach Illusory Demon Sect and at most a total of eight days to stand in front of Forefather Terminator.
However, he had given up on the shortest route and trod the longer route instead. He wanted to truly experience the Land of Chaos while everything was still peaceful.
He chose to pass through the vast sea region between two continents.
It would take three months or so for the blue-colored high rank crystalline war chariot he sat atop of to pass through this sea region and bring him past Terminator Sect’s boundaries with its speed.
And this was assuming he wasn’t delayed in the process.
If he ran into trouble midway and paused for a moment to cultivate, then this travel time might increase exponentially.
After he had stepped into the Fulfillment Realm, Qin Lie’s lifespan had been extended once more. As long as he wasn’t killed, he could easily live for a total of five hundred years. In that case, spending a year or two on expanding his knowledge and improving his mind by adventuring seemed like a pretty good choice.
He could also refine lifeblood essences, accumulate spirit energy and learn the secrets of the spirit diagrams during this journey, so one couldn’t really say he was wasting his time.
“Whoosh…”
He put away the Demon Sealing Tombstone standing inside the war chariot and kept his eyes tightly closed. A turbulent wave of blood energy surged from within his mind.
A thought flashed through his mind.
Specks of bloody light flew out of his body and floated beside him like fireflies.
Slowly, these bloody lights dots stopped flying and looked like they had become completely static.
All thirty eight translucent light dots were his lifeblood essences.
Every one of his lifeblood essences was only as big as a peanut, and the interior burned like there were turbulent flames trapped inside it. Inside, he could see many divine characters spelling “blaze.”
Under the sun, these lifeblood essences looked like burning flames or pure blood crystals. They were beautiful and wondrous, and they contained a mysterious energy.
These crystals were the products of his efforts as of late.
“Withdraw!”
The thirty eight lifeblood essences transformed into bloody beams and vanished into his body once more.
“I’ve reached the first bottleneck,” Qin Lie muttered to himself.
After he had refined thirty eight lifeblood essences, he discovered that he could no longer refine more despite replenishing his bloody spirit energy with the Demon Sealing Tombstone.
It was as if his current realm and physical body could only endure thirty eight lifeblood essences.
He couldn’t handle even one more.
There seemed to be an unfathomable limit in the unseen world of spirits that was restricting his realm, soul and physical body, preventing him from unleashing himself in full.
“I should try and use the lifeblood essences in battle when there’s a chance. It’ll let me check out how much power they can produce when used with the Blood Spirit Art,” Qin Lie thought to himself.
While thinking, he put the matter of the lifeblood essences to the back of his mind and submerged his soul consciousness into the Soul Suppressing Orb. Then, he continued to study the miraculous spirit diagrams inside the third space.
A while later, he detected activity from the six Spirits of Void and Chaos. Soon after, he saw them flying out from depths of the Soul Suppressing Orb.
He smiled freely and withdrew his soul consciousness, opening his eyes.
“Yiya, yiya…”
The six little fellows patted their own stomachs and cried out to him. It was obvious that they were hungry again.
“Your appetite is growing bigger and bigger,” Qin Lie smiled and took out the spatial ring containing spirit materials of six attributes. A pile of spirit materials suddenly appeared on the crystalline war chariot.
The six little fellows cheered and immediately burrowed themselves into the spirit materials. They picked them up, stuffed them into their mouths, chewed and swallowed them.
There were animal bones, crystals, and chunks of wood of all colors among these colorful spirit materials. They emanated different kinds of spirit energies.
The six little fellows were only interested in the spirit materials of their respective attributes. They were completely uninterested in everything else. They quickly devoured the piles of spirit materials.
After playing with Qin Lie for a while and getting tired as a result, they yawned and returned back to the Soul Suppressing Orb.
Qin Lie inspected the remaining spirit materials inside the spatial ring and couldn’t stop a tiny frown from appearing on his face.
Before he set off on his journey, he had asked Song Tingyu to prepare a large amount of spirit materials of the six attributes. They completely filled up three spatial rings with materials of several tons in weight.
He thought that these six little fellows wouldn’t be able to finish these spirit materials even if they had a year to do so.
But now he realized that he had underestimated their appetite.
He realized that these six little fellows seemed to be growing in strength and in appetite at the same time. As of late, he discovered that their appetite had grown at least twice as big!
As a result, the spirit materials he stored inside his spatial ring were growing insufficient. They might not even last until the Heavenly Silence Continent.
“No wonder Hei Shite of the Asura Race said that there’s no way I can raise the Spirits of Void and Chaos myself. He really wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest,” Qin Lie muttered to himself.
With Blood Fiend Sect’s generous gifts and authority over the Flaming Sun Island, he had accumulated such a large stock of spirit materials that he thought that raising the six Spirits of Void and Chaos would be easy peasy.
His thoughts on the subject changed now.
“Their appetites are already this big even though they’re just babies.” The more Qin Lie thought, the more odd his expression became. His eyes gradually turned serious as he rubbed his chin in thought. “If these six little fellows could evolve safely and reach their ultimate forms, they may actually be able to devour space and all spirit energy in auxiliary worlds. Scary!”
“I guess I need to find an Asura Race member once I reach Terminator Sect and get a better understanding of the Spirits of Void and Chaos.”
Qin Lie had yet to truly understand what the Spirit of Void and Chaos even were, but through observation of these minor details, he could already tell these little creatures were truly terrifying.
If these six little fellows didn’t trust him so unconditionally and made him feel very at ease, he would’ve been afraid of them himself.
Another month passed by.
Qin Lie had gone far, far away from the Heavenly Slaughter Continent, passed through the sea region and arrived at three free lands that were completely unmanaged by either the Heavenly Slaughter Continent or the Heavenly Silence Continent.
It was a domain that not even Terminator Sect, Black Voodoo Cult, or Illusory Demon Sect had reached.
It so happened that the spirit materials he prepared for the six Spirits of Void and Chaos were about to be depleted .
“It’s time to buy some random spirit materials with spirit stones.”
Qin Lie controlled the crystalline war chariot and slowly descended towards the sea. He looked at the many empty and desolate islands in the distance and released his soul consciousness, attempting to seek out a gathering place of martial practitioners.
He had already learned from Xing Yuyuan about the distribution of forces between the Heavenly Slaughter Continent and the Heavenly Silence Continent before he came over. He also learned that this place was a special domain that belonged to neither Black Voodoo Cult nor Terminator Sect nor Illusory Demon Sect.
This place was called the Ruined Lands.
The Ruined Lands were a collective of almost a hundred desolate islands. Without a powerful force to lay down order, the Ruined Lands was in a constant state of lawlessness and disorder. There were plenty people who were being chased after by Terminator Sect, Black Voodoo Cult, or Illusory Demon Sect who came here.
Plenty of forbidden trades were done here as well.
The bodies of all races, cruel and evil arts, secret arts and spell altars that were forbidden by all forces, human sacrifices, and bloodied weapons would often be transported to this place and sold with the help of various concealment methods.
The Ruined Lands contained far too many things that weren’t publicly acknowledged.
It was rumored that even the important figures of Terminator Sect, Black Voodoo Cult and Illusory Demon Sect would often show up here under a false name in search for some special spirit materials.
For example, there was the Yin Born Infant and Dark Moon Placenta.
The Yin Born Infant was born at a place of absolute yin. It was a baby who was born with a heavenly yin constitution whose cries of birth were said to sound like a wraith’s cry. This cry had the power to penetrate one’s soul.
These type of babies was the equivalent of great tonics to cultivators who practiced evil arts.
However, a spirit material like this absolutely was forbidden from appearing in the reputable markets or trading centers on all five continents of the Land of Chaos.
The Dark Moon Placenta was more or less the same.
Such evil, dark, and bizarre items were only of extreme attraction to those martial practitioners who were devoid of humanity and cultivated the forbidden or evil arts in secret. Since it was very difficult to buy such forbidden items through other channels, these people could only come to the the Ruined Lands to have the chance to buy them at a hefty price.
The Ruined Lands was in fact rumored to be the old den of many evil spirits many years ago. After this place was attacked by all forces and turned into ruins, it slowly transformed into a special trading zone of forbidden items instead.
Since this place was overly unique, no force wanted to take control of or have anything to do with it..
No one wanted to have an irremovable stain of sin on them after all.
This was exactly why the Ruined Lands were a place that thought highly of individual strength. No one’s status worked normally on the Ruined lands, so all martial practitioners who set foot here had to be strong enough to establish themselves.
In reality, there were plenty of reputable people who would disguise themselves as another person so that they wouldn’t be recognized after coming to the Ruined Lands.
“This is an interesting place,” Qin Lie identified a particular direction and flew towards the Ruined Lands.
