Spirit Vessel

"Caw caw!"

A group of crows flapped their wings and landed on the branches. They stared at the bloodied corpse with their bean-sized eyes. They opened their sharp peaks, intending to feast.

An aura of death had diffused throughout this area. What had been a fresh female corpse has now decayed in a rough manner.

"Animal, human meat is not for you!" Feng Feiyun pointed forward. A black ray shot through one of the crows and turned it into a rain of blood. A flame ignited and burned continuously.

He took down the corpse and laid it flat on the ground. There were no signs of life, but it was still a bit warm. It showed that she had died very recently.

Feng Feiyun stood there and stared at it for a long time before burying her in the forest. He quickly made a grave for her.

A solitary grave in the cold night. A heretical beauty had become a bloody corpse after death, buried in the most desolate of locations. Many years from now, she would turn back into loess.

At that point, this lonely grave might be flattened by the ruthless river of time.

A thousand years later, who else in this world would know that she once existed?

Feng Feiyun might still be alive and could occasionally remember her. However, he would definitely have forgotten about her face, name, and the location of her burial.

The only thing he could recall was that there used to be a woman who was an ephemeral part of his life.

"Every person is just a visitor in this revolving world. The moment they're born, they are taking steps toward death — no one can escape this." Feng Feiyun quietly stood before the grave and contemplated with a heavy heart. Of course, he wasn't that affected.

Cultivators may become more and more indifferent to all things after seeing more of the world. Life and death are up to fate. How could mortals contend against the power of the heavenly dao?

***

Feng Feiyun and the Evil Woman didn't enter Mount Banda. They stayed right outside while preparing stealth formations. Cultivators from all over were searching on these outskirts, but no one noticed them.

The Evil Woman motionlessly sat on a large boulder for three days. An invisible power from the top of the peak entered her body and helped restore her cultivation.

According to Feng Feiyun's speculation, she likely returned in order to absorb the power from the ancient altar.

Meanwhile, he meditated around an array with a soft glow around his body. A bright True Mysterious Spirit Stone was shrinking at a rate visible to the naked eye due to his rapid absorption.

"Boom!" Once it was absorbed completely, strands of spirit energy gathered on his right hand and a meridian emerged.

A yellow light shot out of the meridian to connect the world to his dantian.

An inexhaustible energy poured into his body like a spring.

"The thirty-fourth fate meridian!" He opened his eyes as the meridian sank back down into his muscles. After three days, his cultivation had soared from opening twenty-five meridians. In addition to the first nine, he now had thirty-four in total.

These meridians acted as bridges between the dantian and the world. The higher the number of meridians, the greater the amount of spirit energy that the user could channel and naturally, the stronger their cultivation.

"Two millennium spirit grasses and five mysterious spirit stones have been used up altogether. One grass can open ten while one stone is just one." Both of these items were great treasures of the cultivation world.

This was especially true for these millennium spirit grasses. They were exceedingly rare and nearly priceless. Even Heaven's Mandate cultivators would kill for them.

He received these two roots from the Feng ancestral ground, but finding more was going to be virtually impossible.

"Just how many resources will it take to open all 360 meridians in one's body?" At grand achievement God Base, one could use time to slowly cultivate or rely on the accumulation of resources.

However, even the four great clans wouldn't be able to afford this huge consumption of resources. Only the highest ranking geniuses were able to enjoy such treatment. They would use these resources to empower themselves.

The eight Grand Historical Geniuses, the lords of the heretical schools, and Princess Luofu… These people were nearly all created by piling resources or else they wouldn't have such a frightening cultivation at their young age.

For example, an ordinary person at grand achievement must cultivate for twenty years before opening all 360 meridians. This was predicated on them having incredible talents.

However, for the princess and the others, they could rely on resources to open all 360 in just two months.

This was the difference between the two groups. Because of this, geniuses of high status were always competing with each other due to the limited resources within their respective sects. Only by gaining more resources would they cultivate faster and increase the gap between their peers.

Feng Feiyun had become much stronger with his thirty-four meridians.

Suddenly, a great fanfare came from the northern sky. This thumping burst carried a terrifying evil aura. People were completely shaken after hearing it.

The drums sounded closer and closer. Its loud volume could make others faint.

It thundered amidst the wild winds. Feng Feiyun stood up with haste as flames appeared in his eyes. He gazed towards the north and saw a drum with a radius of thirty feet floating under the clouds.

This drum was made of bronze and covered by a layer of scales. A lightning hammer was striking it to create these blasts.

The person lifting the hammer was a four-meter-tall Ancient Jiang slave with steel-like muscles and a golden glow on his body. This hammer must carry a force of a million pounds, capable of flattening a small mountain.

"The ancient altar is activating, someone must be absorbing its secret power." A group of elders wearing black robes flew out from the drum. They had red runes on their skin and each of them was riding a black cloud. They gazed at the peak of Mount Banda in the distance.

These were cultivators from the Fourth Hall. Xue Changxiao also stood shoulder to shoulder with these elders.

It had been a long time since someone had comprehended the mysterious power of this altar, so it was abandoned. However, no one looked down on it.

Not long ago, an earth-shattering battle took place here and alerted many older characters from the great powers. They came running and after two months of exploration, they found that this old altar had recently changed.

These older cultivators couldn't wait any longer and decided to climb to the peak.

"Boom! Boom!" A gigantic black palace slowly descended with half of it still looming in the clouds.

It emitted a terrifying force. Even the air itself became unstable. The entire world seemed to be still water in a pond, losing its natural rhythm. The elders and lord of the Fourth Hall slightly bowed their heads towards the palace in the sky.

Bi Ningshuai squatted on the ground from afar and stated: "This is the vice-leader of the Fourth Hall, a super monster."

"How do you know?" Wang Meng sat the same way; he didn't quite believe him.

"How ignorant, I'm too lazy to explain it to you." Bi Ningshuai shook his head. His eyes suddenly narrowed while staring at a different direction. His eyelids suddenly batted in horror: "What is going on, why are corpse controllers here as well?"

Wang Meng looked towards the same direction and saw an old man wearing a corpse-controller uniform of black and white among the faint snowy road. On top of his head was a great bell full of divinity.

He felt his scalp tingling just by looking at this old man. His heart seemed to have fallen into an icy cave while his lips trembled: "Is that a corpse controller from the legendary Northern Frontier Prefecture?"

"Nonsense, that's the Lawless Cave Lord, a monster of the Giant level!" Bi Ningshuai recognized the hawk-nose old man and dug himself into the snow.

Wang Meng said: "Looks like he's here to collect a Giant level corpse. I heard the Omni-Heaven Marquis died at Mount Banda and has turned into one."

"Tut tut." Bi Ningshuai clicked his tongue and said with certainty: "He is definitely here for that Giant corpse. Without a doubt, those corpse controllers from the north are going crazy right now. I'm sure that the Lawless Cave Lord isn't the only one here. Other powerful controllers must be in hiding right now, even those from the ancient caves."

There was a great movement underneath the mountain. Several more old men of the Giant level appeared. Each of them entrenched their own spot while gazing at the mountain.

Some were here for the altar while others came for the Giant level corpse and treasures in this mountain. Of course, some just wanted to go through it in order to reach the auspicious location of Trinity with the Heaven's Emergence Tomb.

The Evil Woman stopped her cultivation and opened her bright celestial eyes. She was still as calm as a statue. Even though these auras in the air could crush stones, she was completely unperturbed.

"Why are there so many experts here? Just what is tempting them all?" Feng Feiyun used his phoenix gaze to observe the situation and grew increasingly alarmed. Five different waves of people had arrived. Each of them had Giant level characters presiding over the operation with many older cultivators in tow.

The Evil Woman coldly uttered: "Hmph, it's because of that ancient tale about how this altar fell down from the sky. Anyone who could unravel its secret would be able to reach sainthood."

Feng Feiyun slightly squinted his eyes. He glanced at her and asked: "Have you already figured out the secret there?"

She was able to absorb its power, so this was quite likely! Ascending into sainthood was too tempting. Even a Giant would be moved.

"Hmph." She snorted without answering, clearly thinking that he wasn't qualified to ask her questions.