Xiang Shaoyun was in a miserable state. He had fallen from Little White's back. With nothing protecting him, he crashed heavily onto the ground below. He nearly fainted from the crash, his entire body filled with pain.
If he had not reacted quickly enough and sent an attack downward to slow his descent, he might have fallen to his death. On top of that, his tough physical flesh and energy barrier had also contributed greatly to his survival.
By the time he got back on his feet, the only thing he saw was an expanse of gold serpentine crocodile corpses. Even Demon King gold serpentine crocodiles were among them. All of them had been killed by the sound wave, forming a spectacular field of death.
The sight of this stunned Xiang Shaoyun. A single sound wave to kill so many Demon Kings. How fearsome was that sound wave? Being a well-read person, he immediately understood that the so-called secret here was in fact a terrifying one.
Demon Emperor? Or something stronger? Xiang Shaoyun pondered.
Since the owner of that sound wave had dragged Little White away, it could only mean that the owner was somehow related to Little White. This was Little White's own fortuitous encounter.
Xiang Shaoyun started studying his surroundings and found a large hole emanating a vicious gold aura not far from him. Little White must have been dragged in there. He wanted to approach the hole, but the vicious gold aura immediately left numerous cuts on his skin.
"This vicious gold aura is so violent. Perhaps there's a unique type of metal energy gathering in there?" Xiang Shaoyun muttered to himself as he studied the gold aura with his sharp eyes.
Each type of power existed in a different form, with each form possessing an extraordinary ability. If one was to absorb this vicious gold aura and cultivate with it, one would grow stronger while one's attack grew even more destructive.
Although Xiang Shaoyun already had innate purple lightning within him, he did not mind absorbing a different energy to increase his combat prowess. Unfortunately, he was having a hard time approaching the hole. The vicious gold aura was able to kill even King Realm cultivators, much less him.
Soon, Xiang Shaoyun readjusted his mood and shifted his gaze to the dead gold serpentine crocodiles instead. He drew his Overlord Skyslaying Saber, preparing to harvest all the demonic cores of these corpses.
This was in fact a large harvest, one that many people would dream of. Even the corpses were all valuable. But Xiang Shaoyun had no way of gathering all of them. After all, his astral cosmos sea only had a storage space of 10 square meters.
Gold serpentine crocodiles had hard skulls. Xiang Shaoyun was unable to slice one open just by slashing his saber. Instead, he had to channel his innate purple lightning to the saber before he could actually open the skull.
Soon, a demonic core appeared before him. The demonic core looked like a round bead emanating a gold radiance and was shrouded in a thick demonic aura. A demonic core could not be consumed directly. One had to first refine it with some herbs before it could be consumed to increase one's strength.
In truth, demonic cores were excellent materials that many pill refiners would love to get their hands on. Xiang Shaoyun had personally witnessed many such refining processes. Thus, he kept the demonic core into his astral cosmos sea. After finding suitable king medicines, he would then refine the demonic core before consuming it. After opening the skulls of about a dozen gold serpentine crocodiles, he obtained seven demonic cores. It was obvious these were among the strongest demonic beasts in the valley.
By the time Xiang Shaoyun harvested his ninth demonic core, he noticed something. He found that these demonic cores were also emanating faint traces of vicious gold energy that was much purer than what he gained when consuming gold serpentine crocodile meat.
"Looks like this is the reason for the gold serpentine crocodiles to be so strong here," Xiang Shaoyun muttered. While he was busy harvesting demonic cores, he suddenly sensed an intense battle happening not far from him. It was obvious human experts had arrived as well.
"Looks like the incident has been so flashy even human experts were attracted. What should I do now?" Xiang Shaoyun was troubled. He wished badly that Little White could come out here and bring him into the hole as well. But he was also clear of how unlikely that was to happen. He had to rely on himself.
While Xiang Shaoyun was anxiously thinking of a solution, his gaze landed on a gold tree. On the tree were five gold fruits. The fruits were shaped like snakes, looking incredibly dazzling and lively.
"Gold serpent fruit!" Xiang Shaoyun's eyes lit up.
This was a high-grade spirit medicine, containing boundless energy within. High-grade spirit medicine was the best quality a medicinal herb could be below king medicine. Xiang Shaoyun darted forward and plucked all the gold serpent fruits he saw. He could immediately reach the Transformation Realm just by swallowing one of them if he wanted. But this was not the best time for that. He had to prioritize hiding himself.
Just as Xiang Shaoyun was trying to decide where to hide, he discovered that the vicious gold aura near the hole was withdrawing. By the time all the vicious gold aura had withdrawn into the hole, the gold radiance in the area had dimmed considerably. Angry roars were also ringing out from within the hole.
"Roar! Roar!"
The roars were filled with a majestic aura as they echoed repeatedly in the hole. Different than the first roar, these roars no longer seemed as murderous as earlier. At this time, the human experts had arrived above the hole as well. Here, they were undisturbed by the gold serpentine crocodile kings who dared not approach out of fear for whatever was inside.
As for the group of King Realm cultivators, they were all hesitating on whether they should enter the hole. Suddenly, one of them noticed Xiang Shaoyun and said, "There's a young man down there."
"Let’s conceal our aura and take a look down there," said someone else.
Thus, the King Realm cultivators descended toward Xiang Shaoyun's position. Xiang Shaoyun had long sensed that he had been noticed. His brain worked rapidly, trying to think of something to save his skin.
Thus, when the group of King Realm cultivators landed, Xiang Shaoyun merely hugged his head as he shouted repeatedly, "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"
"Kid, which academy are you from? What are you doing here?" Mo Chage asked.
"Are you gold serpentine crocodile kings in human shape? You're not thinking of making me your human pet, right? No, no, no, please spare my chrysanthemum!" Xiang Shaoyun screamed with a frightened expression.
Play the fool!
This might be the best way to dispel any suspicion they had toward him. He really couldn't think of a good excuse explaining how he managed to get here otherwise. After all, this was the deepest part of the Golden River Valley guarded by countless gold serpentine crocodiles with Demon Kings among their ranks. It would make no sense for an Astral Realm cultivator to be able to reach this place safely.
"Demon King? Human pet? Are you a disciple kidnapped by a gold serpentine crocodile king?" asked a different person.
This person's cultivation level was even higher than Mo Chage’s. He was a seventh-stage Skysoar Realm cultivator, a late-stage in the Skysoar Realm. He was an elder from Cloud Margin Pavilion and his name was He Luo. As for the people behind him, they were all his junior brothers from the Cloud Margin Pavilion. One of them looked particularly familiar to Xiang Shaoyun.
That person was about 30 years old, the youngest of the bunch. Despite his age, he emanated a thick purple aura. Standing there with his back perfectly straight, he was akin to a bolt of lightning that one couldn't look straight at.