101 Finding a clue. (1/2)
A bright white light flashed past Li Yang's eyes as he stepped into the entrance to the hidden realm, layers of space around him contracting as he was somewhat violently flung through space. A blast of hot air hit Li Yang from the front, the white light vanishing as he found himself standing in a vast desert, what appeared to be a small oasis visible in the distance.
The dark-yellow sand beneath him was so soft it almost acted like water, making it hard to maintain his footing unless he made sure to constantly move his feet. There were several pillar-like cacti spread through the area, long and thin needles covering their surfaces. Other than these cacti, the only other plants that existed in abundance were a type of round bush that had strangely brown leaves that were completely flat and round, the edges appearing somewhat sharp. Li Yang swept his surroundings with a curious gaze, muttering to himself.
”Now then, just where are we going to meet up?”
The last message he had gotten from Fang Ying didn't contain a very descriptive mentioning of where they were to meet, it only said 'Down by the river, where the ocean meets the sky.' He was currently standing in a desert, just about as far from an ocean as he could get. After giving his surroundings a few more sweeps, he shrugged his shoulders and muttered to himself once again.
”Let's see if we can't find anyone else first, they might know a bit more about the layout of this place than me.”
He had been fully focused on his cultivation recently, so he hadn't prepared as much information about this place as he should have, he could only hope that someone else had prepared more thoroughly than he had. He closed his eyes and sent his Qi into the surroundings, taking this chance to also test out his new scouting technique.
His new scouting technique was an improvement of his old one, which discovered living beings by having his lightning resonate with the electricity in their body. This new one mixed in his law of ice and fire as well, allowing it to also detect places where the temperature was slightly different. This meant that even if someone concealed the electricity in their body, he could still discover them thanks to the fact that their body wasn't the exact same temperature as their surroundings.
Since he was in a desert, there were plenty of heat sources around him that he discovered, but he simply filtered them out one by one, focusing on the places that were somewhat colder than their surroundings. Coupled with his lightning, he was able to discover that this desert was actually home to quite a wide variety of Demonic beasts, some large and some small. Most of them were hiding beneath the sand, lying in ambush for any living being that might move close enough.
Li Yang ignored these Demonic beasts for now, killing them could earn him points, but he was more interested in finding Fang Ying. He slowly increased the range of his scouting technique, scouring more and more of the desert in search of people. After increasing the range of his scouting technique to around 25 kilometers in each direction, he finally discovered other people, a small group of four people.
Li Yang narrowed down the range of his scouting technique, locking on to this group of four people. Their cultivations were all in the middle stage of the Ascending Heaven realm, so it was clear that they had grouped together because they were worried that someone would attack them due to their rather low cultivation. This cultivation allowed anyone beneath the Primordial Rune realm to take part, so Li Yang guessed that it was fairly common for weaker cultivators to gather up in groups.
Li Yang guessed that it wasn't a coincidence that he had ended up so close to someone who had cultivation so similar to his. The Huo clan said that they sent people to random places in the outskirt, albeit a bit away from the competitors from the clans, but that was probably a lie.
After all, if a bunch of Ascended Heaven realm cultivators ended up arriving close to an Immortal Rebirth realm cultivator, they would all be taken out instantly. The Huo clan probably wanted the competition to be a bit more exciting than that, so they probably sent people to the various places based on their cultivation. Of course, these were all just Li Yang's guesses, he had no way of actually knowing if they were right or not.
After locking on to the group of four, Li Yang wasted no time in stepping forward and turning into a blur as he dashed, leaving a trail of lightning in his wake. None of the Demonic beasts that were lying in ambush were able to react in time as he dashed past them, they could only look on as he vanished from sight.
The group of four, which consisted of one woman and three men, were able to hear Li Yang approach thanks to the subdued sound of thunder. But by the time they heard the sound and realized that something was approaching them, he had already arrived in front of them. They hurriedly stepped back and drew their weapons, but Li Yang simply swept them with a nonchalant glance.
”You wouldn't happen to have a map of this hidden realm? I'm looking for a place that fits this description, Down by the river, where the ocean meets the sky.”
He felt like he was polite enough with his question, but the four people didn't seem too interested in answering him, looking at him with tense expressions. The one who seemed to be the leader of the group, a somewhat lanky man with a bald head and a goatee, whispered a quick order to the three others and then dashed forward and tried to deliver an overhead slash with his shortsword.
The three others also moved at the same time, the woman stepping back a bit more and waving her hand, causing the sand beneath Li Yang to rise up like tendrils, coiling around his body and trying to drag him down. The two others dashed forward, heading to different sides of Li Yang in a pincer attack. Li Yang could only let out a sigh and give a light shake of his head. He had been in a good mood, so he wanted to resolve this without using violence. But since they clearly didn't want that, he could only oblige them.
A horrifying heat spread out from his body, the sand coiling around him melting and dripping down his body. The sand beneath the woman in the back, as well as the sand beneath the two that were trying to catch him in a pincer attack, melted thanks to an influx of high heat, the feet of the three people sinking into the molten sand. The heat was enough to completely fry their feet, their bones cracking due to the heat as they screamed in agony.
The moment they cried out, the molten sand became icy cold and froze, turning into murky glass that trapped their roasted feet and prevented them from moving. At the same time as Li Yang did this, he also stepped forward and faced the attack of the leader.
He stretched out his arm and grabbed onto the sword of the leader, crushing it between the fingers on his left hand and punching out with his right arm. His fist made contact with the man's chest, causing it to shatter and cave in, the fragments of his ribs just barely missing his lungs and heart. The man vomited out large amounts of blood and flew back, only stopping when he crashed into the woman, who was doing her best to stifle her screams of pain.