Volume 1, Chapter 402 – Demon Domain

Closing the mountain gates was something that happened only when a major upheaval had occurred. It was usually extremely serious, sometimes even bearing on a sect’s very survival.

As a first-grade sect, Yunlai Immortal Palace had a Sovereign Weapon suppressing and stabilizing its fortune. For it to react in this way, something major had clearly happened.

Compared with that piece of news, the fact that Shi Lan had taken the top spot on the human race’s Heavenly Prodigy Record caused almost no stir at all.

A prodigy was, after all, still only a prodigy. One who had not yet fully grown could not compare in influence with a colossal first-grade power.

From ancient times until now, who knew how many prodigies the Lingyang Realm had produced? But of those, how many had truly become figures who shaped the age?

…

Shi Lan traveled west all the way, crossing more than a million li before entering a desolate mountain range. After setting up a concealment formation and settling the eight heavenly horses, she directly took out the materials for another formation from her Qiankun Bracelet.

She already had some foundation in formations. With Lunhui’s guidance, laying down a teleportation formation was no difficult matter.

Half a day later, a pillar of light shot into the sky and vanished without a trace in an instant.

…

Boundless Demon Domain, Ximu Mountain Range.

This place fell within the territory of the Feather Emperor Hall, and now belonged to the Lan clan.

Shi Lan walked out of the cave, shook her somewhat groggy head, and rubbed the space between her brows.

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This teleportation formation had been laid down too hastily. Many details had not been properly carved out. During transmission, everything had felt upside down and top-heavy, and the compression of space had made it extremely unpleasant.

Tianbai was in even worse shape. Her face was deathly pale, and she kept retching uncontrollably, only calming down after quite some time.

Before them stretched a forest of dark pines and lush greenery, with the faint movement of birds and beasts flickering through the woods.

Shi Lan’s gaze shifted slightly. She no longer needed to move her blood and qi to disguise herself as a member of the demon race, and she released the sensing restriction on the green lotus mark on her forearm.

That mark was the Lan clan’s ancestral source. Through it, every demon of the Lan clan could sense her location.

Bzzz—

In an instant, more than twenty spatial passages slowly opened, and Demon Kings led by Cangyue stepped out one after another.

Clearly, the Lan clan’s strength had expanded quite a bit again.

During the time Shi Lan had been away, Cangyue had already completely mastered the power of the Nascent Soul Realm and taken human form once more. Her hair fell loose behind her, and as she moved, she carried the sharp, predatory bearing of a hawk-eyed wolf, with a naturally chilling presence.

“Welcome back to the clan, my lord!”

At the sight of Shi Lan, Cangyue restrained all her sharpness, bowed respectfully, and dropped to one knee in formal salute.

Whether they had seen Shi Lan before or not, all the Demon Kings knelt in turn and echoed in one voice:

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“Welcome back to the clan, my lord!”

Shi Lan swept her gaze over them once and took stock.

Two great demons of the Nascent Soul Realm. Twenty-two Demon Kings capable of taking human form, both male and female.

Strength like this no longer meant much in her eyes now, but this was still her clan.

The group returned in grand procession to the Lan clan’s heartland. After briefly asking several of the Demon Kings their names, Shi Lan dismissed the others and kept only Cangyue and one other great demon behind.

This great demon was called Chi Xun. His true form was a Scarletblood Marten, a rare mutated branch of the marten race. Their numbers were small, and most of them were solitary wanderers, but their combat strength was not to be underestimated.

The reason he had joined the Lan clan was also a matter of chance. He wanted to use the power of the Lan clan’s Ancestral Blood Pool to advance further.

Shi Lan’s Divine Phoenix Body had now awakened completely. The faint pressure of her bloodline meant that even a Heaven Demon could no longer detect any trace of human scent on her.

Perhaps because this was their first meeting, Chi Xun seemed somewhat restrained, standing quietly to one side as he watched Cangyue report on the Lan clan’s recent situation to Shi Lan.

The number of demons beneath the Demon Kings, including some ignorant wild beasts that had yet to awaken sentience, had already passed two million. Within the Feather Emperor Hall’s territory, their presence had become incomparably imposing.

During this period, some powerful races had tried to make moves against the Lan clan, but the Feather Emperor Hall’s attitude was ambiguous and noncommittal. It had imposed no restrictions whatsoever on the Lan clan’s growth, and that had made quite a few great demons start to grow uneasy.

“These are some of the offerings presented by the Demon Kings below, my lord. Please have a look and see whether any of them suit your liking.”

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After reporting on the recent situation, Cangyue lifted a cloth sack with both hands and offered it to Shi Lan.

Compared with the human race, the demon race’s methods of artifact refining were somewhat crude. Great demons above the Nascent Soul Realm generally opened small spaces directly to store their belongings.

At the Demon King level, very few possessed storage artifacts. The few who did had extremely crude ones, like the cloth sack in Cangyue’s hands.

Shi Lan took it and glanced inside. The space was not especially large—three zhang high and more than thirty zhang across—and it was filled with all sorts of treasures.

Most of them were heavenly materials and earthly treasures, with the occasional magic treasure mixed in, though none were of especially high grade.

Shi Lan took some spiritual materials rare in the Vast Land of Shenzhou, then took out a few magic treasures she had no use for from her Qiankun Bracelet and stuffed them into the sack before returning it to Cangyue.

“Do you have any way to help me obtain the corpse of a great demon? The higher the cultivation, the better.”

Shi Lan wanted to refine an external incarnation. If she had the corpse of a great demon, the process would become much easier.

With a skeleton as the foundation, and spiritual materials used to reshape flesh around that frame, once the immortal-path Nascent Soul entered it, it would quickly gain formidable combat strength.

And within her Black Domain, she still had a mass of Demon Emperor blood sealed away. If she could obtain the corpse of a demon emperor and fuse that mass of Emperor blood into it, even she could not be sure what sort of mutation might occur.

Hearing Shi Lan’s request, Cangyue thought for a long while, then shook her head somewhat helplessly.

“The remains of great demons are truly rare. Most great demons who die in battle leave no corpse behind. As for those who die naturally, their remains are usually laid to rest in the ancestral tombs of their clans. It would be extremely difficult to obtain one.”

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The great demon Shi Lan was asking for naturally meant, at minimum, one above the Heaven Demon level. Great demons of that rank generally had extraordinary backgrounds. To get one of their corpses, the only likely path would be grave-robbing their ancestors.

“I’ve heard that within the Demon Emperor Palace there is a separate dimension where countless great demon remains are stored. There may even be the leftover cast-off husks of Demon Emperors.”

At the side, Chi Xun added that cautiously.

Shi Lan frowned slightly and considered the matter inwardly.

The demon race had one major weakness: the shackles of bloodline. If the remains had belonged to something too weak in life, then to her they would be completely meaningless and would instead limit the speed of her cultivation advancement.

If that were the case, it would be better to shape a body directly from spiritual materials. It would not be as effective as using the remains of a demon beast, but it could still suffice.

Just as Shi Lan was thinking, one slender green tendril after another rose out of the Ancestral Blood Pool and swayed in the air.

Shi Lan turned around sharply and looked toward the Ancestral Blood Pool, which had grown much larger, surprise flashing across her face.

A green ancient lotus swayed within the sea of blood, unstained by the mire from which it rose. Its roots trembled rapidly, as though it possessed spirit.

“The green lotus you left behind back then, my lord, has developed fairly strong spirituality in only a short time. In the future, it may well have a chance to assume form.”

Shi Lan stepped into the air and came above the blood pool. No one knew better than she did where that green lotus had come from.

This was merely it recovering.