Chapter 68: Entering Mystic Valley

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Entering Mystic Valley

Ye Xuan flew forward and stopped right beside Yi Xin, his hand still gripping the lightning sword, crackling with powerful sparks.

"Do you want to fight them? Consider it your first practice against people from the orthodox cultivation path."

The man glanced briefly at Yi Xin, then looked straight ahead.

Through the Myriad Eye, Ye Xuan saw that their cultivation bases weren’t very high. Even the leader of the small bandit group was only at the Foundation Establishment peak.

"If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask them for some guidance," Ye Xuan added.

Yi Xin smiled and stretched out her hand, as if inviting Ye Xuan to fight and train against them.

Ye Xuan acted again as soon as he saw them charging with angry faces. He formed a hand seal, and a red rune appeared beneath his feet.

"Sea of Fire Serpents!"

The rune immediately turned into a blazing, scorching sea of fire. Yi Xin felt it too, but she quickly wrapped her body in qi.

The man’s hand gestured forward, releasing an attack of fire serpents that rose from the sea of fire at his feet.

The serpents shot out and roared loudly at the bandits charging toward Ye Xuan.

The bandits hadn’t expected the attack. They turned and struck back with their poison web technique.

But the attack was instantly destroyed by Ye Xuan’s fire serpents.

The technique exploded, and their bodies were thrown far back by the backlash of the failed technique. In the midst of their pain, their eyes went wide as they saw the fire serpents heading straight for them.

"Damn it!" they cried.

BLAST!

A huge explosion of fire killed several of the bandits. Those still standing could be counted on one hand, and they didn’t keep fighting. They chose to run.

Ye Xuan didn’t chase them. He chose to calm himself down while deactivating his technique.

He put the lightning sword back into his bag of holding and asked Yi Xin to continue on.

Yi Xin agreed, and they moved together toward the Mystic Valley, which she said wasn’t far from where they were now.

Ye Xuan listened, and what Yi Xin said proved true.

The Mystic Valley, the seat of the Netherworld Palace Sect’s power, came into view. True to its name, it was a valley with a dense forest, filled with mystical illusory mist.

Unlike the mist in the Scarlet Moon Forest, Ye Xuan felt that the mist in this valley was different and strange.

Yi Xin stopped flying and turned to the side. She stretched out a thread of qi from her hand to connect it to Ye Xuan’s sword.

"What’s this for?"

"The mist inside the valley is an illusion. You’ll get lost if I don’t guide you," Yi Xin answered. "The qi thread also channels my qi so the living mist won’t detect you as an intruder."

"I understand," Ye Xuan answered.

The woman quickly entered the valley forest, choosing to fly fairly high, away from the ground and surface. Ye Xuan didn’t ask much about it, because his eyes could see what was on the forest floor.

Monsters, traps, demon souls, and other terrible things that neither Ye Xuan nor Yi Xin wanted to deal with.

The longer they flew toward the center of the forest, the thinner the mist became compared to before. When they reached the middle of the forest, all he saw were ruins, not sect buildings.

But it wasn’t over yet. Yi Xin tossed out her membership token and opened a door in the sect’s formation wall.

The two of them went inside the formation dome, and Ye Xuan stared hard at what lay ahead.

"Is this the Netherworld Palace Sect?" Ye Xuan asked.

"Yes, one of the sects that rule the Misty Sea Region."

Ye Xuan saw a magnificent black palace, a wide courtyard planted with black roses, towers rising high, and chains linked to one another.

Besides the palace, there were other buildings around it used as dormitories or training grounds for the sect’s disciples.

Some trained in martial arts, combat techniques, formations, pill refining, and even taming spirit beasts.

The structure did resemble a sect, but the Netherworld Palace Sect’s appearance was, one could say, different from the sects Ye Xuan generally knew.

Several sect disciples glanced at Yi Xin and Ye Xuan as they flew across the sect’s sky. The two of them flew toward the main palace, where the Sect Leader was waiting.

The two arrived at the palace doors, and the guards immediately opened the entrance, letting Yi Xin step into the palace with Ye Xuan.

Their destination was the main hall of the palace. When Yi Xin knocked on the door, a woman’s voice came clearly from behind it, ordering her to enter.

Yi Xin and Ye Xuan stepped into the vast palace hall, with its high ceiling supported by huge round pillars carved with abstract designs.

Ahead of them, he saw the Sect Leader summoning the sect’s elders. There were 10 elders in total, and their cultivation bases were clearly above Ye Xuan’s.

Yi Xin stopped walking. "Elder Yi comes to pay respects to the Sect Leader."

"We meet again, Ye Xuan," a woman murmured, dressed in a closed long black gown, seated on her throne.

Ye Xuan raised his head and looked ahead at the face of the woman on the throne. For some reason, her face and hair looked a lot like Fairy Yu An’s.

"F-Fairy Yu An?" Ye Xuan asked.

"Hahaha!"

"She’s my twin sister. I’m Yi Huan," said Yi Huan.

He hadn’t expected the two of them to be twins. Many mysteries shrouded the Misty Sea Region, and Ye Xuan felt no rush to uncover its secrets one by one.

"Yu An has already told me what you want. My elders will help you," Yi Huan answered.

"For now, you can stay and settle in our sect. But since you come from the Xiao Empire, you should be ready for the cynical attitude of my sect’s disciples," Yi Huan explained.

Ye Xuan clasped his hands and bowed his head. "I don’t mind. I didn’t come here to make friends, but to grow stronger."

"If they really do bother me, am I allowed to kill them?" Ye Xuan asked.

"Interesting," Yi Huan said. "I permit it!"

"But Sect Leader, you can’t—"

"He has to get used to it, because the Misty Sea Region knows no mercy. If you’re strong, you survive."

"If you’re weak, you die!"