Territory of the Nine-Tailed Fox.

Yao Jun didn't immediately teleport closer to the territory of the Nine-Tailed Fox, he first teleported directly upwards, to one of the countless floating islands that littered the skies of this hidden realm, which Tang Guanyu had called a half-formed universe. These floating islands housed some Demonic beasts and even the occasional cultivator that was exploring them, but their numbers were far lower than they were on the land beneath him.

Most of the islands were separated by a rather large distance, making it somewhat of a chore to move between them by just flying or walking through the air. But thanks to his law of space, Yao Jun could easily move between them and use them as vantage points to observe the situation on the land beneath him, allowing him to make more informed decisions.

After reaching the floating islands, Yao Jun started to teleport from island to island, keeping one eye on the ground and the other on the islands around him, searching for more Demonic beasts. Due to the small size of most of these islands, the Demonic beasts living here were very weak, the stronger ones preferring to live on the land beneath them, where all resources were more abundant. But even though they were weak, they were still useful to Yao Jun, his stockpile growing larger and larger with each island he visited.

With how far he could teleport in one go, it didn't take long for him to spot the place marked as the territory of the Nine-Tailed Fox. Even if he didn't have the map he took from the green-haired man he would still be able to recognize that this place was strange, even when compared to the other things he had seen in this half-formed universe.

A vast glacial plain spread out as far as the eye could see, jagged mountains of pure ice stretching into the sky, resembling claws that were trying to drag down the clouds and the floating islands. A strong gust of wind was battering all that hadn't found safe shelter, small fragments of ice and snow blowing around in the wind and shredding all unprotected flesh that they touched.

And yet, at the center of this glacial plain stood a verdant and colorful forest untouched by the snow and wind. Flowers and colorful mushrooms that were larger than a normal man were spread throughout the forest, an enticing scent wafting from them and tickling the nose. Even Yao Jun, who was sitting at the edge of a floating island located on the outskirts of the frozen plain was able to detect the scent. At the very center of the forest stood a large volcano that almost reached the clouds, the faint outline of a rainbow arching over the entire volcano.

Yao Jun was able to see innumerable groups of people swarming towards the forest from his position, both humans and Demonic beasts were looking to take advantage of the fact that the Nine-Tailed Fox was weakened right now. Yao Jun swept over some of the groups closest to the forest, his eyes narrowing when he spotted one of the groups.

"Ardet. If you're here, there really is a good chance that Peyton is here."

Yao Jun's eyes had landed on a tall man with slicked back peach-colored hair and elongated pupils that were a murky green color. After Little Gray and Du Xiao extracted everything from Mordred, one of Peyton's closest aides, Yao Jun learned about practically all of Peyton's men, especially the ones he brought with him into this competition.

There were five in total, Mordred, Ardet, Valter, Mariot, and Ysolde. Of the five, the two closest to Peyton were Mordred and Ardet, they were also the only two not controlled by Peyton's Supreme Law fragment. According to Mordred, if the five were to be ranked in strength, their ranks would be Ysolde, Valter, Ardet, Mordred, and finally Mariot. But the difference in strength between most of them wasn't that great, with Ysolde being the exception, she was quite a bit stronger than the others.

The reason Ardet being here made it likely that Peyton was here as well was very simple, Ardet was one of Peyton's closest friends, they had been together since they were children, practically growing up as brothers. Wherever Peyton went, so too would Ardet, serving as his right-hand man and bodyguard.

The groups gathered outside the forest and formed a massive campsite, no one daring to enter the forest just yet, they seemed to be waiting for something. Yao Jun tapped his chin quietly, sweeping the distant campsite with narrowed eyes as he was pondering over what to do. After spending a few minutes, his gaze landed on a part of the campsite close to the leftmost end. The campsite was neatly divided between the various sects and clans, the part that Yao Jun's gaze landed on was the camp where the unaffiliated cultivators, those without any sect or clan, were gathering.

He stood up and used a technique he had picked up from one of the countless cultivators he had killed so far, an appearance changing technique. His appearance started to warp, the sound of bones rubbing against each other sounding out from within his body. Before long, the tall and sharply-featured Yao Jun had become a somewhat short and carefree looking man, his once violet hair became a golden blonde and his gray eyes became black.

He didn't want Peyton to realize that he had come here, he might do everything in his power to force him away if he were to learn that Yao Jun had arrived here. After all, Peyton was one of the few people who knew that Yao Jun had the Demon God's Gate, or as Peyton believed it, an unknown fragment of the Supreme Law of Demons. He would hide himself for the moment and focus on getting in contact with the Nine-Tailed Fox, he could focus on killing Ardet and the other people from the Merged Heaven clan after that.

Yao Jun absorbed his black robe, which was a defensive armament created by his God Gate, and put on an emerald green robe instead. This robe was completely normal, it didn't have a single array woven into it to strengthen it. It was a type of robe he hadn't worn for quite some time, the last time he wore something like this had been when he was still with Guo Luo. After that, after he was sent away from his home planet, he had mostly just worn different types of armor, constantly ready for battle.

Yao Jun took a step forward and dropped down from the floating island, plummeting to the ground below and landing on the outskirts of the frozen plain. He used his control over ice and wind to divert all the wind and snow around him, creating a small bubble of calmness that was almost completely silent. Yao Jun turned his head towards the distant camp filled with unaffiliated cultivators, quickly making his way towards them. He had thought about killing someone from another clan or sect, taking on his appearance and impersonating him, but eventually settled on simply joining up with the unaffiliated cultivators for simplicity's sake.

Even if he didn't choose to teleport, his normal speed was already plenty fast, it didn't take him long to reach the massive campsite. He received a few glances from the cultivators around him, but no one tried to stop him or question him, allowing him to enter the area of the unaffiliated cultivators. He swiped his interspatial ring and took out a simple tent, placing it on an empty spot and marking it as his with a simple sign. He found the closest campfire, walking over and casually taking a seat in front of the fire while introducing himself to the others.

"Howdy, name's Arthur Agnis. Was once a member of the Tenth Dawn sect but ended up leaving after they kept tellin me that I wasn't allowed to do this or that, a right annoyance if ya ask me. So if ya don't mind tellin me, why haven't we just entered the forest and swooped up the weakened fox yet? Seems like it shouldn't be that hard, eh?"

Yao Jun chose a random name for himself and decided to take on the persona of a cheerful fellow who enjoyed chatting, someone easy to get close to. There were almost 20 other people sitting around the large fire, some chatting, some drinking, some roasting meat, while others were just gazing absentmindedly into the fire. The people around the fire returned the greeting and introduce themselves, a somewhat chubby brunette who called herself Maud answering his question.

"Aye, it looks easy enough, and that's why we aren't going in. That crafty bitch is making it look easy on purpose, trying to stir our greed so that we enter the forest and can get picked off by her. I imagine we look like quite the tasty treats to her. Don't get tricked by how it looks, her strength hasn't fallen by that much yet. She'll get a bit weaker over the coming weeks as the force of the tribulation starts to spread through her body and eat away at her, that's when everyone here is going to strike. I suspect that there'll be quite a few more people coming over the next weeks, some really powerful ones should also be coming, that fox is a Divine beast after all."

There was no reason to withhold this information, it was likely that many of the people here would end up having to work together after entering the forest, fostering a somewhat friendly relationship early on would be good. Yao Jun nodded his head several times, his eyes lighting up and making him look like a child that had just understood a grand truth.

He continued to sit around the fire and chat with the others for a bit, their conversation mostly casual as they talked about the things they had seen and done before this competition. After spending a little over a day chatting, Yao Jun excused himself and retreated to his tent, using a bit of the law of space to seal it off so that no one would detect anything strange about it.

He then sat down at the center of the tent, taking out a few of the corpses he had stored up inside his God Gate. Now that he had some time, it was time for him to start practicing his body cultivation technique, Blood Ocean's Hunger. Reading over the technique, it was indeed rather similar to his own God Gate. He could absorb Demonic beasts or cultivators to strengthen himself and his Demonic beasts, while this Blood Ocean's Hunger had the user absorb blood to evolve their body and reach new heights.

He only had the first part of the technique, meaning that he could only cultivate to the early stage of the Earthly Deity realm, or as the technique called it, the Blood Lake realm. The technique was fairly simple, one would extract all the blood, Qi, and flesh of a dead cultivator or Demonic beast, condensing it into a single drop of blood, a Blood Heart. Just how many bodies you would need to form one such drop depended on the strength of the dead bodies you used. This drop of blood would then be fused into your own body, merging it with your own blood, flesh, organs, and bones to strengthen and evolve them.

The first realm was called the Blood Drop realm, and it could be reached and transcended after absorbing about 10 Blood Hearts. At this realm, which was equal to the nine stages below the Immortal Rebirth realm, the Blood Hearts would have fused with your bone marrow to strengthen it and allow it to produce stronger blood in the future.

The next realm was the Blood Puddle realm, which could be reached when you had finished strengthening all your bone marrow and would start strengthening your bones, building a strong foundation for you. This realm was equal to the Immortal Rebirth realm and one would have to absorb about 1000 Blood Hearts to transcend it and enter the next stage.

But this stage was also a bit special, as it was at this stage that the body cultivator would gain access to their own version of Qi. Their body would become so strong that the gathered might and lifeforce would sublimate and become corporeal, becoming what was known as Monarch Essence, a type of energy far heavier and more resilient than Qi. It wasn't as versatile as Qi, but the might it contained was actually greater. As the energy was made from condensed might and lifeforce, it also made the cultivator's body far stronger and tougher, even giving them heightened regenerative abilities.

After transcending the Blood Puddle stage, one would enter the Blood Lake realm, the equivalent of the Earthly Deity realm. The part he had of the technique didn't go too deeply into the specifics of this realm, only mentioning that it would strengthen the flesh and skin of the cultivator to a drastic degree, giving them the resilience of a deity. Yao Jun was interested in the other parts of the technique, but he could only wait and see if he would acquire them after picking up more tokens in the future, quietly starting his cultivation.

Thanks to his Demon God's Gate and previous dabbling in body cultivation, Yao Jun already had a rather strong body, allowing him to breeze through the early parts of the body cultivation technique, entering the Blood Puddle realm after only spending a little over two weeks. He breezed through it, but the number of bodies he needed could only be called ridiculous, he stopped counting on the sixth day after he pulled out the 5000th body. He thought he had prepared a good enough stockpile, but now it seemed like he had been far from correct.

While cultivating the Blood Ocean's Hunger, Yao Jun also mixed in parts of this universe's body cultivation technique to further improve the strength of his body. The Blood Ocean's Hunger focused fully on absorbing blood to strengthen the body, the body cultivation technique of this universe, on the other hand, focused on opening the body's acupuncture points and even carving new ones, allowing the surrounding Qi to fuse into the cultivator's body.

Yao Jun had opened a few of his acupuncture points in the past, so with the ones he opened now, he had opened 31 and carved a total of 31. According to the brief information he had about this universe's body cultivation technique, once he opened his 361 acupuncture points and carved a further 361, he would enter the Godking realm with his body.

Of course, the vast number of corpses did not go to waste. Yao Jun entered the Blood Puddle realm and acquired his own Monarch Essence, blood-red energy as viscous as blood and as heavy as a mountain. If he added some of this to his attacks, especially his physical attacks, their strength would increase by quite a bit. He continued to cultivate for a few more days, approaching the middle stage of the Blood Puddle realm after another week and a half.

But at this point, he was almost out of corpses to use, and noticing that the camp was getting lively, he decided to end his cultivation for now, no one knowing that his strength had just increased once again. Yao Jun stepped out of the tent and undid the spatial seal he had placed around it, sweeping the surroundings with his gaze.

The people from the various campsites had gotten out from their tents and raised their heads, gazing into the distance with eyes that could only be called ablaze. Yao Jun followed their eyes, his eyes landing on a group of people that were flying towards them, his lips twitching slightly as he quietly cursed.

"Bloody hell, are you fucking with me?"

The group flying over only contained five people, but the two flying in the front caught the attention of everyone else. One was a muscular man with features that looked like they were carved using a chisel and eyes as blue as the deep ocean, his gray hair cut so short that it stopped right above his ears. The other was a slim and tall woman, a full head taller than Yao Jun, she had graceful and charming features, eyes as crimson as blood and waist-length black hair that was tied into a neat ponytail.

None of the people in the massive campsite needed to be told about these two, everyone knew them, everyone knew who had arrived to deal with the Nine-Tailed Fox. Rank 75, Fourth Queen of Violence, Yuri Jahad, and Rank 53, Eighth Lord of Reapers, Berius Daeman, had arrived.