Martial Peak

“I know, I won’t overexert myself,” Yang Kai grinned, “Then let’s separate here. When this is over, we’ll rendezvous in Green Water City.”

Yang Kai cupped his fists briefly after he finished speaking, turned around, and flew off in a streak of light, quickly disappearing from Qian Tong and the other’s sight.

“Let’s go too,” Qian Tong said, “With so many people dying this time, the competition in the Blood Prison will probably be reduced greatly. We can’t miss this chance to look for opportunities.”

“It is just as Brother Qian says!” Zhao Tian Ze’s eyes lit up, his gloomy mood swiftly giving way to excitement and anticipation.

Somewhere, hundreds of kilometres away from Domain Stone Mountain where no one else was around, Yang Kai landed, double-checked his surroundings, then grinned and whispered, “Come out.”

The next moment, a rustling came from the ground in front of him and a small head with two beady eyes popped out. After this creature leapt out of the ground, it rushed over to Yang Kai.

It was the Stone Puppet, Xiao Xiao.

Yang Kai had secretly released his Stone Puppet while fighting against Zhang Qing’s group while everyone was distracted by his shockingly strong Shi.

Everything had gone according to plan.

“How’s the harvest?” Yang Kai asked, looking down at Xiao Xiao.

The Stone Puppet didn’t show any reaction, simply opening its mouth and spitting out a fist-sized Domain Stone from his mouth.

Yang Kai stretched out his hand, grabbed the Domain Stone, and felt it for a moment before bursting into laughter and patting Xiao Xiao’s small head, praising him liberally, “Good job!”

He didn’t know exactly how many Domain Stone’s were resting in Xiao Xiao’s stomach right now, but the quantity was clearly so great it would cause any Origin King to become jealous.

It could be said that the destruction of Domain Stone Mountain was entirely due to Xiao Xiao.

Xiao Xiao had silently snuck below Domain Stone Mountain and then slowly hollowed it out with no one being the wiser. This was the reason the cultivators felt that the effects of Domain Stone Mountain were getting weaker and weaker as time passed, and why Domain Stone Mountain had suddenly collapsed and turned out hollow inside.

Everything was thanks to the Stone Puppet!

Domain Stone Mountain was indeed extremely hard, but the Stone Puppet’s innate talent allowed it to swallow any and all kinds of ores. The Coloured Glass Sect’s treasure, Thousand Illusion Coloured Glass Mountain, had a gaping hole excavated from it, and Domain Stone Mountain wasn’t a problem either.

The first time he saw Domain Stone Mountain, Yang Kai already had such crooked thoughts.

He hadn’t anticipated that allowing the Stone Puppet to do so would destroy Domain Stone Mountain and trigger such a terrifying Domain explosion, however.

This was why, when he noticed something was wrong, he shouted loudly to warn everyone.

Unfortunately, most of the cultivators present were blinded by the treasures in front of them and paid no attention to his reminders. Only a few people retreated with him, but this swift action had saved their lives.

After ordering the Stone Puppet to follow him, Yang Kai took it to a more remote location and let it spit out all the Domain Stones in its stomach.

After checking his haul, Yang Kai was overjoyed.

There were roughly three thousand Domain Stones!

This was an extremely terrifying number, as could be seen from the fact that Yang Kai’s gains since entering the Blood Prison were just three Domain Stones until now. Others may not have even gained that many.

However, at this moment, Yang Kai had managed to obtain three thousand Domain Stones!

This was probably more Domain Stones than had been collected by cultivators since Blood Prison was created!

There was now no need to worry about comprehending Domain in the future. With so many Domain Stones in hand, Yang Kai could unscrupulously absorb the magical energy inside them to gain insight into Domain and spy upon the mysteries of the Origin King Realm.

His future path was looking smoother and brighter!

Yang Kai’s mood was great.

The main purpose of the cultivators who entered the Blood Prison was to use Domain Vortices to polish their Shi, but their secondary objective was to find Domain Stones.

Yang Kai had cleared both goals handily.

Without even mentioning the massive number of Domain Stones he had now, the various Domain Vortices could no longer slow down Yang Kai’s pace either as his understanding of Shi had reached a new height. Even if he had yet to reach the grand accomplishment stage, he wasn’t far off.

Perhaps, one day, when he broke through to the Third-Order Origin Returning Realm, Yang Kai would be able to instantly achieve the grand accomplishment stage in Shi and possess the capital to break through to the Origin King Realm!

Yang Kai didn’t plan on wasting any more time. He was now going to find the Origin Essence Crystal left behind by the Monster King who died here over ten thousand years ago to complete the task assigned to him by Chi Yue.

On Monster Emperor Star, there were Ten Great Tribal Lords, but no Tribal Lord was qualified to be called a Monster King.

To become a Monster King, one needed to possess a Third-Order Origin King cultivation. Therefore, only a handful of Monster Kings had been born on Monster Emperor Star since ancient times.

There was one over ten thousand years ago, but unfortunately for him, he had gotten involved in the war on Green Mountains Star and wound up falling in the Blood Prison.

The specific location where this Monster King fell had already been given to Yang Kai by Chi Yue. Monster Emperor Star had been secretly sending Monster Race rising stars to the Blood Prison Trial for many years now, so they had already managed to scout out a good deal of information; unfortunately, until now, there had never been an opportunity to retrieve that Origin Essence Crystal.

Yang Kai flew towards his destination without pause.

He wasn’t certain if it was because of the changes in Domain Stone Mountain that killed so many people, but along the way, Yang Kai felt that the number of cultivators in the Blood Prison had indeed decreased a lot. After flying for a few days, he didn’t notice any other auras around him anymore.

There was a bare hill ahead, no more than a thousand metres high, with not even a blade of grass growing upon it, only gravel and mud.

However, this hill exuded a very strange aura, one that made it difficult to approach.

Monster Qi! And a very powerful Monster Qi at that.

Even a cultivator at the Third-Order Origin Returning Realm wouldn’t dare set foot upon this hill easily, because the omnipresent Monster Qi was not something they could bear. If a cultivator stayed for a long time on this hill, the Monster Qi would begin invading their bodies.

The Monster Qi here was naturally a leftover from the fallen Monster King and could not be purged by mere Third-Order Origin Returning Realm cultivators. Eventually, not only would this Monster Qi corrode their meridians and physique, it would trigger a kind of Monster Transformation, creating dissonance in their cultivation.

Therefore, whenever the Blood Prison opened, this strange hill had always been regarded as a Restricted Area that no one dared to enter at will. Most would even go out of their way to avoid it lest they be inadvertently affected by the potent Monster Qi.

“This should be the place!” Yang Kai looked up at the bare hill and muttered to himself softly. The hill in front of him perfectly matched the description given to him by Chi Yue about where that ancient Monster King had fallen.

After scanning the area for a moment, Yang Kai stepped forward towards the hill.

A short time later, Yang Kai came to the foot of the hill and as soon as he stepped onto it, the ambient Monster Qi reacted like a cat smelling fish, rushing towards him from all directions, drilling into his pores and flooding into his meridians.

Yang Kai pushed his Saint Qi to resist the invasion of this Monster Qi.

It was a bit troublesome! Worthy of the Monster Qi left over by a Monster King level master, it couldn’t easily be resisted even after more than ten thousand years.

Fortunately, Yang Kai possessed the power of Golden Divine Dragon Source, so even if the Monster Qi forced its way into his body, it wouldn’t affect him much. If Yang Kai were any other Human Race Origin Returning Realm cultivator, he would likely have to withdraw immediately.

After confirming that there was no serious threat to him here, Yang Kai strode upwards step by step.

Soon, he came to the top of the mountain and looked around. The surroundings were empty, however, which made him frown.

The information Chi Yue gave him only said that the Origin Essence Crystal was somewhere on this barren mountain, but even she didn’t know exactly where it was.

If it wasn’t on top of the mountain though, it should be somewhere nearby. Silently sweeping the area with his Divine Sense, Yang Kai soon detected something and moved towards a certain direction.

After a stick of incense worth of time, Yang Kai arrived at the back of the hill and stood looking into a dark cave.

The cave was pitch black and didn’t seem out of the ordinary, but when Yang Kai’s Divine Sense tried to penetrate into it, it bounced back.

If his guess was correct, the Monster King should have fallen in this cave, because the Monster Qi was densest in this location.

Unafraid, Yang Kai took out a luminous stone from his Space Ring and stepped into the cave.

The deeper he went in, the richer the Monster Qi became, indicating that its source was up ahead!

A short time later, Yang Kai arrived at the deepest part of the cave.

Here, the cave showed signs of being artificially excavated. It was narrow on the outside while wide on the inside, and the innermost cavern was actually several dozen metres across.

Inside this innermost cave, there was a massive object that an amazing Monster Qi was spreading from.

Yang Kai took out a few more luminous stones and with a wave of his hand sent them all into pre-arranged grooves in the surrounding stone walls.

In the blink of an eye, the entire dim cave became bright.

Looking forward again, Yang Kai’s eyes narrowed as they shined with shock.

He surprisingly discovered that the massive object lying in front of him was a giant skeleton!

A huge Monster Beast skeleton!

This skeleton was over twenty metres long and had the appearance of a giant ancient crocodile. Even if it was now just bones, it still exuded an amazing level of energy.

This corpse should be the true body of the Monster King level master. It seemed this Monster King had reverted to his Monster Beast form before death, otherwise, his corpse would not have appeared in this manner.

Generally, if a Monster Race cultivator was born in human form, they would also die in human form, but some cultivated Secret Techniques that could stimulate their Monster Beast bloodlines and allow them to resume their Monster Beast forms to gain additional strength.

This giant skeleton appearing must have been a result of the ancient Monster King assuming his Monster Beast form.

This was the most orthodox type of Monster Race master, one that possessed an extremely pure bloodline!

What’s more, this Monster Beast was a Third-Order Origin King! Even after ten thousand years, its bones were still lifelike, each one looking extremely strong. These were definitely excellent Artifact Refining materials.

Yang Kai’s eyes instantly became fiery.

Chi Yue only said that he needed to hand over the Origin Essence Crystal to Yu Xiong, she never mentioned handing over the Monster King’s skeleton. In other words, Yang Kai was free to claim these bones for himself.

High Heaven Sect was currently in its development phase, and there were some highly accomplished Artifact Refiners among its members. These Artifact Refiners had come from Star Emperor Mountain, and although they were incomparable to Yang Yan, they were still second to no one else on Shadowed Star. If these bones were taken back and given to them for Artifact Refining, Yang Kai believed that they could definitely refine a large number of Origin Grade High-Rank artifacts!

Even this, however, was something of a careless waste of Heaven’s treasures as, in principle, the bones of an Origin King Realm Monster Beast were precious materials that could be refined into Origin King Grade artifacts.