Chapter 24: Demonic Qi Altar

Xiao Yi, on the day he separated from Fu Feng, was immediately taken by the City Lord's Manor personnel for questioning.

When he recounted his experiences, everyone fell silent; they could not at all discern Fu Feng's purpose.

"Why not perform a heavenly secrets divination?" someone suggested, proposing to find someone to calculate the heavenly secrets.

"Impossible." This suggestion was directly rejected.

Currently the Cloud Sea is in great turmoil; the other three Cloud Sea houses, though superficially fighting fiercely, truly reject our side. They can gather no intelligence; all information about them relies on heavenly secrets divination, and we currently have no spare capacity for these trivial matters.

The Demonic Sect is merely a skin disease; using heavenly secrets divination is overkill—this is the consensus of the entire Cloud Sea.

Soon, news arrived that the area where Fu Feng was located had been invaded by a Fifth-grade Cloud Beast, and his death was confirmed.

They would be even less likely to waste an opportunity for heavenly secrets divination.

Thus Xiao Yi was sent undercover again, this time targeting the Qi Brothers of Azure Cloud Island.

Xiao Yi suddenly discovered that their cultivation had actually broken through to Golden Core—how could this be!

Combined with the various previous abnormalities, they could confirm his relationship with the Demonic Sect, and even through provocation discovered that the Qi Brothers possessed a certain trait of Demonic Sect techniques.

"How?"

"Good!" Xiao Yi accepted this mission; he urgently needed to vent his inner anguish.

——

Meanwhile, Fu Feng successfully infiltrated the Demonic Sect again; this time it was even easier, without even needing identity verification, as the guide directly led him into the core area.

For the Demonic Sect member responsible for the guidance, nothing was more persuasive than personally watching the Demonic Qi inside a Fifth-grade Cloud Beast being absorbed.

He personally saw Fu Feng Fu Feng merely wave his hand, and the Fifth-grade Demon Snake was sucked into his body. If he could have watched the whole process, he would have discovered that the Fifth-grade Demon Snake was merely for show—aside from its imposing aura, its interior was like a lump of cotton fluff.

Because it self-destructed to escape, the demon snake consumed most of its body; the remainder relied on the demon soul's forced control to barely reach here. When the demon soul brought about its own demise, the demon snake, injured and forcibly controlled by the demon soul, suffered consciousness collapse, so its body could no longer hold up and collapsed directly before the guide, with the remaining demonic qi, mixed with a bit of cloud qi, being purified by Fu Feng.

As for its display of feeble cultivation, well, in these days, whoever believes it is a fool! The guide thought to himself.

Perfect misunderstanding! Having experienced too many such things in this world, he supposed this was the protagonist's halo! Fu Feng realized he was quickly becoming accustomed to it.

The core appeared like a stationary black vortex, but patient observation would reveal that it was actually slowly rotating.

Where is this? The depths of the Cloud Sea? Fu Feng was full of doubt.

Following the guide, before even entering the vortex, Fu Feng sensed infinite hostility—animosity toward everything.

The guide stopped at a distance of several li from the vortex; he could only go this far, for going further would result in assimilation by the black vortex.

This is also one reason why identity verification is unnecessary: aside from demon souls, anyone else who comes here becomes part of the vortex.

Silently cultivating the Demonic Transformation Grand Technique (its name has been changed, and I also think the original was too stupid.), the swarm of demonic qi vortex immediately surrounded Fu Feng, forming a tiny black vortex outside his body, thus presenting no outward flaw compared to the entities within.

Fu Feng stood still, silently waiting a short while, confirming he felt no abnormality, then boldly proceeded forward.

Within the black vortex exist many demon souls, most of them non‑human in form; judging by their aura, they are all Fifth‑grade or higher. Compared to them, Fu Feng is like a plastic bag fluttering in a typhoon—hard to imagine how they could have broken through the Northern Cloud Sea's defenses without being detected.

In fact, most of those here are natives; when they originally absorbed spiritual energy from outside the realm into the Northern Cloud Sea, they lurked in, accumulating until now they have gathered this many. Only a tiny fraction arrived later, and compared to the other three Cloud Sea houses, the demon souls present here are already few.

The demon souls in the vortex silently absorb the emanating demonic qi; Fu Feng also casually found a spot to sit and purify demonic qi. If there were special effects, one would see his head continuously displaying "+100 points".

"Hiss!" A snake‑shaped demon soul approached from nearby, posturing to cause trouble, since Fu Feng's revealed cultivation was too low, like an ant.

Fu Feng's heart jumped violently; again, damn it, it's a snake—he stared straight ahead, momentarily forgetting that the thing before him was a Fifth‑grade or higher entity.

"Come over and merge with me!" the demon snake commanded in a hoarse voice.

Many gazes from other directions fell upon them, all schadenfreude; no matter who won or lost, it was merely a spectacle.

Only then did Fu Feng feel a lingering fear, feeling he might have become overconfident—having just escaped a calamity at the hands of a Fifth-grade Cloud Beast, he dared to do such a thing.

But he couldn't be cowardly! At least die with dignity!

Perhaps from excessive fright, Fu Feng actually launched the first attack against the demon snake.

He understood in his heart that he must deal with this guy, otherwise he would surely die!

He also had a bit of confidence: the Demonic Transformation Grand Technique, which could neutralize the demonic qi on the demon snake's body, perhaps frightening it.

The Demonic Transformation Grand Technique, following his intent, shifted direction and, like a provocation, tore a piece of demonic qi from the demon snake's body.

The demon snake seemed never to have seen anyone dare to resist it; for a moment it even forgot to absorb demonic qi, exposing its body wrapped in demonic qi.

The snake's head and body were roughly as previously seen, but below it unexpectedly had two human hands, three spider legs, and a pair of wings dragging on the ground.

Fu Feng's sanity plummeted, his heart pounding nonstop.

Sensing Fu Feng's fear, the onlookers' gleeful gazes increased.

"Hiss!" The demon snake split its jaws wide, capable of swallowing them both in one bite.

"Your body!" the demon snake bellowed, its whole body springing up and directly wrapping Fu Feng, intending to fuse him into itself.

"【Hehe! I'm used to this!】 Fu Feng instinctively exerted the Demonic Transformation Grand Technique to the fullest, as if he could hear the demonic qi flowing within his body."

Fu Feng's mind and spirit were instantly pulled into his body, with meridians appearing before his eyes.

Inner vision! This is every cultivator's instinct, yet he only now achieves it; before he could only sense the meridians through which spiritual power flowed, now all meridians lay fully exposed.

And the demonic qi? He saw no demonic qi passing through the meridians—could it be that demonic qi does not travel through meridians?

Upon thinking this, his mind and spirit were immediately shifted to a series of black rivers; he knew this was demonic qi.

It appears demonic qi indeed does not travel through meridians, but instead opens a new pathway from within the body. Following this route, Fu Feng's consciousness traveled all the way to the brain's location, where the demonic qi's terminus lay.

He charged into the sea of consciousness, and a speck of golden light appeared before his eyes.

"【What is this?】"

The next second, he received the answer.

"【Altar】"

Laziness eloped with Diligence, taking the outline along; fortunately the mind was still present, so he rewrote the outline, and Laziness got a beating, likely to behave for two days.