Zhang Ruochen continued, “If we really want to launch an attack on the Immortal Blood Clan, we can’t take any chances, we must have a tight plan, and it’s best if we can join forces with the imperial court, so as to minimise the losses of the Ancient Clan of the Prison Suppressor.”
Shi Ren nodded and said, “In that case, it seems that whether it’s a battle, or not, the Ancient Clan of the Prison Suppressor will experience a bout of pain.”
Zhang Ruochen’s place of residence was called Northwatch Mountain.
At the bottom of Bei Wang Mountain, there was a spiritual vein. As a result, the mountain was full of spiritual energy, and there were one hundred and sixty-seven cave dwellings built, and only the honourable guests of the Prison Zhen Ancient Clan were qualified to enter Northwatch Mountain to cultivate.
The cave where Zhang Ruochen resided, near the top of the mountain, was one of the most abundant in spiritual qi, with two stone beasts guarding the gate and four maids at his disposal.
In the cave mansion, there were spiritual springs flowing, defence formations and spirit gathering formations were arranged, and there were also spirit medicines and pills, in general, Zhang Ruochen had indeed received the treatment that only a sword-wielder would receive.
“Back then, when the Xuan Gui Sword Saint came to the Underworld Sword Mound, he also resided in this cave. Brother Zhang’s first time coming to the Underworld Sword Mound, let’s rest for the night first, and tomorrow, I’ll take you to pay homage to the successive generations of ancestors of the Monstrous Sword lineage.”
After saying that, Shi Ren intended to leave.
“There is a sentence that I don’t know whether to speak or not.”
Zhang Ruochen, after much deliberation, finally, spoke up.
Shi Ren stopped and turned around, glancing towards Zhang Ruochen as he asked, “Brother Zhang and I are also considered to be life and death friends, so if you have something to say, there is no harm in saying it.”
“Wow…?”Right at this moment, Shi Ren’s finger flicked and a wisp of white Saint Qi surged out, activating the defence formation in the cave.
In this way, no one would be able to hear their conversation.
Zhang Ruochen said, ”In the netherworld, you should also already know that the Sixth Prince of the Immortal Blood Race is my Fourth Senior Brother, worshipping under Master Teacher together. Once, I overheard him mention that the Immortal Blood Clan had already obtained one of the six holy swords, only that it wasn’t clear which one they had obtained?”
Shi Ren’s face changed violently as he said, “Is this true?”
The six holy swords were all held by six sword bearers, and the six sword bearers were all Sword Saints, so for the Undying Blood Clan to obtain one of the holy swords could be as difficult as climbing up to heaven.
However, in the event that the Undying Blood Clan did obtain a holy sword and infiltrated into the Sword Graveyard of the Underworld King, the harm that would be caused would be incalculable.
It was for this reason that Shi Ren was so out of sorts.
Zhang Ruochen nodded and said, ”I also know that this matter is of great importance, which is why I didn’t say anything rashly. Of course, this matter has yet to be confirmed, and only you and I know about it now, so it’s best not to frighten the snakes, lest we make a scene.”?After all, they were still unable to confirm whether the Undying Blood Clan had actually obtained a holy sword? Much less, which Saint Sword had been obtained?
If the news were to spread out, I’m afraid that all six sword bearers would be questioned and even rejected by the Ancient Clan of the Prison Suppressor.
If the sword bearers and the Ancient Clan of Hell had a conflict, the ultimate beneficiary would definitely be the Immortal Blood Clan.
“At this time now, it is indeed not suitable for this matter to be publicised, it must be investigated in secret.”
Shi Ren’s eyes were quite sullen and naturally, he could realise the gravity of the situation, immediately leaving from Zhang Ruochen’s cave and hurrying away.
“Internal trouble and external trouble, the state of affairs in the Hades King’s Sword Mound is truly not ordinary tricky. There’s also that Underworld King who doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead, that’s also a huge threat.”
Zhang Ruochen let out a long sigh and released Little Black and the Elephant Swallowing Rabbit from within the Scroll World, allowing them to leave the cave and enter the Underworld King’s Sword Mound to check for news.
Zhang Ruochen, on the other hand, sat in the cave mansion, running the sixth layer of the Nine Heavens Bright Emperor Sutra, absorbing the rich spiritual qi of the heavens and earth, and continuing to consolidate the realm he had just broken through.
No matter what, one’s own strength was the most important capital.
When one’s cultivation reached the Half-Saint realm, the speed of absorbing heaven and earth spiritual qi did speed up a lot, but the speed of cultivation would slow down.
Even for a Saint Body, it was quite normal to spend ten years to break through a small realm.
Of course, being able to cultivate to the Half-Saint realm was already a great achievement and could be considered as reaching the peak of one’s life.
Characters who continued to impact the Saint realm were either cultivation maniacs with extremely unbelievable natural talent, or heirs of lineages who possessed a large amount of resources.
In other words, even if your natural talent was even higher, the Half Saint realm was already your peak. If you still wanted to impact the Saint realm, the fight was no longer about natural talent, but resources.
To give an example:
Zhang Ruochen’s natural talent was already considered quite heaven-defying, and even if he wasn’t number one in the world, he could still be ranked in the top three. However, if there was a lack of cultivation resources and gradual cultivation, I’m afraid that at the age of two hundred, Zhang Ruochen would only be able to reach the realm of a Ninth Order Half-Saint, and would barely be able to go and impact the realm of a Saint.
Other cultivators were far less talented than Zhang Ruochen, and would have even less of a chance to impact the Saint realm.
The resources spent on cultivating a Saint were simply too huge, and even with the financial and material resources of many Saint Clans, they would only be able to use it to cultivate two or three Saints at most. Moreover, it was still unknown whether one could become a Saint or not.
Of course, Zhang Ruochen had great chances and was not lacking in cultivation resources, which allowed him to take shortcuts and be able to raise his cultivation up quickly.
“From the early stage of a First Order Half-Saint to the peak of a First Order Half-Saint, one can raise one’s cultivation by refining divine blood.”
“When one reaches the pinnacle of a First Order Half-Saint, one can purchase a Sacred Elemental Pill as a way to break through the realm.”
“From the early stage of a First Order Half-Saint to the early stage of a Second Order Half-Saint, the fastest it should take is half a year. If we add the assistance of the Qiankun Divine Wood Diagram, within two months, we should be able to break through to Second Order Half-Saint.”
Zhang Ruochen had a rough plan for his next cultivation.
He then took out a drop of divine blood and held it between his two hands as he slowly operated his gong method and began to absorb it.
Divine blood was not only beneficial to cultivators of the Fish Dragon Realm, but to Half-Saints, too.
It was only that the divine blood reserves of those medieval families were too scarce, and that was why they could not afford to take it out and give it to the half-saints to use.
Zhang Ruochen, however, didn’t have any qualms about it, anyway, there was a pool of divine blood, so as long as they could raise their cultivation up quickly, even if they exhausted all of their divine blood, so what?
By the latter part of the night, Zhang Ruochen had already absorbed a drop of divine blood, completely into his body, only to feel that the strength of his fleshly body, had increased quite a bit.
A portion of the rules in the divine blood had merged into the Sacred Soul, causing the Sacred Dao rules in the Sacred Soul to become even thicker.
Just by absorbing a single drop of divine blood, Zhang Ruochen felt that his cultivation level had risen by a large margin.
More importantly, Zhang Ruochen had only absorbed twenty to thirty percent of the power in the drop of divine blood, and there was still more power that was stored in his body.
“Cultivating the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm should be able to speed up the absorption of the divine blood by the body and the Sacred Soul.”
Zhang Ruochen stood up, and with both hands in luck, he was preparing to cultivate the Palm Technique.
Suddenly, at the location of the cave’s main door, a blood-red spear pierced through the defensive formation, erupting a terrifying and overwhelming killing aura as it stabbed towards Zhang Ruochen.
“Boom!”
One could only see a churning blood aura surging along with the spear.
Vaguely, it could be seen that the owner of the spear was a three-metre tall Immortal Blood Race with a pair of fleshy wings on its back, wearing armour and a green-faced, fanged and extremely hideous appearance.
Zhang Ruochen’s gaze sank as he let out a low roar, “Born Scale Transforming Dragon.”
The ninth palm of the Dragon Elephant Palm.
In Zhang Ruochen’s palm, a piece of golden dragon scale emerged, transforming into an extremely sharp and gigantic dragon claw that struck forward.
At the same time, the centre of the dragon claw exuded five elements of chaotic Qi, completely enveloping the claw.
“Boom.”
The golden dragon claw collided with the tip of the spear, erupting a powerful energy stream that impacted out in all directions.
The formation inscriptions in the cave, all of which had surfaced, emitted a piercing white light that warded off the energy airflow.
Zhang Ruochen retreated backwards a dozen feet in a row before he was able to re-stabilise himself again, and even with the Five Elements Chaotic Qi guarding him, a sharp pain came from his palms.
“So powerful, it should be a peak Sixth Order Half-Saint powerhouse.”
Zhang Ruochen’s gaze, stared towards the blood cloud not far away and said, “The Undying Blood Clan can even break into this place, I have underestimated your power in the Ancient Clan of Prison Suppression. Speak! How many lurkers do you have?”
The Immortal Blood Clan member holding the spear looked extremely cold as he said, “Zhang Ruochen, you have been blocked in the cave, it is impossible for you to still have a chance to escape, hand over the Monstrous Heavenly Sword, and this seat can leave your body intact.”
“You guys don’t go to seize Xiang Zhengfeng’s Heaven Execution Sword, but come to seize my Heavenly Sword, do you really think that I am a soft persimmon that is easy to pinch?”
Zhang Ruochen released his spiritual power and probed outside the cave.
He soon discovered that outside the cave, there were actually two other Immortal Blood Clansmen with very powerful cultivation.
Only, those two Immortal Blood Clansmen, holding array discs, were operating an array formation, completely isolating the space where Zhang Ruochen’s cave was located.
It was precisely because of the shroud of the formation that the outside world did not know that the Immortal Blood Race was assassinating Zhang Ruochen with the intention of seizing the Monstrous Heavenly Sword.
“How dare you talk tough even at the end of your life.”
That Immortal Blood Race struck again, transforming into a blood shadow and rushing towards Zhang Ruochen with lightning-like speed.
“Blood God Progenitor.”
As the spear stabbed out, a figure with six pairs of blood wings coalesced behind that Immortal Blood Clan. The blood-red spear emitted an icy cold aura of death, causing the entire cave to be completely sealed by cold ice.
Zhang Ruochen naturally felt the immense pressure as well, and pushed his hands forward to galvanise the spatial power as he said in a deep voice, “Spatial Collapse.”
“Puffing!”
The space in front of Zhang Ruochen was like broken glass, a crack appeared and collapsed inwards, transforming into a hole three feet in diameter.
The collapsed space formed a powerful devouring force that swept all the surrounding matter, all of it.
“Spatial power?”
That Immortal Blood Race’s Half-Saint let out a cry of alarm.
However, he was clearly prepared for this, and thus, immediately fell backward the very moment the space collapsed.
If it was in the past, when Zhang Ruochen had not comprehended the spatial rules and had not broken through to the Half-Saint realm, I’m afraid that it would have been possible for him to escape.
As for now, Zhang Ruochen did not want to give him a chance to escape.
“Still want to escape, how can it be that easy?”
Zhang Ruochen pushed his hands forward, and not far away, the collapsed space actually tore out three more cracks tens of feet long, extending in front of that Immortal Blood Race Demi-Saint.
