Chapter 91: Beginning Corpse Refining

After disposing of the Yue family Nascent Soul cultivator from Crystal Spirit Sect, Jiuyou did not waste a single moment, heading straight back to the sect's mountain gate.

Time waited for no one. Once Yue Hao died, the upper echelons of the three Yunmiao sects would notice before long, and if he struck again by then, the risk of exposure would multiply exponentially. It simply wasn't worth it.

He slipped in quietly from the side of the mountain gate, and relying on his powerful aura-concealment technique, he quickly followed the memories of that Golden Core cultivator from this sect who had been killed at Qiaoling Mountain, and located Yue Hao's cultivation quarters.

After ransacking the place, he couldn't help but frown inwardly. This man's assets were truly pathetic, not even a decent ancient relic to his name. Who knows how he ever managed to cultivate his Nascent Soul in the first place.

Jiuyou didn't linger here, turning around and heading straight for the secluded retreat of Crystal Spirit Sect's other Supreme Elder.

To secure a swift victory, he deliberately used the Face-Altering Technique to disguise himself as Yue Hao. His bearing, his aura, even the way he walked, all imitated to perfection.

That Supreme Elder was already agitated over the sect being dragged into serving as cannon fodder by the major sects. Seeing his "junior brother" return, he found his demeanor slightly off, but didn't think much of it. Instead, he pulled Jiuyou over to sit and drink tea, hoping to vent his frustrations.

Jiuyou seized the opportunity to strike, killing him with a single blow. Clean and efficient.

He casually collected the corpse and stored it in his Storage Pouch.

Before leaving, he deliberately created some commotion. The Golden Core peak masters of Crystal Spirit Sect sensed unusual noises coming from the ancestors' retreat and, naturally shocked and suspicious, rushed over to investigate one after another.

Little did they know, by coming, they were walking straight into the trap Jiuyou had laid.

Before even entering the retreat, Jiuyou had already set up a trapping array outside, just in case the other's Nascent Soul tried to escape.

Those Golden Core cultivators dove straight in, like moths to a flame, unable to advance or retreat. Jiuyou showed no mercy, raising his hand and slaughtering the Golden Core cultivators trapped in the array one by one, collecting both their flesh and souls as nourishment for his own recovery.

After finishing that, he wasted no time in looting Crystal Spirit Sect's treasury.

Spirit Stones, pills, spiritual materials, anything useful, he took it all. As for the things he couldn't use, or that might reveal his identity, he burned them to nothing with ghost fire, leaving not even ashes behind.

Having done all this, the culprit slipped away silently, leaving no evidence behind. Even if someone from the three sects happened to run into him in the future, they would never know today's events were his doing.

As for the low-ranking disciples of Crystal Spirit Sect, they were probably still oblivious that their sect's upper echelons had been slaughtered to the last, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.

From this day forward, among the three great sects of the Yunmiao Mountain Range, Crystal Spirit Sect existed in name only. Before long, chaos would inevitably erupt within the sect, the tree had fallen and the monkeys would scatter, making it prey for neighboring powers to devour.

Jiuyou had no interest in any of that. He left the Yunmiao Mountain Range without looking back.

He knew very well that before long, the other two great sects would detect Crystal Spirit Sect's transformation, and would certainly strengthen their vigilance and increase their patrols. If he continued to stay in that territory to recover, the risk would be far too great.

The immediate priority was to find a suitable place to restore his strength as quickly as possible.

For the next several dozen days, Jiuyou traveled west, finally spotting his target in a market town overseen by a Golden Core cultivator.

The market town wasn't large, medium-sized at best, but buried beneath it was a decent mid-grade spirit vein with abundant spiritual energy, just what he needed.

Jiuyou infiltrated the market town, secretly killed the Golden Core market master, and casually claimed the man's cultivation cave as his own. The cave already had a small spirit-gathering array set up, saving him quite a bit of trouble.

He also laid down several trapping and killing arrays and early-warning prohibition marks outside the cave to prevent intruders, and only then prepared to perform the secret technique.

Everything was ready.

Following the secret art recorded in the Blood Soul Art, Jiuyou arranged the acquired corpses by grade, foundation-establishing ones on the outside, Golden Core ones in the middle, and the two Early Nascent Soul corpses placed at the very center.

Dark cyan magical power surged up from the cave floor out of nowhere, wrapping around the corpses in layers like mist.

As the secret art circulated, strands of blood qi could be faintly seen being forcibly extracted from the corpses within the mist, slowly converging at the center to condense into a ball of crimson light. The corpses, meanwhile, withered and shriveled at a visible speed, eventually turning to ash.

If any of those Righteous Path cultivators had witnessed this scene, they would surely have cursed it as a violation of heaven's will and a grave harm to others.

Jiuyou, however, couldn't care less. His mind was consumed by a single thought, restoring himself to peak condition as soon as possible. Only then could he establish a firm foothold in this vast cultivation paradise, only then would he have enough strength to compete for more cultivation resources and seek the true path.

Time flowed on, and half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

At first, the cultivators of the Yunmiao Mountain Range hadn't noticed anything unusual.

Although Crystal Spirit Sect's upper echelons had fallen, the sect still stood, and its low-ranking disciples still came and went as usual. That is, until word leaked out from somewhere. The elders and ancestors of Crystal Spirit Sect had all mysteriously vanished at once.

At first, some cultivators refused to believe it. But as more and more Crystal Spirit Sect disciples fled the sect and became rogue cultivators, the truth could no longer be concealed.

For a time, panic gripped everyone in the Yunmiao Mountain Range.

Cultivators speculated wildly, guessing that Crystal Spirit Sect must have offended some terrifyingly powerful existence and been exterminated in a revenge attack. Opinions differed, and no consensus could be reached.

The most shocked of all were the other two great sects, Heavenly Seal Mountain and Spirit Twilight Valley.

Outsiders might not know the details, but their upper echelons were well aware that Crystal Spirit Sect's two Supreme Elders, one nearing the end of his lifespan and the other busy with external affairs, had always been mediocre among their peers, hardly the type to stir up trouble.

How could they have offended other powerful Nascent Soul cultivators for no reason?

Then, recalling the earlier incident at the Qiaoling Mountain secret realm, the upper echelons of these two great sects almost simultaneously connected the two events.

Even after scouring the ruins of Crystal Spirit Sect and finding not a single trace of evidence, they could already be certain that a ruthless and mysterious evil cultivator had come to the Yunmiao Mountain Range, with cultivation at least above Mid-Nascent Soul.

A great evil cultivator at Mid-Nascent Soul, across the entire Yunmiao Mountain Range, only Spirit Twilight Valley's Grand Elder could contend with him to some extent.

When word spread, the upper echelons of both sects treated it as a grave threat. They secretly recalled disciples training abroad, strictly ordered no one to venture out in the near future, kept the mountain-protecting grand arrays of every peak activated around the clock, and increased patrol cultivators severalfold.

For a time, the entire Yunmiao Mountain Range was on edge, every shadow a suspected threat.

Little did they know, the sinister and vicious evil cultivator they spoke of had long since left the Yunmiao Mountain Range, fleeing tens of thousands of miles away.

In an unremarkable little market town, deep within an underground cave, Jiuyou sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, wholeheartedly refining the Essence Blood Stone.

He had no idea what an uproar he had stirred in the Yunmiao Mountain Range. And even if he did, he wouldn't have cared. A bunch of chickens and dogs, not worth a moment's thought.

What he sought was always only himself. What did the life and death of others have to do with him?

[Finally reached Chapter 91 again. I vaguely remember that back then, the original Qingyou book also ended hastily at this very chapter. Now that I've written to this chapter again, thinking about it today, I suddenly find it a bit amusing. Keep writing, there's another chapter tonight.]