Chapter 297
The Xu brothers were Big Foot Luo’s beloved disciples. With Big Foot Luo’s unreasonable character, who knows what consequences there could be after offending these two people?
With Big Foot Luo as a back-up, and with Jiang Ying as a versatile person, Fang Tianrui successfully established a stable image for himself even though he’s quite a boring one.
Fang Tianrui and Jiang Ying had a good time in the sect and they’d reached the early stage of Qi condensation. Although there was still a big gap between their levels and that of Xu Ziyan, it was already an outstanding performance.
After saying goodbye to the two of them, Xu Ziyan returned to Tianluo Peak. As soon as he reached the top of the peak, he saw Zuo Shen who was sitting there and cultivating hard…
Xu Ziyan: …
Oops, I totally forgot about this person…
Zuo Shen gave him a faint glance, “master, don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.”
Xu Ziyan: … Haha!
After resting in the cabin for two days, Big Foot Luo showed up again. He briefly explained the task and asked his disciples to form a team by themselves.
The mission this time was to explore the reasons for the mutation of the blood-sucking worms in the central area.
In this battle with the blood-sucking worms, the range of power expanded enormously because of the inner struggles of human beings. Later, the Liu Guang sect took up its power of say in the whole alliance and it managed to stop the expansion of the blood-sucking worms.
Although there were still a few people who were secretly making their own calculations, judging from the general situation, human beings have already started a counter-offensive strategy.
Thanks to the union of human beings, the control area of blood-sucking worms began to decrease rapidly, and since the Liu Guang sect and Tian Yu sect announced many methods to kill them, the losses of the human cultivators began to drop rapidly as well.
Initially, everything was developing in a good direction, but just half a year ago, the blood-sucking worms in the central area suddenly encountered an unknown mutation. Those mutated ones were faster and reproduced in greater numbers. Moreover, there seemed to be a ‘commander’ role among them. Not only could it command the group to attack in a unified way, but it could even use a bait to lead cultivators into an ambush.
As soon as such news spread, it immediately caused a great blow to the human cultivators, and it even caused panic among the low-level ones.
Unknown enemies are always more terrifying.
No one could guarantee how many blood-sucking worms of this commander type existed, and no one knew if they would reproduce more worms of the same kind.
If the evolved worms obtained power equal to that of a cultivator, then could human beings still kill all of them when there were far fewer of them?
In order to prevent this kind of emotion from spreading among the cultivators, the top officials of the alliance decided to send several elite disciples from various sects to the central area for investigation. The purpose was to find out why the blood-sucking worms encountered such a mutation, then look for a way to suppress this mutation as much as possible.
In fact, before Xu Ziyan, a lot of teams had been sent out for this exploration, but these teams were either wiped out and couldn’t get any news at all, or the people who went in were killed before they could get close to the blood-sucking worms’ lair. In the end, no news was found at all…
Therefore, Xu Ziyan and the others would mainly focus on investigation. It would be nice to solve the issue, but if it couldn’t be solved, they could also dispatch a few high-level cultivators to do so.
At the moment, the Xuan Yu realm was in an extremely tense state.
The high-level cultivators above the level of deity were all focused on opening the channels to other domains, which was a very long process. They could thus barely spare time for other stuff.
The nascent soul cultivators were not idle either. In addition to organizing the cultivators’ alliance to wipe off the blood-sucking worms in the entire region, almost everyone remaining was dispatched to the weakest point in the Xuan Yu realm for surveillance.
The most terrifying thing about blood-sucking worms wasn’t their crazy way of reproduction, but that their female worms could continuously send positioning information to the worm king of the demon race.
No one could guarantee when the demon race would suddenly appear across the void. To prevent the demon race from entering the Xuan Yu realm silently, someone must monitor the weak points of these spaces.
Xu Ziyan listened to Big Foot Luo, and after a little analysis, he knew that the current senior leaders of the Cultivation Alliance were very worried about the demon race having entered the Xuan Yu realm already. Otherwise, no one could explain why there would be such a mutation among the blood-sucking worms in the central area.
“That is to say…in addition to investigating the reasons for the evolution of blood-sucking worms this time, we also need to find out whether there are signs of invasion of the demon race?” Xu Ziyan asked.
Big Foot Luo nodded, “to be honest, I think that this is a very difficult mission, and they should instead send a nascent soul cultivator for this investigation. However, all of them have been dispatched and it’s impossible to transfer them back for an uncertain factor.. And those top leaders don’t perceive this matter as particularly dangerous. Although the Liu Guang sect has its say here, we can’t dominate in this kind of matter. Oh, by the way…” He sneered, “I don’t believe in some scumbags. They might return even before seeing the lair. They might even spread rumors and waste our time!”
Gently rubbing his forehead, Big Foot Luo patted Xu Ziyan’s shoulder, “this journey is going to be full of danger. Aside from facing the attacks of the blood-sucking worms, you will have to be careful of other squads.”
Xu Ziyan was suddenly startled, “didn’t they say that the righteous and demon cultivators have already…”
“Not the demon cultivators…or I should say that I’m not sure it’s them. Anyhow, I’ve always felt that someone is stirring troubles on our back.” Big Foot Luo showed an icy-cold face, “it’d be better not let me know who’s making alliances with the demon race, or I’ll…”
He didn’t say what would happen otherwise, but Xu Ziyan already felt chills down his spine. He could imagine that if such a person existed, Big Foot Luo might not even let him die so easily!
“You have to be more careful during this trip. If you can’t do anything…come back immediately without hesitating.” Big Foot Luo looked at Xu Ziyan with a solemn expression, “this matter involves the safety of the entire Xuan Yu realm, but there are some things that I cannot explain to you clearly. All in all, once you encounter something unexpected, don’t think twice and come back immediately! I won’t let my disciple become an idiot who would look for death himself. Understand?”
“We will obey our master’s teaching.” Xu Ziyan and Xu Zirong looked at each other and replied in unison.
“Well, let’s go then.” Big Foot Luo waved his hand, and he continued after recalling something, “you are representing the sect in this trip, so don’t be too nice to the others. Beat up those who deserve it. As my disciples, you should obviously be more domineering!”
Xu Ziyan: …
Hehe, master, do you actually want to say that we’ll be bullied since you’ve offended too many people?
Don’t you worry about it! Even if I am willing to tolerate the bullying, my baby brother will never let someone take advantage of me…wait, there seems to be something wrong with this statement… _(:3∠)_
“By the way, who are you planning to take with you this time? I think Wei Qing and Le Hu are good choices.” Big Foot Luo changed his mind and began to seek help for his disciples.
Xu Ziyan shook his head, “the key to this trip is to hide and sneak in. If there are too many people, it will become a hindrance. So we’d rather act alone.”
“Oh?” Big Foot Luo glanced at them suspiciously, and his facial expression became very weird, “as you like then, but you guys must behave outside, not everyone is as open-minded as your master.”
Xu Ziyan: master, what are you even thinking…
After saying goodbye to Luo Yun, Xu Ziyan and Xu Zirong returned to their cabins.
This time, they didn’t forget about Zuo Shen, who had no sense of existence, but Xu Ziyan didn’t plan to take him for this adventure.
The spiritual power that Zuo Shen obtained from the Dragon Soul allowed him to reach golden core, but his realm wasn’t stable yet. Therefore, Xu Ziyan specially gave him the Nether Pearl from the man in black and told him to refine it.
After the man in black left the cave, he dared to leave before Big Foot Luo arrived. No one even noticed when he’d left, except Xu Zirong who could slightly sense it with his spells…
Only Wei Qing realized something and was certain that the man in black was gone looking for Uncle Meng Xian…
Zuo Shen was thrilled when he got the pearl. He became a little too excited because of his gratitude, and he didn’t listen carefully what Xu Ziyan was going to do next.
As a qualified follower, Zuo Shen knew that it’s an important matter. Every time when “madame” tried to kill him with his gaze, he understood that he must disappear at once…
And it wasn’t an exception this time!
It’s just that he didn’t expect to receive such a rare treasure, so he immediately ran off after getting the pearl, making Xu Ziyan startled…
“Brother… the lightbulb is gone, we should go too.” Xu Zirong held his brother’s finger affectionately when no one was around.
Xu Ziyan rolled his eyes at him but he did not shake him off.
Xu Zirong felt happy secretly, as he had long known that his brother would never get angry of him for too long. Also, he had deliberately expressed guilt over the past two days, Xu Ziyan felt like forgiving him already even though he knew that nothing’s ever going to change.
“Brother…are you going to act alone this time?”
“Well.” Xu Ziyan nodded solemnly, “master is right, I also have a feeling that something difficult is going to happen this time, and it’s going to be extremely risky.”
Xu Zirong’s eyes lowered, “risky? Is it brother’s intuition?”
Xu Ziyan glanced at him, “you can call it intuition, and I’m not sure if it’s even correct to say so. I want to avoid dragging anyone else into danger. After all, we can still escape into Mr. Little Square if it comes to life and death, but for the others…” Xu Ziyan shook his head, “I trust no one except you.”
