Everlasting

 

Despite their complaints, they had no ability to change their situation. The only thing they could do was to quickly finish up their task and find some time to wholeheartedly cultivate themselves.

It did not take long for another month to pass. This night, Chen Feng finally managed to establish a link with Celestial Fate. An alien energy came from the vast, starry sky into Chen Feng’s Celestial Fate acupoint.

Pa!

Chen Feng heard a snapping sound. His Celestial Fate acupoint had opened and a tidal-wave like power poured into his forehead.

Following the opening of the Celestial Fate acupoint, both his Celestial Yang and Celestial Metropolis acupoints too, linked up with the two corresponding stars.

Chen Feng was quietly seated atop the mountain peak. Three faint columns of light descended from the sky to connect with the three acupoints on his forehead.

At that very moment, Chen Feng was linking up with three ancient and mysterious stars at the same time, truly entering the Tristar Crown realm.

Wave after wave of profound auras kept washing over Chen Feng’s mind. He felt as though his soul had moved into the starry sky itself. Feeling the endless stars there, Chen Feng was once again visited by the feeling of insignificance.

Not good. If this keeps up, inner demons will certainly emerge. Chen Feng considered.

Devour, absorb, open, tolerate. Words kept appearing within Chen Feng’s mind as he constantly attempted to change his state of mind.

Weng!

Suddenly, all the power of stars moved, surging into Chen Feng’s body.

“Humph!”

Chen Feng grunted and an intense tremor ran through his entire body. Earlier, with just a thought, he had unexpectedly absorbed the other power of stars into his body. As such, the power of stars he absorbed became somewhat varied. More shockingly, a nearby pile of Starlight Stones had, under the influence of his actions, begun to radiate a vast amount of power of stars. And thus, the power of stars from both the sky and the ground was absorbed into Chen Feng’s body.

It was then that Chen Feng recalled how the Longevity Scripture’s cultivation method had absorbed the essence of the surrounding trees and vegetation back then. He involuntarily expressed his admiration for the overbearing might of the Longevity Scripture.

With considerable difficulty, he finally suppressed the chaotic streams of energy within his body. Then, dawn arrived.

With a wave of his hand, three pieces of stone swiftly flew up. Chen Feng was visited by a peculiar sensation. His mind had seemingly split into three parts, each capable of perfectly representing his thoughts.

The three stones began moving in the air at the same time, each moving in different ways. It was as though there were three people controlling the stones, one controlling each stone.

The Tristar Crown is fully open and I have now cultivated up to the one multitasking mind realm. Next comes the comprehension of the Soulflame and assailing level 3 of the Concealed stage, Chen Feng thought.

Chen Feng, who was in the midst of contemplation, suddenly jerked his head up to see two human figures swiftly flying down the foot of the mountain. In but the blink of an eye, they had arrived before him. 

They were two outer disciples who would often work at the mine alongside him. At that moment, however, their faces were filled with panic. Their eyes, especially, were filled with dread.

“What happened?” Seeing that, Chen Feng could instinctively sense that something was not right. It would appear that something was about to happen.

“Some disciples have died,” one of them said in dread.

“What, someone died? What happened?” Chen Feng stood up.

“We don’t know either. After waking up today, we found several fellow disciples with all their blood sucked out from their bodies.” As they were informing Chen Feng, looks of dread flashed across their faces.

“Come, let’s go check it out,” Chen Feng said.

By the time Chen Feng arrived, the foot of the mountain was already filled with Extreme Celestial Sect disciples. Even Zhao Qiang and Ma Wu were there. Additionally, four other people managed to attract Chen Feng’s attention.

Those four are also heir disciples, Chen Feng thought.

Due to the incident, it was only natural for them to not start work. Instead, they gathered together to discuss the matter.

“What happened?” Chen Feng asked, stepping forward.

He then saw six disciples spread around on the ground at random. They were all outer disciples who were still fine and dandy yesterday. At that moment, however, they had become corpses. Additionally, those were dried-up corpses.

Two heir disciples were investigating their cause of death.

Looking at the corpses on the ground, Chen Feng was instantly stunned. The six fellows’ corpses were completely shrivelled up and not a trace of vitality was left within them. All the blood essence within them had been completely sucked dry.

Chen Feng sent his divine sense out and found that the six fellows’ sea of wisdoms had dried up as well. As for their divine senses, it was unknown if they had simply dissipated or if they were sucked away by some unknown entity.

With the exception of the two bloody holes on their necks, there were no other wounds on any other part of their bodies. Their clothes, weapons and spatial pouches remained completely intact.

“Their blood was completely sucked out. What manner of creature did this?” someone shouted aloud.

“Enough! Enough! Disperse. We will take care of this. There are many bloodthirsty monsters in the cultivation world. It is not surprising for us to occasionally bump into some. Everyone, continue your work. We will take care of the rest,” one of the heir disciples said loudly.

The disciples quickly dispersed and moved back into the valley to continue cutting out Starlight Stones. However, they never stopped discussing the matter. On the contrary, it grew fiercer. At any rate, the mining operation was an extremely tedious one. At that moment, however, it was as though someone had thrown a large boulder into a calm surface of water, causing waves that rose to the sky and ripples to form around it.

“I am guessing it must be a yao beast. I know of some yao beasts that specialize in devouring the blood essence of us cultivators.”

“It could also be demonic cultivators. Some practice heretical arts which require the absorption of blood essence.”

“That is right. Many of the arts practiced by heretical cultivators are very devilish. I once heard of this fellow. In order to practice a heretical art, he killed 999 babies who were only one month old each.”

“So vicious?”

“Yes. In the end, he was killed by an expert from Sword Hall. Such a scumbag. A pity that I am powerless, otherwise I too, want to slay yaos and purge demons.”

“No worries, there is a case right in front of you, no? You can go ahead and slay yaos and purge demons. This is a good opportunity for you.”

“To hell with you! You are asking me to commit suicide.”

“Eh? Senior Brother Chen, what is wrong? Are you in the middle of a cultivation session?” One of the chatting outer disciples noticed Chen Feng leaning against the surface of a piece of Starlight Stone with a faraway gaze in his eyes. Who knows what he was thinking of?

“He he, it is nothing. I just feel like there is something weird with today’s matter. Although those heir disciples said that they can handle it, everyone should be careful. I suggest that we gather together when resting tonight. That way, if anything happens, we will be able to respond faster,” Chen Feng said with a smile.

“Senior Brother Chen is right. Let’s gather together tonight. I too, feel something sinister afoot. It wasn’t easy to make our way into Extreme Celestial Sect. I have no desire to die here.” The disciples began giving their assent.

“Is it really a creature from the Demon Plane?” Chen Feng was in the midst of communicating with Tower.

“There is no mistake about it. It is the Demonic Bloodthirsty Hunter. Although the demonic energy on their wounds are almost gone, I can still sense it,” Tower replied.

“How could creatures from the Demon Plane come to our Eternal World?” Chen Feng was puzzled.

“Ha ha ha, because Eternal World is a very special place. Forget the creatures from the Demon Plane, you will even encounter things from the other planes in the future,” Tower said in an amused tone.

“Special? What kind of special?” asked a curious Chen Feng.

“I cannot tell you. You will find out about it in the future. Enough, right now, you should be thinking how to deal with the sudden appearance of these Demonic Bloodthirsty Hunters first. If I am not mistaken, if a Demonic Bloodthirsty Hunter could appear here, there must surely be something special nearby,” Tower said with the same amused tone.

When night came, the outer disciples began grouping together in threes and fives. As for Chen Feng, he found a mountain peak to continue cultivating himself.

As he was cultivating himself, Chen Feng spread out his divine sense. At the same time, he kept scanning every movement occurring within the surrounding valley.

However, for the next three days, everything was peaceful. Zhao Qiang and the other heir disciples failed to discover anything as well. Thus, after a few more days, they began lowering their guard. 

On this very night, Chen Feng was cultivating on the peak of a mountain when his heart suddenly jolted. The strands of divine sense he sent out abruptly jerked about.

There are movements! Noticing that, Chen Feng’s figure leapt forward and swiftly disappeared into the night sky.

At that very moment, within a courtyard for outer disciples, several disciples were lying haphazardly on the ground. Only two outer disciples were left standing and they were engaging a black silhouette. However, the black silhouette was incredibly fast. Like a gust of wind, the black silhouette entangled the two disciples, giving them no opportunity to even cry out.

Puchi!

Suddenly, the black silhouette pounced forward, getting close to one of the disciples. Two glints of light flashed out as two rough and thick fangs stabbed into the disciple’s throat. In but half a breath’s worth of time, the disciple’s blood essence had been utterly sucked out of him and he became a dried-up corpse.

The other disciple wanted to use the opportunity to cry out. Unexpectedly, the black silhouette had unleashed a swift blast of strong wind, which forced the disciple back while engulfing whatever sound the disciple had wanted to make.

“Ga ga ga ga!”

The low and deep sound came out from the black silhouette. Next, it transformed into a black blast of wind as it rushed the disciple.

Shua!

Just as the disciple was about to die to the black silhouette’s fangs, a sword beam cut through the darkness of the night. The dazzling beam shot towards the black silhouette.

Sou!

The black silhouette reacted with extreme swiftness. Its pouncing figure abruptly twisted in mid-air to dodge the sudden sword beam.

After landing, Chen Feng looked at the crack created by the sword beam on the ground. He was unable to stop himself from raising his brows. Although that earlier was not his full power, the attack was not something that ordinary cultivators could dodge. Chen Feng never expected this opponent to be capable of dodging it.

“Senior Brother Chen, everyone else is dead,” the sole survivor there cried out miserably.

Looking at his dead fellow disciples, all of them sucked dry, killing intent flashed across Chen Feng’s eyes and he stared at the black silhouette before him.

It was a clump of thick demonic energy.

Chen Feng’s gaze pierced the thick demonic energy, allowing him to clearly see the creature inside it.