Against The Heavens 114 Panther Nest.

"Junior Sister Ying, you should come over here. Tian Zanxia and the others don't seem to have entered the palace yet so it'll be hard for our small group to keep an eye out for you."

She used the excuse that they wouldn't be able to keep an eye out for Fang Ying, but it was clear that they actually wanted Fang Ying to join them so that they would be safer. Tian Zanxia was the name of the youth that Li Yang had killed earlier, it seemed like the two people that he spared hadn't sent the information to the Tian clan, possibly afraid that Li Yang would kill them if he were to learn of it. Fang Ying looked at the people from the Tian clan but decided to shake her head when she saw that they were frowning at Li Yang, clearly not very fond of him or what he had said about Tian Zheng earlier.

"There's no need to keep an eye on us, we'll be just fine on our own."

The eyes of the pink-haired woman who was the leader of this group twitched slightly when she heard Fang Ying's reply. But as now was a poor time to pursue it, she had no choice but to drop it and focus on the invisible enemies they were facing. Fang Ying looked at Langshen after rejecting the Tian clan, the two giving each other a quick nod and immediately fusing. There was no telling what might happen from now on, it was best to be careful.

While Fang Ying was rejecting the Tian clan and fusing with Langshen, Li Yang was sweeping the surrounding area with narrowed eyes, trying out various things to locate the invisible panthers. After a short moment where the entire hall was covered in tense silence, Li Yang suddenly shot to the right, a trail of lightning snaking around in his wake.

Right as Li Yang shot to the right, three more people, unaffiliated cultivators who were a bit more spread, suffered attacks from the invisible panthers. Two people died, but the third one was able to just barely block the attack and buy enough time for someone close by to launch a counter-attack to save her.

Li Yang crossed a little over a hundred meters in less than the blink of an eye, slashing his sword out in an arch, the air around the blade distorting from the heat of the fire and lightning gathered in the tip. A loud clanking sound rang out as his golden sword collided with something, the sleeves of Li Yang's robe exploding from the sheer force he exerted with his arms.

This sound caught the attention of the other people in the room, who cast their eyes towards him just in time to see that his sword had collided with a panther. The panther had used one of it's three sickle-tipped tails to just barely block the sword, otherwise, the attack would have collided directly with its neck. But the damage was already done, the sword simply contained too much force for the hastily prepared defense to fully block it.

The sickle-tipped tail was pushed into the neck of the panther, slicing open its skin and tainting its snow-white fur with crimson blood. The sheer force of the attack also pushed the panther back, sending it soaring through the air and crashing into one of the pillars, a deep cut going halfway through its neck. It wasn't dead yet, but it would soon die either from blood loss or due to suffocating since its airpipe had been sliced open.

Li Yang looked at his golden-purple sword, frowning slightly. All the Qi he had sent into it had been completely swallowed up, like a drop of water entering the ocean, producing next to no result. It seemed like he would have to greatly strengthen and increase his energy if he wished to unleash the full power of his old weapon.

Right after Li Yang sent the panther flying, a symphony of saddened and subdued roars echoed throughout the room, their numbers impossible to properly count thanks to the echo. Eight more people were suddenly attacked and caught off guard, killed almost immediately. Li Yang took his eyes off his sword and focused on the situation around him, casually speaking out.

"They can perfectly hide themselves, but they still affect the world around them with their movements. Don't look for them, look for signs of change in the area around you."

This was how Li Yang had discovered the location of the panther he just attacked. He hadn't been able to use any techniques to actually see the panther, but he was able to discover an area where there were four spots where the ground was slightly warmer than its surrounding. He then felt that these four spots suddenly got warmer for a short second, guessing that it might be from a panther exerting force in its legs to jump. He then did his best to listen for the sound of air moving, using it to locate where in the air the panther was.

The other groups immediately took Li Yang's words to heart, using their various techniques to sniff out the spots where the panthers were affecting the world around them. Li Yang walked over to Fang Ying, pointing at the dying panther that had sunk to the floor.

"Can you bring that one over here? They're not Divine beasts, but they have a bit of Divine beast blood in them. Also, I want their skin and blood."

When he wounded the first and killed the second panther, he had discovered that while they did have a sliver of Divine beast aura on them, it was rather diluted. It was likely that the large skeleton had once been a Divine beast and that these were it's children, likely the result of the Divine beast mating with a normal Demonic beast. Fang Ying gave a nod of her head, s.p.a.ce around the panther rippling and transporting it over to them while she was talking.

"You really should work on your habit of shortening your sentences by not explaining yourself. I can guess why you want their skin, but saying it as you did just makes it sound macabre."

Li Yang shrugged his shoulders casually, not really taking the advice to heart. Fang Ying rolled her eyes slightly, finishing off the panther with a quick slash to decapitate it, storing the body into her interspatial ring. She then swept her eyes around the hall, which had already broken out into several battles.

"Well then, shall we see who can acquire more of them?"

In the short time that had pa.s.sed after Li Yang told the others how to find the panthers, two more of them had already been killed. Killing the two did not come without a cost however, four more cultivators had been killed by the panthers launching their sneak attacks. Now it was Li Yang's turn to roll his eyes for a short instant before sweeping the hall with his gaze.

"And you say that my words are macabre? That's the pot calling the kettle black. But alright, I'll play along. What does the winner get?"

Fang Ying's lips curled into a mixture of a smirk and a smile when Li Yang accepted her proposal. She cast a sideways glance around the hall and then gave a slight wave of her hand and caused a poisonous fog to appear around a group that was currently being attacked by three panthers, buying them a bit of time to rebuild their formation and defend themselves. After saving the group, she turned her eyes back onto Li Yang.

"Same as usual good enough for you?"

Li Yang's lips curled up slightly and he nodded his head, the usual reward for their compet.i.tions were very simple, the winner could make any one request of the loser. With the deal put in place, they both swept their eyes around the hall, Fang Ying's smirk growing wider as she made her first move.

She gave a slight flick of her wrist, droplets of blood gathering in the air of the entire hall, turning into a drizzling rain that covered everything in blood. In this rain of blood, even the panthers were unable to truly hide from everyone's eyes. The blood that hit them would simply vanish, so while they weren't stained by it, they became glaring voids in the rain of blood, their positions easily visible while also revealing their full numbers, 33 panthers if one did not count the dead ones. Fang Ying tipped her head in Li Yang's direction, smiling brilliantly at him.

"Well then, I'll be going on ahead."

Fang Ying vanished right after speaking, only leaving behind a faint ripple in s.p.a.ce before she appeared at the side of a panther. She swung her red-veined sword, causing all the b.l.o.o.d.y rain around the panther to turn into thin chains that prevented it from moving, allowing her to easily decapitate it. At the same time, s.p.a.ce around another panther rippled, invisibly thin blades of compressed s.p.a.ce appearing all around it and stabbing into it without giving it the time to escape. Li Yang looked at the scene, clicking his tongue slightly.

"Tch, she got me."

If both of them had to search for the panthers, Li Yang was somewhat confident in his ability to keep up with Fang Ying. But if both of them constantly knew where the panthers were? Not only was Fang Ying's cultivation much higher than Li Yang's, but she also had the law of s.p.a.ce at her disposal, she could move far faster than him. There was only one way to explain it, the game had been rigged from the start.

Fang Ying's first move had immediately robbed the panthers of their main advantage, all they had left now were their strong bodies and quick movement. But when 31 panthers were faced with nearly 150 cultivators, things like that would only take them so far.

After only another half an hour, the remaining 31 panthers had been killed, only a further five cultivators dying in the process. The compet.i.tion between Li Yang and Fang Ying ended in her resounding success, she had killed 16 panthers while Li Yang had only been able to kill another seven before the other cultivators killed the rest. Fang Ying waved her hand and caused the blood that was now drenching the hall to vanish, undoing her fusion with Langshen and walking over to Li Yang with a smirk, causing him to once again click his tongue.

"Tch, just you wait, I'll prepare something real special for the next compet.i.tion. But a loss is a loss, name your wish."

Fang Ying let out a little giggle when she heard Li Yang's reply, casting a sideways glance at the other cultivators in the hall before responding.

"I'll tell you when we're in a less crowded place. And go ahead, prepare whatever you want, I'll still beat you nice and cleanly, make up for all those loses I had in the past."

Fang Ying did, after all, have her own pride, losing so many compet.i.tions in the past would sting a little. Now that she had such a good chance to take advantage of Li Yang's currently lower cultivation, there was no way she wouldn't take it. Li Yang rolled his eyes again, his gaze landing on the large panther corpse lying in front of the mound of earth.

"We should pick up that skeleton and that mound of earth, they might be useful eventually. We'll also need a bit more blood if we wish to draw up the array around this city, the blood of these panthers isn't enough. Oh, right, I'll make the robes later on, once we're done in this palace."

The hide of the panthers had a rather extraordinary ability, it would redirect any light or Qi that was beneath a certain level of strength that touched it, resulting in the invisibility of the panthers. If they made robes out of their hide, they would be able to emulate this invisibility, making it much easier for them to sneak around and remain undetected. For this reason, both Li Yang and Fang Ying aimed for the next when they killed the panthers, trying to keep as much of the fur intact.

Fang Ying nodded her head and returned her focus from the compet.i.tion back to their current situation. Some of the other groups in the room were starting to look at the large skeleton, so before anyone could make a move for it, Fang Ying dashed over and stored it into her interspatial ring. A few of the groups looked unsatisfied with her taking the entire skeleton and the mound of earth, but as she was the strongest one currently there, they could only accept it for now.

The corpses of the panthers were quickly taken apart and divided by the groups that had killed them, the eyes of everyone landing on the doors located at the back of the hall. With the throne room being here, the treasury shouldn't be far away. Li Yang and Fang Ying matched gazes for a quick second, Li Yang whispering quietly.

"None of these small panthers should have eaten the Demon Crystal of that skeleton, we also haven't seen the skeleton of this panther's likely mate. There might be more beasts hiding in this palace, we need to be careful."

Fang Ying nodded her head, even Langshen was sweeping the area with narrowed eyes and sniffing at the air. He was a Divine beast, his instincts were far better than most humans, and he still sensed danger from this palace. The three of them cast their eyes onto the other groups, trailing behind them as they headed for the various doors at the end of the hall.