Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Now that the plan was set, Tang Jie stopped hesitating and had Tutu fly in the direction of Holy Fire Valley. The Blood River Lord could sense Tang Jie's location after getting that sliver of blood energy, so he would naturally follow. The two of them began a grand chase across the Treasure Paradise.
As he was flying along, he suddenly spotted three people in front of him. It was Liu Qianyi's group, as it turned out that this was the direction they had gone in.
Tang Jie shouted, "Stand aside!"
The rabbit charged straight at them, making no change to its trajectory.
Liu Qianyi's group was startled by Tang Jie coming out of nowhere. At first, they thought Tang Jie was definitely coming to cause trouble for them, unwilling to let them go. Seeing that Tang Jie was coming too fast, they cast barriers, with one of them even stabbing his sword at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie waved his sleeve, sending out a surge of spiritual energy that scattered the sword light, and then he zoomed past the trio without stopping. As he passed Liu Qianyi, he pinched her face and said, "Passing by!"
Liu Qianyi was stunned, and then enraged by this sudden pinch to the face. And then she was confused. I had a barrier on, so how did he pinch me?
As her face rapidly shifted between expressions, she turned to Tang Jie, who was already far off in the distance. She pointed at Tang Jie's fleeing figure and angrily cursed. When she wasn't using her charming arts, she appeared like a delicate young maiden, yet she cursed like a sailor, alarming her two companions.
Once she was all cursed out, she prepared to leave.
There was another rush of wind from behind them, four blood-colored people howling out of the distance: the Blood River Lord.
The Blood River Lord came with even greater force than Tang Jie. Spotting those three in the distance, he bellowed, "Out of my way! Don't block the road!"
He thrust out his palm, sending the three of them flying while his avatars flew right on through.
Liu Qianyi angrily huffed, "The skies are big enough to fly everywhere, so why do I have to stand aside? Tang Jie was like those, and so were those four bastards… Wait. This isn't right!"
Liu Qianyi realized something and gazed into the distance.
Those four people were identical, and she had clearly seen that person before… He had been looking for Tang Jie.
Liu Qianyi's eyes lit up. "Come on—let's go after them!"
She followed behind the Blood River Lord.
Holy Fire Valley was located on the western side of the Treasure Paradise. Flames burned here throughout the year, but strangely, they didn't affect the world outside the valley.
Holy Fire Valley produced many Fire-type crystals, one of the rare treasures in the Treasure Paradise that were classified as resources. Whether in the field of cultivation, pill refining, tool making, or formation laying, they had special uses. Besides this, Holy Fire Valley also contained many Fire-type treasures, and it would attract numerous representatives every opening.
Of course, where there was meat, there were wolves.
Not every person obtained wealth by entering the valley. There were always people with other ideas.
Not far from Holy Fire Valley, four men and one woman were flying through the air. If one looked closely, one would find that four out of five were at the Heart Demon Tier, which was quite high for a representative. The remaining one, a burly man, was at Soul Transformation.
In the Treasure Paradise, this was an almost suicidal cultivation level, meaning that it was basically impossible for him to go into danger zones.
These were representatives of the Northern Heavenly King.
The Eastern, Western, and Southern Heavenly Kings all considered the risks presented by a representative's cultivation level in the Treasure Paradise, so a significant number of their representatives had relatively low cultivation levels. But the Northern Heavenly King had no such problems, and he chose those with as high of a cultivation level as he could manage. If it weren't for the fact that Soul Transformation cultivators weren't easy to come by, he would have even dared to make all twenty of his representatives Soul Transformation cultivators.
Too high of a cultivation level would basically make it impossible for Soul Transformation representatives to enter danger zones to take treasures, meaning that they could only wander around outside.
But this was fine. If they couldn't get it themselves, they could just steal. By killing other representatives, they could obtain the treasures they owned, which was just how the Northern Heavenly King did things.
The Northern Heavenly King was a fiend, and those he recruited were also mostly fiends. The fiend representatives were prime examples of the principle of the strong eating the weak.
These five fiend representatives were patrolling the area. A middle-aged man with a hook-like nose, sharp eyes, and a body covered in black feathers abruptly said, "Someone's coming up from the rear!"
The other four turned their heads, their eyes glowing.
A white and chubby man shouted, "It's that subordinate of the Western Heavenly King!"
A scrawny man said, "I recognize him. He's Tang Jie, a Blood Hand of the arena."
"A mere Blood Hand dares to come to the Treasure Paradise?" questioned a snake-like woman with alluring features.
Everyone else expressed their confusion.
They didn't know Tang Jie simply hadn't had the time to improve himself, only that all of the representatives chosen out of the arena throughout the ages had always been Asuras at worst. When had a Blood Hand ever had the right to participate in the Treasure Paradise?
The burly man standing at the front said in a deep voice, "Who cares what his rank is? Since he's here, we'll just capture him and take his treasures."
This was the Soul Transformation–equivalent cultivator, an upper-grade Transformation fiend.
The fiend representatives were always very straightforward, avoiding the strong and bullying the weak. Let alone a Blood Hand, given that there were five of them, they would even dare to fight against an Asura, and this was without considering that they were essentially one Soul Transformation and four Heart Demon cultivators.
Having made up their minds, the five of them moved forward.
Tang Jie spotted them coming from a distance and knew that they were here to cause trouble. Shit! he inwardly cursed.
He patted Tutu and had it rush downward.
When running into Liu Qianyi, he barged his way through, but now, he was making a detour.
But those five refused to let him go.
As they saw Tang Jie fly down, the burly man chuckled and pressed his hand down, upon which a giant hand came crashing down.
Tang Jie snorted and swung his palm upward.
The two energy palms clashed in the air. Surprisingly, in this clash of Spirit Ring and Soul Transformation, Tang Jie managed to block the attack.
The burly man gasped in surprise. "He really does have some skill, blocking a palm that had 20% of my power. What about this one, then?"
He pushed his palm down, and another giant hand descended, but this time, along with it was a massive phantom tiger.
Tang Jie wasn't willing to go blow for blow with him. He had Tutu move to the side and accelerate downward.
"You can't run!" The hook-nosed man laughed. He opened his wings and turned into an Ironback Eagle that plunged from the skies.
The eagle excelled at diving through the air, and this eagle was a great fiend. Wrapped up in a powerful gale, it dropped from the sky, shooting toward Tang Jie like an arrow.
Bang! Tang Jie and Tutu exploded, and the eagle exulted, "Nothing much!"
But he turned around and saw that there was not even a shred of gore from the body, only countless motes of light.
"This is…" the eagle said in shock.
The tiger man roared, "Idiot, it's an illusion!"
Turning his head, they saw that Tang Jie had used his illusion and shadow clone to charge ahead of them, and he was now looking back at them with a cold smile on his lips.
He didn't just leave. Instead, he stood on Tutu's back and gestured at the tiger man. This gesture was a common sign of contempt in the Blood River Domain, indicating that these five were incompetent for failing to stop a single Tang Jie. Tang Jie then drew his hand across his throat, and only then did he turn around and leave atop his rabbit.
Such arrogance had the tiger man furious. He pointed at Tang Jie and shouted, "After him! We can't let this brat go!"
They chased after Tang Jie.
Thus, Tang Jie had another five pursuers.
Tang Jie didn't care one bit about this, charging right into Holy Fire Valley. The roaring flames of the valley drew closer and closer, and Tang Jie patted Tutu and said, "Go in!"
With a sorrowful look on its face, Tutu lowered its head and plunged into the sea of fire.
"They went into Holy Fire Valley!" the scrawny man shouted.
"Follow them in!" the tiger fiend roared.
"But it's too dangerous in there!" The others grimaced.
Holy Fire Valley wasn't the remnant of the sword soul. The latter could be avoided while the former was a natural danger zone. Once they went in, they would need to confront the frenzied holy flames. They could only rely on their own cultivation to resist it, and the higher their level was, the stronger the flames were.
Based on the past experience of those who had entered Holy Fire Valley, the best cultivation level to enter Holy Fire Valley was the Spirit Ring Tier. It was somewhat difficult for Heart Demon Tier cultivators to hold on, and the flames a Soul Transformation cultivator needed to face were basically impossible to resist.
This was why the five had always been wandering about the perimeter of Holy Fire Valley, hunting down representatives who had obtained treasures from the valley, weakening their foes while getting stronger.
Had the tiger fiend been so provoked by Tang Jie that he wanted them to go in?
"What are you afraid of?" the tiger fiend roared. "You just have to restrain your cultivation! This old man will have his head no matter what!"
His body cracked and snapped, and his aura greatly weakened. The tiger fiend had dropped his cultivation level from Soul Transformation down to Heart Demon.
This was the sealing secret art the Northern Heavenly King had passed down to them. It allowed them to temporarily drop their cultivation level so that they could go places that they usually couldn't. The Northern Heavenly King always recruited high-tier cultivators precisely because he had this secret art.
But this art wasn't a sure thing. After all, it was a self-applied seal, using one's own strength to restrain oneself. If one went through a tough battle or ran into someone who knew what was going on, the seal might break, which could lead to unpredictable consequences.
For this reason, the Soul Transformation great fiends would not recklessly enter the danger zones, even if they did have this secret art. Compared to such risks, it was safer to hunt around them.
Of course, the representatives of the other kings were informed of the Northern Heavenly King's way of doing things, so the fiends didn't have an easy time with their hunting, and it was very possible that they wouldn't catch anyone.
This was why every target was treasured.
This was also why the tiger fiend insisted on going in. It wasn't just because he was angry, but he longed for prey and wasn't willing to let one run off.
After dropping his cultivation level, the tiger rushed into the sea of fire. The other four fiends had no choice but to follow.
Not long after they went in, the Blood River Lord arrived at Holy Fire Valley.
Looking at this valley of raging flames, the Blood River Lord coldly snorted. "Trying to use the flames of the valley against me? I suppose you have some brains. But if you just have geography and no strength, how do you expect to exploit your advantage? Hmph!"
The Blood River Lord strode into the flames.
A few moments later, Liu Qianyi's trio arrived at the valley entrance.
As the three of them gazed at the flames, the man who had previously ambushed Tang Jie asked, "Miss Liu, what is your view of the situation?"
Liu Qianyi's pretty face flashed with anger. "Follow them in!"
"'Follow them in'?" The two men shared a look.
"Yes, go in!" Liu Qianyi sneered. "Since Tang Jie dares to enter Holy Fire Valley, why shouldn't we? We can also go in and see what treasures are in the valley. Li Feng, Zhao Wei, if you're afraid, you don't need to follow."
She took out a necklace with a drop-shaped pendant and hung it on her neck, which created a transparent barrier around her that repelled the waves of heat. Liu Qianyi then rushed into the valley.
The two men looked at each other, courage welling up within them. "Let's just go in! I'm not afraid of anyone!" they said in unison.
They boldly charged into the valley.
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