Chapter 115: Cold Marrow Dew
Leo waved his hand, and the Iron Thorn Vines unraveled before rapidly withering. Forcing them to grow with spiritual power like this drained their life force, making them bloom and die in an instant.
"Hand over your tracking talisman." Leo's voice was flat. Kai's bloodied, miserable face stirred no pity in him. The man had brought this on himself.
Kai hesitated, then fumbled the yellow talisman from his robes with trembling hands. Leo took it and incinerated it with a small fireball. Before entering the Bloody Battlefield, every Palace disciple had been issued a tracking talisman—in case their team got scattered, it could sense fellow disciples within two miles. Leo wasn't about to let Kai's comrades find them and cause more trouble.
"Follow me. Don't even think about running." Leo saw Kai's cooperation and added the warning.
"Now that the tracking talisman was gone, even if he wanted to run, he'd need to be fast enough." Kai smiled bitterly. He couldn't match Leo's speed even before, and now he was wounded and drained.
Leo didn't press Kai about the Purple Ginseng's location immediately. Instead, he found a secluded spot and first refined the broad-nosed disciple's Star Lamp.
The Star Lamp was a defensive artifact, but it could only withstand a single full-force strike from another artifact—which seemed to fall short of its title. Its real advantage, however, was that it consumed no spiritual power at all to use. For a Qi Refining cultivator, that made it ideal. Even artifact-grade armor could block blades, but the impact from an artifact clash was more than a Qi Refining cultivator could handle. Leo's Ice Silk Armor had stopped Rook's flying hook, but the shock had still made him spit blood. Against a true artifact, it wouldn't just be blood.
That broad-nosed disciple must have had serious backing in the Star Palace. Someone had gone to great lengths to forge such a valuable defensive artifact just for him.
Leo rummaged through the rest of the storage pouch. His face lit up. Dozens of top-grade and high-grade spirit artifacts—enough to trade for a small fortune later. Dozens of century-old herbs and large amount of healing pills. Dozens of mid-grade spirit stones. Taken together, everything he'd looted from other cultivators' storage pouches didn't match what these two Star Palace disciples had carried. And then there were ten drops of rare "Cold Marrow Dew"—each could restore half a cultivator's spiritual power in an instant.
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Only effective for Qi Refining cultivators, but even better than mid-grade spirit stones. With that kind of backup, plus all those mid-grade stones, if that broad-nosed disciple hadn't been betrayed, Leo doubted he could have won even with all his cards played.
But it made sense. The disciples in the Bloody Battlefield fell into two categories: elite disciples with magic artifacts, and ordinary ones with spirit artifacts. Several ordinary disciples couldn't match one with a magic artifact. And these two Star Palace disciples weren't just strong—from their talk, they'd already merged two teams. Their haul was bound to be impressive.
"Finally, my luck turns." Leo couldn't hide his satisfaction.
Kai watched, envy and jealousy twisting his face, as Leo repeatedly refined the artifacts he'd seized. That broad-nosed disciple alone had three artifacts—an anomaly. And Leo, in the fight, had used the Demon Binding Rope and those flying shears. Then he'd grabbed four more. Six artifacts, by Kai's count. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he'd never have believed it.
Days later, Leo gazed at a cluster of mist-shrouded hills ahead. Lush vegetation. The constant cries of demon beasts echoed from within. His expression was thoughtful.
"F-Fellow Daoist Leo... surely I don't have to go in there?" Kai's face crumpled. "It's too dangerous. My Savage Beast Sect team—I was the only one who made it out alive. My spirit beast died in there. I've lost half my strength."
In the Moonwatch cultivation world, two sects were renowned for beast taming: the Ten Thousand Beasts Pavilion and the Savage Beast Sect. The Pavilion's methods were broader, even producing formidable insect cultivators. The Savage Beast Sect, however, focused on large spirit beasts. They possessed a secret art that allowed them to borrow power from their spirit beasts—a fearsome technique. Though their numbers were far fewer than the Ten Thousand Beasts Pavilion's, their lineage had endured, and they had held their place among the sects to this day. But for any beast tamer, losing their spirit beast meant losing most of their combat power.
"You lead the way, or I make you." Leo's smile was cold. Kai was too slippery. Leo wouldn't believe a word about the Purple Ginseng until he saw it himself.
Kai saw Leo's expression and shuddered. He didn't doubt for a second that Leo would act if he refused. Trembling, he moved forward.
They passed more Star Palace corpses. Kai grew visibly tense. Leo wasn't surprised. With their elite disciples—the broad-nosed one and Rook—dead, the rest of their team was leaderless. They wouldn't last long against other sects' teams.
Hisss.
Thin white strands shot from the thick grass, aiming straight for Kai and Leo. Two caught Kai, sticking fast.
"Fellow Daoist Leo, help!" Kai's voice cracked with panic.
A flash of cyan. The flying dagger Leo had taken from the broad-nosed disciple sliced through the strands. The grass ahead was too thick to see through. Leo calmly tossed out several Iron Thorn Vine seeds. As the vines thrashed, they revealed furry white spiders, each the size of a human head, screeching and struggling. Dozens more surged from the grass. Most were second-grade, but over twenty were third-grade. That meant fighting the equivalent of dozens of late-stage and peak Qi Refining cultivators at once. Even with his artifacts, Leo couldn't take that many.
Bad luck. Where did this swarm come from? Leo cursed and fled, pushing Wind Riding Technique to its limit.