"Anomalies most likely do not exist solely within sect ruins."
Li Fan reached the most reasonable conclusion.
"Scattered, intermittent incidents of anomalies harming people have occurred across various regions of the Xuanhuang Realm."
"The smiling face fruits, the Mind Apes, and the Will Horses might all be products of anomalous erosion."
Judging from the Heavenly Secret Hall's response, anomalies seemed to be kept under constant, strict surveillance.
The Five Elders Association was presumably doing the same.
...
Li Fan pondered for a moment and shook his head inwardly. *It is enough that I know about this. It is hardly the place of a petty Foundation Establishment cultivator like me to worry over such things.*
*Compared to anomalies, the mighty figures of the Xuanhuang Realm are far more terrifying.*
Connecting the Will Horse to possible anomalies in the Xuanhuang Realm was merely a minor interlude.
Soon enough, Li Fan put it out of his mind.
Heeding Zhang Zhiliang's instructions, he concentrated on cultivating peacefully within the Heavenly Profound Mirror while drawing upon the remaining potency of the Will Horse to nourish and strengthen his divine soul.
Time flew by, and half a year passed in the blink of an eye.
At the bottom of the Congyun Sea, Ye Feipeng, who had been slumbering all this while, finally began to stir.
A clear, resonant whale call sounded from the sea depths, rippling out continuously toward the surrounding waters.
The instant countless creatures on the seabed heard this cry, they shivered as if encountering a natural predator, petrified and rendered utterly powerless to resist.
Above Ye Feipeng's head, the illusory phantom of a whale-peng chimera manifested alongside the cry.
The monstrosity opened its gaping maw, lunging forward to inhale violently as though starved for ages.
A colossal maelstrom instantly churned to life.
Surging seawater swept countless caught-in-the-crossfire sea creatures directly into the creature's gullet, swallowing them whole.
After a long time, having devoured who knew how much seawater and fish, the whale-peng finally sated its hunger.
Letting out a satisfied cry, it hoisted its massive tail high and slammed it downward with sudden force.
Only then did the giant whale plunge back into Ye Feipeng's body.
A moment later, Ye Feipeng's eyelids twitched, and he slowly awoke.
He froze in place, surveying his surroundings with a look of dazed confusion.
Gradually, images flashed through his mind in rapid succession, revealing everything that had transpired before and during his slumber.
Ye Feipeng instinctively rubbed his belly and muttered under his breath, "Heaven truly protects good people. Not only did I survive such catastrophe, but I even awakened the bloodline of the ancient beast Kunpeng."
The fat cultivator's eyes flickered, his gaze landing on a massive boulder on the seabed nearby.
With a slight shift of his body, he appeared beside the boulder in the next instant.
Without channeling any spiritual energy, relying purely on raw physical strength, he casually threw a light punch.
*Boom!*
Fissures spiderwebbed across the boulder, and a moment later, it shattered with a resounding crash.
"The strength of a Kun, the speed of a Peng..."
Ye Feipeng stared blankly at his fist, finding it hard to believe.
"The power of an ancient beast is truly formidable. With just this burst of raw physical strength, I could probably fight on equal terms with how I was before the coma..."
Then, the fat man frowned. "Wait, I am a direct descendant of the Ye family of Great Li. How could I possess the power of an exotic beast?"
"Could it be that my Ye family ancestors weren't even human?"
Even though the power buried within this bloodline had granted him ineffable benefits, Ye Feipeng found it rather hard to stomach for a moment.
A glint of blue light flared in his eyes as he examined the faint, fragmented memories that had surfaced along with the bloodline power.
"Fleeing beasts... rescuing a grievously wounded Kunpeng..."
"So that's how it was."
After a long while, Ye Feipeng let out a sigh of relief.
According to the ancestral memories, countless ages ago, an ancestor of his had, by pure coincidence, rescued a critically injured Kunpeng.
At the time, something unknown had happened, sending all the spirit beasts of the world into a frantic scramble for their lives.
In a moment of kindness, the ancestor had hidden the Kunpeng from others and diligently nursed it back to health.
Once its injuries fully healed and before it departed, the Kunpeng gifted the ancestor a single drop of its essence blood as an expression of gratitude.
"No wonder most of my Ye ancestors were burly and possessed immense strength. It was the effect of this Kunpeng essence blood all along."
"It's just a shame they only passively benefited from its power and never managed to truly unlock its full potential."
"Only when it reached me, aided by the Vast Sea Pearl, was its power finally awakened in full."
Having weathered a brush with death, the fat man had matured noticeably.
Had such a fortune fallen upon him in the past, he would surely have beamed with unrestrained delight.
Now, his expression remained calm as he tested the legacy of the Kunpeng essence blood.
"For now, the inheritance is divided into three main techniques."
"Kun Devour, Peng Flight, and Shocking Peng Transformation."
"Kun Devour can swallow all matter under heaven and earth, converting it into nourishment to strengthen oneself."
"Peng Flight stirs the waters and soars on furious wings, mounting ninety thousand li in the blink of an eye. Its speed is second to no escape art in existence."
"Shocking Peng Transformation: bloodline power conferred upon the flesh. The human body reverts to ancestral form, bringing the Kunpeng into the world once more."
A sharp light gleamed in Ye Feipeng's eyes.
With a thought, his already chubby frame swelled outward by a whole circle.
Two foreign bulges rose high from his back.
Transforming for the first time was clearly agonizing.
His features twisted into a grimace, blue veins writhing beneath his skin like coiling dragons.
"Ah!"
With a furious roar, a pair of brown-feathered wings burst from his back.
Between his brows, the mark of a soaring Kunpeng spreading its wings materialized.
The transformation took a heavy toll, leaving the fat man panting raggedly as he recovered his breath.
After resting for a moment, he drew himself up.
The wings on his back flapped gently.
His form blurred into a thin line, and in the blink of an eye, Ye Feipeng appeared more than ten li away.
It was several times faster than the speed he had always prided himself on before his coma!
"A Kunpeng rides the wind, traveling ten thousand li a day."
"I can go even faster!"
With a stirring of his mind, the Azure Wind True Intent within his dantian surged forth.
Faint streaks of azure light shimmered around his brown wings.
Testing it once more, Ye Feipeng discovered that the dual combination of the Azure Wind and the Shocking Peng Transformation produced an effect far greater than the sum of its parts.
His flight speed more than tripled!
"Speed is power! With speed like this, coupled with a body tempered by Kunpeng essence blood, an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator couldn't even survive me crashing into them..."
With that thought, Ye Feipeng unleashed his speed to the limit and slammed violently toward an undersea mountain peak below.
A streak of light flashed, and the mountain collapsed in an instant, kicking up a turbid tempest of seawater.
Not yet satisfied, Ye Feipeng maintained his momentum, hurtling forward across the distance again and again, carving a deep, sprawling trench across the seabed.
Only when his stamina ran dry did he reluctantly bring his destructive rampage to a halt.
Opening his maw wide, he swallowed the surrounding seawater empty once again.
Before long, he was brimming with vigor and vitality once more.
"If I had possessed this kind of speed back then, Zhang Zhiliang never would have caught me," he murmured to himself.
Recalling the scene from that day, the fat man's face inevitably darkened.
Chapter 270