Chapter 505: Memory Fragment (1)
"Senior Brother Wang, Chen Ming, you guys can stay here. I'll go deeper inside."
Looking at his two pale friends, Su Yu smiled and said, "My kill character is already at the second tier. I need to go deeper. You can stop here or maybe wait for me outside."
"Su Yu...this..."
They were paid to be here. This was an official assignment. Would it be proper for them to stop halfway?
Su Yu smiled, "It's fine. I have the kill and blood characters. The baleful qi here won't affect me, but it will be quite harsh on the two of you."
Wang Zhishan awkwardly said, "Then...we'll have to thank you, Junior Brother."
Su Yu was right. This was the furthest they could go. If they went further, something bad might happen to them. But they had hesitated to say something since they were being paid.
Su Yu said, "You can also stay here and temper your willpower for a bit. It can be quite beneficial for you as well. The environment here is quite good for toughening up your killing intent."
The two nodded in agreement. Yeah, tempering their killing intent here was a good idea. There were some other people in the pit. But most of them were minding their own business at their own little spots. Nobody was conversing with each other.
Su Yu was more impressed with those who had gone deeper. And some had even gone directly into the pit to cultivate, completely indifferent to the stench down there.
...
After leaving his two friends behind, Su Yu was able to move even faster.
While walking, he muttered softly, "Any of you found anything abnormal about that woman?"
"A seventh-stage Skysoar, also a warrior."
That was the shadow's voice. Then, an ornament in the form of a water drop hanging on Su Yu's chest spoke, "That woman isn't weak, but that's not the issue. The child with her is the issue..."
After a short pause, the water elemental said, "Something is off about the child."
"Something is off?"
Su Yu muttered doubtfully. He hadn't noticed anything.
"The water composition in his body isn't right."
Su Yu did not understand. The water elemental explained, "That child might not be an actual child. The water elemental race is very sensitive toward water. People of different ages have different water percentages. And this is especially obvious for humans. The younger one is, the higher the water percentage would be. As for that child, he has the water percentage of an adult."
The water elemental said, "I didn't discover anything specific as there is a Skysoar beside him. I can only sense his water composition. He is probably around 40 or 50 years old. He might even be older. As a cultivator, the water composition in his body will be different from a regular person, but it wouldn't be that big."
Su Yu had a pensive look. So that might be a fake child? He wasn't too surprised. That was a cultivator. Even some regular people could maintain the look of a child as an adult. Anything was possible in a world of cultivators.
Take the transformation faction as an example. Some of their students possessed transformation-related characters that would allow them to freely change their appearance.
"Not a real child..."
Su Yu laughed. Interesting. Since the soldiers knew them, it was clear they had been operating in the area for a long time. They were the members of a large local family. But the child...might actually be an adult in disguise?
Su Yu had not discovered anything. That child looked perfectly normal apart from that cold bearing. But Su Yu had assumed that the cold bearing was the result of an injury. But that cold bearing could very well be a persona because it wouldn't be convenient for the so-called child to speak.
"How's the strength of the Martial Dragon Guards stationed here?"
"They have one ninth-stage Skysoar." The shadow answered.
That was not weak at all. They were only stationed at a place like the Myriad Race Pit as the symbol of the Xia Family. Even Mountainseas would not dare to create trouble here.
But a ninth-stage Skysoar would probably not examine the young woman who was similarly a Skysoar too closely. That was basically a form of provocation. The soldier would only do so on suspicious individuals.
Su Yu did not say anything. He continued walking. Two Skysoars...that was nothing. He had two Cloudbreach beasts on him. But he still needed to be careful of any traps.
He kept going. The pressure around him kept growing stronger and the baleful qi in the air kept growing denser. Eventually, even the pathways were no longer visible. The only thing he could see was the bloody mist around him.
The mist was formed by the aura of resentment. Suddenly, the blood character in the sea of willpower shook and dispersed the bloody mist around him. The character had not absorbed any of the mist as the aura of resentment would not benefit it.
The lightning character moved as well. All around Su Yu, electrical currents lashed out and purified his surroundings. In fact, this was a way of tempering his characters. While doing so, he continued onward.
Suddenly, he noticed someone ahead of him.
At the same time he noticed that person, a voice rang out, "A war academy student is cultivating here. Please do not disturb me."
"My apologies."
Su Yu smiled and took a detour. He did not get a good look at who the other person was, but he really didn't care. He wanted to avoid any misunderstanding that he was trying to provoke the other party and invite unwanted trouble on himself.
Seeing that Su Yu had taken a detour without any hesitation, the man in the bloody mist offered a gesture of kindness. He said, "You should stop going ahead. Further ahead is the area where the corpses of the top experts are thrown. The source qi and willpower there are denser, but the baleful qi there is also very thick, making it dangerous to absorb the source qi there.
In truth, the death of a top expert would benefit a lot of people with the scattered source qi of the dead expert. A great example would be the dead Blood Fire Sect master from the previous incident.
But the source qi of the corpses here had long dispersed, and what little remained had converged to form an area filled with balefulness.
Hearing the reminder, Su Yu said, "Thank you for the reminder, Senior Brother."
Since the other party was a student, it was clear he wasn't a Skysoar yet. Thus, Su Yu had decided to politely address the other party as a senior brother.
The other man asked in astonishment, "You're an academy student as well?"
"Yeah. A cultural research academy."
"Cultural research academy? Nine Heavens or Great Xia?"
"Great Xia Cultural Research Academy."
The man grew even more astonished. He said, "Since you can remain so indifferent even this deep in, you are probably a top 100 student, right?"
Su Yu smiled, "I guess you can say so. Which academy are you from, Senior Brother?"
"Great Xia War Academy."
The two academies might not get along well with each other, but they weren't exactly enemies. Since they were fellow students, the other man turned even more friendly. He said, "You cultural researchers have a lot of tricks up your sleeve, so I won't try to stop you from going deeper. But you need to be careful. The corpses inside are all the corpses of Mountainseas. And if you go even further, you will start finding Sunmoon corpses as well. Dead Sunmoons are not as dangerous, but you still need to be careful lest the baleful qi destabilizes your sea of willpower."
"Thanks for the heads up, Senior Brother."
After thanking the other person one more time, Su Yu continued ahead.
After he left, a man walked out of the bloody mist. That was a young man who was clad in a short-sleeved shirt, with sharp facial features and short hair.
The man looked in Su Yu's direction and only saw a white, blurry figure. That must be a very strong student. The man himself was at his limits here, but that stranger was actually able to go deeper.
"Zhan Hai has broken through while both Di Feng and Jiang Mu are known to me. This guy..."
The man sank into thought. After a while, a name came to him.
Su Yu!
A new student.
Was that him?
"What a surprise encounter."
The man smiled. He also felt somewhat regretful. He could no longer participate in the exchange between the academies this year. Otherwise, he would have loved to experience the strength of this famous new student himself.
But even he could probably still go and simply take a look even if he couldn't participate anymore. His juniors would probably have a hard time this year during the exchange. This Su Yu looked like an absolutely ruthless combatant. Just look at how casually he was treating the thick baleful qi in the air.
The man tossed the matter out of his mind and resumed his cultivation.
...
Not far ahead.
Su Yu looked behind him with his brow raised. That was an expert. It was likely that this was a highly ranked student in the Infinite Strength Ranking.
That person had opened quite a lot of acupoints.
As the other person wasn't too good at concealment, Su Yu was able to sense the dense source qi around that man with his powerful willpower even when he wasn't trying. The man had at least 108 acupoints, and had even fused some of them.
Taking the fused acupoints into consideration, that person had probably opened more than 108 acupoints.
Su Yu did not dwell on that matter. He was surrounded by the bloody mist. The further he went, the heavier the pressure on him became. Even his sea of willpower was starting to be attacked.
Unfortunately for the bloody mist, this new visitor was Su Yu. Right after the mist tried to approach his sea of willpower, his hammer would lash out and scatter the mist. One could say that he was completely unaffected.
He even had the leisure to mutter to himself that this mist created by the dead experts seemed rather unimpressive.
Eventually, when the pressure on him reached a certain level, he hopped off the pathway into the pit unhesitatingly. The stench in this part of the pit was not as bad as it was in the outer area.
After all, this was the place where the corpses of the experts were thrown. And the number of dead experts would definitely be lower than the number of dead weaklings. In fact, they would often go several years without killing a single expert that could be thrown into this part of the pit.
The corpses of the myriad races would be directly taken apart for materials. Thus, only the humans of the Myriad Race Cult would be thrown here after they were killed.
He landed on a piece of dried bone. Despite its apparent age, the bone was still tough enough to handle his weight. Su Yu did not pay much attention to the bones around him. From their age, they clearly did not belong to that dead sect master. That fellow had only been dead for half a year. And as a Sunmoon, his corpse was probably still perfectly preserved.
The longer Su Yu walked, the more active his hammer became. What was the hammer doing? Pounding on the invading bloody mist.
The mist down here was somewhat different as it was also corrosive in nature. It was likely that anyone below the Skysoar Realm would have a hard time surviving down here. Even Skysoars here would probably feel the same as Su Yu: weighed down by a massive pressure.
In fact, Su Yu would do a lot worse without the hammer in his head. There was still a shadow underneath him. But in this environment, it looked rather out of place.
After all, not even the sunlight could reach this deep. Thus, it was unnatural for one to have a shadow here. But unless one paid close attention, one would probably not notice this oddity.
...
He continued walking for a few hundred meters while the pressure on him continued growing. Eventually, an empty zone appeared ahead of him. The area was akin to a vacuum of the bloody mist that filled the area.
A single headless corpse could be seen on the ground. That corpse was single-handedly repelling all the bloody mist in the area.
Su Yu raised his brow.
Headless?
How cruel. Why had Xia Longwu removed this person's head? This sect master had died without even leaving a complete corpse behind.
Su Yu started wondering about the whereabouts of the missing head.
A Sunmoon warrior was capable of regrowing their body from a drop of blood. But due to the sheer strength of Xia Longwu, he had been able to eliminate all vitality in the body of this sect master with a single slash, making it impossible for the dead sect master to regrow his head.
At this moment, the water elemental trembled, "So strong!"
He wasn't referring to the dead sect master. Rather, he was referring to Xia Longwu. He had used only a single slash to kill this Sunmoon.
Just like how he had killed the master of the Blood Fire Sect the other day.
With a heavy tone, the water elemental said, "Don't go nearer. You might not be able to touch this corpse. The saber qi is concealed within, but Prefect Xia is too strong. The moment you cause the saber qi to scatter, you might be instantly killed."
Su Yu said, "I know. It will be fine. I also cultivate the Sky Sundering Saber. Since my cultivation method and the saber qi in the corpse have the same origin, I will be fine."
He was aware of the danger involved in this. Thus, he had done his research beforehand. Xia Longwu had killed this person with the Sky Sundering Saber. Since he cultivated the same method, unless he was an enemy, he would probably be left unharmed by the saber qi.
He walked ahead slowly with all 144 acupoints of the Sky Sundering Saber within his body shining brightly. His own saber qi came together to protect his body.
He might have claimed that he was unafraid, but he did not forget to say, "If the saber qi does end up attacking me, tank the attack for me while I run."
"..."
Both the water elemental and shadow were left speechless.
What an asshole!
They might end up dead doing that! That was the saber qi of someone near the Invincible Realm, also the same saber qi that had taken the life of a Sunmoon. Not even the two of them would be able to withstand it. If this bastard wanted to die, he might as well tell them to kill him and be done with it.