Chapter 549: Intrigue

First, I want to thank everyone for their opinions and thoughts on how we should overhaul completed novels. We've reviewed nearly 2000 comments across multiple platforms and forum, and while we haven't responded to everything I can promise I HAVE read it all. First, I'm going to briefly go into some of the things which were discussed which may or may not work, because I don't want people to think I ignored anything. I'm putting those in 'spoiler' tags so people who don't care can skip it. Then, we'll talk...

Chapter 549: Intrigue

After another twenty days passed, the interior of the barrier had become tranquil. The violent storm had disappeared to reveal a pair of silver white wings. The missing flesh around the Lightning Roc bones had been replaced with precious materials, and the feathers were replaced with lightning and wind.

With this, the pair of wind and lightning wings had taken form.

Although the wings currently appeared completed, it truth, the feathers’ wind-lightning power had only just taken form and had yet to stabilize. As a result, the clearly exhausted Feng Xi had forced himself to pour even more magic power into the barrier, fearing that their previous efforts would go to waste.

Feng Xi felt quite gloomy as he did this. He had originally believed that the three drops of spirit milk that he had specially acquired for them would be sufficient. But he didn’t expect that their spiritual power would be depleted while just on the verge of the wing’s completion. Fortunately, under the current circumstances he could choose to damage his Origin Qi and forcefully support it until the end. Otherwise, the magic treasure would would be lost forever and he would be inflicted with incurable regret.

But during that moment, the grade nine demon beast suddenly felt a strange fluctuation of Qi inside the room. Although it was very weak and only occurred for a short time, it was extremely pure.

He swept his gaze across the room with narrowed eyes, eventually arriving upon Han Li; Feng Xi’s face turned sullen.

Han Li revealed shock, but he immediately forced a smile. However, Feng Xi continued to coldly gaze upon him without emotion.

“Take it out!” The demon cultivator ordered.

“What does Senior want?” Han Li’s expression grew increasingly strained and artificial as he quietly withdrew his hand from his sleeve.

A cold glint flickered from Feng Xi’s eyes. He wordlessly pointed at Han Li, shooting a ball of dazzling, pulsing white light towards Han Li.

Han Li was initially stunned before he immediately released a miserable scream. He fell to the floor and thrashed about with an agonized expression as his complexion turned purple.

“Humph! If you won’t listen to words, then listen to force!” A hostile gaze flashed across Feng Xi’s face as he gazed at the small bottle that fell out of Han Li’s sleeve. With a strange expression he grabbed toward the small bottle and had it fly to his hand.”

Feng Xi glared at Han Li and bluntly said, “Is the flare of wind spirit energy unpleasant? You had consumed quite a bit of spiritual energy recently, but you’ve recovered quite a bit of it. It seems the bottle should hold some spiritual medicine. Did Fellow Daoist Li plan on taking advantage of our deprived state to flee by using his recovered spiritual energy?”

After the demon cultivator ceased his technique, Han Li was barely able to stand back up. His face paled as if his scheme had been exposed.

Feng Xi glanced at the small bottle “Why, aren’t you clever? Let’s see what is in the bottle. I’ve never heard of something besides from Myriad Spirit Milk that is able to recover spiritual power in an instant.”

The flood dragon curiously said, “I’ve also never heard of such a thing. However, it has come at a useful time.”

At that moment, the demon tortoise and flood dragon were striking the barrier with incantation seals and accelerating the fusion process between the lightning and wind. Although it seemed that the demon tortoise was doing slightly better than the flood dragon, his magic power was also heavily depleted and he was barely able to persist.

Feng Xi opened the bottle with a thumping heart, catching a whiff of pure spirit Qi.

He glanced at the bottle before bringing it to his nose and taking a sniff.

The demon tortoise was unable to keep calm and closely questioned, “What is it?”

Feng Xi glared at Han Li and coldly said, “Speak!”

Han Li crestfallenly hung his head and reluctantly said, “It is a flask of diluted Myriad Year Spirit Milk.”

When the demon tortoise heard him, his spirit trembled with surprised delight, “What? You also have Myriad Year Spirit Milk?”

As the three demons didn’t believe that their magic power could persist until the end, they were greatly overjoyed.

“Humph, it’s green. It seems you mixed something else within it too. And it has heavy wood spiritual Qi.” Feng Xi examined the small bottle with suspicion.

Han Li bitterly smiled and sincerely answered, “I mixed a few aged spiritual medicines within it. Because I practice a wood-attribute cultivation art, wood-attribute spiritual Qi would naturally be of great benefit to me.”

Feng Xi frowned and thought to ask more when the demon tortoise loudly yelled, “Brother Feng, quickly pass the spirit milk over and let me drink it. I know that although we will be able to persist with great difficulty, we will overdraft our Origin Qi and cause our cultivation to decline. I need to replenish my spiritual Qi.” The demon tortoise feared that Feng Xi wouldn’t agree and grew anxious.

Feng Xi hesitantly responded, “Of course I know that, but this spirit milk...”

After a moment of silence, the flood dragon said, “Brother Feng! I can sense the pure spiritual Qi from so far away. It is Myriad Spirit Milk without a doubt. Even if the spirit milk was sabotaged, what harm will it do to us? Moreover, I am a Venomous Flood Dragon, a devourer of all poisons. Even if the bottle is poisoned, it will have no effect against me.”

It appeared they both didn’t wish to squander their Origin Qi.

“Hehe! I had nearly forgotten about Brother Wu’s innate poison ability. Since this is the case, let us split the spirit milk into three. This way, we won’t suffer much damage to our true essence after we complete the refinement.” Feng Xi silently smiled and stretched his neck back, pouring a third of the spirit milk down his throat. He then tossed the bottle to the Venomous Flood Dragon with a chuckle.

As a grade nine demon beast, he had no fear of any poison, and since the spiritual Qi was genuine, he had no thoughts of letting it go.

The flood dragon caught the small bottle and drank half of what was left in the bottle before handing it off to the demon tortoise.

The demon tortoise then impatiently gulped the rest of the spirit milk and flung the small bottle to the side.

Not long after, the three felt some of their magic power recover, and they let out a breath of relief. Feng Xi not longer held any of his original suspicions in mind.

At that moment, a cold glint flickered in the flood dragon’s eyes as he sent Feng Xi a voice transmission, “When we’re done refining the treasure, the human cultivator will no longer have a use. Let me finish him off. The human makes for an irksome presence!” When the flood dragon finished speaking, he coldly swept his gaze over Han Li and displayed harsh killing intent.

Feng Xi unconsciously turned his gaze to Han Li and indifferently said, “Don’t get rid of him for the time being. Although we won’t need his wood-attribute spiritual Qi in the following days, it is better to be careful. You can kill him after the wings have finished.”

“Fine, then the human will have a few more days to live!” The flood dragon’s tone was unsatisfied, but he decided to agree to wait in the end.

Han Li had only seen their lips move and was unable to know what they said. However, his body broke into a chill when their hostile gazes fell upon him and he could faintly guess what they were talking about.

His face grew unsightly after some thought and he wordlessly sat down cross-legged on the floor. He then slowly closed his eyes as if he were resigned to death.

The three demons paused after seeing this, but they paid no more attention to Han Li and completely focused their attention on the spirit wings.

In truth, Han Li’s heart was heavily thumping at that moment. He was slowly transferring slivers of faint gold lightning from his Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords into his body, controlling it so it wouldn’t erupt. Afterwards, layers of Divine Devilbane Lightning began to densely coil around the ball of wind spirit energy that Feng Xi had planted within him.

The Wind Spirit Energy wasn’t something that Han Li could refine at his current cultivation, and it wasn’t something that the Devilbane lightning could cleanly dissolve. However, he could restrain it for the time being and prevent it from flaring out, drawing from his experience in binding the Celestial Ice Pearl.

At that moment, the demon tortoise had recovered a portion of his spiritual power. Just as he effortlessly continued to pour spiritual power into the light barrier, he glanced at the flood dragon and suddenly thought of something. He thought to say something, but his mouth suddenly trembled and his expression twisted. With an odd gaze in his eyes, the demon tortoise ceased sending spiritual power into the light barrier and fell to the ground. His mouth was wide open, but not the slightest sound was produced.

An astonishing scene followed. The demon’s abdomen had suddenly expanded.

In the following moment, his head and limbs also began to swell with protrusions as if evil spirits had suddenly emerged from within his body and wished to break free.

When the flood dragon and Feng Xi saw this, their expressions greatly changed and they simultaneously recalled the diluted spirit milk from Han Li’s small bottle.

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