Refining the Mountains and Rivers

"No, no! What is this!? Father…!"

Bang -

The doors slammed shut, cutting off Lei Jinyun's screams.

Lei Qianjun stood with his hands folded behind his back. As he looked up at the skies that were covered by the pitch black Heavenly Punishment Domain, he was silent like a sculpture.

The steward stood quietly to the side.

"I never thought that the first blood relation to betray me, the one that would replace the backlash of the witchcraft bug, would be my own son. Tell me, do you think that this is the karma I must endure after the endless slaughter I've committed throughout the years?"

The steward said, "If you didn't kill, you would have died."

Lei Qianjun sighed. "I see. If I didn't kill I wouldn't have lived until today, so I wasn't wrong, right?"

The steward lowered his head, "You weren't wrong."

"If I wasn't wrong then they were wrong. And those that committed wrongs must pay a price, no matter who they are."

The steward hesitated for a moment and asked, "And the miss?"

Lei Qianjun shook his head, "Xiaoyu's aura has vanished. It is beyond my range of sense. But I believe she hasn't died…if Xiaoyu has survived, the spies activated by the imperial capital will surely rush over."

He raised a hand and pointed a finger. The Heavenly Punishment Domain that covered the City Lord Mansion rapidly collapsed. Lei Qianjun stepped into the air. "I will leave the rest to you. From now on, I will go into seclusion and attack the Origin God boundary. If I am fortunate enough to make it out alive…the heavens will change!"

…

When the transmission suffered a surprise attack, at the moment the array formation collapsed, Qin Yu only had enough time to protect Lei Xiaoyu before he was swept away in the stormy spatial currents.

It was like crashing into an underground river, constantly rolling into and striking the rugged rocks that lined it.

But the entire process was a hundred times, a thousand times riskier. If Qin Yu didn't have eyes that could see into the essence of things and dodged the dangers just as they were about to hit, the two of them would have been torn to shreds already.

While being dragged forward by the terrifying flow of space, it was unknown how much time passed. Dark golden light suddenly rose up deep within Qin Yu's eyes.

With a loud shout, Qin Yu punched out a fist. Loud cracking sounds came one after another; this was the sound of breaking bones. Warm blood splattered across his face. He could even feel tiny pieces of minced flesh stick to his face and roll away.

Qin Yu didn't even glance at his injuries. As he held onto the unconscious Lei Xiaoyu with one hand, he drilled out from the turbulent spatial flow.

Bang -

The ground below collapsed, forming a massive pit. Cracks started to spread outwards.

Qin Yu's complexion changed. Before he could look at his surroundings, his body flickered like a shadow, moving several feet horizontally to avoid a spray of venom.

Hiss -

As the venom landed on the earth it released fierce corrosive sounds. A nauseating mist rose into the air, leaving large pits and holes.

The attack came from a poisonous black snake as thick as a young child's arm. It had two bulges on the top of its head, as if horns could pop out at any moment. When it saw that Qin Yu avoided its attack, it seemed to sense something. Its pupils suddenly shrank and it turned to flee at an astonishing speed.

"Humph!"

A cold sneer echoed out and the snake suddenly stiffened. It could feel the threat of death. It spat out a white poisonous gas. This was its vital poison, and once used, the losses were astonishing. But right now it couldn't care too much about this.

Unfortunately, the white poison gas wasn't able to delay the snake's death. Qin Yu's hand reached through it, allowing the poison gas to intrude into his body through his wounds. Then, his five fingers gripped the poison snake and a wild strength crashed into its body, coursing through it like mighty waves and snuffing out all of its vitality.

The hand tightened and the fingertips pierced through the snake's corpse. Its body began to wither away at a speed visible to the naked eye. Clear blood energy poured into Qin Yu's body. The wounds received from the violent spatial flow started to regenerate and his aura restored to how it was in the beginning.

When the Ancient race's Undying Body was injured, it could forcefully plunder the life force and blood energy of other living beings to accelerate its own restoration! At the same time, the white poison that was inhaled into Qin Yu's body was drawn into his right hand's index finger. It was like an endless abyss, capable of holding all toxins in the world.

Pa -

The five fingers loosened, allowing the snake's withered corpse to fall onto the ground.

Qin Yu held onto Lei Xiaoyu and swept over his surroundings.

The skies were black, without any trace of light. Because there were dark green shrubs growing on the ground that emitted a faint light, the surroundings were barely illuminated.

Qin Yu chose to break through this place because the barriers of space were the weakest here. But now it seemed that this place was out of the ordinary.

But since he had come here, worrying about it was useless. He glanced around and chose a direction to head off towards.

A moment later, Qin Yu's expression turned dignified. He stood in front of a black stone wall. There were countless bulges on its surface, as if there were fruits there.

A dark golden light flashed in his eyes and his complexion changed. Without hesitation, he brought Lei Xiaoyu far away from this stone wall.

Another hour later, in an ancient tree that had died countless years ago, Qin Yu found a hole that was occupied by monster beasts.

He chased them away. Several birds flew around the ancient tree a few dozen times before giving Qin Yu one final unwilling look and flying away. They soon vanished past his line of sight.

He brought Lei Xiaoyu with him as he entered the tree hole. After carefully sweeping the surroundings with his divine sense, Qin Yu's thoughts stirred. The sun and moon force field quietly spread out, covering the entire hollow.

After finishing this, he finally relaxed a little. He placed Lei Xiaoyu on a nest of dried grass and sat to the side.

Qin Yu had received heavy injuries in the violent spatial flow while protecting Lei Xiaoyu. He had to heal himself as soon as possible to be able to deal with any potential dangers.

While he hadn't yet fully investigated this place, Qin Yu had a bad feeling about it.

Time quietly passed. Six hours later, on this strange land, all of the light-emitting green bushes seemed to sense the arrival of some crisis. They rolled up their branches, shrinking into round sticks that tunneled into the ground.

With that, the final sources of light were extinguished from this part of the world, causing it to fall into infinite darkness.

Qin Yu's heart skipped a beat. He woke up from his cultivation. Without hesitation, he stood up and walked forward, arriving at the tree hole entrance.

All he saw was incomparable darkness, as if the eternal night had arrived.

But this sight only continued for a short period of time. Without warning, a blood red crescent moon appeared in the dark skies.

Light blood red light came from the scarlet moon and covered the earth, as if placing a blood-stained garment upon the world.

The tree hole suddenly shook. Qin Yu was shocked. The ancient tree that had been dead for countless years actually revived beneath the light of the blood moon.

The withered bone-like branches rapidly softened, turning into blood red tentacles. They floated in the air, like they were searching for something.

Suddenly, the tentacles seemed to sense something. They howled as they veered towards the hole.

Qin Yu's complexion changed. But, his intuition told him that he absolutely couldn't do anything otherwise the situation would devolve beyond saving.

A mere hundred feet from the tree hole, the tentacles all stopped. Qin Yu looked up to see shallow cutting marks appear. It was like someone had chopped it with a hatchet. The traces were long or deep, and they exuded a silver halo of light.

They were shallow, extremely shallow, almost impossible to discover. But, it was the existence of these cutting marks, or to be more precise the silver light they emitted, that caused the branch tentacles to not dare to approach.

Qin Yu stood in the hollow, the tentacles encircled the hole, and the shallow slash markings stood between them. Although they seemed light and barely perceptible, they were a gap that couldn't be crossed.

Finally, with an unwilling roar, the tentacles all returned back to their freely floating state.

Rumble rumble -

Loud noises came from within the earth and the tree hole shook and quaked. Qin Yu lifted a hand to stabilize Lei Xiaoyu as he looked at the ground.

The revived tree had pulled up countless roots from the ground. They wove together into seven or eight thick leg-like root structures as it began to race away.

The root system of the withered tree was incredibly developed. As they wove together, each leg was several thousand feet long. The legs turned into fiery wheels that roared into the distance at an astonishing speed.

But a moment later, after crossing a long distance, it arrived in front of an incomparably steep mountain. Then it seemed to fly straight into the heavens as it moved up at a nearly 90 degree angle.

Without hesitation, the roots of the withered tree stepped onto the mountain. Wherever the roots touched they instantly dispersed, splitting into countless tree roots that entangled everything, fixing onto every opening as it dragged its giant body up.

From a distance, this was an amazing sight. A heaven-reaching ancient tree crawled up a steep mountain peak at a nearly 90 degree angle as it dragged itself up.

Soon the dead tree reached the summit. Unexpectedly, what lay at the top was a giant mountain valley, one that was surrounded by sprawling mountain ranges.

Qin Yu discovered with one glance that the edges of this mountain valley were covered with slash marks similar to the one around the tree hole. Most of them emitted a silver light, almost forming a circle.

At this time, a large number of human cultivators and monster beasts had gathered within this circle of silver slash marks. On ordinary days, these cultivators and monster beasts would frantically slaughter each other if they met. But now, they peacefully coexisted, looking around with intense looks in their eyes.

The ancient tree that Qin Yu was in attracted a great deal of attention. But the eyes only swept over it once before moving away.

It was clear that the reason why these cultivators and monster beasts were so anxious, to the point that they temporarily put aside their hostility to each other, was not this dead tree.

At this time, there was a loud rumbling from the side. Qin Yu turned to see a massive beast with only its skeleton remaining, wildly dashing towards the summit.

Its four limbs ended in sharp claws that easily pierced through the mountain stone. It moved with astonishing speed, leaving behind a series of afterimages in its wake.

But to Qin Yu, he looked more at the path where the skeleton beast crossed. Its claws had clearly torn through the mountain, and yet the mountain instantly restored itself to how it was at the beginning.

As if this mountain itself was a life form with formidable regenerative abilities. It was really strange!

Shua -

The skeleton beast leapt onto the summit and roared at the blood moon. Then, it fiercely turned around, its empty eye sockets meeting Qin Yu's gaze.

At this moment, a roar resounded in Qin Yu's mind. It was like shocking thunderclaps. A fierce shaking strength tried to tear his soul apart.

With a cold snort, Qin Yu's eyes turned firm and hard once more. A dark golden light flashed in his pupils.

The roars of the great beast vanished from his mind. The skeleton beast stared at Qin Yu for a moment before sitting down. It seemed to acknowledge that Qin Yu had the qualifications to be here.

Another hour passed and ten more terrifying beings raced up the steep mountain. Among them there was a giant white bone python, a blood-colored heaven-shrouding vine, and even an unknown being that had half its head chopped off. But even though this was only half a head, its singular blood red eye released a dangerous, heart-shaking aura.

Including the dead tree, there was one similarity they all shared. They were beings that had already died and had been revived by the blood moon!

Qin Yu was secretly startled. His current strength couldn't be considered weak, but he didn't have any assurance that he could deal with any of these 12 terrifying beings.

Just what was this place? Why was it so frightening!|