“Yellow Spring power! It really is Yellow Spring power!”
The bald fatty twitched his nose. His sense of smell was incredibly keen; everything within several hundred li fell under his detection.
“The Yaoguang lineage, every single one of them is a freak. Too troublesome, too troublesome. Fine, this Buddha will pass on eating him.”
Sighing inwardly, the bald fatty suddenly clapped both palms outward amidst the torrent of attacks and roared, “Immovable Tathagata Seal!”
As the words fell, two golden palm seals blasted apart the rolling energy waves and slammed towards the crowd attacking him.
One of those seals shot straight at the Ji family eighth-layer Martial Emperor elder who was rushing to the rescue.
Sensing the surging energy wave behind him, the elder whirled around and slashed with his sword. Peerless power collided with the massive golden palm seal.
This instantly slowed him down.
On Lin Xiao’s side, after confirming Ji Ya had been reduced to a skeleton, he controlled the skeletal palm to seize Ji Ya’s storage ring along with the bony hand still wearing it and yanked both towards himself.
Lin Xiao dashed forward, swiftly removed the storage ring, and stored the skeleton inside his own ring.
Ji Ya had been one of the most dangerous figures here; the opportunities he had obtained were surely plentiful. Even at some risk, Lin Xiao had to claim that storage ring.
By now, besides that eighth-layer Martial Emperor, others from the Ji family were also flying over.
A seventh-layer Martial Emperor elder had already reached nearby. Seeing Lin Xiao take both Ji Ya’s storage ring and skeleton, he first froze in shock, then let out a furious, heaven-shaking roar. “You actually killed Ji Ya!!!”
“You’re dead!!!”
The elder was about to unleash a terrifying attack.
Yet at that exact moment…
Pfft!
The head of the Ji family seventh-layer elder suddenly flew off his body, blood spraying across the sky.
A cold, detached figure appeared behind the elder. Glancing sideways at the direction Lin Xiao had fled, he spoke. “Lin Xiao?”
“Leng Rong?”
Seeing that figure, Lin Xiao jolted in surprise.
One of Azure Dragon Sect’s top geniuses, Leng Rong, was here too?
And the move Leng Rong had just used was clearly an assassin’s one-strike kill. So Leng Rong was actually a powerful assassin! As for recognising him, that was not surprising; Lin Xiao had used spiritual force to control the skeletal palm, and the identity of a spiritual controller would easily let others connect the dots to him.
“How dare you!”
An enraged bellow rang out. Another eighth-layer Martial Emperor elder from the Ji family was already surging over, wrapped in rolling aura.
“Hide first. I’ll hold him off for you!”
With that, Leng Rong turned and charged at the incoming Ji family eighth-layer Martial Emperor.
Lin Xiao immediately brought out the Void Heaven Phoenix Wings, slotted several blue spirit stones into them, and fled at maximum speed.
The Ji family still had one more eighth-layer Martial Emperor besides this one.
Moreover, he had also killed Yang Fengyi. The Holy Heaven Sect eighth-layer Martial Emperors would surely target him too.
If that happened, he would be in serious trouble.
“Who killed Yang Fengyi!!!”
Sure enough, just as Lin Xiao activated the Void Heaven Phoenix Wings, a thunderous roar from a Holy Heaven Sect eighth-layer Martial Emperor shook the air for hundreds of li around.
He must have gone looking for Yang Fengyi the moment Ji Ya was in danger.
However, very soon the commotion behind him vanished from Lin Xiao’s perception.
Along the way, Lin Xiao eagerly probed the storage rings of Ji Ya and Yang Fengyi. Upon seeing their contents, excitement surged through him.
Besides massive quantities of blue spirit stones and other items, both rings actually contained sarira relics.
Ji Ya had four, Yang Fengyi had three.
Together with his own one, Lin Xiao now possessed eight sarira in total. With them, he could rapidly increase his evil power.
Activating the Void Heaven Phoenix Wings, he landed in a low mountain range. After scanning the surroundings, he found a relatively concealed spot, released the purple corpse puppet to stand guard, sat cross-legged on the ground, and took out a sarira.
Clenching his fist, the evil power inside Lin Xiao immediately stirred violently. He swiftly activated the Indestructible Skeleton Art and began refining the sarira.
The pure essence and energy within the sarira poured into his meridians, flowed into his bone patterns, assaulted the seventh bone pattern, and linked to his dantian.
To Lin Xiao’s bone patterns, the sarira were like food to a starving man. Refining them required almost no effort, and the speed was astonishing. In no time, he completely refined the first sarira.
He immediately took out the second and continued.
After roughly one hour, Lin Xiao had refined all eight sarira. Thanks to them, he successfully formed just over a third of the seventh bone pattern.
Imprinting the seventh bone pattern was far more difficult than the previous six; even eight sarira had only managed about one-third of a complete pattern.
Nevertheless, bone patterns provided enormous amplification. With just this additional third, the evil power within Lin Xiao’s spine surged dramatically once more.
While imprinting the seventh bone pattern, his dantian was also continuously washed by the energy. Of the nine layers that had been chaotic, the final layer was now more than half transformed into dantian chaos. The aura radiating from Lin Xiao was clearly much stronger than before.
In other words, by refining the sarira, Lin Xiao’s cultivation had advanced to the half-step Martial Emperor realm.
Since this cultivation had been raised by evil power, the strength he could now draw from that evil power clearly surpassed what pure vital energy cultivation could achieve at this level.
Finishing his cultivation and sensing the vast, majestic power coursing through his body, brilliant light flashed in Lin Xiao’s eyes. He murmured to himself, “Half-step Martial Emperor. With vital energy alone, I can already fight seventh-layer Martial Emperors. Add the sixth-rank high-grade spiritual force equivalent to a mid seventh-grade spiritual controller’s combat strength, and defeating ordinary eighth-layer Martial Emperors is definitely possible. Even against a normal ninth-layer Martial Emperor, I should be able to hold my own for a while. Escaping with my life should not be a problem.”
Dense confidence appeared on Lin Xiao’s face.
When he had just entered the ninth-layer Martial Monarch realm, relying on the combined power of vitality and spirit, he could already defeat seventh-layer Martial Emperors. Now at half-step Martial Emperor, plus his spiritual force, overcoming ordinary eighth-layer Martial Emperors was, in his view, well within reach.
Even facing ninth-layer Martial Emperors, he could put up resistance. If he truly could not win, preserving his life and escaping should pose no issue.
Of course, monsters on the level of Ji Yueluo Qianqiu were another matter entirely.
Against Ji Yue’s terrifying strength, even the current him had absolutely no chance of victory.
“With Ji Ya and Yang Fengyi dead, the remaining eighth-layer Martial Emperors can no longer threaten me.”
Saying this, Lin Xiao looked towards the horizon, his eyes lighting up. “I hope the fight over that hundred-zhang Buddha statue isn’t finished yet.”
He immediately withdrew the purple corpse puppet, took out the Void Heaven Phoenix Wings again, slotted in more blue spirit stones, and shot back towards the original location at extreme speed.
