Standing on the edge of the cliff, the long-furred fiend looked down.

Tang Jie’s body plummeted downward and gradually faded from sight.

The fiend nodded in satisfaction, its giant body turning around to head back.

After walking a few steps, the fiend suddenly stopped, turned around, and lashed out with a claw.

The savage claw struck a sharp blade, creating a furious shockwave of energy in the dark tunnel. The fiend howled as it was pushed back. In front of it, Tang Jie appeared, striding through the air with Xi Canhen in his left hand and his saber in his right, pointed at the fiend as he coldly spoke.

“What an idiot creature. It doesn’t even know that cultivators can fly.”

The fiend roared at Tang Jie, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. It then flung its sharp claws at the rock walls, scratching out a large number of stones and flinging them at Tang Jie.

A barrage of stones deluged him.

As these ordinary pieces of stone flew out, they flashed with energy. Tang Jie’s gaze chilled, and he began to wave around the Heartbreak Saber, creating a fierce gale.

With a great din, Tang Jie used his saber to shatter each stone. In a rare sight, Tang Jie paled, clearly hard-pressed by the barrage. He blurted, “Earth Devil Ape!”

The long-furred fiend howled in response, looking at Tang Jie with eyes tinged with derision.

The Earth Devil Ape was a rarely-seen kind of fiend.

The Earth Devil Ape was innately inclined to Earth, and it had a tough hide and immense strength. Its combat style was extremely simple: throwing stones. But this most simple combat method exhibited its extremely aggressive nature.

Every time the Earth Devil Ape threw a stone, it would apply Earth-type spiritual energy to it. This was an innate gift that didn’t require any sort of spell art or comprehension, nor was there a need to think about how many stones there were or how large they were. Just by holding a stone in its hand, the process occurred as naturally as breathing.

When the stones wrapped in spirit power were thrown out by the ape, they were so powerful that they could overwhelm all spell arts of the same level. It was a strong sort among its peers.

But this fiend had a fatal flaw: its intelligence was not affected by its level. Apes were extremely smart creatures, and at Spirit Sensing, they were much smarter than average fiends, and the Earth Devil Ape was a standout in this aspect. But while other fiends could speak upon reaching Mind Opening, the Earth Devil Ape was the exact opposite. Mind Opening increased their strength, but it had no effect on their intelligence. Just like before, they were nothing but a pack of smart monkeys.

This Earth Devil Ape was a Mind Opening fiend, unable to talk, only able to angrily glare at Tang Jie. When it saw that Tang Jie had fended off its first salvo, it crazily roared and once more slapped the rock wall. Countless stones showered down, and with a single palm, the big monkey set those stones flying at Tang Jie.

The saber flashed as it once more crushed that rain of stones.

The Earth Devil Ape angrily roared and began to grab and throw again.

It was in the tunnel while Tang Jie was floating over the abyss at the end of the tunnel, but this short distance was enough for the Earth Devil Ape to flaunt its power. Countless stones spat out of the tunnel like the fire of a heavy machine gun. The air was filled with streaking stones, and the powder of shattered stones formed a white fog. Tang Jie was forced to fall back.

Tang Jie was also starting to get angry.

In truth, while he was being pushed back partially because the Earth Devil Ape was strong, it was also because of Xi Canhen.

As he was carrying around Xi Canhen, Tang Jie couldn’t use the Chaoswind Step. For the same reason, Tang Jie also couldn’t risk injury to go blow for blow. After all, a single stone would be enough to take Xi Canhen’s life. This forced him to do nothing but defend. And he couldn’t throw Xi Canhen back into the tunnel either, as they were in the middle of a deluge of stones. Doing so would be the same as killing him.

The Earth Devil Ape’s salvo increased in intensity, and it seemed like it had no plans to stop until Tang Jie was dead. Tang Jie knew that this wasn’t going to work out, so after some thought, he began to descend.

As the Earth Devil Ape was in the tunnel, it lost sight of Tang Jie and instinctively moved forward.

Upon coming to the edge, it saw Tang Jie still floating in the air with Xi Canhen in tow, but he had put away the Heartbreak Saber. His right hand was forming some bizarre hand sign that was creating strange ripples in the air.

The Earth Devil Ape was startled. It seemed to realize something and swiped at the stone walls next to it, grabbing a large number of rocks. But rather than attacking with them, it lined them up in front of it as a stone shield.

Tang Jie looked up at the ape and whispered, “You’re defending the wrong direction.”

Whoosh!

A snow-white blade lit up the air over the abyss like a lightning bolt, banishing the darkness.

The Earth Devil Ape raised its head in shock, and saw a handleless crescent blade flying through the air, long chains trailing behind it as it descended.

The ape howled in fear.

A moment later, the Heavenly Blade swept through the Earth Devil Ape’s enormous body in a gusher of blood.

After circling in the air, the Heavenly Blade was pulled back up on the chain and disappeared. It was like it had never appeared, only leaving a few drops of blood on the ground.

The Earth Devil Ape’s body swayed, and then it fell into two parts.

The lower half fell in the tunnel while the upper half toppled over and into the abyss.

Tang Jie raised his hand and grabbed the Earth Devil Ape. This was still a Mind Opening fiend and could be dismantled and sold.

As he grabbed it, he found the hide of the ape to be very tough, suitable for leather armor.

From this, one could see the power of the Heavenly Blades. It had been capable of killing this ape in one strike, so it was no wonder it was said that it could even kill Celestial Heart experts.

The Heavenly Blade that Tang Jie had comprehended was still far from the Heavenly Vortex Blades of the Jade Gate Heaven Seal Formation, but even this basic version could kill a Mortal Shedding expert without a problem. As he deepened his understanding of the Heavenly Blades, its power would rise, and one day, it would reach the level of the Jade Court’s Heavenly Blades.

This was precisely why the Heavenly Blade was comparable to the spell arts of the Divine Firmament Sword Classic in power, perhaps even exceeding many of them.

Of the three spell arts that Tang Jie had learned, the Formless Golden Body covered defense, the Violet Lightning Lunge covered speed, and the Divine Court Thousandshift was an all-around spell art, but he had always lacked a powerful offensive art. This was exactly why he didn’t particularly stand out when it came to power. But now that he had the Heavenly Blade, he finally had an extremely powerful spell art, resolving this major weakness. Tang Jie was very satisfied with the results.

He returned to the tunnel with the corpse and Xi Canhen. After placing Xi Canhen on the ground, he realized that the youth hadn’t made a single sound.

He hadn’t fainted, simply watched with wide eyes as Tang Jie fought, not even crying out.

Tang Jie was rather surprised. “You’ve got a lot of guts.”

Xi Canhen dropped to his knees. “Young Master, thank you for saving this life. If Young Master does not mind, Canhen is willing to serve Young Master for the rest of his life!”

This youth knew that in that situation just now, most cultivators would have given up on him. It had been very righteous of Tang Jie to go so far, so Xi Canhen was deeply grateful. After speaking, he kowtowed three times.

Tang Jie hadn’t expected rescuing this youth would cause him to want to serve him. Frowning, he said, “It was no trouble at all, so there’s no need for this.”

Xi Canhen replied, “Young Master saved my life twice, helped me with my grudge, guided me to the Dao, and even granted a treasure to me! How could I not repay all this kindness? Young Master is an Immortal cultivator, so if I follow Young Master, I might be able to bask in a little of your light.”

With this last sentence, he mischievously smiled.

Tang Jie laughed. “You’re quite the clever kid.”

The youth spoke about repaying kindness, but he actually wanted to use this chance to get a rich backer and escape this life of hardship.

Tang Jie didn’t mind. In any case, he found this child to be smart, a workable talent. After all, he himself was this sort of person, so he naturally understood the mindset of a youth like Xi Canhen.

After some thought, he said, “Get up. Let’s see how you do first.”

Although he hadn’t agreed, his words indicated that he was somewhat amenable to the idea, which left Xi Canhen overjoyed. He quickly cleared part of the tunnel with his hands and pointed at the ground. “Young Master, please sit.”

Then he began to massage Tang Jie’s back.

He had never been a servant before and didn’t know how to attend on someone, so he just tried his best to be polite and attentive. As for whether or not Tang Jie wanted to sit here or needed a back massage, he never even considered these questions.

But Tang Jie felt an indescribable pleasure from being addressed as “Young Master”. In the past, he had to attend Wei Tianchong and call Wei Tianchong “Young Master”, but now, he was being called that.

Alas, this young master was still part of the Wei Clan, and he would remain part of the clan until Wei Tianchong reached Celestial Heart. Thus, he could not set up his own clan. In this aspect, it was not exactly proper to call him “Young Master”. Of course, it would be okay if this youth were a Wei Clan servant.

Oh, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, Tang Jie realized.

At this moment, he happened to hear Xi Canhen say, “Young Master, this fiend normally goes into hiding whenever a cultivator appears, so I don’t know why it suddenly appeared this time. However, we really owe Young Master for removing this threat to the mine. But what do we do now?”

“There’s no need to rush. Let me handle this fiend first.” Tang Jie had Xi Canhen stop massaging him and began to leisurely dismantle the fiend.

Once he had finished dismantling and packing up the fiend, Tang Jie stood up and casually said, “Let’s go and take a stroll around the other tunnels.”

“Young Master, are you not searching for Crystallized Sandworms anymore?” Xi Canhen asked.

Tang Jie replied, “We didn’t find any, so I was probably wrong about it.”

Xi Canhen scratched the back of his head. After some thought, he said, “If that’s the case, then Young Master should take mine.”

He offered the black stone, though there was great reluctance in his eyes.

Tang Jie chuckled. “I’ve already given it to you, so how can I take it back? Let’s go. There’s not much time left, and the sooner we’re done, the sooner we can head back.”

“Mm.”

Tang Jie continued to make his way around the mine.

Following the youth, Tang Jie quickly traversed all of the mine’s many crisscrossing tunnels. Wherever he went, he would make a mark on the ground so that he could keep track of where he had been.

He arrived at the last tunnel, a small tunnel located in the depths of the mine. Standing in the narrow tunnel, Tang Jie looked around and said, “This is the last one!”

“Mm, it’s also where the first miner went missing. Once a fiend appeared in the mine, this place was sealed off, and no one has been here since,” Xi Canhen replied.

Tang Jie inserted spiritual energy into the wall and sensed for a few moments before shaking his head. “There’s not much spirit stone, nor are there any sandworms. It seems like my luck isn’t too good.”

Though he said that his luck wasn’t good, there was no vexation on his face. He simply stood there, seemingly pondering something.

He suddenly took out his beast token and let out the little tiger.

While the little guy was still trying to understand what was going around, Tang Jie grabbed the back of his head.

This was a hint that he should roar loudly.

Up until now, Tang Jie had banned the tiger from roaring, but he had made an exception this time. Delighted, the tiger let out an energetic roar.

This kingly tiger roar echoed through the entire mine. The miners still inside immediately threw down their picks and ran away.

Tang Jie quietly stood there, seemingly waiting for something.

A few moments later, Tang Jie suddenly turned around and looked behind him, his face abnormally grim.

He looked into the depths of the tunnel, in the direction of the abyss. A strange buzzing could be heard from there.

“Shit,” Tang Jie muttered as he took a few steps back. Grabbing the tiger and stuffing him back into the beast token, he turned and shouted, “Go!”

Xi Canhen was still dazed, so Tang Jie grabbed him and ran.

The youth finally saw a large swarm of moths rising up from the abyss.

These moths were each as large as a leather ball, their abdomens bulging. When flying, their wings released large amounts of gray dust that engulfed the entirety of the tunnel. Their mouths had sharp suckers that were more appropriate on mosquitoes than moths.

The youth was scared out of his wits by this giant swarm of fiend moths, crying out, “What is that!?”

“These are Deadland Venomoths. They’re too venomous to approach. Come on, let’s go! Guide me instead of looking behind you!” Tang Jie shouted.

Deadland Venomoths were a terrifyingly venomous kind of fiend. Putting aside the fact that he had only the basic Jewel Body, even greater attainment in the Jewel Body wouldn’t let him resist their venom. This was a savage poison that could even kill Celestial Heart experts. They got their name because their poison turned wherever they went into a dead land.

The youth turned his head and pointed. “Turn this way!”

Tang Jie made a right turn, the pack of venomous moths continuing to chase him.

These moths were rather fast and approaching rapidly. The leading moth had already locked onto Tang Jie, and its abdomen suddenly deflated as green liquid shot out of its long sucker.

Tang Jie suddenly kicked against a wall, changing direction and charging into another tunnel. The green liquid landed on the rock wall behind him, instantly melting it away in a large cloud of smoke, leaving Xi Canhen trembling in fear.

If this liquid hit a human, wouldn’t that person instantly melt!?

He hadn’t known that the most terrifying thing about Deadland Venomoths was the venom in their abdomen. Let alone rock walls, it could even dissolve a cultivator’s spiritual barrier. One or two moths weren’t much of a problem, but with so many gathered here, if they all ejected their venom, even a god would find it hard to resist.

Tang Jie continued to sprint away, and behind him, green liquid continued to shoot out, striking the rock walls around him and melting them away.

Tang Jie was like a hero running away amid a hail of bullets.

Dodging left and right, zigging and zagging!

Xi Canhen frantically shouted. Tang Jie was running too fast, so Xi Canhen could no longer worry about getting to the exit, only that they didn’t run into a dead end. But at least he hadn’t been lying about his familiarity with the tunnels, as none of his directions led Tang Jie astray.

After they had run for a long time, the flashing green lights behind them finally stopped.

The moths had stopped chasing.

Whew!

Xi Canhen finally sighed in relief. He plopped onto the ground, fear still on his face.

While the flight had been brief, the stimulation it had provided was no less than that of the Earth Devil Ape. After all, these were existences that had made his young master run.

He looked at Tang Jie and said, “Young Master, you used that tiger of yours to draw out those moths, right? You knew that there were other fiends around!”

Tang Jie shook his head and smiled. “I didn’t know. I was just bored and let out my tiger so he could get some air. I didn’t think that he would roar so loudly.”

Xi Canhen was dumbfounded by what he was hearing. Tang Jie grabbed him and said, “Alright, let’s go. This matter is done, and we’ve checked everything we needed to check. We can go back and report now.”

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“But the moths!”

“Forget about the moths, Canhen. They won’t come out if they’re not disturbed. There’s no need to worry.”

“But they came out just now.”

“You have to get a tiger to provoke them first.”

He walked out of the mine with Xi Canhen. Qiu Shuyu and the others were waiting outside.

Upon seeing Tang Jie, Qiu Shuyu strode over. “Young Master Tang, are you okay? A large number of miners ran out just now, saying that a tiger had suddenly roared inside and that a fiend might have appeared. I was frantic with worry, but alas, the rules of the Basking Moon Sect prevented me from entering the mine and going to your aid.”

Tang Jie replied, “It’s nothing. I just ran into an Earth Devil Ape. The ape was at the Mind Opening level and had the terrain advantage. I couldn’t beat it alone, so I let out my pet fiend tiger to help me fight it. But it was so engrossed in fighting that it managed to scare off the miners.”

He let out the little tiger.

Everyone saw that it really was Tang Jie’s pet fiend tiger and sighed in relief.

Qiu Shuyu’s eyes brightened. “So Young Master is saying that you’ve already found and killed that Earth Devil Ape?!”

“Exactly.”

“That’s wonderful!” The Stone Gate Sect elders were delighted.

Yu Wanniang said, “This fiend was crafty, always hiding whenever a cultivator showed up. It took numerous lives while in that cave. Now that the honored emissary has intervened and eliminated this fiend, the miners no longer need to worry. This is truly something worth celebrating.”

“That’s right, that’s right!” But while the others voiced their congratulations, Shi Jingzhai seemed glum. It appeared that he had some objection toward Tang Jie, but he wasn’t willing to say it.

Tang Jie was very considerate, taking out the hide, bones, and fiend pellet of the Earth Devil Ape. “In the end, this fiend was found on the territory of the Stone Gate Sect. While I killed it, the Stone Gate Sect should have a share. Moreover, Tang Jie is grateful for all the consideration these True Persons have shown me, so please, take the remains of the fiend as a sign of my gratitude. I hope that you can accept this meager gift from me.”

He wanted to present the Earth Devil Ape as a gift to them.

Qiu Shuyu and the others were stunned. Meanwhile, Tang Jie gave Qiu Shuyu the bones, Liang Xingbang the claws, Yu Wanniang the hide, and the most valuable fiend pellet to Shi Jingzhai. He respectfully said, “I comprehended the art of your esteemed sect’s formation, but I had no gift to express my gratitude. I seek forgiveness for my ignorance and rude words, so I present this fiend pellet to True Person as a gift, seeking a pardon from True Person for my earlier discourtesy.”

Shi Jingzhai looked at Tang Jie in shock, and then he looked at the fiend pellet in his hand. Only then did he finally squeeze out a response: “Oh.”

It looks like Tang Jie killed Shi Jingzhai’s little pet. Though why did Shi Jingzhai have an ape running around in the mines in the first place? And how do the moths factor into all this?