Outside the mountain gate, a slender silhouette suddenly appeared.
Immediately afterward, a terrifying aura surged forward like a crushing tide, descending in an instant.
*Boom!*
The already tottering Sect Master Hall collapsed with a thunderous roar.
Dust and smoke billowed in all directions.
"Not good! Run!"
Terrified, Du Xian unleashed a magic tool and fled in the opposite direction.
A winged, blood-red centipede flew out from Du Xian's dantian. It let out a mournful wail toward him, then wheeled around and charged at the approaching foe. Du Xian was indeed ruthless; sensing disaster, he had abandoned his natal insect gu to buy himself time.
Unfortunately, the disparity in strength was far too vast. Everything he did was doomed to be in vain.
The blood centipede was hideous and ferocious, bearing a lethal, exotic poison that brought instant death upon contact.
Ordinary cultivators dreaded such venom and would give it a wide berth upon sight.
Yet the blood centipede had barely flown any distance when a ghostly claw brazenly snatched toward it.
The blood centipede scrambled to evade, but the ghostly claw moved even faster, effortlessly catching the insect in its grip. Wholly disregarding the venom coating the blood centipede, the claw surged with a violent torrent of corpse qi that thoroughly enveloped the insect before squeezing tight.
The blood centipede was fundamentally a venomous insect whose physical body was far from sturdy. Inundated by the rush of corpse qi, it perished on the spot.
*Pfft!*
Du Xian coughed up a mouthful of blood. His figure faltered, and he suddenly felt his entire body seize up. A cry of alarm rang out in his mind, but it was already too late to mount a counterattack.
A ray of sword light shattered his protective magic tool. In the next breath, Qin Sang materialized beside Du Xian, effortlessly subduing him with a single hand clamped onto the nape of his neck.
On the other side, having dispatched the blood centipede, the Flying Yaksha struck. The cultivator named Jiu Shan had barely risen from his seat when, utterly powerless to resist, he was captured alive by the Flying Yaksha.
Qin Sang flickered back into the Sect Master Hall, dumped Du Xian and Jiu Shan together, and waved his hand to unleash a burst of spiritual power, sweeping aside the masonry to reveal Cui Xuanzi's corpse.
"You certainly made a quick exit," Qin Sang scoffed coldly.
Only after soul searching that Li Witch Palace disciple had Qin Sang discovered that the Five Insects Sect had concealed a Thousand Hands Spider Fruit Tree in Black Wind Valley all along. Back then, he had scoured Black Wind Valley inch by inch, yet had failed to find it.
This was because the ancient restrictions in Black Wind Valley were peculiar: only at the exact moment the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit ripened would an exotic fragrance waft forth and seep into the poison spring, allowing it to be detected.
For reasons unknown, the fruit's existence had come to the knowledge of a Core Formation master of the Li Witch Palace. As luck would have it, his eldest disciple, Du Xian, cultivated a venomous insect as his natal insect gu, and consuming the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit offered the prospect of initiating its third metamorphosis.
Du Xian had brought his men here for two purposes: first, to search for the ancient corpse; second, to seize the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit to aid his natal insect gu's metamorphosis.
The Li Witch Palace's pursuit of Yagu had nothing to do with their search for the ancient corpse, nor had Qin Sang's identity been compromised. Rather, to protect himself, Cui Xuanzi had deflected trouble onto Qin Sang, framing him for stealing the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit and thereby causing Yagu to be targeted by the Li Witch Palace.
Had he captured Cui Xuanzi alive, Qin Sang would never have spared him.
He had not expected Cui Xuanzi, well aware that no good end awaited him, to commit suicide outright—a ruthless figure of great ambition in his own right.
"Hm?"
Just as Qin Sang was about to store Cui Xuanzi's body into his corpse puppet pouch, he sensed something unusual in the corpse's abdomen. Circulating his true essence, he dug out the objects within Cui Xuanzi's sea of qi—it turned out to be two phantom-tailed poison scorpions.
"Twin gu?"
Qin Sang was quietly surprised. He turned the two scorpions, one large and one small, over in his hand to examine them.
Indeed, both were natal insect gu that Cui Xuanzi had blood-refined. Connected to his life force, they had died alongside him the moment he committed suicide.
Legends of twin gu abounded among the Witch Clan, but genuine, confirmed accounts had never truly spread, perhaps because the Western Frontier was too remote.
Of these two phantom-tailed poison scorpions, one was only at the peak of its first metamorphosis.
The other, however, was in an exceedingly strange state: curled tightly into a ball, its surface covered with a thin film, its entire body nearly as translucent and insubstantial as its tail.
"It is undergoing metamorphosis, and even its head has turned illusory—it's already near the end. In just a few hours, it would have completed the process and become a thrice-metamorphosed scorpion! Cui Xuanzi fed it the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit, used the other scorpion to dupe the Li Witch Palace, and framed me for taking the fruit. Then he used Yagu to draw their attention and stall for time. Once the phantom-tailed poison scorpion finished its metamorphosis, his strength would have skyrocketed, making it effortless to turn around and slaughter them. What a brilliant scheme!"
Qin Sang spoke with resentment, having deduced Cui Xuanzi's intentions in an instant.
The metamorphosis process of every spirit insect differed.
Some might require years of gestation, such as the Sky Eye Butterfly or the Ming stinkbug.
Others completed their metamorphosis within a few short months, or even days.
A phantom-tailed poison scorpion's cocooning for the third metamorphosis took only half a month. Once refined into a natal insect gu, with its master's aid, the transformation could proceed even faster.
To secure the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit, Cui Xuanzi had truly racked his brains.
For a century, he had exhausted every means, relying on the lingering prestige of his sect's past Core Formation master to intimidate Jinglei Stockade and Hundred Flowers Palace. After Qin Sang arrived, Cui Xuanzi had humbled himself and played obsequious, borrowing Qin Sang's might to deter the two factions and finally securing Black Wind Valley.
Who could have foreseen the whims of heaven? Just as success was within reach, news of the Thousand Hands Spider Fruit had inexplicably leaked out and reached the Li Witch Palace, who stormed into his sect to plunder it.
Confronted by overwhelming foes, Cui Xuanzi had still remained composed in the face of peril, maneuvering in the narrow cracks between forces and painstakingly scheming to buy time.
As long as his natal insect gu completed its metamorphosis, Cui Xuanzi's chances of reaching Core Formation would drastically increase. When that time came, the worst that could happen was leaving the Western Frontier to conceal his name; there would always come an opportunity to rise again.
He had nearly pulled it off.
Unfortunately, he never could have guessed that Qin Sang possessed Scarlet Fire Flowing Gold, allowing him to capture insects at astonishing speed and return to the Bear Mountain region far ahead of schedule.
Knowing that betraying Qin Sang and embroiling Yagu was an unforgivable offense, Cui Xuanzi had committed suicide swiftly and decisively to spare himself the agony of torture.
Qin Sang had to admit that he had truly underestimated this man.
Reflecting upon himself, his mindset had also changed somewhat after achieving Core Formation.
As facts proved, even in the cultivation world, cultivation level did not account for everything.
Underestimating anyone—even a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator—could lead to a disastrous fall, something Dongyang Bo had experienced firsthand.
And Qin Sang, too, had paid a price.
A complex look crossed Qin Sang's face before his eyes turned cold and stern, a subtle shift settling over his aura.
Walking over to the three Li Witch Palace disciples, he wasted no breath on pleasantries and began soul searching the other two right before Du Xian's eyes.
The cruelty of the Soul Searching Art was laid bare before Du Xian.
When the technique concluded, the souls of Jiu Shan and the other disciple had been utterly dispersed, leaving them without even the chance of reincarnation.
Hearing the harrowing, soul-tearing shrieks of his two junior martial brothers, Du Xian was seized with terror, frightened out of his wits.
"I ask, you answer."
Qin Sang stared into Du Xian's eyes, his voice icy and devoid of the slightest warmth. "What is the Hall of Seven Kills? Where is it?"
From the soul searching just now, Qin Sang had glimpsed a certain scene:
A towering, majestic pagoda, radiating an ancient, weathered aura, stood like a divine relic of antiquity, supporting the heavens as it pierced into the clouds.
An ancient corpse with a severed arm, shrouded in billowing corpse qi, fell from the sky—yet just as it was about to plunge out from the sea of clouds, it vanished into thin air.
This spectacle was known by their master as the Ancient Corpse Falling from the Heavens.
Their master had visited a place called the Hall of Seven Kills, and upon his return, had ordered them to scour every corner for an ancient corpse with a severed arm!
Chapter 655