Martial Peak

Seeing him fling off numerous Evil Spirits upon his arrival, it was obvious how strong this old man was, so even if Yu Qing was unhappy about being ordered around, he knew better than to show any dissatisfaction.

Upon landing, the attention of the four young men were drawn to the Free And Unfettered Sect male disciple’s Charmed Slaves, and in response, the girls one by one batted their lashes and flirted back with them, seeming to not give a single thought to the crisis around them, or even the jealousy of their male partners.

“If you lot want your cultivations sucked dry by those women keep staring!” The old man gruffly reminded his four juniors.

Awakened by this harsh scolding, the four young men suddenly blushed in embarrassment and shifted their gazes.

The Charmed Slaves of Free And Unfettered Sect were able to absorb part of a man’s vital energy when she ‘interacted’ with him and pass it along to any Free And Unfettered Sect male disciple to help him increase his own cultivation.

Because of this, the Charmed Slaves of Free And Unfettered Sect had no taboos about devouring other males. In fact, Free And Unfettered Sect’s male disciples would even encourage their Charmed Slaves to actively attract other men so that they could ultimately benefit.

In addition, these Charmed Slaves were also trained to use a variety of mystical techniques to accomplish similar acts, so in the eyes of Free And Unfettered Sect male disciples, Charmed Slaves weren’t people but instead useful tools.

The old man was obviously very familiar with Free And Unfettered Sect’s methods and feared that his inexperienced juniors would suffer a loss at their hands so he had promptly warned them.

After settling in, the old man turned his furrowed brow below, and a greedy light flashed past his eyes as he stared at the so-called Evil Spirit Spring’s position.

Waving his hand dismissively towards Chen Yi he said, “Little Ghost King Valley brat, you seem to know some things about this Evil Spirit Spring. Explain it to them so they won’t die ignorant.”

“Good!” Chen Yi also wanted to explain things to Yang Kai and his companions, so now that this old man was telling him to he no longer had any reason to hold back.

“These two young ladies didn’t misread the situation, this Evil Spirit Spring is just like it sounds, a fountain of Demonic Qi. This thing is extremely harmful to us cultivators, but to the local Evil Spirits it is a huge opportunity. If they are given enough time, they can absorb the Evil Qi from the spring and grow stronger and more solid, so whenever it appears it will attract all the Evil Spirits in the vicinity towards it.” Chen Yi explained slowly, and his expression was quite dignified.

“Whenever the Evil Spirit Spring appears, the Evil Spirits inside the Evil Cavern become extremely unstable as can you see, they’ll even kill each other in order to monopolize the Evil Qi below. For the time being they’ll be occupied trying to absorb as much Evil Qi as possible but soon... once they begin to really rampage they’ll certainly also attack us. Our luck is really terrible, the Evil Spirit Spring doesn’t necessarily appear for many years at a time yet we’ve managed to bump into it.”

“Ah... then... what should we do?” Exclaimed Treasure Instrument Sect’s Zhao Rong, “Should we try to escape now while they’re still ignoring us?”

“And go where?” Chen Yi grinned wryly, “There’s nowhere left to flee anymore. If we stay here we’ll be able to survive a bit longer, if we leave, I’m afraid we’ll just die sooner.”

“Hey hey, the little brat is right,” The old man smiled and nodded, “Even this old master or other similar experts, once forced into this situation there’s no hope of escape, your group of kids wanting to flee? Don’t even dream!”

Wearing an evil grin, the old man suddenly addressed everyone present, “How about it? Why not join hands with this old master to see if we can go on living?”

Chen Yi looked towards the old man, wrinkling his brow slightly, “What is Senior’s plan?”

“Nothing fancy, everyone just needs to fight!” The old man cackled, “Although your strengths aren’t high, but fortunately there are a number of you. All you need to do is stay on that platform and resist with all your strength for as long as it takes for these Evil Spirits to leave. Since you’ve all dared to come here you must be carrying a lot of artifacts designed to resist these Evil Spirit, right?”

“Good.” Chen Yi firmly nodded. They were not the same as Yang Kai who had come here haphazardly. Naturally, since they dared venture into the Evil Cavern, they had prepared a number of appropriate artifacts beforehand, but up until now they hadn’t used them simply because there was no need.

“Good, so we fight, with our lives hanging in the balance, ha ha ha... this old master can even help you out if you need some assistance.” The old man smiled and nodded, and a look that didn’t quite seem like kindness flashed across his face.

Chen Yi wryly grinned, cupping his fists respectfully, “Then this Chen must offer his thanks to Senior in advance.”

Obviously he didn’t believe that this old man would take care of his group out of the goodness of his heart. In fact, even if it were true, with the number of Evil Spirits around it was quite likely even he would die sooner or later, so how could he purposefully increase the pressure on himself? They were neither friends nor relatives, and the relationship between the two sides could at best be described as co-dependants.

It was only because of the circumstances that this old man had said these words.

“At the critical moment, this old master can indeed help you once or twice, but I have a condition!” The old man grinned deviously.

“What condition?” Chen Yi asked.

The old man’s gaze shifted greedily towards the Evil Spirit Spring, quickly saying, “If we make it through this crisis, this old master wants whatever is inside that spring!”

“Good, we juniors only wish to survive!” Chen Yi seriously replied.

“Good!” The old man grinned, no longer saying anything.

“What exactly is inside that spring?” Yang Kai whispered quietly in a curious voice. Seeing the old man suddenly become so happy after Chen Yi agreed to his request, he estimated that it was something quite valuable.

“An Evil Spirit Essence!” Chen Yi replied, “But it is definitely a very special type of Evil Spirit Essence considering the huge amount of energy that is erupting out of the spring.”

“A very special Evil Spirit Essence?” Yang Kai couldn’t help but become excited, Shan Qing Luo had told him that some special Evil Spirit Essences could contain things that increased Spiritual Energy or perhaps held powerful Martial Skills...

Could this Evil Spirit Spring contain an essence that held such a treasure?

But after remembering their current circumstances, Yang Kai immediately calmed down, knowing that the priority now was to keep his life.

On both of the high pillars, everyone waited nervously, the Evil Qi which circulated below them steadily rose higher and higher as it spewed from the Evil Spirit Spring, all while dozens of Evil Spirit Essences glittered brightly just out of reach, which caused all of them to salivate.

As long as one leapt down, they could instantly harvest several tens of these essences, far more than one could obtain from multiple days hunting inside the Evil Cavern.

Of course, more Evil Spirit Essences had appeared here, and since they had arrived, at least one or two hundred Evil Spirits had been killed, but many of the essences which condensed after their deaths had already been absorbed by other Evil Spirits or integrated into the turbulent Evil Qi.

However, obviously no one dared leave their respective plateau even with such wealth lying before them, and instead forced themselves to stare helplessly as these essences were swept away, and a great sense of loss welled up in each of their hearts.

After some time, a lot the Evil Spirits below let out piercing shrieks, and their purple bodies suddenly flickered, as if they had become extremely unstable. The ambient temperature also rapidly plummeted and turned the surrounding thousand meters or so into a frozen purgatory.

“Everyone get ready, do your best to stay alive you brats, hahahaha!” The old man suddenly cackled.

Just as he let out this horrid laugh, more than a dozen Evil Spirits suddenly leapt up from below and charged towards the cultivators atop the two pillars as if they had suddenly noticed the presence of living creatures within their midst and had gone crazy.

As the howls rang out, Yang Kai and his group were swiftly surrounded by six or seven Evil Spirits.

All of them had been waiting for this moment, and they let loose their prepared Martial Skills upon these new attackers.

Purple Evil Spirits had great strength but not against such a dense bombardment of attacks. They didn’t die immediately, and a delicate balance between them and the cultivators was formed.

As quickly as the Evil Spirits launched their offensive, they were beaten back, their bodies flickering non-stop.

In preparation for the next assault, the Ghost King Valley and Treasure Instrument Sect disciples finally brought out their artifacts.

The Ghost King Valley group had two artifacts designed to restrain Evil Spirits, one with a fire attribute, and one with a lightning attribute.

Using these artifacts, they summoned a flaming dragon phantom which quickly engulfed two Evil Spirits that seemingly howled in pain while burst of lightning kept them paralysed.

These two artifacts were both Earth Grade Top-Rank, and though not as potent a restrain as Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi, they at least had no difficulty holding off a number of these Evil Spirits at once.

Treasure Instrument Sect’s Tao Yang was obviously wealthier than the Ghost King Valley group, directly summoning a Heaven Grade artifact that created a burning plume of fire which instantly wrapped up two Evil Spirits, gradually incinerating them.

These two Evil Spirits kept screaming and flitting back and forth, but neither of them seemed to be able to escape the burning cloud’s range.

Between the two Sects, relying on the power of their artifacts, they could easily deal with four Evil Spirits at once.

The Hu Sisters on the other hand coordinated with each other perfectly. They didn’t have an artifact designed to resist Evil Spirit’s, but by fully utilizing their Twin Qi Shared Spirit Divine Art, both of their battle strengths were greatly increased, so dealing with a single purple Evil Spirit didn’t present too much of a challenge to them.

Finally, Yang Kai dealt with the last purple Evil Spirit on his own. Forming a blade from a drop of his Yang Liquid, he took full advantage of his True Yang Yuan Qi’s ability to restrain the Evil Spirit in order to single-handedly hold his own.

With every strike he made, the purple Evil Spirit’s body would fade significantly.

Although he also had powerful Heaven Grade artifacts at his disposal such as the Asura Sword, Yang Kai felt that using his Yang Liquid would be more effective against these Evil Spirits.

Now putting it into action, it seemed his guess was right.

From the start of the battle until now, Yang Kai’s group managed to hold back all six of the Evil Spirits that had rushed them with relative ease.

Seeing this, the tension they had all initially felt gradually relaxed and their offensive became smoother, gradually securing the upper hand.

Soon, the Evil Spirit that Yang Kai was dealing with was crushed, and with a last deathly cry, it died and transformed into a lump of Evil Spirit Essence.

Without any hesitation, Yang Kai stretched out his hand and directly absorbed this essence into his meridians before turning to his side and assisting the Hu Sisters with the Evil Spirit they were battling.

Hu Jiao Er couldn’t help but glance towards Yang Kai in surprise, not having thought that on his own he would be able to defeat an Evil Spirit even faster than her and her sister.

[It seems like, over the past two years, this little rogue’s combat strength has made great progress! Looks like I’ve still underestimated him.]

While Yang Kai and his companions didn’t have any difficulties defending their position, the old man and the Free And Unfettered Sect disciples also seemed to be holding their own with ease; the old man, after all, was an Immortal Ascension Boundary master and his four juniors also possessed significant strength, add on the group from Free And Unfettered Sect and their plateau’s combat effectiveness was actually higher than Yang Kai’s side.

Even while the old man was dealing with a number of Evil Spirits, he still had enough leeway to check up on Yang Kai and his group from time to time, probably concerned that they would be defeated by this first wave of attacks.

But after seeing the purity and strength of Yang Kai’s True Yang Yuan Qi, a light flashed across his eyes, “Very good! Young man, do you want to come here and work together with this old master? Old Master can help keep you alive!”

With the strength he had displayed, coupled with the Yang attribute’s ability to restrain these Evil Spirits, once the old man could draw him to his side, their strength would be greatly increased!

On top of that, the pure combat effectiveness Yang Kai had shown was quite impressive, which naturally gave the old man a pleasant surprise.