Martial Peak
chapter-1180

“En, it is indeed as you say!” Xie Hong Wen immediately showed a satisfied look as he stared towards Yang Kai, doing just as Xie Yong had said, revelling in Yang Kai desperately cling to life.

When Xie Yong and Xie Yun looked at each other, they saw the helplessness and ridicule in each other’s eyes. Only an idiot like Xie Hong Wen could be deceived so easily, if it were anyone else, they wouldn’t have been fooled by such simple words.

While the three of them continued to lie in ambush, Yang Kai, who was surrounded by the Fire Spirit Beasts, was feeling extremely gloomy.

He had actually not discovered he had been followed all the way to this mountain valley and that his pursuers were quietly lying in wait for him atop a nearby hill, ready to attack at any moment.

All of his energy at this moment was focused on this swarm of Fire Spirit Beasts; he didn’t have the spare energy to care about anything else.

After nearly a full day of killing, he had still only managed to push forward about ten kilometres. At this rate, if he wanted to kill his way out of this mountain valley, Yang Kai estimated it would take at least half a month!

After half a month, the elites from the various big Sects and families would have already broken through the Flame Area and entered the Treasure Area to collect spirit grasses and spirit medicines. At that point, what good things would he be able to obtain?

However, he also understood that becoming anxious was useless now. Even though the strangeness of this mountain valley had far exceeded his expectations.

The Fire Spirit Beasts in this place were endless, and no matter how many he killed, none of them dropped any Fire Crystal Stones.

However, after such a long time, Yang Kai had finally noticed something amiss with these Fire Spirit Beasts’ behaviour. Although they seemed to emerge from the cracks in the earth in all directions, they all seemed to be originating from one specific direction.

It was as if something from that direction was able to endlessly produce new Fire Spirit Beasts.

Yang Kai spread his Divine Sense in that direction. If this were anywhere else, with his proficiency in the Dao of Space, he could easily locate this unseen source, but inside this Flowing Flame Sand Field, his Divine Sense was so severely suppressed that it took quite some effort to try to find it.

Fortunately, after half a day of investigation and observation, Yang Kai finally determined the location of the Fire Spirit Beast source.

It was a huge crevice. Using his Divine Sense, Yang Kai saw how flame-like snakes were constantly springing from this crevice and quickly making their way over towards Yang Kai along the other cracks in the ground, transforming into Fire Spirit Beasts when they got close enough and proceeding to attack him.

Having found the root of the problem, Yang Kai no longer entangled himself with the Fire Spirit Beasts and in a flash, recalled all eight illusionary mountain peaks, gathering them together before smashing them forward fiercely while the purple shield continued guarding his back. Black Demonic Flames surged in Yang Kai’s palm, condensing into a giant sword that he viciously thrust forward.

The Fire Spirit Beasts in front of him were hit hard, and although it was difficult to tell, Yang Kai’s strike just now had killed a large number of Fire Spirit Beasts; the problem was that there were simply too many of them. Immediately after Yang Kai released this focused attack, a number of Sixth and Seventh-Order Fire Spirit Beasts rushed in to claw at him, ripping his clothes to shreds with some even managing to leave shallow scars on his body.

As soon as they saw Yang Kai suddenly dart in the direction of the massive crevice, all the Fire Spirit Beasts suddenly became even more frenzied and violent, the Seventh and Eighth-Order Fire Spirits Beasts recklessly throwing themselves at him to block his path.

Yang Kai put more strength into his charge, pushing the eight illusionary mountain peaks in front of him while using his purple shield to guard his back, he did not need to worry about his defence. The Demonic Flame sword in his hand slashed through all the Fire Spirit Beasts who were in his way, cutting them down as easily as crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood.

After finally arriving at the huge crevice, Yang Kai saw the same scene as he had previously with his Divine Sense investigation. From somewhere down inside this crevice, all the flame auras were flying upwards, each one of them soon transforming into a Spirit Beast to block his advance.

Yang Kai’s figure flickered as he leapt into the crevice, tens of thousands of Fire Spirit Beasts chasing after him.

This scene was not missed by Xie Hong Wen’s group, who were secretly observing from the nearby hill.

They didn’t know why Yang Kai suddenly jumped into a crevice and could only watch as the entire mountain valley turned quiet. The swarm of Fire Spirit Beast from before all disappearing and the only roars now coming from that large crevice.

“What is he doing?” Xie Hong Wen frowned.

“I don’t know, but he should come out soon. If he doesn’t, it means he is dead!” Xie Yun thought for a while before pointing to a hill which was closer to the crevice Yang Kai had disappeared into and saying, “Let’s set up an ambush there, if he doesn’t come out, it’s fine. If he does, we can just kill him. From that position, even if it was an Origin Returning Realm master, he wouldn’t be able to avoid my certain kill strike!”

“Good!” Xie Hong Wen saw Xie Yun being so proactive and quickly agreed, the group of three then quietly moving to the designated hill.

Below ground, Yang Kai descended several thousand meters. His goal was simple, he just needed to search for the position where the streams of fire aura were originating from. He was quite interested in unravelling the mystery of this mountain valley and how it could actually continuously spawn Fire Spirit Beasts that did not have Fire Crystal Stones!

He had wasted an entire day here while consuming a massive amount of Saint Qi, so wouldn’t it be too much of a waste if he didn’t manage to fish some kind of benefit from this place?

Whatever it was that was allowing these Fire Spirit Beasts to continuously be created, it would certainly be rare and valuable.

After descending quite a distance, killing numerous Fire Spirit Beasts along the way, Yang Kai’s eyes flashed.

He found that he had finally reached the source, because, from a cave-like location, he found saw many snake-like auras emerge, the same ones that were taking on the form of Fire Spirit Beasts.

Landing on a rocky outcropping, Yang Kai prepared to dive into this cave.

At that moment though, an unusual flame suddenly flew out from the cave. This flame aura was far richer and substantial than any Yang Kai had previously seen.

This fire aura flickered and transformed mid-air, in the blink of an eye becoming a python-like Fire Spirit Beast.

“Ninth-Order!” Yang Kai’s face changed as he discovered to his amazement that this Fire Spirit Beast was actually a complete physical entity, completely different from those at the Seventh or Eighth-Order, it was like a living python!

This python materialized in an instant, attached itself to the rock wall, then opened its great maw towards Yang Kai and spat out a red beam of light. Even before this beam of light reached him, Yang Kai felt an incredible and unstoppable heat, forcing him to hurriedly defend himself with his Saint Qi.

At the same time, a loud dragon roar rang out and the black dragon appeared once again.

The Golden Dragon Tattoo on Yang Kai’s back contained the aura of an ancient True Dragon, so how could a trivial python compared to it? Above snakes were Flood Dragons, and above Flood Dragons were True Dragons! There was an insurmountable gap between the two.

The black dragon and the python Fire Spirit Beast immediately clashed, causing the rock walls of the crevice to crack and collapse, sending them both falling further into the abyss.

Yang Kai took this opportunity to leap into the cave, but what he saw inside caused his expression to drop once more.

There were two other abnormal flame auras in front of him, both of them undergoing a metamorphosis that would seemingly transform them into Ninth-Order Fire Spirit Beasts.

Yang Kai cursed in his heart. His black dragon could entangle one of them, but there was absolutely no way he could deal with three of them at the same time. If these two flame auras fully materialized, Yang Kai knew his only option would be to flee.

Once he was forced to escape, all the hard work he had put into this little expedition would be wasted. Worse, he couldn’t fly in this damned place, so even reaching the surface to escape might not be possible.

Just as he was growing anxious, Yang Kai suddenly spotted a huge dark red stone.

At that moment, Yang Kai’s eyes were widened. This dark red stone exuded an aura exactly the same as that of the Fire Crystal Stones he had collected before, but purity and density were on a completely different scale. The Eight-Order Fire Crystal Stone that Yang Kai obtained earlier was only the size of a pigeon egg, incomparable to the one in front of him. Comparing the two, that Eight-Order Fire Crystal Stone was simply trash.

This dark red Fire Crystal Stone was as big as a plate, and was simply sitting there not far from Yang Kai.

Almost as if it were a conditioned reflex, Yang Kai sprang forward, grabbed this giant Fire Crystal Stone, stuffed it into his Space Ring, then withdrew. He wanted to take advantage of the fact that these two Ninth- Order Fire Spirit Beasts had yet to form to escape from the cave.

However, just before he left the cave, Yang Kai suddenly noticed that the two Ninth-Order Fire Spirit Beasts which were about to materialize had suddenly begun dissipating and soon disappeared altogether.

A thought occurred to him at that moment and Yang Kai quickly became overjoyed.

The python which was being tied down by his black dragon had also disappeared.

Even the tens of thousands of Fire Spirit Beasts which had been chasing him down were gone.

Yang Kai suddenly understood what was going on.

These Fire Spirit Beasts were clearly generated from this plate-sized Fire Crystal Stone, so no matter how many Yang Kai killed, he wouldn’t be able to obtain any Fire Crystal Stones, because their true core was inside this cave.

Now that Yang Kai had thrown the plate-sized Fire Crystal Stone into his Space Ring though, the Fire Spirit Beasts it had spawned lost their source of power and naturally dissipated.

After understand this, Yang Kai couldn’t help laughing.

This day’s worth of work and delay had finally proven worthwhile. This massive Fire Crystal Stone was enough to make this entire trip worthwhile. In fact, even if he was unable to obtain anything else, this expedition could already be considered a success.

What’s more, the Flowing Flame Sand Field had only opened a few days earlier and everyone was still rushing about inside, who could guarantee that there wouldn’t be even better treasures to be had?

Immensely satisfied, Yang Kai put away his Hundred Mountains Picture and recalled his black dragon before taking a breath.

Today’s long battle had caused him a great amount of consumption. Fortunately, the Saint Qi reserves in his body were incredibly large, so this kind of loss was still acceptable for Yang Kai.

After resting in the cave just long enough to restore a bit of his physical strength and Spiritual Energy, Yang Kai began the long climb back up to the surface.