Gao Fang walked with a light step, his divine sense drawn inward and cautiously probing ahead.
Though this body was not his true form, and its loss would not be fatal, it was his first choice for a future permanent vessel. If possible, keeping it intact was best.
Gao Fang's divine sense had barely extended when a far more powerful one locked onto him before he could assess the situation.
Without question, this was a Nascent Soul power.
Gao Fang quickly suppressed the envy on his face and assumed a respectful expression as he approached.
At the meeting point, a group of cultivators in black cloaks had been waiting for some time. Li Xingtian was among them.
Gao Fang hurried forward and bowed respectfully:
"Fellow Daoists, thank you for your patience."
Li Xingtian did not speak. Instead, the woman standing at his side answered.
"This appearance — Golden Core? What a waste for an evil cultivator."
Gao Fang kept his head lowered, not daring to look. He had no idea which among this group was the Nascent Soul cultivator with the formidable divine sense, or whether there might be more than one.
But the one who could read his cultivation realm at a single glance was at minimum a Golden Core Great Perfection.
Gao Fang raised his eyes slightly and noticed the woman wore light-blue combat attire. He understood the remark was very likely a test, so he answered in a measured voice:
"Serendipity, that's all. And besides, we each have our own opportunities."
The woman's voice was cool: "Is that so? Never mind. Time is short — let's not waste it."
"Yes." Only then did Gao Fang dare lift his head, his gaze instinctively falling on the woman who had spoken. The next moment, he froze on the spot.
The tangled, chaotic thoughts that had filled his mind went instantly silent.
Gao Fang had lived for centuries, but he had never seen a woman with such presence and beauty.
Peach-blossom eyes held a trace of coldness. A flawless profile gazed at the distant light pillar.
The next instant.
The woman noticed Gao Fang's stare, her eyes shifting toward him. Her brow furrowed slightly.
Gao Fang hadn't even reacted — he didn't understand what technique had been used — when he felt a blow to his chest.
Several ribs shattered. A sweetness rose in his throat, and blood sprayed from his mouth.
Then a terrifying aura, overwhelming to the extreme, crashed over him.
Gao Fang was crushed beneath it, barely able to breathe. Every inch of his body screamed with fear, his divine sense leaping wildly, as though his head would be separated from his body at any moment.
His mind was filled entirely with terror.
Li Yingling gazed down at the prostrate Gao Fang with undisguised contempt. That single glance had been enough — the greed in the evil cultivator's eyes had been enough to make her stomach churn on instinct.
Moreover, the evil cultivator's aura and body were clearly mismatched. The one before her was almost certainly not his true form.
An aged aura paired with an innocent young body.
This was unmistakably some foul technique the evil cultivator had learned somewhere — he had refined a young cultivator who should have had a bright future.
The mission was important, but what could this Golden Core evil cultivator possibly know about demon race secrets? At most, some surface-level information.
No wonder the Second Junior Brother was reluctant to deal with this sort of evil cultivator.
Li Xingtian glanced at his Eldest Senior Sister's expression, and killing intent began to leak out. He raised his hand slightly.
In a split second, without hesitation, Gao Fang dug his fingers into his own eyes.
A moment later, when Gao Fang looked up again, his eye sockets were nothing but empty voids, and his hands held only a mist of blood.
Li Yingling's disgust deepened further. She rarely dealt with evil cultivators — normally, she dispatched them with a single sword stroke.
But never mind. No point getting angry with a man about to die.
Li Yingling's voice was cold: "That will do. Lead us to the site now."
"Yes." Gao Fang felt the pressure on his body dissipate and nodded hastily.
Li Yingling's exact realm was beyond Gao Fang's perception, but it was clearly at minimum mid-to-late Nascent Soul.
After all, only a mid-to-late Nascent Soul powerhouse could pin him down with sheer aura alone.
Mid-to-late Nascent Soul…
Gao Fang felt nothing but frustration at his own insufficient cultivation. If his cultivation had been enough, Li Yingling would have been the ultimate addition to his collection.
Though he had lost his eyes, a Golden Core cultivator could rely on divine sense well enough.
Gao Fang cupped his fists, then led Li Yingling toward the light pillar and its ritual formation.
Li Yingling did not immediately follow. Instead, she turned to the Tianyan Sect Tribulation Transcendence cultivator at her side and transmitted a message:
"Please, Senior, find his true hiding place and leave something behind."
The Tianyan Sect Tribulation Transcendence cultivator nodded slightly, and his figure vanished in the next instant.
Gao Fang did not look back, but he sensed a figure departing. Still, he did not dare ask about it or wonder where that disappearing figure might be headed.
Li Yingling reached out and gave Li Xingtian a pat on the head before following after Gao Fang.
The fundamental reason they had chosen to make contact with these evil cultivators was that the ritual formations were not sitting out in the open, displayed for anyone to admire.
The formations and rituals were connected to portions of the spirit veins.
If anything abnormal occurred — and no one knew what methods the demon race had employed — the entire spirit vein would detonate.
The force of the explosion would be enough to level everything within a hundred zhang.
For high-level cultivators, the damage was negligible, but the ritual formations themselves would be obliterated, leaving behind no usable information.
After five detonations, Li Yingling still had not figured out the trigger conditions.
The only conditions under which Li Yingling could currently observe the formations were when the evil cultivators or demons placed by the demon race to guard them led the way — with a guide, the formation would not detonate immediately.
Of course, this was far from foolproof.
There were cases where even with a guide, they had been blown skyward.
The demon race possessed unknown means of additional surveillance. If anything unusual was detected, they detonated without hesitation.
Master was currently researching how to isolate the spirit vein's flow, cut off the explosions, and then study the ritual formations.
But until then, they had to rely on these somewhat crude methods.
Li Yingling observed Gao Fang leading the way ahead.
The Heavenly Demons should know that relying on evil cultivators for reliability was like hoping for Master to kill himself.
Yet most of these ritual formations were guarded by evil cultivators and demons. This wasn't merely a case of "not hiring" — it was hiring and being worse off than not hiring at all.
The bottomlessness of an evil cultivator's moral compass was enough to turn any guarding duty into an inside job.
Certainly, part of it was because evil cultivators were cheap and expendable. But there had to be a deeper reason.
For instance, maintaining these ritual formations required evil cultivators.
Perhaps these evil cultivators had unique properties that the formations needed.
Otherwise, if the goal was merely to detect who approached the formation site, there was no particular need to hire these unreliable evil cultivators. The logic didn't hold.
If she approached the problem from the evil cultivators' angle…
Li Yingling felt these evil cultivators all likely shared one trait in common — something was a little off upstairs.
But Li Yingling had already raised this question with the Second Junior Brother, since he had interacted with more evil cultivators than anyone.
Li Xingtian's answer had been flawless: anyone who becomes an evil cultivator has something wrong with their head.
Li Yingling felt Li Xingtian's answer carried a certain Master-like quality.
But she also felt she was close to finding the answer.
If the Second Junior Brother thought there was no problem, then there was definitely a problem.
This time, she would let this rather repulsive evil cultivator attempt to reveal the truth.