The Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf looked at the naked man before it. It knew this person was still alive, and a cultivator at that. It muttered to itself, speaking in a human tongue.
"Is that a Golden Core or a Nascent Soul inside him? I still can't be sure, but he is definitely a powerful Body Cultivator ."
It had discovered this naked man nine days ago in a swamp on the prairie. At the time, the man was in this state of near-death, which had truly delighted the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf.
The cultivator was covered in bloodstains and wounds, clearly having fled into the swamp to hide after being pursued.
The demonic beast or cultivator that had been chasing him had failed to find his tracks, which was the only reason the man had survived. Otherwise, in this place, no living prey could ever escape.
Anyone who came to this prairie had to be prepared to die without a whole corpse.
The man had probably held on until his pursuers left, then fainted, and his concealment art had dissipated on its own, revealing him.
It had really struck it lucky this time. Not only could it devour the man's flesh and blood, but it could also obtain the great treasures on his person.
Anyone who dared to come to this prairie was at least a Golden Core stage cultivator and usually carried many good things.
Although the other party was heavily injured and unconscious, his aura dormant, it could still sense the vigorous power of qi and blood within his shriveled body.
But what surprised the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf was that it had assumed the man's robes were completely destroyed in a fierce battle, but since he wasn't dead, there should have been a storage pouch or something similar nearby.
Yet, no matter how it searched the area around the man, it found nothing. This result left it utterly bewildered.
Since he was still breathing and hadn't been killed or devoured, this shouldn't be the case. On this prairie, it was unheard of to only take someone's storage pouch and leave them alive.
Unwilling to give up, the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf practically used Earth Evasion Art to search deep underground, but the result was still the same.
This made the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf's four eyes turn bloodshot. It had come with such high hopes, only to end up without even a single low-grade spirit stone .
Not to mention the medicinal pills that human cultivators were most skilled at refining.
But the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf didn't dare to linger outside for too long. Dejected, it could only directly use the "Blood Chain Dragon Binding" to seal the man and quickly bring him back to its cave residence .
It was afraid that the enemy who had pursued this man would soon return, which would force it into a big fight.
After bringing the man back to its cave residence , the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf wasted no more time. It opened its cavernous, bloody mouth and bit down directly on the man's head.
Once it swallowed him, it could have a good round of cultivation. It was bound to make some gains, and its cultivation would at least increase slightly.
But then, it let out a miserable shriek and jumped up from where it stood, its eyes filled with disbelief.
When it bit down on the man's head, it felt as if it had bitten down on a piece of ten-thousand-year-old refined iron. Oh, no. Even ten-thousand-year-old refined iron would have been easily crushed by its bite. To be precise, it was like biting down on a high-grade magical treasure.
The impact sent a shock through its teeth, making its gums bleed, and its teeth nearly shattered. Yet, the other person was completely unharmed...
In the following days, no matter what it did to the man before it, it couldn't leave a single scratch on his skin. This horrified it to no end.
Just how powerful was this person? Even unconscious and at its mercy, it couldn't harm him in the slightest. What kind of power would it take to injure him like this?
As fear began to set in, the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf was already considering whether it should just throw this person far, far away.
It was afraid that if the other person suddenly woke up, it would be finished in an instant.
But the more powerful such an existence was, the more precious his flesh and blood, and the Golden Core or Nascent Soul within his body would be. This was no different from a heaven-and-earth-birthed exotic fruit.
Since the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf itself was only at the initial-stage third-rank, it couldn't determine the man's true cultivation level.
However, the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf knew that if it could devour him, its strength would surely multiply at an incredible rate. Thus, in the end, driven by immense greed, it still sealed him with several layers of arts.
It simply couldn't bear to toss this person back onto the prairie. Gazing at the man who remained unconscious, the Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf's eyes flickered rapidly.
It was still contemplating how to devour this person, because even when it used all the poisons in its possession, it couldn't corrode him in the slightest.
Those poisons that it only dared to apply from a distance before immediately having to retreat, had no effect on this person, like a stone sinking into the great sea.
Given the circumstances, not only did they fail to create a single ripple, but in the end, they didn't even leave a red mark.
This result left it both shocked and frightened. It increasingly felt that if this person were to awaken, it might not be able to keep him sealed at all.
But it was truly unwilling to give up. Caught in this hesitation, it still couldn't bring itself to throw the man out.
As it racked its brain, it failed to notice that its cave's restrictive formation had already been silently infiltrated, and a figure was entering the cave residence ...
Li Yan shook his head. He felt a wave of dizziness, and a pain like a thousand steel needles stabbing randomly shot through his Sea of Consciousness . Even with his endurance, he couldn't help but let out a muffled groan.
His eyes were met with a somewhat blinding light. He felt his mouth was dry and his tongue parched, and there wasn't a single comfortable spot on his body.
"Fellow Daoist, you truly have great fortune. If this old man hadn't arrived in time, you would have been eaten by that Demonic Eye Illusion Wolf!"
Just then, Li Yan suddenly heard a very old voice.
Li Yan endured the severe pain and looked toward the source of the voice. A beam of blinding sunlight, shining in from an angle, made him involuntarily shut his eyes again.
After squinting, Li Yan slowly opened his eyes. The scene was blurry at first. Li Yan could vaguely see a figure moving in front of him.
Although his Sea of Consciousness was still in excruciating pain, as a cultivator's instinct, he subconsciously tried to mobilize the magical power and Divine Sense in his body.
The next moment, he let out another muffled groan.
A sharp, cutting pain erupted from his Sea of Consciousness and Dantian , instantly drenching his clothes in sweat.
As the sweat poured out, Li Yan surprisingly felt much clearer.
By now, he could slowly make out the scene before him.
He seemed to be lying on a bed, and in front of him was a stooped figure. The surrounding scenery was still swaying, but his vision was gradually clearing.
"It seems those medicinal pills were of some use to you!"
The old voice spoke again. It was an old, wrinkled face with graying hair, staring at him.
Li Yan's head was spinning violently at this moment, and for a while, he couldn't remember what had happened at all. He looked around numbly.
The surroundings were very simple. It was a small room, and he was lying on a bed. An old man in a yellow robe sat in front of the bed.
Along the walls were two wooden shelves holding some bottles and jars.
Facing the edge of the bed, behind the yellow-robed elder, was a large window. The dazzling sunlight was streaming in from there. In front of the window was a table with a few teacups placed simply on it.
Li Yan could see some of the scenery outside the window; it was blue sky and white clouds. This place seemed to be a pavilion of some sort.
"Where... where is this?"
Li Yan's head was splitting, and he couldn't remember what had happened, but he still asked subconsciously.
To his own surprise, though he felt he had used a great deal of strength, he only produced an extremely weak and hoarse voice, almost inaudible.
It didn't sound like his own voice at all, which stunned Li Yan himself.
But fortunately, the other person was also a cultivator with sharp ears and eyes. After hearing Li Yan's words, the yellow-robed elder gave him a strange look, a glint flashing in his eyes.
This person in front of him was lucky to have met him. Perhaps it was a case of shared misfortune. Although the thought of killing him for his treasures had crossed his mind, the other person had nothing of value on him.
And the man's dying appearance made him think of himself in the near future. Perhaps he too would look like this then.
Besides, in the end, he was not some heinous villain. Otherwise, if he couldn't find any treasures on the man, he would have finished him off anyway...
Several days later, under the dark night sky, Li Yan sat at the table. He was draped in a gray robe, his expression calm, but his eyes still held a vacant look.
He stared blankly out the window. Since he had woken up, the words the old man had spoken made him instinctively feel that something was wrong, because the other party was not speaking the language of the Wind God Continent , but an ancient human language he knew.
At the time, Li Yan's head had been splitting, so he hadn't realized this. What he had spoken was the language he had used most frequently in recent years, the language of the Wind God Continent .
Without thinking, he had blurted out the question.
And so, the yellow-robed elder had also frowned. He asked a few more questions, and by then, Li Yan's mind had finally regained some clarity, and he also noticed something was amiss.
Afterward, he clumsily used some ancient words to try and communicate with the other party, and then his mind gradually became clearer.
Under the yellow-robed elder's suspicious gaze, Li Yan knew he might be in a rather dangerous place, and he discovered that he couldn't use his Divine Sense or magical power.
Any attempt to use them resulted in such severe pain in his Sea of Consciousness and Dantian that he felt he would faint immediately.
At that time, he also remembered some things. So he forced himself to remain calm, conversing with the yellow-robed elder while recalling the events before he fell unconscious.
At that time, he and Xue Longzi of the Sword-Washing Sect had been teleported to a dangerous space.
Afterward, when Xue Longzi saw him breaking free from the blood mist step by step, he had brazenly unleashed a Spirit Transformation -level attack. It was only then that he knew the true terror of a Spirit Transformation cultivator.
Just that one finger pointing down made him feel completely helpless. Li Yan couldn't withstand that finger at all. Fortunately, all the forces there were chaotic, which dispersed most of the opponent's power.
Although Li Yan was injured, he didn't die on the spot, but he was knocked directly into the blood mist by his opponent...
As for Xue Longzi's final, miserable scream, Li Yan neither heard it nor saw his final struggle before everything fell silent.
Now that he had calmed down and thought about it carefully, since Xue Longzi had used his Spirit Transformation stage cultivation, without a supreme treasure to conceal him, he had most likely already left the Wind God Continent .
This allowed a huge weight to be lifted from Li Yan's heart.
After entering the blood mist himself, Li Yan's formidable and resilient physical body had begun to disappear at a terrifying rate. In that place, Li Yan did not dare to easily hide in the Earthen Patch .
That was his last resort. Otherwise, he would be trapped there forever. The Earthen Patch would drift to an unknown location, perhaps even running aground in a more dangerous place.
Especially once he hid inside, the Earthen Patch would become an ownerless object, and he would no longer be able to control it from within.
Most crucially, that place was too strange. Even if he recovered later, he might not have a chance to get out.
He had read about such things in many ancient texts. In some places, a Spirit Transformation cultivator would perish the moment they showed themselves, without being given the slightest chance.
Of course, Li Yan didn't want to spend the rest of his life there. He had to grasp the opportunity as much as possible to have the best chance of leaving.
Besides, in the Earthen Patch , he wouldn't be able to advance to Spirit Transformation . The Five Elements, heaven, and earth there were isolated from the outside world; he would not face a heavenly tribulation .
Otherwise, when he was forming his Nascent Soul , he could have just entered the Earthen Patch to undergo the tribulation. All the power of heaven and earth there would have been his to command.
Li Yan had unleashed all of his cultivation, but he still couldn't stop his physical body from disappearing. Li Yan knew that he might have entered a dead-end within the Chaotic Flow Space.
The first thing to appear was an azure water pearl, the very one he had obtained from the great island master of the Qiong-lin Sect , the magical treasure capable of conjuring the Water-Avoiding Golden-Eyed Beast .
In his spare time from arduous cultivation over the years, Li Yan would take it out to study. He eventually identified some of the materials needed for its repair. After having the Tianli Clan help him acquire them, he began the work of re-refining and repairing it.
After finally summoning the Water-Avoiding Golden-Eyed Beast for a test, he felt it was about seventy percent repaired. Moreover, the suit of azure armor it conjured could block a full-powered strike from a peak initial-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, which made Li Yan very happy.
A defensive magical treasure that could block an attack from a Nascent Soul cultivator was, without a doubt, a top-tier magical treasure in this realm. Although he had already advanced to the late-stage Nascent Soul , this magical treasure was still very useful to him.
Under the current circumstances, Li Yan didn't think much and immediately donned a suit of azure armor.
However, the blood mist, of which he knew not what rules it was composed, could not be completely blocked by the azure armor. The blood mist could still continuously seep in and penetrate.
With his physical body shielded by the azure armor, the rate of dissolution slowed considerably, but the azure armor itself was also visibly dissolving at a rapid rate.
What Li Yan didn't know was that the blood mist here was countless times less dense than where Xue Longzi was. If he had entered that area, his only choice would have been to enter the Earthen Patch .
And for the rest of his days, he could only huddle in there until the Earthen Patch was dissolved. Although the Earthen Patch was a supreme treasure, it was not truly indestructible.
Between heaven and earth, there are many unknown and terrifying forces that even a terrifying existence like True Lord Qianchong could not handle.