The Cemetery

"What was that?" asked Star Leaf, still in shock. That creature was the most horrid thing she ever saw in her life. Thankfully it was way weaker than what it looked like.

"Mph, ignorant bitch. That's a Blue Slayer." said Winter Leaf, that had recovered her cool way faster than the green haired beauty. She even took out her Green Bow, ready to fight. If the crab hadn't been killed so fast she would have joined the attack.

"You would know it if you actually did something with your life instead of just learning how to sell yourself to the highest bidder." she continued.

"I'm not in need of a life lesson from a traitorous half-blood trash" laughed Star Leaf, while her cultivation base rotated vigorously.

The black haired huntress was going to continue offending Star, when she felt an oppressive killing intent weighting on her body. It wasn't Star Leaf's. It was something way scarier.

"The next time you will call my dao-companion a bitch, I will kill you." said simply the snake, not even bothering showing her a threatening expression.

Even if the serpent wasn't showing the devious expression that he always used when he punished her during her captivity, Winter Leaf felt her blood freeze in her veins. The same feeling of impotence and the great danger that she lived with for month under the tyranny of the black serpent reemerged in her memory, paralyzing her.

"I, I, I" muttered the woman incomprehensibly before she was shut up by a single severe look coming from the violet snake. She needed several minutes to calm down, her face becoming immediately red of shame.

Meanwhile, the conversation between Devassa and Darkscale continued. They didn't say a word on the small event that just happened, almost as the killing of that giant crab didn't mean anything in their eyes.

"Are you saying that I'm going to lose my mind?" the black serpent gave the violet one a look filled with mockery. "That's very strange, it feels like you are implying that everyone walking the Devil Path loses their mind..." he continued with the same sarcastic tone.

The days where he trusted the opinions of everyone were long gone. He could tell that the violet snake didn't like much the Devil Path. Plus, what she was saying went directly in opposition against what he knew.

Even if he didn't take in consideration Carelia and her obsession about making him follow the Devil Path because he didn't trust the MAID at all, there was still Spike. The horned merchant had helped him a lot and the serpent trusted him. Finally, even not taking Spike as a truth holder, there was also simple logic: why would cultivator follow a path that could transform them into an irrational beast? Were they all masochistic morons? No.

The words of Spike seemed more truthful than the one-sided explanation of the violet snake. But probably the truth was somewhere in the middle between the two.

She described the Devil path as a bad, greedy way to cultivate. He also described it as a very greedy way to cultivate, but saw it as a good way to go in life, taking things from other cultivators and using. They both thought it was greedy, they both thought it was dangerous, they just have differences in the utility of the path.

"No, but even those that manage to keep their sanity, they are lost souls." said the preachy snake.

"They cannot have any success without first robbing someone else, they cannot proceed in their cultivation alone. That's not what cultivation is about." she continued, her grey aura twisting and flowing inside the boat, keeping it moving.

"Uhm? And what's cultivation about for you?" asked Darkscale, his gaze moving towards the placid water visible near the fast moving ship.

This time the violet snake seemed taken by surprise by the question of the Ghost Energy user. She needed some seconds to respond.

"The Dao, obviously I-" she said, after regaining her calm.

"I disagree..." said Darkscale, without even waiting for her to finish. He didn't use a loud voice, but his bored voice made the long violet snake that was controlling the boat tremble.

"What?" her voice now was shocked. What was there to disagree with? Cultivation was about searching the Dao, every Path had its different way but they were all Paths Towards the Dao.

"I said I disagree" reaffirmed the black serpent, yawning.

"You disagree? what's that supposed to mean?" the violet snake was now trembling. What the hell was he talking about? What was to disagree about? Cultivation was about searching the Dao. This was something that everybody agreed upon.

"I don't care about this dao-thing. I want only to become strong. That's what's cultivation to me. To become strong, flying through the sky and taking revenge on everyone that disrespected me." revealed Darkscale, moving his gaze towards the violet snake and looking straight into those eyes so similar to his.

"That has nothing to do with cultivation, those are your life wishes" tried to explain the latter.

Before the discussion could progress further, an incredulous exclamation attracted everyone's attention towards Star Leaf.

"What are those?" said the green-haired girl, pointing to something behind the yellow fog.

Darkscale moved his gaze towards the direction that she was showing them. At first, he didn't see anything other than the fog, but then he noticed something: masked by the yellowish fog, there were towering dark silhouettes in the distance.

Devassa laughed, that was exactly what she was looking for! Her energy started to flow even more in the boat, directing it towards the shadows hidden beyond the yellow veil.

The little blue ship continued traveling for several hours, never stopping even once.

The Blue Slayer wasn't the only creature that attacked the boat, but everything that tried to assault that blue bullet darting through the poisonous waters was immediately put down by Darkscale and Derassa.

Nothing seemed able to sustain even a single blow from the two beast cultivators. They only needed to strike once, to eliminate every monstrous toad, snail, snake or crab that emerged from the yellow waters to attack them.

The boat was leaving a trail of bodies in his path, but the assaults didn't stop or even diminished in quantity. On the contrary: they increased.

More they traveled towards the giant shadows that were barely visible under the yellow fog, the stronger were the creatures that attacked the boat. Even so, nothing couldn't stop the two protectors of the journey and the boat kept moving at fast peace towards the hearth of the Yellow Lake.

Soon, the travelers inside the ship began to understand that those shadows weren't the rocky shore of some kind of island. They were too much spread out between each other to be part of the same shore.

When they came enough close to a group of those structures and they were able to see observe them up close, they realized that those things weren't even formations of rocks to begin with.

They were black tall objects emerging from the waters. Some had sharp ends, other irregular ones. The majority of those things were straight as trees, spanning hundreds of meters in height and several dozens in width. Other were recurve, forming giant bridges on the surface of the lake.

Countless worm-like creatures could be seen moving on those large structures. They were like giant, disgusting beehives.

Darkscale started to feel somehow uneasy looking at so many creatures clumped together. If for some reason the worms decided to attack them, would they be able to fend off such an insane number of assailants?

However, these colonies seemed less aggressive than the roaming beast, not caring at all that the blue boat passed next to their homes. None of the thousands of worms seemed interested in attacking them. They were too much busy gnawing on the structure that housed them.

"Great Mother, those are bones!" suddenly realized Star Leaf, crying out loud in shock.

Yes, they were bones. Giant, towering bones. They were enormous, emerging from the yellow waters for hundreds of meters in the air. Bones as tall as mountains.

Winter Leaf was also shocked. She already knew what to expect, but to see it with her eyes and from such a short distance took a toll on the young girl.

Next to the black haired Leaf, Devassa was studying with attention the black snake, trying to see his reaction to the bones. When she saw that he didn't abandon his bored expression even when confronted with such a spectacle, she almost seemed relieved.

However, in reality, he wasn't bored. He was dumbfounded!

Not because of the giant bones. Although that was certainly weird, he had seen more strange things in his Dreams. No, he was shocked by the presence of some strange type of energy inside those bones. This energy was very weird: it didn't quite seem like the one that he knew of. It didn't feel like elemental energy. Yet, it felt so familiar to him.

The more they got close to those giant black skeletal remains, the more he could feel that there was some kind of power inside them. He also felt his blood and his cultivation base starting to resonate with the invisible pressure that came from the colossal skeletons.

The strangest thing was that no one else seemed to have noticed those ondulations other than him. His companions were all concentered on the dimension of the bones or those countless worm-like creatures that lived on them.