Chapter 1541: The Furies
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The surface area of the Abyss was unbelievably vast. Although it was only one part of the universe, it occupied over one-fourth of it.
Apart from the universe and the great world where Lin Huang and the rest were, the Abyss was connected to numerous great worlds, mini worlds, and time-space continuums.
Therefore, Lin Huang and the rest had no idea exactly which area they were in when they escaped from the Demonic Bug Maze.
"Lan Ling, check what monsters are around."
The reason why Virtuoso asked Lan Ling to check was not that Divine Telekinesis had no effect here, but because nobody would use Divine Telekinesis in the Abyss of their own accord.
It was not just outsiders invading the Abyss who would not do that. Even the local residents of the Abyss usually would not use their Divine Telekinesis either.
This was because as soon as they utilized their Divine Telekinesis, it was the equivalent of having exposed their location.
If the creatures within the Divine Telekinesis user's probing range were weaker than the user, that would still be alright. However, if the creatures were more powerful, the user might be targeted by the creatures' Divine Telekinesis and become prey.
Furthermore, the one thing the Abyss did not lack was powerhouses.
Even lord-level powerhouses would not simply use Divine Telekinesis when they were here. Instead, they would only use probing techniques that would not be easily sensed.
Lan Ling's spell belonged to a type that was rather rare and not known to many people. It was most suitable when used for probing. This had been proven in the Demonic Bug Maze earlier.
However, the main advantage of her probing spell was that it was a concealed method—it did not have the upper hand in terms of probing range.
Now, without the interference of the Maze, the probing range and accuracy of her spell were back to their normal parameters. However, she could only probe activity within a range of three hundred kilometers.
Although this probing range was still not very wide, it was better than using Divine Telekinesis to scan and being discovered by powerful Abyssal creatures.
Lan Ling quickly released her spell and began to probe.
As her lips moved, the incantations on both her arms swiftly sank into the ground.
She finally opened her eyes approximately two to three minutes later.
"What's the situation?" Tu Tong was the first to ask, unable to restrain himself.
"There are Furies all over within a three hundred kilometer range. I didn't find any other monsters." Lan Ling stood up slowly and looked at Virtuoso.
"Furies everywhere within a three hundred kilometer range…" Virtuoso frowned slightly.
"Could this be a Disaster Abyss Land?" Saber9 turned his head to ask Virtuoso.
"It's possible, but we can't be completely sure." Virtuoso nodded lightly. "After all, there are many regions in a place like the Abyss that have accumulated negative emotions, both great and small. Although there aren't many places where Furies gather on such a scale, this is not necessarily a Disaster Abyss Land."
"Let's walk around. If there are many other large-scale distributions of Disasters, we're most probably in a Disaster Abyss Land." Saber9 remained very sure of his guess.
Lin Huang understood the duo's conversation very well.
Although it was his first time in the Abyss, he had done his research beforehand after all and knew what sort of a place a Disaster Abyss Land was.
A Disaster Abyss Land was an area in the Abyss where massive amounts of negative emotions had accumulated.
In such regions, there were large distributions of extreme negative emotions and
creatures that were contaminated with Abyssal energy. They were called Disasters.
A Fury was one such Disaster.
Such monsters were usually Abyssal creatures that had been contaminated with raging emotions and thus been transformed.
They had massive bodies that were completely red from head to toe, enveloped in a raging fire. The flames could even infect other creatures, causing them to fall prey to rage-induced madness.
Apart from that, the Furies' forte was close-quarter combat; they were extraordinarily strong. If they were not killed immediately, each attack they encountered would enrage them further, and make them increasingly more powerful.
However, Lin Huang and the rest did not panic.
This was because such monsters were lone rangers. Although there were many of them within a three hundred kilometer range, they would not hunt in groups.
This alone made them less of a threat compared to the bug beasts in the Demonic Bug Maze.
Under Lan Ling's guidance, Lin Huang and the rest hurried on and soon encountered their first Fury.
It was Lin Huang's first time seeing a creature like the Fury.
The monster was fully twenty meters or more in height and had a humanoid form. It stood upright on two legs and resembled a great red giant. The color of its body was the red of a steamed crawfish. There was even a layer of dark red flame burning on it.
Unlike a giant, it did not have a human head, but a huge mutated head, swollen with abscesses all over it. Not only that, it had three arms of various sizes.
This was a Fury that had been transformed from a humanoid mutant. It had maintained seventy to eighty percent of its pre-Fury original form.
As Lin Huang was observing this monster that he was seeing for the first time, the Fury also noticed the group.
It released an enraged roar and charged directly at Lin Huang and the rest, with a sudden burst of energy from its legs.
Just when Lin Huang was about to attack, Saber9 beside him reacted even faster.
He performed a saber tactic with his hand, pointing two fingers at the charging Fury. The saber gleam in front of him turned into a golden ray of light and shot out.
A glow like that of a meteor traced through the air and impaled the Fury's massive, swollen head in the time it took for a breath.
The Fury abruptly stopped moving, then fell onto the ground with a thud.
The moment it fell, Lin Huang could even sense the ground quaking beneath his feet.
Saber9 only needed one blow to kill the second-rank heavenly god-level Fury. He sheathed his saber into its scabbard and unobtrusively glanced in Lin Huang's direction.
Meanwhile, the dark red flame around the Fury's carcass extinguished quickly. Its body began to dissipate at speed visible to the naked eye, transforming into a ball of dark red mist.
Lin Huang's gaze was full of puzzlement as he watched this happening. "What's that mist?"
"It's the concrete form of anger," Virtuoso explained from beside him.
In the material world, things like emotions could not be touched or seen. However, in the Abyss, they could materialize into a concrete form.
It was Lin Huang's first time hearing such a thing; he was rather astonished.
"It's best if all of you don't come into contact with these materialized negative emotions. If you touch them, you might lose control of your emotions if it's a minor case. A more serious case might mean you could be contaminated right away and turn into a Disaster," Virtuoso added.
"Can't it be used?" Lin Huang was still curious about these negative emotions.
"It can't. These emotional energies have been completely integrated with Abyssal energy. Even Abyssal creatures are extra cautious when they absorb these energies, as they will turn into Disasters if they're not careful—what more creatures from outside the Abyss," the adjacent Saber9 explained, "Only Disasters of the same species can absorb these energies completely to strengthen themselves. They're toxic to other creatures."
"Alright then…" Lin Huang was clearly a little disappointed when he heard that.
Virtuoso also noticed Lin Huang's disappointment. "If you have a vessel, you can collect a little of the mist. However, never release it in an open environment, as it will automatically contaminate all living things in the area. Now it's consolidated into a ball only because it's reverted to its original form after just having lost its host. It's in an inert state at the moment."
"It's that dangerous?!" Lin Huang had thought this thing was merely a cloud of mist; it had never crossed his mind that its form was just temporary.
"This cloud is enough to contaminate an entire planet," Saber9 added from beside him.
Lin Huang could not help being bereft of speech.
However, he could not restrain his curiosity; he retrieved a vessel and collected a wisp of the mist.
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Chapter 1542: The Jealousies
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Under Lan Ling's guidance, Lin Huang and the rest hurried along. It took them half a day to get out of the Furies' gathering area, killing 27 Furies of various forms along the way.
"We've left the Furies' gathering place. Ahead, there are Jealousies all over within three hundred kilometers of my sensing range." Lan Ling stopped and informed the others of her probing results after some investigation.
"This place is most certainly a Disaster Abyss Land," Saber9 said to Virtuoso, who was next to him.
Virtuoso nodded lightly. "We can basically confirm that now."
Lin Huang and the rest had flown for the better part of half a day before finally getting out of the Furies' gathering place. The vast size of the area where the rage emotions were dispersed clearly indicated that this was no ordinary gathering point for negative emotions. Now that they had discovered another type of Disaster up ahead, it proved that there were many types of negative emotions here. They could basically eliminate the possibility of them being anywhere else now.
Only a Disaster Abyss Land could gather so many types of negative emotions in such a vast area.
"What do we have to take note of to counter the Jealousies?" Lin Huang could not help asking.
He knew of course that a Jealousy was an Abyssal creature created from the contamination of extreme jealous emotions. However, in the information that he had gathered previously, there were not many descriptions of this particular kind of monster.
"The Jealousies are indeed rather unique creatures. Let me explain," Virtuoso said calmly.
"The Jealousies are monsters that are intensely jealous and usually exist only in spirit form. They're immune to most physical attacks, including those using Rule Bending Power and sequence power. Only spirit-type attacks can harm them directly.
"However, if an individual is envied by a Jealousy, all attacks from the Jealousy's target will work. In other words, if one of us is being targeted by a Jealousy and nobody around the target has spirit-type attack techniques, we can't help. The target can only rely on themselves.
"Another interesting thing is that if an individual is within a Jealousy's sensing range, but they have nothing for the Jealousy to be envious about, the Jealousy will ignore that individual. Even if the individual walks over when the Jealousy is watching, that individual won't be attacked.
"However, Jealousies have strange points of jealousy. Not only that, every one of them is different. They might be jealous of things that don't bother us at all. For instance, your hair is longer than mine, so I want to kill you. Why is your lipstick color so nice? I want to kill you for that…"
Lan Ling lifted her hand in seemingly casual fashion to wipe off the lipstick on her mouth after she heard this.
"The target has to kill the Jealousy as soon as they've been targeted. This is because the longer one drags things out, the more envious the Jealousy becomes. It might even go into a state of madness, which causes its ability to skyrocket.
"There's one more thing to note. Before Jealousies lock onto their target, they have a certain level of resistance to spirit-type attacks. Furthermore, if they're attacked under such circumstances, they will immediately go into a state of madness."
Even Tu Tong and Lan Ling could not stop nodding after hearing Virtuoso's explanation, not just Lin Huang. Clearly, it was their first time hearing this information as well.
"Don't panic if you become targets. My Saber Dao heavenly rule has spirit-type attack attributes," Saber9 comforted Lan Ling, then glanced at Lin Huang.
Saber Dao and Sword Dao heavenly rules belonged to a class of extreme physical attack techniques that went beyond the physical immunity upper limits of spirits. These attacks had the effect of harming spirits directly.
Saber9's comments did not refer to not the harm that Saber Dao heavenly rule could inflict. Rather, they referred to the spirit-type attack Saber Dao techniques that Saber9 had mastered.
Lin Huang understood what Saber9 meant and also noticed the slight challenge in Saber9's gaze. However, it did not particularly bother him.
As for Sword Dao heavenly rule, Lin Huang had indeed just elevated to level-2, Heavenly Heart—perhaps Saber9, who had been at level-2 for a long time, was not aware of this. However, all the Sword Servants under Lin Huang had recovered their combat strength to seventh-rank heavenly god-level, so he could borrow over three hundred types of Sword Dao heavenly rules. Among them were a few that had been unlocked to level-3, Heavenly Dao.
He was confident that he definitely would not lose to Saber9 if they were to spar with swords or sabers, even though Saber9's Primordium was an extremely powerful Almighty, as well as a member of the Club.
However, Saber9 himself was just a clone, after all. Not only that, his combat strength was merely at ninth-rank true god-level.
Therefore, Lin Huang did not have much intention of challenging Saber9.
In reality, he was more interested in Saber9's Primordium than in Saber9.
Previously, Lin Huang had been curious about how powerful Saber9's Primordium would be at ninth-rank, compared to his clone, and if Saber9's combined ability was more powerful than his own.
As they progressed further on their journey, very soon, they encountered the first Jealousy.
It was Lin Huang's first time seeing a Jealousy.
This Jealousy resembled a female ghost in a red dress; she hovered in the air. She had long, black hair that came to her waist
In the beginning, she had her back to them.
However, after sensing the auras of Lin Huang and the others, her head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, revealing her deathly pale face.
The most extraordinary thing was that although her face was bloodless, her lips were painted a vibrant and beautiful shade of blood red.
Even though Lin Huang was already a true god-level cultivator, he could not help feeling a little terrified when he saw the Jealousy in front of them, immediately recalling the horror movies that he had watched back on Earth.
After the Jealousy turned her head, she began observing Lin Huang and the others carefully.
After a round of scrutiny, she eventually locked onto Lan Ling.
Lan Ling's heart thudded hard immediately once she noticed the Jealousy ignoring the rest entirely and staring at her without blinking. She knew that she had become a target.
After targeting Lan Ling, the Jealousy's body turned around to where her head was facing.
The next second, she appeared in front of Lan Ling directly as if she had teleported.
Tu Tong wanted to attack, but Virtuoso clamped a hand on his shoulder.
They shook their head and said to Tu Tong through voice transmission, "She's not finished locking onto her target yet."
The long-haired Jealousy hovered less than half a meter in front of Lan Ling and began to scrutinize the girl from head to toe.
A moment later, her gaze alighted on Lan Ling's chest, and she enquired as if she was talking to herself,
"Why is your chest so big?!"
Subsequently, her voice began to repeat like a language-learning device. She stared at Lan Ling's chest and began to repeat her words over and over again.
She began speaking faster and faster, and her pitch rose increasingly until everyone's ears hurt.
Noticing that Virtuoso was signaling her not to attack yet, Lan Ling had no idea what to do at the moment.
The Jealousy repeated, "Why is your chest so big?" over and over, and her pupils rapidly became bloodshot. A few seconds later, her eyes were completely red—the pupils and irises could no longer be seen. Her black hair began to undulate like snakes.
A moment later, countless strands of hair surged forward like waves, charging at Lan Ling wildly as if they wanted to swallow her up.
Just when Lan Ling was about to retreat hastily, she saw a blinding golden gleam flash before her eyes, tearing through the entire swathe of black waves.
"Too noisy!" Saber9 sheathed his saber as soon as he finished speaking.
The black waves disintegrated immediately. The female Jealousy glanced in Saber9's direction, looking stunned. Subsequently, a golden gleam lit up right between her brows, and her body began to fade slowly, starting from that golden gleam…
Chapter 1543: The Anomalies Among The Disasters
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The area where the Jealousies were distributed was even larger than that of the Furies previously. It took Lin Huang and the others a full day before they managed to get out of the area where the Jealousies were.
Along the way, they encountered over forty Jealousies. These were of various forms, and their jealousies were each more peculiar than the other.
Everyone in Lin Huang's group was targeted by Jealousies for various strange reasons.
For instance, Lin Huang was targeted with, "Why are you so good looking?" while Virtuoso was targeted with, "Why is your mask so pretty?""You've got a few years on you, but why is your aura still so good?" was directed at Saber9, while "Why is your mustache so thick?!" was aimed at Tu Tong. "Why do you have such a nice body when you're so short?!" was what Lan Ling received…
Fortunately, they were able to avoid high-level Jealousies thanks to Lan Ling's advance warning. The beginner-stage and intermediate-stage Jealousies were not powerful enough to be threats to them.
After leaving the Jealousies' territory, Lan Ling performed a new round of probing immediately.
"Up ahead is the Greeds' territory."
"We've finally reached the good stuff," Tu Tong commented with a smile.
He said this because when these monsters called Greeds were killed, they would drop various materials. Sometimes, there would even be rare materials dropping from their corpses.
"Don't be reckless. There are extremely powerful fellows among Greeds as well," Virtuoso reminded, "Most Greeds covet superficial things. However, there's a small minority of them who will steal the essence of their prey after discovering the fundamental essence of the prey's power. Such Greeds can be as powerful as any sixth-rank being."
"According to the data records within the universe, among the seven most common types of Disasters, Greeds are the second-most numerous group to have elevated to Lords—they've even surpassed the Gluttons," Saber9 added from where he was off to the side.
"Then which of them is ranked No.1?" Lin Huang asked curiously.
"I guess it should be the Arrogances," Lan Ling answered before Virtuoso and Saber9 could do so.
"That's right." Saber9 nodded.
"Only extremely haughty individuals become Arrogances. Many of them were geniuses from various tribes before their transformation, so their foundation is much better than the other types of Disasters. They also have the strongest talent and potential after transforming into Arrogances," Virtuoso added, noticing that Saber9 did not have the intention of elaborating further.
The few of them chatted about various Disasters all along the way and very soon came upon their first Greed.
This was also Lin Huang's first time encountering such a monster.
The Greed before them resembled a Patchwork Monster with many limbs and eyeballs of various forms.
It looked terrifying, but in reality, it was the weakest kind among the Greeds.
Watching as this Patchwork Monster charged toward them, Sword9 did not even have the desire to fight.
Tu Tong, on the other hand, felt that this was his chance to shine. He dashed forward and swung a heavy punch at it.
Within less than ten seconds, his blows had reduced the Greed to a puddle of pulverized flesh.
What depressed Tu Tong was that this Greed was so weak, no material fell out of it after it was killed.
After resolving the matter of this first Greed, they proceeded on their journey again.
Unlike before when they had avoided Disasters as much as they could, Lan Ling's route this time took them straight toward the Greeds. Apart from high-level heavenly god-level Greeds, she did not bypass any beginner-stage or intermediate-stage ones if they were along her route. All along the way, she led the group to monsters that they could kill.
As anticipated, apart from the first Greed that did not drop any materials, the rest of the Greeds dropped materials whenever they were killed.
Lin Huang was excited at first, but seeing that Tu Tong was happy to do the fighting for them, he did not bother to interfere.
However, later on, he could not help jumping into the fray when they encountered intermediate-stage Greeds. He obtained many materials along the way, even some rare ones.
Just as they were about to leave the Greeds' gathering area, they finally encountered a powerful Greed.
This Greed was a skeletal monster clad in a black robe. Before Lin Huang and the rest had even arrived, it had already sensed them from far away.
It did not use Divine Telekinesis; this was purely spiritual perception.
It stretched its arms into the void and retrieved a gigantic black sickle.
Right after that, it brandished the sickle and launched an attack from dozens of kilometers away.
Like a wave, the black sickle gleam swelled on the wind, charging at the group in destructive fury. By the time it reached them, it had become a massive tsunami.
Even Lin Huang's pupils contracted involuntarily when he saw this.
This attack alone was on par with level-2 Sword Dao heavenly rule, at the very least.
Before Lin Huang could make a move, the nearby Saber9's battle intent peaked. His saber gleam shot forward like a golden electric arc and collided forcefully with the sickle gleam.
Sword cultivators and saber cultivators had always been rivals who were unwilling to yield to one another. Saber9 had been looking for the opportunity to spar with Lin Huang along the way, but Lin Huang had repeatedly declined.
Saber9 had nursed his irritation for the entire journey. Now that the group had suddenly come upon a powerful sword cultivator Disaster, it was only natural that he could no longer restrain himself.
This time, he held nothing back in his attack.
At first, the saber gleam was just a golden meteor, but it grew increasingly blinding.
By the time it collided with the black wave, it was already like a blazing sun.
The collision of these two forces was like a massive wave colliding with a sun in the heavens.
Both forces were at a stalemate for a long time. Eventually, they exploded and collapsed almost simultaneously…
A terrifying energy storm swept in all directions, swirling around.
Tu Tong and Lan Ling could not even keep a steady footing. It was not until Virtuoso held up a god sequence shield relic that they were able to resist the aftermath impact of the energy shockwaves.
"So powerful!" Tu Tong's eyes gleamed as he stared at the explosion.
He and Saber9 were both ninth-rank True Gods, but his ability was nowhere near that of Saber9.
A trace of fear flickered in Lan Ling's eyes.
Lin Huang and Virtuoso were unfazed, however. Both of them felt it was nothing out of the ordinary for Saber9 to possess such ability.
In reality, Lin Huang had thought of challenging this sword cultivator Greed earlier. However, since Saber9 did it first, he did not bother trying to compete for the monster with him.
However, since they had seen so many weak Greeds previously, he was still very interested in this Greed that had abilities on par with Saber9.
"Is this a type of Greed that's mastered power essence?" Lin Huang turned his head to ask Virtuoso beside him.
"Yes." Virtuoso nodded. "It's only at third-rank heavily god-level, but it has abilities closer to seventh-rank. It must have plundered quite a few god sequence chains."
"Greeds can plunder other people's god sequence chains directly?" Lin Huang was rather puzzled. He himself had the ability to plunder god sequence chains as well, but he had always thought that such an ability was extremely incredible, so it should be rare.
"Very few Greeds have such an ability." Virtuoso nodded. "First of all, it must realize that god sequence chains are the source of a Heavenly God's power. Secondly, it must find the right method of plundering and extracting the god sequence chains from its prey's body. Thirdly, it must find the right way of integrating the god sequence chains that it has plundered.
"It's actually extremely difficult to achieve these three conditions because Disasters inherently have clouded consciousness. Moreover, their behaviors are dominated by negative emotions; they're unable to make judgments on their own.
"Those that can generate a spark of self-awareness in their cloudy minds and shake off being completely dominated by negative emotions are the anomalies among the Disasters."
Chapter 1544: Ascetic Buddhist Tribe
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the void, the battle between Saber9 and the skeleton Greed continued; it was impossible to determine who was the winner or loser for now.
Although Saber9's combat experience was far superior to the monster, and he was more practiced in the use of sequence power, he had not mastered as many god sequence chains as the Greed.
Apart from Sword Dao heavenly rule, the skeleton Greed had mastered at least ten different god sequence chains. It was just that its limits only allowed it to use a maximum of seven god sequence chains, the power of which was on par with Saber9's attacks.
Perhaps it was because the Greed was not in total control of its consciousness, or perhaps the god sequence chains it plundered could not be compounded and integrated well, but the combination of god sequence chains that it used was not very logical.
Saber9 soon noticed this issue and very soon dominated his opponent completely.
However, as the two were battling intensely, Lin Huang suddenly had a slight change of expression.
He had felt that that Lan Ling's probing range was too small, and far from sufficient to give advance warning or to probe the path ahead. Therefore, he had secretly released many Leech Pods along the way and had been continuously monitoring their surroundings at all times.
Through the Leech Pods just now, he saw that some Greeds nearby might have sensed the energy waves from the battle between Saber9 and the skeleton Greed. Although most of them had sensed the threat and distanced themselves of their own accord, there were also several high-level ones whose greed skyrocketed after sensing the waves and were now heading toward the battlefield. Among them was even a powerful ninth-rank being.
After a moment of hesitation, Lin Huang urged Saber9, "Saber9, can you finish it off quickly?"
Saber9 was stunned when he heard this, while Virtuoso and the rest looked at Lin Huang, feeling rather puzzled.
Urging teammates to hurry up like this was rude behavior, as everybody had their own tempo of battle. If one suddenly pressed a teammate to hurry, it could very well directly interfere with their fighting tempo.
"What's wrong?" Virtuoso knew there must be a reason why Lin Huang had spoken up to urge Saber9.
Lin Huang hesitated but decided to reveal the reason anyway. "There are high-level Greeds heading over now after sensing the battle waves here…"
He did not explain how he knew this, and Virtuoso did not pursue the matter further. They merely glanced at him very intently.
Lin Huang did not use voice transmission when he replied to Virtuoso. Saber9, in the midst of battle, heard him loud and clear.
Initially, he was wondering whether or not Lin Huang was hurrying him up just to provoke him. Now he finally realized that his battle had alerted the other Greeds far away.
The minute Lan Ling heard what Lin Huang had to say, she hurriedly performed her hand seals again, initiating another new round of probing.
However, she soon said to Lin Huang doubtfully, "I didn't sense any Greeds on the way. Instead, I saw many of them leaving the area that we're in."
"The weaker ones have certainly sensed the threat, so they're leaving of their own volition. However, the powerful ones are being drawn here. You didn't sense them as they haven't come into your sensing range yet," Lin Huang explained, "I don't want to elaborate on what kind of probing technique I used, but trust me, I'm not wrong about this."
"Alright then…" Lan Ling reluctantly accepted Lin Huang's explanation.
The others also did not enquire further into exactly what kind of probing technique Lin Huang had used.
As the clone of a Club member, Saber9 was naturally aware that all Club members had their own secrets.
With barely any hesitation, he chose to believe Lin Huang and began increasing the power of his attacks, as well as the frequency of them.
As the tempo of battle changed, the skeleton Greed clearly failed to react. Its consciousness was already not fully under its control, and as time went by, not only was it unable to adapt to the new battle tempo, but its flaws began to show even more. Saber9 had already dominated it initially, and it soon went into a completely passive mode.
Within three minutes after Lin Huang's warning, Saber9 killed the skeleton Greed with his saber.
Right as he completed the kill, Lan Ling gave a startled exclamation.
"A high-level Greed has entered my sensing range! It's heading in our direction!"
Tu Tong had been initially doubtful of Lin Huang's words but had not expressed his opinion all this while. Any suspicions he had previously harbored now vanished completely.
"At such close proximity, it's too late to think of escaping. Let's just fight it!" Lin Huang said expressionlessly, "We only need to take care of this one as soon as we can before the next one arrives."
He shook his sleeves as soon as he was done speaking, and telekinetic flying daggers shot out like a school of fish.
Saber9, who had just finished with his battle, did not sheathe his saber either. Instead, he brandished his weapon and turned around, staring in the direction where Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers were pointing.
Although Virtuoso did not move, the circulating Divine Power around them accelerated in preparation for going into battle at any moment.
Meanwhile, Tu Tong and Lan Ling retreated to one side.
High-level heavenly god-level powerhouses were already beyond their capabilities.
Very soon, a Greed with a powerful aura showed up in front of them.
This monster's form vaguely resembled a human.
It was bald and excruciatingly thin, with swarthy skin.
The biggest difference between itself and humans was that it had six arms and three eyes.
"The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe?!" Saber9 could not help a startled exclamation the minute he set eyes on it.
Lin Huang was stunned as well upon hearing that.
He had also heard about the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, which was a unique tribe in the great world.
The Tribe members aspired to become ascetic cultivators.
They even rejected using equipment and most cultivation resources.
Not only that, they pursued the simplest life possible. If they did not have to eat, they would not eat; if they did not need to drink water, they would not either. They severed connections with anything related to desires, retaining only the most basic requirements in life.
Therefore, the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe members had powerful inner strength and terrifying wills.
This was also why Saber9 was so shocked to see this Greed.
The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe could unanimously be considered by everyone in the entire universe as the Tribe with the least desires.
They could even get rid of their most basic biological desires, what more greed.
However, the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member before them had fallen and transformed into something that was practically impossible for its Tribe—a Greed.
'What's this fellow greedy for?' Almost everyone present, including Lin Huang, had a similar question pop up in the minds.
However, they soon found out the answer to that.
The third eye on the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's forehead opened abruptly. All of a sudden, myriad rays of Buddha's Light flooded the entire area. Countless golden sutras circulated around, enveloping the surroundings and turning them into a Buddhist kingdom.
The Ascetic Buddhist Greed levitated gradually into the air, and the silhouette of a massive golden Buddha appeared behind it slowly.
A low mutter reached the ears of Lin Huang and the others very clearly.
"We'll become a Buddha after cleansing the Abyss…"
These muttered words abruptly caused them to understand why this fellow had turned into a Greed.
This Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member must have been obsessed with cleansing the Abyss of Abyssal monsters. In the end, it was overcome by greed, which had then magnified its obsession, and it had turned into a monster itself.
After mumbling for a while, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed lowered its head to look at Lin Huang and the others. Its third eye gradually turned red.
Its six palms shot out almost simultaneously without holding back, as if six massive mountains had tumbled down.
"Die, monster!"
Chapter 1545: The Opportunity To Attack
An individual in the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, the purest Tribe with the least desires, had become the most improbable Disaster of all—a Greed.
If they had not seen it with their own eyes, everyone present might not have believed that such a thing could happen.
Even Virtuoso and Saber9—who were both experienced and knowledgeable—were stunned when they first set eyes on the Greed. However, right after that, their expressions changed slightly.
The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe were the purest ascetic cultivators.
They had immensely strong wills and spirits, which meant their abilities were generally powerful.
Although this transformed Ascetic Buddhist Tribe Greed before them only possessed seventh-rank heavenly god-level combat strength, the aura emanating from it was terrifying.
Furthermore, it attacked at full force as soon as it arrived. All six of its arms struck at once, turning into six massive, unbelievably tall mountains, tumbling toward Lin Huang and the rest.
Each of these mountains was encompassed by at least nine levels of sequence power.
Just this attack alone could completely overwhelm a ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse.
Saber9 and Virtuoso could not help having a drastic change of expression.
Both of them attacked immediately, attempting to block this assault.
Up to one hundred saber formations lit up like golden gleams in front of Saber9, layering each upon the other. Over a million golden saber gleams illuminated the saber formations, so dense that they utterly blotted out the sun and the heavens.
He unleashed this attack full force, holding nothing back.
Even Lin Huang was rather shocked as he watched from the sidelines.
However, something happened next that shocked him even more.
Virtuoso did exactly the same thing as Saber9. Up to one hundred saber formations consolidated quickly in front of them, and over a million golden saber gleams lit up like a sky full of stars.
"What's happening?!"
Lin Huang's eyes widened. As a sword cultivator himself, he had not sensed any aura of a saber cultivator on Virtuoso at all from the beginning until now.
However, at present, Virtuoso was executing the exact same technique as Saber9. Not only that, Lin Huang could clearly sense that the saber formations and saber gleams that Virtuoso had consolidated were real, rather than an illusion.
Tu Tong, standing off to the side, seemed to have noticed Lin Huang's confusion. He then explained through voice transmission, "This is the effect of the imitation god sequence chain our teacher has mastered. He can imitate and copy others' techniques."
Lin Huang only noticed then that under Virtuoso's mask, faint blood-red sigils were swirling in their pupils.
Under Saber9 and Virtuoso's combined forces, countless saber gleams were attacking the Greed's massive palms.
It was like a meteor shower colliding with a monumental wall.
Endless golden streams of light blasted forth, crashing against the massive mountain-like palms.
All of a sudden, the streams of light vanished, and the mountains collapsed.
Under Virtuoso and Saber9's combined forces, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's attack was finally blocked.
Judging from this, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's ability was merely average.
When its attack was blocked, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed was merely stunned for a second before it struck out with all six palms again.
Each strike was more and more ferocious, and it kept shrieking continuously as it attacked.
"I will wipe all of you out even if I die today, you monsters!"
The blood-red fury in its three eyes increased even more.
Lin Huang did not attack as he watched Saber9 and Virtuoso barely holding off the powerful palms of the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.
Instead, he seemed to be pondering deeply as he stared at the monster.
"This fellow doesn't seem to realize at all that it's been transformed into a Greed…"
"Aren't you going to help?" Off on the sidelines, Lan Ling could not help asking as she noticed Saber9 and Virtuoso having a difficult time with the monster.
"I'm waiting for the opportunity to attack," Lin Huang returned calmly.
The reason he did not participate in the battle was that he was very much aware that, even if he did join in, it would be very difficult to end the fight within a short time. It would be extremely hard for them to escape before the next monster arrived.
He did not elaborate further after his comment.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Virtuoso spoke to the Ascetic Buddhist Greed during the battle.
"You keep calling us monsters, but you don't seem to realize at all that you're the only monster here. We're ordinary people who haven't been contaminated by Abyssal energy."
"Nonsense!" The Ascetic Buddhist Greed slammed its palms down again.
"You're a monk from the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe. Don't tell me you're completely unaware of the abnormalities in your body? Or perhaps you do know, but you've chosen to ignore it?!"
"You're trying to delude me with your lies!" The Ascetic Buddhist Greed struck out with its palms once more.
"You're the best judge of whether or not we're trying to delude you. I don't believe that as an eminent monk, you would be completely unable to sense the Abyssal energy and negative emotions that have contaminated your body."
"If it doesn't believe you, show it the Mirror of Truth. Let it see what it looks like now, and that should settle things," Lin Huang could not help chiming in on the discussion despite being an onlooker.
"That's a great idea!" Virtuoso exclaimed. Immediately after, he retrieved a mirror from his space storage and turned it to face the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.
Although it did not believe what Virtuoso and Lin Huang had said, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed could not help looking into the mirror.
One glance and it saw its appearance as it was currently.
It was as emaciated as a mummy—not only that, it had six arms and three eyes, and was extremely hideous.
"This is a trick—what utter nonsense!" the Ascetic Buddhist Greed gave a low growl.
"This is definitely not a trick. This is how you currently look like to us," Virtuoso explained, "You've been blinded by Abyssal energy and negative emotions, so you're unable to see the truth of the matter.
"In your eyes, you're normal, while we're monsters. However, in reality, it's the complete opposite. The image shown in the Mirror of Truth has proven that."
"The Mirror of Truth can be faked!" the Ascetic Buddhist Greed insisted.
"You judge for yourself whether it's fake or not then!" Virtuoso tossed the Mirror of Truth directly at the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.
The Ascetic Buddhist Greed picked up the mirror. The first thing it saw its emaciated, swarthy face.
It then used the mirror to look over the rest of its body, and the frown on its brow began to deepen.
As an Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member, its spirit strength and force of will had far surpassed the majority of seventh-ranks, to the point that it had already achieved the standard of a ninth-rank. It was practically impossible for anyone below half-step lord-level to have sufficient ability to pull it into an illusion.
Therefore, the Mirror of Truth it was looking at had to be real.
The Ascetic Buddhist Greed found it hard to accept these thoughts for a while and remained rooted to the spot, dumbstruck.
It had spent years killing monsters, but it had never thought that the biggest monster would actually be itself.
Right at this moment, a blood-red sword gleam flashed through the void.
It was Lin Huang, who had been ready to attack for a while now.
This was the opportunity that he had been waiting for.
He did not hold back anything at all in this attack, compounding Sword Dao heavenly rule and nine levels of god sequence chains.
The sword gleam was like Death's sickle; it also resembled a blood-red crescent moon suspended in the heavens.
It slashed through the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's body in an instant…
The Ascetic Buddhist Greed had no time to dodge, nor was it able to defend itself against the attack. All it saw was a red gleam coming toward it, and its body was immediately reduced to a headless corpse…
Chapter 1546: Elevating To Eighth-Rank
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As he sensed the massive number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers rushing into his body, Lin Huang felt utterly satisfied, but also slightly puzzled at the same time.
The number of Rule Bending Powers that he had plundered from this Ascetic Buddhist Disaster exceeded that of any Heavenly Gods he had ever killed. There were over seven hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers, which was at least ten times more than what he had obtained from other Heavenly Gods. There were even over eighteen god sequence chains.
This caused Lin Huang to speculate involuntarily, 'Is this a unique trait of the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, or a characteristic of a Greed that plunders Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers?'
As he contemplated this question, Tu Tong and Lan Ling were looking at him, their expressions utterly shocked.
They knew that Lin Huang had powerful abilities, but they had never expected that he would be this powerful.
With just one sword strike, he had killed the powerhouse that Saber9 and Virtuoso could only contend with after they had joined forces. Although the attack was a stealth attack instead of an upfront assault, it was enough to demonstrate Lin Huang's ability.
The intensity of Saber9's gaze also increased as he looked at Lin Huang. He already knew that Lin Huang was a sword cultivator, but so far, he had never seen Lin Huang using his sword. This was the first time he had seen it, and it stunned him.
Even Saber9 himself did not have full confidence to pull off the attack that killed the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster earlier.
The more this was the case, however, the more he felt that Lin Huang was an opponent worthy of being challenged.
In the team, Virtuoso seemed to be the only one who was not surprised. They merely glanced at Lin Huang, then turned their eyes away.
"Let's go. There'll be more Ascetic Buddhist Disasters coming if we linger." After he had extracted all the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers in the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster's body, Lin Huang turned around immediately and headed toward their next destination.
He was much more enthusiastic in the subsequent hunt for Greeds after obtaining so many Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers from the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster.
He did not even conceal his probing technique at all and began to lead. The route they took was mostly through the areas distributed with intermediate-level Greeds.
Noticing that Lin Huang had begun to fight more frequently, Virtuoso and the rest merely thought he wanted to end the battles sooner. They had no idea that he was testing out the number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that he could obtain from various Greeds.
After more than ten rounds of testing, he basically confirmed that the more powerful the ability of a Greed, the more Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers it could plunder from others.
In particular, Greeds that had mastered power essence had an incredible number of Rule Bending Powers within their bodies.
Lin Huang even managed to plunder close to 200,000 types of Rule Bending Powers from a fourth-rank Greed.
However, they had already stayed in the Greeds' gathering grounds for a full day, and Lin Huang did not feel right about continuing to lead everyone to wander around this area. After confirming his speculations, he did not linger there for very long. Instead, he led the rest to the next area—the Gluttons' gathering grounds.
These monsters called Gluttons were contaminated by Abyssal energy and gluttony.
Such monsters remained forever in a state of hunger. They were eager to eat every second of their lives.
Only food could bring them joy.
Furthermore, the frightening thing about these monsters was that they did not even need to think or cultivate—they could grow more powerful just by eating continuously.
They were able to obtain nutrients from every food they ate so they could gain energy.
In reality, Gluttons were not the only ones in the Greeds' territory. There were Arrogances as well.
However, Lin Huang chose to go to the area with Gluttons.
He did this because he thought that some Gluttons might possess the ability to plunder the Rule Bending Powers and god sequence chains from their preys' bodies, just like some Greeds could.
He even speculated that the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers within Gluttons might be more plentiful than in any of the other Disasters.
Therefore, he decided to verify his speculations.
After entering the Gluttons' territory, the first Glutton Lin Huang and the rest encountered was a giant ball of flesh.
The ball of flesh was approximately over three meters in diameter, hovering in mid-air. Mouths of various sizes grew all over its body as well as tentacles of varied sizes and lengths.
Each tentacle appeared to have a unique sensory organ—from far off, they had already sensed the presence of Lin Huang and the others.
Countless tentacles extended swiftly and swept toward Lin Huang and the rest like long whips.
The creature was so greedy that it wanted to capture all of them at once and swallow them up together.
However, what greeted it were red electric arcs that were up to a hundred times faster than its own tentacles.
Without waiting for the rest to react, Lin Huang attacked first.
His reason for taking the initiative was simple—he merely wanted to verify if his speculations were correct.
This fourth-rank Glutton was rather unfortunate. It had barely extended its tentacles before Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers turned them into sieves full of holes.
One exchange of blows, and it was all over.
It had made only made an appearance for less than half a second.
Noticing that Lin Huang had grabbed the opportunity to attack, Virtuoso and the rest felt even more that he wanted to leave this Disaster Abyss Land as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Lin Huang rapidly sensed the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers surging into his body after killing the Glutton.
Just as he had anticipated, the number of Rule Bending Powers he obtained from this Glutton was more than several times that of an ordinary fourth-rank Heavenly God.
However, one Glutton was not proof of the entire matter. This Glutton might be a special case.
To verify his speculations, he needed more Gluttons as reference.
"Let's go. What are you standing there for?" Lin Huang did not even look at the Glutton, which had not yet fully turned into a negative emotion. He immediately bestirred himself and headed swiftly to the location of the second target.
Virtuoso and the rest glanced at the dead Glutton, only following Lin Huang after making sure that it was not going to revive.
In the few subsequent hunts, Lin Huang very quickly verified his speculations.
Practically all Gluttons had more Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers than other monsters of the same combat strength. However, most of these Gluttons existed in a state of muddled ignorance.
Eating was the only thing on their minds, and their use of sequence powers was by instinct. Even if they harbored powers stronger than the other Disasters, they could only showcase a fraction of their abilities.
However, this made it easy for Lin Huang—the efficiency of his Rule Bending Power plundering increased more than a few times.
Virtuoso and the rest were quietly pleased as they watched him killing monsters so enthusiastically.
They followed him the entire way and watched him shine.
Meanwhile, Lin Huang killed swiftly everywhere he went. Sometimes he did not even stop walking, disposing of his opponents in a second by using telekinetic flying daggers from a distance.
Virtuoso and the rest soon realized that Lin Huang was killing Gluttons intentionally. This was because the number of Gluttons they had encountered today was several times more than the number of Disasters they had encountered in other areas.
Within the short space of a day, Lin Huang had killed more than two hundred Gluttons.
Each monster provided him with over one hundred thousand Rule Bending Powers at the very least and seven to eight hundred thousand Rule Bending Power at most.
The number of Rule Bending Powers that the two hundred over Gluttons provided allowed him to elevate from seventh-rank to eighth-rank successfully.
If it were not for Virtuoso and the rest following along with him, he would very probably have hunted in this area until he broke through to ninth-rank.
However, considering that he came with the team, he could only abandon the thought. After completing a full day's hunting, only then did he leave the Gluttons' territory, feeling unsatisfied…
Chapter 1547: Heading In The One O'Clock Direction
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Have we… left the Disaster Abyss Land?"
Virtuoso asked this because they could clearly sense that the negative emotions which had been lingering around them at all times had completely vanished.
The rest soon noticed this as well.
"I think so." Lin Huang was not too sure of the Disaster Abyss Land's demarcation. Although he sensed the negative emotions around them were gone, he could not answer for sure. "Where do we go now?"
"What can you sense?" Virtuoso asked.
"There are a group of Carnivorous Giants at 10 o'clock, approximately 600 kilometers away.
"At 11 o'clock, approximately 1,100 kilometers ahead, there's a decaying toxic forest.
"There are a group of Ghoul Jackals at 12 o'clock, approximately 500 kilometers away.
"There's a toxic fog swamp at one o'clock within 1,300 kilometers, but the exact situation is unknown for now.
"At two o'clock, roughly around 800 kilometers off, there's a large cluster of Dead Spirit monsters.
"If we head in the direction of nine o'clock and three o'clock, we'll go back to the Disaster Abyss Land."
Lin Huang turned his head to look at Virtuoso. Noticing that they were frowning in deep thought, he could not help asking, "Don't you have a specific destination in mind?"
Only then did Virtuoso look at him. "The place I want to go to is called Phantom City. My objective is to retrieve the castellan's seal. I also know the exact coordinates of a few phantom cities. The problem is I'm not sure where we are right now. That's because there are hundreds, even to up to thousands of discovered Disaster Abyss Lands in the Abyss, and there are even more Demonic Bug Mazes. Although there are many phantom cities too, it's not easy to encounter one."
"So which direction do we go now?" Lin Huang asked.
Virtuoso hesitated for a moment but made a decision. "The toxic swamp then."
Lin Huang could not help frowning upon hearing their answer.
"You might want to think this through. That might be the most dangerous place of all these few options. My probing technique will be blocked in the fog too, and we won't know what's happening in there."
"Let's just go there. We can see through the rest just with a glance anyway. Moreover, a phantom city's entrance is usually somewhere that's not easily discoverable." Virtuoso clearly did not have any better choices. "If there really is a phantom city nearby, the entrance is most probably in the swamp. Let's bet on that!"
"What do you all think?" Lin Huang glanced at the rest.
"Since Phantom City is our destination, no matter what, we'll still have to look for the entrance regardless. The rest of the entrance locations might not be as safe as the swamp anyway." What Lan Ling said was something Lin Huang had never expected.
To him, she was an introverted, timid sort of girl.
"I think what Lan Ling said makes sense," Tu Tong, off to one side, agreed immediately.
"Let's go!" Saber9 was even more straightforward.
Since he saw that everyone was unanimous in their agreement, Lin Huang did not object any further.
He was not worried at all that he might die. After all, he had the abilities from Monster Paradise. As long as he was not killed by lord-level powerhouses, he could be revived with full health.
He had intentionally brought this up earlier since he was mainly worried that Tu Tong and Lan Ling might not possess sufficient ability. However, since the two of them had agreed, he could not really say anything more.
After deciding on the direction, they headed straight to the foggy swamp.
"You don't need to worry about us. In reality, there are many such foggy swamps in the Abyss. It shouldn't be a problem as long as we're careful," Lan Ling suddenly said to Lin Huang through voice transmission as they were on the way, "Also, my spell probing is effective most of the time in such foggy areas."
Lin Huang nodded at her slightly but did not reply.
All of them hurried along and soon arrived at the foggy swamp that Lin Huang had mentioned earlier.
White fog covered the place as far as the eye could see, dense as clouds.
They could not see anything of the swamp at all.
If anyone were to barge in carelessly, however, they might fall into the swamp immediately and be corroded to death.
Very wisely, Lin Huang and the others paused in front of the fog.
Virtuoso and the rest all looked at Lan Ling.
She was also aware that it was time for her to demonstrate her abilities.
She rolled up both of her sleeves and swiftly began performing complex hand seals with both hands.
A moment later, incantations like tiny snakes appeared on her skinny arms immediately, squirming about rapidly on them as if they were alive.
She abruptly pressed both palms onto the ground, and the incantations swiftly began to wriggle into the earth.
After that, she sat with her legs crossed and closed her eyes.
Quite sometime later, Lan Ling finally opened her eyes slowly. However, she could not help but frown. "My probing technique is experiencing a significant blockage in this foggy area."
"How far can you probe?" Virtuoso asked immediately.
"The distance is even shorter than in the Demonic Bug Maze, 10 kilometers at most," Lan Ling said helplessly, "This fog seems to have the ability to absorb spells and refract them. The further I probe, the faster the spell wears out—you could say it's exponentially effective."
"If I'm not wrong, your spell isn't the only thing that's being affected here." Lin Huang released a wisp of Divine Telekinesis as he spoke. As expected, it experienced extreme blockage.
He could clearly sense that the fog was absorbing his telekinesis. Once his Divine Telekinesis was swallowed up by the fog, it disappeared into it and vanished entirely. Even information feedback was significantly affected.
"I can't use my Divine Telekinesis either," Lin Huang reported the results of his experiment after he tried. His Divine Telekinesis could only extend to just about 1,000 meters in this fog.
Virtuoso and the rest tried their Divine Telekinesis too after hearing what Lin Huang had said and quickly came to the same conclusion.
"We can only rely on you now," Tu Tong said, smiling at Lan Ling.
"Lead the way, Xiao Lanlan," Virtuoso too turned their head to look at Lan Ling.
She nodded immediately and said, "Let's go into the swamp from the 12 o'clock direction, that is, straight ahead.
"Be careful, however; the swamp contains many Enchanted Toads and Poison Arrow Frogs. If we're merely attacked, it won't be something life-threatening. However, if we fall into the swamp, there's a high chance that we'd be contaminated by the dense Abyssal energy and become Abyssal creatures."
"Don't make it sound so scary, can you?" From off to one side, Tu Tong gave a forced, rather stiff smile. "This place is already dangerous enough. Now that you've said this, I don't want to go in at all."
"What's the point of your current physique then!" Lan Ling's lips curled slightly. "You're good to look at, but you're useless."
"I'll lead the way," Lin Huang volunteered the suggestion.
He was not doing this to show off but because he possessed Mirror (the upgraded version of Dark Mirror), an unbelievably powerful defensive technique.
If he took the lead, this would minimize his other teammates' casualties.
"Both of us will bring up the rear." Saber9 nodded as well.
Naturally, he meant himself and Virtuoso when he said, "Both of us."
Once the three of them had taken their positions, the remaining two naturally stood in the middle, which was also the safest position in the entire team.
Chapter 1548: Poison Arrow Frogs
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang took the first step into the foggy area. His figure levitated into the air slightly, approximately a meter above the swamp beneath.
He chose that particular height because the fog was too dense; any higher, and he would not be able to see the surface of the swamp anymore.
In this foggy area, everyone's Divine Telekinesis was severely constrained. The information they sensed might be incomplete; for now, they could only rely on their eyes to help.
Even though Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis was powerful beyond compare, his sensing range was limited to approximately one thousand meters only. The further the range, the more blurry the images he sensed. Some images were even distorted, so he had no way of identifying what they were.
This irritated Lin Huang because such severe limits on his Divine Telekinesis not only affected his accuracy in targeting his telekinetic flying daggers but also severely restricted his power.
"Please be careful," Virtuoso frowned lightly and said to everyone through voice transmission, "Every area of fog here has different effects. Right now, nobody knows if this fog does anything else other than affecting our sensing techniques, such as Divine Telekinesis. Since we haven't ascertained whether or not this fog poses any further threats, please keep the defenses on your armor activated at all times."
Before Lin Huang and the rest entered the foggy area, they had already taken precautions by activating their inner armor. The defense layer created by this armor automatically shielded their outer bodies.
Virtuoso reminded them again to prevent them from lowering their guard.
All of them nodded.
Lin Huang, who was at the forefront of the team, suddenly decreased his flying speed, looking through the dense fog in a specific direction.
In reality, his eyes were not able to see through the thick fog, but his Divine Telekinesis was able to sense that the area ahead was a gathering ground for Poison Arrow Frogs.
The Poison Arrow Frog was a type of monster that was inherently heavenly god-level from birth. However, unlike most heavenly god-level monsters, they were used to living in groups.
Their croaking could travel over long distances, attracting monsters of the same kind to gather.
Clearly, the Poison Arrow Frogs contaminated by Abyssal energy retained their old habits; they still enjoyed living in groups.
"There's a situation ahead?" Tu Tong hurriedly asked, being the first to notice Lin Huang slowing down
"There's a group of Poison Arrow Frogs ahead, at least fifty of them," Lin Huang said calmly.
"Can we go around them?" Tu Tong wanted to know.
However, it was not Lin Huang who answered this question, but Lan Ling. "We can't go around them. Not only are there Poison Arrow Frogs ahead, but also Enchanted Toads and Thousand-legged Snakes. The entire swamp seems to have been divided into various territories by different monsters. There are practically no areas that are safe."
Tu Tong was bereft of speech upon hearing that.
"We don't need to go around them; let's just forge straight ahead," Virtuoso suggested, "If everyone can be a little more careful, that would be good."
Only after that did Lin Huang lead everyone in flying forward.
However, before they could fly very far, black arrow-like gleams sped toward them like lightning.
It was the Poison Arrow Frogs' signature technique – the Poison Arrow Skill.
Simply put, they compressed the toxins in their bodies into fine, tiny arrows. They then imbued Divine Power, Rule Bending Power, and sequence power into those arrows, and shot them out of their mouths.
Such an attack not only contained poison that could easily kill powerhouses of the same combat strength, but it was also extremely fast. It was almost on par with an arrow cultivator of the same combat strength. The most frightening thing was that the Poison Arrow Frogs could utilize their technique continuously until they exhausted the toxins stored in their bodies.
Meanwhile, the Poison Arrow Frogs contaminated by Abyssal energy had even more terrifying poison arrows, as they contained a layer of Abyssal energy within them. Their power and corrosive abilities were undoubtedly elevated even further.
Seeing the poison arrows flying toward them, Virtuoso and the rest prepared to retaliate, but they noticed that Lin Huang had not unsheathed his sword at all.
Just when they thought that he was preparing to fight using telekinetic flying daggers, they saw Lin Huang extend a finger in the void.
With just a light tap of that finger, circle upon circle of black ripples appeared in the air. The ripples slowly spread, rapidly becoming a massive curved mirror, shielding the five of them behind it.
Virtuoso and the rest were able to see the poison arrows attacking them as they looked through the curved mirror; none of them thought Lin Huang's defense technique was a good idea. This was because such a technique would drain a massive amount of Divine Power once it was under siege. No matter how powerful Lin Huang was, it was impossible for him to have more Divine Power than the Poison Arrow Frogs.
Therefore, theoretically, Lin Huang's Divine Power would soon be depleted by the attacks of the Poison Arrow Frogs and the mirror-like shield would collapse sooner or later.
'Is this fellow planning to charge ahead with the shield?' Virtuoso and the rest did not stop Lin Huang's near-suicidal behavior because they all had the same misunderstanding.
However, very soon, they saw something that shocked them.
When the poison arrows hit the curved mirror, they bounced back right away practically without pause. Wherever they had been shot from was where they returned to.
The group could even clearly hear the Frogs' devastating cries from far away.
Virtuoso and the rest had no idea what to say when they saw such an extraordinary scene.
Under normal circumstances, the more frequently the Poison Arrow Frogs attacked, the more powerful their attacks would become.
However, this time, the Poison Arrow Frogs' attacks began to weaken not long after they began.
Not only was the frequency of the attacks plummeting at a speed visible to the naked eye, but their power was also draining away.
Even the Frogs' devastating cries decreased continuously, becoming subsequently weaker.
Two minutes later, the entire swamp fell silent after the last cry from the Frogs was heard.
Tu Tong and Lan Ling looked at Lin Huang, mouths agape, while off to one side, Saber9's expression was a complex mixture of emotions. Virtuoso's expression could not be seen as their face was covered by their mask. However, the rest imagined that Virtuoso was shocked as well.
From beginning to end, Lin Huang had merely held up an odd, mirror-like shield. He had done nothing else after that, and the entire group of Poison Arrow Frogs was completely annihilated within less than three minutes.
This technique was downright terrifying!
If they had not seen it with their own eyes, perhaps Tu Tong and the rest would not have believed that this was really happening right in front of them.
Noticing that the Poison Arrow Frogs were quiet now, Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis for a round of probing. He only recalled Mirror after making sure that the Poison Arrow Frogs were all dead. Retrieving the carcasses with telekinetic threads one after the other, he put them all away into his space storage right in front of the others.
The rest finally discovered the exact number of Poison Arrow Frogs—58 of them.
"Let's go," Lin Huang glanced at the rest behind him after putting away the carcasses, then hurried straight ahead.
Virtuoso and the rest followed him immediately.
"That skill that you used… what's the most powerful attack it can defend against?" Saber9 hesitated for quite a while but finally could not restrain himself from asking.
"Ten times that of my strongest attack." Lin Huang did not conceal this fact; there was no need to hide such a thing anyway since, in reality, no one knew exactly how powerful his strongest attack was.
Even Virtuoso raised their brows under their mask upon hearing that.
"How about the refraction? How powerful of an attack can it refract?" Saber9 asked again.
"The same," Lin Huang's answer was concise.
However, Tu Tong and the rest inhaled sharply when they heard that…
Chapter 1549: Fiendish Swamp Monster
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As a member of the Club as well, Virtuoso's Primordial had actually done a thorough investigation on Lin Huang.
Not only did they know he was a sword cultivator and a psychic, they even knew of his identity as an Imperial Censor—something that people in the God Territory had no idea about.
Despite that, they still saw Lin Huang performing incredible techniques over and over again during this trip together.
No matter if it was the probing ability that he had revealed in the Disaster Abyss Land previously or the defense technique he had just performed in the foggy swamp—there were no such records of anything like it in the Club.
Initially, Virtuoso had invited Lin Huang to join the team merely for his combat abilities. Given his abilities as both a sword cultivator and a psychic, it meant that his attack power would not only be stunning, but he would also have extremely powerful long-distance attack techniques.
However, Lin Huang had demonstrated far more comprehensive abilities than Virtuoso had initially expected.
With his shield, the team was moving forward much faster than they had expected in the foggy swamp, practically without any obstacles.
Mirror's defense and refractive abilities were just too terrifying. Virtuoso and Saber9 were even a little doubtful if a ninth-rank Heavenly God might be able to break through Lin Huang's current defenses.
"There's a group of Fiendish Swamp Monsters ahead. Do we go around them?" Lan Ling suddenly asked as the team moved forward.
She asked this because the Fiendish Swamp Monsters were rather unique creatures.
They could transform themselves into a part of the swamp and hide perfectly in any swamp terrain. When they were hiding, most probing techniques would not work on them, including Divine Telekinesis.
Naturally, Divine Telekinesis was not entirely useless. If one's combat strength was a level higher than the Fiendish Swamp Monsters, the monsters could not hide from being sensed by Divine Telekinesis.
Apart from being able to conceal themselves, the Fiendish Swamp Monsters were also experts in covert killing. With their perfect camouflage, their attacks were almost entirely unpredictable.
Their covert killing skills were even more dangerous within the toxic swamp's terrain. If their prey fell into the swamp, there was almost no chance of escaping.
In a foggy area, almost everyone would choose to circumvent monsters that they would not be able to sense.
That was why Lan Ling still asked such a question, even though they were progressing swiftly on their way without any obstacles.
Virtuoso did not answer the question upon hearing it. Instead, they and Saber9 looked at Lin Huang.
"There's no need to go around; just continue straight ahead." There was no change of expression on Lin Huang's face at all.
The rest were relieved to hear this. Since Lin Huang had said that, it meant he was confident about passing through the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' gathering area.
Soon after they moved forward, Lan Ling suddenly gave warning, "There are Fiendish Swamp Monsters hiding approximately one thousand meters ahead."
Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis but found nothing.
He could not help secretly exclaiming that Lan Ling's spell probing technique was indeed extremely useful.
Lin Huang sent out his Divine Telekinesis again after the team had advanced for several hundred meters. He thought that perhaps he would find something with his Divine Telekinesis since they were closer now. However, he still did not sense anything unusual. The swamp seemed peaceful; apart from a ground full of mud and mire, there was nothing else.
Aside from Lin Huang, Virtuoso and the rest also sent out their Divine Telekinesis and found nothing either.
If not for Lan Ling's spell detection sensing those Fiendish Swamp Monsters, perhaps the entire team would have fallen into the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' trap.
The group continued moving forward, but the Fiendish Swamp Monster restrained itself and did not attack.
It only attacked at last when Lin Huang and the rest flew by above it.
Over a hundred coal-black tentacles shot up from the swamp as if a volcano had erupted, ensnaring the team like a massive web, as if it wanted to capture all five of them.
If Lan Ling had not given advance warning, this ambush that came out of nowhere might really have succeeded. Although it was hard to capture Lin Huang and the others, the attack was enough to put them in an awkward situation for a while.
However, since Lan Ling had mentioned it to them earlier, they had come prepared.
The moment the Fiendish Swamp Monster attacked, Lin Huang held Mirror under everyone's bodies.
The tentacles above that were about to ensnare everyone were blocked directly. To be precise, not only were they blocked, but the hundred-over tentacles bounced back the moment they collided with Mirror.
The Fiendish Swamp Monster that had made the covert attack clearly had not foreseen this happening. Before it could react, its hundred-over tentacles had been stabbed full of holes like a sieve. In the blink of an eye, its life force was gone.
Its disgusting green carcass floated up from the swamp, and everyone was finally able to see what the monster really looked like.
It was a soft-bodied monster, entirely green in color. It had multiple tumors of various sizes on its skin like a toad, and its entire body exuded a rotten, pungent stench that was worse than the swamp.
As for the tentacles it had extended earlier, it was not that the monster had tentacles. Instead, it had simulated them with its body.
After sensing the Fiendish Swamp Monster's death, as well as the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that surged into his body, Lin Huang raised his brows, puzzled.
Although this Fiendish Swamp Monster only had the combat strength of a fourth-rank Heavenly God, the amount of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that he obtained from it were far higher than most monsters of the same combat strength. It was only slightly less than the Gluttons and Greeds of the same combat strength.
This was an unexpectedly pleasurable surprise for Lin Huang.
'I wonder if this is a special case, or if all Fiendish Swamp Monsters master a great many Rule Bending Powers…' Lin Huang had his doubts, but he knew the answer to his question would soon be revealed.
Very soon, the team encountered a second Fiendish Swamp Monster.
Lin Huang took the lead in killing it and once more plundered a great number of Rule Bending Powers again.
It was the same for the subsequent third and fourth Fiendish Swamp Monsters. Each of them provided him with a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.
This allowed Lin Huang to be certain that Fiendish Swamp Monsters would provide a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers, and that the first one was not just a special case.
However, he could not quite understand why such a monster would have such an extraordinarily large number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers—far beyond the usual amount.
He continued to puzzle over this until Virtuoso unintentionally mentioned that Fiendish Swamp Monsters were actually saprophagous monsters that would clear the swamp of all debris. Their method of doing so was to swallow everything.
This made Lin Huang speculate that the Fiendish Swamp Monsters had an ability similar to Gluttons, whereby they could obtain Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers from powerhouses' dead bodies.
However, just like Gluttons, although they obtained many Rule Bending Power and sequence power, they could not use many of them. Their overall ability was no more powerful than monsters of the same level.
Meanwhile, Lin Huang was able to take advantage of the monsters' trait of possessing many Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers.
Lin Huang—who was initially not interested in the Fiendish Swamp Monsters—had his interest piqued considerably after confirming that such monsters could provide him with a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.
He was now in a rather enthusiastic hunting frame of mind, having fallen into manic monster-hunting mode ever since the Gluttons and the Greeds…
Chapter 1550: All The EXP!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang spent less than twenty minutes killing all the Fiendish Swamp Monsters along the way, plundering millions of Rule Bending Powers.
If not for the consideration that he was still a part of Virtuoso's team, he would most certainly have killed all the Fiendish Swamp Monsters in the area instead of only killing the Fiendish Swamp Monsters along the way; none of them would have been spared. After all, these were monsters that gave him EXP and they were hard to come by.
After leaving the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' territory, the team continued moving forward.
Lan Ling used her spell probe, again and again, attempting to locate the unusual place that Virtuoso had mentioned. However, her efforts were of no avail.
As they had Lin Huang with them, they passed through the monsters' gathering areas one after the other without any difficulty.
Despite this, their progress was not exactly swift.
After all, their senses were impeded. Not only that, there was danger almost everywhere in this swamp area.
After passing by a monster-gathering area, Lan Ling initiated a new round of probing.
She opened her eyes a moment later. "There's a Demonic Fir Forest ahead of us…"
She glanced at Lin Huang after saying that and hesitated a moment before asking, "Do we go around it?"
The last time she asked that question had been when they had encountered the Fiendish Swamp Monsters.
As if worried that Lin Huang might not understand the situation, she added, "The situation in the Demonic Fir Forest is rather complicated. Apart from the Demonic Firs having inherently powerful territorial instincts and extremely powerful offensive capabilities, there are many tribes that live in symbiosis with them in the Demonic Fir Forest—for instance, the Dead Spirit Vines, Fish Apes, Lightning Snakes, and so on…"
Lin Huang's eyes lit up when he heard that.
As far as he was concerned, the more monsters there were, the more rules he could plunder.
One must know that he had reaped an abundance of EXP before hunting the Fiendish Swamp Monsters. Subsequent rounds after that had gotten him less than one-third of the EXP he had obtained from killing the Fiendish Swamp Monsters.
Now, upon hearing that there were many types of monsters in the Demonic Fir Forest, his first thought was that this was the perfect chance to gain a massive amount of EXP. Naturally, he would not let such an opportunity pass him by.
"Let's just go in." Lin Huang glanced at Virtuoso beside him after saying that. "What if the phantom city's entrance is in this forest? We'd miss it if we detour around it."
He said this intentionally as he was worried that everyone would opt for going around it.
However, what he said made some sense.
If the entrance to the phantom city was within this Demonic Fir Forest, they would completely miss it if they made a detour around the Forest. It would also mean that their journey into the foggy swamp was all for naught.
Virtuoso had initially chosen to explore this area, as they suspected that it might be the phantom city's entrance.
"Let's go in then." Virtuoso pondered for a while but still nodded in the end.
The rest made no objections after Virtuoso had spoken.
After all, Virtuoso was the one who had formed the team. The main objective for them gathering in the Abyss was to help Virtuoso obtain the castellan's seal of Phantom City.
After confirming that they would not detour around, Lin Huang once again blazed the trail. Leading the team, he flew into the Demonic Fir Forest area up ahead.
…
The Demonic Fir was a type of plant monster. Actually, 'Demonic Fir' was the general overarching name for an entire category. There were many types of different Demonic Firs that fell under this category, and all of them had different names.
The monsters in the foggy area's Demonic Fir Forest were called Night Demon Firs.
This type of monster had a very unique characteristic—they were basically in a state of deep slumber during the day. During the day, even if people passed through the whole of the Demonic Fir Forest, they might not be attacked by even one Night Demon Fir. As long as their bodies did not touch the Night Demon Firs, and they did not make any loud noises, they basically would not wake the trees.
However, the Night Demon Firs would fully come alive at night.
Nighttime was party time for all Night Demon Firs; it was also their time for hunting.
They would extend their branches and use their blade-like leaves to shred apart any intruders that approached their territory.
However, the most frightening thing about the Demonic Fir Forest was not the Demonic Firs themselves, but the monsters that were living in symbiosis with them.
There might be powerful beings hiding among those monsters.
Lin Huang could not help being stunned when he saw the Night Demon Firs before him.
Although he had already read the information about the Demonic Firs much earlier on, he had not expected them to be so massive when he set eyes on them in person.
Each of these Firs had a diameter of over two meters. They were so tall that their tops were in the clouds.
At the same time, Lin Huang heard startled gasps near him.
"So big!" This exclamation came from Lan Ling.
"So thick!" This was from Tu Tong.
Lin Huang's thoughts took a slightly perverse turn when both exclamations came together.
However, at that moment, the several Night Demon Firs within their field of vision moved almost simultaneously.
Countless branches whipped out like lightning, the leaves on the twigs unfolding like blades.
If this attack had struck them, Lin Huang's entire group might have been sliced into countless lumps of meat immediately.
However, since they had come prepared, they were naturally not caught off guard. As soon as the Night Demon Firs attacked, they reacted at once.
Lin Huang's finger stabbed out, and a black mirror coalesced in front of him.
This time, he did not shield the rest.
He did this mainly because earlier, he had been too enthusiastic when he was hunting the Fiendish Swamp Monsters and did not give the rest the opportunity to showcase their skills. It was Virtuoso who suggested that he give Lan Ling and Tu Tong some opportunities for combat.
In subsequent battles, therefore, he had intentionally not taken special care to protect both of them.
Furthermore, the Night Demon Firs did not have stealth techniques, and their abilities could not be considered overwhelming. For Lan Ling and Tu Tong, these were the best combat opponents to practice on.
Naturally, he did not have to protect Virtuoso and Saber9.
Therefore, Lin Huang only protected himself when he raised his shield this time, ignoring the rest.
The several Night Demon Firs whipped their branches around maniacally as if they were dancing in the dark.
However, any branches that came at Lin Huang were flung back in a strange manner when they struck the black mirror in front of him. The fully-unfurled leaves on the branches were now aimed at the Night Demon Fir instead, wildly attacking it.
The Night Demon Fir was not an inherently intelligent monster. By the time it realized something was wrong, it was too late.
In an instant, countless leaves collided with the branches. Within less than half a second, the massive tree was left with a short, bald trunk stump jutting out from the ground, less than 18 centimeters high.
If there had been any onlookers who did not understand the reason for this, they might have been astonished and wondered why this Night Demon Fir had committed suicide.
Did it not have the confidence to live just because it looked too ordinary?
The battle on Lin Huang's side ended in no time at all. The entire process had taken less than half a second.
However, Virtuoso and the rest were still in combat.
After disposing of the Night Demon Fir that had attacked him, Lin Huang checked on the situation with the rest. He then turned his eyes away and closed them to feel the Rule Bending Powers surging into his body. A moment later, he suddenly opened his eyes, and there was a slight gleam in them.
This Night Demon Fir had provided a substantial amount of rules, only slightly less than Fiendish Swamp Monsters of the same combat strength.
This stirred up Lin Huang's hunting spirit, causing it to blaze once again.
"These trees are all EXP!"