Protection of Life

"What's going on? Why is the earth shaking?"

"There are dark clouds and lightning in the sky... Could someone be using a powerful lightning technique nearby? And it's targeting our Hidden Edge Sect?"

"It's not a lightning technique. The lightning techniques of a cultivator don't have this kind of pressure. This is a heavenly punishment!"

Just as the Hidden Edge Sect fell into chaos and a powerful existence was about to emerge from the mountain, a strange golden light suddenly appeared.

The cave heaven seed took root and sprouted, instantly emitting a strange golden light that enveloped Reclining Firewood Peak entirely. It even expanded outward with a faint momentum.

Following that, the cave heaven disappeared from Ye Changge's sight.

He knew that the cave heaven and Reclining Firewood Peak had overlapped. From then on, Reclining Firewood Peak was within the cave heaven.

Ye Changge breathed a sigh of relief.

Starting from that moment, he had a stable foundation, and his survival in the world had skyrocketed.

As long as he and his disciple did not court death, provoke any existences, or cause internal problems, there would be the best guarantee on the preservation of his life.

Since the cave heaven was hidden, the lightning punishment in the sky suddenly dissipated, bewildering the members of the Hidden Edge Sect.

After he completed everything, Ye Changge did not detect any other movements, so he returned to the secret room and looked at another reward, the Indestructible Golden Body technique.

"The record of the Indestructible Golden Body technique is one of the ten great heavenly scriptures. It is a forbidden technique and not something that an ordinary person can cultivate.

"Upon successful cultivation, the person's body will form its own system. The skin, muscles, tendons, and bones will become extremely mysterious existences. It will be difficult for even a divine weapon to harm it.

"Moreover, it will grant extremely strong vitality recovery. It won't be difficult to be reborn from a drop of blood.

"Once it is cultivated successfully to such a great stage, one will be indestructible; the body will be the strongest weapon on its own. Furthermore, it is sufficient to suppress immortality itself and strike down all Saints."

After Ye Changge read the introduction of the Indestructible Golden Body technique and understood the strength of the cultivation technique, he was excited.

With the base camp's blessed land and the Indestructible Golden Body technique, as long as he concentrated on cultivating and signed in, he would be able to continue developing for a thousand years. Once he was reborn, he would definitely be able to suppress all immortals and defeat all Saints.

While he was excited, Ye Changge began to look at the materials needed to cultivate the Indestructible Golden Body technique.

[Colored soul qi, innate earth snake, fog Buddha vine, mysterious heaven silk, crimson sunset sand-wind stone, Sun Tong Pearl, earth-sand core...]

Looking at the list of heavenly materials and earthly treasures, Ye Changge's forehead twitched slightly. Fortunately, he had signed in for so many years and saved quite a few materials. Otherwise, he could only drool as he looked at the Indestructible Golden Body technique.

Moreover, he would need more materials after he entered the sect. It seemed like this was a bottomless pit.

Thinking about it, Ye Changge, who had yet to sign in today, said, "System, sign in!"

Ding!

"The sign-in is complete. Your reward is access to the Indestructible Golden Body technique!"

"Huh?" Ye Changge laughed. As expected of the system, it actually gave him such a big surprise.

This way, he only needed to look for the materials to advance.

.....

Late at night in the Hidden Edge Sect, underground.

A suspicious figure was riding on a ferocious demon beast as he sneaked underground.

As a spy sent by the Soul Concealment Pavilion, Hun Qishiqi had great strength, and he had reached the Rebirth Stage.

At the same time, he was also a cultivator who was very skilled at hiding underground.

By working together with the strange, earth-digging beast that the sect had nurtured, the two of them could often breach the mountain protection formation of enemy forces.

Being an old enemy of the Hidden Edge Sect, the Soul Concealment Pavilion had launched an operation hundreds of years ago and almost unified the eastern region.

However, in the end, they had been defeated in front of the Hidden Edge Sect.

The most hateful thing was the fact that the sect was obviously very strong, but they never showed it on the surface.

The Soul Concealment Pavilion had misjudged the Hidden Edge Sect's strength, and ultimately, they had continued to send experts over to be beaten to death by the Hidden Edge Sect in waves.

If they had attacked together from the start, the outcome might have been reversed.

Now that the Soul Concealment Pavilion had accumulated a strength far greater than before, they were going to act again.

Nevertheless, the Hidden Edge Sect was a huge threat, and they had no choice but to be on guard. Hun Qishiqi was shouldering an important mission.

Plus, he was well aware of the Hidden Edge Sect's practices. The strength of the spies his side had sent over was two levels higher than the strongest combatants that the sect had revealed.

"Hehe, the strength of our sect is getting stronger and stronger. This time, the mutated earth-digging beasts we are equipped with are much faster than before."

"The members of the Hidden Edge Sect have been at ease for hundreds of years. As one of the ten great sects, they definitely would have never thought that we would make a comeback."

Hun Qishiqi was filled with joy.

As an intermediate Level 3 cultivator, his confidence, impressive strength, and speed of the mutated beast were sufficient to make him a well-known existence in the eastern region.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, Ye Changge had eyes on his every move.

As the master of the Hidden Kindness Cave Heaven Foundation, Ye Changge could detect any movements in the area covered by the cave heaven.

Moreover, the foundation seed's main body was underground, so it was even easier to detect the abnormality.

"His strength is not bad. It looks like he is only slightly weaker than the sect leader," Ye Changge thought.

Hun Qishiqi was still digging the ground carefully and moving stealthily. Right then, a voice sounded behind him.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Startled, Hun Qishiqi hurriedly turned around with a tremble.

He saw that the figure in front of him was shrouded in a layer of fog. It was hazy and indistinct.

Without another word, he cast a spell straight away. Streams of black air whistled and pressed toward Ye Changge.

Simultaneously, the exotic earth-digging beast beneath him also let out a violent howl. The density of the soil around Ye Changge increased as it rushed toward him.

"Stop."

The moment the voice rang out, the soil and black air currents that filled the underground space all froze.

Upon witnessing this, Hun Qishiqi was greatly frightened.

The figure was neither blocking nor dodging. Instead, he had directly frozen the Soul Fiend and the Concrete technique.

Was this space manipulation? What level was this cultivator at?

"You're not going to explain? In that case, speak no more and stay here."

A deafening rumble spread far and wide.

The entire cave heaven's underground portion was responding to Ye Changge's orders.

Hun Qishiqi did not have time to make a sound before he was squashed along with his mount.

"Forget it, I'll let the sect leader and the others deal with this."

Ye Changge, who could not be bothered, waved his hand casually. The two corpses were thrown near the entrance to the Hidden Edge Sect's main peak.

"Who is it?"

The disciple who was in charge of miscellaneous chores was cleaning in front of the main hall. He became alarmed when he saw the corpses of a man and a beast fall to the ground.

The two corpses were crushed flat, but he could still feel a strange pressure from them.

The disciple who was in charge of miscellaneous chores was shocked, and he rushed to report it.

Elder Song from the Elder Hall came to take a look when he received the news. He was taken aback to find that it was a corpse of someone in the Rebirth Stage.

The matter was quickly reported to the sect leader.

Soon, a meeting was held in the main hall. Many elders and the sect leader gathered there.

"Are these spies from the Soul Concealment Pavilion?"

"There's no mistake. The unnerving aura of death from their bodies is the aura of their sect's cultivation method."

"I never expected their evil intentions to still be alive after so many years. They actually dared to come to our sect to snoop around."

The elders were all paying attention to the owner of the corpse. Only the sect leader, Ding Xingbo was looking for other information.

"Everyone, don't you think that this person's death is very strange?"

After the sect leader prompted them, everyone's attention was drawn to the corpse, and they began to carefully investigate the cause of death.

"This? Doesn't this person seem like he was just directly crushed to death by someone?"

"It's not any simple kind of pressure. Under normal pressure, the person's internal organs and bones would burst and shatter...

"But this person's entire body seems to be compressed from front to back, stretching out to both sides. Everything in his body has also changed in proportion.

"It's as if the space he was in itself was compressed, and everything in his body changed evenly.

"What kind of method is this? Did it involve space manipulation?"

No matter how much he thought about it, he could not come up with a conclusion.

An elder's eyes flickered, and after a moment's thought, he said, "Could it be that one of the elders in our sect has made a move?"

Sect Leader Ding could not be sure. After all, space manipulation was only a technique that was available to those in the Entry Saint Realm.

Only an expert who had a vague understanding of the Great Dao could exert an influence on time and space.

Although the Hidden Edge Sect had countless trump cards, did they really have such a level of existence amongst them?

"Regardless of whether or not the elders of our sect have acted, all of you should strengthen your investigation and not let your guard down."

"Your order is our command, Sect Leader!"

Sect Leader Ding's heart was still not calm after he issued the command and sent all the elders away.

He went to the secret room at the back of the mountain and reported to the Hidden Edge Sect's four elders who were still alive.

At the same time, over in a secret location. there was a towering hall with a sign: [Asura Ghost Region]. It was filled with a ghostly aura.

"Hun Qishiqi's soul flame has been extinguished."

"As expected, sending a Rebirth-Stage spy to investigate the news is too much of a stretch."

"Hmph, it fits the style of the Hidden Edge Sect. The strength of the sect leader isn't real at all."

"Wouldn't we be alerting the enemy this time?"

"They won't know how many forces we've developed over the past several hundred years, and they won't know the extent of the foundation we have. They'll just treat us as the old Soul Concealment Pavilion."

"That's true, that's true. It's just a pity when it comes to that strange earth-digging beast."

"It doesn't matter, anyway. We've destroyed the Circle Spirit Sect, obtained the core inheritance, and combined it with the southern region's witchcraft technique. In the future, we can still nurture many such useful strange beasts."

"What should we do next? Should we continue to send spies to investigate or send people to go undercover? Or should we stir up some trouble and see how the Hidden Edge Sect reacts?"

For a moment, the hall was abuzz with discussion.

The voices were all very feminine, making it seem even odder.

At that moment, a loud voice that was different from the others rang out. "Let's carry out a three-pronged strategy. We will continue to send people to investigate the Hidden Edge Sect from the underground...

"Send the elite disciples nurtured by the sect to the Hidden Edge Sect to acknowledge their master..."

"Set up another set of laws and create a few conflicts near the Hidden Edge Sect. Let's see the strength of their current disciples or their previous disciples."

The person who gave the order clearly had a high status. When he spoke, everyone went silent and did not dare to make a single sound.

"Yes!" they answered in unison.