55: Chapter 55 Blood-Vine: Using Someone Else to Do Murder!

A few days later, in the Xuantian Sect Inner Sect, Nether Grass Field.

Qi Yang had just stabilized his cultivation at the half-step Qi Condensation 9th Layer and was squatting in the field, making a show of weeding.

Suddenly, a wave of unusual activity came through his perception network.

A middle-aged man wearing the attire of an Inner Sect Spirit Plant House steward was walking in large strides down the stone steps.

This person was named Huo De, with a cultivation of the Qi Condensation 9th Layer, and he was the new steward who replaced Jiang Duosheng.

Qi Yang did not raise his head and continued weeding, but the Poison Wood Spiritual Power within his body had already quietly converged.

Huo De walked up to the edge of the field, looked down condescendingly at Qi Yang, and a trace of greed and disdain flashed in his eyes.

This time when he came, he had received a heavy bribe from Second Elder Lu Wei of the Luoxia Sect!

Five hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, just to test an old coot!

"Qi Yang!"

Huo De shouted coldly.

Qi Yang trembled all over as if frightened, hurriedly dropped his hoe, and ran over with a hunchbacked waist.

"Steward Huo, why did you come in person? Could it be that this old man's planting of the nether grass does not conform to the rules?"

As Qi Yang spoke, he began to cough violently, his complexion pale as paper.

Huo De did not waste words; he stared fixedly at Qi Yang, his palm hidden within his wide sleeve robes, quietly shattering a pale yellow Talisman.

Grade 2 spirit-detecting Talisman!

This kind of Talisman had no offensive power whatsoever, but it could see through the true cultivation of Cultivators in the Qi Refining Stage, and even concealing Cultivation Techniques would find it extremely difficult to escape its detection!

"Hum!"

A barely perceptible, strange fluctuation enveloped Qi Yang's entire body.

How acute was Qi Yang's perception?

The moment Huo De shattered the Talisman, he sensed something was amiss!

"Spirit-detecting Talisman? This bastard wants to check my background!"

Qi Yang sneered in his heart.

Without the slightest hesitation, he bit open a modified grade 2 wuxiang pill hidden under his tongue.

The medicinal power dissolved, tightly sealing his massive Qi Sea of the half-step Qi Condensation 9th Layer and his Poison Wood Spiritual Power, and even forcefully suppressing his life aura to the lowest point!

The fluctuation of the spirit-detecting Talisman swept across Qi Yang's Dantian.

Huo De closed his eyes and sensed carefully.

"Empty... The Dantian is shriveled, the Spiritual Roots are overwhelmingly impure, and the spiritual power is so weak that even the Qi Condensation Third Layer is a stretch..."

"Not only that, but a large amount of nether grass cold poison has also accumulated in the Meridians, and his vitality has already begun to dissipate. This old fellow can live for at most another ten or eight years!"

Huo De opened his eyes, the vigilance at the bottom of his eyes completely turning into disdain.

That Second Elder of the Luoxia Sect was truly senile, actually spending five hundred Spirit Stones to have him test such a waste who was on the verge of dying from illness!

"Cough, cough, cough... Lord Steward, this old man... this old man's physique is getting worse and worse. I'm afraid I won't be able to hold out much longer against the cold Qi of this nether grass..."

Clutching his chest, Qi Yang abruptly coughed out a large mouthful of black blood mixed with ice shards, his entire person tottering as if a gust of wind could blow him over.

He did not kneel and beg for mercy; he simply portrayed an old farmer ravaged by time and cold poison to the absolute extreme.

Huo De took two steps back in disgust, afraid of getting stained by Qi Yang's dirty blood.

"All right, all right! Stop acting pitiful in front of me! Since you're not dead, farm properly for me! If you delay the Sect's quota, I'll throw you directly into the Heifeng Mine!"

Cursing and muttering, Huo De turned around and left, feeling that taking even one more glance at Qi Yang was bad luck.

The test was already over, and he had to hurry and reply to the people of the Luoxia Sect, completely pocketing those five hundred Spirit Stones.

Watching Huo De's departing back, Qi Yang wiped the black blood from the corner of his mouth, his hunchbacked spine straightening bit by bit, and a spine-chilling cold flash swept through his turbid old eyes.

"Using a spirit-detecting Talisman to test me? It seems those old dogs from the Luoxia Sect have followed the vine to find their way to my doorstep."

Qi Yang was well aware that although he had fooled them today, as long as they were still investigating, the danger would always exist.

The Dao of staying low was not sitting at home waiting to die, but silently snuffing out in the cradle every danger that could expose oneself!

"Huo De, is it? Since you took dirty money to come after me, don't blame me for using you as a shield."

Late at night, Xuantian Sect Inner Sect.

Qi Yang changed into a featureless night-travel outfit, attached a qi-suppressing talisman, and left the Nether Grass Field like a ghost.

He did not directly go find Huo De to fight to the death.

Huo De was at the Qi Condensation 9th Layer and also a steward of the Spirit Plant House; killing him would inevitably attract a thorough investigation by the Law Enforcement Hall.

What Qi Yang wanted to do was kill with a borrowed knife!

During the day when Huo De came to test him, Qi Yang's perception network not only detected the spirit-detecting Talisman, but also captured a trace of a covert yet sickening blood fiend aura on Huo De's body.

Qi Yang was far too familiar with this kind of aura; it was cut from the same cloth as the scent on the demonic Cultivators of the Blood Fiend Sect!

"An Inner Sect steward of the Xuantian Sect, how could he have such heavy evil Qi on his body?"

Following a trace of Wood-attribute Spiritual Power imprint left on Huo De during the day, Qi Yang tracked him all the way.

In the end, Qi Yang's footsteps stopped outside an abandoned medicinal field in the back mountain of the Inner Sect.

Because the Spiritual Qi of the earth veins had dried up, this medicinal field had long been abandoned by the Sect, and usually not even a ghost's shadow could be seen here.

But at this moment, a faint red light emanated from within a hidden Formation in the deepest part of the medicinal field.

Lurking in the shadows, Qi Yang transformed his perceptive power into a thin needle, piercing through the edge of the Formation.

The sight inside the Formation made Qi Yang gasp in a breath of cold air.

He saw that Huo De was sitting cross-legged on a patch of scarlet soil.

In front of him grew a bizarre vine that was completely blood-red and shaped like a venomous snake!

The leaves of this vine were covered with patterns resembling human faces, and it was greedily sucking the essential blood dripping from Huo De!

"Blood-vein vine!"

Qi Yang recognized the origin of this evil object at a glance.

This was a kind of evil Spiritual Plant strictly forbidden by Righteous Path Sects to be cultivated!

It not only needed to consume the essential blood of Cultivators to grow, but after maturing, it could also be refined into a Blood Devil Pill that violently increases cultivation.

But the price was that the user would gradually lose their sanity and degenerate into a bloodthirsty Devil Head who only knew how to slaughter!

"No wonder this grandson is insatiably greedy and even dared to take the Luoxia Sect's dirty money; so he was secretly cultivating a blood-vein vine behind the Sect's back! He wanted to rely on this evil medicine to forcibly sprint to the Qi Refining Tenth Layer!"

Qi Yang sneered repeatedly in his heart.

This was simply a handle delivered right to his door by the heavens!

As long as this matter was poked out, Huo De would definitely die without a burial site.

Moreover, the clue of the Luoxia Sect buying off Huo De to test him would also be completely severed with Huo De's capture!

But Qi Yang did not go to the Law Enforcement Hall to report him.

Reporting required evidence and would also expose himself.

Qi Yang quietly circled around to the downwind side of the Formation, took out the black gourd from the Storage Pouch, and carefully poured out a drop of mysterious emerald-green liquid.

This green liquid had the Heaven-Defying effect of rapidly ripening all kinds of Spiritual Plants, but Qi Yang had no intention of letting Huo De benefit from it.

He diluted the green liquid with clean water over a hundred times, then fused it into a trace of his own Poison Wood Spiritual Power, transforming it into a barely perceptible drizzle of Spiritual Qi. Slipping through the gaps of the Formation, it precisely drifted onto the roots of that blood-vein vine.

"Enjoy yourself thoroughly."

Having finished all this, Qi Yang did not stay for a single moment, directly turning and escaping into the night, returning to the Nether Grass Field.

The next morning.

The Xuantian Sect Inner Sect suddenly erupted with a piercing alarm sound!

"Enemy attack! A demonic Cultivator has sneaked into the back mountain!"

"Such heavy blood fiend aura! Disciples of the Law Enforcement Hall, hear my order, immediately seal off the abandoned medicinal field in the back mountain!"

The entire Inner Sect exploded into an uproar.

Several streaks of escaping light from Foundation Establishment Stage Elders soared into the sky, heading straight for the back mountain.

At this moment, the abandoned medicinal field had already turned into a living hell.

That blood-vein vine, which was originally only half a person tall, underwent a terrifying mutation overnight after absorbing that drop of diluted green liquid from Qi Yang!

It frantically grew to a height of over ten zhang, its thick vines resembling countless blood-red giant pythons, shattering the entire hidden Formation into pieces!

The soaring blood fiend aura erupted without any concealment, alarming the entire Sect.

As for Huo De, this steward of the Qi Condensation 9th Layer, at this moment he was tightly bound in midair by over a dozen blood-red vines.

After going berserk, the blood-vein vine directly treated its master who cultivated it as nourishment!

Over half of Huo De's essential blood was sucked dry, his entire body shriveled like a dried corpse, letting out a shrill and desperate scream.

"Save me! Elder, save me..."

Before Huo De could finish shouting, he was slapped by the rushing Law Enforcement Hall Elder, shattering his protective spiritual light, and together with that berserk blood-vein vine, blasted into charcoal by the violent Spell!

"Abomination! As an Inner Sect steward, you actually dared to privately cultivate an evil plant, your death is deserved!"

Huo De was dead.

He died at the hands of the evil plant he cultivated himself, not even leaving the Law Enforcement Hall a chance to search his soul!