Cultivation Begins From The Desert

Rhino Horn Continent.

Zhouyang was originally resting at the foot of the Tier Five Spirit Mountain.

In the past two days, following Cao Wenjin's orders, he joined other uninjured Foundation Establishment Cultivators and ran around the oasis to clear out the surviving Tier Three Demon Beasts, returning to rest only yesterday.

Due to the close proximity, he clearly heard Cao Wenjin's alarmed warning.

Only when he saw Cao Wenjin soaring through the clouds to leave, did he truly realize the severity of the situation.

"Run quickly, let's split up and escape!"

He snapped back to reality, and immediately shouted at Huang Yi, who was still dazed by Cao Wenjin's words, before releasing his Flying Sword to flee in a direction completely opposite to where Cao Wenjin had left.

But he had just flown less than thirty miles before he saw a golden light appear high above the Tier Five Spirit Mountain, revealing a golden giant eagle with wings spanning dozens of yards.

"Golden-winged Thunder Roc!"

Having previously encountered two Tier Four Golden-winged Thunder Rocs at Red Tiger Mountain Oasis, Zhouyang instantly recognized the creature upon seeing the golden giant eagle, and his face turned extremely grim.

Golden-winged Thunder Eagle, this kind of Demon Beast, inherently possesses much more power than Demon Beasts of the same tier. And a Golden-winged Thunder Eagle of Tier Five Top Grade is not something the Yellow Sand Sect could afford to provoke even when the sect had two Golden Core Stage Cultivators sitting in defense.

In fact, Zhouyang was not the only one to recognize the Golden-winged Thunder Eagle.

At this moment, except for Cao Wenjin who left first, no other cultivators around, including the surviving Purple Mansion Cultivators, had managed to escape beyond a hundred miles.

Given the immense size of the Tier Five Top-Grade Golden-winged Thunder Eagle, its form could be seen clearly even from over a hundred miles away.

The Golden Roc disregarded the gaze of those human cultivators, which were like ants in its eyes. Upon revealing itself, it simply glanced at the mountain full of human cultivators, quickly understanding the situation.

With an extraordinary lineage, it had long followed a powerful Demon King, and not only refined the "Transverse Bone" enabling it to speak human language, but it also had knowledge about the Boundless Sea of Sand Cultivation Realm.

The Yellow Sand Sect had been established in the Boundless Sea of Sand Cultivation Realm for thousands of years, and being the overlord of the Boundless Sea of Sand for over a thousand years, the Golden Roc naturally knew of the sect's existence.

Moreover, it knew clearly that this sect absolutely had no Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, nor had it ever heard of any Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators declaring the Yellow Sand Sect as a vassal.

Therefore, it had nothing to fear.

Its eyes flashed with murderous intent, and with a sudden flap of its wings, countless bolts of lightning poured down like rain onto all the human cultivators within several dozen miles.

Then, its form shifted and instantly appeared behind Li Zhennan, a Ninth-Layer Purple Mansion Cultivator. With a swipe of its eagle talon, it seized Li Zhennan, who had just summoned a Magical Artifact for defense, like catching a chick, and tossed him into its mouth, shutting its beak to devour Li Zhennan alive!

Demon Beasts eating humans wasn't anything new, but for a Ninth-Layer Purple Mansion Cultivator to be swallowed whole, like a chick, without even a hint of resistance, by a single Demon Beast—this was terrifying!

Especially for the surviving Purple Mansion Cultivators who witnessed this scene, each one nearly died of fright!

Li Zhennan was the one with the highest cultivation among them. Just days ago, he had joined forces with the Chen Family Ancestor, also a Ninth-Layer Purple Mansion Cultivator, to fight against a Tier Five Demon Beast for several hours.

Such a powerful person was devoured by that Golden-winged Thunder Eagle in one bite. What could those with even lower cultivation do?

Run, run, run!

Terrified, several Purple Mansion Cultivators immediately employed various means to desperately flee for their lives.

Though their escape speed was not slow, compared to the Golden Roc's speed, it was vastly inferior.

With a flash of lightning, the Golden Roc that had just devoured Li Zhennan once again used its innate "Thunder Escape Technique" Divine Technique to appear behind the Chen Family Ancestor, who was also of Ninth-Layer Purple Mansion Cultivation.

The Chen Family Ancestor, having the prior example of Li Zhennan, had already activated a Tier Four Middle-Grade Defense Spirit Talisman to protect himself while fleeing, also summoning two Tier Four Defensive Spiritual Artifacts he had refined.

Unfortunately, all of these were useless!

The gap between the Ninth Layer of the Purple Mansion and the Ninth Layer of the Golden Core was greater than that between Qi Cultivation Stage and Purple Mansion Stage. These defense measures might suffice against the Tier Five Lower-Grade Demon Beast "Golden-Horned Rhinoceros," but were far from enough for the Golden Roc.

With a swipe of its eagle talon, shimmering with lightning, the protective layers assembled by the Chen Family Ancestor shattered instantly, and he felt a sharp pain in his back as his body was pierced and lifted by the talons, then tossed towards the agape eagle's mouth.

"Am I going to die now?"

The Chen Family Ancestor stared wide-eyed at the sky, his gaze no longer showing defiance—only bewilderment.

After Cao Wenjin mentioned the expedition to the Rhino Horn Continent, he had mentally prepared himself for death here.

He even left a will at the Yellow Sand Sect before setting off, making various arrangements for his demise.

But he had never imagined that he wouldn't die at the hands of the Tier Five Demon Beast "Golden-Horned Rhinoceros," nor at the hands of Cao Wenjin, but at the mercy of an unexpected Golden-winged Thunder Eagle, and be swallowed alive!

"This pill fragrance… Hmm, you are an Alchemist? And your Alchemy Technique seems quite high tier?"

Just when the Chen Family Ancestor thought he would follow in Li Zhennan's footsteps and die at the eagle's beak, the wide-open eagle's beak suddenly closed ahead of time, and a surprised sound suddenly rang in his ears from the eagle's beak.

Hearing this sound of surprise, the Chen Family Ancestor's expression first froze, then he seemed to remember something, his face changed dramatically, and he immediately reversed his magical power to his mind in preparation to self-destruct his divine soul.

Such an action could not escape the eyes of the Golden Roc. Seeing this, the roc couldn't help but laugh heartily: "Gaga, wanting to die is not so easy, I will grant your wish!"

Before the words fell, the Chen Family Ancestor's head had parted ways with his body.

However, after killing the Chen Family Ancestor, the Golden Roc did not hurriedly eat his corpse, but suddenly opened his mouth and spat out a black jade bottle spiritual artifact.

As soon as the black jade bottle artifact appeared, it released a black spiritual light towards the Chen Family Ancestor's head under the Golden Roc's magical power drive, then a virtual figure was forcibly pulled out from the head and into the jade bottle by that black spiritual light.

Seeing this, the Golden Roc immediately opened his mouth to swallow the jade bottle again, and then looked at the corpse of the Chen Family Ancestor in his claw and said happily:

"Still, my King had foresight. Specially used the Profound Yin Soul Jade to refine the Soul Capturing Bottle artifact rewarded to us. Otherwise, we demon beasts, before becoming demon kings, really can't easily extract the divine soul of human cultivators!"

"When I take the divine soul of this human alchemist back to the Fire-Scaled King, he might be so pleased that he will reward me with a few Spirit Awakening Pills again!"

The Tier Six Demon King can transform into human form, can refine pills and artifacts and set up arrays just like human cultivators.

However, the profound inheritance of pill refining and artifact refining is all in the hands of human powers. Even human cultivators want to learn, it is extremely difficult, let alone for these alien races?

Therefore, those demon kings want to learn this knowledge, they can only follow unconventional paths.

Kidnapping and hunting human high-tier alchemists and artifact refiners are the most common means of the demon kings.

They capture human alchemists and artifact refiners back to their caves, either by threat or by inducement, compelling these human cultivators to teach them pill refining and artifact refining techniques.

If human cultivators refuse to comply, they will use the "Soul Searching Technique" to search their souls, using this brutal and bloody means to grasp these human skills.

At first, human cultivators didn't know about this, indeed allowing them to learn a lot.

Later on, when the demon kings' practices were exposed, human cultivators became vigilant and guarded against it.

Like those major sects and clans, first, they would keep the whereabouts of high-tier alchemists and artifact refiners within their power strictly confidential, secondly, they would set restrictions in these people's divine souls to prevent them from being soul-searched, thirdly, they would make them sign high-level "Nether Blood Contracts", strictly prohibiting the disclosure of any high-tier cultivations and pill refining, artifact refining methods learned from the sects.

Under these three layers of protection, even if the Tier Six Demon King captures those high-tier alchemists and artifact refiners originating from major powers, they cannot obtain much useful information from them.

As for some loose cultivators who are high-tier alchemists and artifact refiners, as well as family patriarchs like the Chen Family Ancestor, without the help of Nascent Soul Stage cultivators to set divine soul restrictions, they can only self-destruct their divine souls before falling into the hands of demon kings, to prevent themselves from being searched by the demon kings.

Previously, after hearing the Golden Roc's surprise sound, the Chen Family Ancestor thought of this layer, which is why he wanted to self-destruct his divine soul.

Unfortunately, his action was still a bit slow, and what he could never have expected was that the Golden Roc, as a Tier Five Demon Beast, had actually refined an artifact capable of extracting cultivators' divine souls.

Killing, extracting soul!

Golden Roc's doing these two things also consumed a bit of time.

As a result, those remaining Purple Mansion cultivators, even the farthest had escaped a mile or two, and the earliest one, Cao Wenjin, had even escaped beyond its sensing range.

"Hmm, can't waste more time with these low-tier cultivators. Otherwise, if the Golden Core cultivator really gets away, it will be hard to explain it to the Fire-Scaled King!"

Thinking of this, the Golden Roc immediately swallowed the Chen Family Ancestor's corpse into his mouth, then flapped his wings and transformed into a golden light chasing after the direction in which Cao Wenjin escaped.

From the appearance of the Golden-winged Thunder Eagle to its departure chasing Cao Wenjin, less than a quarter of an hour has passed.

Zhou Yang, having witnessed all this firsthand, had a mood so complex at this time that the average person would find it hard to believe.

"So the Chen Family Ancestor is dead just like this!"

He looked dazedly in the direction of the departing Golden-winged Thunder Roc, with a complex expression on his face he couldn't describe.

No matter what, he never thought that the Chen Family Ancestor, who had repeatedly tried to kill him, would fall in such a humiliating way!

Though he could already call him an enemy, seeing the Chen Family Ancestor die so humiliatingly under the claws of a demon beast, not only did he not feel any satisfaction, but he felt sorry for him.

Ninth-Layer Purple Mansion cultivator, someone considered to have a certain status in any cultivation realm, ended up being casually crushed to death by a demon beast, with even his divine soul extracted and his corpse eaten—what a tragedy!

Then he looked at the ground around him covered with corpses.

Those corpses were all Foundation Establishment cultivators like him before, and when the Golden-winged Thunder Eagle flapped its wings releasing thousands of thunder attacks earlier, these people were all killed instantly without any resistance, lying dead on the ground.

He survived not because he wasn't attacked, but because he timely activated a Tier Four Defense Spirit Talisman exchanged from Jiang Yuyan.

Originally, there were over a hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators gathered here, but now, as Zhou Yang looked around, those who could stand up like him after the Golden-winged Thunder Eagle left numbered fewer than two palms.