Chapter 405: Fushan Yue's Goal

Those who were more pious immediately knelt down on the spot.

Without needing any explanation, the residents of Fufeng City understood:

The Baoshu King was furious.

The supreme ruler of the Baoshu Kingdom usually had a good temper and spent eleven months of the year in secluded hibernation. Most residents were experiencing its wrath for the first time.

Prime Minister Tang had only left White Cloud Mountain half an hour earlier. Now, he ordered his carriage to turn around and immediately rushed back for an audience.

"My King, what has happened?"

"The Spirit Seed!" The lake on White Cloud Mountain was no longer calm; the wind whipped up high waves that crashed against the shore. The Baoshu King's magnificent canopy also swayed violently in the strong wind. "My connection with the Spirit Seed has suddenly been severed! How is this possible?"

Prime Minister Tang cautiously asked, "Did the escort team encounter an accident?"

"By now, they should have reached the Gale Tundra." The Baoshu King's voice was still filled with rage. "The Spirit Seed cannot be stored in a spatial artifact; even if it were stolen, I should still be able to sense its general location!"

How could it remain calm when the Spirit Seed, nurtured with 36 years of effort, had vanished?

"Could the Spirit Seed already be... gone?" Prime Minister Tang found it difficult to utter those words.

"No, it's still alive." The Baoshu King sounded puzzled. "But I just can't sense its location."

This was preposterous.

It could sense the state of every Tree Guard within its kingdom.

"Send people immediately! I need to know what happened!"

Inside the belly of Wind Devil Mountain.

All miscellaneous tasks were done. Fu Shanyue jumped down into the fissure and questioned the captive: "Where is the item the foolish ruler of Shanyu Kingdom used to bribe Chige?"

The envoy from Chiyan Kingdom gritted his teeth, refusing to speak.

Fu Shanyue didn't have the patience to wait for a reply. After collecting all the fragments in the mountain's core, he had just realized the Spirit Seed was gone and that he had been tricked by the kid on the goat.

Irritated, he took it out on the envoy, tearing off the man's ring finger and pulling off the ring amid the screams.

"Hmm? Not this one; this is just an ordinary ruby ring."

Fu Shanyue pulled off another finger and tried again.

This time, it was the right one.

He inverted the blood-stained storage ring, and its contents poured out like a small mountain, especially numerous bottles and jars.

The Chiyan Kingdom envoy had fainted from pain but was slapped awake by Fu Shanyue. "Which one is it?"

Before the Chiyan Kingdom envoy could catch his breath, he cursed, "My King treated you with generosity, why do you... Ah!"

Fu Shanyue broke another of his fingers and sneered, "I don't want to hear nonsense. Next time, it will be your neck. As for the medicine, I can take my time searching for it."

Unable to endure the pain, the Chiyan Kingdom envoy pointed to a small wooden bottle. "This one, it's this one!"

The bottle was only as long as a middle finger, hand-carved from wood, with a branch of winter plum carved on it. It still looked rather unremarkable.

But it had a gold-lacquered seal.

"Such simple packaging?" Fu Shanyue asked, half-believing, half-doubting. "Are you sure?"

"It's true, it's true!" The Chiyan Kingdom envoy kept gasping. "The Shanyu Kingdom envoy gave me this at the Liushe Inn!"

Fu Shanyue's eyes darted around. "A gift was delivered, so there should be a letter, right?"

"Yes, yes." The Chiyan Kingdom envoy painstakingly pulled a gold-leaf letter from a pile of documents. The wax seal on the envelope was intact. "It's a letter from the Shanyu King to my King."

Fu Shanyue snatched it, tore it open, and took out the letter. He first confirmed the signature and seal, then glanced at the content, muttering, "It really is..."

He turned the small bottle in his hand, pulled off the stopper, and sniffed it.

Inside was a pale red liquid with an exotic fragrance that assailed his senses, making Fu Shanyue feel an impulse to drink it all at once.

This feeling was intense, almost comparable to the Imperial Dew.

It seemed this really was the item. He had expended so much effort, and his plan had been fraught with setbacks since Sanyuan Plateau. Fortunately, everything was finally back on track, and the item was now in his hands.

Relieved, Fu Shanyue asked the Chiyan envoy, "Do you know what's inside this?"

The Chiyan envoy shook his head blankly. "I don't know. I only received orders to bring it back."

"Then you're useless."

With a snap, Fu Shanyue twisted the envoy's neck, breaking it.

Almost at the same moment, his left hand felt light; the bottle had been snatched away!

Fu Shanyue was greatly startled. He curled his left hand into a claw and instinctively swiped backward.

His movement was so swift that the air even ripped, sounding like tearing silk, though it was barely audible amidst the howling winds in the belly of Wind Devil Rock.

But the thief retreated even faster. A phantom-like figure moved backward, instantly reaching the outermost edge of the stone cave, just one step away from leaping into the mountain's core.

"It's you." It was the guy on the goat from earlier.

Fu Shanyue was furious. "You've already stolen the Spirit Seed; now you want to steal my item too?"

This was intolerable!

"Is this yours? Not Chiyan Kingdom's?" He Lingchuan mimicked Fu Shanyue's previous action, holding the wooden bottle under his nose and sniffing it.

Fu Shanyue had gone to such great lengths, from killing the envoy of Elin Kingdom at Sanyuan Plateau to releasing the wind demon to attack the Baoshu Kingdom's escort team in the Gale Tundra—all such brutal acts—just to seize this small bottle?

As the saying goes, "It's impolite not to return a courtesy." He Lingchuan was also someone who never let an opportunity pass him by.

Just now, he had used Lord Boshan's snakeskin to conceal himself nearby, and activated the divine ability "Obstinate" to hide his aura. Combined with the howling wind outside, he managed to evade Fu Shanyue's senses.

But the scent emanating from the bottle—a unique, sweet fragrance—felt somewhat familiar to He Lingchuan. Where had he smelled it before?

He frowned.

However, unlike Fu Shanyue, he didn't feel the impulse to drink it all at once.

Fu Shanyue abruptly stood up, pointing at the Chiyan Kingdom envoy, and stated word by word, "Give the bottle back, or your fate will be even worse than his."

He advanced step by step, like a leopard preparing to pounce. Anyone who had seen him in action would not doubt the weight of his words.

But He Lingchuan waved his hand. "Wait a moment!"

A strange expression appeared on his face, for he had finally remembered where this scent came from.

"You, a *ba*, what do you want with this thing?"

Indeed, in the past few days, he had entered dreams to research books in the Wenxuan Pavilion and sought guidance from masters in the Wenxian Hall to learn what kind of demon Fu Shanyue was.

He looked exactly like a human, yet possessed powerful demonic energy and enjoyed absorbing the vital essence of demons or humans.

There really was such a creature that fit these criteria, but strictly speaking, it wasn't a demon but a *guài* (monster/aberration).

This was a *ba* (drought demon/zombie).

It was a fierce corpse, formed by a fortuitous accident after death, capable of walking the world unafraid of sunlight.

The conditions for a *ba* to form were harsh; even in ancient times, they were extremely rare. In the present world, well, they could probably be put in an exhibition hall.

He Lingchuan hadn't expected to be so "lucky" that even a casual enemy he made was a rare *ba*.

Seeing Fu Shanyue about to step forward, He Lingchuan tilted the bottle outwards. "One more step, and I'll pour it out."

Below was the fissure, and no matter how capable Fu Shanyue was, he wouldn't be able to retrieve the liquid in the bottle.

He had no choice but to stop. "This item is useless to you, but it's crucial for my breakthrough."

"Crucial for *your* breakthrough?" He Lingchuan grew even more curious. "You're a *ba*. Even with external aid, shouldn't blood absorption be the key to your breakthrough?"

"Of course."

He Lingchuan frowned. "Do you know what this is?"

Fu Shanyue didn't answer.

He Lingchuan immediately tilted the bottle.

Fu Shanyue had no choice but to say, "Legend has it that a few true dragon eggs still exist in the world. This is the fetal blood and bone marrow extracted from such an egg."

"You mean, this is dragon marrow?" He Lingchuan's tone became very strange. "The dragon marrow from 'dragon marrow and phoenix liver'?"

"Yes."

"You want to drink this to advance your cultivation?"

"Is there a problem?"

He Lingchuan rubbed his nose, finding it hard to suppress a laugh.

Fu Shanyue's sword-like eyebrows rose. He secretly wondered how he would kill this fellow later. Unexpectedly, He Lingchuan suddenly asked him again, "I heard the Chiyan King is also a *ba*. Do you have any relation to it?"

Chiyan Kingdom was the youngest vassal demon kingdom in Beijia's history, established only about 150 years ago. The Chiyan King was the last demon king to emerge in the past two centuries.

Fu Shanyue didn't answer.

The next second, He Lingchuan retracted the bottle, resealed it with the stopper, and threw it back to Fu Shanyue.

This action completely bewildered Fu Shanyue. "What are you doing?"

Was there truly such an idiot in the world who would throw dragon marrow back to someone else?

"Good luck." He Lingchuan leaped backward and dropped into the mountain's core.

Fu Shanyue rushed over to look and saw that the fellow was swinging towards the edge of a high cliff with a grappling hook, intending to quickly descend the mountain on his goat.

But before He Lingchuan could reach the goat, a shadow rose from the terraced levels and charged directly at him.

Overwhelming wind power.

He Lingchuan was just passing outside a stone cave when the powerful wind directly swept him inside, almost causing him to smash his face against the wall.

But he reacted extremely quickly, immediately pulling out a Wind Lion God stone carving from his storage ring and firmly placing it on the ground.

The surrounding wind immediately weakened.

He turned his head again and, to his astonishment, saw the Wind Devil.

Its size had surprisingly shrunk again, now only a little taller than a human. It looked at the Wind Lion God, then at He Lingchuan, roaring twice, clearly displeased with him.

It possessed intelligence and knew that Fu Shanyue had just been coerced by He Lingchuan, and that the item had been in He Lingchuan's hands. Therefore, it waited until He Lingchuan returned the wooden bottle before seizing the opportunity for revenge.

"Hey, as a person—no, as a wind (spirit)—you should know how to be grateful," He Lingchuan said, rubbing the Wind Lion God statue twice while wiggling a finger at the Wind Devil. "If I hadn't interrupted the escort team leader's spell just now, you would have been forcibly suppressed by the Baoshu King's root ball."

The Wind Devil didn't seem to pay much attention to what he said, but it hesitated, circling the Wind Lion God twice. Its apprehension was almost palpable.

This was completely different from its murderous aura on the previous two occasions.

But He Lingchuan didn't lower his guard. Facing the Wind Devil's true form, would this stone carving still be effective?

The Wind Devil circled twice, as if making up its mind.

How could it be deterred by such a small stone pillar?

These pillars had long since left the place they were supposed to protect.

It suddenly let out an earth-shattering roar and charged forward.

The Wind Lion God suddenly trembled and shook uncontrollably, as if someone were violently beating it with sticks.

With a "crack," the Wind Lion God shattered.

Watching from a distance, Fu Shanyue shook his head at this sight.

The Wind Lion God indeed had the power to ward off wind and suppress evil. However, any divine ability had its limits and boundaries. It could suppress ordinary strong winds without issue, but against the Wind Devil—