Eternal Life by Dual Cultivation

Chapter 231 168: A Clean Sweep

His current appearance was a world of difference from the youth in magnificent black robes he'd been before; even the aura of his Destiny had changed.

Even if Yu Youqin and Yu Yalan were standing right in front of him, they would never be able to tell who he was.

"Alright, time to continue my hunt for opportunities!"

Ling Changqing said to himself. In any case, until Dragon Soul Valley closed, he would rather die than have anything more to do with any Female Cultivators.

The only things that interested him now were the valley's many opportunities. He wouldn't miss a single one he came across; his guiding principle was to take everything he could.

After taking out the Jade Scroll Map and confirming his position, Ling Changqing rode his Escape Light and sped into the distance.

He couldn't care less about the situation back at Meteor Fall Abyss.

'Without me, the Child of Destiny, there,' he thought, 'the Cultivators from the Nine Great Families probably can't even start a fight if they want to, right?'

'It's just that Liu Ying Meng Luan, Yu Yalan, and the others might be a little heartbroken. They might even come to hate me.'

'If you're not going to marry them, why lead them on?'

'No, that's not right. It's not like I actively pursued them, right? They were the ones who threw themselves at me.'

Therefore, Ling Changqing felt he didn't quite meet the criteria for being a so-called "scumbag."

At the end of the day, he was only thinking of his own safety, as well as theirs.

To put it bluntly, they weren't yet capable of handling a heaven-defying opportunity like being with a Child of Destiny.

Perhaps in a few years, once Ling Changqing had grown into a great figure on the level of a Nascent Soul True Monarch, he would finally have enough power to protect them.

This primeval forest was vast. Towering ancient trees so large it would take more than ten people to encircle their trunks were everywhere, their dense canopies blotting out the sun.

Even if a Cultivator on a Flying Sword flew over the forest, it would be difficult to spot a specific target without expending the Power of Divine Sense to conduct a blanket search.

Deep within the forest lay a large swamp shrouded in a pervasive miasma.

Strange, hideous crocodiles, each dozens of feet long with bodies of putrid green covered in black tumors, were scattered everywhere.

They lay lazily in the filthy mud, too listless to move even when ravenous. Only when a small beast happened to pass by would they lunge out in a surprise attack, swallowing it whole.

An Escape Light flashed past. The next moment, hundreds, even thousands, of sharp streams of Sword Qi rained down like a dense curtain.

A hoarse shriek of pain rang out. One of the strange crocodiles was torn to pieces by the sharp Sword Qi. Immediately, an egg-sized Inner Core spun out from the bloody water and landed in Ling Changqing's hand.

Then came the second, the third...

The crocodiles that managed to react immediately counterattacked. These Second Rank Demon Beasts roared, and water spheres the size of large bowls shot out like a volley of rain.

There were also other Divine Techniques—Ice Arrows, massive logs, and bolts of lightning—all hurtling down toward Ling Changqing at once.

However, these Divine Techniques were rather crude and their destructive power was unimpressive. Ling Changqing dodged the majority of them, while the Glazed Yellow Umbrella absorbed the rest.

In a matter of moments, Ling Changqing had completely wiped out every last one of the strange crocodiles in the swamp.

The only issue was that the area had no decent Spirit Medicine or Spiritual Herbs. Only the heartwood of a few Spirit Wood trees held any value.

After confirming there were no survivors, Ling Changqing immediately set off for the next hunting ground.

「The next day」

Ling Changqing appeared alone, deep within a mountain range.

The peaks here looked majestic and treacherous, but the mountains themselves were mostly hollowed out, forming a network of caves on an unimaginable scale.

The largest and deepest of the caves reached all the way underground, touching upon a subterranean river of magma.

The culprits responsible for all this were the Earth-Core Flame Worms, a species of head-sized, colonial beasts.

They possessed pincers as sharp as Flying Swords, allowing them to easily dig through hard rock formations and feed on the Spirit Gold Ore within the soil.

Individually, these creatures weren't much of a threat, but in large numbers, their collective power was terrifyingly destructive.

Ling Changqing strode into the entrance of a massive cave, flanked by two orbiting Flying Swords, one red and one green.

A scorching crimson light, trailing a faint afterimage, shot straight at him.

A blast of sharp Sword Qi shot past, tearing it into two perfect halves. The creature's broken husk fell to the ground with a metallic clang.

It looked like an oversized hornet, its entire body crimson and gleaming with a metallic luster. It radiated a considerable amount of heat.

A wisp of Spirit Flame descended, enveloping the remains and burning fiercely. A few dozen seconds later, it was reduced to ash, leaving behind only a peanut-sized metal crystal.

This crystal was the condensed essence of the Earth-Core Flame Worm. Ling Changqing, as a matter of course, collected it.

He glanced around as more Earth-Core Flame Worms poured out from all corners of the massive cave. Like a well-trained army, they swarmed him in a frenzied siege.

Unparalleled Sword Qi filled the area for two hundred feet around him, indiscriminately dismembering any Earth-Core Flame Worm that dared to enter.

In just a few moments, the broken husks of the creatures had piled up into a small hill around Ling Changqing.

A great ball of high-temperature Spirit Flame descended, incinerating all the husks and leaving only scattered metal crystals on the ground.

But this did nothing to deter their kind. More Earth-Core Flame Worms continued to pour out in an endless stream, one wave after another.

Sword Qi crisscrossed through the air, and great swaths of the creatures vanished as quickly as snow under a blazing sun.

After finishing off another wave of the insect swarm, Ling Changqing took out a set of Array Banners and an Array Disc to lay down an Array that would conceal his presence.

From then on, whenever his Magical Power was about to run out, he would temporarily retreat into the Array to recover. After a short while, he would emerge to continue the slaughter.

Ling Changqing's goal was to slaughter his way through the entire lair of the Earth-Core Flame Worms.

According to the information on his map, many kinds of Fire Attribute Spirit Medicine and Spiritual Herbs grew near the lairs of these colonial beasts. There was no shortage of rare Medicinal Herbs ranging from Rank One to Third Grade, and even Quasi Rank Four.

After several hours of ferocious fighting, Ling Changqing had cleared out the caves that spanned dozens of miles.

Then, following the tunnels inside the mountain, he continued his relentless slaughter deeper underground.

「A day and a night later」

Ling Changqing had already penetrated several thousand feet deep underground.