Martial Peak

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain

Inside Grand Burial Valley, Yang Yan stood on the spot, looking at the two map fragments in her hands, her expression flickering, because these two map fragments had led her here but there were no further instructions beyond that.

Relying on just these two map fragments to reach this point was all thanks to Yang Yan incredible analytical abilities, but now she was unable to determine the final position they were guiding her towards, only that their destination was somewhere within the surrounding thousand-kilometre radius.

A thousand-kilometre range was neither big nor small, but it would be very time-consuming to find some kind of hidden location.

While the Spirit Arrays they encountered as they moved deeper did not bother Yang Yan, the Yin Qi had become extremely rich and resisting it was constantly consuming her Saint Qi. Thankfully, Yang Kai had huge reserves of Saint Qi in his body so he could cover for Yang Yan when she became exhausted. If this weren’t the case, the two would have had to retreat long ago.

“What should we do?” Yang Yan turned her head to look at Yang Kai. They had come so far already so she was naturally unwilling to just give up. If she tried diligently, perhaps she could find the ultimate destination marked on these map fragments, but everything would depend on Yang Kai’s opinion.

Yang Kai frowned and grumbled to himself. Although they hadn’t encountered much danger along the way, since two days ago, the Yin Souls that had attacked them had strength equivalent to ordinary Saint Kings, and some of those that had been absorbing the Yin Qi of this place for countless years had even begun to achieve a slight degree of sentience, making them far more difficult to deal with as they would immediately retreat if they felt they were in danger, then, after recuperating, would come back to attack again. Thankfully, Yang Kai’s strength was still far greater, allowing him to thoroughly destroy most of these Yin Souls otherwise the situation would have been far more troublesome.

Yang Kai was also beginning to vaguely sense that there were more dangers to this Grand Burial Valley than could be seen on the surface. After all, if there weren’t, there wouldn’t be rumours about Origin Returning Realm masters falling here.

After hesitating for a moment, Yang Kai asked, “If I say we need to go back now, would you feel unwilling?”

Yang Yan nodded honestly.

Yang Kai grinned and nodded back, “I am also unwilling, and since that is the case, let’s keep looking. In any case, it’s just a five-hundred-kilometre search radius, at worst we can just dig up the entire thousand-kilometre region.”

Hearing this, Yang Yan’s spirit immediately rose, and the pair immediately began scouring the nearby area.

One day later, Yang Kai paused suddenly and looked around in surprise. Yang Yan saw this and naturally knew that he had discovered something, so she immediately fell silent and waited. Only after some time did Yang Kai show a strange look and ask, “Do you smell something strange?”

“En, it’s like there’s a faint rotten odor in the air,” Yang Yan responded, obviously also having noticed this.

“So, it wasn’t just my imagination,” Yang Kai grinned meaningfully, a black fireball suddenly appearing in his palm and unleashing such intense heat that the surrounding space began to warp.

Swiftly, Yang Kai waved his hand and threw this black fireball towards a nearby dead tree.

This fireball was not very fast, but just as it was about to hit the seemingly unremarkable dead tree, a low roar suddenly rang out from it. Along with this bestial roar, and rich malevolent aura also erupted.

With a loud bang, the dead tree exploded into dust under the strong force erupting from inside it and a tall, abnormal figure suddenly appeared in its place.

A big hand suddenly stretched forward, covered in a light-yellow aura, and instantly intercepted the black fireball.

There was a loud sizzling sound the moment the pale yellow aura made contact with the black fireball, as if a handful of salt was sprinkled into a hot pan of oil. The yellow aura rapidly faded, but the Demonic Flame also grew weaker as a result.

A short time later, the pale yellow aura and the black fireball completely disappeared, leaving behind the strange tall figure in front of Yang Kai and Yang Yan.

After seeing the face of this person, Yang Kai’s brow furrowed as a look of shock filled his face while Yang Yan exclaimed loudly, “A Corpse Soldier!”

“Corpse Soldier?” Yang Kai turned his head to look at her curiously as this was the first time he had heard of such an existence. The tall, abnormal figure opposite him was clearly not a living person. Its face was shriveled and seemed devoid of any kind of moisture and its skin had sunk in, exposing the outlines of its bones. Two green eyes flickered like flames and its face was abnormally thin. Its appearance was quite terrifying and would cause anyone who saw it to shudder.

Most importantly though, Yang Kai was unable to feel any vitality from it, only a thick Death Qi and Corpse Qi. If not for this odd body emitting aura fluctuations on par with those of an average Third-Order Saint King, Yang Kai would really have thought it was just a corpse.

However, this corpse-like figure in front of him had just neutralized his Demonic Flame fireball with a single blow without taking any apparent damage.

The rancid smell that Yang Kai and Yang Yan had smelt was clearly being emitted by this figure but because it was hidden inside the dead tree a moment ago, it wasn’t so obvious.

“What is this?” Yang Kai asked in surprise.

“You can think of him as a special kind of life-form!”

“A life-form?” Yang Kai’s brow rose, and he wanted to ask more, but the Corpse Soldier opposite them suddenly showed a strange expression, one that seemed similar to a grin but because of its shrivelled face looked particularly strange and ugly. Immediately, a hoarse voice came from its throat, “Ah, excellent. Two big supplements delivered themselves to me. En, and one is a fresh little girl with tender flesh, her flavour will certainly be scrumptious.”

Hearing this, Yang Yan shivered involuntarily and quickly hid behind Yang Kai.

The look of surprise on Yang Kai’s face quickly disappeared. Since Yang Yan said that this Corpse Soldier was a lifeform, then naturally it would possess sentience and it would not be surprising for it to speak. It was his first time encountering such a strange creature, but when Yang Kai thought about all the Yin Souls here, he was no longer surprising that this Corpse Soldier had appeared.

Also grinning, Yang Kai looked at him and asked, “You want to eat my companion?”

“Do you have any objections?” The Corpse Soldier looked at Yang Kai coldly, a dangerous light flashing across its green eyes, “Rest assured, you also won’t escape, I’ll be eating both of you.”

“You want to eat me too?” Yang Kai seemed to hear something funny, his face turning cold as he snorted, “I’m afraid your teeth will break!”

As soon as his voice fell, with the wave of his hand, Yang Kai condensed a black sword and immediately slashed forward, sending out an imposing black sword wave that sliced cleanly through the air.

The Corpse Soldier didn’t show any fear at all, instead releasing a hoarse laughter as he crossed its arms in front of its chest. The pale yellow aura from just before enveloped it once again as it met the sword wave head on.

Yang Kai’s gaze become colder but he didn’t make any follow-up actions, simply observing for the moment.

Yang Kai saw his sword wave strike his opponent’s arms head on, but this only resulted in the Corpse Solider being forced back a few steps and the pale yellow aura guarding him fade slightly. There was also a burst of crisp scraping noises, like metal clashing against metal.

“Corpse Soldiers have extremely strong physical bodies incomparable to cultivators in the same realm, not much different from defensive artifacts of the same level,” Yang Yan’s reminder came from behind.

“I see!” Yang Kai gently nodded.

“Little girl, you seem to know a lot about us. Kaka, boy you will be the first. I’ll take my time to enjoy her later!” The Corpse Soldier cackled again before rushing out, the jet black nails on its big shriveled hand extending and releasing a cold light as it clawed towards Yang Kai.

As it reached out, the sound of air being split rang out and it seemed as though it wanted to twist off Yang Kai’s head.

Yang Kai raised his hand and sent out a punch to greet this big open hand.

“Overconfidence!” The Corpse Soldier saw Yang Kai wanted to face him with just his fist and sneered, grasping with its claw-like hand as if it wanted to crush Yang Kai’s outstretched fist.

But to the Corpse Soldier’s shock, when it tried to crush Yang Kai’s seemingly frail fist, he discovered that it was actually incomparably firm, and even though he used at least seventy percent of his strength, he was unable to even cut into his opponent’s skin.

On the contrary, a huge force came from his opponent’s fist, causing his green eyes to shrink, and with a strange cry, the Corpse Soldier’s body flew out like a paper kite as a look of shock filled his face.

Yang Kai was also shocked as he was forced back a few steps. He felt an icy coldness on his fist and when he looked down, he actually saw five black finger prints on the back of his hand which were exuding a thick Black Qi. This Black Qi seemed to be alive and was constantly wriggling back and forth, trying to dig into his flesh.

“Be careful of his Corpse Qi, it’s extremely virulent. Once it invades your body it’s extremely difficult to get rid of,” Yang Yan’s timely reminder sounded.

Yang Kai’s face went cold as he changed the Demonic Flames in his body into a pure hot existence.

The squirming Black Qi seemed to meet its nemesis and after a burst of what sounded like wailing was ejected from Yang Kai’s hand and dissipated into the air.

Seeing this, Yang Yan finally calmed down. What made Corpse Soldiers difficult to deal with were their solid bodies and strange Corpse Qi, but since Yang Kai was not affected by either, there was nothing she needed to worry about.

Sure enough, seeing Yang Kai easily expel his Corpse Qi, the eyes of the Corpse Soldier who hit the ground rolling became somewhat hesitant.

Originally, in his mind, the Second-Order Saint King Yang Kai and Yang Yan were not his opponents at all. He would quickly defeat these two then devour their bodies to enhance his own strength.

This was not the first or second time he had done this, but this time’s Second-Order Saint King was different from those he had encountered before and seemed quite difficult to kill.

This made him wonder if he should continue struggling here.

While he was hesitant though, Yang Kai had no intention of letting him off. With a flick of his wrist, Yang Kai silently sent a golden silk thread flying over that swiftly struck towards the Corpse Soldier. This Corpse Soldier did not notice this golden thread until it was already upon him and with a loud roar it sprayed out a thick Corpse Qi from his mouth to intercept it.