Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 495

The woman in the palace dress was silent for a moment before sighing, “It’s been a while since I’ve known Fellow Cultivator Lyeo, so I’ll tell you the truth. I arrived a bit earlier and overheard Jangbae talking about that cultivator. It’s true he’s a Nascent Soul stage cultivator and that he was severely injured.

But do you know that the one who led the attack was a Great Master? The Great Master himself had to intervene to barely injure him.”

“The Great Master himself?” The middle-aged man was greatly surprised.

“Moreover, I heard that the cultivator was surrounded and attacked by several upper realm cultivators, and the Great Master secretly ambushed him to barely inflict an injury. Before that, three upper realm cultivators had already been killed.

His divine powers are so great and vicious that countless people have been injured. Even after being severely injured, he still used a secret technique to escape right in front of the Great Master. Isn’t it highly likely that he’s a cultivator of the same level as the Great Master?

If that’s the case, no matter how injured he is, would he be captured by Core Formation cultivators like us? I have no intention of risking my life for two bottles of Poison Dragon Pills.

And I think the upper realm cultivators ordered us to find him because they thought of us as expendable pawns. Didn’t they cast a Soul Binding Technique on everyone before we departed? They say it’s to find us when we’re in danger, but isn’t it really to find him even if we die?”

The woman in the palace dress explained in detail what she knew, her expression dark.

“Such a thing… What should we do now!” The man also seemed surprised and angry after hearing her words.

“It’s simple. We’ve already searched thoroughly, so there’s no need to look any further. Let’s wait until we hear news that other cultivators have found him. Anyway, when the Opening Ceremony comes, all the cultivators will have to pay respects at the Holy Temple, so they’ll naturally call us in.”

“It would be best to do as Fellow Cultivator Su says. No matter how good the Poison Dragon Pill is, it’s not worth our lives.”

“Then, shall we rest for a while at this Holy Temple garrison? In a few days, quite a few tribes will arrive, so we might be able to find what we want first. We can spend a few days like this and then pretend to search around.”

The woman in the palace dress smiled lightly.

* * *

Inside a sealed chamber where no wind could pass, about a dozen formation flags were gathered around a bluestone table, forming a simple barrier. On the table was a round, blue-green bowl similar to a formation disc, and a nascent soul [a cultivator’s spiritual essence] with a vague form was sitting inside, absorbing the surrounding energy and cultivating some kind of technique.

Also, in all directions of the sealed chamber, white-haired old men were sitting cross-legged, holding blue-green formation flags, and all of them were emitting green mist from the tips of the flags, slowly seeping into the bowl. Soon, the old men’s complexions changed, and the nascent soul in the green mist became a little clearer.

“Let’s stop here for today. You’ve all worked very hard. In just a few days, Fellow Disciple Gye will be able to recover on his own. Thank you,” a red-haired old man sitting in the northwest of the sealed chamber said, collecting the flags and bowing to the other old men.

“Brother Hon, it’s been a while since we’ve known Fellow Cultivator Gye, so of course we should help him this much,” one of the old men replied. Three old men collected their formation artifacts, and then a white-faced old man without a beard hurriedly added, “In any case, my disciple and I will remember this help.”

The old man, who had risen first, looked at the nascent soul still sitting in the bowl and spoke sincerely, “Haha, there’s no need for that.”

Another old man smiled. “By the way, I wonder if they’ve found the outsider cultivator while we were in the sealed chamber. It’s unbelievable that there’s someone in the world who can control over ten thousand Gold Devouring Beetles. We all know how difficult it is to hatch Gold Devouring Beetles. Moreover, three Nascent Soul stage cultivators were defeated.”

The red-haired old man’s expression darkened. The other old men also showed signs of fear at those words.

“In addition to the Gold Devouring Beetles, that person also uses purple flames and golden lightning. If you’re attacked by the flames, you’re as good as dead, and the golden lightning can trap a cultivator’s nascent soul. Even though the cultivators who saw it were more careful, two more were defeated,” the white-faced old man sighed.

“Is that all? The magical treasures that cultivator uses are also quite powerful. He has about seventy golden and blue flying swords. They’re so sharp that other cultivators’ treasures were cut in an instant.

What’s even stranger is that the wing-shaped magical treasure on his back allows him to use a thunder-attribute escape technique. Brother Hon might laugh, but at the time, six or seven cultivators of the same level surrounded him, but the situation was very urgent.

Later, fortunately, the Great Master came and unexpectedly struck him with the Great Five Elements Golden Divine Technique, severely injuring him. But even after being injured, he turned blood-red and broke through the encirclement and disappeared. The Great Master said that he couldn’t find his trail within hundreds of miles,” a slightly plump old man recalled the story.

“If the outsider cultivator is that strong, could he be a top-tier cultivator from a large sect in the Great Jin? Then it makes sense that Fellow Disciple Gye ended up like this even after mastering the Six Soul Division Technique,” the red-haired old man frowned at those words.

“Brother Gye, rest assured. Don’t you know the power of the Great Five Elements Golden Divine Technique? Even if he escaped, his vital energy must be greatly damaged, so there’s nothing to fear. The Holy Maiden is presiding over the Opening Ceremony at the nearby Tianlan Holy Temple, so the Great Jin cultivators might know about his strange techniques.

If we find out his identity, even if he’s from a large sect in the Great Jin, the Great Masters won’t let someone who killed so many Dolol upper realm cultivators get away with it. We also need to find out how he raised so many Gold Devouring Beetles,” the white-faced old man spoke sharply.

“We can only hope so. It’s fortunate that his Gold Devouring Beetles are not yet fully grown. If all ten thousand Gold Devouring Beetles were fully grown, it would be difficult to deal with them even if four Great Masters gathered,” the red-haired old man muttered, and they could only look at each other and smile bitterly. No one knew the power of fully grown Gold Devouring Beetles as well as the Dolol cultivators.

But suddenly, something strange happened. The nascent soul, which had been sitting cross-legged in the green mist, screamed and grabbed its head, rolling around. It seemed to be in great pain, and its form was darkening.

“This is bad, let’s help him quickly!” the red-haired old man shouted, and the other old men hurriedly activated their flags, pushing four streams of green mist back into the center of the sealed chamber. Then, the thick mist enveloped the nascent soul, and the energy in its body began to fill up. As time passed, the screaming grew quieter, and when the nascent soul sat cross-legged again, a faint voice could be heard.

“I, I am… grateful… for your help… I’m… fine now… you can stop… the technique.”

The old men were relieved at that voice. In fact, it was natural for their vital energy to be damaged after using the technique for so long.

“Brother Gye, what happened just now? The nascent soul that had stabilized was about to collapse again. The situation was critical.”

“Th, there won’t… be another incident like this… just now… the Gold Devouring Beetle connected to my soul… was annihilated… it seems my consciousness… was affected,” the nascent soul gritted its teeth.

“The Gold Devouring Beetle was annihilated? How could that happen! Aren’t fully grown Gold Devouring Beetles almost immortal?” the red-haired old man asked in surprise.

“It’s not that strange. It would be impossible if Brother Gye were directly controlling the spirit insect, but in the current situation… Even if you can’t damage their solid bodies, it wouldn’t be difficult to attack their souls using demonic secret techniques.”

“Then the opponent might be a demonic cultivator. But the abilities he showed when we fought before weren’t demonic techniques, were they?” the sealed chamber became as quiet as a mouse at the lean old man’s words.

* * *

At the same time, Han Li was sitting in a carriage, letting out a long breath. He had used his secret techniques non-stop for half a day and finally managed to extract the nascent soul of the fully grown Gold Devouring Beetle from its body and absorb it into the Yin Fiend Banner. During that time, the Changluo Tribe people had not bothered him even once.

He spread out one hand, and as he grabbed the black energy, a flag appeared. And the second nascent soul was holding a huge golden beetle, not a flag of black energy. Han Li fiddled with the small flag and shook it towards the golden spirit insect. The spirit insect had a pair of vicious fangs sticking out and looked ferocious, several times larger than Han Li’s Gold Devouring Beetles. But its soul had already left, and it was lifeless.

When he unfurled the Yin Fiend Banner, a fist-sized green light mass came out and floated in front of Han Li’s body. It was a shadow that looked exactly like a fully grown Gold Devouring Beetle, but much smaller, with a pitch-black body and blood-red eyes.

“Go,” Han Li stretched out his finger, and the nascent soul of the Gold Devouring Beetle turned into a streak of black light and returned to its original body. Blood-red light rose from the body of the huge golden Gold Devouring Beetle, and its wings trembled as it flew madly around the second nascent soul.

“As expected. I knew I could refine the Gold Devouring Beetles like zombies. I’ll have to refine them with demonic energy for a while to control them freely, but this is enough!” When he used his consciousness to enlarge the small flag, the golden Gold Devouring Beetle circled in the air and disappeared into the flag. And when he made the flag small again, the second nascent soul, who was watching it, smiled and put the Yin Fiend Banner in its mouth, then turned into black energy and disappeared into Han Li’s head.

At that moment, he suddenly raised his head and looked at the sky. Although his cultivation was sealed, his powerful consciousness remained. Several Dolol cultivators were flying past the group he was in. It was strange. For the past ten days, Dolol cultivators had been passing by every two or three days, but they disappeared as if they had to go somewhere urgently. The disguise he had prepared to hide his identity had become useless.

Of course, it was a good thing for Han Li. Then, he heard Yeongro’s shout from outside, “Pay attention! In two days, we’ll arrive at the garrison designated by the Holy Temple. Then we can rest easy!”

“The Holy Temple’s garrison?” Han Li repeated his words and quietly entered a cultivation session. Another half day passed, and another group of tribes appeared nearby. The scale was not very large, but it was definitely larger than the Changluo Tribe. Since the two groups were going in the same direction, they gathered in one place after an hour.

Then, the chiefs of each tribe stepped forward. The other group was a small tribe called the Honglang Tribe, and they had known Yeongro for a long time. “Brother Yeong, where is the cultivator? Is he in the carriage?” the Honglang Tribe chief, a burly man with a thick beard, asked, looking at Yeongro’s group with curiosity.

“Isn’t your tribe’s cultivator also in the carriage? I wonder how many cultivators the Honglang Tribe is taking with them,” Yeongro replied. “How many? Of course, only one. We spent a fortune to have one cultivator stay with us for a while. How does your tribe have two cultivators?” the burly man smiled at the old man. They had known each other for a long time, so they were joking around.

“We only have one. He only agreed to protect us while we’re traveling,” Yeongro sighed and smiled bitterly with the burly man. Why wouldn’t they know each other’s situation?

“Anyway, it’s good that you have a cultivator. Then, how about we reorganize at the garrison and then travel together with other tribes in the future?” the old man rolled his eyes and suggested.

“Let’s think about that slowly. In the past, small tribes moved together, and some of them had problems because of the precious treasures they possessed,” the burly man replied. “Brother Bal is too worried. Is it common for tribes of our size to offer such great treasures?” Yeongro asked.

“Well, that’s true. Let’s discuss it again when the time comes,” the burly man conceded. While the chiefs were talking, the tribesmen in the group were also interacting with each other. In particular, young men gathered around some of the young women in the two groups, and the sound of laughter never stopped.