Emperor of the Human Way Chapter 13

"The value of a mutant aberration demon is no small matter. Usually upper yard disciples need the contribution from a hundred aberration kills to exchange one Feather Spirit Dan, while killing a mutant aberration can get you hundreds of Feather Spirit Dan pills!"

Tian Lanyue was rather envious as she said: "On top of that a mutant aberration demon’s skeleton is made from the purest dark iron, it’s many times purer than the dark iron found in ordinary aberrations’ bones, there’s no better material to make soul weapons with! More than two thousand pounds of dark iron can be used to refine a dozen soul weapons, high-level soul weapons at that!"

Zhong Yue’s heart suddenly banged fiercely. Hundreds of Feather Spirit Dan pills, it absolutely wasn’t a small fortune, it was a timely rain for him!

Soul weapons were also very tempting, they could substantially increase his fighting strength.

This demon’s bones could refine more than a dozen soul weapons, he could imagine how great of a fortune that was!

"There are quite a few disciples in the upper yard with a soul weapon, but most of those are low level soul weapons built with ordinary metals. You can barely infuse your soul inside, and the dark iron used isn’t very pure either."

Tian Lanyue closed her eyes and visualized for a while, and suddenly a raging fire lit in front of her and surrounded the mutant aberration demon’s corpse. She was obviously visualizing a fire type method as she said: "Even if they are low level soul weapons, you can’t underestimate their might. Once soul-infused they come and go like lightning, and become impossible to defend effectively against. But high level soul weapons don’t have any impurity, there aren’t more than a few disciples in the upper yard who can possess this grade of soul weapon. Only core disciples from the Great Wilderness’ ten great tribes can possibly have this kind of divine weapon!"

The blaze burned and in not much time it turned the body into ashes, only leaving dark iron bones burned to a bright shine.

Tian Lanyue closed again her eyes and entered visualization, her mind power transforming into a great downpour and cooling the dark iron bones. She said: "Soul weapon refinement isn’t something we upper yard disciples are able to do, only Qi Refining warriors have the means. Junior brother apprentice can sell this skeleton, or invite someone to refine it. I have ways of doing it either way. Although my Great Ting Clan isn’t one of the ten great clans, it still has its own background. My Great Ting clan has Qi Refining Warriors inside the Sword Sect!"

"Zi Zi"

Raindrops cleansed the dark iron bones as they emitted vapor mist and finally cooled down.

Zhong Yue nodded, he indeed had no connections inside the Sword Sect. The Zhong Mountain clan was in decline, and there was no Qi Refining Warrior among the older generations. And although Zhong Yue knew Zuo Xiangsheng, they didn’t have much friendship.

If Ting Lanyue had her connections, then selling this dark iron skeleton to the Great Ting clan wouldn’t be a great loss for him.

Tian Lanyue contined: "Junior apprentice brother, I already helped you to clean up this skeleton. Carry it with you, let’s go search for our brother and sister apprentices. The Sword Sect’s demon ruins are very dangerous, and if we meet great tribes of spider demons or aberration demons when we’re scattered, it could be a great disaster!"

"Ok!"

Zhong Yue saw that she could obtain fire when she wanted fire and rain when she wanted rain. He was also very convinced and said: "Senior sister apprentice unexpectedly masters several methods at the same time and forces admiration."

"Fire and water visualization, those are small techniques essential when you go out. They aren’t any kind of extraordinary methods but are very useful. If we have to eat in the wind and sleep with the dew[1], then without this kind of small technique we’d go through a lot of hardship." Tian Lanyue said smilingly.

Zhong Yue moved his thought and visualized the Jiao Dragon Totem Body Coiling Secrets. His mind power transformed into a Jiao Dragon that swallowed the aberration skeleton inside its mouth. Zhong Yue didn’t have to carry anything with his own hands as he followed after Tian Lanyue.

Tian Lanyue silently praised him in her heart when she saw this: "Brother apprentice Zhong’s mind power has remarkable endurance. The demon’s skeleton is over two thousand pounds but his mind-shaped Jiao dragon can easily pick it up and carry it as if it were nothing. No wonder he’s able to kill a mutant aberration, it truly isn’t due to luck."

The two of them dashed forward. Tian Lanyue headed on a tall mountain and visualized flames. A two hundred feet tall blaze formed and wrote in the air the word "Pu" in great characters.

Not long later, He Chengchuan’s group of ten disciples rushed to their mountain and joined Zhong Yue and Tian Lanyue. They were all greatly surprised when they saw the demon’s skeleton carried in the Jiao dragon’s mouth behind Zhong Yue’s back.

"Brother apprentice Zhong, did you kill the mutant aberration?" He Chengchuan involuntarily cried out.

Zhong Yue shook his head and said with a smile: "I’m ashamed. I only cared about running for my life in the barren mountains but I suddenly tripped and fell. When I climbed back up I discovered this aberration skeleton, it must be the skeleton of some demon dead long ago in the wild barren mountains.

I never thought I would stumble upon something like this."

He Chengchuan and the other disciples were endlessly envious, repeatedly saying: "Brother apprentice Zhong’s luck goes against heaven, why can’t I have this kind of good fate?"

The other disciples under Pu elder hadn’t run too far either and came back separately when they saw the "Pu" flame word visualized by Tian Lanyue. Everyone eventually reunited after an hour.

Every disciple was extremely surprised when they saw the mutant demon’s skeleton carried behind Zhong Yue’s back. He Chengchuan quickly explained and the many disciples were all also endlessly envious.

Tian Lanyue coughed once and said: "Fellow junior apprentices, this time we came to gain experience in the demon ruins but two fellow disciples already died. We can’t continue anymore, let’s leave immediately. Some shocking changes must have happened to the demon ruins, otherwise it’s impossible for such a small aberration tribe to give birth to a mutant demon! We need to report this to the sect and let the sect investigate!"

Everyone nodded.

Mutant aberrations could only be possibly born in demon tribes of several millions. How could such a trifling tribe with only two hundred aberrations give birth to such an ominous creature?

There certainly was something fishy there.

When everyone was about to go down the mountains, they suddenly heard a clamor in the distance. They saw an acc.u.mulation of rolling dark clouds forming a dense ma.s.s and growing bigger and bigger. It was headed their way, while several dozen upper yard disciples from the Sword Sect wildly ran for their lives in front of these clouds.

"Those are… disciples of master uncle Jin Hong!"

He Chengchuan knew many people and immediately recognized the escaping upper yard disciples in front of them. He said with some confusion: "What are they fleeing for?"

"Those are eagle demons!"

On the mountaintop everyone’s expression changed. A female disciple cried out involuntarily: "So many eagle demons!"

Those dark clouds in the air were shockingly not clouds but the ma.s.s formed by a thousand of giant eagles spreading their wings!

Zhong Yue squinted his eyes and discovered that the so-called eagle demons were human-faced beasts with a bird body, two wings, huge claws, and a mouth filled with teeth. The countless eagle demons repeatedly rose and fell, diving from the sky and pouncing on the upper yard disciples on the ground!

Suddenly an upper yard disciple was grabbed by the shoulders and lifted in the air. Several eagle demons threw themselves at him and instantly tore him to pieces. Blood and flesh splashed, but not a single piece of flesh fell on the ground. It was all eaten clean by the flock of eagle demons instead!

"Lin Shuping died!"

He Chengchuan stared with round eyes when he saw the disciple eaten by the flock of eagle demons. He sucked in cold air and muttered: "Master uncle Jin Hong’s disciple Lin Shuping was a disciple from the Yulin clan, one of the ten great clans and tribes of the Great Wilderness. Lin Shuping’s strength is even more astonishing and he’s known as one of the ten great disciples in our Sword Sect’s upper yard. He was only half a step away from becoming a Qi Refining Warrior, how could he be killed by those eagle demons just like that?"

"It’s an evolved eagle demon!"

Tian Lanyue’s face was snow white, and shouted as she made an instant decision: "Quickly run down the mountain and leave the demon ruins! A small tribe of a thousand eagle demons unexpectedly gave birth to a mutant eagle demon, there’s certainly a problem with the Sword Sect’s demon ruins!"

Zhong Yue also knew things were far from good. The first small aberration tribe giving birth to a mutant aberration could be attributed to blind luck, but a small eagle demon tribe also giving birth to an evolved eagle demon certainly spelled something strange!

Everyone dashed down the mountain. Tian Lanyue ran side by side with Zhong Yue and said: "Brother apprentice Zhong, if we meet with danger please give us a helping hand…"

When he heard this, He Chengchuan wondered confusedly in his heart: "Why did sister apprentice Ting say these kind of words?"

He didn’t know that Tian Lanyue sought help from Zhong Yue because she had seen Zhong Yue’s abilities and knew his strength was above hers.

"Don’t worry senior sister apprentice, although I’m not Pu elder’s disciple, we went through thick and thin together and naturally have to work together."

A cloud of dust suddenly rose in the distance as soon as he said that. Hundreds of pitch black spiders were charging their way as they chased after dozens of upper yard disciples from the Sword Sect!

Those great spiders ran on eight legs. They were each over six feet tall and were over ten feet wide. A human upper body shockingly grew on their back, some male and some female. They were impressively the spider demons of the demon ruins!

The spider demon in the lead was the most alarming among them. He spit out bright snowy spider silk from his mouth and captured an upper sect disciple with the sticky web. "Shua" The upper yard disciple couldn’t resist the forceful pull and flew as the web towed him back. He landed inside the cl.u.s.ter of spiders and screamed once, before falling forever silent. The group of spiders ate him clean without even leaving his bones!

"Evolved spider demon!"

Tian Lanyue, He Chengchuan and the other upper yard disciples had sickly pale expressions. They immediately turned away and fled.

"Those are students of martial uncle Song Shi, they also met an evolved spider demon and suffered disaster!"

Only a few li into their escape they met another group of disciples desperately running for their lives in panic as they were chased and killed by hundreds of demon.

"Something big happened to the demon ruins!"

"If we get caught inside the demon domain, I’m afraid that we’ll die without even a burial before the Sword Sect’s Qi Refining Warriors can get wind of the news."

"What happened in the end? Why did so many evolved demons suddenly appear here?"

Zhong Yue and his group of disciples continued to escape. But even more demon clans from the demon ruins appeared, led by evolved demons. They encircled the disciples, surrounding them inside an area with a radius of a hundred li.

"Heh heh, humans bullied our demon races and trapped us here, only keeping us alive so their later generations can gain experience by killing us. Today their retribution finally came."

Evolved demons appeared one after another outside the encirclement, their atmosphere wild and unrestrained, their vicious aura leaking in the air. Impressively those were leaders of tribes of millions of demons, and among them there were even some demons who had already induced a demon spirit. Their soul had combined with a demon ruins’ demon spirit, and they became demon Qi Refining warriors!

"All of us demons painstakingly reproduced for so many years. We secretly worshiped this piece of heaven and earth, and finally succeeded in making this piece of heaven and earth give birth to demon spirits!"

They were led by a demon Qi Refining warrior wholly shadowed inside a black robe. He laughed loudly like the howl of a fierce hurricane: "Today, let’s make those younger generations of the human race into sacrifices for our races’ antique ancestors. Let’s awaken our ancestors’ spirit, charge outside of these demon ruins, and reconquer the Great Wilderness that originally belonged to us! I have to bleed those humans, use their blood to moisten our ancestors’ spirits, and make the spirits awaken!"

Behind him, many Qi Refining warriors of the demon races rose in the air one after another and loudly yelled: "Listen children, don’t eat them, capture them!"

"Maintain their lives, we’ll offer them as sacrifice to the spirit of our ancestral forefathers!"

Translator notes:

[1] Live outside/live in the wild. I left the expression as it is picturesque.