Void Cultivation-Chapter 169- Unfinished Business

As Grey drifted several feet into the air, the dry wind of the Whistling Fields brushed against his face. The sunlight that poured over half of his pale features felt almost foreign, as if his skin had grown unaccustomed to warmth itself. He did not know how long he had been unconscious, how long his body had lain dormant beneath the oppressive sands and the eerie silence, but the moment those scorching rays grazed him, a strange heaviness stirred in his chest.

It felt like the first time in ages that he had stood beneath the open sky.

His pallid complexion and strangely colored hair made him appear like someone who had lived far too long in the shadows, a figure half-belonging to the land of the living and half to something else entirely.

’We’re... still in the Whistling Fields after all.’

Grey’s gaze swept across the landscape below. The faint green hue tinted into the sands, unique to this desolate region, was unmistakably familiar. Without speaking, he quietly adjusted his course. Roxanne floated along beside him, her small frame silent and observant, but Grey’s focus was directed elsewhere.

Deep in his eyes, a thin, razorlike glint flickered. There was a faint strand of perception tugging at his spirit, guiding him along an invisible path toward Green City. It thrummed with quiet insistence, the echo of unfinished business.

The old man he failed to kill.

Now that he had escaped the relentless pursuit of the Foundation Establishment expert, he could finally return to resolve this loose end.

As for what would become of Green City once the Foundation Establishment cultivator was gone... that matter lay far outside Grey’s concern. He planned to leave the Whistling Fields immediately after settling the debt.

Though he had not found any particularly rare treasures beneath the dunes, the half-gourd of Golden Syrup he had collected was priceless enough. That alone was sufficient to bolster his chances of breaking into the Foundation Establishment realm.

Several hours passed as he flew, silent as a drifting specter. Then, abruptly, something tugged sharply at his perception. He halted mid-air and turned his gaze downward.

There, amidst the sea of faintly green sands, lay a patch starkly different from the rest, its color tinted with a faint shade of crimson. A subtle aura of decay seeped from it, like a silent whisper of death that had yet to fade away.

’Hmm... what could be there?’

Grey did not dare to descend. Instead, he retreated a full hundred feet upward before stopping. His expression remained calm, aloof as always, but in the depths of his eyes a thin thread of wariness stirred.

He was still weakened. His true cultivation was at the tenth level of Qi Accumulation, yet now he could muster only the strength of the fifth level. A sudden ambush at a time like this could spell disaster. Surviving would be difficult, but even surviving would be costly. His already-healing injuries could rupture again, causing his cultivation level to plummet even further.

Roxanne floated quietly at his side, but Grey was not the type to entrust his life to another. He would take no unnecessary risks.

When he was exactly a hundred feet away, Grey slowly raised his hand. His perception surged outward, invisible strands of will grasping the sands below. The crimson-tinted grains began to rise upward, swirling into the air.

All the while Grey remained tense, ready to flee at the first hint of danger.

But when the sand finally cleared, the sight revealed beneath made him stiffen, his actions halting altogether.

A body lay there, draped in a torn red robe... half buried beneath the dunes. Or rather, half a body. Everything from the waist downward was gone, violently missing.

From the top of the skull to what remained of the torso, a single long gash split the corpse. It was deep, vicious, and disturbingly familiar.

Grey recognized it instantly.

It was the mark left behind by that colossal purple sword, the sword that manifested above him when he unleashed the ancient technique. The cut was so precise and so profound that the remaining half of the corpse looked as though it might collapse into two pieces with a single touch.

As for the missing half... Grey could only see savage bite marks around the torn waist. Whatever creature had fed on the corpse, it was large enough to consume half a Foundation Establishment expert’s body without leaving a trace.

A long silence stretched across the wind.

Finally, realization dawned on Grey. His expression sank into a solemn, complex shade.

"So this... is the body of the Foundation Establishment expert." Grey did not say a word again and slowly made a grabbing motion with his hands.

A small ring flew from the body of the Foundation Establishment expert towards Grey. When the ring got twenty feet away from him, it suddenly stopped. As the rays of sunlight fell and landed on the ring, a bright glint flashed through the desert, and Grey could see several inscriptions on the ring.

But Grey did not dismiss the ring, a narrow glint flashed in his eyes as the ring continued flying towards him and landed on his palm. The instant it did, Grey realized what it was...

He sensed some fluctuations that were quite familiar to him. ’Its like a storage bag, but it’s a ring instead. I’ll call it a storage ring. The inscriptions on it are slightly faded, so it must have been made a long time ago... Probably several hundreds years ago.’ Grey mumbled to himself, he then sent his perception into the ring to probe.

After several seconds, a baffled expression appeared on his face. "These are... a lot of treasures and magic artifacts. There are also many foreign cultivation methods in here that appear very strange." Grey said aloud as he sucked in a deep breath.

Grey swept his gaze through the countless jade slips and saw many writings and techniques, along with many bizarre methods of cultivation practice that made Grey shudder slightly.

There was one in particular that still had a thread of divine sense that did not belong to Grey. "That thread of divine sense must have been from the Foundation Establishment realm cultivator before he died. He must have been studying this technique before he even began to chase me..." Grey said.

After proving, he could feel that the thread of divine sense was fading and close to disappearing. In a few days, probably, it would have fully dissipated and disappeared into thin air.

"Divine Sense... This must be something that only cultivators from the Foundation Establishment realm can manifest. I wonder how it would compare against my perception." Grey said, but did not actually dare to put his perception inside the thread of divine sense.

Even though the Foundation Establishment realm cultivator was dead, the power that would come from his divine sense would still be shocking, after all, it came from his sea of consciousness. Grey only has a Spirit sea, which could not rival a sea of consciousness at all.

But although Grey did not dare to get his perception close to the Divine sense, he did use his perception to take a glance through the dozens of techniques that were in the space in the storage ring.

Each one left his astounded and slightly terrified. The cultivation methods were even more bloody. Requiring blood and other bizarre things to make significant breakthroughs.

Although Grey was only taking a shot glance, he had already decided that he would not be practicing any of those malicious techniques in the future.

After taking short glances at most of the techniques and jade slips, Grey noticed that they were plenty of spirit stones and other valuables, but he did not bother to probe into them further before taking his perception out of the Storage ring.

’The size is considerably larger than my storage bag. But... I can feel that after I place my brand on it, it will fullt be mine. The Divine sense of the Foundation Establishment expert or still in it, once it fades after a few days... I will leave my brand on it and it will become mine.’ Grey said internally. He noticed that the storage ring had many more levels of protection that his storage bag did not have.

For example, when he first tried to probe with his perception, he felt a ’will’ that prohibited him from entering. At that time, Grey did not know what that ’will’ was. But after sensing the Divine sense left behind by the Foundation Establishment expert, he immediately knew that the will he felt was the brand that the Foundation Establishment expert used to make the storage ring his own.

However, since the Foundation Establishment expert was dead, the ’will’ he left behind became weak without his presence, he was easily able to break through it with his perception. In a few days time, the Divine sense should completely dissipate and he would have free reign over the storage ring. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Grey was not a greedy person, neither was he a person who would take senseless risks. He would rather wait patiently, than to put his life at risk.

**☺️😉**