Five Immortal Sects-Chapter 128: Walking Amidst Death

Judging by the fact that both of the corpses were gripping blue prism crystals, it was clear they had been Foundation Establishment cultivators. Even more alarming was that the remains revealed two different sects present in the same location.

How did they manage to avoid fighting each other, or bypass the rules of the Life-and-Death Wheel? The implications were deeply unsettling.

Two Foundation Establishment cultivators, if they had encountered them head-on, there would have been no need for a fight. One of them could hold off Gong Chenying, and the other would be enough to slaughter everyone else on their side in moments. The involvement of the Qi Condensation disciples wouldn’t have even been necessary, especially since the opposing sect had fifty such cultivators at their disposal.

What in the world had happened?

Everyone wore expressions of shock and confusion, but underlying it all was a single, overwhelming emotion of fear. Bone-deep fear.

In the face of such uncertainty, all eyes subconsciously turned toward Gong Chenying.

Her lips were tightly sealed, and on closer inspection, even her body was subtly trembling. She had already been stunned speechless when she scouted the area earlier. Faced with this kind of abrupt, inexplicable situation, even her mind had gone blank. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Two Foundation Establishment cultivators? Forget her Qi Condensation juniors, even she wasn’t confident she could escape with her life. And within the closed realm of the Life-and-Death Wheel, where could she even run?

And if two Foundation Establishment cultivators could appear this time… what about next time? Three? Four? More? Any such encounter would be a death sentence. The more she thought about it, the heavier the terror pressed down on her heart.

“You all stay inside the formation.”

Gong Chenying glanced up, the looming black shadow in the sky had yet to descend. Then she looked toward the mangled corpses ahead and finally spoke in a low voice.

She tapped her storage pouch. With a flash of spiritual light, a pill appeared and was tucked into her mouth. At the same time, her body was wreathed in a protective glow as she stepped forward, preparing to leave the array.

“Sixth Senior Sister, let me go with you.”

A voice rang out calmly.

Everyone looked up, it was that Little Uncle Li from Little Bamboo Peak, standing quietly off to the side. Many gazed at Li Yan with a strange mix of confusion and scorn.

“He's just relying on his connection with Martial Aunt Gong. This place is crawling with people stronger than him. Isn’t he just using this as an excuse to snatch some loot before anyone else?”

Looking at all the storage pouches on the twisted corpses outside, a few people inwardly grumbled. But they only dared complain in their hearts, none of them would step out without Gong Chenying's permission.

“…Alright, just be cautious. Some of the corpses might not be completely dead and could launch a sneak attack.”

After a brief pause, Gong Chenying agreed. This was no time to overthink things, and truthfully, she couldn’t fully see through Li Yan’s strange behavior in this space.

Originally, she only wanted to check for any clues. After something this chilling had happened, treasure hunting seemed entirely irrelevant.

Still, she didn’t want too many people ruining the evidence. Since Li Yan offered to go, she gave him a discreet warning.

Moreover, this junior had previously moved around the sphere, seemingly setting things up. Perhaps he had left behind something useful.

“Junior brother, see if you can find any unusual signs,” Gong Chenying transmitted secretly.

Li Yan gave a slight nod. He too was disturbed by what he saw and had reached similar conclusions.

Considering his resistance to poisons, he decided to go inspect the battlefield and ensure Gong Chenying could be saved quickly if she were poisoned.

He ignored the odd looks thrown his way, activated his protective light, and followed Gong Chenying out of the array.

She glanced sideways and saw him also taking an antidote and raising his protective shield. Her brow furrowed slightly, but then she remembered the rumors of the “Poison Body.” Her eyes flashed with a strange light and she said nothing more, quickly darting ahead.

Both of them held their breath. Even Li Yan dared not be careless. Though he had a few trump cards, this area was suffused with poisonous chaos, even the poison cultivators of Wraith Sect wouldn’t dare tread freely.

Despite his resistance, Li Yan wasn’t blindly confident.

He had once asked Lin Daqiao for some of the sect's poison pills and antidotes. He’d carefully ground the milder poisons into powder and dabbed them on the back of his hand, always holding an antidote ready to take at the first sign of trouble.

But during these trials, he never experienced any real side effects. A little swelling perhaps, but circulating his spiritual power cleared it up almost immediately.

More surprisingly, whenever he applied some poison powder, the Twelve Fractured Poisons within him would stir actively. Some strands even flowed directly to his arms through his meridians, immediately consuming the poison powder, and leaving behind a strange sensation of liveliness and hunger.

From this, Li Yan slowly guessed that the Twelve Fractured Poisons inside him might possess the ability to devour other poisons and perhaps even grow stronger through it.

With that in mind, he began experimenting by swallowing various poisonous pills. As he expected, each one he ingested was instantly consumed by the Twelve Fractured Poisons before any pain or irritation could manifest.

They even seemed to send out a strange, baby-like craving for more, leaving Li Yan somewhat speechless. He had no idea how the other cultivators of Wraith Sect trained their poison bodies, but this… this felt almost like feeding a mischievous child.

The space reeked of foul, acrid odors, burnt flesh and blood saturated the air. Even a single breath was nauseating.

With narrowed eyes, Li Yan inspected his surroundings. Red, purple, and black gases drifted in the air. In the light, he could even make out near-invisible thread-like worms wriggling silently through the air.

These were remnants of the poisons and mummified corpse-worms that had been sealed in pills or formations. Though the bugs had been rendered inert when first refined, they could be awakened using another pill that contained their powdered blood.

Upon exposure, the dormant corpse-worms would reawaken with primitive instinct. Their actual bodies were finer than silk strands and floated unseen in the air, even spiritual sense could mistake them for harmless dust.

Once inhaled, they traveled through the nasal cavity into the brain and feasted only on the red fibers within the brain matter, ignoring the white matter entirely.

The afflicted would suffer agonizing pain and quickly lose their sanity, lashing out at everything, gouging out their own eyes, and finally, digging through their eye sockets to scrape out their brain matter in a desperate attempt at relief.

All the while, their consciousness would remain disturbingly intact. Truly a vicious thing.

Gong Chenying and Li Yan floated in midair. Below them, the ground was a gore-slicked nightmare, organs scattered in every direction, red and white chunks littering the floor. It was like a scene straight out of a hellish battlefield.

At this moment, Li Yan stood atop his flying sword, keeping close behind Gong Chenying.

“Sixth Senior Sister, there are four spots you shouldn't go near. I don’t have antidotes for them either. One is where those seven or eight people are piled up like a heap of rotten flesh. Another is the spot to the left, where a dozen people mutilated themselves. And seven zhang ahead on the right...”

Seeing that Gong Chenying was about to fly toward some of the more indistinct and gruesome piles of corpses, Li Yan hurriedly sent a voice transmission from behind. Gong Chenying paused mid-flight.

“Heh heh... This little Uncle Li has quite the nerve. There’s still a ton of lingering poison out there, even Martial Aunt Gong had to take an antidote to step outside, yet he just throws up a protective shield and strolls out like it’s nothing. If he doesn’t come back, it’ll be quite the mess.”

As the two of them disappeared from the formation, a mocking voice rose up. It was Mi Yuanzhi from Boundless Peak, arms crossed, lips curled in sneer.

His words made many people freeze. Moments ago, they were all still in shock over the appearance of two Foundation Establishment cultivators and dozens of enemies, but now they realized Li Yan had actually gone out just like that.

Even some of the cultivators from Four Symbols Peak and Old Lord Peaks who had helped lay the ambush were beginning to look displeased. This Little Uncle Li from Little Bamboo Peak was clearly treating their meticulously laid poisons as if they were nothing at all.

Just look at the dozens of corpses on the ground, that alone showed the effectiveness of their methods. Martial Aunt Gong’s antidote might not be universal, but it was definitely a top-grade detoxifying pill. Combined with her Foundation Establishment cultivation, she could hold out for a while.

But that Little Uncle, who was barely at the eighth level of Qi Condensation, had stepped out so casually? That was practically a slap in the face.

“Such fearlessness... Our Little Uncle clearly isn't someone whose methods can be compared to mere pills or arrays. His resistance to poison must be extraordinary.”

Qi Busheng saw everyone’s gazes darken as they stared at Li Yan’s departing figure. Sensing trouble, he quickly added a line with a clever twist.

Mei Caichu said nothing as he looked at Li Yan’s back, his beady little eyes darting around rapidly. He kept silent. Like him, Old Lord Peak’s Ding Yiwei and Cheng Jingnian also lowered their heads, seemingly deep in thought.

After Qi Busheng’s comment, murmurs broke out all around.

“Never expected our little Little Uncle to be this formidable. Looks like he doesn’t even care about the poisons we set up.”

“Is he really that skilled, or just putting on a show? Hmph! The miasma in my formation came from the poisonous depths of Yin Peach Pond.

“I waited seven years for that poison, only when the water’s coldest during those rare years did the miasma thin enough to risk collecting a trace. Even that sliver took three years to refine. Just a whiff could kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator.”

“And now here comes this Little Bamboo Peak Little Uncle Li, completely unfazed. That’s… impressive.”

“My Wanqian Shadow Poison was concocted from fourteen deadly herbs and the saliva of seven venomous spirit beasts. Even our Core Formation ancestor said it was ‘not bad.’ And now this guy just walks through it? Admirable, admirable!”

One voice after another rang out, some sarcastic, some openly irritated.

Among them, only a few remained silent. Wu Shixi and Yu Yiyong from Spirit Insect Peak, for example, smiled but said nothing. They were among the very few who knew about Li Yan’s Fractured Poison Body.

The charming young woman from Four Symbols Peak Peak, Hu Ziyi, who had a decent relationship with Yu Yiyong, had overheard a bit before and didn’t join in the gossip either.

“Senior Brother Wu, is Little Uncle Li’s Fractured Poison Body really that terrifying? I saw him use some strange methods before, but I don’t understand how he killed that monk from Pure Land Sect. And now he just brushes off everyone’s poisons like they’re nothing, it’s too bizarre.”

Yu Yiyong sent a private voice transmission to Wu Shixi.

“Does he look like a fool to you?” Wu Shixi, as always, was terse.

After a moment’s thought, Yu Yiyong’s grin widened.

This Little Uncle, whom he himself had once led into the sect, had always had a sharp mind. Even back when he was just a village boy, he’d ambushed and killed a cultivator from the Immortal-Seeking Lineage who was two small realms above him. There was no way he’d act rashly now.

Amid all the quiet murmurs, Li Yan and Gong Chenying had already reached the center of the sphere.

Without discussing it, both headed toward the two corpses holding blue prism crystals. Gong Chenying was far faster, however.

By the time Li Yan arrived, she was already squatting before the skeleton, the one whose body had been nearly dissolved away. Hearing the air stir behind her, she turned her graceful head slightly and glanced at Li Yan with a calm expression.

“This one’s a cultivator from Grand Profound Sect. Definitely a powerful Foundation Establishment cultivator.”

Li Yan landed slowly, hovering a few inches above the bloodied ground. He leaned in and examined the corpse.

“He was poisoned by Wen Wutong, Bone-Piercing Grass, and Old Lord Peak’s own Wanqian Shadow Poison, plus three other toxins.”

“But those last ones didn’t show clearly on the body. He must’ve died from the earlier poisons. The rest probably landed after he collapsed, or he brushed against them while struggling.”

Gong Chenying continued, then waved her hand in the air. The corpse floated up and slowly rotated, allowing her to inspect it from all angles.

After a few turns, she flicked her sleeve, and the skeleton dropped to the ground with a thud, sending a few chunks of blackened viscera splattering. The blue crystal remained tightly clenched in the skeleton’s hand.

“I’ll check the other one.”

Gong Chenying’s brows furrowed even deeper after her inspection. She tossed out her words with a glance at Li Yan, then flew off without taking the blue prism crystal.

Li Yan, meanwhile, had kept his eyes mostly on the prism from the start. And now, as he finally got a clear look at it, the doubt in his gaze only deepened.

He could also see the traces of multiple poisons in the corpse, though not with Gong Chenying’s familiarity.

Seeing that she had left the item untouched, he cautiously pried the crystal from the blood-soaked hand. The moment it touched his skin, his spiritual power stirred restlessly within him.

He immediately suppressed the urge and steadied his breathing. When he looked up, Gong Chenying was already hovering beside the other corpse, the one that still clutched a prism while lying face-down.

Li Yan did not follow immediately. Instead, he lingered near the Grand Profound Sect corpse, carefully inspecting the surroundings. His eyes occasionally flickered with contemplation, though he didn’t touch any other belongings on the body.

(Chapter End)