Yunsu tapped her paws on the last of the God Spawn's corpses as it slowly decayed into dust by erosion of Heaven and Earth. The red energy of Bloodline Essence rose from the corpse and was sucked into Yunsu's body.
Before long, all the Bloodline Essence had been drained dry, and the corpse instantly turned to dust.
'Meow…' Yunsu cried in pleasure, satisfied that her new bloodline had finally stabilized after absorbing Bloodline Essence from countless God Spawns.
Hengsheng picked her up and placed her in her usual spot atop his head.
"F-Fellow Daoist Lan, your strength is truly surprising," Jian Zixuan said as he approached the two, disbelief evident in his eyes.
As the immortal seed of the Golden Sword Sect, he was quite proud of himself. He never thought that anyone of his generation in this realm could match his strength.
Even though he had known from their first meeting that Lan Hengsheng was powerful, he still believed that if they were to fight for real, he would be the last one standing at the end. After all, he had great faith in his own solid cultivation foundation, carefully trained by an ancient sect of his.
However, after witnessing Hengsheng effortlessly annihilate the God Spawn's army single-handedly, his belief was shattered.
Lan Hengsheng's raw strength was far above his own, especially after seeing him perform a Heaven-Grade technique—yet he seemed completely fine!
Even though he himself also possessed a Heaven-Grade technique, he could not use it casually because the cost was so immense that he could only rely on it as a last resort.
Hengsheng observed Jian Zixuan's expression and tried to guess what the swordsman was thinking.
He did not know why this man was showing such a surprised expression. Was he trying to please him? To lower his guard? Whatever.
"How can I compare to you?" Hengsheng said with a fake smile, having no intention of making friends with anyone on the path of cultivation.
He had learned enough about the true nature of humans—there was no true friendship when benefits were involved, especially in the cultivation world, where personal gain was the core principle.
Hengsheng continued, "Let's move now. If we're quick enough, we might catch them off guard."
"You're right. Follow me," Jian Zixuan said, pulling out a compass artifact. It was an artifact that pointed toward the stolen seal components held by the traitors.
That was what Jian Zixuan told him.
To be completely safe from this situation, eliminating all the traitors was not the end but they had to rebuild the Seal station of Outer Rim and make the Five Element formation whole again, to do that they needed the element seal components back.
Earth and Metal element seals were in their hand, but Fire, Water, and Wood element seals were in the hands of the enemy.
Jian Zixuan began to move, while Hengsheng followed him closely.
They soon completely moved out of the Dao Field's radius and continued toward the bamboo forest's direction.
On the way, they found a few more stray God Spawn that had not moved along with the army. Hengsheng swiftly killed them all, not letting them roam and causing problems for them later.
They finally arrived at what they thought was the place.
To Hengsheng's surprise, he had expected them to move into the bamboo forest and go to the place where he had fought with an axeman and a cultist, but they did not.
That was because, before they had a chance to enter the bamboo forest—which Hengsheng could see 10 km away from where he stood—something had stopped them.
Something that he didn't know how it appeared or when it came to be stood between the two territories.
It was a Rift Valley.
This place had never existed before when he moved back and forth between these two territories. It appeared as if the land between them had moved apart and created a linear-shaped lowland between the highlands.
The linear was so long that he could not see where it ended, and it was as wide as 10 km.
Hengsheng couldn't see the ground below clearly due to the blue mist enveloping the whole place. Without glimpses of the ground while the mist flowed, he might have believed it was a high cliff.
"Fellow Daoist Jian, do you know this place," Hengsheng asked.
"Yes…." Jian Zixuan replied, his voice trailing off.
Hengsheng's eyes narrowed when he saw the uneasy expression on Jian Zixuan's face.
Jian Zixuan noticed Hengsheng's gaze and began to tell what he knew about this place.
This place appeared at the same time the God Spawn began to appear. The Golden Sword Sect calls it the cracks of the seal—the rift.
This rift will emerge where the sealing power of the Five Element Seal is the weakest, causing the entire area inside the rift to overflow with the aura of the Wu Gods.
Rifts like this had appeared from time to time anywhere in the secret land, not just in this place, when the sealing power was weakening for whatever reason. However, the Golden Sword Sect always resolved them by activating the seal formation, causing them to disappear.
If this place is left open and not closed, the God Spawn will spawn inside the rift and crawl out, causing more damage to the secret land.
"So this place is the reason the God Spawns could keep coming after us as if their numbers are endless?" Hengsheng asked.
"Most likely, yes…" Jian Zixuan said with a grave expression.
"So how do we close this place if the sealing formation isn't ready?" Hengsheng asked.
Jian Zixuan shook his head and replied, "Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there's no other way. Our best option now is to retrieve the seal as quickly as possible before the rift spawns a powerful God Spawns."
Hengsheng nodded. The last thing Jian Zixuan told him about this place was that if they left the rift unchecked for too long, the God Spawn that spawned inside would become more powerful as time passed, It could be as strong as a True Body realm cultivator regularly if it was never closed for a year.
"Are they inside?" Hengsheng asked.
Jian Zixuan closed his eyes while holding the compass artifact in his hand, using it to pinpoint the location of the element seals.
"They're in the same location—right in the middle of the rift," Jian Zixuan said.
"What? That's so close, We could jump right onto their heads." Hengsheng exclaimed.
Jian Zixuan shook his head. "We can't do that. Inside the rift, time and space are distorted. Time moves faster, and space stretches wider. and if we jump straight to the center due to the time and space disorder, we might end up somewhere completely different. It's safer to enter from the rim."
Hengsheng's eyes closed as he heard what Jian Zixuan told him. Before, he did not like the idea of time and space disorder as it caused him headaches, but now, thanks to the memory of Samuel Barlow, he understood the science to some extent.
Jian Zixuan continued after seeing Hengsheng nod in understanding. "We're lucky we found it early. This place shouldn't have existed for more than a month, so time inside should flow at twice the speed of the outside world, and the space should be twice as vast. Reaching them won't be too difficult… but there's one last problem."
"What it's?" Hengsheng asked.
"Inside the rift, God Spawns are constantly spawning—their numbers are endless. They could overwhelm us before we even reach the traitors' camp," Jian Zixuan said, his expression grim.
Hengsheng smirked when he heard that.
"Don't worry, they won't notice us. I have an incredibly good 'concealment technique,'" Hengsheng said confidently.
Jian Zixuan's expression was confused, and then he said, "No matter how good your technique is, there's no way to avoid being noticed by countless God Spawns."
Twenty minutes later.
Hengsheng, Yunsu, and Jian Zixuan walked through the blue mist. This mist did not obstruct their vision like it had when they saw it from the outside.
They walked past countless God Spawns crawling around as they searched for a way out of this place. Surprisingly, none of the God Spawns seemed to notice their presence at all, as if they were invisible to all of the God Spawns' senses.
Jian Zixuan thought to himself, 'What a terrifying concealment technique!'
He observed his hand, now covered by a layer of transparent aura. 'This is the power of Law. This Lan Hengsheng is a mystery… where did he learn to wield the power of Law to this extent?'
"What's wrong, Fellow Daoist Jian?" Hengsheng asked through a sound transmission because he saw Jian Zixuan's expression grim.
"N-Nothing, Fellow Daoist Lan. I was just thinking about something else," Jian Zixuan replied.
"That's good. Oh, it seems like we're almost at our destination." Hengsheng said while he began to notice a large temple from afar.