Vessel of Worlds

The two Demon Gate cultivators were overjoyed at the words. Splitting the treasures a late-stage Core Formation cultivator had left behind—what that meant, the two could scarcely bring themselves to imagine!

A single dharma treasure would be worth enough to let a Foundation Establishment cultivator cultivate in perfect comfort for the rest of his life.

Emboldened—men die for wealth, and they had just been urged on—the two feared danger no longer. Each produced an artifact, wrapped himself in dense black mist, and slipped into the hidden cave one behind the other.

The youth waited beside the cave, his expression somewhat tense.

After an incense stick's time, the middle-aged cultivator emerged again and reported: "Young Master, there is indeed a dwelling below the passage, but a restriction blocks the way. Your subordinates cannot enter, and dared not force the restriction for fear of damaging the dwelling. Would the Young Master come and decide for himself?"

"Oh? Such a thing? You two did well—one truly mustn't act rashly. Let this young master go and see for himself!" Learning that the hidden cave did indeed hold a dwelling, the youth felt another measure of assurance.

The two entered the hidden cave one after the other.

Once the pair had been inside for a while, Andy—who had been tracking their every movement with his spiritual sense all along—finally made his move.

He raised the Thick Earth Shield before him and raced for the hidden cave.

Since all three had entered that narrow-mouthed cave, he had at least a fifty percent chance of annihilating them all.

There was still real danger in it—but weighed against the secret of a five-root late-stage Core Formation eminence that might lie within, what was such a risk?

If he waited until the three came out of the cave, it would be too late to strike!

The moment he revealed his startling strength, the three Demon Gate cultivators would flee before the wind, and he'd have no way to run every one of them down and kill them.

With this in mind, Andy leapt into the hidden cave without hesitation.

The cave had plainly been carefully arranged by an eminent hand—only a man's height, tall enough to walk but no more. And by some subtle restriction, his spiritual sense could reach only a few dozen zhang. The earth and stone around the cave were no simple matter either, likewise covered by a restriction, so that the Earth Escape Technique couldn't carry him through them.

Under the cover of the rank-four mid-grade spirit tool, the Thick Earth Shield, Andy walked the passage at great speed.

The passage widened steadily, and before long Andy came into an underground cavern several hundred zhang across. Seven or eight head-sized moonlight stones hung within it, lighting the cavern bright as day—and moonlight stones this large could each shine for a thousand years!

Beyond those bright stones, his eye fell at once on the two Demon Gate cultivators in the cavern, standing before a curtain of flowing purple radiance—the two subordinates of the "Young Master." As for the Young Master himself, there was no sign of him. What that curtain was, Andy could not say either; he could only guess, roughly, at some sort of formation-restriction.

"Who's there!" The old man had spotted Andy too. He barked out—then, making out Andy's face, blanched in horror. "It's you! The brat who killed Junior Brother Wei three years ago! You have a rank-four mid-grade spirit tool—no wonder Junior Brother Wei was overmatched and died!"

Andy admitted it flatly: "Just so. I killed him. And your Young Master—too afraid of death to come out?"

"Ha! Afraid of death? What a monstrous joke! The Young Master is claiming a treasure. And do you think the two of us can't handle one early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator? You imagine a single mid-grade defensive artifact can hold off both our attacks?" The old man roared with laughter, as though he'd heard the funniest jest in all the world, and deployed a blood-red gourd that floated before him.

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The mid-stage middle-aged cultivator was not idle either—two black flying knives hung several zhang before him.

A great battle seemed on the verge of breaking out.

The old man had dismissed Andy as worthless with his mouth, but in his heart he was thoroughly wary—the man had, after all, single-handedly killed a mid-stage cultivator of no small ability. How could he dare take him lightly?

The middle-aged cultivator thought much the same, so though both had deployed their artifacts, neither struck directly at Andy.

Andy regarded the two's fighting stances as though they weren't there, and asked the old man: "Three years ago—what became of my companions? Did any survive?"

"All dead, of course—need you ask!" the old man barked. "How fitting that today I send you to join them—ha!"

Seeing this early-stage cultivator face their combined threat without the least trace of panic, wearing that infuriatingly serene look throughout, the old man found it more and more uncanny—and at Andy's question he snapped back the sourer for it.

But as the old man spoke, an unnatural flicker crossed the face of the middle-aged cultivator beside him. Plainly, what the old man said was not the whole truth!

Just what had happened, the man would not say plainly, and Andy hadn't the patience to keep pressing. He shouted: "So be it—today I destroy the two of you, and avenge my companions!"

With that, he shook his sleeve. In a flash of spiritual light, twenty or thirty puppets gripping various mid-grade spirit tools dropped into place before him, at once fixing their aim on the pair.

For a swift, decisive kill, he even drew the Blazing Heaven Blade straight out and gripped it in hand.

When the late-stage old man saw the crowd of puppets wielding mid-grade spirit tools, shock and alarm had already gripped his heart. And when he saw the four-chi-long, one-cun-wide, thin scarlet curved bone saber in Andy's hand—and the semi-transparent red spirit stone set in its chi-long hilt—he murmured in despair: "A high-grade fire spirit stone, a high-grade spirit tool... no wonder, no wonder!"

The mid-stage middle-aged cultivator went whiter still, without the slightest will to fight, and turned to run.

But this was an underground cavern, and the only exit lay behind Andy!

"Die!" Andy barked, swinging the Blazing Heaven Blade at the old man. A fire dragon over ten zhang long lunged ferociously at the pair. At the same instant he loosed the attack command to his puppets, and golden blades, ice spikes, fire serpents, and the rest swept down on the two like a collapsing sky!

The black mist about the two men offered no small defense—but before an assault this dense and this powerful it availed nothing. The fire dragon of the Blazing Heaven Blade swept the mist away in an instant, and the ice spikes, wooden spears, and the rest arriving behind it riddled the two men with holes!

The two Demon Gate cultivators, no weaklings, died horribly on the spot before Andy's overwhelming assault without even bringing a single means of attack to bear.

The whole exchange had taken only two or three breaths. Andy swiftly recalled his puppets and the Blazing Heaven Blade, took the storage pouches from the two badly mangled corpses along with the still-hovering blood-red gourd, black flying knives, and other artifacts, then flicked out fireballs to reduce the bodies to ash.

Andy did not let his guard down—the strongest of them, the Young Master, was still nowhere to be seen!

He swept the surroundings quickly, and his gaze settled at last on that eerie purple curtain.

He tried to send his spiritual sense into the curtain—in vain. The moment his sense touched it, it met tremendous resistance and could not enter by even a fraction.

He deployed a golden-sword high-grade artifact and drove it slowly at the curtain. The moment the sword touched, it was silently repelled.

The cavern was only this large—open, bright, taken in at a glance. And Andy had come in by the sole entrance. So if the Young Master, after entering the cavern, had gone somewhere to "claim treasure," it could only be within that strange curtain.

Since neither artifact nor spiritual sense could pass through directly, he would have to try it himself.

Without braving some risk, how could he claim Recluse Ximen's legacy!

Drawing a deep breath, Andy—wrapped in the deep yellow barrier of the Thick Earth Shield—walked slowly toward the purple curtain.

And when his body touched it, he felt not the slightest resistance—he passed through with ease, into a passage walled on all sides with white jade.

The white jade passage was three or four zhang wide, and it too was laid with a special restriction; Andy's spiritual sense could still reach only a few dozen zhang.

Mindful that a late-stage Foundation Establishment expert was somewhere within, Andy proceeded with the utmost care, drawing out the Ice-Fire Shield to guard his back in addition to the Thick Earth Shield before him.

He had already resolved to fight this Young Master to the death—whether to avenge Xi Feng and the others, or to seize Recluse Ximen's legacy—so he need not worry about appearing too wealthy before the man.

Suddenly, a shrill, tiger-like roar reached him. Within this underground dwelling, there was still a living beast!