Bloodthistle Yao Mountain, the peak of a hill shrouded in bloody mist.

“It’s happening again….” Mu Xi sighed.

The intermittent whispering seemed to have a strange and terrifying power. The sound was like an invisible blade digging into one’s soul, ripping it apart. 

Mu Xi had experience with this, so he immediately sealed off his senses and used a secret technique to protect his soul. Even so, he felt rather unpleasant. 

He didn’t hesitate to take out a crystalline, transparent, fiery-red pendant and clasp it in his palm. A warm current instantly coursed through him, dispelling his discomfort. 

“If not for this Qilin Blood Jade Pendant, it would be really hard to take that noise,” Mu Xi muttered to himself.

He wore snow-white robes, with elegant, delicate features, and when he opened and closed his eyes, they flashed with starlight. He was tall, thin, and graceful, like a pine tree or stalk of bamboo.

“How are you?” He turned and glanced at the middle-aged man beside him. 

“I can endure,” said the middle-aged man gruffly. He looked wealthy and important, and he was clad in dark robes. He was big and tall, with rough-hewn features, as if someone had carved them with an ax, and he currently looked pained. 

“Hah, if any of Starcliff Academy’s disciples were here to see the man they worship above all others, his Excellency Pu Yi, looking as if he were constipated, I’m afraid they’d be overcome with sadness,” Mu Xi teased heartlessly. 

The tall, stalwart man in black was none other than Pu Yi, the vice palace master of Starcliff Academy, one of the Great Zhou’s Ten Great Academies. He was a peak fourth-level Grandmaster. 

Despite Mu Xi’s taunts, Pu Yi didn’t get angry. He just smiled bitterly.

Mu Xi looked around twenty, but Pu Yi dared not treat him with disrespect. After all, this white-robed young man was one of the Great Zhou’s nine non-Zhou kings, the Mountain-Suppressing King!

He became a Grandmaster at twenty. When he became a Xiantian Martial Ancestor at twenty-three, the emperor proclaimed him a king. From that day forth, his name had spread throughout the nation. He was a peerless, monstrous talent. 

In the past, the Featherflow King, Yue Shichan was the youngest of the nine non-Zhou kings.

She became a Grandmaster at fifteen and a Xiantian Martial Ancestor at seventeen. She received her title at nineteen, and was revered as the type of genius that only graced the Great Zhou once in a millennium. 

But of late, Mu Xi had replaced her as the youngest of the nine non-Zhou Kings; Yue Shichan was five years older than him. 

It was true that his accomplishments, his talent, and his cultivation all seemed inferior to the Featherflow King’s, but no one dared look down on him. 

After all, a twenty-three-year-old non-Zhou king was enough to make the vast majority of older-generation Grandmasters feel ashamed of their own inferiority! 

“Young king, by now, don't you think you ought to tell me what exactly we’ve come to Bloodthistle Yao Mountain to do?” Pu Yi endured the pain and asked. 

Mu Xi thought for a moment, then said, “According to the intelligence I’ve received, the wilderness of Bloodthistle Yao Mountain hides a mysterious ancient ruin. It’s highly likely that a precious treasure is sealed there.”

“A mysterious ruin?” Despite himself, Pu Yi was stunned. “So that’s why! No wonder people have come from Kongtong and Luyang Academies too.” 

“They’re not the only ones who showed up.” Mu Xi’s eyes flashed with threads of starlight. “I have a certain premonition that this trip to Bloodthistle Yao Mountain is going to be lively indeed…”

His tone sounded somewhat eager. 

……

Before long, the intermittent whispering disappeared. Ning Sihua and Shen Jiusong both sighed in relief. 

When they saw Su Yi just standing there as if none of this had anything to do with him, they were both stunned. Did that really not affect him at all?

“Fellow Daoist, did you sense something?” Ning Sihua said thoughtfully.

Su Yi sounded unperturbed. “If my deductions are on the mark, that whispering was actually the energy fluctuations of a restriction formation.” 

“The power fluctuations of a formation?” Ning Sihua’s eyes narrowed. “Then what tier do you think the formation is? And what realm was the person who placed it in?”

Su Yi shook his head. “It’s hard to say, but what I can say with certainty is that the restriction is highly likely to have been placed deep within the mountain. I doubt the one who placed it had a cultivation beneath the Spirit Dao.” 

A Spirit Dao cultivator? Ning Sihua’s heart shook.

The path of cultivation was divided into four great stages: the Martial, Origin, Spirit, and Profound Daos.

The Four Realms of the Martial Dao were collectively called the Realm of Mortality. 

Only after entering the Origin Dao could one truly call themselves a cultivator, and only then could one subsist on daylight and morning dew, abstaining from food.

The Origin Dao was divided into three realms: Grain Avoidance, Origin Palace, and Gathering Stars.

In the Azure Continent, just stepping into the Origin Dao was already enough for others to call you an Earthly Immortal. In the eyes of the common folk, such experts were practically divinities. 

Throughout the entire Great Zhou, only a tiny handful of Earthly Immortals existed. 

Most were dispersed between the Ten Great Academies, imperial palace, Hidden Dragon Sword Sect, and the Jade Capital. 

But the Spirit Dao was above the Origin Dao! 

Those who entered the Spirit Dao were called “advanced cultivators”. The Origin Dao was split into three realms as well: Spiritual Manifestation, Spiritual Integration, and Spiritual Revolution 

Never mind the Great Zhou; even in the vast, seemingly limitless Azure Continent, Spirit Dao cultivators were extremely rare. 

To the best of Ning Sihua’s knowledge, only the continent’s one true cultivation nation, the Great Xia, had a few misty rumors regarding Spirit Dao cultivation.

Yet now, in Bloodthistle Yao Mountain, there was a mysterious restriction formation Su Yi suspected was the work of a Spirit Dao cultivator. How could Ning Sihua not feel stunned?

Meanwhile, Shen Jiusong felt a bit bewildered. “Young Lord Su, might I ask what you mean by ‘Spirit Dao cultivation’?”

“It’s the path above the Origin Dao,” Su Yi said offhandedly. 

Shen Jiusong was momentarily dazed. Then, he gasped, and his scalp went numb. 

A marquis like him was naturally well aware that the term “Earthly Immortals” referred to those cultivators who had stepped into the Origin Dao.

However, this was his first time hearing that there was a path above the Origin Dao!

He subconsciously glanced at Ning Sihua, only to see that her expression was normal. Obviously, she’d long since learned of this secret. 

For a while, his heart surged with uncontrollable emotion. He suddenly realized that Ning Sihua and the seventeen-year-old Su Yi both had secrets, secrets he couldn’t possibly comprehend!

“Let’s go.” Su Yi didn’t want to waste any more time, so he forged straight ahead. The whole group instantly sprang into motion.

Throughout their journey, they still ran into occasional waves of rampaging spirit beasts, but although killing them was a bit troublesome, they were no threat. 

Furthermore, Spiritmartial Marquis Chen Zheng’s beast-skin map helped them avoid numerous miasma-covered, toxic stretches of mountain. 

Another six hours passed.

Shen Jiusong was starting to look exhausted; he’d expended an enormous amount of energy. 

Throughout their journey, the one who stepped in to kill the various spirit beasts was practically always him. Ning Sihua occasionally helped out too. 

As for Su Yi, he just stood there, hands behind his back. He’d yet to kill so much as a single beast.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to help, nor was it simple laziness. 

He was saving his power and waiting for spirit beasts tiers eight and up to appear. 

However, throughout their journey thus far, they’d only seen about a dozen tier-seven spirit beasts. They’d yet to see so much as the shadow of a tier-eight beast. 

This left Su Yi at a loss for words. 

“Let’s rest here for a moment. On the road ahead, leave the killing up to me,” said Ning Sihua in her clear voice. 

Shen Jiusong instantly relaxed, and he didn’t refuse, either. He just took out a bottle of pills and started replenishing his spent energy.

Su Yi, meanwhile, stood atop a nearby boulder and surveyed their surroundings. 

All he saw was red smog blotting out the dome of the heavens, stretching as far as the eye could see. Staring off into the distance, wisps of red mist rose from the landscape and drifted into the sky, gathering there and casting the world below in darkness. 

It’s a pity; the spiritual medicines I saw along the way have all been tainted by bloody, baleful energy, rendering them unusable… Su Yi couldn’t help but find it a real shame. 

It wasn’t just the spiritual medicines; the bodies of the spirit beasts they encountered had been tainted by that very same baleful energy. Some of the spiritual materials they otherwise could have harvested from the corpses were tainted and worthless, although others were still good. 

He retracted his gaze, then took his wicker chair from his black jade pendant. He leaned back and closed his eyes in repose. 

When she saw this, Ning Sihua couldn’t help but find it funny. This guy sure knows how to enjoy himself! He even carries a wicker chair with him everywhere he goes….

Time slipped by.

Two hours later, Shen Jiusong had recovered most of his energy, and the group prepared to set off once more.

Suddenly, a low rumbling reminiscent of thunder resounded throughout heaven and earth―

It was as if the entirety of Bloodthistle Yao Mountain were shaking. The hills shook, and the waters shifted. Even the boulders and vegetation quivered.

Immediately afterward, the agitated roars of spirit beasts rang out, one after another. They sounded panicked and frenzied. 

Rumble! Boom! Boom! 

It was like an earthquake; the low rumbling shook the ground beneath their feet, and countless boulders fell from higher up the mountain, flattening trees and stirring up clouds of dust.

Su Yi immediately rose from his chair and surveyed the area. After sensing his surroundings briefly, he said, “The vibrations seem to come from deep within the mountain. Don’t tell me that five day ago, Chen Zheng ventured onto the mountain to investigate on his own because he sensed this very strange phenomenon?”

Ning Sihua nodded. “That’s highly likely.” 

“This is getting more and more interesting. The lower section of Bloodthistle Yao Mountain is most likely sealing an extremely terrifying power, while the eerie whispering we heard earlier presumably is the result of the restriction formation’s power fluctuations.”

Su Yi’s gaze was deep and distant as he made his judgment. “There’s only one explanation. The restriction formation deep within the mountain was placed to seal that incredibly terrifying power!

“In other words, the mountain’s recent strangeness is highly likely to originate from the power sealed beneath the ground. It’s trying to escape the restraint of the formation suppressing it!”

Despite themselves, Ning Sihua and Shen Jiusong were visibly stunned. They hadn’t anticipated that Su Yi’s senses would be so keen or that he’d be so perceptive and knowledgeable. 

From the sound alone, he could tell that the unearthly whispers resulted from the formation’s power fluctuations. 

And now, from that low, thunderous rumbling, he could tell that a terrifying power was sealed deep within the mountain.

Furthermore, he’d taken his deductions a step further. He’d figured out that the formation had been placed there to suppress whatever that terrifying power was!

Neither Ning Sihua nor Shen Jiusong could have ever imagined any of this, much less deduced it. Of course they were stunned!

For a moment, they couldn’t help but celebrate that they’d invited Su Yi to join them! Otherwise, they likely never would have guessed what mysteries hid behind these strange and eerie phenomena.

Ning Sihua couldn’t help but ask, “Fellow Daoist, do you know the nature of that sealed power?”