Chapter 179 - 178: Golden Diting Cultivator
Fifteen days had passed within the vast expanse of the Void Ascension Battlefield.
In the outside world, however, barely twelve hours had passed. The warm evening sun still bathed Sky Jade City in golden light as the numerous spectators, thousands of provincial elites, and the Five Emperors seated upon their towering thrones continued watching the massive array panel above the Grand Court.
The rankings had been updating constantly, allowing everyone to witness the rise and fall of the participants in real time. And throughout those fifteen days, the Six Peerless Geniuses had remained at the very top, ruthlessly dominating the pocket realm and leaving the countless cultivators beneath them struggling merely to survive.
In a desolate, jagged canyon composed entirely of jagged black ironstone, a frantic, desperate chase was unfolding.
A high-pitched, and agonizing scream echoed off the canyon walls, followed immediately by the sickening sound of mandibles tearing through flesh.
Flying erratically through the narrow gorge on a flying sword was a young cultivator from the Golden Diting Province. His name was Jin Rou, a prodigy in his own right, boasting a solid cultivation base at the Middle Nascent Soul realm. In his home province, he was a respected martial talent. Here, in this battlefield, he was nothing more than prey.
Jin Rou’s traditional golden-yellow robes were shredded into bloody ribbons. His spiritual power was flickering wildly, threatening to completely extinguish. But the most horrifying aspect of his flight was not his exhaustion, but the swirling, clicking mass of thousands of thumb-sized, blood-red beetles that clung to his back, arms, and legs.
These were not ordinary beasts. They were Marrow-Drinking Corpse Beetles. They bypassed physical Qi barriers, burrowing their serrated mandibles directly into his flesh and actively draining the spiritual energy straight from his meridians. Every second that passed, Jin Rou grew weaker, his life force being siphoned away drop by agonizing drop.
"Is that all the speed you can muster, little rat?" a cruel, mocking voice echoed from behind him, amplified by his cultivation. "I fed my beetles a special powder today. It heightens their senses, but unfortunately, it makes them quite gluttonous! If you do not fly faster, they will eat their way into your Nascent Soul before we even clear this canyon!"
Chasing Jin Rou, completely blotting out the silver sky with its massive, leathery wings, was a grotesque, colossal Blood-Winged Mosquito Beast. The beast was the size of a small galleon, its proboscis dripping with corrosive acid, its multi-faceted eyes locked onto the fleeing prey.
Riding atop the bristling back of the mosquito beast were two cultivators from the Chu Province.
The man sitting near the front, casually steering the horrific mount, was Chu Ying. He hailed from a highly popular clan of the Chu Province that possessed the terrifying innate ability to manipulate demonic insects, using them to drain the spiritual energy of their opponents to nourish their own foundations.
Chu Ying’s aura was oppressive, thick, and suffocating, having successfully crossed the threshold into the Initiate Stage of Dao Resolve—the first step on the ten-step path to Soul Transformation. His Dao Heart had been acknowledged by the Heavens, granting his spiritual power a conceptual, unshakable weight that a Nascent Soul cultivator could not even begin to fathom.
Sitting leisurely behind him, resting her hands on her hips with an expression of boredom, was a woman named Chu Yan. She was a strikingly beautiful yet cold cultivator at the Early Stage of the Spirit Severing realm. She wore form-fitting armor crafted from the scales of a black dragon, and she looked at the fleeing Jin Rou with the exact same disdain one might reserve for a cockroach scurrying across a dining table.
"You play with your food far too much, Senior Brother Ying," Chu Yan sighed, her voice carrying easily over the rushing wind and the buzzing of the massive mosquito wings. She examined her perfectly manicured fingernails, thoroughly unimpressed by the chase. "We have been hunting this wretch for three hundred miles. Just order your beetles to rip off his limbs, drag him back here, and let me search his soul. Young Master Chu Kuang’s patience is famously thin, and I have no desire to face his wrath because you wanted to practice your insect arts."
Chu Ying let out a smooth, arrogant laugh, turning his head slightly to offer Chu Yan a charming, simpering smile.
"Ah, Junior Sister Yan," Chu Ying flattered, his eyes raking over her form-fitting armor with undisguised desire. "Your ruthlessness is as intoxicating as your beauty. It is why you are the jewel of our province’s younger generation. But you must understand the delicacy of our task."
Chu Ying turned his attention back to the bleeding Golden Diting cultivator, weaving a complex hand seal to command the beetles to burrow just a fraction deeper, eliciting another harrowing shriek from Jin Rou.
"Soul-searching a Nascent Soul cultivator is a blunt instrument," Chu Ying explained, pitching his voice so his Junior Sister. "It violently rips through their memories. If you shatter his spiritual sea, you might permanently destroy the exact memory we need. We must break his spirit so completely that he speaks the truth willingly. I want to present the exact coordinates of another Immortal Golden Beast to Young Master Chu Kuang flawlessly. If I hand him the key to forcing his cultivation into the Soul Transformation realm... well, the merit I earn might just be enough to formally ask the Patriarch for your hand in dual cultivation, Junior Sister."
Chu Yan rolled her eyes, though a faint, haughty smirk touched her lips. She was well accustomed to the fawning of the sect males. "Focus on securing the beast first, Ying. Do not count your Dao Companions before the tribulation is passed. Though... I will admit, your mastery over the Marrow-Drinking Corpse Beetles is quite impressive. Look at him bleed."
Ahead of them, Jin Rou’s flying sword sputtered. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his vision swimming. The pain was beyond mortal comprehension. The beetles were eating his spiritual energy from the inside out. But despite the agony, his pride burned fiercely in his chest.
"I will die before I hand the sacred beast over to your bloodthirsty, savage province!" Jin Rou roared over his shoulder, his voice thick with blood and desperate integrity. "The Immortal Golden Beast is the absolute foundation of the Golden Diting Province! Our integrity is bound to them! You dogs think you can just take whatever the Heavens have blessed others with!"
Chu Ying burst into loud, manic laughter, slapping his thigh.
"Integrity! He speaks of integrity!" Chu Ying mocked, steering the massive mosquito beast closer, the wind from its wings buffeting Jin Rou’s failing sword. "Listen to the peasant squeal! Do you think the Heavens care about your integrity, you Golden Diting rat? The Heavens care about strength! An Immortal Golden Beast naturally summons the Immortal Energy of Heaven and Earth! It is a supreme treasure that belongs in the hands of a Peerless Genius like Young Master Chu Kuang, not wasted in some backwater province!"
"You will have to kill me!" Jin Rou screamed, his eyes bloodshot, pushing the last agonizing dregs of his Nascent Soul energy into his flying sword in a desperate bid to reach a narrow fissure in the canyon walls.
"Oh, I fully intend to, little rat," Chu Ying sneered, his eyes turning cold. "But first, I am going to have my beetles eat your eyes, then your tongue, and then I will heal you just enough to start the process over again until you beg me to listen to the location."
As Chu Ying raised his hand to issue the command to his swarm, a sudden, inexplicable shift occurred in the ambient atmosphere of the canyon.
The roaring wind died. The buzzing of the massive mosquito beast’s wings seemed to be muffled by an invisible, heavy blanket. The spiritual Qi in the air froze, turning as rigid as solid ice.
A figure stepped out of the empty air, materializing directly in the path of the chase.
He wore pristine, black and white Daoist robes that did not flutter in the wind. His hands were clasped casually behind his back. His face was a mask of flawless serenity, and his deep purple eyes radiated an ancient might that seemed completely out of place.
Jin Rou, blinded by pain and blood, couldn’t stop his flying sword in time. He plummeted toward the ground, crashing violently into the jagged rock, his body rolling to a stop just a few dozen yards away from the black and white-robed figure.
Chu Ying violently pulled back on the reins of his mosquito beast, the colossal insect screeching in protest as it halted in mid-air, its multifaceted eyes locking onto the sudden figure.
Chu Yan stood up on the beast’s back, her haughty boredom instantly evaporating, replaced by the sharp, defensive instincts of a Spirit Severing expert.
"Who dares block the path of the Chu Province?" Chu Ying shouted, his Initiate Stage Dao Resolve flaring outward to test the stranger’s boundaries.
The black and white-robed figure slowly lifted his gaze.
Chu Ying and Chu Yan simultaneously felt a cold, paralyzing dread wash over them as they recognized the flawless, devastatingly calm face of the man standing below.
"You..." Chu Ying gasped, his eyes widening in pure shock. "You’re the trash from the Zhao Province! The one who invoked the Ascension Clause!"
"Lin Yuan!" Chu Yan whispered, her hand dropping to the hilt of her dragon-scale whip.