After running for over a hundred miles, they arrived at a mountain forest, and immediately heard a deafening roar that made the entire forest tremble.
"Who dares to invade my territory?" A two-zhang tall brown-furred ape appeared before Qing Feng and the Great Mysterious Dog. It had a green face, fangs, fierce eyes, and muscles bulging like rocks, exuding a powerful demonic aura.
For demonic beasts, territory is life and must not be violated. Without further ado, a battle to the death was about to unfold.
"Little monkey, your grandpa is here," the Great Mysterious Dog roared, unleashing its Golden Core level demonic power. Its voice was like thunder, directly overwhelming the ape's demonic aura and making the ape's body unstable, immediately revealing the disparity in their strength.
However, this setback did not make the ape retreat. Instead, it ignited its ferocity, especially when it saw Qing Feng standing aside. It became exceptionally enraged, its fur bristling, muscles bulging, and exuding a strong murderous aura.
It charged violently towards the Great Mysterious Dog, the ground trembling with its steps as if an earthquake was striking. "A traitor tamed by humans, daring to appear here. Watch as I tear you to shreds."
"Traitor your head! You're a monkey, I'm a dog. What's the connection?" The Great Mysterious Dog roared, telling Qing Feng to step back, and then met the ape head-on, its blood-red eyes filled with determination.
With a single leap, the surrounding aura permeated like a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Its sharp claws fiercely clashed with the ape, blood splattered, and large areas of the surrounding mountain forest were completely destroyed.
"You're also a demon, yet you choose to help humans and willingly be driven by them. Aren't you just a mongrel?" The ape roared, throwing a punch with astonishing momentum.
"As a demon, one should follow the rule of the strong preying on the weak. Yet you talk about betrayal. Clearly, you've been confined for too long, and your mind has been assimilated by humans," the Great Mysterious Dog sneered in response. Loyal to whom?
It was born a solitary dog, and the only warmth it ever knew was on Chen Ming Peak.
What relation do you have with this monkey? Even eighteen generations back, there's no blood relation, yet now you say I've betrayed?
Are you out of your mind?
It seems you've trained your muscles too much, you're not even as smart as a monkey anymore!
The ape demon ignored these words, focusing only on swinging its huge iron fists in continuous attacks. It didn't care about loyalty or disloyalty, but as a demonic beast imprisoned by the Beast Taming Sect, it hated humans and demons close to humans the most. They were all its mortal enemies; it would kill every one it saw.
It unleashed its full power, its body swelling, and a faint green scar subtly appeared on its chest. Although the pain was unbearable, it paid no mind.
Qing Feng observed silently from the side. He knew that the ape demon was only at the seventh level of the Golden Core Realm and was already no match for the Xuan Dog. With its injuries, defeat was inevitable.
His gaze lingered on the mark on the ape demon's chest, guessing it was a symbol of points. He wondered what method the Beast Taming Sect used to embed it within its body, and whether it involved inheritance.
Sensing someone approaching, Qing Feng frowned and said to the Xuan Dog, "Brother Dog, use your divine ability to finish this quickly. Don't drag it out."
"Understood."
The Xuan Dog, gradually regaining its form in battle, immediately became serious upon hearing Qing Feng's words. Its vital energy surged throughout its body, as if a primeval beast was awakening. Accompanying this were faint, indistinct Sanskrit characters that appeared all over its body, mixed with a hint of blood-red, emitting a terrifying aura.
Facing extreme danger, the ape demon instinctively unleashed its strongest attack. The dazzling light was enough to shatter rocks and crack mountains, but it only made a crisp sound when it struck the Great Mysterious Dog, causing its own hands to become numb and painful from the recoil.
The ape demon was astonished at how this dog possessed such a divine ability. Was it human-tier or earth-tier?
While it was still wondering, the Great Mysterious Dog moved swiftly, its head suddenly enlarging. It used a killing divine ability to bite off the ape demon's head in one go, blood spurting three feet high.
Qing Feng approached, used the Purple Soft Sword to leave a sword mark on the ape demon's body, and then took out a token.
After the two tokens touched, the number on Qing Feng's token changed from zero to two thousand, while the ape demon's token reset to zero. Immediately, a light-and-shadow sword technique appeared: the Ninth-Grade Yellow Dragon Sword Technique, a human-tier simplified version of the Wu Ji Yellow Dragon Sword Art, which could be upgraded in a dream.
Looking at the corpse, the Great Mysterious Dog sighed, "Your Beast Taming Sect is truly ruthless. You directly embed the tokens into the flesh and meridians. It's fine if they can't be taken out, but if they're taken out incorrectly, it's instant death."
"How can it be called the Beast Taming Sect if it's not bloody? It's just that the method is a bit crude. I hope there will be more complex trials later," Qing Feng responded.
"How much more complex can it get? Isn't this enough?" The Great Mysterious Dog asked, puzzled, as treasures were hidden within demonic beasts, and disciples had to fight to obtain them.
Qing Feng began to describe various possible design schemes, which made the Great Mysterious Dog look horrified, thinking that if Qing Feng became an elder, the Beast Taming Sect disciples' lives would probably not be easy.
In the mysterious Bi An Realm, Dao Lord Zisu blinked, a hint of excitement flashing across her face.
She was curious about Qing Feng, so she observed him for a while longer, but found nothing special, thinking it was just a coincidence.
However, upon hearing Qing Feng's proposed methods, she found them very interesting.
People only knew that Dao Lord Zisu, the Chief of Zhijian Lineage in the Beast Taming Sect, was obsessed with swords and had only swords in her heart, but they didn't know that she was also enthusiastic about nurturing young talents and promoting juniors.
In recent years, the assessment methods of the Zhijian Lineage had become too old-fashioned, unchanged for hundreds of years. Although they were all sword fanatics, they indeed lacked innovation.
Unexpectedly, here she found some novel assessment schemes that could even be implemented immediately in this Mystic Realm. Three months were enough to arrange everything, which made Dao Lord Zisu even happier.
"Thank you, Luo-shixiong, for saving me." By a lake in the Bi An Realm, Qi Lin and a young man stood.
This young man was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, dressed in the Beast Taming Sect Disciple's attire, with a coiled dragon jade pendant at his waist. He was dignified and extraordinarily handsome. He was Luo Tianyi, a direct Disciple of Dragon Yang Peak and the Seventh Prince of the Da Liang Empire.
"Martial Brother Qi, there's no need to be polite. As fellow Disciples of the Beast Taming Sect, we should help each other," Luo Tianyi said with a smile. "However, how are the investigations into Qing Feng's whereabouts progressing?"
"There's no news yet, but I believe it's only a matter of time. For the victory of the Ziyan Lineage, he will definitely rendezvous with Senior Brother Lan Lie, and then we will naturally know," Qi Lin replied.
"Then I'll trouble Martial Brother," Luo Tianyi said with a smile.
"I wouldn't dare," Qi Lin responded, then quickly left to rendezvous with other Disciples from Hu Ji Peak.
"Martial Brother, do we really have to cooperate with Dragon Yang Peak? If things are exposed, our Hu Ji Peak will never be able to hold its head high again," Zhang Gao said worriedly.
"As long as we act discreetly, who will know? I've checked with a Shadow-Seeking Stone every time we talked, ensuring no one was listening," Qi Lin explained.
"But there's still a risk," Zhang Gao reminded.
"Risk and opportunity coexist. The Ziyan Sword Debate is divided into three levels: Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, and Nascent Soul. Currently, only Purple Rock, Sword Grinding, and Jing Yang Peaks have Disciples in the Nascent Soul Realm. If Senior Brother hasn't broken through, then it's none of our business.
So the key lies in the Foundation Establishment and Golden Core levels. As long as we win these two matches, we'll have a chance to re-rank and change the resource distribution for the next hundred years."