Is that a Wisp?

Air Needle!

Summoning the Cloud Whale at its maximum size, Krune began to unleash the Air Needle onto the ground, beginning to drill up a hole. As it was a static target, the true extent of the Air Needle's potency was displayed, boring deep into the earth.

He constantly did the same for the next three hours until Chen Xue returned. She was exhausted, panting as she slumped on the ground, swallowing three Nutrition Pills to replenish her energy reserves.

In fact, Krune was also consuming them once every 30 minutes. Even though the Air Needle didn't consume any of his energy, he was still making the Cloud Whale hover in the air. That did consume some of his energy.

Moreover, while fighting before, he had summoned and retracted it many times, exhausting him greatly. So, he was recovering from that.

"What are you planning to do here?" Chen Xue asked in curiosity.

"Making a hole deep enough to bury those two Demon Arms," Krune replied, pointing at the two rings that he hadn't even touched all this time. "The Demon is able to sense their position no matter how far they are. So, taking them with us is dangerous. Plus, if we were to destroy them, the Demon would be alerted of our existence in advance. He'll be able to feel our powers."

"It's too soon for it to know about us. After all, my predecessor was killed by the Demon. So, it knows the Cloud Whale," he continued.

"I see…" Chen Xue nodded, turning silent after that. She then excused herself and headed to check up on Wang Hao.

Krune continued to bore into the ground until he heard the sounds of a gushing river through his Sonic Radar, "There's that underground stream."

Without any hesitation, he used a tree branch to pick up the two rings and dropped them into the hole, with an interval of an hour between each. This way, both the rings would be transported somewhere far away.

To completely kill a Demon, destroying all its Demon Arms was also necessary. Otherwise, it would one day be able to revive through the Demon Arms once it had collected enough life force. However, destroying them now would alert the Demon.

So, Krune sent them through the underground river. This way, even if the Demon noticed them moving at a rapid speed, it wouldn't be able to reclaim them. After all, for that to happen, it would need to dig into the ground until it reached the underground river.

By then, the rings would have gone somewhere else. Even if they were to get stuck somewhere, it still wouldn't be easy to dig into the ground. After all, they didn't have the Cloud Whale's Air Needle.

The amount of time and effort they would spend on this would only give him more time to plan, train, and target the Demon.

Then again, once the Demon had been killed, Krune was confident of finding them using his Soul Needle. Hence this plan.

After putting both the rings into the hole, Krune covered it up, filling up the entirety of the hole. This way, there wouldn't be any traces of his activities.

With that done, he arrived before the Yin Dragon, one that was sleeping right now. As it was still unable to move, he arrived atop its head, placing his hand on it to feel the energy circulating within, 'I see. So, the thing I had done during the creation of the Imperial Arms for Wang Hao and Chen Xue, a similar thing has happened in the Yin Dragon as well.'

As it had been alive for more than two centuries, the Yin Dragon had been storing enough energy in itself that it had begun to condense a Nightmare Core on its own. On top of that, this core had been developing to such an extent that it had reached peak capacity.

Krune then arrived before it, smiling as he asked, "So, Yin Dragon, what do you want in life?"

"What… do you mean?" The Yin Dragon frowned, snorting as it replied, "No matter what you scheme, I won't fall for it. Your attacks aren't strong enough to kill me anyway."

"You sure about that?" Krune smiled, gently summoning his Soul Needle, waving it before the Yin Dragon, causing it to shudder for a moment upon seeing the energy fluctuation radiating from it.

In shock, it muttered, "A fragment of the sun?"

Since the Sun Stone was no different, it had assumed that the Soul Needle was something that had been fragmented from the sun. Well… that's what it thought anyway.

"I hadn't used this because I thought it would be a waste to kill a beast like you," Krune replied, asking once again, "So, what do you want to do in life?"

"What are you planning right now?" The Yin Dragon didn't relent, asking without being flustered in the least. Nevertheless, its eyes darted towards the Soul Needle from time to time.

"Well, if you pledge your loyalty to me, I'll make you evolve into a higher version. Your core has attained its limit, right?" He smiled, shocking the Yin Dragon.

"H-How do you know about that? Impossible! Research related to that had been abandoned more than a couple decades ago." It iterated in alarm.

"Wang Hao, Chen Xue. Show it!" Krune said when the two assumed their Yin Beast forms. Before, the Yin Dragon had been wrapped in flames. So, it hadn't seen Wang Hao's Yin Beast form.

As for the wings they were using to fly, it had just assumed that to be a power of their respective Imperial Arms.

"Y-Yin Beasts? How? Their auras are just like humans." The Yin Dragon was alarmed.

"Are you convinced now?" Krune smiled. "If you submit to me, you'll become a grand existence revered by the Daxia Empire. Not only that, you'll become even stronger than your current self."

"Who exactly are you, sir?" The Yin Dragon gazed at Krune properly for the first time, observing his figure oozing wisdom and knowledge, possessing the presence of a peerless expert that had seen through the secrets of the world.

"I'm Liu Heng, future Emperor of the Daxia Empire.." Krune smiled.