Chapter 970: The Primal Howl Realm

The family was granted five full days together to enjoy the peaceful sanctuary they had begun to build. The time spent at the Five Star Lakes was a rare and precious commodity in their violent lives and they spent every single day walking the stone shores, discussing their respective cultivation paths and enjoying the spiritual meals prepared by Nadia. The skilled chef utilized the fresh ingredients from the local area and the results were magnificent. Li Yu felt a sense of peace during those five days that was hard to describe.

"I will have two additional people added here to help serve our specific needs while we are present." Li Canghai said as he stood near the framework of his developing pavilion. "They will manage the daily upkeep of our space so we do not burden your primary staff."

"I will do the exact same thing." Zhan Tielan added with a warm smile. "It will make things much smoother when we return from the borders."

Li Yu of course accepted the additions immediately. He wanted his parents to feel entirely at home in this valley and having some of their own trusted people stationed here would make them feel as such and it would ensure their specific preferences were always met. His grandfather did not do the same.

Zhan Tian simply wanted his quiet fishing cabin on the far edge of the water and he preferred complete solitude when he cast his line. The Worldkeeper explicitly stated he did not need anyone fussing over him while he was trying to catch some fish but told Li Yu to get some more aggressive fish for his fishing pleasure. Li Yu of course, also agrees to that request as well.

The five peaceful days inevitably came to an end. The brutal reality of the Myriad Realms demanded their attention once again and they all needed to depart to their respective duties. Li Canghai returned to the Li Clan to manage some affairs before returning to his troops. Zhan Tielan flew back to her military command and Zhan Tian stepped directly into a spatial rift to resume whatever it was that he went off to do, he never told Li Yu.

Their departure left Li Yu alone. He used the quiet isolation to aggressively continue his training. The raw energy flowed smoothly through his meridians like a raging river and he spent his afternoons pushing his Nexus Mind technique. He focused on splitting his consciousness to manipulate his Celestial Star Sword Formation with greater fluidity.

Three days into his isolation, a glowing jade slip cut through the defensive arrays of the valley and hovered directly in front of him. Li Yu grabbed the jade slip and sent his divine sense inside. It was a formal communication from one of the senior logistics elders of the Zhan Clan. Another group of the younger generation was preparing to go out on a hunt. The expedition was being directly led by the heir of the clan as before.

The group was hunting demonic beasts as part of a resupply and combat training mission. Li Yu recalled his own harsh experiences and the economic realities of the cultivation world. Higher level demonic beasts were simply not cost effective to raise in captivity. The immense amount of spiritual energy and resources required to sustain those kinds of beasts vastly outweighed the Qi return a cultivator received from consuming its flesh. It was always much better to hunt them down in the wild for their meat and their valuable cores.

Li Yu was formally asked to join the hunting party for his own experience and training. He agreed to go and check it out without any hesitation. He always liked to eat different exotic meats and this was a fantastic chance to gather high quality food for his own stock. It was also a good opportunity to utilize what he had been training against live and unpredictable targets.

He spent the next few hours leaving instructions for Alden and Mirelle regarding the feeding schedules of the aquatic pens. Three days later, Li Yu prepared his things and flew back to the Zhan Clan headquarters to meet back up with the hunting group at the central docks.

The gathering was quite large and was being led by Zhan Chen, the sovereign level heir of the clan, alongside two highly experienced elders. His sister was also coming along with him this time as well as one of those undergoing training. Their destination was the Primal Howl Realm.

It was a territory kept wild by the Zhan Clan and served as a massive hunting preserve. They purposefully let the beasts run free across the entire realm so they could breed and grow naturally. Every now and again, the clan would organize these hunts to provide real combat training for the juniors and serve as a source of premium food for the sect.

"Cousin Yu." Zhan Chen greeted him with a firm nod as Li Yu approached the gathering. "I am glad you decided to join us on this excursion. Your combat experience will be highly valued here."

"It is good to be moving again." Li Yu replied with a smile. They had fought together before, even if not directly and had some level of confidence in each other’s abilities even though Zhan Chen was several realms above Li Yu.

There were no permanent bases or strongholds established on the Primal Howl Realm. The Zhan Clan wanted the environment to remain as hostile and untamed as possible to ensure the junior disciples did not rely on safe zones during their trials. The group consisted of exactly sixty people from the younger generation. That count did not include the heir and the two overseeing elders. The total number became sixty one with Li Yu's arrival.

They boarded an armored warship and launched into the sky and they soon arrived. The Primal Howl Realm was a stunning and savage landscape. Sprawling ancient forests covered the continents and jagged mountain ranges pierced the heavy clouds as the roars of unseen predators echoed through the thick humid air.

The warship landed in a vast clearing of crushed stone and the group disembarked quickly. Zhan Chen stepped forward to give the final orders as they divided up into three distinct groups consisting of twenty juniors each. Zhan Chen would personally lead one of the squads. The two elders would each lead the other two groups. The elders and the heir were there strictly for safety and overarching protection. They made it clear that they would not interfere or help in any fights unless the juniors were facing certain death. Li Yu was assigned to be part of the group moving with Zhan Chen.

"We fan out and proceed. Keep your senses up at all times and be ready for anything." Zhan Chen commanded. "Stay within visual range of your partners. Do not engage anything you cannot handle. While this is a training session, protect your lives at all cost."

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The group moved out into the dense ancient forest where the trees were massive with trunks as wide as entire buildings. The canopy above was so thick it completely blocked out the sunlight and cast the forest floor into a permanent twilight. They began their operation by hunting and killing beasts that fell between the Core Formation and Half King realms because that was what they encountered.

They strictly ignored any creatures below the Core Formation level. Anything under that threshold was simply not worth hunting at all and a waste of potential. The clan policy dictated that the weaker beasts were to be left alive to eventually grow stronger for future generations to harvest.

A pack of heavily armored wolves covered in jagged stone spikes ambushed their right flank. The wolves exuded the distinct aura of the Soul Formation realm. The Zhan Clan juniors roared and charged forward to meet the beasts head on as it was an easy kill for people at their level.

Li Yu stepped into the chaos of the melee to test his mental division. He activated his Nexus Mind technique and his eyes glowed with a cold light. He summoned his Celestial Star Sword Formation. Silent Bastion slammed into the earth directly in front of him to serve as an shield against a lunging stone wolf.

Pale Extinction shot forward like a phantom. It trailed deadly gray Qi as it pierced directly through the eye of a flanking beast. Whispering Frost spun rapidly in the damp air and instantly froze the area around another wolf. The sudden drop in temperature shattered the beast's stone armor and left it entirely vulnerable.

Firmament's End dropped from above with the sharp edge of death and pinned a wolf to the forest floor. Gilded Calamity zipped through the battlefield with blinding speed and severed the hamstrings of three different targets in a single fluid motion.

Li Yu controlled all five swords simultaneously while walking calmly through the bloody skirmish. His newly expanded mental bandwidth allowed him to process the battlefield without suffering from the blinding migraines that used to plague him.

He was a Paragon level cultivator moving through a pack of Soul Formation beasts. It was not a difficult fight for him but the precise control required to command the formation flawlessly was the exact training he needed. To not harm his allies was also a test of his control and there were a few close calls.

The junior disciples fought aggressively and efficiently. They utilized their physical body refining arts to crush skulls and shatter ribs but did their best to preserve the meat. The skirmish lasted less than five minutes and the pack of stone wolves were entirely wiped out. The disciples quickly moved through the carnage and harvested the valuable cores from the heads of the beasts. They stored the carcasses in spatial rings to be processed for meat later.

The team continued making their way deeper into the primal forest for several hours. They encountered various packs of dangerous creatures. They fought giant venomous serpents and heavily scaled boars. The bloody routine of fighting and harvesting became a steady rhythm for the team without much issue. The group worked incredibly well together and Li Yu collected a large amount of premium meat for his own personal stocks.

The environment slowly began to change as they pushed further north. The massive ancient trees became twisted and sickly. The thick humid air carried a strange metallic scent that burned the back of the throat. The natural ambient Qi of the realm felt erratic and corrupted in this specific area. A sudden and deafening roar shattered the uneasy silence of the twisted woods.

The trees directly in front of their formation exploded outward. A massive creature ripped through the thick wood and slammed into the center of the clearing. It was a heavily mutated beast. The creature possessed the elongated body of a centipede but it had the roaring head of a great ape. Thick irregular bone spurs jutted violently out from its carapace at completely random angles. Its multiple eyes were completely milky and leaked a foul smelling black fluid.

The beast exuded the heavy and oppressive aura of the Domain King realm.

The Zhan Clan juniors immediately tightened their formation and readied themselves. The creature lashed out with a massive bladed arm and completely shattered a large boulder nearby by accident. The physical strength behind the blow was terrifying though.

However, it did not pose a real danger to the core leadership of the group. Li Yu was currently at the Paragon level which was one full major stage above the Domain King realm. Zhan Chen was a Sovereign and possessed power that dwarfed them both.

Zhan Chen did not even wait for the creature to initiate a second attack. The heir stepped forward and swung his fist at it. The Qi from the fist crossed the clearing instantly and smashed the massive centipede ape into a mess.

It crashed heavily to the rotting forest floor with black blood sprayed across the dead leaves and sizzled violently against the earth. Li Yu walked forward and stood next to Zhan Chen. They both looked down at the steaming carcass of the beast, the fight itself was entirely trivial but the existence of the creature was a glaring problem.

"Why was it mutated like that?" Li Yu asked while pointing the tip of Gilded Calamity at the irregular jagged bone spurs bursting from its shell.

Zhan Chen crouched down and carefully inspected the corrupted flesh. "A beast that has undergone some strange thing that wasn't natural." He explained with a heavy frown. "Demonic beasts evolve and adapt to their environments naturally over thousands of years. This is not natural evolution. Look at the Qi veins. They are completely erratic and forcefully twisted. Something violently altered this creature."

Li Yu used his divine sense to scan the surrounding twisted trees. The corrupted ambient Qi in the air perfectly matched the sickening energy radiating from the dead beast. This was not just a single freak of nature born with a birth defect. Something within this specific area of the Primal Howl Realm was actively poisoning and twisting the local wildlife.

"We are supposed to control this entire realm." Li Yu noted while recalling the briefing. "There should not be anything here capable of causing such unnatural mutations."

"There shouldn't be." Zhan Chen agreed as he stood back up and wiped the black blood from his heavy blade. "The stationed elders sweep these territories regularly to ensure the balance of the ecosystem is maintained. If a corrupting agent is present, it means something slipped past our defenses or something ancient has awakened beneath the soil."

The other junior disciples gathered around the carcass and murmured nervously among themselves. They were not prepared to deal with unnatural corrupted anomalies that defied the standard laws of the realm. Zhan Chen looked out into the deeply shadowed woods ahead of them with the metallic scent in the air growing undeniably stronger. The heir of the Zhan Clan possessed a calm and calculating mind. He knew the difference between a training hunt and a volatile unknown threat.

"We need to investigate this immediately." Zhan Chen determined while turning to face the rest of the group. "If this corruption spreads, it will ruin the entire hunting preserve and taint some of the food supply of the clan. Spread out and keep your guards up. We are no longer just hunting for meat."

Li Yu tightened his grip on his staff and nodded. The peaceful break he had enjoyed with his family felt like a distant memory now. The Myriad Realms never allowed him to rest for very long. He called his five flying swords into a tighter defensive orbit around his body and prepared to march deeper into the twisted and corrupted woods.