Entering the nether realm

"Enough Long Bai, deal with him in the realm"

Long Hai had no choice but to stop Long Bai, but his face was filled with bitterness.

Long Bai snorted but did not bother him again. He felt his face burning with shame, by losing in such a disgraceful manner to a bunch of traitors.

Long Chen went back to his group, acting as nothing happened.

"Wah Long Chen is so strong"

"Yes his strength is definitely at the peak of qi condensation, only people at 9th layer can deal with him"

"I suppose the Long clan will definitely bring him to the core of the clan"

Among the crowd, a group of people stood out from the rest.

In front of them stood a man, with a chestnut face and somewhat pale and smooth skin. He had a very handsome appearance.

He had a very polite demeanor, but no one knew his real thoughts.

'Interesting this person definitely has the potential to reach soul transformation

I suppose he can be used as a chess piece against 2nd uncle"

He was Xia Wuhen, the 9th prince, who was one of the contenders for the throne.

At the 9th layer of qi condensation, before reaching the age of 25, he was also one of the top geniuses of the empire.

He usually kept a low profile, so not many people paid much heed to him, but his eyes were like a hawk observing everything and everyone down to the smallest detail.

Long Chen also noticed him, although Wuhen tried to be inconspicuous, his sharpness was something that could not escape Long Chen's eyes.

"The realm is opening"

"Long Chen take care of yourself and your companions " Long Aotian chided in a worrisome tone.

"Don't worry father"

Long Chen patiently reassured everyone before taking off with his mates.

…

The atmosphere was extremely gloomy in the nether realm.

The sky was painted red, even the moon seemed like it wanted to escape from there.

The creatures and plants all were contaminated with nether qi and would attack any foreign creatures.

The creatures were all howling as if welcoming an ill omen.

In a forest, there was a loud screech and 4 youths holding hands landed on it.

Long Chen felt his head hurt for a moment before the scenery around him changed.

'I feel unnaturally comfortable I guess my bloodline has something to do with this realm.

Is It a lesser devil bloodline ?'

Long Chen pondered about this

"This certainly looks interesting"

Long Chen was intrigued by the layout of the forest.

They were surrounded by malignant-looking trees, which were so densely packed it was hard for them to navigate.

"Come we better move staying at one place will make us targets"

Everyone's hair suddenly stood out.

"Fatty watch out"

Fang Qian rolled over the ground only to see a Nether Eagle stuck at the spot he moved from.

He shot an arrow to immobilize it.

'Swish'

"Come little eagle give papa some love"

Saying that Fang Qian started patting the eagle in hopes of taming it.

"It's no use demonic beasts of this forest cannot be tamed, especially those that haven't developed any form of sentience"

Long Chen's words splashed cold water, all over Fang Qian's aspiration.

While the group walked out of the forest they encountered many demonic beasts.

Long Chen refrained from fighting, to give others a chance.

"These beasts are too weird " Fang Qingmei complained while wiping off torn skin, from the demonic beasts.

"Yeah these bastards are too persistent"

"These beasts are infested with nether qi, they always fight to kill. Their ferociousness is not something ordinary beasts can match"

They came across a small valley with a huge tree and some snakes coiled around it.

"Woahhh that's profounder fruits, They are really helpful for breaking in the essence gathering realm. It's really good in the essence gathering realm as well."

"Let's go take it " As expected of the short-tempered Bei Youer.

Long Chen smiled but shook his head.

"Although dealing with a couple of half step essence gathering realm dark rake snakes won't be that difficult for me, but see that cave there may be essence gathering snakes in there, and if I get sneak attacked by those even I would be in trouble"

"We have to create an opportunity then"

Chimed in Qingmei.

"Boss I have an idea, how about we start a fire and go hide somewhere. I am sure the smoke will attract quite a few people and demonic beasts, then after the fight, we can play the role of the fisherman"

"Wow fatty you sure are smart"

Bei Youer complimented.

Fang Qian rubbed his nose in embarrassment, but her next sentence made him fall to the ground.

"But you sure are scum"

"But my plan is helping us"

"Yes but in a scummy way"

Fang Qian had been traveling around a lot, so he was very familiar with these tricks and tactics.

"All right let's follow this plan, add some innate incense in the fire"

Long Chen and his group hid above a tall tree, meanwhile, Fang Qian shot burning arrows, with some incense rolled, in the direction of the valley exactly at a dry tree.

'Swish'

A small tree caught fire until it started growing by ridiculous degrees, smoke started leaking out of the tree.

It took about 10 breaths of time before a large group of people came.

"Leader those look like precious fruits"

A sickly middle-aged man was reporting to a muscular man.

The muscular man Xiong Zhenxen is one of the high-level mercenaries in the Xia Empire.

"Umm we can definitely beat these beasts, we have 2 half-step essence gathering martial artists, including me, let's gang up on these dark rake snake bastards and get those fruits. If we do our trip would have been worth it"

The group slowly made their way down the valley.

After laying a few traps, the groups started fighting.

Due to the various talismans and poison traps, the mercenary group managed to overwhelm the snakes.

'These people are related to the black market looking at their auxiliaries. What is that guy playing at …'

Long Chen pondered, while his gaze being sharp as always. He was looking at those people as if they were dead men.

Halfway through the fight, a 20-meter tall dark rake snake crawled out.

One of the mercenaries was caught off guard and as a result, he got swallowed whole.

The Dark rake snake rampaged through the battlefield in 5 breaths of time he had swallowed around 5 people.

"Hold the big one for a while, aa I extract those fruits"

Every mercenary felt like cursing their leader, for was using them as cannon fodder but they had no other choice.

As expected under the might of sharp tales and big fangs casualties started piling up for mercenaries.

"Damn these snake bastards"

The leader started cursing but he slowly made his way towards the tree, on reaching he started extracting those fruit.

Bei Youer and Qingmei were intently watching this fight, specially Bei Youer now that she has confirmed her relationship with Long Chen she doesn't want to be her burden.

Bei Youer also wants to wonder about the nine heavens with Long Chen but while standing on her own 2 feet.

"What an idiot" Commented Fang Qian.

Both the girls stared at him curiously.

"The demonic beast is protecting these fruits, not for show, but because it would probably consume those before laying eggs. Now that this idiot has started climbing the tree all the snakes would probably stop their fights and go and kill this bastard"

"We'll wait for either the mercenary to die out or escape, then we will attack we have the element of surprise but it will work only once"

Long Chen chimed in.

"But can you handle a 2nd order demonic beast"

Fang Qian asked with his eyes scrunched up in worry

"The difference between qi condensation and essence gathering realm is like heaven and earth, but if it's just holding it back I can handle it. Only steal the fruits after all the snakes except the big guy are dead."

Long Chen warned others while putting on a solemn expression.

As expected in about 20 breaths of time the mercenary captain was shred to pieces, which made it possible for others to break out of the encirclement.

Then suddenly arrows coated in qi started raining down on them before they could figure out the source they had all been killed.

Long Chen ordered Fang Qian to act this way, had they escaped successfully news of the fruits would bring about limitless greed.

The mercenaries would have made the same choice after it's the rule of jungle that follows.

Without wasting any time Long Chen jumped at the snake.

Flying saber Eagle king's wrath.

'Skadoosh'

The snake was caught off guard, allowing Long Chen to make a shallow cut despite being at the 7th layer of qi condensation and having a body strong enough to rival a peak qi condensation martial artist.

The snake was agitated and attacked Long Chen with its spiked tail.

Long Chen rolled over to dodge the attack.

Still, it manages to glaze over his foot. It almost skinned his foot even bones were visible.

Long Chen did not even blink, this kind of pain was nothing to him.

He then completely unleashed his killing intent, stunning the snake for a second.

Taking advantage of this Long Chen jumped over and landed on the snake's head and aimed at one of his eyes.

The snake snapped out of it and tried shaking him off, still, Long Chen managed to hit the bullseyes, completely destroying one of its eyes.

The snake got berserk and immediately pounced on Long Chen.

Seeing there was no time to dodge Long Chen sheathed one of the sabers and held the other one in his mouth.