Chapter Ninety-Four: The Sudden Appearance of a Demon Cultivator

“Bing Xiao! Come here and look at this!” Lin Yanghao said, his face alight with excitement.

After a careful search of the cave by Lin Yanghao and Bing Xiao, they discovered that the place they had just been in was only a tiny part of the whole cavern. On the other side of the cave, beyond a narrow passage, there was in fact an even larger chamber.

More than that, there was also a teleportation array inside. Its age was unmistakable; it exuded a deep, ancient aura.

“This is the same kind of one-way teleportation array as the one on the Dragon Martial Continent,” Bing Xiao recognized at a glance, finding that the array before them was almost identical to the one he knew.

“Could it be that we didn’t fall into this cave because of the Beast Sovereign?” Lin Yanghao suddenly thought of this, and the more he considered it, the more he felt that his guess was right.

The Beast Sovereign’s sleeping palace had been shaken by such a huge commotion. He had surely noticed it by now and would be in a fury.

If this had been the Beast Sovereign’s doing, would he and Bing Xiao still be alive?

How could they still be standing here so safely?

“You’re right. We may well have entered an ancient teleportation array, and the restrictions outside were probably there to protect this array,” Bing Xiao now arrived at the same conclusion as Lin Yanghao.

Truly, great minds thought alike. With the pressure of the Beast Sovereign gone, both of them instantly felt much more at ease.

Lin Yanghao thought that since it was not the Beast Sovereign’s work, the two of them were not in any immediate danger.

“Then, Lin Yanghao, should we try this teleportation array?” After carefully checking the array and confirming that everything was in order, Bing Xiao asked.

“Let’s go in. Do we have a better option now? Rather than waiting here, we might as well take a gamble,” Lin Yanghao replied after some thought.

At the moment, this was the only road open to them, and Lin Yanghao truly had no other choice.

With the experience of the previous few times, Lin Yanghao skillfully placed the spirit stones onto the array, then tucked Bing Xiao into the spirit beast pouch before stepping into the teleportation array himself.

Everything went smoothly. After roughly half an hour, the array finally came to a stop.

“It doesn’t seem like this transfer was very far. Even if I end up back in the South Domain, just don’t send me to the Beast Domain,” Lin Yanghao silently prayed in his heart.

By now, the entire Beast Domain was surely searching for him like mad. If he showed himself, it would be no different from walking to his death. That was why he was so tense now, willing even to return to the South Domain rather than remain in the Beast Domain.

Soon, the bright radiance of the teleportation array faded, and Lin Yanghao discovered that he was actually beneath a city.

At first, he felt a flicker of relief. Though he did not know where this was, it was clearly far away from the Beast Domain.

But as soon as Lin Yanghao entered the city, his expression changed abruptly. A powerful surge of yin energy came sweeping toward his face.

Caught completely off guard, he was struck full on by it, and hurriedly activated a spiritual barrier around himself.

The yin energy here was several times denser than even that in the Land of Death and the Trial Grounds.

Even Lin Yanghao’s spiritual barrier could barely hold it back.

Thinking that the city was so heavily infused with yin energy, Lin Yanghao concluded that there could never possibly be anyone living inside.

“Bing Xiao, come and look. What place is this?” Since he had no idea himself, the first person Lin Yanghao naturally turned to for help was Bing Xiao.

“This much yin energy... I can’t tell how it was formed either,” Bing Xiao said after emerging and looking around, shaking his head.

By all rights, there should not have been any yin energy here at all, let alone so much of it. Even Bing Xiao could not make sense of it.

Lin Yanghao and Bing Xiao continued onward.

Aside from that, gusts of eerie wind would occasionally sweep through the city, making Lin Yanghao shiver involuntarily.

...

The two of them walked all the way to the far side of the city.

Clink, clink, clink!

Cackling laughter suddenly reached Lin Yanghao’s ears.

At that, Lin Yanghao immediately understood that there were people nearby.

He quietly moved closer and saw more than a dozen white-robed Foundation Establishment cultivators surrounding a man in black.

The black-clad man had a ferocious, twisted face; he was clearly no righteous person. His expression was full of lecherous malice, and that ghastly laughter from before must have come from him.

Yet Lin Yanghao could not sense the man’s cultivation level at all. It was indescribably strange.

“Ah!”

Amid a scream, one of the white-robed cultivators was brutally torn apart alive by the black-clad man, blood splashing across the ground. The death was so horrific it was unbearable to look at.

“Junior Brother!”

“Senior Brother!”

Seeing his miserable death, the remaining white-robed cultivators cried out in alarm one after another.

Before long, another white-robed cultivator also met a gruesome end at the black-clad man’s hands.

Lin Yanghao genuinely felt embarrassed for them. More than ten people, and they still could not defeat a single opponent, instead being forced completely onto the back foot.

“Bing Xiao, who is that black-clad man? Why can’t I see through his cultivation?” Lin Yanghao asked.

At this moment, he was truly grateful to have Bing Xiao. If not for him, he would not have known what to do at all.

“He is a demonic cultivator,” Bing Xiao said lightly, as though speaking of something utterly insignificant.

But when Lin Yanghao heard that, it was a very different matter. He had considered many possibilities for the black-clad man’s identity, yet he had never imagined that he would be a demonic cultivator. If Bing Xiao had not said so today, he might have completely forgotten that the Spirit World still had demonic cultivators.

This was also the first time in his life that Lin Yanghao had encountered one.

No wonder demonic cultivators were said to be cruel, cold-blooded, and bloodthirsty.

“Demonic cultivators, like the Beast Domain, live separately on the Demon-Sealing Continent. To the north and south of it are the South Domain and North Domain, with the Beast Domain standing between them and forcibly dividing the South Domain from the North Domain,” Bing Xiao explained, seeing that Lin Yanghao knew nothing about them.

“So that’s how it is.”

At that moment, Lin Yanghao recalled how the all-knowing man had once introduced demonic cultivators and their sects to him. After that, because he had never run into any demonic cultivators, he had gradually forgotten all about them.

“Then how are demonic cultivators different from proper cultivators?”

“Their realms of cultivation are different. From lowest to highest, they are the Qi Gathering Realm, Body Refinement Realm, Essence Condensation Realm, Demonic Core Realm, Demonic Infant Realm, Nascent Soul Realm, Soul Departure Realm, Demonic Tribulation Realm, and Great Ascension Realm, nine great stages in all. Each corresponds to the nine major realms of proper cultivators,” Bing Xiao answered.