Clearly, the eight-legged evil spirit wasn’t expecting a human brave and audacious enough to try to take it on underwater. Yun Ruoyan managed to swim all around the beast’s massive body without being detected, finding that its eight tentacles were evenly distributed around the sides of its main body.

Furthermore, its skin was shiny and glossy all over, providing a barrier against penetration by sharp objects like swords and arrows. However, even the strongest magical beast had its weakness, and Yun Ruoyan’s goal now was to find it. Ideally, she would be able to kill it instantly before it even realized the danger.

After Yun Ruoyan swam to the top of the beast’s body, she finally discovered a glowing red patch on its head. Her eyes brightening, she thought to herself, No wonder it doesn’t dare reveal its head. Its weakness would be obvious on land!

If she weren’t wrong, that glowing red patch was likely where its spiritual vortex was located. Unlike humans, magical beasts had such unusual physiology that the location of their spiritual vortices was likewise highly mutable. However, all magical beasts above a certain rank would form a beast core within their spiritual vortex, and the location of that spiritual vortex was a critically weak point for all beasts. If Yun Ruoyan were able to damage the beast’s spiritual vortex, it would be a fatal blow.

Unlike land creatures, the eight-legged evil spirit didn’t possess any tough bones or hard carapace. Instead, its body was supple and flexible, and only its eight thick, long tentacles proved a rather severe threat.

Almost without hesitation, Yun Ruoyan swiftly swam toward the beast’s brain. Her sudden movement finally startled the beast, which struggled to open its two large, vacant eyes as it turned to Yun Ruoyan.

Yun Ruoyan’s actions slowed momentarily, but the eight-legged evil spirit only seemed to become more frantic. Its eight tentacles began to wave madly in the air. Although it could sense Yun Ruoyan’s presence, it couldn’t ascertain her exact location. As a defense mechanism, it could only madly wave its eight tentacles around its body, trying to entrap Yun Ruoyan’s body.

Yun Ruoyan dodged the tentacles lithely, very glad for the serpent-core necklace that Li Mo had given her. At the same time, she took out and unsheathed her dagger. The current from Yun Ruoyan’s motion left the eight-legged evil spirit in even greater panic, and its eight tentacles began to thresh around so madly that the rest of her group could see the placid lake surface begin to fluctuate.

Lin Qingchen, Lin Qingxue, and Zhuo Yifeng were all staring fixedly at the surface of the lake, worried and anxious.

“Why hasn’t Sister Ruoyan emerged yet?” Lin Qingxue asked, almost frenetic. “Isn’t she going to die if she doesn’t breathe for this long?”

“What nonsense are you spouting?!” Channeling her anxiety, Lin Qingchen chided at her sister. “Don’t you see how the lake surface is moving? Sister Ruoyan must be fighting with the beast underwater by now!”

“Right, she should be back up shortly. Let’s be careful and get ready,” Zhuo Yifeng advised.

Underwater, as Yun Ruoyan got closer and closer to its body, it began to retreat while continuing to wave its tentacles around. One such tentacle suddenly struck at Yun Ruoyan’s back, but she used its momentum to propel herself forward all the way to its brain. With both hands on her dagger, she thrust it into the glowing red patch on the beast’s brain.

Because its head was naturally weaker compared to the rest of its body, and because the dagger in Yun Ruoyan’s hands was unusually sharp, the dagger sunk almost all the way into the beast’s flesh. However, the blade was too short for Yun Ruoyan to kill the beast in one go.

The severe blow so enraged and pained the beast that it finally began to surface out of the water. It rose up so quickly that Yun Ruoyan didn’t have time to remove the dagger and run away. Instead, still holding onto the dagger, Yun Ruoyan was carried up all the way to the surface of the lake by the eight-legged evil spirit.

With a great splash, the beast’s round, massive body finally emerged in front of the shocked party. The humongous wave that resulted caused Lin Qingchen and Lin Qingxue to take two steps back, but Zhuo Yifeng forged forward instead. His bow was cocked with a tiger-canine arrow, and he was prepared to fire it at any moment.

As a water-based beast, although the eight-legged evil spirit was a lower rank than the saber-toothed tiger, it was at least twice its size—and the saber-toothed tiger’s body was already quite massive for a magical beast.

Zhuo Yifeng could barely make out the small figure of Yun Ruoyan by its head, her hands clutching the dagger stuck in the beast’s head and holding on for dear life. She looked like a fluttering leaf, one that was beset by a strong wind and that could fall off at any moment.

When Zhuo Yifeng noticed the glowing red patch on the beast’s head, he too suspected that it was the location of the beast’s core immediately. Because Yun Ruoyan’s body was in the way, however, he didn’t dare loose his arrow.

Given Zhuo Yifeng’s transcendent skill at archery, it was very likely he would be able to shoot the arrow into the beast’s head while avoiding Yun Ruoyan’s body, but he didn’t want to take the risk to do so. Yun Ruoyan was also waiting for Zhuo Yifeng to strike, but noticed that no attack was on the way. When she looked down and saw Zhuo Yifeng’s bow pointing at her and hesitating, she immediately understood his concern. Clenching her teeth, she released her grip on the dagger, and her small body fell back into the lake.

At the same time, Zhuo Yifeng scrunched up his forehead in concentration and closed one eye, then released his grip on the taut bow.

The tiger-canine arrow whistled and birthed sparks as it flew toward the glowing red patch on the beast’s head, perfectly striking the center of the patch.

A deeply unpleasant wail emerged from the beast’s lips, and its body began to thresh around even more wildly. Despite the glowing patch being the weakest spot on the beast’s body, its flesh was so thick that Zhuo Yifeng’s arrow still fell slightly short of its mark.

Gritting his teeth, Zhuo Yifeng pulled out another tiger-canine arrow. Imbuing it with the rest of his spiritual energy, he pulled the bow taut and released it once more. The arrow flew unerringly into the hole created by the previous arrow, finally breaking through to the beast’s spiritual vortex.

With a final wail, the towering beast sank into the lake’s depths. This wail was so loud that it could easily be heard even from the neighboring oases. To their south, a team from the Chen kingdom had just killed a batch of low-rank magical beasts. They were dismantling their corpses when they suddenly heard the beast’s wail and stopped what they were doing at once.

“They actually killed the eight-legged evil spirit?!” The person who made this exclamation was none other than the Mo kingdom’s Miss Li, who had escaped from the oasis that Yun Ruoyan’s group was currently situated at.

“They… they really killed that beast?” The young miss from the Chen kingdom, who escaped with Miss Li, sounded equally incredulous.

“Zhao Xu, who did you say killed that beast?” an imposing youth asked that young miss from the Chen kingdom.

Zhao Xu recounted what she had witnessed yesterday. The youth’s name was Zhao Ming. He too came from the Chen kingdom, and was very familiar with the aquatic beast. It tended to settle in the deep ocean, and would occasionally wander to shore and attack humans.

Such beasts were particularly sly and crafty. Even when they launched an attack, they would only rely on their eight tentacles, never revealing their true body. As a result, even advanced cultivators had a very hard time killing such beasts underwater. Who was actually able to accomplish such a feat?

In the north, where Yun Ruoyao and Wang Meng were located, Yun Ruoyao and Yi Qianying had decided to leave Rong Yueshan’s party.

“You’re really going to leave?” Rong Yueshan looked coldly at the duo.

Yi Qianying remained silent. She was the crown prince’s concubine, and Rong Yueshan was the crown prince’s cousin. Formally speaking, Rong Yueshan’s status was below Yi Qianying’s. However, because Yi Qianying wasn’t the princess consort, and because her original status wasn’t Rong Yueshan’s equal, Rong Yueshan hadn’t much cared for the petite girl.

On the other hand, Yun Ruoyao had a superior cultivation compared to the other members of her party, so Rong Yueshan quite valued her.

“Miss Yun.” Before Yun Ruoyao could speak, Rong Yueshan added, “I know that the Yun family and the Rong family aren’t on good terms because of my sister’s past actions, but that feud was caused by your sister, Yun Ruoyan. I, Rong Yueshan, will not begrudge you for your sister’s actions.”

Rong Yueshan’s words really were quite honest: in truth, Rong Yuehong’s belligerent, domineering personality had won her few friends even amongst the other members of her own family, and Rong Yueshan hadn’t had a very good relationship with her.

Instead, Rong Yuehong’s death had allowed Rong Yueshan to receive more of Rong Tianling’s attention, so Rong Yueshan held no enmity toward the Yun family, not even Yun Ruoyan.

However, under Rong Tianling’s orders, she had to find an opportunity to kill Yun Ruoyan and seek revenge for her dead sister. This was a mission that she had to undertake to stabilize her own position in the family, but she had no such quarrel with Yun Ruoyao. Instead, she sincerely wanted her to remain in her group.

“Miss Rong, teamwork is paramount in a team, but I share a dissenting opinion with most of the other young masters and misses.”

However, Yun Ruoyao had already made up her mind. She continued politely, “Forcing us to remain in the team will undoubtedly sow conflict. Fortunately, Young Master Wang offered us an invitation to join him, and we’ve accepted.”

Rong Yueshan frowned. She was rather proud and arrogant in her own right. Since her attempt to retain Yun Ruoyao had failed, she snorted and turned away. “Since the two of you have found yourself a better party, I naturally won’t stop you.”

Yun Ruoyao and Yi Qianying looked at each other before turning away toward Wang Meng’s party. Just then, a beast’s wail could be heard from afar, causing everyone present to falter.

“From the sound of that wail, it seems to be a high-rank magical beast. Who could have killed one so quickly?” Wang Meng narrowed his eyes as he turned in the direction of the wail.