Chapter 193 - 188: Sneak Attack
Li Yuan spent another half a day deep in the Ghost Mist Forest.
After he finished digesting another round, Li Yuan got up and walked deeper into the forest.
The ghost mist grew thicker and thicker.
He couldn’t see anything beyond five zhang. The range of his enhanced Spiritual Sense was compressed to about thirty zhang. His perception of malice had also grown dull, as if he were trying to listen through several layers of cloth.
After walking for about a quarter of an hour, a few blurry figures appeared in the mist ahead.
Three people.
Li Yuan paused, suppressing his presence to the bare minimum.
The three figures moved slowly through the mist, as if searching for something. They were spread far apart, maintaining a distance of seven to eight zhang from each other in a fan-shaped formation.
Their cultivation ranged from the Qi Refining Fifth Level to the Qi Refining Sixth Level.
Li Yuan didn’t avoid them, continuing on his original path. It was normal to encounter other cultivators in the Ghost Mist Forest. The woods weren’t exceptionally dangerous, and plenty of Loose Cultivators came to gather Evil Qi, hunt yin souls, or harvest Spirit Grass.
When he was about thirty zhang away, the cultivator in the lead spotted Li Yuan.
He was a young man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a dark complexion and a lean build. He wore a gray-green short shirt and had a shortsword hanging from his waist.
He stopped, glanced twice in Li Yuan’s direction, then raised a hand to wave the other two over.
The three gathered together and walked toward Li Yuan.
"Fellow Daoist, are you also here to gather Evil Qi?" the dark-faced young man asked, his tone casual and a smile on his face.
"Mmm," Li Yuan nodded, not breaking his stride.
The dark-faced young man caught up, walking alongside Li Yuan for a couple of steps.
"The three of us are, too. The concentration of Evil Qi is much higher deep in this forest compared to the outskirts, but the mist is so thick it’s easy to get lost. Aren’t you afraid of getting lost by yourself, Fellow Daoist?"
Li Yuan didn’t reply.
The dark-faced young man’s companions also caught up. One was in his thirties, with a sturdy, honest-looking face and a somewhat slow gait.
The other was younger, in his early twenties, with shifty eyes that kept darting toward Li Yuan’s storage bag.
The three of them formed a semi-circle around Li Yuan—one to his left, one to his right, and one behind him—all within five to six zhang.
Li Yuan had suppressed his aura to the level of the Qi Refining Fifth or Sixth Level.
In their eyes, here was a lone Loose Cultivator with a cultivation level similar to their own, deep in the Ghost Mist Forest, with a bulging storage bag.
The dark-faced young man’s right hand suddenly drew the shortsword from his waist. Spiritual Power surged from the blade, and a grayish-white streak of Sword Qi slashed toward Li Yuan’s lower back.
At the same time, a Spiritual Light flared in the palm of the sturdy-looking cultivator to the left, and an Earth Magic spell shot toward Li Yuan’s feet.
The young Loose Cultivator behind him also made his move. A Spirit Needle shot from his fingertip, aimed straight at the back of Li Yuan’s head.
The three of them attacked simultaneously, their coordination seamless, without a moment’s hesitation.
Deep in the Ghost Mist Forest, there were no Inspector Generals, no rules of the Primordial Yang Sect. Robbery and murder were not uncommon here.
Li Yuan shook his head. He had already moved the instant the dark-faced young man drew his sword.
Not to dodge, nor to counterattack.
With a thought, he unequipped the Hundred Veins Returning to Origin Skill.
Equip Bloodthirsty Stone.
[Equipment successful]
[Acquired Trait: Blood-Quenched Realm (Green)]
Then, Li Yuan moved.
He sidestepped to the right, dodging the Spirit Needle coming from behind.
The Spirit Needle grazed past his left ear and vanished into the dense mist ahead.
The Earth Magic spell struck the spot where he had just been standing, churning the soil, but it hit nothing.
The dark-faced young man’s Sword Qi hit nothing but air.
Li Yuan raised his right hand. Fireball Technique.
’Three zhang away, locked on by the Precision Trait.’
The Fireball slammed squarely into the dark-faced young man’s chest.
BOOM.
A wave of scorching heat exploded through the dense mist, scattering a large patch of it. The dark-faced young man’s body flew backward, a gaping, charred hole blasted through the gray-green shirt on his chest.
He slammed into a dead tree and slid to the ground. After struggling twice, he went still.
The sturdy-looking cultivator on the left turned pale. The Spiritual Light in his palm had not yet faded when Li Yuan’s fire arrow arrived.
The fire arrow pierced his right shoulder, flew out his back, and embedded itself in the trunk of a tree behind him.
The sturdy-looking cultivator grunted, his right arm falling limp. He turned to run.
A second fire arrow caught him in the back.
He collapsed into a pile of decaying leaves. He struggled a few times, and his aura rapidly faded.
The young Loose Cultivator at the rear reacted the fastest. Seeing his two companions fall in an instant, he turned and fled.
Li Yuan didn’t give chase.
Fireball Technique.
The Fireball flew through the dense mist, its trajectory corrected by the Precision Trait, and slammed into the young Loose Cultivator’s lower back.
BOOM.
The young Loose Cultivator’s body pitched forward. He rolled twice on the ground before landing motionless in a pile of rotting leaves.
Less than ten breaths had passed from start to finish.
All three were down.
Li Yuan stood where he was, letting his aura return to normal.
The moment he killed them, the Blood-Quenched Realm Trait provided feedback.
A faint wisp of power flowed from the three corpses, seeping into Li Yuan’s body and merging with the depths of his Dantian.
The sensation was faint, but it was definitely there.
Li Yuan didn’t dwell on the feeling. He walked over to search the bodies.
The dark-faced young man’s storage bag didn’t contain much. A few Spirit Stones, a bottle of Breaking Evil Pills, half a bottle of Spiritual Ink, and a spare shortsword.
The sturdy-looking cultivator’s storage bag held a little more. A dozen or so Spirit Stones, two bottles of medicinal pills, and a cloth sack.
Opening the cloth sack revealed it was full of ore.
Grayish-black ore of various sizes filled the bag. Some were as large as a fist, others only the size of an egg. Their surfaces were rough and bore fresh marks from being mined.
Next to them was a set of mining tools. An iron pickaxe, an iron chisel, and a small hammer—crudely made but sturdy and durable.
’So these three weren’t just here to gather Evil Qi; they were also mining in the Ghost Mist Forest.’
The young Loose Cultivator’s storage bag also contained ore, a smaller amount, but it too had fresh mining marks.
Li Yuan took all the Spirit Stones and medicinal pills from the three storage bags and gathered the ore together.
There was a considerable amount of ore in total, about thirty to forty jin. Li Yuan didn’t recognize the type of ore, but judging from its weight and texture, it was likely of a decent grade.
He crouched down and examined the ore piece by piece, touching each one with his finger.
Most of them yielded no reaction.
After examining over a dozen pieces, his fingertip touched a piece of ore that was a size smaller and darker in color than the rest. A panel popped up.
[Equippable Item Detected: Yin Stone (Intact)]
[Trait Preview: Yin Qi Amplification (White) — Increases cultivation speed by 30% when practicing Yin-attribute Cultivation Techniques]
[Permanence Condition Preview: Cultivate one Yang-attribute Cultivation Technique to the Perfection realm (0/1)]
[Current equipment slots are full (5/5). Replace a currently equipped item?]
’A White Trait. Increases the cultivation speed of Yin-attribute Cultivation Techniques by thirty percent.’
’The permanence condition is to master a Yang-attribute Cultivation Technique to Perfection. That’s a rather strange condition.’
Li Yuan currently had no Yin-attribute Cultivation Techniques, nor had he mastered any Yang-attribute Cultivation Technique to Perfection.
This Yin Stone was useless to him for now.
Li Yuan stored the Yin Stone separately and put the rest of the ore, which had no traits, into his storage bag. He could sell them at the market when he returned and get some Spirit Stones for them.
After looting everything from the three bodies, Li Yuan stood up.
He was about to leave when he caught sight of the three corpses on the ground out of the corner of his eye.
’Something’s wrong.’
Li Yuan stopped in his tracks.
The body of the dark-faced young man was changing.
When he was killed by the Fireball just now, a large hole was blasted in his chest, charring the flesh, but the rest of his body was more or less intact.
Now, less than a quarter of an hour later, the corpse had already begun to desiccate.
It wasn’t normal dehydration.
It was an unnatural, extremely rapid withering. The skin clung tightly to the bones, and the muscles looked as if their moisture and essence had been sucked out from within. His facial features had collapsed, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken.
The other two bodies were undergoing the same change.
The process was very fast.
Li Yuan crouched down and pressed a finger against the dark-faced young man’s corpse.
The skin was dry and rough, like old leather that had been left in the sun for months. The muscles had already atrophied by more than half, and the outline of the bones was clearly visible.
It wasn’t just the physical body.
The Divine Soul was also disappearing.
Normally, after a cultivator’s death, their Divine Soul would linger in the body for some time before slowly dissipating. For a Mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator, the residual Divine Soul should last for at least a day or two.
But he could no longer sense any trace of these three’s Divine Souls.
They had been dead for less than a quarter of an hour, and their Divine Souls were already gone.
Li Yuan stood up and glanced around.
The grayish-white mist swirled slowly, obscuring everything.
His enhanced Spiritual Sense, suppressed by the ghost mist, only covered a radius of about thirty zhang. There were no abnormal energy fluctuations within that range.
But the changes to the corpses were not normal.
’There’s something strange about the Ghost Mist Forest itself. This forest is shrouded in dense mist and Evil Qi year-round, yin souls wander within it, and there might be something unknown underground affecting the entire area.’
The rapid desiccation of the corpses and the swift dissipation of their Divine Souls seemed as if they were being drained by something.
’The ghost mist itself? Or some existence deep within the Ghost Mist Forest?’
He took a few steps, then glanced back at the three corpses.
In the short time it took to walk those few steps, the desiccation had worsened. Their faces were completely collapsed, their original features unrecognizable. Their clothes hung loosely on their skeletal frames, as if draped over bundles of dry firewood.
Li Yuan averted his gaze and quickened his pace toward the wall of mist.
’The Ghost Mist Forest is definitely strange.’
’If I come back in the future, I’ll have to be more careful.’