The Latecomers

Qin Sang was relentless, commanding the Flying Yaksha to close in and ruthlessly pummel the ferocious tiger. Yunyouzi paid no heed to the battle, his gaze roving over their surroundings instead. Before them lay a dried-up riverbed filled with smooth cobblestones polished by water. Across the river stood a collapsed mountain, its fallen rocks filling nearly half the riverbed. Behind the mountain lay endless darkness. Yunyouzi cautioned Qin Sang not to let the Flying Yaksha venture beyond the riverbed, and not to pursue the ferocious tiger even if it fled to the opposite bank. Qin Sang complied obediently. Before long, Yunyouzi's eyes suddenly lit up. Fixing his gaze on a cobblestone speckled with blue-green patches in the riverbed, he raised a hand, formed an incantation seal, and struck outward. At that moment, the ferocious tiger's roars grew even more frantic, thrashing and charging about like mad, its target clearly Yunyouzi. Qin Sang knew Yunyouzi had found the crux. He stared at the cobblestone and, after a moment, finally noticed a clue as well. *Puff!* The incantation seal struck the blue-green mottled cobblestone, bursting with azure light. The ferocious tiger clashing with the Flying Yaksha suddenly froze. With a whimper, it vanished without a trace, and the world around them shattered once more. To be precise, only the world on this side of the riverbed shattered this time. The faint, elusive pressure they had been feeling also dissipated entirely. Seizing the opportunity, they leapt across the river. Looking back, the riverbank behind them remained just as it had been. "This is actually the real ancient medicinal garden," Yunyouzi explained. "It's just that its ancient restrictions have become thoroughly chaotic and omnipresent. Every few steps, one encounters a layer of ancient restrictions sealing off a section of space. At most, we can only see two layers of ancient restriction space ahead, and we must unravel them layer by layer along the route." Yunyouzi continued, "Without the Flying Yaksha, we would have had to break the restrictions from the outer edges while dodging the ferocious tiger's attacks, gradually weakening its strength as we cracked the formations and slowly searching for the core. Now, we can pinpoint the very core of the restriction directly and shatter it, achieving twice the result with half the effort." The Flying Yaksha was a living corpse, far more agile and responsive than ordinary refined corpses. Qin Sang did not need to expend much mental effort to control it. He wanted to divert his attention to lend Yunyouzi a hand, but found the ancient restrictions exceedingly complex. His own attainment in the art of restrictions was not yet deep enough, so he could not be of much help for now. Even so, Qin Sang did not give up. Following Yunyouzi, he observed and pondered, integrating what he saw with his past accumulation of knowledge, making rapid progress. *Whoosh...* Moving up from the riverbank, they stopped halfway up the mountainside. The mountain had collapsed from this point onward. Looking past the broken mountain, they could see into the next layer of ancient restriction space. On the other side of the mountain, the left presented a sheer precipice dropping straight down, hung with several withered vines that looked ready to snap at the slightest tug, while below lay pitch-black darkness where nothing could be seen. To the right, however, was a mountain ridge. It was readily apparent that these two paths were sealed by different ancient restrictions, presenting a choice. There would surely be more and more forks in the path ahead. Without knowing the correct route, blindly stumbling around would leave them unable to find the Crimson Cloud Purple Fruit even by the time Ziwei Palace closed. Qin Sang and Yunyouzi walked to the brink of the cliff. The Flying Yaksha threw a sudden punch. The force of its blow exploded with a loud bang, sending ripples through space and exposing an extremely frail barrier of light. That single fist blasted a gaping hole straight through the barrier. Before the hole could close, they jumped through one after the other, plunging toward the bottom of the cliff. This layer of ancient restriction was broken with utmost ease. Not only was there no ferocious tiger hunting them, but they did not even need to search for a core—brute force alone easily broke through. This indicated that this layer was already exceedingly fragile. In perhaps a few centuries more, it would completely dissipate, allowing the surrounding pockets of space to merge. Such occurrences were common. The restrictions in the ancient medicinal garden were not uniform; each differed in strength and scale. The most powerful ancient restrictions left even Nascent Soul cultivators helpless. Fortunately, along the path to gather the Crimson Cloud Purple Fruit, apart from a few difficult checkpoints, the danger remained within the bounds of what the Flying Yaksha could withstand. Otherwise, those demon cultivators in the Demon Core stage would never have been able to harvest the herbs either. As for those few difficult checkpoints, they would serve as their trials and tests. The moment they entered the cliff area, a massive suction force surged from the abyss below. Immediately after, a gust of sinister wind swept down from above. With the two forces compounding each other, Qin Sang and Yunyouzi plummeted rapidly. The shadows at the base of the cliff resembled a gaping, bloody maw waiting for prey to throw itself into the trap. Qin Sang and Yunyouzi exchanged a glance and let out low shouts together, their spiritual power surging to resist the sinister wind and suction. In the next instant, countless skeletal claws suddenly emerged from the darkness at the bottom of the cliff. The pale white claws formed a forest of bones, flailing and scratching incessantly, as though myriad living skeletons underground were rapidly climbing upward. Accompanied by the ghost-like wailing of the wind above, the sight sent a chill straight to the heart. Without waiting for Yunyouzi to prompt him, Qin Sang forcibly broke free of the suction and flew upward against the pull. At the same time, he commanded the Flying Yaksha to dive downward; just as it drew close to the skeletal claws, the corpse qi around it erupted violently. The corpse qi formed a massive circular shockwave that swept outward. Amidst a crisp, rattling cascade of cracks, the skeletal claws shattered completely. Countless broken bone fragments flew everywhere, filling their vision with a blur of white. Yet the skeletal claws seemed endless. The moment one batch was cleared away, a new wave surged up immediately, continuing their rapid ascent. The Flying Yaksha could not kill them all, and the open space above was shrinking fast. At that moment, Yunyouzi moved. He opened his palm, and with a gentle turn of the Flawless Pearl, a ray of white light shot downward, transforming into a flying sword that grazed past the gaps between the skeletal claws and pierced deep into the forest of bones. An inhuman shriek rang out. The suction and the sinister wind vanished abruptly. At the same time, all the skeletal claws disappeared without a trace, making the previous scene feel like a dream. Only now could they finally see the bottom of the cliff. Snug against the base of the cliff wall was a semicircular cold pool that surprisingly still held water. Deep and profound, it gave off waves of icy chill. They would have been able to see it earlier, but the skeletal claws had blocked their view. Now that the restriction was broken, they knew this was where the next restriction lay. "This deep pool has no bottom. In the past, a Nascent Soul cultivator didn't mind sparing the time to explore inside, and actually unearthed a stalk of Heavenly Cold Grass from it!" Yunyouzi said softly as he landed beside the deep pool. Heavenly Cold Grass far surpassed the Crimson Cloud Purple Fruit in value, possessing the power to refine and advance the true essence of even Nascent Soul cultivators. Qin Sang could not help but envy that Nascent Soul cultivator's luck. The restriction near the cold pool was not strong either. Yunyouzi quickly located its core and had the Flying Yaksha break it. Unexpectedly, just as the Flying Yaksha was about to strike, Yunyouzi's expression changed abruptly. He waved his hand sharply to stop Qin Sang, looked up toward the top of the cliff, and said in a low voice, "Someone is following behind us! They're taking the exact same path!" Qin Sang was startled to hear this. "So fast?" Those following the same path behind them were very likely demon cultivators from Heavenly Demon Mound. He had never imagined that having just entered the ancient medicinal garden and traversed only a few steps, they would cross paths so soon.