Chapter 1865: Blood Bees Appear
By the Blood Lake, a large number of beast-shaped sacred medicines grew, resembling rabbits, snakes, and even some that looked like dragons and tigers, or took the form of taotie, emitting powerful spiritual energy fluctuations.
Along the way, many cultivators had subdued quite a few beast-shaped sacred medicines. After swallowing them, their cultivation had greatly increased.
It was precisely because of this that, upon suddenly seeing so many beast-shaped sacred medicines, they could not remain calm. Greed gleamed in their eyes, and each one rubbed their fists and wiped their palms, eager to act, having completely forgotten the true purpose of coming to this polar region.
"If I pick them, I'm sure I can refine a Dao Domain."
"For the sake of breaking through to the Nine-Step Saint King realm as quickly as possible, it's worth taking the risk."
"Fortune favors the bold. The more dangerous the place, the greater the opportunity."
……
Treasures cloud the mind—this saying is true.
Heavenly Beginning Fairy warned, "Everyone be careful. These beast-shaped sacred medicines can attack a cultivator's saint soul and spirit."
"Fairy, rest assured. This Crown Prince has the Nine Orifices Soul-Suppressing Pearl. I'm not afraid of their attacks."
Imperial Ancestor Crown Prince was quite confident in his own strength. Leading Yue Gongming, Xian Gongming, Que Gonggong, and others, he approached the divine blood lake, collecting one beast-shaped sacred medicine after another into his storage.
The other cultivators were extremely envious and joined the ranks of picking the sacred medicines.
Heavenly Beginning Fairy knew she could not stop them. She sighed softly, then circulated her saint qi, opening the vertical eye on her brow to search for traces of Blood Bee Shura King.
Unfortunately, suppressed by the residual power of the divine corpse, the power her vertical eye could unleash here was quite limited.
Heavenly Beginning Fairy furrowed her delicate brows. "Something's not right."
Li Miaohan asked, "Master, what's not right?"
Heavenly Beginning Fairy said, "Since Blood Bee Shura King came to Battle Soul Star, he definitely wouldn't have missed this divine blood lake. But why isn't he here?"
"Maybe he sensed our aura in advance and has already fled," Li Miaohan said.
The Butcher nodded. "That's possible. After all, we have the advantage in numbers and experts. No matter how strong Blood Bee Shura King is, he wouldn't dare face us head-on."
"In that case, what are we waiting for? Let's go pick the sacred medicines too. Earlier, some cultivator swallowed a longevity-shaped sacred medicine and broke straight through from the Seven-Step Saint King to the Eight-Step Saint King. If we don't go now, those guys will pick all the sacred medicines clean. We can't go back empty-handed, can we?" An elder from Heavenly Beginning Civilization said urgently.
Heavenly Beginning Fairy's eyes were clear. She shook her head. "No, not everyone can go pick the sacred medicines. If we're ambushed, we'll be caught off guard."
Li Miaohan's gaze turned toward the divine blood lake. She exclaimed in surprise, "He... he went to the divine blood lake. What is he going to do?"
Heavenly Beginning Fairy followed Li Miaohan's line of sight and saw Zhang Ruochen's back. Her brows furrowed even deeper. She muttered to herself, "This guy, it seems he also wants to take some benefits."
Li Miaohan laughed. "Divine blood has much broader uses than beast-shaped sacred medicines. Such a large lake, even if we could take away one percent or one-thousandth, it would still be a massive fortune."
The Fool's eyes lit up. "Heavenly Maiden, should we collect some too?"
Heavenly Beginning Fairy said, "Divine blood contains immense power. A single drop can pierce through an ordinary sacred artifact. Without a vessel made of special material, how can we hold divine blood?"
"Besides, this divine blood here is definitely contaminated with some unclean things. Even if we collect it, we can't refine it directly."
The Fool fumbled around on himself for a while but couldn't find a suitable vessel to hold the divine blood. In the end, he sighed in disappointment and stayed by Heavenly Beginning Fairy's side.
Zhang Ruochen used six Void Illusion Pearls to protect his entire body and slowly walked toward the divine blood lake.
The closer he got to the divine blood lake, the stronger the oppressive force from heaven and earth became. Moreover, strange illusions appeared before Zhang Ruochen's eyes.
The blood lake became boundless. On the red water surface, skeletons floated up, emitting heart-rending screams.
Some of those skeletons exuded auras as powerful as Great Saints, wielding sharp bone spears that thrust straight toward Zhang Ruochen's chest.
Zhang Ruochen paid them no attention. When the bone spears struck his body, they passed right through him, turning into illusory phantoms.
Everything was an illusion!
Of course, it took Zhang Ruochen's powerful spiritual will to withstand it. For other cultivators, the moment a Great Saint's aura was released, they would have been scared out of their wits.
True Marvel Little Daoist tensed up and said nervously, "Zhang Ruochen, are you really not afraid of anything for the sake of divine blood?"
"Do you think I'm here for the divine blood?" Zhang Ruochen said.
True Marvel Little Daoist said, "Aren't you?"
Zhang Ruochen walked to the edge of the divine blood lake, opened his Heavenly Eye, and searched the lake's surface. After a long while, he showed a puzzled expression and muttered, "Did I guess wrong?"
"What are you looking for?" True Marvel Little Daoist asked.
Zhang Ruochen walked along the edge of the divine blood lake, searching every possible hiding spot. It wasn't until True Marvel Little Daoist asked him for the fifth time that he finally answered, "Blood Bee Shura King."
"Pfft, and I thought you were looking for something important."
True Marvel Little Daoist said, "I think Blood Bee Shura King must have fled long ago. How could he still be here? Could he hide in the lake? The power contained in a whole lake of divine blood is not something a Saint King can withstand. Any living being that jumps in will be refined into pus and blood."
"Maybe you're right," Zhang Ruochen said.
"Since we're here, how can we ignore such a huge lake of divine blood?"
True Marvel Little Daoist took out the Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Mirror, activated it, and sent it flying into the air above the lake.
Drops of divine blood from the lake flew up and surged into the mirror's surface.
Zhang Ruochen was quite surprised. "The Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Mirror has an inner space?"
"What's so surprising about that? Isn't it normal for a Supreme Sacred Artifact to have an inner space?"
Then True Marvel Little Daoist added, "This is a rare opportunity. Hurry up and take out the Azure Sky Floating Pagoda to collect the divine blood. If you want to cultivate your physical body to the Great Saint realm, you'll need a lot of divine blood. If you miss this chance, where will you find it later?"
Zhang Ruochen still felt a sense of crisis, as if a pair of dangerous eyes were watching him.
Zhang Ruochen took out three talismans and hid them in his left palm, ready for emergencies. Then he took out the Water Star Gourd, wrapped a Seven-Light Ten-Thousand-Pattern Saint-level chain around it, and threw it into the divine blood lake.
The next moment, the Water Star Gourd grew to the size of a palace, and divine blood flowed continuously into the gourd's mouth.
At the mouth of the gourd, a blood-water whirlpool formed.
Seeing this, True Marvel Little Daoist let out a strange cry: "Using the Water Star Gourd? That's not fair!"
The Water Star Gourd was like a bottomless pit, impossible to fill.
In comparison, his Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Mirror could only collect a few dozen drops of divine blood at a time—far too slow.
The cultivators picking the beast-shaped sacred medicines saw Zhang Ruochen collecting divine blood and were tempted to go over and get a share.
Just then, a huge crisis erupted.
A scream rang out from among the beast-shaped sacred medicines.
"Blood... Blood Emperor Bee..."
A Nine-Step Saint King under Imperial Ancestor Crown Prince rushed out from the sacred medicine thicket, covered in dozens of blood-red bee insects. Some of the bees had already burrowed into his body, leaving finger-sized bloody holes.
After being attacked by the bee insects, that Nine-Step Saint King immediately circulated his saint qi and used his physical defenses to resist.
"Pfft."
But before he could escape the sacred medicine thicket, his head exploded.
A fist-sized bee insect burst out from the top of his head.
It was a bee king, its blood-red body marked with golden patterns, emitting an aura comparable to a Dao Domain realm expert.
"Buzz buzz."
From a dragon-shaped beast sacred medicine, a swarm of blood-red bee insects flew out, forming a blood cloud that scattered in all directions.
"Blood Emperor Bees! It's Blood Emperor Bees!"
"This is a trap! Get out of the sacred medicine thicket, quickly... Ah!"
In an instant, five or six Saint realm cultivators were surrounded by Blood Emperor Bees. Their bodies were pierced like honeycombs, and the blood inside them was drained clean.
The number of Blood Emperor Bees probably exceeded a thousand, catching them completely off guard.
Heavenly Beginning Fairy and the four elders of Heavenly Beginning Civilization immediately activated the "Red Sun Divine River Diagram" and attacked the swarm of Blood Emperor Bees. The power of the Red Sun erupted, blasting dozens of Blood Emperor Bees into pieces, turning them into clouds of blood mist.
Gradually, the cultivators who had been fleeing calmed down and began to counterattack, striking at the Blood Emperor Bee swarm.
At the edge of the divine blood lake, Zhang Ruochen saw the Blood Emperor Bees appear and immediately sensed trouble. He pulled back hard on the Seven-Light Ten-Thousand-Pattern Saint-level chain.
"Whoosh."
The Water Star Gourd shot out of the lake, arcing through the air as it flew up.
At that moment, on a stone pillar at the center of the lake, about thirty zhang above the water's surface, a black light appeared.
That black light exuded an overwhelming force, shooting like an arrow from a bow straight toward the Water Star Gourd.
"I knew it—he really was hiding nearby."
Zhang Ruochen stared at the black light, his pupils sharply contracting. He immediately activated one of the talismans in his left hand.
The talisman, like a flying sword, collided with the black light.
"Boom."
The talisman exploded, forming over a hundred lightning bolts as thick as bowls, intertwining above the divine blood lake and causing the air to tremble violently.
Behind the lightning, a majestic figure in black battle armor appeared, wielding a heavy broadsword. A pair of black wings grew from his back. He stared coldly at Zhang Ruochen.
"I couldn't even injure him. His defense is ridiculously exaggerated." Zhang Ruochen was secretly shocked.
The Water Star Gourd had already been retrieved into Zhang Ruochen's hand. With two swift motions, he activated the second and third talismans in his left hand.
That black figure was charging toward the Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Mirror when he was intercepted by the second and third talismans, blocking his path.
"Boom."
"Boom."
Two more thunderclaps echoed above the divine blood lake.
The black figure burst through the lightning, his blood-red pupils fixed firmly on Zhang Ruochen.
This person was none other than Blood Bee Shura King.
"So there is such a shrewd cultivator in the Heavenly Court realm. Twice you guessed my intentions and struck first with attack talismans. Interesting."
Blood Bee Shura King flapped his broad black wings, wielding his heavy war sword, and flew toward Zhang Ruochen like a beam of light. He decided to eliminate Zhang Ruochen first, to prevent him from causing further trouble.
(Chapter End)