Chapter 369 : : Mini Treasure Pond

The leader of the group spurt out a mouthful of blood and solemnly looked at the silver staff in her hand.

But Ria standing behind Mia didn't give him any time to consider the situation and think of a way to counter it, she raised the golden staff in her hand and the transparent green crystal on top of it shined giving off a brilliant light that covered everything.

The leading man was alerted.

"Take Out Your Shield And Defend!" He shouted as he took out a circular black shield and hid behind it.

It wasn't that he didn't want to evade the rays but there was simply no black spot.

Everyone did the same as him but contrary to their expectations, the shields were completely fine and no force acted on them.

The people around him slightly relaxed but the leading man frowned deeply, what he feared the most wasn't a known lethal attack but an unknown method.

He saw the look of disdain in her eyes and only got more anxious, he hastily observed his surroundings when his eyes landed on a tree near them, he noticed something strange… Very strange.

The young tree which was filled with lush green leaves now looked somewhat older, its leaves were withering, the branches looked like dried-up sticks that could fall anytime.

He then felt his skin tightening, he suppressed the fear in his heart, slightly removed the cloth covering his face, and touched the skin, he felt his rough skin on touch. He slowly turned his head and saw his reflection on the surface of the shield.

What greeted him was the image of an old man with shrilled skin and wrinkles covering his whole face, the change didn't stop there, his skin got worse every second, his vision, his senses, and even his strength… All dropped with the increasing age.

The lifespan he increased after cultivating so far, collecting resources by putting his life in danger, robbing and killing, running away from his sect and slowly building his foundation, then finally hitting a super deal in the underworld that promised his ascension to the Golden Core stage as long he could find and caught two beastman alive.

This morning after getting the information he thought how lucky he was, but the information was wrong! The information the dealer gave on weird Spirit Rank Heirloom was wrong!

There was no way such kind of terrifying weapon was at Spirit Rank, even blind could see that it was was something way above.

"Ahh... Leader... What's happening to me,"

"What Evil Art is this? Stop it,"

"They are True Devils cultivators, leader kill them or we will die,"

They shouted towards their leader for help because their trembling souls from earlier halted their movement.

The leader heard the screams of his comrade but he didn't dare to attack.

'Even if I attack, they are two… Can I succeed? Can I survive?' Thinking of this, he threw away the shield and kowtow on the ground.

"Have mercy young fairy, I was forced, they took my wife and only child as hostages, I had no choice but to comply with their absurd request. Kind fairies you should have noticed that I only tried to catch you but never tried to kill you.

I don't fear death but my poor family totally depends on me, my stepbrothers are eyeing my property just thinking of what they would do with my wife and children after my death gives me shivers down the spine, I must live for them," He said while hitting his head continuously on the ground to the point where his rough skin got cut and his forehead started bleeding.

Everyone was stunned, the men that were following him looked at him in disbelief, they started cursing at him while some came forward and followed the suit, they started kowtowing. The two girls in front of them were still young so there was a high chance that they will spare them. But their cultivation base wasn't as high as their leader, they either got too old to speak properly or already fainted by the time others got this idea.

Ria glanced at the leading man for a second then focused on the other men.

The leader was anxiously hitting his head on the ground, he didn't know what Ria would do but as expected, his plan worked, he could feel that he has stopped aging. He felt relieved, he could still hear a few screams of agony but they soon disappeared in the quietness of the jungle.

He peeked around from the corner of his eyes and realized that he was the only one alive. He reacted, he quickly took out his storage ring placed it in his two hands, and slowly crawled towards Ria.

"Thank you, fairy you are as kind as Buddha, to have such compassionate heart and broad vision to let a despicable man like me who attacked you escape. Your future achievements will be unlimited, you have opened my eyes, if someday the two fairies need me then I would come to help no matter the difficulty, I don't have much to offer, fairies please take it as my offering to atone for my sins," He dragged his head on the ground while sobbing as he crawled up to her feet with the storage ring in his hands.

Just when he entered her one-meter range, he exerted all his strength in his legs and stood up with a jolt, with a flick, the storage ring was put on his finger, he urged and a dagger appeared in his hand. Although he was looking at her feet, he calculated the angle and reaction speed before attacking, he was holding the dagger in a way that its tip was pointed upward at her throat.

"Diiee!" He screamed as he raised his head, expecting to soon feel his dagger piercing her soft tender flesh but as he raised his head while advancing the dagger, the first thing he saw was a white dagger's sharp tip just a centimeter away from his left eye.

…Pu chi…

The bone dagger passed through his eyes and pierced his brain thoroughly destroying it, as he fell on his back, his other eyes could see the ice-cold eyes of the snake that killed him.

After he died, the calm and cold expression from her face disappeared, Ria started breathing heavily.

Controlling an Ancient Artifact wasn't an easy task, the more powerful abilities are used the harder it would be if the leader of the group had instead tried to attack with all he got then there was a chance for him to survive albeit lost lifespan won't return.

Ria removed him from the attack range because his cultivation base had the most resistance compared to others, if she didn't stop and he became desperate then there was a chance that he would do a suicidal attack, and even if his attacks fail, it would be enough to interrupt her attack giving others a chance to retaliate.

Ria controlled her breathing while checking if there was someone who was alive and could resist, she then noticed Mia looking at the dead leader in front.

She frowned, Mia sensed her gaze and hurriedly averted her line of sight from the corpse.

"What? You don't believe his crap, do you? Learn to use your brain instead of emotions, his clothes have a faint scent of Strong Yin Jade liquid, you know what it is? It's a strong perfume that has an arousing effect on men, it's something well-established brothel would use, a poor man going to a high-end brothel you believe it? And even if what he saw was true so what?

He came to catch us knowing that our lives would be worse than death on getting caught and even after that, you tell me he isn't prepared for death, moreover, it was his last task either way, do you think they will let someone who knows about it live? Humph, you never learn your lessons on time, if you are left alone who knows how many lives you would need to survive," Ria snorted then started collecting the storage rings, and the equipment spread around in the ground.

Mia kept quiet the whole time, not daring to refute her sister, after the lecture was over she too started to collect the rings.

"Interesting, an artifact that is capable of using soul abilities while other that can snatch the vitality from the targets, both the artifacts are based on AOE offense, good for fighting multiple opponents alone, most importantly they are in their immature forms, with time they will grow in strength," Rex said while looking at the holographic projection.

He had seen more of Ria than others so he wasn't overly surprised. Rose has become proficient in reading her face, she could hide the truth but cannot lie proficiently under facial analysis, her situation was the same as Rex's situation in front of Zakiya.

Of course, rather than artifacts what surprised him was the fact that the sisters were body cultivators who had unlocked their Full Beast Transformation forms they had hidden their body cultivation and only showed the Qi cultivation, normally it won't be easy to do all that but when the Ancient Artifacts comes into play the situation changes.

If one would notice then most of Rex's abilities are focused on crafting instead of offense or defense. The reason was Rose acted on his orders and focused on this field, he wanted strength but can't abandon his passion of creativity for strength, and he needs these abilities and talent to gain further success in his passion.

"Snatch the vitality you say? Why do you think so? It can be a type of poison or wood law ability too," Zakiya asked in amusement.

Rex shook his head.

"Wood law at this level can be used at high accuracy, there was no need to affect the trees in the vicinity, as for poison, it wouldn't have worked on everyone at the same time, the time difference on the tree and cultivators was very low, even if we consider that the poison was too strong then how is Mia fine? Antidote? Even antidotes have limits, she should have to suffer a little but there was not a single change in her whole body especially seeing how strong its effect was, poison cultivation at their level cannot do it.

Lastly was snatching vitality, if you had noticed Mia first did a soul attack, it disrupted their soul stability resulting in a delay in body resistance towards external factors, in such a situation snatching vitality or was the best choice, but I think that Ria didn't absorb or used the snatched vitality, instead of her, that artifact ate it, it probably eats others' vitality as its food or else Ria wouldn't look that fatigued if she absorbed it," Rex concluded.

"Hmm… How are you so sure? About this… Vitality snatching," Zakiya asked in doubt.

'Because I reached all the way up to Core Breaking peak stage using that,' Rex thought but of course, he wouldn't say that.

"Just some experience, I gained throughout my life," He said modestly.

Extracting the purest core life energy as Exp was one of his greatest benefits, revealing it was just courting death. Although the level was different, snatching vitality was similar to it in a way so he used the same logic to explain it.

Rex can only absorb Exp after killing the target, meaning he can do it only after their original soul connection is severed.

Zakiya nodded with a faint smile on her face.

'He didn't get charmed by those,' She thought.

In reality, no matter what artifact was it Rex won't care because it was already refined, an Ancient Artifact can never have two owners. Moreover, Zakiya hasn't been told about the eight treasures he got from the tomb yet, especially the fact that Rex now had an Ancient Artifact, she knew there were eight treasures but to explain the whole story he skipped their type, after all, they are not running away.

"You may have been right about the ability but you are wrong about everything else, they aren't two artifacts but one, moreover their true specialty isn't offense… Just see for yourself," Zakiya snapped her finger, and the scenery changed.

They were still in the forest but Rex saw that the two sisters had set up an illusory array using array disks then dug a deep hole in the center of the free ground in the array, just when he was thinking as to what they intend to do, the duo took out all the looted weapon, shields... every metallic equipment they had and threw it into the hole.

Then they also poured in a big heap of spirit stones ranging from Low to Top grade.

The hole was so filled with numerous metallic equipment and spirit stones, it was simply a treasure trove for many people. It was a mini treasure pond.

Then Rex saw what they did, both Ria and Mia summoned their staff and brought them closer to each other.

The golden and silver snake that were lifeless statues until now showed a glimmer of light in their eyes. Their body moved, they moved like living snakes and swirled around each other, they left the grasp of both the sisters and flew to the center of the pond.

The snake swirled into a circular ring shape, an ancient aura rose from them. In the next second, an illusory golden-silver cauldron appeared in the center.

In an instant, the cauldron moved down and sunk into the pond filled with metal equipment.

..Clunk...Crrkkk...

The solid equipment and spirit stones started to crack one by one, their colour turned reddish, they started to melt turning into lava-like form, all the metallic things had just melted when another change occurred, the lava decreased in temperature, increased in fluidity and turned dark as charcoal.

"See it clearly, an artifact that can refine... Metal Essence,"