Yuan Ming turned around and left the Tiankeng with the other eleven people. Everyone dispersed without a word.

Yuan Ming stood in place, looking at the backs of those who left, feeling a little emotional.

Perhaps this is the style of the scattered alliance missions. There is no sect’s protection or position constraint. There is only a relationship of reward between the hired and the scattered alliance.

Today, he ventured into the Dragon Pool and Tiger Cave, fought against strange birds and fierce beasts, achieved his goal and left. In the future, he will travel the world on horseback and enjoy the exotic scenery, wandering to the ends of the earth.

The choice is bidirectional, and he can stay or leave as he pleases.

This stirred up some hidden memories in his mind, the longing for the chivalrous heroes who held swords and drank wine.

At that time, he didn’t know much about the martial world, but he liked to listen to people talk about it.

Now that he has experienced a lot and seen a lot, he has realized that what he sees is far from being as beautiful as what he hears.

In today’s journey to the Snake King Valley, some people silently fell, unable to even obtain the hard-earned reward of ten spirit stones, and no one will remember them.

After completely leaving the sight of others, a black light flashed in Yuan Ming’s brow, and two soul crows flew out silently. One flew towards the Tiankeng, while the other flew in another direction.

In the field of vision of the second soul crow, a figure quickly appeared, and it was Bai Rong.

This woman seemed to be a disciple of the Black Fire Sect, and she had been secretly leaving some kind of mark along the way, making Yuan Ming curious about her intentions.

Yuan Ming didn’t go far, he just found a secluded mountain wall and stopped. He took out the Hanxing Sword and quickly dug a cave on the mountain wall.

He released another soul crow to guard outside, and then took out four square sealing spirit talismans and pasted them around the cave, opening a hidden barrier. Only then did he sit cross-legged and focus on controlling the soul crow that went to the Snake King Cave and the one tracking Bai Rong.

The soul crow from the Snake King Cave had already flown into the cave, and soon there were sounds of fighting.

Yuan Ming controlled the soul crow to approach carefully, only to see Bai Ye and the others fighting against a group of Golden Flower Poison Pythons.

These Golden Flower Poison Pythons were obviously larger than the ones they encountered in the valley before, and they were stronger. They moved like the wind and could even spit venom, making it difficult for the temporary members to defend themselves.

However, at this moment, Bai Ye and the others showed their true strength. In addition to Bai Ye and Huan Shi, each of the other ten people sacrificed a white flag magic weapon embroidered with purple flame patterns, forming a set of magic weapons.

When all ten people activated them at the same time, fist-sized purple flames shot out from the top of the white flags and hit the Golden Flower Poison Pythons.

These purple flames were powerful enough to easily burn through the tough python scales, turning them into ashes.

No matter how many Golden Flower Poison Pythons attacked, they all perished under the attack of the purple flame rain. Occasionally, one or two pythons that slipped through were dealt with by the scattered cultivators who followed them. Bai Ye and Huan Shi didn’t even need to make a move.

“The White Night Scattered Alliance has such means. No wonder they dare to enter the Snake King Cave to hunt the Snake King. However, the Golden Flower Snake King should still be deeper inside…” Yuan Ming thought to himself.

His thoughts shifted and he looked towards Bai Rong.

At this moment, Bai Rong was flying forward at an astonishing speed, even faster than when Yuan Ming used the Wind Swift Art. Although the soul crow was trying its best to catch up, it was still far behind.

Fortunately, Bai Rong was still leaving marks along the way, just like before. The soul crow followed these marks and barely kept up with her.

After a while, the soul crow arrived in a dark forest, and a new mark appeared on a tree outside the forest, pointing to the interior of the forest.

“I hope Bai Rong doesn’t continue forward.” Yuan Ming controlled the soul crow to fly into the forest, thinking to himself.

At first, the range of the soul crow’s roaming was only ten li. After his Death Moon method broke through the second layer, the range doubled, but it was still only twenty li. Now it was almost reaching its limit, and if Bai Rong continued forward, he would not be able to keep up.

The soul crow flew through the large trees, and the field of vision suddenly became open. A ruined castle appeared in front of them.

“Could it be that someone used to live in this Snake King Valley!” Yuan Ming was quite surprised to see this.

On a large tree in front of the castle, there was a not-so-obvious mark. Based on Yuan Ming’s deduction and understanding of various marks along the way, the meaning of this mark was not difficult to understand. It should be pointing to the interior of the castle.

The soul crow flapped its wings and flew in. It quickly found Bai Rong’s figure outside a hall.

Bai Rong was looking excitedly at the interior of the hall but did not enter.

The entire hall was covered in a layer of black light at the moment, making it impossible to see what was inside.

Bai Rong pondered for a moment, took out a fiery red round mirror, and chanted something.

The surface of the round mirror emitted a layer of red light, and then a beam of red light shot out, hitting the black barrier.

However, the black barrier only rippled slightly and quickly returned to its original state.

“The Crimson Seal Mirror is also ineffective. It seems to be a quite advanced restriction. I can’t break it alone.” Bai Rong’s eyes flickered as she muttered to herself.

As she finished speaking, she took out a purple talisman, whispered a few words to it, and then crushed it…

At this moment, the soul crow outside suddenly let out a sharp warning cry. Yuan Ming’s face changed suddenly, and he slapped the ground with his palm, his sitting body floated backward.

Two hazy yellow hands suddenly burst out of the ground and fiercely grabbed the spot where he had just been sitting.

With a loud bang, the ground shattered and rocks flew everywhere.

Yuan Ming’s divine sense spread out and probed into the ground.

It turned out that there was a figure lurking underground, enveloped in a layer of yellow light, and those two yellow hands were some kind of magical power.

Yuan Ming reached out his hand, and the Hanxing Sword appeared in his hand. A white sword aura flashed by, easily cutting off the two yellow hands, and a layer of white frost appeared on the nearby ground.

He then held the sword with one hand and stabbed it into the ground, with almost half of the sword buried.

A burst of extremely cold sword aura erupted, heading straight for the person underground.The man underground sensed the incoming sword qi and quickly dodged to the side. The yellow glow around his body allowed him to move freely underground, evading the chilling strike.

A faint smile appeared on Yuan Ming’s face. He pointed at the Cold Star Sword and activated the extreme cold runes within it, shouting, “Explode!”

The extreme cold sword qi erupted violently, and the intense cold instantly engulfed the surrounding area within a radius of several feet.

The underground soil was frozen, turning into hard ground like stone. The figure underground was also affected by the erupting cold, shivering uncontrollably.

His magical power was affected, and the yellow glow around his body was mostly extinguished. Half of his body was stuck in the soil, unable to move.

“Damn Guo Ge, didn’t he say this guy was just an ordinary Qi Refining Ninth Layer cultivator? He didn’t even find out that he had such a powerful magical tool!” The man underground couldn’t help but curse, fully activating the Earth Travel Talisman on his body. The extinguished yellow spiritual light began to recover.

However, the man was surrounded by the extreme cold power of the Cold Star Sword, and the recovery speed of the yellow spiritual light was very slow.

“If I let you escape easily, my Cold Star Sword would have been refined in vain!” Yuan Ming sneered slightly, once again pointing out a spell. Another extreme cold sword qi shot out, directly hitting the man underground.

A low, mournful scream came from underground, then all was silent.

A large hole was pierced through the man’s chest and abdomen, and he was no longer breathing.

Yuan Ming patted the spirit beast bag at his waist, and a black toad leaped out, shooting out a purple-black demon vine from its back.

He took off the storage ring, let the purple-black demon vine wrap around it, and quickly brought up the man’s body from underground using the same method he used to steal Li Shark’s collection.

The man had yellow hair and looked to be in his twenties or thirties. His entire body was frozen like an icicle, his face was full of terror, and his features were twisted. But his face could still be recognized, it was a member of the small team that had chosen to leave earlier.

Yuan Ming’s face was expressionless. He didn’t care why this man wanted to ambush him. When facing enemies, he never showed mercy.

He took the storage bag from the yellow-haired young man and reached into his frozen clothes, pulling out a palm-sized yellow talisman.

Judging from the effect the yellow-haired young man had used earlier, this should be a talisman with an earth escape effect.

Such talismans were very rare. Yuan Ming had wanted to buy one when he went to Black Rock City, but unfortunately, he couldn’t find one.

Although the yellow talisman had been used, it still emitted a rather strong magical fluctuation.

“It seems that this talisman, like the Four Corners Sealing Spirit Talisman, can be used multiple times.” Yuan Ming muttered to himself, then put the talisman away.

He took the yellow-haired young man’s storage bag, and his eyebrows twitched as he looked outside.

Inside the dense poisonous miasma outside the stone cave, three figures were slowly approaching. They were a burly man, a woman in red, and a young man with a cold look. They were the other three members of the team the yellow-haired young man belonged to.

After approaching the stone cave, the three of them hid behind a large rock, seemingly waiting for something.

Unbeknownst to them, a black crow was quietly squatting on a rock not far from them.

“It’s them…” Yuan Ming murmured, guessing their purpose.

However, he didn’t go out, but continued to check the yellow-haired young man’s storage bag.

Speaking of which, this yellow-haired young man was quite poor. There were only twenty or thirty spirit stones in his storage bag, and the rest were some common materials and a lower-grade long knife magical tool.

After categorizing these items and putting them into his storage bag, Yuan Ming stood up and went to the entrance of the cave.

The black toad leaped forward and disappeared into the dense poisonous miasma.

The three people behind the large rock were getting impatient. Seeing Yuan Ming suddenly appear, they were all startled and quickly concealed their breaths.

“Since you’re here, why hide?” Yuan Ming called out.

The burly man and the other two, realizing they had been discovered, came out from behind the rock.

“How did you find us?” the burly man asked.

All three of them had used spells to conceal their breaths. They were a good ten feet away from the cave, and the poisonous miasma was in between. Even a Foundation Establishment cultivator might not have been able to detect them.

“How I found you isn’t important, is it? What’s important is, what brings you three here?” Yuan Ming retorted.

(End of Chapter)