Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After the Alliance Hunt started and the disciples from the various allied sects made their way to the Guiyao planet, the majority of them were focused on killing the beasts and collecting their heads.
There was also a portion of the disciples who robbed others of their spoils. Those who were luckier had only been robbed. The unlucky ones were killed right away.
And it was because of this that the beasts were not the only things they had to deal with on the Guiyao planet; they also had to deal with the threat that their fellow disciples posed.
The ranking for the hunt was decided based on a point system.
However, although the robberies were occurring, they only happened amongst disciples of the same level of training. This was because they could only obtain spoils that were useful to themselves if they robbed someone of the same level of training.
Take for example the ultimate Dharma disciples. It was useless for them to be robbing late Dharma disciples and stealing the heads of late Dharma beasts. This was unless their opponent happened to have the head of an ultimate Dharma beast.
As for the majority of the late Dharma disciples who had been robbed by ultimate Dharma disciples, they would cooperate and hand over all the heads of the ultimate Dharma beasts they had collected to them. This way, they could still keep the heads of the late Dharma beasts and accumulate some points.
Of course, there were also some ultimate Dharma disciples who had thoroughly plundered disciples who were of a lower level of training. They had kept the heads beasts they could not use so that they could hand them off to fellow disciples from their own sects if they happened to meet.
But there were few disciples who were of a high level of training who would kill disciples of lower levels of training. This was because they would be sentenced to death if caught.
It was a free-for-all for disciples of the same levels of training. They were allowed to take each other out, and this was something the Alliance Hunt had implicitly allowed.
In this boundless universe, martial training was a god-defying concept in itself. Whether it was people or the heavens they were going against, the sects of the alliance all hoped for their own disciples to be able to experience and understand the strife and danger of the human psyche.
All the prizes that came with the hunt were but secondary to the true meaning of it, which lay in the experience it granted its participants.
“How boring.”
The other disciples put their all into killing the beasts, and quite a few of them sustained injuries when they were careless. Zhou Donghuang, on the other hand, dealt with them as if they were but small fry, even if the beasts were at the ultimate Dharma stage.
He used the Divine Soul Shaper to channel his Divine Will at the Dharma stage. Once he did so, any life form below the Primordial Soul stage that had channeled any Divine Will would be disrupted by his. Some would even be so affected that they would lose consciousness.
And just that trick of temporarily forcing them out of their consciousness was enough for Zhou Donghuang to go in for the kill.
“I wouldn’t be here participating in this Alliance Hunt if not for the Sky Sun Fruit.”
Zhou Donghuang did not forget his purpose for joining this hunt.
Of course, there was something else weighing on his mind now:
There was a demon here, somewhere in the Guiyao planet, that was causing a disruption in the Spirit energy. The demon was also greedily absorbing the life essence of the dead beasts. Before this Alliance Hunt ended, he had to find out where that demon was spawning.
It was safe to assume that that place was not a good place.
The only thing was that he knew it was difficult to locate the place with how feeble and pathetic his Divine Will currently was. It was easier for him to reach the sky.
It was important to note that, throughout the history of the Alliance Hunt, mid Divine Transformation adepts have entered the Guiyao planet in search of the demon. However, not a single one of them had managed to find where the demon was spawning.
Of course, if Zhou Donghuang had the Divine Knowledge of the Divine Transformation stage, then he could be certain that he could find the demon within a few days.
The spawning grounds of a demon like this was often cloaked with an invisibility spell. It was difficult for the average person to deal with that spell, but Zhou Donghuang could see through the spell as long as he could find it.
Even if he was but a Dharma adept now, he could see through the spell as long as it was right in front of him.
“Onward.”
Though this bored him to no end, Zhou Donghuang had to persevere and work hard to find Dharma beast after Dharma beast to kill and loot their heads, all for the first prize: the Sky Sun fruit.
He did not bother himself with going out of his way to chase after beasts who were of other levels of training.
Those that happened to be in his path, he killed.
Just like now.
A late Dharma beast was flying over from the far distance. It was still quite a ways from Zhou Donghuang and thus had not noticed the man, but he had already spotted the beast.
Even then, Zhou Donghuang could not be bothered to strike at it.
To him, a late Dharma disciple, he could only accumulate ten points from killing a late Dharma beast. An ultimate Dharma beast, on the other hand, awarded him 100 points.
It took ten late Dharma beasts to accumulate him as many points as one ultimate Dharma beast could.
He had no plans to chase after the late Dharma beast; his time was better spent searching for other ultimate Dharma beasts that might be hiding in the vicinity.
“Hm?”
All of a sudden, as if he detected something, Zhou Donghuang’s ears twitched as he stood in the lush forest.
Boom!!
Rumble!!
…
With his astounding sense of hearing, he picked up on waves of sound that were coming from ahead of him.
“Is that the sound of beasts fighting amongst themselves, or is that a disciple fighting against a beast?”
Zhou Donghuang could hear it: it was the sound of two forces striking against one another.
“No!”
As he flew towards the source of the sound, he could hear even more clearly. “It’s three forces exchanging blows… More accurately, it’s two on one.”
With a twist of his body, he moved towards the sound rapidly.
Very quickly, he arrived at the source of the sound. In the deepest parts of the forest was a waterfall. In front of the waterfall was an area that seemed devoid of other beasts.
Zhou Donghuang had come across quite a few spots like this one on his way here, and they were all territories of ultimate Dharma beasts.
Usually, when ultimate Dharma beasts did not leave to hunt for food, they would be resting in their territory.
Boom!!
A large sound rang out. A young man had manifested Dharma Power about 60-meters tall, and he was sent flying harshly into the waterfall by a 100-meter tall Dharma Power manifested by the beast.
The young man was skin and bones. He was a handsome man whose eyes twinkled.
In this moment, the fine clothes covering his body had been torn to shreds.
And the perpetrators of this were the two beasts that were steadily inching towards him. The beasts seemed to be identical, and each of them had a 100-meter-tall manifestation of Dharma Power near them.
Judging by the Dharma Power of the beasts, they seemed to be at the Ultimate Dharma stage.
As for the young man, his Dharma Power was only 60-meters tall because he had an ultimate Dharma spirit weapon with him that could double the inner Yuan of a Dharma adept!
Ultimate Dharma spirit weapons were mostly used as an adornment to directly increase the individual’s inner Yuan and allow them to demonstrate stronger Dharma Power.
In this young man’s case, his Dharma spirit weapon was the very conspicuous jade bangle on his right wrist.
“They’ve already mastered the Dharmic possession technique… If it’s just one ultimate Dharma beast, he can deal with it. He can definitely kill the beast if he has enough time. But two ultimate Dharma beasts—and it’s obvious that they are twins with strong chemistry—their powers are not simply stacking upon each other’s when they combine them!”
Zhou Donghuang could tell that the pair of beasts in front of him now was a pair of twin beasts.
Not every pair of beasts that looked similar were twin beasts.
But here was the real problem: At first glance, they looked alike, but that was not all. All the details trailing up and down their bodies were identical, and this was something that was impossible even for beasts of the same species. As such, the only explanation left was that they were twin beasts.
“Roar—”
“Roar—”
The two beasts had bodies similar to cheetahs. The fur covering their bodies was covered in leopard spots, but they had sharp tusks in their mouths and a stature like a small hill. It was obvious that they were not just ordinary cheetahs.
Their Dharma Powers manifested in a shape similar to their physical bodies, just many times larger. It was as if there were huge mountains beside each other, and it made for an imposing sight.
“Hm?”
The young man had already been preparing to retreat but all of a sudden, his eyes gleamed and he seemed to have caught sight of Zhou Donghuang standing in the far distance, face as calm as ever.
Although Zhou Donghuang looked to be young, his composure made it easy to guess that he was not the least bit afraid of those two beasts.
At the very least, Zhou Donghuang was like him; he had the ability to escape from the two beasts.
The young man was only injured now because he wanted to test his luck and see for himself if the rumors were true. He wanted to see if he could take the two beasts down if he had the chance… Only to find out that the two beasts were absolutely flawless when they teamed up, and there were no openings he could take advantage of.
Even if he had found an opening to exploit, he ended up sustaining heavy injuries.
He took in a deep breath, then turned to look at Zhou Donghuang. He called out to him in a high-pitched voice, “My lord, what do you say we take these two beasts down together? We’ll split the spoils—half each!”
To this, Zhou Donghuang only looked back at him with a mild gaze. He did not respond to the young man’s suggestion.
In the next second, under the shocked gaze of the young man, Zhou Donghuang moved to kill the two beasts.
After seeing him charge forward alone, the young man could not help but smirk. “Do you have a death wish?”
From his perspective, he thought that Zhou Donghuang had only charged forward alone instead of choosing to work with him because he had wanted the spoils all for himself.
The greedy bastard.
He could escape anytime he wanted, so the young man was confident that he could flee even with the injuries he had sustained. As such, when Zhou Donghuang had dragged the beasts’ attention onto himself, he was in no particular hurry to escape.
He seemed to be gloating at Zhou Donghuang, who had landed himself in trouble and was looking rather desperate.
Only for his jaw to drop at the scene that would unfold next:
At the same time both beasts lunged for the young man dressed in white, their bodies paused strangely for a moment, and their Dharma Power seemed to become less solid and a lot milder, as if they would disappear at any instant.
At this moment, the 30-meter-tall white tiger pounced forward and struck at the Dharma Power of both beasts. After they disappeared, it struck out again quickly with its paw, smacking both beasts down.
Rumble! Rumble!
Both beasts were left lying on the ground, fresh blood flowing freely from their mouths and their breaths shallow.
“What happened?”
The scene that had unfolded before his eyes left the young man stunned. He had no idea at all what had happened. Why did the two beasts freeze all of a sudden?
“Some sort of luck that was.”
The young man snapped back into focus. He thought that the other man must have gotten really lucky; perhaps some disease of theirs happened to act up in that moment.
Zhou Donghuang moved towards the two beasts, and it seemed as if he was going to collect both of their heads. When the young man saw that, he blanched. He shot out like lightning towards Zhou Donghuang. “It’s first come, first served, my lord… Although you managed to injure them, that was due in part to the fact that I had already depleted quite a bit of their inner Yuan.
“You have to hand one of the two heads to me.”
