Chapter 36: Arrogant Shouts

After killing thirty members of the enforcement team, there were still 105 members left in the three remaining teams. Qu Yi led these 100 people and flew non-stop for a day before arriving near the Lava Lake. In that mountainous area filled with ravines, they found a naturally large cave, and Qu Yi set up a spatial teleportation array inside it.

In Qu Yi’s space ring, there were twenty sets of spatial teleportation arrays, all obtained from Liang Kui after he took on a mission. After setting up the arrays, Qu Yi, as agreed, first assigned three people to be the guardians of these arrays. From then on, these three would not need to enter the interior of the Tianhuo Star Region; they only had to guard the arrays until the treasure-hunting competition among the ten major sects ended.

These three members were from the 20th Enforcement Team. Due to their quick reactions, they had first attacked and killed the three teammates who doubted Qu Yi, which earned them the priority to be assigned to this task.

The other 100 people watched the three with envy, feeling even more regretful.

Qu Yi stood in front of all the members in the large cave, glanced at them, and then smiled, saying, “Everyone, from now on, we will head deeper into the Tianhuo Star Region. I know the deeper we go, the more dangerous it becomes, as the chances of encountering various types of celestial flames increase. Therefore, I have decided that I will be the only one to fly from the outer star into the interior of the Tianhuo Star Region. Once I reach the inner planet, I will immediately set up spatial teleportation arrays to bring you all over.”

Ah!

All the members exclaimed in shock, both astonished and excited by Qu Yi’s decision.

According to the original plan, all members were supposed to follow Qu Yi across the stars to the inner planet of the Tianhuo Star Region to set up spatial teleportation arrays together. Now, with Qu Yi going alone, he would not only have to fly through space for a long time but also endure attacks from various celestial flames in the Tianhuo Star Region. Even upon arriving at the inner planet, he might face attacks from experts from the other nine major sects. Thus, seeing Qu Yi take on all the responsibilities, the members felt a sense of admiration and gratitude.

“Captain, it will take half a year to cross the stars. Can you hold on by yourself?”

“Captain, most of the celestial flames that fall in the Tianhuo Star Region are the Devastating True Flames. With your mid-stage Diversion cultivation level, you won’t be able to withstand them.”

“Captain, if you go to a planet alone and are surrounded by people from other sects, you’ll be in great danger.”

…

These hundred team members immediately became enthusiastic and started to persuade him. Qu Yi waved his hand to quiet the crowd and said with a smile, “I’ve already made up my mind. There’s no need for you to argue anymore. I’m leaving Outer First Star right now. You all need to protect this space teleportation array well—make sure no one from other sects discovers it.” Seeing that Qu Yi was determined, the hundred team members stopped trying to persuade him. Soon, Qu Yi teleported away from Outer First Star, entering the starry sky. He targeted a planet within the Tianhuo Star Region and immediately used the Planet Great Teleportation to move there.

…

Somewhere in the starry sky, Qu Yi stopped and entered the Inch Realm Sphere. As soon as he entered, he sat by the lake and looked at the Instrument God lying motionless on the soft chair. “Instrument God, I’m here,” Qu Yi called out with a smile. According to the Instrument God’s plan, it was time to teach Qu Yi the Three Elements Dao of “Array Heart.” The Three Elements Dao involved combining three types of energy into a single array, which was more complex than the Two Elements Dao, with a greater number of elements. If Qu Yi completed the scanning fully, his understanding of the five elements’ energies would improve significantly, and his soul realm would reach the later stage of Convergence. Hearing this, the Instrument God moved slightly to show it wasn’t just a corpse, then closed its eyes and said, “I understand your intention. I’ll imprint the Three Elements Dao into your soul now.” After saying that, Qu Yi felt intense pain in his soul and immediately lost consciousness. After a while, he woke up and was delighted to find that his soul indeed contained new content—the Three Elements Dao. “Instrument God, how long will it take me to scan through all these Three Elements Dao patterns?” Qu Yi asked anxiously. It had taken him nearly a hundred years to scan through the Two Elements Dao, but now that he had refined the Soul-Nurturing Crystal, his spiritual scanning speed had increased tenfold. So he was very curious about how long it would take to complete the Three Elements Dao. “Do you want me to give you a deadline? Very well, it will also take a hundred years,” the Instrument God said with closed eyes. Hearing this, Qu Yi let out a deep sigh. This time frame was completely acceptable to him. Such a complex and extensive set of Three Elements Dao arrays could be completed in just a hundred years—much faster than those at the Convergence stage improving their soul realms. Most importantly, thanks to the Soul-Nurturing Crystal, his scanning speed had increased tenfold; otherwise, it would have taken a thousand years to scan through all these intricate patterns.

“Great, with this rough timeline, I can also plan what I need to do over the next hundred years,” Qu Yi said with a smile.
After speaking, Qu Yi sent a message to the Golden Qilin.
“Master, what is it? Hurry up and finish speaking. I just beat Wu Yuan into a mess. I’m in the mood to torment it some more,” the Golden Qilin called out as soon as it arrived by the lake.
Upon hearing this, Qu Yi’s expression darkened. The Golden Qilin was becoming increasingly disrespectful, even starting to rush him.
“Golden Qilin, it seems your strength has improved recently.”
“Yes, Master. Now Wu Yuan is only fit to be beaten by me. It doesn’t even dare to touch me.”
“As your strength grows, so does your audacity.”
“Of course. Now I can beat Wu Yuan however I want. If it dares to resist, I’ll just beat it.”
Qu Yi paused for a moment before suddenly rebuking, “Golden Qilin, does your increased strength mean you no longer regard me?”
The Golden Qilin was stunned for a moment. Its golden eyes rotated a few times before it suddenly realized what it had done—offending its master, Qu Yi.
“Master, the Golden Qilin doesn’t hold you in the slightest disrespect. I was just too excited after beating Wu Yuan and forgot the rules. Master, I’ll never be so reckless again,” the Golden Qilin immediately pleaded.
Qu Yi nodded and decided not to pursue it further. Instead, he smiled and said, “Golden Qilin, go outside, take the Dimensional Ball, and fly toward the interior of the Tianhuo Region. Once you reach a planet, you can enter the Dimensional Ball.”
The Golden Qilin now understood—Qu Yi had called it over to make it do hard work.
“Yes, Master,” the Golden Qilin promptly agreed.
Qu Yi was satisfied with the Golden Qilin’s attitude and said with a smile, “Take an Eight-Directions Sword with you. In the Tianhuo Region, sudden bursts of heavenly fire may appear. Use this sword to defend against them.”
Although the Golden Qilin was also a skilled fighter in the early stages of fusion and possessed the True Fire of Annihilation within its body, some of the heavenly fires in the Tianhuo Region contained True Fire of Annihilation on par with that of the Great Perfection stage, which the Golden Qilin couldn’t resist. Therefore, for its safety, Qu Yi gave it the top-tier spiritual weapon, the Eight-Directions Sword, to ward off the heavenly fires.
“Thank you, Master!” The Golden Qilin was immediately moved and exclaimed happily.
Soon, the Golden Qilin left the Dimensional Ball and entered space. Then, carrying the Dimensional Ball, it used the Planet-Transference Technique to fly toward the interior of the Tianhuo Region.
……

From the starry sky, the fiery barrier formed by the red flames erupting from Tianyi Star had grown even more massive. It seemed that the ten-thousand-mile-long fissure along Tianyi Star’s equator had widened further, with more red flames bursting forth. As Tianyi Star changed, the entire Tianxing Star region also underwent changes. On various planets, sudden outbreaks of celestial fire became more frequent and more powerful. At this moment, the Golden Qilin was in the starry sky, continuously using the Planet Teleportation Technique to rush toward a bright red planet. With a whoosh! Suddenly, a patch of celestial fire about a hundred miles in size appeared in the sky—its flames were vivid red, and within each red flame were strands of golden flames that resembled leaves. These golden flames were the color of the Xuani Zhenhuo, indicating that this descending fire contained a large amount of it. In cultivators, during the Golden Core stage, the true fire is Samadhi Zhenhuo, red; during the Nascent Soul, Soul Departure, and Divided Mind stages, it is Qianlan Zhenhuo, blue; and during the Fusion, Calamity Crossing, and Mahayana stages, it is Xuani Zhenhuo, golden. Seeing the celestial fire falling from above, the Golden Qilin immediately swung its Eight Directions Sword, creating a ten-meter-wide beam of light that struck the cluster of celestial fire, scattering all of it. “Hmph! The Eight Directions Sword is truly great!” The Golden Qilin proudly waved its sword before using the Planet Teleportation Technique again to continue its journey. … On Outer First Star, apart from the Taiyuan Gate enforcement team led by Qu Yi, members from the other nine sects also arrived one after another. The three cultivation sects: Qingyun Sect, Lanyang Palace, and Yingtian Sect; the three demon cultivation sects: Jinyang Church, Biyan Peak, and Cangyang Valley; and the three beast cultivation sects: Baishou Peak, Xianyue Cliff, and Jiugong Island. These nine sects also sent their enforcement teams, with numbers ranging from one hundred to two hundred, all at the Divided Mind stage. The actions of these ten major sects seemed to be prearranged—they sent their enforcement teams to set up their own spatial teleportation arrays on planets in the outer, inner, and core areas of the Tianxing Star region, then sent elders at the Fusion stage to the core area to compete for the Six Harmonies Blade. By this time, all the enforcement team members from Jinyang Church’s two-hundred-strong team had returned to their camp. “Reporting to Captain Huang Ling, out of forty teams, thirty-nine have returned; one team is still missing,” said one enforcement member after counting the numbers, reporting directly to the captain sent by Jinyang Church.

Huang Ling’s gaze was sharp and piercing, exuding an air of authority at first glance. Coupled with his cultivation at the mid-stage of Diversion, he led these 200 team leaders, keeping them firmly under control.

“Is there another team? Where did they go?” Huang Ling asked slowly.

“They should have gone to the Lava Lake,” the team member replied carefully and earnestly.

After hearing this, Huang Ling pondered for a while before asking again, “Yang Shan, go and check if they’ve found a suitable place to set up a spatial teleportation array after exploring the area.”

The team member immediately turned around and went to ask the other members.

Soon, Yang Shan returned, saying in a somewhat subdued voice, “Captain Huang Ling, they’ve flown tens of thousands of miles but haven’t found a single place suitable for setting up a spatial teleportation array. Either there are volcanic eruptions, or celestial flames are likely to fall, or the safe locations are not easy to keep secret and can be easily discovered.”

After hearing this, Huang Ling fell silent for a while before suddenly smiling and saying, “It seems that our missing team might have found a good spot, but it’s been taken by other sects. Since someone dares to oppose our Jin Yang Sect, how could I, as their captain, let them get away? Yang Shan, immediately order all team members to head to the Lava Lake.”

With that, Huang Ling took off first toward the Lava Lake.

Upon hearing this and seeing Huang Ling fly away, Yang Shan didn’t dare delay. He immediately shouted, “All members of the Jin Yang Sect’s enforcement team, listen up! Follow me to the Lava Lake!”

Immediately, nearly 200 enforcement team members of the Jin Yang Sect flew toward the Lava Lake with whooshing sounds.

……

If Qu Yi were to fly through the stars at the mid-stage of Diversion, it would take him half a year to reach the nearest planet to the outermost star.

However, now he was a Golden Qilin at the early stage of Fusion, and he was also using the Planet Transmigration Technique taught by the Artifact God. With this instant teleportation ability, the speed was much faster.

In just ten days, the Golden Qilin arrived at a planet.

This planet was covered with red rocks, and the rest of the surface was made up of flowing rivers of magma. The heat on the planet was unbearable; it was estimated that a cultivator at the Nascent Soul stage would die from the heat alone if they stopped here.

Soon after, Wu Yuan also came out of the Dimensional Sphere and took over from the Golden Qilin, flying rapidly across the planet to find a safe place to set up a spatial teleportation array.

Hard work pays off. In just one day, Wu Yuan indeed found an excellent location.

There was an active volcano with a crater ten miles wide, constantly spewing magma. When the magma reached a certain spot at the top of the volcano, which was a cliff, it formed a waterfall-like flow. Behind this waterfall, there happened to be a natural cave that was quite cool inside. As soon as Wu Yuan entered the cave, Qu Yi came out of the Dimensional Ball and took in the cave, very satisfied. “Wu Yuan, good job,” Qu Yi praised immediately. “Ugh, of course! I’m Wu Yuan—how could I be compared to that barbaric beast, the Golden Qilin?” Wu Yuan shouted happily. Having been beaten by the Golden Qilin every day, he could finally get his revenge verbally. Qu Yi smiled and didn’t respond, instead quickly taking out a spatial teleportation array from his space ring and setting it up. “Wu Yuan, stay here. I’m going to teleport back to Outer Star One. I’ll be back soon,” Qu Yi said with a smile. Without waiting for Wu Yuan’s reply, he infused true energy into the teleportation array and vanished in an instant. As soon as Qu Yi arrived at the spatial teleportation array he had set up on Outer Star One and stepped out of it, he heard an arrogant shout. “Is your captain here? Are we, the disciples of the Golden Central Sect’s enforcement team, just targets for you to kill at will? Bring out that hidden turtle captain of yours—I’m going to chop off his head!” Hearing this, Qu Yi’s lips twitched in a cold smile.