The Deer Demon King had perished.
Two demon kings were heavily injured.
The others bore wounds of varying severity.
To fight their way across the swamp, they had paid a devastating price.
The edge of the swamp bordered another towering mountain range.
Standing at the foot of the mountain and looking up, they saw that it appeared no different from the previous one—a bare, rocky mountain. Yet its summit was shrouded in mist and clouds. The Flood Dragon King felt a wave of oppression and an ominous premonition.
To find the dragon corpse, they still had to cross this mountain range.
After weighing the matter over and over, he turned around and said, "Nine Phoenix, guard them while our Daoist friends heal as quickly as possible. Brother Hei and I will go see if there's a smaller path to bypass it."
The Flood Dragon King and the burly carapace-backed man skirted along the foot of the mountain.
This mountain range was exceptionally vast, with peaks stretching continuously into the distance.
After circling past several mountains in succession, they finally spotted a cliff. Between two peaks lay a deep, shadowy mountain path, winding its way to the other side of the range.
After conferring with each other, the two demons squeezed into the mountain path one after the other. They made their way through cautiously, arriving at the other side without mishap.
Surprisingly, the space here was very stable. The spatial rifts were sparse, and one could directly see the immortal restriction in the sky above.
The two sides of the mountain range were like two completely different spaces.
At the foot of the mountain lay a rocky beach of exposed stone without a single blade of grass. Faint gray mist drifted through the air; compared to the murky swamp, it could practically be called bright.
Apart from a few rolling hills, there were no taller peaks within sight.
An expanse of utter emptiness.
"This place is..."
The Flood Dragon King opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly his expression tightened. Without any warning, a faint layer of black qi surfaced on his face.
In an instant, the Flood Dragon King's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot.
"Not good! It's poison!"
The Flood Dragon King cried out in shock. He rapidly formed a hand seal and slammed his palm against his chest. Unleashing some unknown secret technique, his palm shone with golden radiance, condensing into a miniature golden flood dragon that sank into his body.
Golden light swiftly suffused his entire body.
The Flood Dragon King opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of black qi, yet right before his eyes, it vanished without a trace.
Only after being alerted did the burly carapace-backed man realize the poisonous mist had entered his body. He likewise cast a secret technique to refine and neutralize the virulent poison.
"A virulent poison with neither color nor scent!"
The Flood Dragon King looked grim. "This is the Secluded Valley!"
...
The Trial Realm.
Some time after Venerable Ye and the others departed, Qin Sang returned to the Hundred Treasures Pavilion atop the stone peak.
The treasures had already been divided up.
Upon stepping into the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, he was teleported to the precipice of the Inner Hall.
Qin Sang immediately concealed his figure and masked his aura. Scanning the surroundings and confirming no one else was nearby, he took out a map from his Qianjun Ring.
This map had been obtained from Ning Wuhui and was far more detailed than what he had gathered himself.
"Over there..."
Comparing the map with the terrain, Qin Sang located his position, then flashed into motion, speeding toward the rendezvous point agreed upon with Ning Wuhui.
Having delayed quite some time to fulfill his promise to Su Nü, he wondered how long Ning Wuhui had been waiting.
In this region near the entrance of the Inner Hall, the ferocious beasts had already been hunted down, and the most dangerous ancient restrictions had been broken by predecessors. It was the safest area in the entire Inner Hall.
As Qin Sang hurried along, he observed the Inner Hall's environment.
"It doesn't even compare to Ziwei Palace!"
Such was Qin Sang's appraisal of the Hall of Seven Kills.
In Ziwei Palace, aside from a few secret grounds like Tianshan, even Core Formation stage cultivators could explore freely. The Hall of Seven Kills clearly looked vastly more dangerous.
Moreover, Ziwei Palace was lush with vibrant vegetation and full of vitality, whereas the Hall of Seven Kills gave off only a sense of dead silence.
He lifted his head and gazed up at the immortal restriction.
Rosy clouds obscured everything.
If the ancient teleportation array was in the Inner Hall, how had he fallen from above Heaven Tower through the immortal restriction and then been teleported away? Had Senior Qingzhu done something, or was there another reason?
"Could the ancient teleportation array actually be inside the immortal restriction?"
Qin Sang muttered inwardly.
He skirted past several peaks in succession. Along the way, he saw restriction lights flickering erratically on some mountains where cultivators were breaking restrictions in search of treasure.
Before long, Qin Sang arrived at the rear of a mountain.
Their agreed meeting place was precisely a secluded stone pavilion nestled in a hollow behind the mountain.
The stone pavilion was quaint and bore the heavy marks of age.
Finding the stone pavilion without the slightest effort, he saw no sign of Ning Wuhui.
Qin Sang slipped inside, but found no markers left behind either. He and Ning Wuhui had agreed that if an unexpected incident forced either to leave the stone pavilion first, they would leave a mark to inform the latecomer.
"Ning Wuhui hasn't arrived yet!"
Qin Sang was surprised.
He had already delayed for quite some time; he hadn't expected Ning Wuhui to be even later!
"Could he be trapped in the Trial Realm?"
Remembering the Thousand Mountains Formation of the third trial, Qin Sang could not help but feel a flicker of concern.
Given Ning Wuhui's strength, barring accidents, he was more than capable of competing for the Soul-Washing Liquid, or at the very least arriving at the Hundred Treasures Pavilion in the first batch of cultivators.
Ning Wuhui had not joined the contest for the Soul-Washing Liquid, yet he still hadn't emerged from the Trial Realm.
If he was inept at dealing with illusion formations and got trapped in the Thousand Mountains Formation, that would be bad.
Qin Sang felt uneasy, but then remembered that besides the Soul-Washing Liquid and magic treasures, the Trial Realm also held rare spirit herbs hard to find in the outside world. Perhaps Ning Wuhui had another objective in mind.
"Forget it. I've overexerted myself, and my true essence hasn't fully recovered. I might as well recover while waiting for him."
Without Ning Wuhui, Qin Sang could do nothing. He had no choice but to be patient, setting up an isolating restriction in the stone pavilion and holding a spirit stone to meditate.
Before long, true essence filled Qin Sang's body, fully restored.
He opened his eyes, but Ning Wuhui was still nowhere to be seen. He then retrieved the Soul-Washing Liquid from his Qianjun Ring.
Qin Sang channeled his divine consciousness to carefully sense the medicinal power of the Soul-Washing Liquid. His essence soul experienced an extremely soothing sensation, as if it contained abundant soul power.
Consuming the Soul-Washing Liquid greatly enhanced divine consciousness; that claim shouldn't be false.
"The Soul-Washing Liquid, the Nine Illusions Heavenly Orchid, the natal insect gu..."
Qin Sang envisioned the future.
Even if he could not return to the Xiaohan Realm, reaching the Nascent Soul stage was not entirely hopeless. By his reckoning, there shouldn't be many obstacles left along the way.
He could begin considering how to undergo the Nascent Soul Tribulation.
However, on second thought, Qin Sang realized that facing the tribulation would be far easier for him than for others.
The Nascent Soul Tribulation comprised the Three Disasters tribulation—including the lightning tribulation—and the inner demon tribulation. What terrified people most was not the Three Disasters tribulation, but the inner demon tribulation!
When a cultivator was nearing the end of their tether, facing the formless, insubstantial inner demon tribulation left them completely helpless. Countless cultivators had failed at the final step and been reduced to ash because they could not pass the inner demon tribulation.
Protected by the jade Buddha, Qin Sang did not fear the inner demon tribulation. Moreover, possessing as many as two top-grade magic treasures, he also had a measure of resistance against the Three Disasters tribulation. When the time came, he would only need to gather some auxiliary spirit arrays and pills and craft a few necessary tribulation-crossing treasures.
The Nascent Soul Tribulation struck terror into countless cultivators, yet Qin Sang was not so worried.
As long as he could smoothly cultivate to the peak of the Core Formation stage and break through the bottleneck, nothing would stand in his way to the Nascent Soul stage!
Just as his thoughts wandered, he suddenly sensed a fluctuation. His expression shifted slightly; he stowed away the Soul-Washing Liquid, dispelled the restriction, and stepped out of the stone pavilion to greet his visitor.
"Fellow Daoist Ning!"
The newcomer was indeed Ning Wuhui.
"I arrived late and kept you waiting, Fellow Daoist Qin," Ning Wuhui said, landing before Qin Sang and cupping his hands with an apologetic look.
A strange look flickered in Qin Sang's eyes.
He faintly sensed that Ning Wuhui seemed a bit different from before, though he couldn't tell why.
Chapter 1052