Li Weiyi couldn't possibly throw it away. He said, "If the precious herb emits a medicinal fragrance, then what about the scent on your body? You should have considered this before the trial."
Yao Yin didn't know how to respond, but then she saw Li Weiyi take out a large black cloth and wrap the crimson-colored Cistanche inside it. Instantly, all the light and scent were concealed. It was the Ghost Flag.
Li Weiyi himself also crawled inside, planning to use the Ghost Flag to hide and pass this trial. After thinking for a moment, he stuck his head out and looked at the stunned little girl sitting at the bow of the boat, asking, "Do you want to hide in here too?" Yao Yin snorted and turned her face away.
"Fine, try to suppress your aura as much as possible. Don't attract the flying-winged white spiders!"
Li Weiyi crawled back into the Ghost Flag, secretly calculating in his heart. Earlier, he had deliberately fallen from mid-air, creating an opening to test whether Yao Yin would take the opportunity to kill him. If she had made a move, Li Weiyi would have eliminated her without hesitation.
The same applied now. Li Weiyi appeared to be wrapped in the Ghost Flag, seemingly defenseless, but in reality, he was waiting for Yao Yin to strike.
"Only fifteen years old, and it's obvious she's been well-protected since childhood. No matter how coldly she pretends to be, she's still soft-hearted at her core. With such a temperament, even if she has a Pure Immortal Body, she might not survive to the end."
"Forget it, I won't make a move. I'll leave her to those who have opened eight or nine springs. They'll likely see her as their number one enemy."
Li Weiyi took a bite of the Cistanche and began eating. A five-hundred-year-old precious herb was indeed different. It melted in his mouth like divine nectar, filling his mouth with a radiant glow.
The medicinal warmth spread from his lips and tongue to his stomach, then radiated outward. Li Weiyi's entire body felt warm, as if he were soaking in a hot spring. After a month of arduous cultivation, the barrier of the eighth spring had been worn thin and could be broken through at any moment.
For martial artists aiming to open the eighth spring, besides tempering their meridians, the most difficult part was actually opening the Wind Mansion. The Wind Mansion was an internal world, similar to the spiritual realm between the eyebrows, or a small qi sea.
Li Weiyi possessed the Buddha's Relic, a spatial treasure that could assist in opening the internal world within his body. Thus, the final difficulty was essentially no difficulty at all. Once he opened the eighth spring, he could first deal with Li Qing and then test the difficulty of the mental power murals.
With the letter from Coffin Master in hand, it was like carrying an imperial sword. Li Weiyi felt he could afford to be bold. After all, he was the inheritor of the Nine Li Tribe's leader from a thousand years ago.
It was only natural for him to be extraordinary. Yao Yin sat alone at the bow of the boat, her sapphire-like immortal eyes scanning both sides of the river, fully alert. Of course, she was also wary of Li Weiyi.
Gradually, dense spider silk began to appear on the river, some of it forming webs that blocked the boat's path, preventing it from moving forward. Yao Yin glanced at the figure wrapped in the black cloth and decided not to rely on him. She took out a dagger hidden in her sleeve and carefully began cutting through the webs.
The spider silk was incredibly tough, even more so than that of the Armored Spider. It could be used to weave martial robes or craft low-grade magical ropes. But here, it was dangerous.
Once entangled, there was no escape. The small boat's progress became extremely slow. She saw that the spider silk was wrapped around many humanoid skeletons, hanging upside down above the water.
It was clear that these were the remains of past trial participants who had reached the seventh spring. Just a few meters away on the riverbank, there were clusters of white globes, each the size of a fist, with membranous wings. These were clearly the dormant flying-winged white spiders.
The scene before her eyes made Yao Yin extremely nervous. She couldn't imagine how terrifying it would be if all of them were awakened. Meanwhile, Li Weiyi lay on the boat, practicing the Jade Void Breathing Technique, completely immersed in his cultivation.
About half a day later, the boat came to a complete stop. The unusual changes outside jolted Li Weiyi out of his cultivation. He wondered why Yao Yin had stopped the boat.
Suddenly, faint, suppressed whimpers came from outside the Ghost Flag, gradually growing more painful, with rapid breathing and louder sounds.
"What are you doing?"
Li Weiyi crawled out of the Ghost Flag and looked at Yao Yin, who was curled up at the bow of the boat, trembling uncontrollably. The light was too dim to see what she was doing. Li Weiyi observed his surroundings and noticed the dense spider webs above, the dormant white spiders, and several hanging skeletons.
He took a deep breath and said, "Don't make too much noise. If you wake them up, both of us will end up hanging there, our flesh eaten clean." There was no response for a while.
Sensing that Yao Yin's condition was very unusual, Li Weiyi carefully crawled out of the Ghost Flag. She was curled up like a kitten on a winter roadside, clearly in great pain, unable to suppress her whimpers.
"Why is she so cold?"
As Li Weiyi approached her, he felt a bone-chilling cold. He gently touched her forehead, cheeks, and arms. Her entire body felt like ice.
Even more terrifying, her skin was covered in dense ice cracks. Li Weiyi didn't know what was wrong with her, but her sounds were growing louder, and the flying-winged white spiders around them were beginning to stir. Logically, this was the perfect opportunity to end her life with a single strike, solving the problem once and for all.
But since she hadn't taken advantage of his earlier vulnerability, Li Weiyi naturally couldn't bring himself to do it either.
"Forget it, let's treat her like that baseball bat. Breaking her with my own hands is something I can't bear to do."
Li Weiyi picked up Yao Yin and stuffed her into the Ghost Flag, making her hug the scorching hot Cistanche. He also fed her a bite. Whether she could survive this ordeal was up to her own fate.
After tightly wrapping the Ghost Flag, the muffled whimpers inside became extremely faint. Drawing the Yellow Dragon Sword, Li Weiyi sat at the bow of the boat, ready to cut through the spider silk blocking their path. Suddenly, a strange cry came from behind.
Without thinking, he turned and swung his sword, cutting through the white spider silk flying toward him.
"Gugu!"
A fist-sized flying-winged white spider scurried away from a strand of silk several meters away, disappearing quickly. But its cry awakened all the dormant white globes on both sides of the river. One by one, they raised their heads, revealing dark red eyes, densely packed like a sea of red stars.
"Damn it."
Li Weiyi no longer hesitated, wanting to escape immediately. He channeled his qi into the Yellow Dragon Sword and slashed forward, clearing the path. The yellow sword light melted all the spider silk it touched.
"Swish! Swish! Swish..."
Countless strands of spider silk shot toward him from all directions.
"Ruyi Qiankun Sword!"
Li Weiyi unleashed the second move of the Chan Sect's Twelve Loose Hands, reaching the realm of Heavenly Dao Fusion. With one sword strike, a hundred sword shadows appeared. The sword shadows formed an impenetrable barrier, like a waterfall of rain.
All the spider silk was cut. But more spider silk came, and some of the white spiders flew directly onto the boat. In an instant, the entire spider cave was filled with dense cries, white spiders flying everywhere, their membranous wings as sharp as blades.
Li Weiyi only held out for a single breath before releasing the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors from the insect tube on his back. They clashed with the swarm of flying white spiders. Catching his breath, he quickly cut away the spider silk clinging to his body and rushed to the bow of the boat.
While slashing through the webs, he grabbed an oar and began rowing quickly. At the seventh spring level, he couldn't use qi to propel the boat like Yin Twenty-Four could. That was a technique only those at the Five Seas Realm could perform.
Fortunately, the boat was moving downstream, so the speed was fast.
"Aren't you supposed to be Emperor-level? Facing these soldier-level insects, shouldn't just releasing a bit of your aura be enough to intimidate them?"
Li Weiyi was somewhat dissatisfied with the performance of the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors. Immediately, three of them stopped working. Li Weiyi quickly said, "I have a hundred pounds of five-hundred-year-old Cistanche.
The more insects you kill, the more you'll get. I'm keeping count..." The three slacking Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors immediately took flight again, their bodies bursting with colorful light, their combat state reaching its peak as they charged through the swarm of white spiders.
Insect corpses fell like rain.
"Gugu!"
A deep, resonant cry came from deep within the cave on the right. Li Weiyi immediately became alert, noticing a Cistanche emitting a purple glow growing deep within the cave, dozens of meters away from the river. This indicated its age was close to eight or nine hundred years, nearing the level of a thousand-year-old spirit herb.
"How could it have grown here for eight or nine hundred years without being harvested?"
Just as Li Weiyi was pondering this, a white spider the size of a face crawled out from the purple glow of the precious herb, with four blood-red wings on its back. The deep, resonant cry came from its mouth.
"Swish!"
The spider, as large as a basin, moved all eight legs at once, speeding toward the boat like a flash of light.
"This spider king is definitely not soldier-level!"
Without hesitation, Li Weiyi summoned the Black Iron Seal and struck it with the hilt of his sword.
"Boom!"
A thunderous sound shook the entire cave, and a bolt of lightning shot out like a glowing snake. The four-winged spider king didn't dodge, instead spitting out a beam of blood-red light that collided with the lightning snake, neutralizing it. The four wings stirred up a fierce wind, and the spider king was getting closer.
Li Weiyi's expression changed drastically. He had never faced such a terrifying creature before. He took out the Evil Camel Bell and channeled his qi into it.
Without caring whether he would be affected by the evil thoughts, he shook it wildly.
"Swish!"
A semi-transparent giant camel appeared on the boat, crashing into the four-winged spider king. The impact sent the spider king flying backward. But in an instant, the spider king returned, its cries even more ferocious.
"Stop fighting! Push the boat and get us out of here!"
Li Weiyi used his mental power to command the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors. Though small, they were strong and fast. Perhaps influenced by the Evil Camel Bell, five of them went berserk, while only two obeyed and began pushing the boat.
"Ding ding!"
Li Weiyi shook the Evil Camel Bell again, using the giant camel to repel the four-winged spider king once more. His qi reserves were depleting rapidly, and Li Weiyi knew he couldn't hold out much longer. Of course, he still had one last trump card: the Buddha's Relic on the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish.
But the four-winged spider king was too fast. He could only capture it within a three-meter radius into the Blood Mud Space. The window of opportunity was too short.
If he was even slightly slow, his body would be torn apart. If he was slightly too fast, he wouldn't be able to capture it. Moreover, his three masters were still in the Blood Mud Space.
Bringing a spider king in would be dangerous for them.
"Don't force me to break through the eighth spring barrier."
Li Weiyi really didn't want to risk breaking through the eighth spring in such a dangerous manner. Though the boat was moving swiftly, the four-winged spider king was hot on their heels. After repelling it a third time, Li Weiyi's body began to fail.
Not only did the sound of bells echo in his mind, but the Six Desires Talisman on his chest also began to flicker, and his entire body rapidly grew hot. It was the worst possible time for the Six Desires Talisman to act up.
"Gugu!"
The four-winged spider king led a large group of white spiders in rapid pursuit. There was no time to search for pills. Li Weiyi's eyes were bloodshot.
Between the Evil Camel Bell, the Six Desires Talisman, and the life-and-death crisis before him, his emotions were ignited. He roared, "Kill!" Evil thoughts turned into battle intent, and desire fueled his bloodlust, overwhelming all reason.
He rode the semi-transparent camel, brandishing the Yellow Dragon Sword, and charged out of the boat, stepping onto the blood river to launch a counterattack against the spider swarm. The seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors were stunned, then transformed into seven streaks of colorful light and followed. On the blood river, chaos erupted, and the battle raged on.
"Boom! Boom..."
Li Weiyi swung his sword with both hands, clashing fiercely with the four-winged spider king. His wounds multiplied, cut by the sharp spider wings. But the more he fought, the more spirited he became, and his mind gradually cleared.
"Why am I fighting the spider king? Thankfully, the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors are helping me, or I wouldn't have lasted this long. So much for a protective wife—she didn't show up in such a dangerous situation."
"My head hurts... it's the Wind Mansion..."
Li Weiyi realized that the Wind Mansion acupoint at the back of his head was throbbing painfully, as if a needle were piercing it. Instead of being alarmed, he was delighted. This was a sign that the eighth spring was about to open!
He quickly stabilized his mind and began practicing the breathing technique. Gradually, wisps of spiritual energy began to seep out from the Wind Mansion acupoint. Without hesitation, he used the spiritual light to activate the Buddha's Relic, channeling gentle spatial energy into the Wind Mansion acupoint.
"Boom!"
A moment later, as Li Weiyi swung his sword at the four-winged spider king, the internal space beneath the Wind Mansion acupoint opened, and a surge of violent spiritual energy erupted, giving his sword strike unprecedented power. ... It's the last day for double monthly votes. If you still have votes, don't waste them—please cast them for me.
(End of Chapter)