Breakthrough, Sneak Attack
Xue Bai didn't take long to break through, and after another 40ish minutes of diligent cultivation, he successfully broke through into the 8th stage of the Vein Transformation realm!
'8th stage of the Vein Transformation realm.'
Content with his new powers, Xue Bai looked down at the fight below.
Apparently, sometime during his cultivation session, the Wang Clan members managed to maim the ape leader and destroy one of its eyes.
Now, without half its vision, the fight's dynamic shifted, and the once stalemate turned into a one-sided suppression, with the ape leader being easily suppressed by the Wang Clan members.
Under Wang Mo's orders and callouts, the four peak stage Muscle Nourishing realm cultivators quickly changed their previous guerilla tactics into an all-out offensive.
Taking advantage of the ape's vision loss, the four stayed on the right side of the ape, the side with the destroyed eye.
Constantly staying in the ape's blindsight, the four quickly dealt heavy damage to the ape, sending it into a desperate state.
Though the ape knew what they were doing, it could do nothing to stop it and was soon severely injured again as another Wang Clan member nearly managed to sever an arm, crippling it.
It was still attached to the ape's body, but it was only hanging on by a few bloody muscles and tendons. And without any feeling in that arm anymore, the ape lost another one of his most important weapons.
Then, without an eye or an arm to fight against the besiegement, the ape finally fell, unwillingly.
Seeing this, Xue Bai, who had just woken up, realized that it was almost time to strike.
"Don't attack just yet. Prepare yourself and target accurately. In the first attack, you must take out at least two of those Peak Muscle Nourishing realm cultivators." Xue Bai calmly spoke.
The Thunderhawk under him was only seconds away from pouncing on the weakened members.
It wanted to complete its mission as quickly as possible and get this wild ancestor off of its back as quickly as possible. However, after hearing the order, it calmed down and tensed its body, ready to attack.
Xue Bai was too high up to hear what the Wang Clan members were speaking about, but through context clues, he would understand the gist of it.
Wang Mo, previously, was a few hundred meters away from the fight, high up in a tree. But now that the fight had ended, he had come out of his hiding spot and started to order them to dissect the monkeys for loot.
Though the Wang Clan was as rich, who could deny more money? And the bodies of an entire clan of monkey demonic beasts would sell for a pretty penny.
They also made a plethora of spatial rings. Storing the important and most valuable parts of a few dozen apes wasn't too hard.
The weaker members were designated with the job of dissecting the monkeys, while the four strongest had the job of the ape leader.
However, two of them were too tired to help. So they sat down to meditate and regather their stamina before joining in.
Unaware of the danger, Wang Mo allowed them. And after finding a safe spot, he also sat down and cultivated. As he was in the center of his clan members, he assumed it would be safe to cultivate and swallowed a spirit fruit he had found earlier and started to cultivate.
Up above, Xue Bai finally found his targets and a chance to attack. And as soon as the 2 closed their eyes, Xue Bai ordered the hawks to strike.
"Go fast! Tell them that everyone must at least kill one at the first sneak attack!" Xue Bai ordered.
Conveying Xue Bai's message to its species with a loud caw, the Thunderhawk flew down as thunder flickered off of its wings.
Though the Thunderhawk was subdued by Xue Bai easily, it was still a Bone Strengthening realm demonic beast with an immortal bloodline. It could have easily wiped out the Wang Clan and the monkeys by itself, though it might have taken a while.
But now, with the Wang Clan severely exhausted and with the help of over a dozen other hawks and a sneak attack, the attack couldn't have failed.
The two peak Muscle Nourishing realm Wang Clan members who were dissecting the ape leader were the first to notice.
The Thunderhawk that Xue Bai subdued was rather large. With an almost 4-meter-long wingspan, it was larger than the ape the Wang Clansmen were fighting. Coupled with its aura, which was out and about, it wasn't hard to spot.
But they were weakened and tired. And worse of all, they were not the targets the Thunderhawk was aiming for.
The Thunderhawk was aiming for the two peak stage Muscle Nourishing realm cultivators who were still recuperating.
So once the other two saw that the target was their friends who were meditating, they could only shout as loud as they could to get their attention.
"Brother Ye! Watch out!"
"Wang Guo, stop cultivating! Defend yourself!"
However, it was too late, and just as even though they heard the message, once they opened their eyes, the Thunderhawk managed to grab them with its sharp, thunder-imbued talons and pull them into the sky.
And other than the Thunderhawk, the other dozen hawks each managed to pick out a target and either kill or severely injure it.
That left the Wang Clan with only five members still able to fight the ensuing battle. Wang Mo was still alive, but he was far too weak to do anything.
And even the ones strong enough to fight back were still in mortal danger. They hadn't had a chance to recover from the previous battle.
So with their severe exhaustion from the previous battle and the weak Wang Mo, they had to protect, the Wang Clan surviving members knew they were in danger.
All five members who came out unscathed immediately dropped what they were doing to form a circle around Wang Mo. Wang Mo was the last to react, as his only eyes shot open after he heard two of his strongest bodyguards scream in terror.
"Who dares!" Wang Mo shouted out.
"Young Master Mo, we are being ambushed!" The two surviving peak stage Muscle Nourishing realm bodyguards shouted as they went to protect him.
"Who dares to ambush us?" Wang Mo asked confusedly.
"Young Master Mo, it seems to be a clan of hawks. They managed to attack fourteen of us before we could react."
"They even got Young Master Ye and Young Master Guo."
Hearing the many voices around him answer his questions. Wang Mo took a moment to process it all before making another decision. Though arrogant, bloodthirsty, and a horrible child, Wang Mo was still the grandson of a peak stage Domain Lord realm cultivator.
Being trained from a young age to succeed his father, Wang Mo was more than capable of keeping his calm in this despair-inducing moment.
After analyzing his situation, he first wanted to gather the numbers on the enemy forces, so he asked, "Wang Yibo, how many hawks were there, and how strong was their leader."
Wang Yibo was one of the peak stage Muscle Nourishing realm cultivators that came into the secret realm. And since he was one of the two who saw their opponent, Wang Mo asked him.
He needed more information to make a plan.
"Young Master, there were 13 of them. However, the leader managed to kill both Brother Ye and Brother Guo in one attack. They sat extremely close to each other." Wang Yibo responded.
Wang Mo could see that they were missing 14 people, so the fact that one hawk managed to kill two people in one attack meant that the two dead Wang Clan members were extremely close to each other.
"Those idiots!" Wang Mo angrily berated.
Wang Mo didn't care that they had just died and instantly started to insult them. The only person his age he would ever bother caring for was Wang Yu. Anyone else was either an ant waiting to be crushed beneath him or a pawn for his use. And the two who had died were the latter.
After angrily shouting for a minute, Wang Mo asked, "How strong was the leader?"
"The leader of the Hawks was odd. We couldn't see through its cultivation. And its wings also had thunder flickering off of them." Wang Yibo tentatively answered.
"Fools, if you can't see its cultivation, then that means it's stronger than you." Wang Mo insulted Wang Yibo once more. The longer he stayed with this group of idiots, the more he could feel his IQ dropping.
'Is stupidity contagious?'
But, Young Master Mo, the cap of this secret realm is the Muscle Nourishing realm. How can something stronger than us exist here? Even the ape we fought earlier was too strong for the secret realm." Wang Yibo disagreed.
Wang Mo felt a migraine coming on. However, since Wang Yibo was his strongest confidant, he could only answer the question.
"Though that ape was half a step in the Bone Strengthening realm, at the end of the day, he is still in the Muscle Nourishing realm." Wang Mo calmly analyzed.
"But in a secret realm, usually there is one beast that is above the limit. And that hawk with thunder on its wings must be it." Wang Mo.
"Then… You mean that Hawk is the overlord of the secret realm?" Wang Yibo asked.
But before he could get an answer, Xue Bai had finally rounded back above the surviving members. He took longer than he thought, as Wang Ye and Wang Guo survived the initial attack and managed to fight their way off of the Thunderhawk's talons.
Afraid that they would manage to injure the Thunderhawk, Xue Bai ordered it to drop them harshly to the ground and kill them there. And with the help of its profound cultivation base and the rest of its clan, the Thunderhawk killed the two with little to no injuries.
Now back above the Wang Clan, Xue Bai was about to order the second attacking strike.
Standing on the Thunderhawk above Wang Mo, Xue Bai looked at them calmly. They hadn't noticed him yet, but terror could still be seen on the Wang Clan members' faces even without seeing him.
Though Wang Mo looked the most composed of them all, Xue Bai could tell his heart was in chaos. With Xue Bai's soul as strong as Qi Sea realm cultivators, he could sense Wang Mo's soul fluctuating rapidly.
Xue Bai discovered he could do this when the Hawks were killing Wang Ye and Wang Guo. But since he couldn't attack with his soul, Xue Bai assumed that this was the limit of his capabilities.
Xue Bai wasn't in a rush to attack, though. Instead, he stood in the air and waited.
The Wang Clan members wouldn't be able to move anywhere, and the longer they were tense, the more they would deteriorate. They hadn't rested from the first battle, and now they had to stay tense and ready for battle in front of an entire clan of hawks.
"Young Master Mo, there seems to be something on top of the hawk leader staring at us." Wang Yibo suddenly said.
With one of the strongest cultivation bases among the survivors, Wang Yibo was the first to notice Xue Bai.
Wang Mo, hearing him, also stared at the Thunderhawk in the lead. And after a few seconds of staring, he noticed that there was indeed a figure standing up on it.
Feeling that survival wasn't too far away. Wang Mo suddenly had an idea!
"Fellow Daoist! If you are in control of these hawks, can you please give my grandfather, the Grand Elder of the Wang Clan, some face and call them off." Wang Mo asked loudly.
Though it was, on the surface, a request, Wang Mo knew that the only people allowed into the secret realm had to be people from the Great Xuan Empire. And any person who would hear the name of his grandfather would surely fear him and let them go.
However, Xue Bai was unphased.
Dead men tell no tales.
Seeing that the figure ignored them, Wang Mo was infuriated. However, he knew that they wouldn't be able to survive the second attack, so he calmed himself down and tried to plead again.
"Fellow Daoist, in our journey throughout this secret realm, we have gathered many low Yellow-grade natural treasures. And even a middle Yellow-grade one, if you'd let me and my clansmen go, you can have them all." Wang Mo offered with a smile.
But Xue Bai was still unphased. And with a cold facial expression, Xue Bai waved his hand once more. He ordered the Hawks to attack again.
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