Chapter 695 - 406: Bullying an Immortal Official?

Be it the wolf poison, the Dragon Poison, or the clam poison he had most recently acquired, Zou Feng had yet to fully refine and absorb them.

There were also several Skills he hadn’t had time to cultivate recently. He needed to get all of them on the schedule.

More than ten days passed in the blink of an eye.

The scorching sun hung high in the sky over the streets of a recently destroyed town.

The area was littered with ruins left behind by a fierce battle. Many houses were still burning, sending plumes of smoke and dust into the air.

The ground was covered in bloodstains and various unidentifiable fluids.

Yet despite the horrific scene, not a single body could be found.

It was as if the town’s residents had all been moved elsewhere the moment the battle began.

A disheveled female figure scrambled frantically through the wreckage.

She wore a dazzlingly ornate, multicolored dress and a floral coronet. With her delicate features and bewitching, slender figure, she should have looked every bit a Fairy.

Now, however, her face was a mask of terror. Her magnificent dress was torn to shreds, and her body was covered in black and blue bruises.

She looked as if she had been brutalized by several large men and had just barely managed to escape with her life.

But this seemingly pitiful, helpless woman, upon closer inspection, was clearly no damsel in distress. She was an injured Tribulation Cultivator.

A high-level one at that—an Immortal Official of the Ninefold Celestial Court.

"Stop struggling. Obey, and I’ll give you a quick death!"

A muscular, bare-chested man shot toward the female Immortal Official from behind.

He carried himself with a menacing air, his eyes filled with the certainty of a predator cornering its prey, tinged with a thick layer of mockery.

In truth, judging by their respective Realms, his words were a complete subversion of the natural order.

After all, he was only in the Dao Foundation Realm, yet he dared to chase a Golden Core Realm Tribulation Cultivator while spouting such arrogant nonsense. It was utterly absurd.

Yet, upon hearing his words, the fleeing Immortal Official couldn’t help but tremble, the terror on her face deepening.

One could even faintly see tears welling in the corners of her eyes...

This Immortal Official’s name was Yin Xia. In her wildest dreams, she never imagined she’d be hunted into such a desperate state by a mere Dao Foundation Realm Cultivator.

’No, this bastard isn’t a Dao Foundation Realm Cultivator. He’s a Dao Foundation Realm *monster*!’

When she first encountered him, Yin Xia had just performed a blood sacrifice on this very town. She was feeling quite pleased with her gains, having successfully brought her Skill to the Great Success stage.

But before she could even savor her victory, this man appeared out of nowhere, aggressively charging in for close-quarters combat.

At the time, Yin Xia was startled but unconcerned. She assumed he was some crazed cultivator whose mind had shattered from a cultivation mishap.

But as the fight wore on, she realized something was terribly wrong.

’He was impossible to kill!’

Even when she started using her real power, the man would only be injured, never killed.

Eventually, her own power reserves dwindled so much that she found it difficult to even wound him.

That wasn’t even the worst part.

The worst part was that after every exchange, the man—limited by his Dao Foundation Realm—would burn through his energy even faster and soon be on the verge of collapse.

Yet every time that happened, the bastard would inexplicably vanish.

Then, once he had mostly recovered, he would charge out again with a savage grin...

There was simply no way to win. Thus, Yin Xia had decided to retreat long ago.

Unfortunately, that was also impossible. The entire town had been sealed by an incredibly sophisticated Array, and Yin Xia soon realized with despair that she was trapped.

By now, Yin Xia understood. On the surface, she was fighting a strange Dao Foundation Realm Cultivator, but in reality, she had fallen into a trap set by someone far more powerful.

And this stronger Cultivator, hidden in the shadows, had never once intervened. They only wanted the Dao Foundation Realm monster to take her down on his own...

Yin Xia’s suspicions were essentially correct. Her being trapped here was, of course, the work of Ye Chenhua and Jiang Wanzhao.

Having Zou Feng fight a Golden Core Realm Tribulation Cultivator on his own was a planned part of his preparations for Core Formation.

Though Zou Feng had killed quite a few Golden Core Realm Tribulation Cultivators in the past, he had always done so with the aid of powerful items or by capitalizing on his opponent’s carelessness.

When it came to a true head-on confrontation with a Golden Core Realm Tribulation Cultivator, like this one, he was still clearly outmatched.

But fortunately, with two True Inheritors acting as his Guardians, he had unlimited chances for trial and error.

As he grew stronger with each attempt and she grew weaker, his opponent was finally reaching her breaking point.

Although the presence of his two Guardians meant it wasn’t technically a true solo battle.

But with this practice under his belt, Zou Feng would have the experience and confidence needed to face other lone, low-ranking Immortal Officials in the future.

Knowing that it was useless to keep running, Yin Xia steeled herself and came to a sudden halt.

"Spare me! I’ll help you lure more Immortal Officials and Judges here!"

She was certain Zou Feng was just training under the protection of a master, so she made an offer she believed he couldn’t possibly refuse.

Zou Feng stopped seven paces from Yin Xia, cracked his neck, and said, "Spare you?"

"Did you ever think about sparing the residents of this town?"

Before the words had even left his mouth, Zou Feng, having no patience for further talk, lunged.

He struck with his palm, unleashing a vortex of Qi Force filled with a powerful Suction Force that pulled Yin Xia involuntarily toward him.

At this point, Yin Xia was completely spent. Even if she had a thousand techniques at her disposal, she couldn’t muster the strength to use any of them.

And Zou Feng, for his part, much preferred this kind of close-quarters combat to ranged Skill attacks.

’Fist meeting flesh. Now that’s a man’s romance.’

The next moment, Yin Xia was yanked forward. Zou Feng’s palms became a blur of afterimages as he delivered a thorough "massage" to her entire body.

The work was soon done, and Yin Xia collapsed to the ground like a boneless heap.

Zou Feng didn’t immediately begin her Refinement into an External Pill. He had already noticed that the Ascension Skill she cultivated, one of the Nine Immortal Ascension Skills, was neither the Outer Alchemy Dao nor the Dual Cultivation Dao.

"Which Ascension Skill do you cultivate?"

Lying limp on the ground, Yin Xia’s eyes were already glazed over.

Zou Feng’s palm strikes were never purely physical. Various toxins had already seeped into every pore of Yin Xia’s body.

With his increase in strength, the bewitching power of his Great Universal Hand could now affect even a Golden Core Realm Tribulation Cultivator like Yin Xia, especially one who was already completely spent.

However, using such methods to interrogate an Immortal Official was normally useless.

Whenever a Tribulation Cultivator divulged information related to the Ninefold Celestial Court, it would trigger the Queen Mother’s "whispers," and the Tribulation Cultivator’s head would almost invariably burst open.

"I... I cultivate... the Divine Soul Dao..."

Yet, this time, Yin Xia’s head didn’t explode. Instead, in a daze, she spoke the truth.

The reason was simple. Through his cultivation of the Outer Alchemy Dao, Zou Feng was already suffused with the Queen Mother’s aura.

Thus, by questioning her while actively circulating his Outer Alchemy Dao, he created the illusion for Yin Xia that she was speaking with a fellow sect member.

The "Queen Mother’s whispers" mechanism was apparently not sophisticated enough to be that discerning. At least for now, it couldn’t tell the difference and failed to activate.

’So she cultivates the Divine Soul Dao... No wonder she performed a blood sacrifice on the entire town...’

By now, Zou Feng’s understanding of the Nine Immortal Ascension Skills had made him something of a semi-expert on the topic.

The so-called Divine Soul Dao was, in essence, a method of cultivating one’s own Divine Soul by harvesting the souls of others.

If this Dao were cultivated to a high enough Realm, one would essentially become a living Myriad Soul Banner.

That was why Yin Xia wouldn’t even spare a town of ordinary people. She not only absorbed the residents’ Divine Souls but also turned their corpses into mindless puppets driven only by the urge to kill.

To put it bluntly, they had become zombies and had left the town to hunt for more victims.

And if someone were to be bitten by these zombies, they would be marked by Yin Xia, and their Divine Soul would gradually become easier for her to absorb and refine.

In short, not a single one of the so-called Nine Immortal Ascension Skills was anything less than a monstrous perversion of nature.

"Your Technique, and your ’Dao Power’—I’ll be borrowing them!"

He said "borrowing," but Zou Feng had already placed his hand on Yin Xia and begun to frantically take what he wanted.

Delirious from the poison and with the Queen Mother’s whispers still inactive, Yin Xia could do nothing but vaguely pass her Divine Soul Dao Skill’s Technique on to Zou Feng.