Chapter Eighty-Four: Advancement

In less than a quarter of an hour, under Hu San's conscious guidance, all the warmth generated by the blood essence of the leopard spirit had been infused into the long current of Watercloud Art power. If one could look within, one would see that within the meridians where Watercloud power flowed, a towering wave had suddenly risen.

This surge of spiritual energy was so vast that it immediately swept up the once-steady Watercloud power and drove it into wild冲撞; the slight obstructions that had existed in the meridians were shattered one by one before that wave. Then the surge plunged wholly into the mysterious violet space in Hu San's chest, the very foundation of Watercloud power.

When the wave surged out again from the violet space, both in quantity and quality it had diminished greatly, yet it still retained enough force to continue driving the circulation of Watercloud power.

How long this continued, no one knew. Watercloud power circulated again and again, and by the time the moon stood directly overhead, Hu San finally emerged from his quiet cultivation.

Yet by then the Watercloud Art within him was no longer the same. Its former obscurity and softness were gone, replaced by something that seemed ready to rise with a single thought, carrying with it a chill that pierced to the bone, as if it ever hovered around his mind and soul, keeping him in a state of absolute clarity at every moment.

"So this is the feeling of the third level of Watercloud Art? To cultivate immortality, to cultivate immortality... seeing the world now, it carries a little more lucidity, and a little more distance than before."

A long sigh slipped from Hu San's lips. Just as expected, with the help of the leopard's blood essence, he had successfully pushed Watercloud Art, which had already reached the pinnacle of the second level, into the third level, and he truly felt a difference.

Yet for some reason, the first time he experienced this difference, Hu San felt a touch of melancholy in his heart, as though from this point onward the words "immortal" and "mortal" could no longer be joined in his thoughts. From then on, the human world seemed ever more distant, while the word immortal drew a little closer.

Suddenly sensing this faint estrangement from all things, this detached gaze cast upon the whole world, even Hu San's present temperament could not help but waver with a trace of unease.

Fortunately, with the terrifying support of the real-world strength of sixteen men, this feeling came quickly and passed just as fast. He merely clenched his fist, and as he felt the terrifying sensation that seemed ready to crush heaven and earth, an extreme sense of fullness rose in his heart.

Hu San did not understand the many sayings of the world of cultivation, nor did he know exactly what problem he had encountered, or what trial he had passed. He only knew that he was no longer confused. When both the present and the past were in his grasp, what in the future was there still to fear? If there was, then he would simply smash it apart with one punch.

Squeak, crack...

Just as Hu San was thinking of dismembering the leopard and making one final useful use of its body, a dark wind suddenly swept through the forest, followed by a burst of rustling sounds.

"Oh? This feeling?"

With a slight start, Hu San shot straight upward from where he stood, and a faint cloud of mist rapidly coiled around his body. Soon, his form began to blur, then turned into a wisp of blue smoke and vanished into the dense woods, leaving only the shriveled corpse of the leopard lying quietly in place, wordlessly bearing witness to all that had occurred here.

After a moment, the clamor in the forest abruptly ceased. Darkness descended all at once, and the bright moon in the sky seemed to dim at that instant as well, leaving the whole world in a haze.

A faint mist drifted upward. In this blurred world, before anyone knew when, four enormous shadows had suddenly appeared. They merely stood there motionless, yet the aura they gave off from head to toe was as immense as ancient mountains.

Around their forms, wisps of black qi continually rose and, beneath the hazy moonlight, slowly seeped into the surrounding mist, creating a strange contradiction between reality and illusion.

Demon spirits! At least demon spirits equivalent to the early stage of the gathering-power realm.

In a corner of the forest, within the dense branches of a towering tree, Hu San, hidden inside a cloud of water vapor, suddenly narrowed his eyes as he recognized the origins of those four giant shapes.

If the leopard he had killed earlier was equivalent to a top-tier martial expert, then these four monsters were truly on par with cultivators of the gathering-power realm, the same level as Chen Hai.

Along the way, Hu San had not exchanged blows with monsters of this rank, but he had seen the miserable wreckage of merchant caravans attacked by them, and from that he could roughly infer their strength. Though far inferior to the black wolf, they were at full strength and were by no means to be treated lightly. Therefore, unless absolutely necessary, Hu San did not wish to provoke them.

Still, monsters of this level, like cultivators in the gathering-power stage of the human world, were not exactly rare, but neither would there be too many of them. Why would they appear in the Qilian Mountains at this time of year?

Hu San could not quite make sense of it.

By rights, at this season, the transition between spring and summer, monsters of this level should all have been staying hidden in the monster forest. Why had they come here instead?

This question had in fact troubled Hu San for quite some time as he traveled. It seemed that after last year's beast tide, there were simply too many monsters left in the Qilian Mountains, so many that it was alarming.

Especially here, where he was almost at the official border between the Qilian Mountains and the human world. To encounter such great demons in this place, Hu San would never believe there was nothing strange about it.

As Hu San pondered, one of the four shadows spoke. A buzz-like voice came from its mouth as it said, "That fellow Leopard Sharp is not especially strong, but he has always acted cautiously. Why would he die here? Could it really have been the ordinary human caravan reported earlier?"

Another shadow stepped forward, casually flipped over the leopard's body, and carefully examined the wound around its neck. In a soft, alluring voice it said, "From the wound, Leopard Sharp was actually forced to expel all his blood essence, and from the state of the body there are no other injuries, nor any sign of the use of spells or talismans by a cultivator."

"Although Leopard Sharp wasn't strong, he was still at about the level of an early-stage human gathering-power cultivator. To be seized by brute force, then have his blood calmly drawn out... such power among low-level cultivators, aside from the mysterious shamans, may well belong only to our beastfolk."

"So Green-Red means Leopard Sharp was killed by one of our own? Yet from the method used to extract the blood essence, it was absolutely the work of a cultivator. Only they, while still in the lower ranks, have the means to refine blood essence into medicine and extract the beast power within it."

Another shadow slowly stepped out from the darkness, revealing its shape beneath the moonlight. It was astonishingly a massive purple bear.

"No matter who killed him, the opponent is not to be trifled with. Let us set this matter aside for now and investigate later after we have finished the task given by the lord. At their speed, the snake demons should already be here. With that one backing them, they will not be easy to deal with. If we arrive late and delay matters, it may be hard to explain ourselves."

Shadows shifted, and the last one slowly revealed its true form: an old bull.

But unlike an ordinary yellow ox, this bull's body seemed to have undergone a transformation. Its hind limbs had become legs, its forehooves had turned into hands, and it actually stood upright like a man.

Seeing this, Hu San could not help being startled. This old bull had clearly achieved great success in body tempering; if it was not the result of some special encounter, then its cultivation had likely already reached the middle or upper levels of the gathering-power realm.

With such a master here, if he wanted to keep the four of them here without using talismans, it would probably be nothing more than a fantasy. At this point, Hu San finally extinguished any thought of making a move.

Before long, the other three beasts agreed with the bull demon's opinion, and it was clear that the old bull truly held a different standing. Among the four demons, the giant bear seized the leopard's mangled corpse, pinched its fingers, and at once a black wind arose around it.

In a howling gust, the black wind gradually grew stronger, then wrapped the four demons completely. With a crackling roar, the swirling black gale rose from the ground and vanished into the forest. Soon afterward, the dark tones disappeared, the demonic aura faded into concealment, and the moonlight once more bathed the land, restoring the old silence to the place.

"Snake demons? Could their destination be the Tiansuo Stronghold? But how could that be?"

After waiting a little longer and seeing that the monsters had truly departed, Hu San finally emerged from the woods. Through the dim, misty light, his gaze involuntarily fixed on the towering mountain before him.

There, a natural square mountain mass like a great city of a human empire lay across the road. It rose a thousand zhang high, with steep rocky cliffs at both ends, leaving only a stone stairway that could be climbed to the summit.

The entire mountain ridge crouched like a ferocious beast at the far end of the Qilian Mountains. The majestic pass stood proudly within it, blocking the boundless wild aura of Qilian Mountains to the last trace, like a barrier dividing the human world from the wilderness.

"That should be the legendary Tiansuo Stronghold, the true western gate linking the Qilian Mountains and the kingdom. It is said to have been established by the kingdom's strongest orthodox state, and elite troops from that state are stationed there year-round, tightly choking off the beastfolk's power in the Qilian Mountains and blocking them outside the kingdom."

"But now it seems the situation may not be so simple?"

Looking at the magnificent mountain city in the distance, Hu San narrowed his eyes for a while, then slightly furrowed his brows. After that he gave a carefree smile, turned, and plunged into the dense forest, soon vanishing with a fish-like step.

Whatever the case, the other side of the mountain city was the kingdom's territory. As a native son of the Qilian Mountains, to be able to walk out of here in his lifetime still filled the young man with a small burst of excitement.

As for the matter of the Tiansuo demon traces, naturally some great figure would have to step forward. For so many years the monster forces had been confined to the Monster Beast Forest; Hu San did not believe that was due to Tiansuo City alone. It probably involved many sects of cultivators.

And as for the few monsters before him, without knowing their purpose, so long as they did not cross him, Hu San absolutely had no intention of inviting unnecessary trouble at this critical moment of entering the kingdom.