Before leaving, Qi Zhiheng handed the three children to Qiu Yuerong: "Mother, this trip may take some time, but we will try our best to return within a month."
Qiu Yuerong took a child from her: "Go ahead, be careful."
After explaining things to Yang Yitian, Qi Zhiheng set off with him.
The mission took place in a mortal city, far smaller than those of cities frequented by cultivators. Yang Yitian was accompanied by ten Foundation Establishment disciples, who were the leader of the small team. Qi Zhiheng was merely a family member who had come along.
The people in the team were naturally very happy about this; the more Golden Cores they had, the better their safety would be guaranteed.
The mission is to deal with a demonic beast at the Golden Core stage, but its exact level is still unknown.
This golden-core demon beast appeared in a mountain range in a mortal town.
It is speculated that this monster may have existed for a long time, but it may have been dormant for a very long period of time.
Recently, this monster has awakened. The awakened monster needs to eat, which has made it almost impossible for people who enter the mountains to get out.
There are quite a few cultivators in this mountain range, but the highest cultivation level is only Foundation Establishment, and most of them are Qi Refining stage cultivators.
Normally, if something happened to a cultivator, it wouldn't alarm the Slaughtering God Sect. However, since this demonic beast has reached out to mortals, nearly a hundred people who originally lived in the town have gone missing.
This city was under the jurisdiction of the Slaughtering God Sect, and the problems that had arisen in the town were reported to the Slaughtering God Sect by some cultivators. The Slaughtering God Sect sent several Foundation Establishment cultivators to investigate, but they returned empty-handed, unable to even determine what kind of demonic beast the opponent was.
Three disciples who participated in the mission went missing. When they returned, three of them, all Foundation Establishment stage disciples, were seriously injured. They fled back to the sect in a sorry state and reported the incident. The sect had no choice but to escalate the mission to a higher level, sending someone at the Golden Core stage to investigate.
Yang Yitian could deal with the Golden Core demon beast, but finding it was not so easy. It was said that this demon beast was extremely good at hiding, and even cultivators who faced it head-on could not guess its true form.
Qi Zhiheng and Yang Yitian led a team of ten people to this small town. The town is called Liuxi Town. There is a stream near the mountains. The stream flows into the town and runs through the middle of the town, dividing it in two.
Many people in the town would still come to this stream to fetch water for their daily lives.
They saw the town mayors waiting for them in front of the town's stone monument. He was accompanied by several people, who must be high-ranking figures in the village.
From the outside, the town looks like a typical small town, but once inside, they could feel the difference.
First, the town has a small population, and many houses have their doors tightly closed and locked. Clearly, there is no one in these locked houses.
The remaining people looked at them with strange eyes, a mixture of awe and complexity, some even with malice. However, they dared not go too far in front of the immortal master.
Led by the town mayor, they arrived at a magnificent house.
Yang Yitian and his group stayed at the home of a wealthy man in Liuxi Town. Hearing that a celestial master was coming, the town mayor naturally wanted to make proper arrangements. Although he wanted to bring the celestial master to his own home, his own home was too simple, and the mayor was afraid of angering the powerful figures in the town. In the end, he decided to welcome the celestial master to the most magnificent house in town—the mansion of the wealthy Huang.
Yang Yitian decided to inquire about the situation here. Qi Zhiheng didn't interfere much with his decision, after all, this was a task that Yang Yitian had taken on, and he believed that Yang Yitian wasn't so useless that he had to help him make decisions about everything.
Yang Yitian listened to the town mayor's detailed account of the incident while he was in the Huang family's residence.
There are some first- and second-level spiritual herbs in the mountains next to Liuxi Town, as well as some low-level demonic beasts. However, these demonic beasts generally do not venture out of the mountains. There are also many cultivators among the villagers, such as the town mayor, who is a cultivator at the third level of the Foundation Establishment stage.
Originally, the mountain range was not very dangerous. However, an accident occurred half a year ago. After an earthquake, some of the monsters in the mountains fled, causing a small-scale beast tide that attracted many cultivators to hunt the monsters. The beast tide was quelled not long afterward.
Some people felt that something had happened in the mountains, possibly the appearance of a rare treasure. So, some of those who had just assessed the beast tide ventured deep into the mountains, ready to see the treasure for themselves.
Unfortunately, none of the cultivators who entered the inner part of the mountain range ever came out again. By this time, people also realized the dangers within, but few gave up because of this, and it even attracted some Foundation Establishment cultivators to come and investigate.
They originally thought that once the Foundation Establishment cultivators went in, the problem would be solved, but who knew that those Foundation Establishment cultivators who went in also never came out again.
Four months later, news of the mountain's cannibalism reached the Slaughter God Sect. The Slaughter God Sect dispatched a Foundation Establishment cultivator to investigate the situation.
Initially, they didn't plan to go directly inside or outside. They originally intended to check the situation on the outer perimeter first to see if they could find any clues. However, they didn't expect to be attacked on the outer perimeter that very day. Some people inexplicably felt a force attacking them. Some people dodged the attack, and some people dodged the attack. In the end, three people were seriously injured. Originally, they planned to continue investigating, but unexpectedly, the wounds of the injured people did not improve much even with the help of the pills. So, the three injured people prepared to return to the sect under the escort of two people.
The remaining five still planned to venture deeper, and they prepared to enter the mountains again the next day.
The next day they returned empty-handed and dejected. This wouldn't normally be a big deal, but that very night something truly terrible happened.
The demonic beasts that originally roamed the inner perimeter of the mountain range began to move to the outer perimeter after the people from the Slaughtering God Sect entered to investigate. Several cultivators who would normally disappear once they entered the inner perimeter also disappeared while on the outer perimeter.
This was just the beginning; more and more people went missing in the surrounding areas afterward.
When the sect members saw this, they went in again. When they came out again, three of the five-person team were missing.
What's worse, on the very night they left, people disappeared in Liuxi Town. Seven people went missing that night, which is no small number.
From that day on, the way the townspeople looked at the God-Slaying Sect changed. The first time they entered the mountains, the attacks extended to the outer edges of the mountains. The second time they entered the mountains, the attacks reached right into the town.
This inevitably made the townspeople suspect them, as the coincidences seemed far too great.
Faced with the residents' suspicion and distrust, the members of the Slaughter God Sect returned empty-handed. The sect then issued a second mission, raising the mission level to require the assistance of Golden Core cultivators, in order to at least salvage the reputation of the Slaughter God Sect.
So Yang Yitian came with the Lu Shen Sect's team this time.
That's the gist of the situation. Yang Yitian was a bit of a headache. Should he just go in and check the situation? His eyes subconsciously turned to Qi Zhiheng.
Qi Zhiheng turned his face away. To be honest, Qi Zhiheng didn't know the specifics either. Even if Yang Yitian asked him, he wouldn't be able to get any specific advice.
In the past month or so, nearly a hundred people have gone missing in the town, and some of the more timid people have even moved their entire families to other towns.
The house where Yang Yitian and the others are currently living, where the wealthy man Huang lived, has long since moved away from the town. He has other houses elsewhere and can easily wait until this turmoil has passed before considering moving back.
After recounting everything, the mayor ordered a welcoming feast to be prepared, but no one present seemed particularly interested. What good things could a small town, where ordinary people made up the majority of the population, possibly offer?
However, the town mayor really put in a lot of effort; these dishes were made with spirit vegetables and spirit rice, and they were still palatable.
Yang Yitian and Qi Zhiheng didn't eat together. Instead, Qi Zhiheng prepared a special meal for him. It felt a little awkward for just the two of them to eat alone. Yang Yitian looked at the ten Foundation Establishment cultivators who were watching them eat and silently swallowing their saliva, and then looked at the delicious food he was eating. He immediately felt that he hadn't been very kind.
So, Yang Yitian rummaged through his storage bag. He found some Bigu Pills, which were top-grade Bigu Pills refined by Qi Zhiheng, with extremely long-lasting effects! Yang Yitian generously distributed them to ten Foundation Establishment stage cultivators.
The cultivators: "..."
These Foundation Establishment disciples dared not resist. How could they refuse a gift from a Golden Core Ancestor? So, one by one, they accepted the Bigu Pill with complicated expressions and swallowed it in front of Yang Yitian.
After watching them swallow the fasting pills, Yang Yitian nodded and said, "You guys are lucky. These are top-grade fasting pills made by Daoist couples. Their effects are long-lasting. One pill can keep you from starving for a month."
The disciples of the Slaughtering God Sect had very mixed feelings. Three months! The effects of a fasting pill usually last from three to twenty days, but the effects in thirty days were truly remarkable.
With their stomachs full from consuming the fasting pill, everyone watched Yang Yitian devour meat and vegetables. Touching their bellies, they no longer had any desire to eat. It seemed as if they had already understood Yang Yitian's intention!
Alright, don't even think about coveting Yang Yitian's food for the next month.
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