Death... and me

Rean fed Malaka a Blood Replenishing Pill and used his Spiritual Energy to help dissolve it in her body. Of course, he also used his Light Element to get rid of the Decaying Energy that entered Malaka's body. After all, she was unconscious. She wasn't controlling her Spiritual Energy to form a barrier to block it. Those few moments that Rean and Roan took to deal with Doren was enough for a lot of Decaying Energy to get into her body, primarily through the injuries.

Soon, the dark color of Decaying Energy disappeared from Malaka's skin, revealing her pale face once more. A few minutes later, Malaka's pale face even regained a bit of its color.

*Guh...*

Eventually, she regained her consciousness as the pain washed through her body. She then opened her eyes, just to see that she was lying on Rean's lap while he healed her injuries. Even though she still felt some pain, she had to admit that Rean's Light Element felt very good.

"Hehe! Is this my reward for doing a good job?"

Rean shook his head helplessly.

"What reward? If you were alone, you would have died because of those injuries, you know? In fact, you probably would have died to the Decaying Energy first."

Malaka then noticed Roan standing guard on the side with his arms crossed, his expression as cold as always.

"Will I get extra training because of these injuries?"

Roan looked down for a moment before shaking his head in the end.

"You did better than I expected, so there's no need for extra training... for now."

Malaka smiled with a satisfied expression. In the end, she only felt this safe when she was with her brothers.

Kentucky, who had also been recovering on the side, finally opened his eyes as well. He then noticed that Malaka was awake and rubbed his big head against her.

*Chick!*

"Hahaha! You're such a jealous chick."

Rean then patted the chick on the head.

"Alright, I finished closing up your injuries, so get up already. However, you lost a lot of blood because of that fight, so you will feel a bit dizzy for some time. I already fed one of Roan's Blood Replenishing Pills to you, though, so you should be back to normal in two or so hours. Here, take this."

Rean then passed another Blood Replenishing Pill to Malaka.

"A single one will not be enough. Take another one hour later."

Malaka nodded and took the pill. She was just about to put it into her bag when suddenly, she noticed that her Pendant was missing.

"Ah! Calina's Pendant! It's not here!"

Rean laughed and put his hand inside his bag. Of course, that was just a pretext to take the Pendant out of the Dimensional Realm.

"I have your Pendant here. However, I'll be holding it from now on."

Unfortunately for him, Roan's hand moved in a flash and took the Pendant from Rean's hand.

"I'll take it. It'll be safer if I carry it instead."

"You could have just asked, no? I know you're stronger than me."

Roan didn't answer and put the Pendant around his neck.

"Why can't I carry it, huh?"

Rean was about to create an excuse when Roan intervened.

"Calina's protector wants to take it back. He's using it to track us down and wants us dead."

Malaka was shocked to hear that.

"What? Why? I've never done anything bad to him."

Rean sighed and shook his head.

"We don't know. We think Valeu doesn't like cultivators from small countries and powers like us. Besides, the Pendant appears to be something important to him. Anyway, let Roan carry it from now on."

Malaka nodded in the end.

"Okay. But... isn't it better to throw it away instead?"

Roan snorted as he looked at Malaka's face.

"Do you really want to throw it away? It doesn't look like you want to."

Malaka couldn't help but smile.

"Thank you, Roan!"

She didn't want to throw it away. After all, it was a gift from Calina. Malaka didn't believe that Calina had anything to do with her protector's actions.

"There is no need to thank me. This is all for our own training. As long as I keep it with me, more cultivators will deliver themselves to us. It'll be an excellent opportunity to polish our abilities. Anyway, we stayed still for almost 30 minutes already. Let's go."

Rean shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

As for Malaka, she jumped on Kentucky's back, and the group of four continued their journey.

And just like that, two days passed as they moved deeper into the Underground World. On the way, they encountered even more Demon Beasts and Cultivators. There isn't even a need to say that the demon beasts always attacked as soon as they saw a cultivator. Still, they weren't as hard to deal with as those Golems. Although there were quite a few Stage Three Decaying Demon Beasts, it wasn't that hard to reach their cores.

As for the cultivators, some moved in groups like Rean's group, or duos, like Tuve and Weren. Others moved on their own as well. Of course, not all of them were enemies like Doren's group. Well, at least not until they find a Vermilion Pool. If that was the case, neither Rean's group nor the other cultivator groups would let it go at all.

Still, three of them decided to attack Rean's group in the end. One of those groups simply did that because their leader recognized Malaka. He knew she and Rean had a lot of Rank Three Spirit Stones. After confirming the average cultivation of Rean's group, they thought it would be easy to take it from them. Unfortunately for them, they also went ahead to meet Roan's friends in the underworld. Their strength wasn't even comparable to Doren's group, having only a single cultivator in the Middle Stage of the Core Formation Realm.

Also, it turned out that the other two groups had the same blue stones as Doren. Of course, these two groups had a lot more strength than that unfortunate one. Still, by using the same surprising attack, Rean's group was able to get rid of them. Malaka was a lot more careful this time, though. Roan had discussed with her everything she had done wrong and how she should have averted that outcome. He even forced her into a bit of training on their way here. Sure enough, that near-death experience was of great help to her as it would be to any other cultivator.

As one could imagine, Roan also interrogated their leaders.

"Alright. It seems like Valeu entered in contact with 11 groups in total. However, none of them were part of the forefront runners. It's probably because those who could enter the Profound Abyss first had significant backgrounds. None of them would care about the rewards that Valeu could give them. After all, Valeu isn't really part of the Imperial Family, but one of its subordinate clans."

"As for their strengths, both the two groups we dealt with before knew much about them. Well, that's to be expected since this is a gathering of many countries at once. They are separated by thousands, if not tens of thousands of kilometers. It would be weird if they knew so many details about each other."

"Well, that just means we need to be careful. Anyway, according to the information Sect Master gave to us, this open space is only a small part of the Profound Abyss' underground world. It sums up to 20 to 30% of the total distance. The part that will take the longest to move through is the Decaying Energy caves."

Roan and Malaka nodded in response.

"That's fine. We have been moving for two days already. Considering the time needed to use the pool and come back, we should find a few of them anytime soon. I can even feel the concentration of Decaying Energy increasing."

It was then that Rean's group heard a loud sound.

*Roar!*

Immediately, everyone looked in a specific direction. However, the sound came from quite far away, so even Roan's Spiritual Sense couldn't tell what it was.

"Seems like another group got into trouble."

*Chick...*

Rean, Roan, and Malaka then looked at Kentucky and could see that he had a worried expression. It was the first time he acted like this since he entered the Profound Abyss.

Roan narrowed his eyes before saying.

"I'll take a look with Rean. Malaka and Kentucky, wait here for a moment."

Before Malaka could say anything, Roan and Rean already disappeared in a flash.