Chapter 118 – Florida Man Murders 10 Elders and Bring Their Corpses Home for Food
After dancing enough, Leo stopped playing around. He salvaged the burnt clothes to search for his precious talismans, which he had stuffed into his pants pockets.
The pants were burnt to a crisp. When Leo found it, he bitterly smiled.
The talismans were gone with the flame.
"Haiya…"
Leo smacked his forehead and lamented in silence. He proceeded to the next destination with a broken heart.
.
Hydroponics Lab
Because the air ventilation and machines stopped working, the room was too quiet. Without a source of light, everything was pitch black.
After putting on a new t-shirt and jeans, Leo explored the lab and inspected the plant factory here. Using his night sight, Leo navigated through the wreck and collected every plant he found.
'Take these too, geezer.'
Thora pointed at the broken lab capsule machine, which was once the home of the spirit queen. Although the machine had long ceased functioning, it still held a lot of sentimental value for Thora.
Leo took the machine in his spatial ring. He lost count of how many objects he stored in those dimensional pockets, but they were almost full to the brim. As the space was limited, Leo stored some of the plants in the ring, where he had kept the eyeball and the dragon fruit trees.
Other than the plants, nothing else was worth Leo's attention. He looked at Thora.
"Anything else?"
'No. That will be all.'
"What about guns and armory? I want my railgun and laser guns!"
'There is nothing like that!'
Leo sighed and shook his head. He muttered in pity, "How uncultured and primitive. What kind of spaceship doesn't bring guns and weapons for the crew? Haiya."
'…'
.
After touring enough, Leo and Thora opened the door and came out of the ship. While walking out, Leo turned around to give the spaceship a meaningful look.
'It's different from THAT spaceship. This one might have come from Earth, but who knows which Earth or dimension it came from. One thing is for sure, the spaceship I know wasn't this fragile. It endured red lightning bolts a hundred times before it collapsed.'
Leo gave up the idea of bringing the spaceship to his domain. He left it there for the time being as his spatial rings were full.
Coming out of the ship, Leo found Wu Buyi, Taxi, and Gao Yan, who had been waiting for them.
"Let's go home. We're done here."
Wu Buyi was reluctant to leave this mystic realm. He scratched his arms and face as he was nervous.
"My lord, can we stay a bit longer? I haven't cultivated enough."
"Then, who asked you to fap all day long?"
Wu Buyi lowered his head, ashamed of what he did.
"Don't worry. Y'all can come back here and cultivate to your heart's content. When we get back, I'll set up a permanent portal for you to return here. This world belongs to me, and we can do whatever we want to it."
Wu Buyi's eyes gleamed. He repeatedly nodded as he had faith in Leo and his mysterious power, "Yes, my lord! Let's go home!"
Leo hopped on Taxi's back and led the group out of the cave.
.
.
Leo, Wu Buyi, Gao Yan, Thora, and Taxi left the manmade underground cave and returned to their campsite. They ignored local monsters, such as cockatrices, black caimans, giant wasps, and oversized tarantula spiders.
While they flew in the sky, they crossed paths with another group of 10 soul transformation cultivators.
Gao Yan nervously looked at the group of strong cultivators at a distance. Wu Buyi also sweated profusely, but Taxi, Thora, and Leo remained expressionless.
The 10 soul transformation cultivators also avoided them. They took a detour and kept their distance. Still, they continued traveling south, heading to the artificial cave that Leo had come from.
After they parted ways without chatting, Leo glanced at the group. He then asked Wu Buyi.
"Say, have we collected all corpses and their gears before we left?"
Wu Buyi brightly smiled. He showed Leo the spatial rings of the second prince and his entourage, "They're right here, my lord. As for their clothes and armor, they are inside my spatial ring."
"Good job. That's a relief."
Wu Buyi tilted his head. He looked at the team of strong cultivators, wondering why Leo was wary of them.
"What's wrong, my lord? Are you worrying about something? Are you afraid that they might find out?"
"Nah," Leo scoffed. "I was more concerned about the loot. It would have been a waste if we forgot to take their rings and their precious lifespan papers. Speaking of which, I need to eat more."
Leo stuck his hands into his jeans' pockets only to discover that they were empty.
"Ah…"
He suddenly had a flashback. He remembered that he no longer had the talismans in his pockets. Thus, he scanned his spatial rings, searching if he still had some leftovers in there.
Fortunately, a stack of 20 talismans was in one of the rings. Leo put them there when he collected the random drops from the dead people, and he forgot about them.
Leo almost had a heart attack. He let out a long sigh of relief that he didn't accidentally destroy all of them because of his greed. He ejected one of them out and chewed it as usual.
.
.
Leading the group of nine soul transformation cultivators was Yan Luo, the first prince of the Yan Empire. He was a grey-haired elder, but his eyebrows and long full beard were still black.
Unlike the second prince, the first prince, Yan Luo, didn't wear fancy clothes or artifacts. He donned himself in patched robes as if he was a commoner or a beggar. He also carried a wooden staff, which was made from sacred wood.
This elderly prince glanced at Leo's group and bitterly smiled. He let out a long sigh when Leo didn't bother with them.
"I guess my brother is already dead."
When Yan Luo mentioned the death of the second prince, the bodyguards gulped. They stared at Leo's group in wary and fear.
"Is that elder really a quasi-immortal, your highness?"
Yan Luo nodded, "Very likely. My brother never spared the weak or made friends with stronger cultivators. He always relied on Situ Clan's talismans like the third-rated assassin group from the Ouyang Clan. Whenever he quarreled with stronger seniors, he always used those talismans to kill them."
The group wryly smiled. They had heard the rumor about the second prince's personality before, but hearing it from their lord had a different vibe.
"That group came out from the place that my brother visited, so they must have met. Knowing my brother's personality, he must have tried to rob those people one way or another. Since they've come out first without a trace of combat…"
Yan Luo sighed. He had planned to kill Yan Long for a long time, but someone did it for him.
"He finally swallowed more than he could chew. Suit him right."
The first prince burst into laughter while he led his men toward the artificial cave. He pointed his staff at the metal dome.
"Go in and explore. Since we're here, we should be nice and bring their corpses back home."
The nine cultivators nodded and rushed into the cave.
A few minutes later, Yan Luo and his men found the abandoned spaceship. However, they didn't find the corpses of the second prince's people. Everybody walked around the ship while they scanned the cave, searching for the track of Yan Long.
As they searched, one of them picked up a couple warm bullet shells. They brought them and presented them to Yan Luo.
"Your Highness. We've detected strong wood element essence in these metal cylinders. I think they were new."
Yan Luo picked them up and flipped them in his hands. He also detected the remnant of Leo's aura.
SIZZLE
After holding them for a few seconds, Yan Luo's hands were charred. He dropped the shells and rubbed his palms.
"Your Highness?!"
Yan Luo deeply inhaled and circulated his Qi. A few seconds later, the charred parts were slightly healed, but he lost a layer of his skin.
"Those cylinders are not made from wood or metal element essence," Uttered Yan Luo.
"What do you mean, Your Highness?"
Yan Luo's eyes glinted as he studied the aura of the shells on the ground. He solemnly looked at his men.
"This is the power of dao or the work of a sentient dao avatar. Either that quasi-immortal used an artifact or a secret technique, I'm sure Yan Long died here. I think they might have taken their corpses with them."
"…"
The group gulped. They wondered who that elder was as he boldly stole the corpses of imperial guards and the second prince. This didn't include the crime of murdering a royalty.
There was only one way to find out.
"It doesn't matter. Someone from the imperial palace will use Yan Long's life candle to identify the murderer and how they died anyway. We don't need to do anything. By the way, does anyone have a spatial ring that can store this massive artifact?"
Yan Luo smiled and pointed at the spaceship. He added, "We're bringing this thing to the palace. We already found two, and we are close to learning the lost techniques from those artifacts. Maybe, this one will help our scholars at home."
The bodyguards stopped worrying about the second prince's group and looked at the spaceship. As it wasn't their first time handling this order, they brought out their ropes to tie the ship. Two of them flew toward the ceiling and began digging a hole even though the roof was manmade.
Soon, they pried open the dome. Then, everybody carried the entire spaceship as if they were supermen. Yan Luo laughed and guided his men to their portal near the pagoda town.
.
.
Leo's group reached the camp unhindered. When they arrived, they found the ransacked shacks and destroyed cooking utensils.
Wu Buyi and Gao Yan grumbled as those tools were gifts from Leo. On the other hand, Leo thought of the people they saw.
"Eh, this world is full of thieves," Leo complained. "Welp. We can't help it. There's no law here, and people can use superpowers. Since everybody abuses their powers as they see fit, the country is in anarchy. What a beautiful civilization. This world should get nuked once or twice so that they can understand the hardship of having no peasant to provide them food or services."
"…"
Wu Buyi and Gao Yan gave Leo a weird look. Both of them didn't understand what he meant, but they could feel his killing intent rising. They also secretly prayed for whoever made Leo angry.
'May they rest in pieces in hell.'
'Even Yama can't save you now.'
Leo didn't bother scavenging for remaining tools and usable utensils. He touched the blue portal, and the system prompted him with a message.
<Will you return to the domain?>
<You have completed all objectives, and you are the master of this mystic realm. When you return you can build a new portal, which can permanently link between your domain and this world.>
Leo ignored the message. He was mentally exhausted, and he needed a good night's rest on a warm bed.
"Bring me home."
<Affirmative.>
The portal was unsealed, and Leo's hand sank into the energy portal. He took a step and entered it.
Wu Buyi, Thora, Gao Yan, and Taxi also followed suit. They obtained enough treasures and stories to tell their friends for months.
After crossing the gate, Leo and the group returned to the floating platform with the four heavenly demons. When their eyes adjusted to the light, the first sight they saw was the pride of cowering thunder unicorns, which had been trapped in a square cube.
"Smash?"
Taxi sneered at his friends and family. He didn't even try to ask them why they got into that position.
"SMASH!"
The other ponies cried and begged Taxi for help. They also pointed their hooves at the four giant statues.
Meanwhile, Leo laughed at the horses. He was also relieved that the dangerous monsters didn't go on a rampage or try to molest Cat.
Thinking of Cat, Leo's eyes swept through the platform. However, he couldn't see the giant wasps and cockatrices that he had thrown here.
Leo facepalmed. It wasn't hard to guess who stole them.
"Nom-Nom Meow, I see."
