Martial Peak

More than a dozen kilometers behind Yang Kai, Tao Yang and his group had been walking forward carefully, but after quite some time, they still had not encountered a single Evil Spirit, which caused them no small confusion.

“Why is it so peaceful here?” Rong Mei muttered under her breath as she frowned slightly.

Tao Yang also looked about suspiciously before suddenly wearing an aghast expression and quickly said, “I’m afraid all the Evil Spirits here have already been cleared.”

“In this outermost section of the Evil Cavern with a number of Evil Spirits lurking about and few people, who could have swept away all of them already?” Rong Mei laughed dismissively but suddenly thought of something. Then she turned to Tao Yang in shock, “Senior Brother, you mean...”

“En. We haven’t encountered others coming back from the inner section so these Evil Spirits must have been killed by someone in front of us.” Tao Yang’s gaze became sharp, “It seems like I still underestimated his ability. It seems like not only is he very strong, he also cultivates some powerful Martial Skills that can greatly restrain these Evil Spirits, otherwise, even if his strength was incredible he wouldn’t have been able to clear all of them out so quickly.”

Tao Yang’s three Juniors all wore shocked expressions, and none of them dared to underestimate Yang Kai anymore. Some dread even welled up in their hearts.

...

Yang Kai held his Purifying Spirit Bottle in front of a group of Evil Spirit Essences for a long time and slowly injected his True Qi, yet it failed to inhale it.

He wrinkled his brow in confusion for quite some time.

Observing carefully for a long time, he suddenly understood. His Purifying Spirit Bottle had apparently reached full capacity, so it was impossible for it to absorb any more Evil Spirit Essence.

Thinking of this, Yang Kai shook his head as a wry smile appeared on his face. He reached out and sucked the Evil Spirit Essence in front of him into his palm before absorbing it directly into his meridians.

Using his pure True Yang Yuan Qi to refine it, this Evil Spirit Essence was soon purified and turned into a lump of pure energy, which was quickly devoured by his Unyielding Golden Skeleton.

[Seems easy enough...]

Swallowing this batch of energy, his Unyielding Golden Skeleton suddenly let out a strange feeling. Like it was extremely hungry for this energy, and it seeked more in dissatisfaction.

Seems like this refined Evil Spirit Essence had very great appeal to his Unyielding Golden Skeleton. Aware of this, Yang Kai couldn’t help but grin happily.

The time he had refined Le Yu’s Purple Demonic Spirit Fire also gave him a similar feeling, so Yang Kai had guessed that this place would be a paradise for his Unyielding Golden Skeleton, and now it seemed like it really was so.

In any case, since refining this Evil Spirit Essence was very easy for him, Yang Kai simply went ahead and inhaled all twenty of them from his Purifying Spirit Bottle into his meridians.

Less than half a quarter of an hour later, he had completely refined these twenty Evil Spirit Essences.

Immediately, a joyous feeling welled up from the Unyielding Golden Skeleton, which gave Yang Kai a slight sense of euphoria.

The only disappointment was that these essences only increased his strength and nothing else, no enlightenment, Martial Skills, or even an increase in Spiritual Energy.

Even so, Yang Kai grinned, quite satisfied with this result. After all, he knew that special Evil Spirit Essences were quite rare inside the Evil Cavern, so finding one was essentially a matter of one’s luck.

Just as he was about to continue his exploration, Yang Kai felt a fluttering in his mind, and he turned to stare in a particular direction, his brow furrowing.

Frowning in thought for a moment, Yang Kai quickly rushed back in that direction.

Half an hour later sounds of battle reached his ears. Up ahead he could see flashes of light from Martial Skills.

Looking towards these flashes, Yang Kai saw a number of young men and women gathered together fighting a few Evil Spirits under the leadership of one of one young girl.

The Martial Skills these people were using had a certain evil aura to them, and all of their hands were unusually pale, akin to ghost claws that seemed to give off a deep chill. Observing, Yang Kai noticed that each time one of these people launched a Martial Skill a piercing howl was emitted as it tore through the air towards the Evil Spirits.

These Martial Skills, to a certain extent, were similar to the Evil Spirits themselves, creating a semi-transparent ghost like phantoms with unclear features, giving off a grim and menacing auras.

What truly caught Yang Kai’s attention though was that the Evil Spirits this group was facing were not the same as the ones he had encountered before.

Until now, the Evil Spirits he came across were all green coloured, but the ones here now were bright blood red, which gave them a more malevolent appearance.

Moreover, these red Evil Spirits’ strength was undoubtedly stronger than the green ones. Even their bodies had a more corporeal look.

Therefore, even though the number of people here was larger than Tao Yang’s group, they would still take quite some time to achieve victory.

Four or five red Evil Spirits gathered around, screaming and howling, seeming to resonate and communicate with one another, before taking unified action, advancing and retreating in a half-organized fashion, making them far more formidable and troublesome than green Evil Spirits.

However, this group of young cultivators still clearly held the advantage. After a while, one of the red Evil Spirit’s gradually dimmed and was quickly defeated, which cemented the battle’s balance in favor of the cultivators.

Repeatedly unleashing various grim Martial Skills, the group attacked the red Evil Spirits with overwhelming force.

Unexpectedly, one of the red Evil Spirits on the verge of dying actually bypassed the crowd and rushed directly towards Yang Kai.

Yang Kai frowned but did not dodge, interested to see just how strong these red Evil Spirits were. Lifting his hand, he sent a True Qi infused palm towards this oncoming enemy.

Striking it head on, the red Evil Spirit shrieked and instantly collapsed, leaving behind a group of Evil Spirit Essence that floated in front of Yang Kai.

This group of Evil Spirit Essence was clearly superior to the ones Yang Kai had previously obtained.

Yang Kai had no intention of collecting this Evil Spirit Essence but perhaps because it had just recently tasted such energy, his Unyielding Golden Skeleton acting without restraint and immediately inhaled this Evil Spirit Essence.

Yang Kai couldn’t help being stunned, feeling slightly helpless.

Nearby, the group of cultivators who had originally seen Yang Kai use a single move to kill an Evil Spirit were somewhat shocked and were equally surprised when he had unscrupulously absorbed the Evil Spirit Essence.

“Hey, my friend, don’t you think you’re acting a bit unruly?” A gloomy youth stood out and quipped while glaring gloomily at Yang Kai.

“En, apologies, it was unintentional.” Yang Kai knew there was no point trying to talk his way out of this so he frankly admitted his wrong.

“Unintentional?” The young man sneered, “After blatantly absorbing our Evil Spirit Essence you still want to claim you didn’t mean to?”

Although Yang Kai’s previous strike had surprised him a moment ago, he wasn’t afraid. After all, they had seven or eight people on their side. What’s more, Yang Kai’s argument really wasn’t very convincing.

What wasn’t intentional about plundering other people’s treasures in front of their faces?

Listening to their comrade, the others of this young man’s group also moved forward and coldly glared at Yang Kai, clearly unwilling to let the matter drop.

Only the young girl who seemed to be their leader remained still. Her beautiful face gawked towards Yang Kai, her eyes flashed a trace of panic, and her tender body involuntarily shivered slightly.

She quickly remembered that terrible torture and unbearable suffering.

“Friend, you should consider your situation well, although our Ghost King Valley isn’t a supreme power, we’re also not so easily bullied.” The same youth glared at Yang Kai as a sneer appeared on his face.

Yang Kai frowned, lightly replying, “I’ll compensate you.”

“Compensate? How do you place to compensate us?” That youth snorted.

“No need,” Yang Kai didn’t have enough time to reply before the young girl hiding behind the crowd walked up and said. Her eyes contained a faint trace of panic as she said towards Yang Kai, “You don’t need to compensate us.”

“Junior Sister...” The young man looked towards the young girl in surprise, as he did not understand why she would suddenly say so.

“I know him! Don’t quarrel over such small matters.” The young girl said indifferently, although a tinge of red appeared on her face as she stared towards Yang Kai. More memories of the absurd acts she and Zi Mo had done to ‘seduce’ this youth before suddenly popping up in her mind.

[That stupid woman Zi Mo, she really convinced me he had some kind of disability but in the end we just ended up allowing him to take advantage of us for free!]

“Junior Sister knows him?” The young man couldn’t help but feel surprised as he glanced back and forth between her and Yang Kai.

“En, he saved my life once.” The girl finally showed a light smile, but this cold woman’s smile somehow seemed a bit stiff.

“Young Miss Leng, we meet again.” Yang Kai smiled back at the girl.

This girl, shockingly, was Ghost King Valley’s Leng Shan!

Zi Mo and Leng Shan both had marks left on their Souls by Yang Kai’s Divine Sense, so Yang Kai could feel their presence as long as they were close enough, still, Yang Kai didn’t expect to meet Leng Shan here.

“En, we meet again.” Leng Shan nodded slightly, relieved in her heart that it seemed that this brat didn’t intend to say anything about their past encounter, nor did he intend to torture her.

Although she had understood long ago that Yang Kai wasn’t actually malicious in nature, Leng Shan still couldn’t help but be on edge around him.

Seeing how both of them were really familiar, the other Ghost King Valley disciples relaxed, and the hostility of the gloomy youth also reduced significantly.

“You should first refine that Evil Spirit Essence, once that thing is absorbed into the body, if you don’t quickly refine it, it will lead to problems.” Leng Shan whispered, then turned to her fellow disciples, “Quickly collect the other essences but keep your guard up, don’t let other Evil Spirits take us by surprise.”

The crowd quickly nodded and set about their tasks.

Yang Kai also chuckled lightly then began to circulate his True Yang Secret Art.

The red Evil Spirit’s Evil Spirit Essence was really different. It contained significantly more energy than one left behind by a green Evil Spirit.

A short moment later, Yang Kai let out a light breath and said, “Done.”

“Done?” The gloomy young man exclaimed and furrowed his brow at Yang Kai, “Friend, an Evil Spirit Essence isn’t so easily refined, is it? Are you sure you’ve purified it completely? This thing is not a joke, if it’s not refined completely it will most likely leave behind some hidden dangers.”

The youth’s reminder had been well intentioned. Apparently, because Leng Shan had said he was her life’s benefactor, his opinion of Yang Kai had improved dramatically or it would have been impossible to speak so.

“It’s alright, I cultivate a True Yang Secret Art, so refining these things is quite simple for me,” Yang Kai said lightly.

“I see, I was wondering why this friend was so easily able to kill that red Evil Spirit. On top of having great strength, you also can restrain them with your True Qi’s attribute!” The gloomy youth smiled as he let out a carefree laugh.

“Good, my name is Chen Yi, if I had offended this friend just now, I hope you will not take it to heart.”

“Good, I’m Yang Kai!”

Since the other party was willing to reconcile, naturally he wouldn’t reject, nor would Yang Kai actually care about such minor slights. After all, it really was his own fault.