Shadow Demon Panther

"Long Chen, this is the Rocky Wasteland. I am only responsible for bringing you here; the rest is entirely up to you. I really hope you can return to the Branch Courtyard alive."

That Elder patted Long Chen on the shoulder, jumped onto the Harrier Eagle, and flew off in the direction of the Branch Courtyard.

This was a wasteland spanning over ten thousand miles, surrounded by jagged boulders and endless wild grass, appearing exceptionally desolate.

Beneath a boulder reaching a hundred zhang in height, Long Chen watched the direction in which the Elder had departed, a trace of gratitude appearing in his eyes.

Beside Long Chen, a silver centipede over five zhang long lay motionless, already severed into two pieces.

It was that Elder who had struck; this was the territory of the Silver Centipede. After killing the Silver Centipede, this place would remain very safe for a short period.

Furthermore, that Elder was clearly taking special care of Long Chen; the Silver Centipede he had killed was a Second-Tier, Middle Stage, Peak Demonic Beast, which was extremely powerful.

Normally, no Demonic Beast would dare to run wild in its territory, giving Long Chen sufficient time to explore the surroundings.

Walking to the side of the centipede's corpse, Long Chen used his long saber to pry open the Silver Centipede's head, finding two huge poison sacs inside.

One must know that besides its hard shell, the most terrifying aspect of the Silver Centipede was its toxicity.

The poisonous mist it sprayed could instantly cover a radius of several miles. Most terrifyingly, its venom possessed immense corrosiveness; except for crustacean-type Demonic Beasts, practically nothing could defend against this deadly poison.

After collecting the poison sacs, Long Chen took out a huge bucket and began to collect the essence blood of the Silver Centipede.

However, it was a pity that for crustacean-type Demonic Beasts, essence blood was extremely scarce; Long Chen only collected a little less than a hundred catties.

Although it was a bit less, Long Chen was already very satisfied. What he wanted was not its essence blood, but its venom.

He had searched for a long time before getting that Elder to strike. As it turned out, with a wave of the Elder's long sword, a streak of Sword Qi had killed this powerful Silver Centipede, making Long Chen feel incredibly envious.

He put the Silver Centipede's essence blood into a bucket, but the current essence blood was not yet true essence blood; it still needed to be processed.

He took out a pill and tossed it into the bucket. The blood inside immediately began to boil, with countless bubbles emerging as if it were a boiling pot.

Countless vapors rose up, and a foul odor permeated the air. However, fortunately, the toxins within the Silver Centipede's essence blood were not strong. Although he felt a bit dizzy, he was fine after holding an anti-toxin pill in his mouth.

A full half-hour passed, and the essence blood inside the bucket was still boiling, but no more steam was rising, and the blood was becoming increasingly viscous.

"Hehe, it's ready."

Long Chen smiled slightly and took out a medicine pouch filled with medicinal powder. These were the secret formulas Long Chen had refined, which was also the non-disclosed secret of the Xuantian Branch Courtyard—the formula for the Ten Thousand Beast Essence Blood.

"Crackling."

As he poured the medicinal powder into the essence blood, a series of crackling sounds erupted from within the bucket, and the fishy smell of the blood became even more intense.

Long Chen knew that the medicinal powder was taking effect, beginning to frantically stimulate the activity within the essence blood. More than an hour later, the blood began to calm down.

"It can begin."

Long Chen took a deep breath. Although he was extremely confident in the memories of the Pill Emperor, facing the Ten Thousand Beast Essence Blood he had created himself, he was still somewhat nervous.

"You must succeed. I'm counting on you. If this fails, I'm going to die here."

Long Chen prayed in his heart, gritted his teeth, stretched out his large hand, and reached into the bucket. His Spiritual Qi circulated, and he began to frantically absorb the essence blood within the bucket.

Like a whale drinking water, the essence blood in the bucket immediately hit the bottom as it was all absorbed into Long Chen's body, where it began to undergo frantic transformation.

"Hahaha, the effect is exactly the same!"

After Long Chen initially transformed it, he couldn't help but feel ecstatic. The Ten Thousand Beast Essence Blood he had created was exactly the same as the one issued by the Branch Courtyard; he had succeeded.

"Whew."

He expelled the Impurities from the essence blood out of his body, and the remaining active essence within the blood began to be frantically absorbed by Long Chen.

Originally, Long Chen had just advanced to the Seventh Heaven of Blood Condensation. According to normal Cultivation speed, it would take Long Chen at least two months to saturate the blood in his body before he could proceed to the next Breakthrough.

But now with this method, Long Chen's Cultivation speed had greatly increased. As long as he had enough Demonic Beast essence blood, he could continuously advance until he broke through to the Tendon Tempering Realm.

"Whew."

Long Chen let out a soft breath and felt the blood within his body, a smile appearing on his face.

"Hehe, this bucket of essence blood is enough for half a month of my Cultivation."

This made Long Chen incredibly excited, as it could greatly shorten his advancement process and save extremely precious time.

After tidying up his things, he found a huge cave beneath the giant boulder; that was the Silver Centipede's nest, and now it had become Long Chen's temporary residence.

He knew that the territory of a Third-Tier Demonic Beast was extremely vast; within hundreds of miles, no other Demonic Beasts would exist, so he could completely rest assured in living there.

Fortunately, the cave was relatively clean and had no feces; it seemed this Silver Centipede was actually quite fond of cleanliness.

After entering the cave, Long Chen took out a tent. This was left behind by the person he had robbed when he first arrived at the Branch Courtyard, who had wanted to rob him.

Long Chen had thrown away the mattresses, bedding, and such, but he had kept this luxurious tent.

After tidying up his resting place, Long Chen glanced at the sky. It was just noon, so he set up a large pot outside immediately.

He placed one of the Silver Centipede's poison sacs into the iron pot. Immediately, an aura full of corrosive scent permeated the air. Smelling it once made it feel as though his trachea was about to rot.

Long Chen had long since tightly wrapped his mouth and nose. He lit a fire beneath the iron pot and simultaneously immersed the arrowheads of over a hundred arrows into the venom before quickly leaving.

He ran several miles away before Long Chen dared to breathe; the Silver Centipede's venom was too terrifying.

Fortunately, he had placed enough firewood beneath the iron pot beforehand. As the flames heated it, the arrowheads boiled in the venom, making it very easy to absorb the poison.

By the time the wood burned out, the venom would have boiled dry, and the hundred-plus highly poisonous arrows would be properly prepared.

Now, Long Chen didn't need to do anything; he just needed to wait honestly. He didn't dare to wander around either.

The surroundings were all territory of Third-Tier Demonic Beasts. With his current strength, the probability of victory against a Third-Tier, Early Stage Demonic Beast was not high.

If he encountered a Third-Tier, Middle Stage Demonic Beast, then it wouldn't be a matter of the probability of victory, but rather the probability of escaping.

More than two hours later, Long Chen noticed that the bonfire had gone out, so he slowly walked back. The air was still filled with a suffocating fishy smell.

Walking to the iron pot, he discovered that the venom inside had boiled dry, and all the arrowheads had been dyed black.

Long Chen had just picked up an arrow, preparing to examine it, when suddenly the entire pot burst open, startling Long Chen and causing him to hurriedly retreat. If he were accidentally poked by the arrow, he would truly die with regrets.

It turned out that the Silver Centipede's venom was too terrifying; the iron pot, which was an inch thick, had actually been corroded until it was as fragile as glass, unable to bear the weight of the arrows and shattering.

Looking at those pitch-black arrowheads, Long Chen felt a surge of excitement. With these poison arrows, hunting Third-Tier Demonic Beasts would be much more comfortable.

Seeing that the sky had darkened, Long Chen also returned to his tent to rest. He was too lazy to even Cultivate, so he set up a few trigger traps around the area using the poison arrows, then lay down and went to sleep.

Early the next morning, Long Chen packed up his traps and began to cautiously move south. When he came over yesterday, he had observed the surrounding terrain from the Harrier Eagle, and he knew that there was a Third-Tier Demonic Beast nearby—the Shadow Demonic Leopard.

The Third-Tier Demonic Beast, the Shadow Demonic Leopard, was incomparably fast and exceptionally fierce, but unlike most leopard-type Demonic Beasts, it liked to hunt during the day.

Demonic Beasts were different from humans; they could not Cultivate, but they could provide themselves with Cultivation energy through flesh and blood, allowing themselves to grow rapidly.

The most terrifying aspect of the Shadow Demonic Leopard lay in its near-invisible camouflage. Although it was a fur-type Demonic Beast, its fur could actually change color according to the surrounding colors and light.

Hiding in dead grass or rocks, it was impossible to discover. Some Demonic Beasts even walked right in front of it without knowing they had walked right up to the Grim Reaper.

After walking forward for over a hundred miles, Long Chen slowed his pace. Calculating the distance, it should be about time.

Expanding his Divine Sense, Long Chen indeed discovered that figure lurking among the rocks, lazily basking in the sun.

Lying in a pile of strange rocks, its body color was exactly the same as the rocks. If Long Chen hadn't seen it yesterday when it jumped up from the rock pile and let out a warning roar, he would never have thought that a Demonic Beast's camouflage could be so terrifying.

"This distance is about right."

Long Chen looked left and right; this was just a natural path, the best place to set a trap.

Originally, Long Chen wanted to set a pit trap on the ground, but thinking of the Shadow Demonic Leopard's agile physique, he decided against it. The probability of success for that was not high, and digging a pit was too strenuous.

He wanted to create a trigger-type trap, similar to the one he used to trick Ying Hou last time, but he shook his head.

Such a trap required him to lure the Shadow Demonic Leopard himself. If he were careless and triggered the trap, he would probably be mocked by the Shadow Demonic Leopard even after death.

After hesitating back and forth, Long Chen took out six powerful bows and set up six mechanical poison arrows on both sides of the path.

After the powerful bows were pulled into a full moon shape, Long Chen used a dagger to jam the bowstrings. As long as the dagger moved slightly, the bowstrings would release, firing the arrows.

Six long bows were all arranged on one side of the path, with a distance of one zhang between each bow. Given the Shadow Demonic Leopard's huge body length of seven zhang, as long as it passed through here, with the six arrows firing simultaneously, several would surely hit.

As long as one arrow hit, it could greatly reduce the Shadow Demonic Leopard's strength, and then it could be easily killed.

After checking the six bows and arrows again and confirming there were no oversights, Long Chen slowly crept toward the Shadow Demonic Leopard's position.

At a distance of five or six miles from the Demonic Leopard, Long Chen stopped. If he got any closer, he would alert it.

He reached out, felt for a stone the size of a goose egg, gathered all his strength, and threw it at the Shadow Demonic Leopard's huge head.