"Sure. Go ahead." Yuan nodded his head, not hesitating to hand the Empyrean Overlord to Lan Yingying since he trusted her, and even if she wanted to steal it, the Soul Weapon will automatically return to him if it gets too far away from him.
"Here you go." Yuan handed the sword to her in a casual manner.
"T-This sword is... so heavy!" Lan Yingying was taken by surprise by the weight of the Empyrean Overlord, nearly falling over trying to hold it at first.
"Oh, right, I forgot about that. It weighs about 1,000 jins naturally." Yuan had forgotten about its weight after handling it like a tree branch for so long.
"Where did you obtain such a treasure? And do you know its background?" she then asked, her gaze staring at the beautiful sword with a somewhat mesmerizing look.
"Apparently, it was found in a Legacy Tomb five hundred years ago. As for its background... It used to be wielded by a Sword Emperor." Yuan recalled what Feng Yuxiang told him and the Empyrean Overlord’s description.
"Sword... Emperor? Do you, by any chance, know the name of this Sword Emperor?" Lan Yingying asked.
"No, I don’t."
"I see..." Lan Yingying mumbled.
"Thank you for letting me see it."
She handed the Empyrean Overlord back to Yuan a moment later.
"Let’s continue moving." Yuan then said.
"Wait a moment." Lan Yingying suddenly said, and she pointed at the Earth Dragon’s corpse, "Since you killed the Earth Dragon, its corpse obviously belongs to you, but do you think I can buy it off you?"
"Eh? You want this Earth Dragon’s corpse?" Yuan raised his eyebrows, wondering why she wanted it.
"If you want it, you can take it. Also, you don’t have to pay me." Yuan said, as he doesn’t have any uses for the corpse, nor does he plan on selling its materials.
"Really? Are you sure? An Earth Dragon’s corpse will fetch a lot of money if you sell it..." She asked him just to be sure.
Yuan nodded, "It’s the least I can do for you, who’s helping me reach the nearest city."
"Thank you very much..." Lan Yingying bowed to him before collecting the Earth Dragon’s corpse with her spatial ring.
Shortly after, they continued to run across the grassland, encountering a couple more magical beasts in a few hours.
Of course, Yuan wanted to fight these magical beasts despite having a lower cultivation base in comparison.
And just like the Earth Dragon, these Spirit Master magical beasts looked at Yuan with contempt when they realized he was only a Spirit Warrior, lowering their guards.
However, these magical beasts immediately regretted underestimating Yuan’s low cultivation base the moment he released his Sword Aura, and they could only powerlessly stare at Yuan as he slashes their body into two parts.
After Yuan killed these magical beasts, Lan Yingying would collect their corpses, almost like a trash collector picking up trash on the sidewalk.
"Do magical beasts not drop monster cores around here or something? I’ve killed over a dozen of them without a single monster core!" Yuan complained after some time.
"The higher cultivation a magical beast, the less likely they’ll drop a monster core." Lan Yingying said to him.
"Really? That doesn’t make any sense, but alas..." Yuan sighed.
Once the sun began peeking at the horizon, Yuan logged off the game to eat breakfast prepared by Meixiu.
"How are you doing in the Mystic Realm? Xiao Hua wanted to know." Meixiu said to him afterward.
"I’m still making my way to the nearest city. I’ve also been encountering more and more magical beasts the closer we get to the city. However, you don’t have to worry since I can deal with them easily, especially ever since I’ve learned Sword Aura."
"I understand. I’ll let them know."
Once she returned to the game, Meixiu relayed Yuan’s situation to Xiao Hua and the others.
"What? Sword Aura?!" Long Yijun and the others expressed great shock after hearing this news.
"So Brother Yuan finally learned Sword Aura, huh?" Xiao Hua already knew that he would learn Sword Aura. It was just a matter of when.
Meanwhile, Yuan continued to follow the blue star in the sky with Lan Yingying.
"We should arrive in the city by tomorrow afternoon," Lan Yingying said to him.
"Okay."
After running for a couple of hours without stopping, Lan Yingying suddenly felt a cold shiver run down her spine, causing her to stop running, and she shouted in a panicked voice, "Yuan! Stop!"
"Eh? What happened? Another magical beast?" Yuan stopped and asked her.
However, when he turned around and saw the nervous look on Lan Yingying’s face— even though she had remained relatively calm from their previous encounters with magical beasts— he realized something was amiss.
"It’s worse than a magical beast! We need to get away from this place as soon as possible!" Lan Yingying said to him.
"Get away? From what?" Yuan raised his eyebrows.
And before Lan Yingying could respond to him, a deep voice suddenly resounded.
"The little princess is together with a human? What an unusual sight."
BOOM!
The ground shook as a figure suddenly descended from the sky and landed about a hundred meters away from Yuan and Lan Yingying’s location.
"What the heck is that?" Yuan’s eyes widened with surprise when he saw this ’person’ and its unique appearance, not to mention its tyrannical aura that was unlike anything he’s experienced before.
This entity was standing on two tall legs like a human, and it also had the body of a human. However, this human-like figure had glowing red skin and a single black horn directly in the center of its forehead. The sclera of its eyes was pitch black with its iris and pupils bright red. Furthermore, it had long sharp ears, sharp fingernails that resembled claws, and long black hair. If one looked closely, there was also a red crystal implanted in the middle of its chest. If one had to describe this entity with a single word, that word would be demonic.
"Where are you going with this human, little princess?" The demonic being spoke with a large, diabolic smile on its face, showing its two rows of sharp white teeth.