Volume 1, Chapter 170 – Tianbai

“???”

The giant beast’s reaction left Shi Lan a little dazed. This demon beast’s strength was roughly at the late stage of the Earth Fiend Realm. She had already prepared herself to attack, yet she had never expected it to drop straight to its knees.

And it even addressed her as “my king”…

The giant beast lay prostrate on the ground, head bowed, twin horns trembling and pressed tight against the earth, utterly respectful. It could sense the bloodline pressure coming from the pool of blood beneath the woman before it, a pressure so strong it could scarcely lift its head.

With a bloodline this exalted, and in human form besides, she could only be a transformation-stage demon king. The aura she released was not particularly powerful, but that was likely due to her injuries.

Even though this demon king before it looked gravely wounded, the giant beast still dared not give rise to the slightest improper thought. Even with only a final breath left, a transformation-stage demon king could still crush it to death like an ant.

And if it could latch onto a relationship with a wounded, fallen demon king, wouldn’t it be able to swagger wherever it pleased in this region in the future?

At that thought, the giant beast’s heart filled with joy. Its head sank even lower, almost burrowing into the earth.

Shi Lan stared at the massive demon beast kneeling before her. She hesitated, her gaze flickering, the killing intent in her heart surging and ebbing.

After wavering for a moment, Shi Lan ultimately did not act. Instead, she lifted her chin slightly, looked at the top of the beast’s head, and asked, “Where is this place?”

Her tone was stiff and icy.

“My king” was a form of address demon beasts used for transformation-stage demon kings. Shi Lan still knew that much. She did not know why this demon beast was mistaking her for a transformation-stage demon king, but that did not stop her from using the misunderstanding to ask for information.

Shi Lan knew very well what kind of attitude those transformation-stage demon kings had toward mid- and low-level demon beasts. Imitating the basic mannerisms was no problem at all.

Hearing Shi Lan’s cold question, the giant beast took no offense. It started to rise to its feet and had only just opened its mouth when Shi Lan cut it off.

“Who told you that you could stand up?”

“My king, Tianbai admits his mistake.”

The giant beast very nimbly knelt down again and lowered its head, the movement practiced and smooth.

“Do you expect me to keep my head raised while I speak to you?” Shi Lan said coldly.

As soon as the words fell, a series of crisp cracks rang out from the beast’s bones. The giant creature, originally two zhang at the shoulder and nearly six zhang long, shrank until it was only about seven chi tall, its body less than two zhang in length.

“Reporting to my king, this is the Ximu Mountain Range. Within twelve hundred li in all directions, it is all my territory,” Tianbai said respectfully, sprawled on the ground.

“Your territory?” A faintly bad feeling rose in Shi Lan’s heart. She asked, “The Ximu Mountain Range… where is it, in terms of position?”

For a moment, Tianbai did not understand what she meant. He hesitated, then said, “To the east of the Ximu Mountain Range is Xitu Mountain, to the south is the Baluo River, to the west—”

“I wasn’t asking that. I mean, in terms of spheres of influence: the Ximu Mountain Range… belongs to which power’s territory?” Shi Lan interrupted. She already had a faint, rather ominous guess in her heart.

“The Ximu Mountain Range is within the sphere of influence of the Feather Emperor Hall,” Tianbai said, a little puzzled, not understanding why Shi Lan would ask such a thing. After thinking for a moment, a sudden thought flashed through his mind.

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Could it be that this demon king before him had come from another Demon Emperor Hall’s territory?

At that thought, Tianbai’s gaze burned hotter. If that was the case, then this demon king had yet to establish a foothold here. If she wanted to seize territory and carve out a place to settle, she would certainly need subordinate underlings. If he seized this chance…

“Feather Emperor Hall…”

Hearing this completely unfamiliar name, Shi Lan fell silent for a while, then circled around with a few more probing questions.

The results she obtained did not differ much from the suspicions in her heart.

She was no longer in the Chengtian Domain… or rather, she was far from the Vast Land of Shenzhou.

This was the Boundless Demon Domain, a paradise for the demon race.

The differences between the Boundless Demon Domain and the Vast Land of Shenzhou were immense. This place was chaotic—or one could say it was free. There were practically no restraints, nor any particularly rigid regime of rule.

In the Boundless Demon Domain, the strongest power was the Demon Emperor Palace, beneath which were the eighteen Demon Emperor Halls.

The eighteen Demon Emperor Halls were each controlled by one of the eighteen mightiest clans among the demon race—top-tier demon clans such as the dragon race, feathered race, cloud-treading tigers, and moon-howling silver wolves. Each ruled over its own territory.

The territories of the Demon Emperor Halls were vast, but they did not interfere with low-level demon beasts at all, allowing survival of the fittest and the strong to prey on the weak.

There were two main reasons for this. First, low-level demon beasts had not yet developed true intelligence. Ordinary demon clans did not even consider them of the same kind.

Second, the pressure high-level demon clans exerted on low-level demon beasts was too terrifying. They could directly command them, forcing them to discard their instinctive fear of death and throw their lives away in battle.

Under such circumstances, there was no way the Demon Emperor Halls would waste time and effort managing these low-level demon beasts under their rule.

Only when a standout emerged from the countless demon beasts would the Demon Emperor Hall extend an olive branch—and even then, they would not force it.

Thus, the eighteen Demon Emperor Halls held a very lofty position within the Boundless Demon Domain.

Naturally, among these eighteen halls, some were stronger and some weaker. The Feather Emperor Hall ranked in the middle.

As for how far the Feather Emperor Hall was from the border, Tianbai had no idea. In his entire life, he had rarely even stepped into the territories of other Demon Emperor Halls, let alone the distant borderlands.

For a demon beast at the Earth Fiend Realm, “far” likely meant a distance of at least a million li.

Some of this information came from Tianbai, and some of it was Shi Lan’s own deduction. But in any case, she now had a clear understanding of her current situation.

“You’re called Tianbai?” After sorting through her thoughts, Shi Lan asked.

“Yes.”

“Who gave you that name?” A thought stirred in Shi Lan’s heart. She was still badly injured and needed a more detailed understanding of the demon beast before her—first and foremost, whether there were any higher-level demon beasts standing behind it.

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“Reporting to my king, I changed this name myself. That wasn’t what I was called before.” Tianbai shook his head.

“What were you called before?”

“My mother hoped I’d always live to see the sun of the next day, so I used to be called Tianliang. I thought Tianliang sounded bad, so I changed it to Tianbai.”

“And your mother?” Shi Lan did not feel that “Tianbai” sounded any better than “Tianliang”. She ignored how odd the names sounded and seized on the important point.

“She’s been dead for a long time,” Tianbai said, not particularly bothered.

“And your father?”

“I don’t know. My mother didn’t know who my father was either,” Tianbai said with a shake of his head. Although he was somewhat puzzled by how deeply Shi Lan was digging into his past, he did not think too much of it.

“I want blood food.”

After pondering for a while, Shi Lan spoke slowly.

Tianbai froze for a second, then quickly reacted and darted out of the cave.

Shi Lan steadied her breath and slowly closed her eyes.

The Boundless Demon Domain…

Half a day later, Tianbai finally returned, several demon beast corpses slung across his back.

The corpses were completely intact. Each had been struck in the head by a terrifying force and killed instantly by the shock.

Tianbai had not used his usual eating methods to hunt, because he was afraid Shi Lan would be angered if the prey were incomplete. Fearing that the quality of the blood food would not be high enough, he had even left his own territory to kill a demon beast at the early stage of the Earth Fiend Realm.

“Out.”

After sending Tianbai away, Shi Lan unfolded the Black Domain and extended it toward the demon beast corpses.

The corpses shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye. Their fur turned yellow and dry, clinging tightly to the bones.

A torrent of blood and flesh essence was drawn through the Black Domain into Shi Lan’s body, nourishing her flesh and replenishing her depleted blood and qi.

A great deal of her flesh had been scraped away by spatial fragments, left forever within the rifts in space. The damage to her body was by no means shallow.

At the same time, Shi Lan took out a Spirit-Transforming Pill and used the massive spiritual qi it exhaled to aid in her recovery.

After a short while, the wounds all over Shi Lan’s body had stopped bleeding and scabbed over. Her injuries had fully stabilized.

But Shi Lan soon ran into a new problem. The White Crane Skirt was only a magic artifact and could not withstand the tearing power of space. It had been shredded into strips, and her battle armor had long since been destroyed.

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Sitting still was fine, but the slightest movement might send the White Crane Skirt, already little more than scraps, scattering completely.

There were indeed spare outfits in the Qiankun Bracelet, but they were all sets of Demon-Suppressing Army battle armor and completely unusable.

In the Boundless Demon Domain, walking around in Demon-Suppressing Army armor was beyond courting death. Even saying an old man with a long life hanging himself would not be enough to describe it.

And as she tallied up her supplies, Shi Lan discovered with some heartache that the spirit marrow she had relied on for so long had also been lost to the spatial undercurrents.

“First circle the area once. I need more detailed information to lock down the coordinates. After that, I’ll be able to send you back to the Chengtian Domain,” Reincarnation said.

Shi Lan stepped forward and stripped the dried beast hide. True qi surged out, and in the blink of an eye she had processed the hide, removing the stench and fashioning it into a simple garment to cover her body.

Following the wide passageway, Shi Lan left the cave.

Outside, the sunlight was a bit dazzling.

She was halfway up a mountain peak. As far as the eye could see, towering ancient trees rose over a hundred zhang high, forming a dense forest.

At the foot of the mountain lay a valley. In the valley was a clear pool over a hundred zhang across. The water was crystal clear, the bottom visible, fish swimming plainly in view. Tianbai squatted by the pool. From time to time he reached out with a paw, sending water splashing as he scooped up a fish several feet long and tossed it straight into his mouth.

The scenery was pleasant in every direction, and the gentle mountain breeze blowing in her face lightened the heart.

Among everything Shi Lan had seen in her life, this view ranked near the top. If this were not the Boundless Demon Domain, she would truly have liked to stay here to cultivate quietly for a time.

Noticing that Shi Lan had come out, Tianbai quickly bounded to her side.

“Wait here. I’m going out for a look around.” After giving this instruction, Shi Lan left the mountainside.

Watching Shi Lan’s departing back, Tianbai sniffed lightly. For some reason, he felt that her oppressive aura seemed much weaker, and her demonic qi was faint and elusive. Very strange.

After thinking for a while, Tianbai’s eyes suddenly lit up. He darted back into the cave, went to the spot where Shi Lan had been lying, and swallowed several bloodstained rocks along with the thin layer of blood on the ground, not leaving so much as a single drop behind.

…

Shi Lan left the mountainside and began carefully exploring the surrounding area.

“That demon beast has probably realized something’s off. You’re human, after all. Your aura is very different from the demon race. If you hadn’t just been wrapped in beast hide, you might have given yourself away on the spot.”

Hearing Reincarnation’s words, Shi Lan’s heart sank. “Then should I go back and kill it?”

“There’s no need. You can put the Innate spiritual blood in your body to use.”

“How?” Shi Lan asked, puzzled. The Innate spiritual blood had always flowed in her body—could it really have uses she still didn’t know about?

“Your Innate spiritual blood is hidden in your marrow and essence blood. Right now, it only reveals some of its manifestations and aura when your blood and qi are on the verge of boiling over. I can teach you a blood movement method that will let you mobilize that spiritual blood.”

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“Blood movement? What does that do?”

“Not much. It’ll just make the spiritual blood hidden beneath your skin more pronounced and your aura stronger,” Reincarnation said.

After this exchange, a short cultivation formula appeared in Shi Lan’s mind.

Following this unknown blood movement method, Shi Lan soon sensed a difference in how she felt. The Innate spiritual blood hidden beneath her flesh began to float toward the surface.

The snakes, insects, rats, and ants lurking around her fled madly, not daring to look back.

There was no mirror here, so Shi Lan had no idea how her appearance had changed. But from the way the tips of her hair had shifted from black to purple, the change could not be small.

Shi Lan turned back and walked to the clear pool in the valley.

Seeing the figure reflected in the water, a glint of surprise flashed in her eyes.

In the reflection, her long hair was a pale violet from root to tip. Purple mist filled her twin pupils. Her lips were completely devoid of color, and her skin looked paler than before, nearly translucent. An indescribable aura now lingered around her entire body.

“Thump——”

A dull landing sound rang out.

Tianbai leapt down from the mountainside to Shi Lan’s side. Before he could even speak, he was cowed by her gaze.

Under those eyes shrouded in purple mist, Tianbai felt as if his very soul were about to freeze solid. He completely lost the ability to speak, and that familiar oppressive might rose to the surface once more.

Shi Lan withdrew her gaze, thoughtful. In this state, the effect on demon beasts was clearly not weak. She just did not know what level of demon beast it could influence, or how deeply.

Stepping into the air, Shi Lan returned to the cave once more.

“I’ve roughly fixed the coordinates. If you want to go back, I can send you at any time,” Reincarnation said.

“I don’t want to go back for now.” A faint light flickered in Shi Lan’s violet eyes. Her main quest was still active. She did not even know if she had completed a tenth of the task of slaying a thousand Earth Fiend Realm demon beasts.

In the Boundless Demon Domain, demon beasts would certainly not be in short supply. And now that she had this native, Tianbai, at her side, her chances of completing the quest were not small.

With that thought, Shi Lan opened her system panel.

Host: Shi Lan Cultivation: Early stage of the Earth Fiend Realm Root Bone: 9 (Innate spiritual body, once in a thousand years.) Cultivation Arts: Yuqing Creation Art (second layer), Vajra Divine Fist (mastery), Jade Tempering Art (seventh level) Divine Abilities: Heaven’s Eye Qi-Sight (three stars), Black Domain (seven stars) Strength Evaluation: Some small achievements Reputation: 62,300 (name just beginning to spread)

After glancing over the panel, Shi Lan opened the quest tab.

[176/1000]

Seeing the number of completions, Shi Lan could not help feeling a little confused. When had she killed so many demon beasts at the Earth Fiend Realm and above?