Chapter 88: Poisonous Night

High in the firmament, dark clouds gradually covered the moon, and the Forbidden Sea turned pitch black.

Even the funeral songs slowly dared not disturb the scene and hurriedly departed; the quiet mountaintop seemed to be permeated by an oppressive aura.

Until a shrill, mournful howl, sharp and piercing, cut through the night and tore apart the silence of the moment.

Everyone’s heart tightened in that instant.

Xu Qing opened his eyes.

He saw figures whistling up from all around, their targets being the cultivators who had obtained lizard skins during the day; a slaughter erupted.

Xu Qing did not pay attention to how the cultivators from the other three sides who had obtained lizard skins were faring; he was currently staring at the seven or eight figures rushing rapidly toward his location.

The moonlight was hazy, but it could not obscure the cold glint in Xu Qing’s eyes; the dim night could not dissolve the killing intent in his expression. Almost the moment these figures arrived, Xu Qing moved.

The dark night was a cover for the attackers, but they did not know that Xu Qing liked the night even more than they did.

In an instant, Xu Qing’s figure vanished from the treetop.

At the same time, among the seven or eight cultivators who arrived, three suddenly shuddered the moment they drew near. The center of one’s brow shattered directly as a black iron spike, carrying cruelty and coldness, pierced straight through.

Another, while spraying blood, saw a blurred glimpse of Xu Qing’s figure flashing past in front of them.

The third was the most miserable; this was a bloated alien. The moment they neared the treetop, a sharp dagger reached out from behind them and slashed fiercely across their throat.

The force was so great that it decapitated them, and blood erupted.

Only then did the screams from the other two ring out shrilly.

Having cleanly and efficiently killed three, Xu Qing’s body suddenly recoiled, slamming into the fourth figure who was in the middle of casting a spell. This person was a human cultivator; with a boom, their chest caved in, and they collapsed while spraying blood.

The remaining three cultivators gasped upon seeing this scene.

"You cast the spells, I'll pin them down!"

A low roar came from one of the aliens. This alien was short, like a five-year-old child, but as they stepped forward, their body suddenly expanded, transforming into over a zhang in height, and they roared as they charged at Xu Qing.

Xu Qing’s expression remained as usual. He paid no mind to the giant alien cultivator approaching him, nor did he bother with the two alien cultivators behind them who were forming hand seals. Instead, he raised his right hand and squeezed it fiercely.

Suddenly, there was a buzzing sound all around. Droplets of dew rose abruptly from the vegetation in all directions, instantly converging into threads that wove into a circular water net.

Under the moonlight, the water threads glinted coldly. As they enveloped the three cultivators, they contracted sharply with Xu Qing at the center.

Whooshing sounds rang out instantly. The two spell-casting cultivators’ expressions changed drastically. When their bodies were touched by the water net, their spiritual energy defenses could not resist it in the slightest and shattered directly. Their bodies were then rapidly pierced through by the water net, falling apart into pieces of flesh.

As for the giant alien cultivator charging at Xu Qing, his face turned pale, and his eyes revealed terror. He was just about to speak, but the next moment his entire body turned black and blue. With a whimpering sound, he clutched his throat, staggered to the ground, twitched a few times, and died.

The water net swept over, dismembering him while also dismembering the previous corpses nearby.

Among them, the bloated alien who had been slashed in the throat, despite clearly being dead, let out a shrill scream during the dismemberment, and a ghost-like entity flew out from within their body. Clearly, as an alien, they had too many life-saving methods unknown to outsiders.

They did not know what method they employed, but their body became thin and long, and they drilled out of the water net at high speed, intending to flee.

Xu Qing did not pursue; he stared coldly, counting silently in his heart.

"One, two, three..."

The next instant, the ghost-like cultivator’s body shuddered violently, and they suddenly turned back to look at Xu Qing.

"Spare me..."

They only had time to say these two words before their body began to dissolve instantly; the first thing to melt was their tongue.

Despite losing their tongue, the excruciating pain still caused a shrill, miserable howl. At this moment, it cut through the sky, even drowning out the booming sounds of the battles from the other three sides.

This caused the gazes of everyone present to be drawn over.

Before their very eyes, the little black figure rolled on the ground in agony while screaming, until finally, their body was dissolved alive into a pool of blood on the ground, unable to say another word before death.

Gasps came from all around, then quickly subsided. Almost everyone immediately took out antidotes and swallowed them.

Only the old man from the inn remained calm.

In fact, when Xu Qing arrived yesterday, he had already started taking antidotes; after all, he had experienced Xu Qing’s poison before.

Xu Qing did not pay attention to the actions of the surrounding cultivators. He calmly put away his dagger and iron spike, picked up the leather bags of these people one by one, and finally returned to the treetop, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes to cultivate.

Perhaps because this island was the back of that terrifying giant lizard, both spiritual energy and foreign substances were very dense.

For other cultivators, being able to remain active on the sea for a long time meant they were naturally adapted to such an environment and had their own cultivation methods to convert and separate the foreign substances. However, they often had to go ashore to expel some of the foreign substances from their bodies using elixirs or other methods after a period of time.

But for Xu Qing, he had no such need, so he had no concerns while cultivating. Furthermore, the aura of the Forbidden Sea here was also helpful for his cultivation of the Sea Transformation Scripture.

Although Xu Qing’s eyes were closed while cultivating, no one around him dared to harbor any ideas about him anymore. Most avoided him from afar, fearing they would be poisoned.

The battles between others were also clearly affected, and the fighting gradually came to an end.

Just like that, the night passed.

High in the firmament, dawn bit through the lips of the night, leaving that smear of blood on the horizon. This bloodstain flowed slowly, becoming paler and paler until it spread across the entire sky.

The day had brightened.

Around the mountain basin, the lone alien who had snatched a lizard skin yesterday was still there, and there was one more person beside them; it seemed they had reached some agreement.

This additional person was the very same straw-cape cultivator who had fought Xu Qing for the prize yesterday.

As for the other side, the group that had once consisted of four or five cultivators clearly had not kept their lizard skin and had become corpses, replaced by the elephant-trunked man and his seven or eight followers.

Only Xu Qing and the old man from Banquan Road remained as they were.

But the difference was that Xu Qing’s surroundings were covered in minced flesh, while the latter... didn't have even half a corpse.

Xu Qing glanced at the large snake beside the old man. The other party noticed this and immediately looked back at him, nodding repeatedly, as if greeting him.

Xu Qing felt it was a bit strange, but he didn't think too much about it, withdrew his gaze, and continued to sit in meditation.

Behind the rock where the old man from Banquan Road was, he kicked the large snake beside him and snorted.

"See that? They don't even pay attention to you, so stop always thinking about that kid. In this world, only I am your only family."

"Gurgle, gurgle."

The large snake felt a bit aggrieved, gazing longingly at Xu Qing on the distant treetop, its expression gradually becoming listless. The old man saw this and sighed.

"Why are you crying now? You... that kid doesn't understand snake language, that's why he didn't pay attention to you..." After saying this, the old man regretted it slightly, and the large snake’s eyes suddenly brightened again.

"A grown girl is hard to keep, and a silly snake is just as hard to keep."

The old man was helpless. He pondered in his heart whether to find an opportunity to kill Xu Qing here, but as soon as he thought of the other’s ruthlessness, he dismissed the idea.

Time passed slowly like this, and soon ten days went by.

During these ten days, some cultivators on the mountain left, and others arrived. At most, there were a full hundred cultivators around the basin, and at least, there were dozens.

Some were lone travelers, some were pirates, and others were aliens from other islands. Killing and contention occurred constantly due to the turnover of cultivators here.

During this period, sea lizards also appeared three times. Each time was a bloody struggle. Xu Qing’s strikes were ruthless and decisive; not only did he snatch some sea lizard skins, but he also piled all the people he killed at his meditation spot.

Looking from afar, that large tree seemed to be stained the color of blood, a shocking sight.

As the deterrence formed by this accumulated, the place where Xu Qing was located became like a forbidden zone to others.

There were a few others like Xu Qing. Whether it was the old man from Banquan Road, the straw-cape cultivator who had once fought Xu Qing and his companion, or that elephant-trunked man, they all kept their gains and chose not to leave, seemingly waiting for something.

Xu Qing had also noticed this, so he did not leave either, but instead cultivated silently during these ten days.

The spiritual energy here was active and the foreign substances were dense. Especially in this environment where his spirit was highly concentrated, it felt as if he had returned to the scavenger forbidden zone forest, and his cultivation speed had clearly increased a lot.

Now, he was not far from the ninth level of the Sea Transformation Scripture.

"At most three days, I should be able to break through."

Xu Qing muttered in his heart, continuing to meditate and breathe. Threads of spiritual energy surged in from all directions, entering his body. While nourishing his whole body, they also integrated the foreign substances into his shadow, causing the eighty-seven-zhang spiritual sea within Xu Qing to constantly expand.

Eighty-eight zhang, eighty-nine zhang...

Two days passed. When noon on the third day arrived, the fluctuations of the spiritual sea within Xu Qing were infinitely close to ninety zhang. Once it reached ninety zhang, it meant his Sea Transformation Scripture had stepped into the ninth level.

Disciples who cultivated this Seven Blood Eyes technique to the ninth level could basically sweep through those at the same realm in most human sects within Nanhuangzhou. If it were Foundation Establishment cultivators from small sects with inferior techniques, they would not necessarily be unable to put up a fight.

Not to mention that Xu Qing’s own Sea Mountain Art body refinement had also reached an unprecedented level, forming a terrifying Demon Shadow. It could be said that... once the Sea Transformation Scripture broke through, Xu Qing’s combat power would erupt once again.

At that time, he would be an existence surpassing the peak of Qi Condensation combat power, fully comparable to a Foundation Establishment powerhouse. For someone like the ancestor of the Vajra Sect, Xu Qing was confident that whether on the sea or on land, after a bout of fighting, he would definitely be able to suppress them. As for killing them, it would take some time, but he would certainly be able to do it.

"Tonight, I can break through!" Expectation appeared in Xu Qing’s eyes. Just as he was about to continue cultivating, dense footsteps and whistling sounds suddenly came from the foot of the mountain.

Before the people even arrived, bursts of cold and ferocious intent spread out in advance, enveloping the entire basin, causing everyone here to change their expressions and look toward the foot of the mountain.

What arrived... was not a sea lizard, but a group of cultivators!

A group of ferocious figures with messy clothing, astonishingly cruel, with immense killing intent, and acting with total disregard for others.

There were sixteen in total, each radiating powerful cultivation fluctuations, and the weight of the baleful aura on each of them was enough to be shocking.

"Sea Ghosts!"

"It's the Sea Ghost organization!"

"Damn it, why did they come here!"

"

Exclamations erupted immediately from around the basin.

If the word count for the three updates is 11,000 characters, does that represent the single-minded devotion of this little newbie to all you handsome guys and pretty ladies~

Wishing everyone a happy weekend~