Chapter 271: Third-Rank Pill Master

“It’s Niu Cheng and Old Qi!”

Chief Shen and the Withered Daoist were the fastest. They saw a blur of motion as the two men darted to the doorway with the agility of rabbits and falcons. The others swiftly drew their weapons and surged toward the entrance.

The rain continued to fall outside.

The caravan remained parked under the eaves of the Iron Spear Temple, the horses still munching on the dry hay that Niu Cheng and Old Qi had fed them earlier.

“What happened? Where’s Old Qi?” Chief Shen demanded, his blade glinting as he stared at Niu Cheng, who was sprawled in the muddy puddle at the doorway. The man seemed paralyzed by terror, thrashing helplessly in the muck and emitting crazed, incoherent shrieks.

The Withered Daoist crouched beside the caravan, pinched a clump of dark mud between his index finger and thumb, brought it to his nose, and sniffed. His expression turned grave.

“It’s blood.”

“Blood?” Chief Shen hurried over and spotted a pool of blood beneath the caravan. Though diluted by the rain, traces of it remained mixed with the muddy water, easily visible upon closer inspection.

Thud, thud, thud.

The sound of something bouncing came from behind them.

Everyone whirled around to see a head dangling from the iron spear that stood in the courtyard. The hair had been twisted into a rope, its end tied to the spear tip. The severed head bounced against the metal shaft like a ball, the sickening thuds echoing through the rain.

“Old Qi?!”

“Who did this?”

The group rushed forward, one of them swiftly removing Old Qi’s head from the spear.

Chief Shen’s hand, gripping his broadsword, was slick with sweat. Rain lashed his body, sending a chill deep into his bones. The Withered Daoist beside him was equally shaken. Only one thing could kill silently on such a stormy night and drive Niu Cheng into catatonia: the great Demon they had been desperately trying to avoid.

But where was the Demon?

“Daoist Qiu, can you sense it?” Chief Shen turned to the withered old Daoist beside him.

This was a Demon, after all!

This was something only an Immortal Cultivator could handle, and they were just ordinary martial artists. Don’t think the Southern Heaven Domain was devoid of ordinary people; its territory was even larger than the Southwest Territory, and its population teemed like ants. Only such a massive population base could give rise to so many Immortal Cultivators.

“I’ll try again,” Daoist Qiu said.

He retrieved his most prized spirit talisman from the bottom of his chest. This First-Tier High-Grade talisman, purchased at great expense from the Marketplace, was something he usually hesitated to use.

“Wait a minute—what about that person inside?” Daoist Qiu paused, the talisman in his hand. He suddenly remembered the strange young man. His sudden appearance and odd behavior now seemed suspicious.

Would a normal person sit alone in the Iron Spear Temple in the dark, without even lighting a lamp to rest?

No!

The thought sent a chill down Daoist Qiu’s spine. If that man inside was truly a Demon, none of them stood a chance.

Chief Shen had come to the same conclusion.

“Lao Qian, go inside and check it out,” he said, turning to the veteran escort beside him. Lao Qian was the most skilled martial artist among them, second only to Chief Shen himself.

“Take this,” Daoist Qiu said, activating his treasured talisman and handing it to Lao Qian.

“Alright,” Lao Qian said, tucking the spirit talisman into his robe. Gripping his broadsword, he carefully pushed open the door of the Iron Spear Temple, the blade scraping against the frame. No sound came from within, suggesting the occupant remained undisturbed by the commotion outside, perhaps uninterested in such trivial matters.

The Blue-Robed Man remained cross-legged in the corner, deep in cultivation. The flickering fire cast eerie shadows, making his appearance even more unsettling. In the dim light, Lao Qian thought he glimpsed a wisp of black mist rising from the man’s body.

Black mist?

He swallowed nervously, touched the spirit talisman in his robe, and continued to advance, sword in hand.

Against Demons, flight was futile—a lesson etched in blood by countless fallen escorts. Survival demanded finding the Demon’s true form and begging for mercy.

Such was the brutal reality.

Ordinary people stood no chance against Demons. Their vaunted martial skills couldn’t even scratch a Demon’s hide. Only Immortal Cultivators could truly confront them. Daoist Qiu had explained that harming a Demon required spiritual energy, a substance beyond mortal perception. How could commoners wield something they couldn’t even see?

Click.

Lao Qian froze, his expression rigid. He glanced down and realized he had stepped on a broken brick. When he looked up again, the young man was staring intently at him, black pine needle-like patterns surfacing on his cheeks. Two small, round bulges beneath his skin shifted constantly.

With a whoosh, the spirit talisman Daoist Qiu had given him for protection burst into flames. This trump card flew from Lao Qian’s chest and adhered to the young man’s forehead.

The flames hissed and crackled before vanishing without a trace.

“Monster Grandpa, spare me!” Lao Qian dropped his knife and immediately knelt. But the young man ignored him, his gaze fixed on the doorway behind Lao Qian. A youth wielding an iron shovel had silently appeared there.

“You’re trying to wipe us out completely?!” the cornered youth spat venomously. He had exhausted every trick to conceal his presence, yet this man had still found him.

“That brain is mine.”

The young man with the iron shovel smiled gently, his expression as casual as if chatting with an old friend.

“So you’re not leaving me any way out, huh? Do you really think you’ve got me cornered?”

The youth with black markings twisting across his face snarled ferociously. With a sickening rip, his skin split open like paper, tearing in half from the bridge of his nose. A jet-black lizard darted out, its foul-smelling body dragging countless fine black hairs as it lunged at the shovel-wielding youth.

“Oh my god!”

Lao Qian, who had never witnessed such a sight before, screamed in terror. His pants turned wet as he scrambled backward, kicking against the wall.

Boom!

The shovel-wielding youth raised his right hand, clenching his fist. A strange bone-like pattern coalesced on his chest, and he slammed it into the lizard’s face. The impact unleashed a circular shockwave that scattered the Escorts’ bonfires, sending burning embers flying and igniting new fires.

The door and windows shattered into splinters, sending debris exploding outward.

Daoist Qiu, Chief Shen, and the other observers hiding outside were swept off their feet by the force of the blast, tumbling into the muddy ditch in disarray.

“A true master! We’ve encountered a true master!” Daoist Qiu exclaimed, scrambling out of the mud, his face alight with excitement. He had witnessed the burning of his talismans and couldn’t believe that his most potent techniques hadn’t even scratched the monster’s hide. Fortunately, a last-minute variable had emerged: the shovel-wielding senior. Though his appearance was peculiar, his methods were undeniably brutal.

Such a formidable monster was being pinned to the ground and beaten into submission.

“Daoist Qiu, who is that man?”

“A true master capable of handling great demons! Heaven truly blesses our Dragon-Tiger Escort Agency!”

Inside the temple, the shovel-wielding youth slammed his fist into the lizard demon’s skull. The hardened bone caved in like soft clay, and a black force erupted, splattering the area with thick, tarry sludge. Taking advantage of the chaos, Lao Qian had already crawled out of the corner and fled to join the others in their distant retreat.

After pulverizing the lizard monster’s head, a ball of fire materialized on the youth’s arm. He grabbed a clump of the black sludge and slammed it down.

Boom!

The fire ignited a secondary explosion.

The lizard demon’s black hair-like tendrils were reduced to ashes in a massive conflagration. Where fire and rain clashed, scorched earth emerged, releasing massive clouds of steam into the air.

The Iron Spear Temple collapsed completely under the force of the impact. The right wall shuddered violently before crumbling, sending a rain of blue-gray tiles crashing down. Even the small shrine inside was toppled.

But neither of the combatants noticed the destruction. The mangled demonic creature had been reduced to dozens of globs of black sludge, which scattered in all directions.

It was truly terrified.

This shovel-wielding human cultivator was a monster, proficient in every technique imaginable. The creature had never encountered such a tenacious human cultivator before.

Inside the ruined temple, the victorious youth clutched a stark white skull. A message flashed through his mind:

Absorb!

The shovel-wielding youth was none other than Chen Luo.

After leaving the Qiong Hua Sect’s outpost, he had traveled north for over two months. Along the way, he encountered numerous Immortal Cultivators from the Southern Heaven Domain, trading for cultivation techniques. His External Brain’s “experience” grew ever richer. For Chen Luo, the Southern Heaven Domain was a true land of fortune.

Recently, while passing through these mountains, he had learned of a Core Formation rogue cultivator’s tomb at a rogue cultivator exchange meet. Naturally, he had proceeded to exhume the grave and retrieve the brain.

Unfortunately, complications arose midway when this Monster snatched the brain he had unearthed.

What followed was a relentless pursuit that lasted for dozens of days.

This particular monster was exceptionally elusive, and even with all of Chen Luo’s skill, tracking it down proved incredibly difficult. Each time he cornered the creature, it would split apart and flee, leading him on a chase that finally ended at the Iron Spear Temple, where he managed to reclaim the stolen skull.

Fortunately, the monster had resisted its primal urge to kill humans, allowing Chen Luo to catch up so quickly.

This was his third Core Formation brain.

After absorbing the gray energy, Chen Luo discovered a lingering obsession within it. Unlike the severely damaged brains from other ancient tombs, this one retained a significant portion of its original structure.

A flood of memories related to pill refinement surged into his mind. He saw an elderly man with white hair and a white beard hunched over a pill furnace, staring maniacally into the flames. The medicinal liquid within the furnace was condensing, showing faint signs of solidifying into a pill.

But at the critical moment of Core Condensation, the liquid’s delicate balance shattered. The instability of the Fourth-Tier Pill triggered a chain reaction. A blinding flash of light erupted, and the vision vanished.

The man had died during pill refinement.

“A Pill Refiner?”

A flicker of delight flashed in Chen Luo’s eyes. He hadn’t expected such good fortune—to unearth the brain of a Pill Refiner in this ancient tomb. A Pill Refiner aiming for the Nascent Soul Pill would undoubtedly be at least a third-rank master. Second-rank refiners typically focused on pills related to the Core Formation stage.