bookpower Chapter 289: First Arrival at Fengyuan
Chapter 289: First Arrival at Fengyuan
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In the desolate desert, the wind howled, carrying with it sand and dust.
Within a charred pit of sand, the Five-Colored Peacock lay unconscious, its aura growing increasingly dim.
Just as the multicolored flames on its body were about to extinguish entirely, a radiant streak of multicolored light shot across the horizon, arriving with breathtaking speed.
"Que'er!"
The Peacock Saintess's moonlit eyes brimmed with tears, her voice filled with grief and anger.
Her once-glorious colorful robes were now in tatters, revealing fair, snow-like skin with faint feather-like patterns etched upon it.
From her smooth back, a pair of tricolored wings extended outwards, each nearly two feet long. Waves of magical power, infused with the unique energy of the peacock lineage, rippled around her, exuding a terrifying spiritual pressure almost at the Nascent Soul stage.
For hundreds of li around, the desert had fallen deathly silent, as if devoid of life.
"Turtle Lan—"
The Peacock Saintess gritted her pearly teeth, her lips bleeding as she bit down in rage.
Crack!
The mana in her body spiraled out of control, and the remnants of her colorful robes disintegrated. Yellow sand, carried by the fierce winds, clung to her immaculate, snow-white body.
Looking at the Five-Colored Peacock, now barely clinging to life, the Peacock Saintess forcibly suppressed her hatred. She sat cross-legged and extended her delicate hand to touch the peacock’s abdomen. Taking out a variety of vials and jars, she began administering medicine to save her spiritual companion.
The Five-Colored Peacock, with its heavenly bloodline, had been nurtured for over two centuries and was the foundation of her cultivation path.
Faced with a difficult choice, the Peacock Saintess could only abandon her pursuit of Lan Chang'an.
"Treasure talismans... beast-taming methods... third-rank puppets..."
"That nailhead arrow magical treasure—capable of soul attack with strength beyond the late Core Formation stage..."
As she tended to the peacock and communicated with its consciousness, more details of the battle began to surface in her mind.
"If this Lan Chang'an isn’t a reincarnated cultivator who has shattered the mysteries of the womb, then he must be a vessel seized by a high-level cultivator."
The Peacock Saintess felt a growing apprehension toward Lan Chang'an and his myriad methods, whose origins were a mystery.
No ordinary cultivator could possess so many skills and techniques, nor such a powerful divine soul.
Only reincarnation and rebirth, or body-seizing and rebuilding, could explain such phenomena.
Such cases weren’t uncommon in the history of the Sacred Sect.
Otherwise, even the strongest prodigies of the Sacred Sect wouldn't have been able to make her suffer such great losses during their early stage of Core Formation.
This was one of the reasons she chose to abandon her pursuit.
Even though Lan Chang'an dared not face her directly, relying on cunning tactics to gain an advantage, she still had to exercise caution.
"Failing to eliminate him this time and letting that scoundrel escape... I fear I won’t have another chance for many years to come."
The Peacock Saintess felt bitter and unwilling, but she was powerless to change the outcome.
During this wartime period, she had missions to complete. It had taken great effort for her to slip behind the enemy’s weaker defenses in the Liang Kingdom.
When she arrived at the Beast Taming Zhou Family, she had avoided alerting them due to their third-rank formations and third-rank guardian beasts, she had only secretly probed.
Now her target had fled deep into the endless desert of Fengyuan Kingdom.
To find such a cunning and cautious old monster again would be like searching for gold in the sand.
Even if she advanced to the Nascent Soul Realm, there was no guarantee she could succeed.
What’s more, the Fengyuan Kingdom had its own powerful Heavenly Master. Once on his territory, even mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivators could do nothing about it.
Although the Peacock Saintess was a Nascent Soul seed and a prodigy of her sect, her personal actions couldn’t sway the grand decisions of the Beast King Valley.
Unless Beast King Valley conquered the entire Righteous Dao Alliance region in the future, their influence wouldn’t extend to the Fengyuan Kingdom.
The Peacock Saintess believed that day wasn’t far off.
...
The vast, boundless desert was a land of flying sand and raging winds.
Lan Chang'an rode his streak of light for two days straight, traversing the endless expanse of sand.
The swirling sands grew fiercer, significantly hindering the flight speed of even Core Formation cultivators.
Whoosh!
Lan Chang'an descended atop a sand dune, sitting cross-legged as he exhaled a long breath of turbid air to recover.
"By cutting off the wings of the Five-Colored Peacock and inflicting severe poison upon it, the Peacock Saintess’s fighting strength and tracking ability will all be drastically cut down."
The Five-Colored Peacock’s agility and multi-colored spiritual light had been the greatest challenges.
Without this heavenly-grade spiritual beast, even if the Peacock Saintess managed to follow, she would pose much less of a threat.
This was why Lan Chang'an had targeted the peacock.
The Peacock Saintess herself posed an even greater danger, possibly carrying Nascent Soul-level trump cards.
Through prior calculations, Lan Chang'an had determined that even with the strength of his fourth-life Nascent Soul reincarnation, a life-and-death battle with her carried significant risk.
Moreover, killing the Saintess would inevitably provoke the top echelons of Beast King Valley into action.
The consequences of killing a sect prodigy were worlds apart from killing an ordinary Core Formation cultivator.
Such risks far outweighed any potential rewards and weren’t worth taking.
Since the Saintess’s power was overwhelming and her methods perilous, provoking her was unwise. Instead, he had temporarily incapacitated her by taking away her closest support.
Cutting off her wings, both literally and figuratively, would make her feel pain from the bottom of her heart.
Lan Chang'an swallowed a few pills to restore his energy and blood.
"As long as I’ve kept the Immortal Golden Dan, the Xuanmu Vine Gourd, and the secret of longevity hidden, there’s no major problem."
He performed a quick divination, obtaining a general sense of the future.
The techniques he had revealed during the battle were merely external tools, unrelated to his core secrets.
In this fight, he hadn’t unleashed his true power. The golden core mana from his Evergreen Technique remained concealed, even during his clash with the Peacock Saintess.
For top-tier factions like the Six Demonic Sects, the secrets of the Core Formation Realm were of little interest.
Only opportunities at the Nascent Soul level or higher—those tied to mid-to-late Nascent Soul advancement or spiritual treasures—would truly draw their attention and justify exhaustive investigations.
As for the Xuanmu Vine Gourd in his possession, its divine properties naturally concealed itself from divination, there was no need to worry about it.
That being said, the vine’s concealment applied only to itself, not to random bystanders.
Lan Chang'an hadn’t refined the vine or formed a bond with it. How could its innate properties protect him?
Even if he did refine it in the future, the gourd vine’s passive attributes wouldn’t necessarily grant him continuous protection.
Half an hour later.
After reviewing and calculating the situation, Lan Chang'an confirmed that fleeing to Fengyuan Kingdom had ensured his relative safety.
The Fengyuan Kingdom was too far from the frontlines of the war.
For Beast King Valley to conquer Jing, Chen, Feng, Heng etc. kingdoms and to stabilize their territories, would take considerable time. Only then might they consider moving toward Fengyuan Kingdom.
The Fengyuan Kingdom, situated deep within the endless desert, was a harsh and barren land.
Even if elite forces of the demonic sects attempted to invade, they would struggle to adapt to the environment and would hardly pose a threat to the vast expanse of the sand-filled lands.
The Fengyuan Kingdom was located within the interior of this desert, occupying green oases, mountain ranges, and marshlands scattered amidst the harsh terrain.
The country was already large, comparable in size to Feng Kingdom’s cultivation world.
In fact, the entire expanse of the desert surrounding the Fengyuan Kingdom was over ten times its size!
To the north lay even harsher and more perilous environments, nearing the borders of the Great Qing Territory.
Such a remote and inhospitable land...
Lan Chang'an doubted that even if Beast King Valley conquered the entire Righteous Dao Alliance region, they would have much interest in Fengyuan Kingdom.
At least not within the next hundred years.
"Enough of this—I’ll change my approach to travel!"
The endless sandstorms and relentless dust had left Lan Chang'an both mentally and physically exhausted. His nerves were taut from the constant vigilance.
He decided it was time to adopt a more comfortable method of travel.
Extending his finger toward the spatial storage ring on his hand, he summoned a peculiar sand beast artifact.
The artifact resembled a large, crocodile-like creature with short limbs and a grayish-yellow carapace.
Lan Chang'an performed a series of incantation gestures, infusing it with mana. The sand beast artifact expanded to a length of nearly two zhang, standing as tall as an average adult.
This was a sand beast cart, crafted from the body of a second-rank sand beast.
The sand beast cart’s top opened to reveal a hatch. With a flash of movement, Lan Chang'an entered the interior.
Inside, the space was cramped, roughly the size of a small restroom.
Thankfully, it was just large enough for one person to lie down and rest comfortably.
Sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, Lan Chang'an began channeling mana to control the sand beast artifact, which started speeding across the desert’s surface.
Even if it encountered a sandstorm or sank beneath the layers of sand, the sand beast cart could still move, though at a slower pace.
"Ahh... much better," Lan Chang'an sighed in contentment.
Inside the sand beast cart, he mixed himself a chilled fruit juice to ease his mood in the stifling desert heat.
This type of artifact, designed to resemble a sand beast, emitted a similar aura to that of desert-dwelling creatures. Its aura blended seamlessly with the natural environment, making it much less likely to attract the attention of sandworms or other desert beasts.
Meanwhile, his Earth Burrowing Rat burrowed through the sand ahead of him, scouting the path and warning of any potential dangers.
...
Two or three months later.
In the vast desert, Lan Chang'an had skillfully evaded numerous dangers, occasionally hunting down a few reckless sand beasts to serve as wild game for his meals.
The distance to Fengyuan Kingdom was growing shorter by the day.
"In about ten more days, I’ll reach Fengyuan Kingdom’s nearest settlement—the Scorpion Desolate City," Lan Chang'an estimated as he adjusted his position on the map he checked daily.
The Fengyuan Kingdom, centered around the Ice and Snow Sacred Mountain, was home to eight major tribes. These tribes had each established one of the eight desolate cities.
These desolate cities were built in relatively habitable oases, where the environment had been modified to resist natural disasters and sandstorms, standing firm for tens of thousands of years.
Like branches extending from a central trunk, these cities were distributed across the Fengyuan Kingdom, facilitating trade and communication.
The strength of these eight tribes was comparable to that of Core Formation sects in the Liang Kingdom.
Since ancient times, the tribes of Fengyuan Kingdom had worshiped and revered the Ice and Snow Sacred Mountain, offering tributes to gain its divine protection and thus maintaining a foothold in the harsh desert.
Squeak!
The Earth Burrowing Rat, which had been scouting ahead, had discovered something unusual and was sending out a warning.
"What’s the situation?"
Lan Chang'an remained calm. By this point, he had already passed through the most dangerous stretches of the journey.
In the desert regions closer to the Fengyuan Kingdom, powerful sand beasts were rare.
Instead, the more common threat came from sand bandits.
And indeed, as Lan Chang'an extended his spiritual sense, the scene several li ahead became clear to him.
A group of sand bandits clad in leather armor and beast-hide robes was attacking a medium-sized sand beast cart, which stretched seven to eight zhang in length.
"Big brother, don’t damage them too much! The female cultivators of the Xuan Yin Pavilion are all beauties, skilled in music and dance."
"Heh, brothers, once we’ve had our fun, we can sell them for a fortune on the black market!"
The sand bandits consisted of two Fake Dan cultivators and five or six Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Leading them were two dark-skinned men who bore a striking resemblance to one another—the infamous Black Scorpion Brothers.
Notorious in the area, the Black Scorpion Brothers had committed countless atrocities, from robbery and murder to the abuse of female cultivators and human trafficking.
Inside the medium-sized sand beast cart, four or five female cultivators, all fair-skinned and beautiful, were defending themselves. They wielded various musical instruments as their magical tools—qin, flutes, and xiao—unleashing radiant beams of sound and waves of resonant power to repel the attackers.
However, the defensive formation of the sand beast cart was flickering and on the verge of collapse.
"Sisters, hold on! Once Elder Jiang neutralizes the poison, she’ll surely defeat the Black Scorpion Brothers!"
Among the Xuan Yin Pavilion cultivators was a Fake Dan female cultivator, tall and muscular with a bare upper body. Her booming voice carried as she pounded on a large waist drum, unleashing bursts of beastly roars filled with baleful energy. The soundwaves caused the bandits nearby to tremble, their blood churning and their nerves fraying.
"I thought Xuan Yin Pavilion cultivators were all supposed to be graceful and dainty beauties..."
From the other side of the battlefield, Lan Chang'an’s small sand beast cart quietly maneuvered around, keeping a safe distance from the Black Scorpion Brothers and their bandits.
The burly female cultivator, Miao Jing, was a rare outlier among Xuan Yin Pavilion disciples. Born with immense strength, she had chosen a drum-type musical magical treasure as her weapon.
The other three female cultivators in the sand beast cart were more in line with Xuan Yin Pavilion’s usual reputation—willowy waists, pale complexions, and long black hair.
Two of the women were late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators, while the last was dressed in a white robe. This white-robed female cultivator exuded an air of serene elegance, like a lotus blooming in clear water. However, her face was pale, her forehead darkened, and her lips trembled as she sat cross-legged in the sand cart, attempting to heal herself.
This white-robed woman was none other than the Elder Jiang that the burly cultivator Miao Jing had mentioned—Jiang Ruotong, the genius of Xuan Yin Pavilion.
"Jiang Ruotong, a musical prodigy from Xuan Yin Pavilion, with True Dan cultivation... and now she’s poisoned," Lan Chang'an mused as his spiritual sense swept over her, recognizing her identity.
More precisely, it was his fourth-life Master Lihuo who recognized this woman.
Jiang Ruotong had once been renowned as a genius of Xuan Yin Pavilion, both talented and beautiful.
One of Master Lihuo’s descendants, a disciple of the Flame Departing Palace, had even pursued Jiang Ruotong romantically.
At one point, the Xuan Yin Pavilion’s Pavilion Master had learned of this and sought to arrange a marriage between Jiang Ruotong and Master Lihuo’s descendant.
After reviewing Jiang Ruotong’s background, Master Lihuo had agreed, finding her a worthy match for his descendant. He had met with the Xuan Yin Pavilion Master to finalize the engagement.
However, during the war caused by the Golden Sun Sect’s northern expansion, Xuan Yin Pavilion was the first Liang sect to fall.
Later, the pavilion relocated to the Fengyuan Kingdom, and the Flame Departing Palace faced its own crisis under the pressure of the Golden Sun Sect’s invasion. The marriage arrangement was abandoned.
In the years since, Jiang Ruotong had lived up to her reputation as a prodigy, successfully forming her True Dan.
...
"Fellow Daoist passing by, could you lend us a hand? Xuan Yin Pavilion will surely reward you generously in the future!"
Miao Jing, bare-armed and beating her waist drum, noticed the small sand beast cart passing on the sidelines and shouted her plea.
The cart was surrounded by a concealing barrier, making it impossible for her to probe the identity of its occupant. However, she was certain the owner was at least a Fake Dan cultivator.
"Your Excellency should not be nosy! But if you’re interested, help us out, and we, the Black Scorpion Brothers, can sell you one of these Xuan Yin Pavilion women at a discount!"
The Black Scorpion Brothers had also noticed the small sand beast cart and alternated between threats and temptations to dissuade its occupant from interfering.
Unbeknownst to them, the Xuan Yin Pavilion sand beast cart still held a poisoned True Dan cultivator, Jiang Ruotong.
"Don’t worry. I, Xu, will not intervene," Lan Chang'an replied in a calm, scholarly tone, transmitting his voice outward.
"Smart choice!"
Relieved, the Black Scorpion Brothers grinned wickedly and intensified their attacks.
Inside the Xuan Yin Pavilion’s sand beast cart, a sudden spurt of blood erupted from Jiang Ruotong’s mouth. Dark blood patterns appeared on her forehead, and her condition deteriorated rapidly.
"Elder Jiang!"
Miao Jing and the other four female cultivators paled in terror, their faces full of worry.
"What’s happening? I gave Elder Jiang the Scarlet Wind Antidote Pill!" Miao Jing stammered in panic.
Jiang Ruotong had been hunting exotic beasts in the desert when she was bitten by a strange insect and poisoned.
Sweeping his spiritual sense over her, Lan Chang'an’s lips twitched in disbelief, suppressing the urge to facepalm.
Recalling when he reformed his Core and impersonated the Xuan Yin Pavilion disciple named Liu Qingyan back then, he couldn’t help but scold via voice transmission:
"Ridiculous!"
"She’s afflicted with Yin Chill Poison, and you gave her a heat-purging antidote? Are you trying to kill her faster?"