Reaper of the Martial World

Book 7: Chapter 176: Demonic Essence (3)

Dyon bounced lightly from wall to wall along the deep shaft, slowing his descent. Since he couldn’t fly, he couldn’t simply entrust his fate to his strong body.

Soon, with a crashing boom, he landed at the bottom. Still, he made sure that none of the shock or noise made its way to the sleeping Madeleine.

His body flickered and disappeared, soon coming to a vast expanse of black. His eyes, despite his cultivation, couldn’t see a single thing. However, his divine sense picked up a scene that should have made his heart drop to his stomach.

Several dozen sleeping Demon Tigers, tens of times larger than the beast King lay sleeping. Their blue flames were nowhere to be seen or else it wouldn’t be so dark, but their tough almost scale-like fur was undeniable. They looked like slumbering dragons despite the eerie quiet of their breathing.

However, Dyon didn’t panic. He immediately understood that these slumbering tigers were among the beasts so powerful that the creator of the Mystical World didn’t have the means to seal their strength. To counter this, the creator put them to sleep instead. As long as the so-called Lord Creator did his job well, they wouldn’t wake up until phase three. By then, all hell would break loose – it was either you entered the third phase sky castle, or you died. It was as simple as that.

Dyon sighed. Their bodies were basically treasure troves.

Earlier, Dyon had already stored the body parts of the tigers he and the beast babies killed. He was just waiting for the seals on their remains to lift. When that happened, he’d go from having several thousand tons of celestial beast parts, to dao formation beast parts. The difference didn’t need to be explained.

Truth be told, Dyon was very impressed with this Lord Creator. To bind a beast to weakness even in death… This was truly a high-level seal master. Maybe he’s had some secrets hidden that would be useful to the Sigebryht Clan and Zaltarish as they were also seal masters.

This aside, Dyon didn’t dare touch any of these beasts. For one, he didn’t want to test how good this sleeping seal was. Secondly, even the weakest beast here emitted the aura of a peak dao formation expert. Plus, there were at least half a dozen auras Dyon couldn’t approach at all! These were clearly Higher Existence beasts. He couldn’t harm them even in their sleep.

“To see so many high-level beasts here…” Little Yang muttered. “There’s definitely something special about this place. It isn’t so common for even supreme grade beasts to become Higher Existences, let alone lower transcendent grade ones.”

“Blue Flame Demon Tigers have special flames. Its erosion characteristic is great for battle, but its even better for cultivation and body refinement. They turn their flames on themselves, tempering their bodies again and again.” Dyon explained while flashing forward, having gained much of this knowledge from the Beast Tome. “This is why their fur is almost dragon-like despite them not having scales. Their flames spend the most time coating their outer bodies because that the easiest and safest part to temper.

“The fact they’ve grown so strong here means they’ve likely found something that supplements the ability of their flames.”

As Dyon made his way toward the center of an unknown world, confusion was occurring above the gorge. Despite this being the location of the roar, they couldn’t find anything.

From below, the beast babies chuckled as though watching a comedy show. To think a concealment array their big brother placed so casually thwarted so many experts. The funniest part was that there were plenty of guild disciples among them who should have had strong soul strengths.

Back within the mine pit, Dyon finally made his way to the absolute center, but he saw nothing of note. He was certain that this was the highest concentration of demonic essence, but there was nothing but empty air and a black floor here.

Unfortunately, Little Rain had gone off to soak up hard metals and wasn’t by his side, or else he probably would have been some help.

“You don’t think that Lord Creator guy would wake these tigers up just to spite me for stealing two of his sky castles, do you?” Dyon asked the spirits hidden within his Mind’s Eye.

After clearing the red-armored guardian of his – or her, actually – seal, she was able to tell Dyon of one other soul path sky castle there was in the first phase. Unlike the first that had an alchemy theme, the second had a beast master theme. Dyon received quite a few interesting things from it as well, most of which were useless to him, but some were quite useful.

He decided to save most of them for Ri, though. After understanding the talent Elves had in this path, how could he waste it on himself? Aside from some things he set aside for the beast babies, he left everything else for his wife.

Oh, and he also acquired a green-armored guardian as well. Although, they were still absolute useless outside of the sky castle. If he unbound them, their souls would crumble. The sky castles were the only things stopping them from dying after so long.

“Lord Creator isn’t that type of person.” The red-armored guardian responded. “He is cruel and doesn’t take losses, but he’s also endlessly prideful. Since he left a rule that could be exploited, he won’t blame you for it. Rather, he’ll just make your later challenges more difficult.”

“Oh, how reassuring.” Dyon said sarcastically.

Suddenly, his eyes flashed. “Below!”

Dyon’s divine sense was having a hard time penetrating through the ground, but the vision of a large vein appeared within his mine. To think it stretched for several kilometers.

“This is a demonic essence vein?… Why does it behave so much like a spiritual vein? But, spiritual veins can’t grow so large.”

Dyon knew that spiritual veins were capped at the saint grade at most, even for the largest and oldest Clans and Sects. This was because a spiritual vein that was too large could land a universe in a qi catastrophe. The only way to circumvent this was by attaching the Energy Core to your spiritual vein. Then, it could grow endlessly, just like they did on the immortal plane.

However, this demon essence behaved like a vein: taking the energy it liked from the atmosphere, bringing it toward itself, and growing in size… So how could the space around it be so stable when it was on the verge of breaking past the dao grades and into the immortal grade?!