Chapter 140: The Other Half of the Blackwater Venom Dragon Pearl

For those who haven't even touched the threshold of the rules, why bother talking about the Great Dao?

Qinghu simply didn't have the spare time for that.

However, Qinghu had planned it well: she would gather all the divine gold first, and then visit that fellow deep within the underground palace. Who could have expected that the fellow wouldn't wait.

Early this morning, with a thunderous roar, something shattered.

Immediately following that, rolling waves of ultimate yin and bitter cold death qi surged toward Qinghu's location. The ground, continuously scoured by the death qi, turned into patches of nether soil. The moment the nether soil appeared, it instantly generated a bizarre domain. Here, death qi would be continuously birthed.

As long as one stepped upon the nether soil, the density of the surrounding death qi would only continue to intensify.

This place had truly and solidly transformed into a nether realm.

Even more terrifying was that both the death qi and the nether soil carried a horrific chilling force, causing any living beings that sensed them to feel as though their very souls were freezing to death.

Those still alive found it difficult to breathe, falling into a state where their souls were on the verge of leaving their bodies.

Their souls would drift out of their heads for a moment, only to be forcibly yanked back into their bodies the next.

Fortunately, everyone possessed cultivation and could endure for the time being. Although holding their breath was uncomfortable, they were still alive after all. However, if they experienced prolonged breathing difficulties, they wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.

Unless something changed, the living would inevitably turn into corpses or zombies.

Faced with this situation, the only one completely unaffected was Shen Qinghu.

"The Qi-Ingesting Technique!" Seeing that her two older brothers were both suffocating due to the transformation of the death qi and nether soil into a domain, their souls unstable, Qinghu immediately shouted a reminder.

Qing瑾 and Qingzhen almost instinctively began operating the Qi-Ingesting Technique. The bodily discomfort instantly vanished; the effect was practically instantaneous.

Not only did the discomfort disappear, but their own cultivation levels faintly began to increase bit by bit.

This growth was even slightly faster than when they usually practiced using the Qi-Ingesting Technique.

Could it be because of the death qi?

Was this death qi actually a grade higher than the spiritual qi outside?

The two of them felt a bit skeptical, but each continued to breathe using the Qi-Ingesting Technique, stabilizing their souls.

"Big brothers, hurry and pass on the Qi-Ingesting Technique. Saving lives is urgent!" Qinghu shouted again.

Hearing Qinghu's loud reminder and recovering, Qing瑾 and Qingzhen immediately stood up. One hurried over to the three Baiyang brothers to teach the Qi-Ingesting Technique, while the other went to She Qi and the others to do the same.

Seeing that her two brothers were out of danger, Shen Qinghu immediately ran over to the little lion, the dog, Bali, and Heizhan, shouting out instructions for the Qi-Ingesting Technique.

"Listen up, this cultivation method is called the Qi-Ingesting Technique. I speak, and you learn. Those who can master it will alleviate the nether realm's erosion upon you. If you can't, and fail to learn it, don't feel embarrassed—just run up to the surface quickly. Run fast, and you might still save your lives."

With that, Qinghu loudly explained the Qi-Ingesting Technique once more.

As for whether they were willing to learn or not, that was entirely up to them.

The Qi-Ingesting Technique was a special breathing method specifically designed to absorb and transform various turbid qi.

Because there was no divine energy around her, Qinghu had always treated the surrounding spiritual qi as turbid qi, converting it into divine energy within her own body.

Countless wisps of qi would rush in, yet only a tiny speck could be retained.

Ning Qi had also learned a simplified version of the Qi-Ingesting Technique. Hearing the three siblings begin to impart the technique to everyone, his heart stirred, and he immediately switched his cultivation method. Sure enough, the sensation of suffocation and frozen limbs diminished, and the feeling of his soul floating away vanished entirely.

Once he recovered, he continued to circulate the Qi-Ingesting Technique while promptly teaching it to Xie Wu.

As Chai Ning and Ruan Qingwu happened to be nearby, they heard it as well.

After passing it on to them, Ning Qi went over to the human side to teach Helan Che and Wei Dongting the Qi-Ingesting Technique. Naturally, he didn't forget the bunch of scoundrels from the Ancient Saint Sect.

Since they were all fellow disciples after all, watching them die in vain would leave him with no good explanation upon returning. Wouldn't that just be adding trouble for his master?

The Qi-Ingesting Technique truly tested everyone's comprehension skills.

Among the fast learners—such as She Qi, She Shiyi, Shou An, Bali, and Heizhan—within less than a quarter of an hour, they were able to independently complete the breathing cycles of the Qi-Ingesting Technique. All their discomfort symptoms were completely relieved, and they quickly began directly helping their own clansmen learn the technique.

It was actually simple: one only needed to channel internal energy behind the clansmen, guiding the dharma yuan within their bodies through a few cycles, and they would naturally be able to continue cycling it on their own.

Few of those who could enter the Profound Sky Tower were truly stupid; they were all the proud paragons of their respective clans.

Even if they couldn't understand it temporarily, they could simply continue operating it along the fixed circulation routes.

As more and more members of the snake clan learned the Qi-Ingesting Technique, even more snake tribesmen stood up to help other alien youths and maidens learn and master it.

Qing瑾, Qingzhen, and the others also wandered among the human cultivators, helping everyone quickly master the Qi-Ingesting Technique.

Meanwhile, Qinghu had already dashed deep into the underground palace to harvest divine gold on a large scale.

This time, she only collected divine gold particles, which made her much faster.

Although the earth had been transformed into nether soil, the divine gold particles were not so easily converted into nether-attributed divine gold.

Therefore, Qinghu went on a crazy collecting spree all the way, bypassing some divine gold particles hidden too deep and skirting around certain fellows still engaged in combat. It took her a full four hours to absorb all the divine gold particles throughout the depths of the underground palace.

The Wind-Breathing Ship expanded from the size of a palm to over a foot long. Having overeaten, the ship was now almost completely round. It no longer looked like a ship at all, resembling a flying saucer instead.

No sooner had Qinghu run back than she was spotted by Qing瑾, who promptly grabbed her by the ear to discipline her.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! Big Brother, let go!"

"Speak! Where did you run off to? How dare you wander around blindly without telling your brothers?" Qing瑾 was rarely this angry. When Qinghu went missing, how worried had he been? If he hadn't seen the group of stone spirits leisurely strolling around them, he really would have worried that his little sister had met with disaster.

On one hand, he had to maintain a calm composure to deal with the increasingly panicked crowd; on the other hand, he had to persuade those who were unwilling to move to follow him and Qingzhen as they pushed deeper into the underground palace. Qing瑾 felt utterly exhausted.

And all of this just to find this little wretch!!

They had finally managed to reunite with Qinghu here, but this place was no longer where they had previously fought the corpse beetles.

The moment the death qi arrived, the corpse beetles had completely vanished.

That was why they had been able to safely sneak in here.

Of course, being able to move freely on the death qi and nether soil without being frozen to death by the chilling force emanating from them was truly thanks to the Qi-Ingesting Technique.

"I didn't do anything, really. I just went to collect some divine gold," Qinghu blinked her large, innocent eyes and said.

"Humph! Have you lost your mind? What's the rush with divine gold? You can collect it when you have time, and if there's no time, we can look elsewhere. If you threw away your own life, what would Father and Mother do? Would your two brothers' hearts ache or not?" Qing瑾 lectured her with a stern, cold face.

This little wretch had been lacking discipline lately, actually daring to act on her own without a word.

"I won't dare again, never again," Qinghu pleaded for mercy. Her ear was still attached, after all. Why must Big Brother learn Mother's habit of grabbing her ear?

This fellow had definitely been corrupted by Mother.

"You are never to leave alone in the future. If you have to leave for something, you must report it to me or your Fourth Brother. Understand?" Qing瑾 lowered his voice in anger.

"Understood, understood."

Hmph! Letting out a cold snort through his nose, Qing瑾 finally released Qinghu's little ear.

"Since you've collected all the divine gold, should our next step be heading toward that thing?" Qing瑾 asked.

"Yes, but the path ahead won't be very peaceful," Qinghu said.

"What's wrong? Are there dangers ahead?" Qing瑾 furrowed his brow.

"There are zombies, fierce ghosts, and corpse beetles. However, the corpse beetles haven't fully adapted to the nether soil yet, so their movement speed has slowed down. Let's take advantage of their sluggishness to charge through. In a few days, once they re-adapt to the nether soil, their speed will return, and it might even increase.

"Right, this time when dealing with corpse beetles, everyone should avoid using fire talismans and thunder talismans; their effectiveness on the nether soil will be drastically reduced. Take them down directly using long swords, sabers, and hammers."

Everyone nodded earnestly upon hearing this.

Sure enough, they hadn't walked much farther before they encountered corpse beetles again.

The moment these corpse beetles caught sight of living humans, they charged forward just as before. However, their crawling speed was clearly at least two-thirds slower than before.

Moreover, the nether soil's erosion had only just begun, and they were at their weakest moment; even ordinary human cultivators could hack down large swaths of them with a single strike.

With their speed reduced, the threat posed by the corpse beetles decreased significantly. As long as everyone carried detoxification pills, even if they were occasionally bitten, the worst that would happen was losing a few chunks of flesh. Therefore, this time, everyone went about hacking at the corpse beetles with great enthusiasm.

The surrounding stone spirits began a massive slaughter, forcing the corpse beetles into a frantic retreat.

Qinghu looked closely and saw that the number of stone spirits had increased once again, surpassing ten thousand.

Their sizes had also grown quite a bit. After all, the earth here had once been tempered by divine energy, and the spiritual essence within the ground far exceeded the outside world. Thus, the bodies re-formed by these stone spirits after sustaining damage became increasingly formidable.

Some of the larger stone spirits even faintly carried the metallic luster of metal particles.

Clearly, the stone spirits had also evolved, learning to extract various useful metal particles from the earth.

Bang, bang, bang! The stone spirits frequently threw punches to blow up the corpse beetles, and their striking power was clearly much more formidable now. Casual or deliberate stomping was enough to crack the bodies of the corpse beetles underfoot or directly crush their heads.

With one side growing weaker and the other growing stronger, the stone spirits advanced at an extremely rapid pace.

This left Qing瑾 and the others following closely behind them running and stumbling all the way.

Following the stone spirits down all the way, they were about to reach the very bottom when they discovered that this place was actually a huge sinkhole.

At the very bottom of the sinkhole stood a half-ruined stone palace.

It was a magnificent stone palace, but well over half of it had collapsed.

A large number of zombie remains and even more corpse beetle remains were scattered in a certain direction near the bottom of the sinkhole. Clearly, a defensive battle had once taken place there, and the fighting had been intense. Yet it hadn't succeeded, and those people had still entered the palace.

On the collapsed half of the stone palace, roughly two-thirds of the remaining Donghuang birds were still fighting desperately, locked in a life-or-death struggle.

Their opponents were the remaining extremely powerful zombies, fierce ghosts, and the last batch of special corpse beetles.

A black flood dragon covered all over in bizarre, misshapen protrusions was baring its fangs and brandishing its claws as it fought fiercely with the Second Princess of Donghuang.

The brother and sister of the former Fire-Tail Pheasant had already become stiff corpses.

Those fellows who hadn't trusted Bali and the others back then and had followed those birds instead were now not a single one alive. They had either turned into mangled remains or their bodies were nowhere to be seen.

Seeing Qinghu and the others, the black flood dragon suddenly let out a long howl.

Zombies, fierce ghosts, and corpse beetles all retreated in unison.

The bird-people of the Donghuang clan also gathered back together, panting for breath and gulping down medicine.

The Second Princess's cold gaze swept across the faces of Shen Qinghu and the others, and then she glared angrily at the large group of stone spirits that had driven the corpse beetles back.

"You have vassal clans; why have you only arrived now?"

"We just didn't want to delay your important business," Qinghu retorted bluntly. "If you could have wiped it out sooner, why would we need to come here at all? We could have just left. Who knew you were so useless that you couldn't even handle a single old flood dragon?"

"What old flood dragon? This is an evil god! Are your eyes blind? Didn't you see all those zombies around it? Those zombies are all avatars controlled by it. If even a single one escapes, it will be able to resurrect itself." The Second Princess said with overwhelming rage, "To kill its numerous avatars, we suffered heavy losses, directly losing two-thirds of our manpower.

"Since you have vassal clans, how could you arrive so late? Watch out, or I'll go to the Eastern Wasteland Divine Alliance to report you!"

"Go ahead and report me! Weren't you the one who wanted to swallow whatever was inside all by yourself, refusing to call others and charging in with your own people? Now that you find yourself unable to handle it, you want to use me as a spear? What kind of beautiful dream are you having? I'll just stand right here; whenever you die, I'll go up.

"Old Flood Dragon, you kill her, and I'll give you a chance to push yourself out."

The old flood dragon suddenly burst into wild, cackling laughter.

"In human terms, what do you call this? The snipe and the clam grapple, while the fisherman profits? Hahaha, you have internal conflicts. It seems I won't have to die today after all."

"How can you lower your own prestige and boost others' ambitions? She's just a tiny divine descendant—what are you afraid of? As long as you consume her, you're bound to advance further in the future. Don't you want to become a great evil god?" a certain Second Princess coaxed insidiously.

"You little girl really have no discernment," the old flood dragon said, turning back to look at Shen Qinghu and the others as they strolled over. It then said to the Second Princess, "Not only do you lack discernment, but you are also ignorant."

"You..." The Second Princess gnashed her teeth in anger.

Regrettably, the old flood dragon had no intention of continuing to deal with her. It turned its head, nodded in greeting to Shen Qinghu as she walked over, and said, "Your Highness, I am not yet an evil god, merely a high-tier evil entity. I'm not worth your trouble, though of course, I am also willing to pay to buy my own life."

"State your price," Shen Qinghu said.

"Forty divine crystals, one hundred fish pearls aged three thousand years or older, four fish pearls aged ten thousand years or older, and one wind-attribute flood dragon pearl. How does that sound?"

"That price is acceptable, but you must hand over the other half of the Black Water Poison Dragon Pearl you're holding," Qinghu stated.