They were about half a dozen human cultivators and they stared at the Ever Dew Fruits Long Di held with undisguised greed.

“Hand over the Ever Dew Fruits and scram!”

****

It was the first in a long time that Long Di spotted human cultivators. However, he was not in the mood.

“We need these Ever-Dew Fruits.” He said to the one who stood in front.

He was average height and average in looks if nothing else. Feeling his aura, Long Di could tell he was a One Core Martial Martial Adept. The others behind him were more or less in the same realm.

They all wore the same robes, so the possibility of them hailing from the same sect and/or school was high.

“I didn’t remember asking if you needed them!” The young cultivator said arrogantly.

“Why waste time talking with him, big brother Bia Cang!?” Another said behind him.

This one had a crooked nose and a crooked chin. He was less than average and, for lack of a better phrase, he was ugly.

“I don’t know… I think this little brother is kind of cute…” another said. This time, it was a girl who spoke. She looked at Long Di like she was looking at a snack. (Interpret that, however, you will)

When the cultivator with the crooked nose heard this, he stared at Long Di with intense jealousy.

At this point, Long Di ignored them and put all his attention back on Xiannu Liang.

“So we’ll help you to make sure you’re undisturbed. Just focus on making a stable breakthrough. Take as many fruits as necessary, and we’ll save the rest if there’s any left over.”

When Bia Cang saw how Long Di ignored him, his anger ignited.

“Brat! You dare ignore m-”

Suddenly, Bia Cang’s words got caught in his throat when a horrific sight stunned him into silence.

His group noticed his odd behaviour and followed his line of sight. When they saw what quieted him, their behaviour was the same.

There, a few meters from the group, was the massive body of an Overlord class rank 5 magical beast. The Monarch Gale Crow.

“You three go and take the body of the Monarch Gale Crow!”

Bia Cang immediately passed down his order to another three in his group, who had yet to say anything with a malevolent glint in his eyes.

The crooked nose cultivator rubbed his hands together like a fly before seeing the members of this group moving towards the magical beast's corpse. “Hehehe, with this, Lord Nong Zin will reward us. He may even help us take down that arrogant Mortal King!”

Bia Cang nodded at this before turning his attention back to Long Di and the girl in the hood who he had given the Ever-Dew Fruits.

“Are you deaf!? I said to hand over the-”

“Shut up!” a crisp voice cut him off, shocking not just him, but his entire group.

They looked to see a beautiful demon with violet skin, ebon-hued hair and a tail behind her, coldly glaring at them.

“Hm?” Bia Cang was slightly surprised by what he saw. “A demon?”

Who else could it be but Yaomu Shou? Long Di might be able to shrug off and remain composed in most situations, but she couldn’t.

“A human and demons working together!? Well, I can’t pretend that I don’t see why…” Bia Cang was nearly drooling when his ogling gaze followed Yaomu Shou’s curves.

Not only him, the other men in the group stared at not just Yaomu Shou but the other girls in the group.

Thankfully, Shen Ling’s figure was hidden from sight lest their hormones explode among other things.

The girl from before had her expression twisted into a scowl. She was one of those girls who hated it when men paid more attention to other girls when she was present.

As a result, she hated girls who were prettier than her. This inadvertently led to her hating every single person in Long Di’s group, apart from him and Jia Yan, of course.

That’s right, she even hated the cloaked Xiannu Liang. Even though she could barely make her out. The exquisite curvature of her jade chin didn’t deny that there was a calamitous beauty hidden underneath.

Yaomu Shou’s expression turned even colder when she saw this. This was one of the reasons she hated humans so much.

The men were mostly, if not all, lecherous bastards while the women were shallow, ego-fueled skin sacks.

Surprisingly, Long Di made an offer that no one saw coming. “If you want to take the Monarch Gale Crow corpse, then you can have that. However, I need the Ever-Dew Fruits.”

“Wait what!?”

Yaomu Shou was shocked to hear Long Di’s offer in allowing them to walk away with the Monarch Gale Crow.

When Bia Cang heard Long Di’s offer, he was shocked and then quickly amused. That was an Overlord class rank 5 magical beast, while Long Di was a Cauldron Forging expert.

It was obvious that Long Di was the one who killed the magical beast. The wounds and injuries on his face and hands were testaments to the price he paid for whatever skill he used to kill the Monarch Gale Crow.

This also meant that Long Di was the strongest one here or they wouldn’t allow him to fight such a strong beast on his own.

Yet, for him to suffer such wounds and then peacefully agree to give it away as long as they left without the Ever-Dew Fruits signified one thing. This meant that Long Di had his group and was unable to fight against Bia Cang and his group.

After all, there were ways for cultivators to fight above their realm through pure talent or some external means.

However, for a Cauldron Forging Expert to fight a rank 5 magical beast and not suffer any wounds and is able to do so repeatedly without any sequelae? He would be a fool to believe such a thing.

Maybe Long Di was willing to do it the first time because their life was on the line, but he didn’t think that Long Di would pay whatever price it was a second to hold on to those Ever-Dew Fruits. If that was the case, then that meant that Long Di was a regular Cauldron Forging expert!

Bia Cang smirked. “Nice try! We’re taking the corpse AND the Ever-Dew Fruits”

The crooked nose cultivator scoffed, remarking, “This is taking too long!”

Saying this, he rushed toward Long Di and Xiannu Liang with a sword drawn.

Shing!

Yaomu Shou made a move to intercept him but was blocked by Bia Cang and the girl cultivator, who wore an ugly smile, “Don’t think of escaping!”

Yaomu Shou stared at them for a hot beat before sighing in exasperation, “You idiots. I was trying to save him.”

Bia Cang was stunned for a minute before he burst into laughter. “Who are you trying to fool!? My colleague is a peak Cauldron Forging-”

Whoosh!

“Aaaah!”

Before he could finish what he wanted to say, a furious flame erupted behind them, followed by a bloodcurdling scream that was promptly cut off.

Not Just Bia Cang and the girl, but the others who were preparing to put away the Monarch Gale Crow turned to look where their friend rushed over to only to be frozen in terror.

What were they looking at? What were they seeing!?

Somehow, there was a humanoid Heavens staring at them. It was staring at them with an impassive and cold bearing.

Though the black and grey robes ‌it wore hid most of its features, they could still see the thread of flames that travelled through its arm to its hand, where the flames fiercely burned.

Before it was a pile of ashes that had once been their crooked nose friend.

‘So I can control it through spiritual force alone. That’s good to know. I guess that’s why my spiritual force was needed to imprint my Soul Seal on it. This means my cultivation restriction means squat since my spiritual force is stronger than my realm would normally allow.’

Bia Cang realised all too late that he had kicked an iron plate! “What are you-”

Whoosh!

The Crimson Horizon Flame engulfed him in an instant, reducing him to ashes as well.

Long Di had given him many chances and even offered him Monarch Gale Crow’s corpse. He knew that cultivators were the type to take a mile when they’re offered an inch, but he didn‘t want anyone to say that he didn’t give them a chance.

He then looked over to the three that were standing around the Monarch Gale Crow.

When his gaze landed on them, their blood ran cold and they rushed for the crack that led them to this hell!

Whoosh!

A wall of flames ran the length of the wall until it blocked off the crack and their only means of escape.

Seeing this, they dropped to their knees and began begging for their lives. Tears, snot, booger, and all sorts of calamity leaked out of their faces as they begged.

However, horror choked them up when they saw the wall of flames moving toward them.

They turned to see Long Di staring at them with a disinterested gaze. As if their eventual incineration was nothing to him.

“Wait!”

The flame wall paused.

If this was from the intruding group, Long Di wouldn’t listen, but this request came from Yaomu Shou.

“You have a use for them?” Long Di asked her.

Yaomu Shou nodded to indicate she did. “Well, my question can be answered by one of them, but there is something I want to know that they may have answers to.”

Yaomu Shou put away her sword and calmly walked over to the female cultivator, who had remained unmoving this entire time.

She was right beside Bia Cang when he was incinerated and the heat even caused her hair to become singed in some places.

However, the fear of death gripped her so tightly that she found it impossible to move.

Yaomu Shou couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she stared at this shallow girl. She had to admit that she liked this look on her.

“Okay, so this question is for who wants to live. Where is the leader of your group?”

Yaomu Shou was well aware that whatever powers sent their disciples here would only do so for the cream of the crop.

These disciples, on the other hand, were like cream wheat. Tasteless, lacking variety, and much too soft.

As a result, when they heard this question, they scrambled on top of each to answer, resulting in an incoherent cacophony.

Though Yaomu Shou said anyone could answer, she stared straight at the girl with a gentle smile.

Even though she was stronger than all of them, being the fox that exploits the tiger’s might felt really good!

Sure, she could use her connections to do that, but what fun would that be!? Using Long Di like a blunt instrument to inflict bludgeoning head trauma on her enemies was waaay more fun.

The girl knew that her only way to survive was to answer Yaomu Shou’s question, so she chose the way of life.

“T-The main purpose of the group entering this time around is to locate and snatch the Spiritual Vein Root.”

Yaomu Shou’s smile fell off her face like a high school graduate entering college.

Her body began to tremble and spasm in very concerning ways as she turned to face Long Di.

“We need to go right now.”