Chapter 134: Come with Me

Chapter 134: Come with Me

"Stop them!"

A demon cultivator among them shouted.

Shang Yunduo really didn't want to do it.

The beasts inside the valley wanted freedom, wanted to escape, and they were supposed to stop them, like villains, but he had no choice but to go along with the crowd.

He searched around but couldn't find Cui Peng, who had been with him earlier, and even Pei Jie was no longer at the spot where they had been hiding.

Frustrated, he ran to block the mountain pass, taking a very lazy approach by finding a corner position.

What Spirit Rhinos? He didn't see a single one that looked like a rhino. Run, run, all of you, hurry up and run.

But the cultivators wouldn't let them go free. The Core Formation cultivators had arrived.

Earth walls, stone walls, ice walls, vines—all mixed together, instantly rising from the ground as barriers of various elements, along with various magical tools thrown out to temporarily serve as checkpoints to block the beasts.

The beasts, already a surging torrent, were no pushovers either. The once-solid walls now had cracks of freedom. No matter what was in front of them, they charged straight ahead, crashing into it, jumping over if they couldn't break through, then crashing again if they couldn't jump over, crazily smashing the newly erected walls into gaps and trampling them underfoot.

The Core Formation demon cultivators had no choice but to erect various walls again, ordering the Spirit Refining stage juniors to maintain them with their spiritual power.

Seeing this, Shang Yunduo not only didn't put up any wall but even stepped aside, "Hurry, hurry, get past quickly!"

The beasts that couldn't understand him saw the gap, jumped onto the rocks, and ran out through this narrow crevice. Soon, this spot turned into a small stream-like passage.

A nearby demon cultivator noticed and shouted at him, "What are you doing?!"

Before Shang Yunduo could reply, someone had already retorted for him, "Mind your own damn business!"

Shang Yunduo looked up and saw it was Elder Juhu.

He was standing on a mountain peak with a large bag on his back. After retorting, he jumped down beside Shang Yunduo and said dissatisfiedly, "How did you get squeezed over here, kid?"

"I..." Shang Yunduo looked at the beasts still squeezing out and improvised a lie, "I came here on purpose!"

"Huh?"

Shang Yunduo explained, "These beasts have no way out, so they all run to me. The more I let them through, the more come. Blocking is worse than letting it flow. Why bother with them? We're not here to catch them. Only a fool would waste spiritual power on these useless beasts! I just need to focus on catching Spirit Rhinos!"

Elder Juhu was taken aback for a second. He looked around at the chaos—walls collapsing and not collapsing, everyone flustered—then looked at Shang Yunduo guarding a narrow path just a few feet wide. Strangely, it was quite orderly. Once a Spirit Rhino followed other beasts through this path, Shang Yunduo would definitely catch it!

"You're a clever one!" Elder Juhu chuckled. In a lowered voice, he tossed Shang Yunduo a Spirit Beast Pouch. "When you see a Spirit Rhino, catch it! Try to catch them alive!"

"Mm-hmm!" Shang Yunduo nodded.

After instructing him, Elder Juhu left at ease. He had to find Hua Guan and Cui Peng to tell them to do the same.

The more the other places were blocked, the more beasts would flock to this passage. Maybe a Spirit Rhino would be mixed in among them!

Shang Yunduo was right—it was better to look for Spirit Rhinos from among the beasts than to waste spiritual power blocking them all.

As for whether Shang Yunduo might let a Spirit Rhino escape, it never crossed Elder Juhu's mind. How could it? They had come all this way to catch Spirit Rhinos, hadn't they?

The Fire Armor Tiger Clan and the Spirit Rhinoceros Clan weren't related. Only the Blood Qilin Clan would have lost their minds.

Shang Yunduo surreptitiously wiped his sweaty palms. He hadn't expected to find a narrow, hard-to-pass gravel path to goof off and actually get so many beasts crowded here.

He'd managed to wing it.

Catch a Spirit Rhino?

Catch one? No way. He didn't want to catch anything at all.

But would a Spirit Rhino even survive if it escaped? He seriously doubted it.

Other beasts might be fine—at least they weren't so rare that many people coveted them. They could hole up in some remote mountain and maybe be free. But Spirit Rhinos were different. If found, they'd definitely trigger a whole new scramble.

He couldn't help but look up at the sky.

The five Transformation stage cultivators had regrouped. Flying Owl was fighting King Lingxi alone, while Tiger King, King Xuanying, and Elder Heiyuan surrounded him from three sides. King Lingxi, who'd held his own against two opponents just moments ago, was now running on fumes. The massive rhino phantom was fading, on the verge of collapsing, while Flying Owl's giant bird looked solid as ever, sinking its beak viciously into the rhino's flesh.

If King Lingxi died, wouldn't Spirit Rhinos be hunted to extinction sooner or later? Even if they escaped to human territory, they'd still end up as cultivation materials—unless...

Unless they became useless.

Unless something could replace them.

Or unless they could escape to a place cultivators wouldn't go.

The Dividing Mountain Range? Not good enough. Where else then? A minor realm? A secret realm? The Ancient Plain Secret Realm?!

Shang Yunduo's eyes suddenly lit up.

That's right! The Ancient Plain Secret Realm!

A place high-level cultivators had abandoned, where only Qi Refining cultivators went!

And Spirit Rhinos were capable of escaping from Qi Refining cultivators!

Those Qi Refining cultivators who entered for the Floating Cloud Flower probably wouldn't even recognize this rare beast, which had long been extinct in the human cultivation world and had become almost legendary in the yao world.

Shang Yunduo immediately picked up his pouch and began actively searching among the beasts.

He didn't want their lives. He would secretly send them to a safe place—all he asked for was a few scales from them as travel expenses!

There! A small beast that looked just like a rhino, pale brown all over, clearly just a cub. It was panicking, tagging along beside some huge beast of unknown species, stumbling and getting shoved by the stampeding herd, completely turned around.

How should he catch it?

If only he had a rope to lasso it and stash it into the pouch quietly.

Shang Yunduo shot a quick glance around. Seeing no one paying attention, he was about to leap over and grab it—but when he looked back, it had vanished.

What?! He'd only looked away for a split second!

He quickly searched the beasts again—nothing with his eyes, then he swept with his spiritual sense. Gone for real!

As if the Spirit Rhino he'd just spotted had been an illusion all along.

What's going on?

Who stole his spirit rhino?

But aside from him and the two demon cultivators who occasionally glanced his way, there was no one else nearby, and those two hadn't even glanced his way just now.

Could it have fallen into a hole?

He leaped to a higher spot, refusing to give up, and looked down again. Suddenly, he noticed many dots on a nearby tree.

Although the dots seemed random, after staring for a while, he had a rough idea of what a tree, grass, or animal should look like.

This tree looked completely wrong, unless it was covered in bugs.

But there were no bugs visible on the tree.

There's no way that many invisible, motionless bugs just appeared out of nowhere, right?

These dots also seemed strangely familiar. Where had he seen them recently? It was...

Shang Yunduo suddenly remembered: it was that Chaos Clan member who had faked his death and fled to the entrance of the inner valley!

Now these clones of his were arranged slightly differently than in the earlier competition; no wonder it felt familiar but he couldn't remember right away!

So he was hiding here.

What was he hiding here for?

Catching spirit rhinos?

Had he caught that little spirit rhino just now?

Shang Yunduo couldn't help sneaking another glance at the sky. The clouds churned and thunder rolled; the five great demon cultivators at the Transformation stage had already fought far away, but the Chaos Clan's Transformation stage still hadn't appeared.

Shang Yunduo held himself back and didn't act rashly. While scanning the demon beasts around, he secretly looked for nearby allies.

Either his allies or the other guy's.

Without help, he was confident he could defeat the opponent.

Although this guy's cultivation level was higher than his, he had already faked his death once, so he was already weakened.

But this wasn't a bounded arena; he was in the open and the opponent was hidden, making it easy for the opponent to escape, and worse, he might be mistaken for a madman.

After all, when this guy faked his death and escaped, even Core Formation stage cultivators hadn't noticed.

If he couldn't quickly subdue him, being mistaken for a madman would be the least of his worries. If the Transformation stage cultivators in the sky discovered he could see the Chaos Clan, that would be a huge problem.

Shang Yunduo continued to wait, hoping to see Pei Jie.

He glanced several times at where Pei Jie had been hiding earlier, but still didn't find him.

What big thing had his senior gone off to do... Oh my my...

There was movement.

Shang Yunduo instinctively glanced over in that direction and watched as the Chaos Clan demon cultivator flew off into the distance and stole another spirit rhino from the herd.

The demon cultivator at the Core Nurturing stage who had rushed over to catch that spirit rhino was completely baffled, thinking that someone had snatched it away with some artifact, and kept cursing loudly.

At this moment, an enraged Core Formation stage demon cultivator on the other side, having had enough of the blocking wall, suddenly began a massacre, transforming into his beast form and charging back into the demon beasts.

The startled demon beasts immediately broke into chaos; the beast tide that had formed was scattered, and the panicked wild animals and demon beasts fled in all directions, even recklessly heading back into the valley.

Seeing this, the other demon cultivators also started driving them back into the valley like sheep. They only needed to kill the unruly demon beasts, and the rest would be driven like frightened lambs.

"Brat! Drive them over here!" The Core Formation stage elder of the Black Abyss Clan, who was flying in the sky, suddenly shouted down at him.

Shang Yunduo hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "I only take orders from my own elder!"

"Oh? Heh heh..." The elder gave Shang Yunduo a sinister smile.

Shang Yunduo subconsciously took a step back, feeling an inexplicable chill in his heart.

He wanted to kill him!

Shang Yunduo blustered: "My clan's elder told me to guard this spot; he'll be here soon!"

"Oh, is that so?" Elder Heiyuan said nonchalantly. Spotting a spirit rhino in the herd, he flicked a scale like a hidden weapon, and an adult spirit rhino that was trying to break through with the herd collapsed. "Bring it back."

"Yes!" The Core Nurturing stage Black Abyss clansman quickly flew over and stored the spirit rhino in his storage pouch.

A second, a third...

One by one, the spirit rhinos in the herd were captured or killed.

Even the Chaos Clan member disguised as bugs in the tree crept in and grabbed spirit rhinos.

The giant phantom of the spirit rhino in the sky dissipated, as if marking the doomed downfall of their clan. The blood-soaked King Lingxi, in tatters and covered in wounds, was on his last legs.

He gazed at his kin being captured and slaughtered in the valley, then looked into the distance that even Transformation stage cultivators could not see beyond.

The eagle-headed staff was pulled out from his body. King Xuanying retracted the staff and licked the blood on its tip. "Ah, what was the point of all this? After all this trouble, your spirit rhino clan will truly be wiped out."

King Lingxi let out a cold laugh. "What's a few more days of survival worth?"

King Xuanying shook his head and said to Flying Owl: "Demon King, I'll give you the inner core; how about I take the heart for myself?"

Tiger King: "Why should you have it? The heart should be mine."

King Xuanying: "Didn't you already want his hammer?"

Tiger King: "That was the reward for capturing King Hundun!"

Elder Heiyuan: "Our Black Abyss Clan has a grudge with the Blood Qilin Clan. We don't want King Lingxi; just give us more of the smaller demon beasts, and let me take those Blood Qilin kids away. How about that?"

Tiger King: "Those little brats were caught by my kids. If you let me have the arms and legs of King Lingxi, I'll have Ah Hua give them to you."

Elder Heiyuan thought for a moment: "Deal."

King Xuanying: "Why should you get extra spirit rhinos?"

Seeing them argue, King Lingxi laughed instead.

Tiger King: "If we can't agree, then forget it. Whoever catches it gets it!"

King Xuanying: "Just what I wanted!"

Elder Heiyuan: "Hey! Demon King, say something."

Feixiao: "He's not dead yet."

King Lingxi let out a few hearty laughs, then looked down at his clansmen and said, "It seems I can't take you to a new world."

In the Spirit Rhinoceros Clan, the few demon cultivators were tied up tightly. The little spirit rhinoceroses beside them trembled, raised their heads, and let out sorrowful howls toward the sky.

King Xuanying: "Why bother? Relax, we've known each other for a while. You can go in peace; after you die, I'll take them to the Ninefold Palace and raise them well. I won't eat them or bleed them dry. That's a pretty sweet deal, right?"

King Lingxi nodded.

King Xuanying: "So, tell me, do you give the heart to me or to Tiger King?"

King Lingxi didn't answer but continued to look down at his clansmen: "After I die, you will be left to be slaughtered by others..."

King Xuanying: "I said I wouldn't kill them."

King Lingxi: "Come along with me..."

Tiger King, standing off to the side, hands on his hips, changed his expression: "No! He's gonna blow himself up!"

Author's note:

King Lingxi: We'll die together! I'll take you all down with me!!

Author's note:

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival~!!! [fireworks][fireworks][fireworks]