Although Duan Xiang thought that he was the one coming out on top in the deal and had even promised a favour to Shui Ling, she thought of something completely different.

According to her, he just didn't understand what he was getting into. The snake was much more dangerous than he considered it to be. This would be a fight for their lives.

It was common knowledge and sentiment that a beast is the most dangerous right when it is at its weakest. That is because, it is willing to do anything it can to survive. Desperation is the best motivator.

To her, it seemed to be a miracle that the snake was able to move. Much less, slither at such speeds and then accelerate further.

Its majestic black scales were cracked in many places. Some even seemed to be melting off. Its spine was probably cracked towards the lower part, judging by its awkward movement.

Duan Xiang's blunt, hammering attacks had crushed its flesh below the scales.

If the snake could bear such damage and still move so actively, just what would its true power level be? Would it be something that they could contend against? Most certainly not.

Hence, she chose to attack from a distance and leave a way out for herself. While Duan Xiang would take up most of the beast's attention, protecting her from damage.

It was a good idea. Afterall, what good was the bird in the bush if you weren't alive to eat it.

Since the negotiations were over, it was the time to perform. As planned, Duan Xiang drew closer to the serpent. Eight grey palms grew bigger and bigger and then floated around him in the sky.

Shui Ling also drew her one handed Jian, a little longer than the usual 80 centimetres.

With a divine sense message from Duan Xiang following eight thuds, the deep blue blade lit up and Shui Ling executed fast slashes.

The sword lights fell on to the snake before it could recover from the first eight blows.

The shriek from the serpent signalled the success of their attack, the subsequent retaliation from the beast was ferocious.

Spikes flew out from the earth targeting both of them. While the nimble tail of the snake sneaked amongst the dust clouds.

Even though Duan Xiang knew that it was coming, he just couldn't avoid it. He braced himself behind something that looked like a shield.

Just like that, he flew out like a ball. Shui Ling was a lot better off, but it wasn't as if she was unscathed. The serpent's intricate control of the earth had managed to land some light blows on her.

Using this opportunity, the snake increased its speed once again. Trying to gain some distance on them before they recovered.

Duan Xiang caught up to Shui Ling once again. He had been injured, but not seriously. However, if he didn't have his defensive treasure, it would be pretty bad.

He was now thankful for Shui Ling's help. This was the first counterattack from the snake that was actually dangerous. It seemed that the snake had decided to make a final break for it.

All they could do, was to keep repeating their attacks and tiring the behemoth out. After it was sufficiently tired out, they planned to finish it off in the last clash.

It was hard for Yun Fei to know exactly how many days it had been. He had a rough idea that it could be three or four.

Ever since he had started cultivating, he didn't need to sleep all that much. He mostly replaced sleep with meditation.

Even food wasn't really needed; Qi was the truly important thing. Yun Fei though liked delicious things so he wasn't really going to stop eating food.

As his basic bodily needs weren't there, it was easy for him to lose track of time. He had been in this dark flesh tunnel for so long that If he had just been a normal Qi Condensation cultivator, he would have already lost his mind.

It wasn't as hard for him because his vision wasn't blocked. He didn't have to take every step with trepidation and fear of the unknown.

This experience once again made Yun Fei deeply thankful to Sun Ming And his gift.

If life is a voyage, one’s parents are supposed to help their children build their own boat for the ultimate crossing. For an existence to be betrayed by its progenitor is a dastardly thing.

It is not uncommon for a child to have a basic trust in its guardians. Something along the lines of 'If it all falls to ruin and everyone is against me, I should do what my parents tell me to.’ This is something not easy to forge for both participants.

Sun Ming was not an acquaintance, well-wisher, friend, or relative of Yun Fei.... He had functioned as his father.

From the start, he had been opening Yun Fei's eyes to the broader world. Not allowing him to be blindsided by the religious decrees of the monastery.

In the end, even giving Yun Fei his own eyes and the technique that should only be imparted to his descendants. Sun Ming always considered Yun Fei to be his son and he only understood this after his death.

For some time, Yun Fei was thinking of these things as he kept swinging and stabbing his dagger. Switching grips when one of his hands became fatigued.

Before him was a wall of muscle fibers that were extremely difficult to harm. Even with all the slashes, he could only leave shallow marks.

Nevertheless, Yun Fei kept striking his Qi exuding dagger again and again without stop.

He wanted to get out of here. For this, he would pierce through the hide of the snake. With this conviction, his strikes grew sharper and sharper.

He shut all his thoughts off and concentrated on his blows. The lethality of his blows increased with every small improvement he made.

He kept slashing till he expended all his Qi and then started slashing again. He would find some blood to drink when he rested to recover to his peak state.

Being directly at the muscle layer, blood was easy to find. While resting, he had also made some progress in forming meridians for the 5th layer of Qi condensation.

The attacks on the snake had gotten more frequent and Yun Fei felt that the speed of the snake had also dropped a little. His progress in digging through the muscle was still minimal.

Even with all his slashes, he was only able to dig a little into the muscle layer, but he wasn't discouraged. He was going to recover and keep slashing because being discouraged wasn't going to help him in any way.

He didn't want to die in this dark flesh cave. Living the life of a parasite, unknown to anybody in the world, not being able to fulfil any of his ambitions.

With this thought, rhythmic sounds rang out in the pitch black flesh tunnel for no one to hear.

Shui Ling's azure clothes had turned brown and Duan Xiang had blood spurting out his mouth.

In the past few days, they had tried their complete best to tire out the snake. Attacking and withdrawing, Shui Ling kept some distance while Duan Xiang risked more and went up and personal.

Unfortunately, the snake was just too durable. Although its speed had decreased, it had been resisting viciously.

Some more sword slashes fell on the serpent as Duan Xiang took the brunt of the snake's counterattack, trying to cover Shui Ling.

This scene had repeated countless times since the beginning of their struggle with the snake.

Duan Xiang used his shield to brace the lashing tail as he tried his best to dodge all the spikes of earth that targeted him. Taking a blow, he fell back.

"Mister Duan, if we keep going like this it would be all worth nothing. As you must have already noticed, this serpent is more attuned to the earth.

When it reaches the Zara desert, it will be able to use the earth Qi to burrow through the sand, completely slipping out of our grasps. If it wasn't seriously injured, it might have already burrowed through the ground."

Hearing Shui Ling's words, Duan Xiang's expression changed. Apart from the huge opportunity he would miss, he had already spent a lot of resources on this fight.

In just the span of a few days, he had already broken 4 different types of defensive treasures and consumed as many pills as he had in the last ten years.

He couldn't let this serpent escape, no matter what. Since he had already spent so much, he wasn't afraid to spend even more. It would all turn out to be a profit if he received the beast core in the end.

"We have already worked too hard on this fight, we can't let it escape now. I have a plan."

Duan Xiang communicated his plan to Shui Ling using his divine sense. She could feel his desperation as she heard his plan, he was truly prepared to burn a lot to get this beast core.

Now that everything was decided, Duan Xiang took a deep breath and sprung into action.

Roiling his Qi, he joined his hands as if he were praying. Yellow Qi gathered around him in clumps, rising into the sky.

When the sky was completely shrouded by the gigantic clumps, Duan Xiang separated his palms and turned them over.

It was a majestic scene. Like innumerable shooting stars, the gathered clumps shot towards the snake, leaving behind trails which shone even in the daylight filled sky.

These shooting stars crashed down on the serpent with the force of a hundred volcanoes. To take this attack, even the snake had to stop. Its continuous progress was finally stopped, it had to stop in the face of this hail of stars.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang......"

The explosions were set off in a chain, covering the serpent completely.

Standing in the sky, Duan Xiang looked completely spent. It looked like he had spent every ounce of energy that he had in his body and that was exactly what he had done.

On the other side, Shui Ling had finally finished her preparations. The raised azure sword fell with blinding speed, sword lights illuminated the beast before the explosions even finished.

The snake kept raising walls of earth to soften some blows as it writhed around, trying to dodge some others.

However, this wasn't the end. Duan Xiang knew how durable the snake was. Afterall, he had spent the last pleasant week with it. Since it was so durable, he didn't plan to pull any punches.

Rectangular pieces of paper floated out of his bag and arranged themselves around him. All of them had exquisite patterns drawn on them and radiated vigorous power.

Just like that, one by one, each of them started lighting up and releasing what was contained in them. Some set off scorching hot fires while others sent out formidable sword lights.

These were talismans, all of them contained the power of a blow from at least the first level of nascent soul stage while a lot of them had even reached Nascent Soul late.

The writhing snake was hit by the barrage of talismans. However, instead of defending once again, it moved with rapid speed towards Duan Xiang who had already started withdrawing as if he had expected this development.

The barrage of talismans wasn't stopping. Instead, even Shui Ling had taken out talismans and started activating them as soon as she could.

These were provided to her by Duan Xiang earlier, he had truly held nothing back. He took out all the talismans he had been hoarding from who knew how long and planned to use them all today.

The snake was being cut, burnt, beaten by the various kinds of talismans. Taking all these blows, it didn't let out a peep.

Even as its battered body was being destroyed even more, it slithered towards Duan Xiang with renewed fervor. It had sensed desperation and the desperate Duan Xiang was much more dangerous than the restrained Shui Ling

Setting off talismans after talismans, when Duan Xiang caught a glimpse of the snake's blood red pupils amidst the massive dust clouds. He felt as if it had a mocking expression on its face, which shouldn't have been able to depict any emotions at all.

The explosions finally ended, all the talismans had been activated. Although the snake had tried hard to reach Duan Xiang, it was still a little farther away.

Its speed was merely a fraction of what it was before, its body reeling from all the blows it had taken.

Duan Xiang and Shui Ling's expressions were filled with disbelief. Even after all this, the snake was still alive.

This beast was too formidable. Although Shui Ling hadn't underestimated it, even she thought that it wouldn't be able to survive from the rain of talismans that they had initiated.

Duan Xiang had a maddened expression on his face and his eyes had grown red. Nobody would know just how many spirit stones he had spent to accumulate that amount of talismans.

However, with his bloody eyes he just smiled and said.

"I didn't think that I would have to use this today. However, this is the tipping point for me, I'll offer up this body if necessary."

Saying this, Duan Xiang took out another talisman. This one looked less flashier when compared to the previous ones.

Nonetheless, the energy that it exuded completely exceeded every other talisman before it.

'He is even willing to take this out? Looks like he wants to take the beast core no matter what.'

What he had in his hand was something that every cultivator who had reached the nascent soul stage in the free city alliance received.

It was a talisman with an attack

from one of the elders of the alliance with cultivation surpassing Nascent Soul sealed inside it.

With a blood thirsty gaze and a mad smile, Duan Xiang moved his Qi to activate the talisman.

Suddenly, monstrous pressure was extended out from the snake. The brunt of it was concentrated on Duan Xiang.

No matter how hard he tried to move, he wasn't able to do anything. It was like petrification, he could only watch as the snake closed the distance with speed faster than anything it had ever shown to them.

It reached Duan Xiang in an instant. The snake opened its massive jaw and brought it down on him.

Inside the mouth of the snake, he received a treatment completely different from Yun Fei.

Endless pressure washed over him and the bestial Qi under the control of the snake invaded his body wreaking havoc. The snake wanted to crush him to make him easy to digest.

Duan Xiang's body soon started deforming but his crazy smile still remained. Instead of trying to resist death, he staked all his cultivation on an explosion. He would take the core home with him, even if it was only his soul.

BOOOOOM!!!!