Chapter 360 - Mysterious Place Beyond The Mist~

Fwoosh~

Making his way through the thick mist that covered the circular entrance that had formed at the centre of the water, Xuan Hao soon found himself in the middle of a large corridor.

The corridor itself was not too different from the four ancient temples he had seen above. Only larger and more detailed. Allowing it to give off a more majestic felling compared to the other four temples he had seen above.

Another thing of note was the fact that the corridor showed way fewer signs of decay compared to the found temples located above. Likely due to the fact that the ones above were way easier to access compared to the temple he currently found himself inside of.

After all, even with his current cultivation realm and the help of his domain, Xuan Hao still had no idea how to reach make the entrance to the temple appear…

If not for the help of the Ghost Howl Sect disciples so graciously opening the entrance for him and allowing him to enter, he would have likely ended up just giving up on finding out where the expeditionary force of the Ghost Howl Sect had disappeared to.

Now that he was thinking about it, where is the expeditionary force from the Ghost Howl Sect…?

Realizing that he hadn't met anyone from the Ghost Howl Sect since entering the corridor where the Ghost Howl Sect had escaped from, Xuan Hao could not help but grow cautious as he began more thoroughly inspecting the corridor that he was inside of.

The only thing standing out was a small trail of blood on the floor of the corridor. Likely having stemmed from the Ghost Howl Sect disciple that had opened up the entrance in the first place…

Looking down at the trail of blood, Xuan Hao looked back up at where the entrance to the corridor had been before it had disappeared behind him.

It looked like he would have to look for another way out…

"Hm…?"

Just as Xuan Hao was about to follow the direction that the trail of blood that the Ghost howl Sect disciple had left behind, he suddenly felt the terrifying aura that he had first picked up on in the air above the Pure Heart Lake.

The only problem being that it came from the opposite direction that the trail of blood was in…

To follow the trail of blood leading to somewhere unknown, or to find out who or what the terrifying aura belonged to?

Whoosh~

Without much thinking, Xuan Hao turned around and headed towards the location that the powerful aura had come from.

Even if it was terrifying, Xuan Hao had clearly felt that the aura seemed far weaker than when it had the first time it erupted.

If at first the aura was something way beyond anything he had ever felt in the Domain Lord Realm. Now the aura seemed more comparable, if not a little weaker than the winged lion at its peak. Giving Xuan Hao more than enough confidence to deal with the origin of the aura if it came down to it.

…

Xuan Hao, who was making his way through the corridor towards the origin of the aura. Discovered that the corridor was far longer than he had expected, even after increasing his speed, he still took over five minutes to reach the end of the corridor.

The area that he arrived at after reaching the end, was a large open space with a dense forest in front of him. Looking up, Xuan Hao could even see what looked like an artificial sky. All run by some kind of enormous ancient formation.

"Wha-"

Turning to look back towards the corridor he had just come from, Xuan Hao could not help letting out a surprised sound, as the corridor faded out of existence. Leaving him with no way back the way he came. Unless he could break through the formation that kept the entire thing running…

But just from the fact that he couldn't even sense the formation with his divine sense or domain in the first place. Gave Xuan Hao the impression that he would likely not have enough strength to do something like that…

Rustle~

"They must've been frightened from seeing someone just suddenly appear in front of them and are now running away…" Watching as several small animals that had been hiding or were eating in the surrounding forest run away fearfully after discovering that someone had suddenly appeared in the place, they were either hiding or getting something to eat.

"How weird… The qi is clearly so dense in here, but none of the surrounding animals have even reached the first stage of the Qi Condensation Realm…" Scanning his surroundings through his divine sense, Xuan Hao quickly discovered that none of the animals inside the dense forest had any form of cultivation.

All of them remaining regular animals even with the qi being dense enough to allow even someone with no talent in cultivation to reach the Foundation Establishment Realm within a few years.

Not thinking too much about the weird phenomenon, Xuan Hao paid it no mind as he continued forward towards the location of the powerful aura, he could clearly feel that he was getting closer.

…

Meanwhile, in a deeper part of the dense forest Xuan Hao had just arrived in, the expedition force of the Ghost Howl Sect was fighting off a tide of monsters with the elders using several large-scale attacks all over the battlefield. Killing hordes of demon beasts in an instant.

But the demon beasts kept appearing like there was no end to them, causing heavy casualties on the side of the Ghost Howl Sect as blood sprayed into the air and the corpses of the weaker disciples slowly began covering the ground until only those at the Foundation Establishment Realm were left fighting.

"Kill! Kill all these demon beasts!"

"We have to escape, there is no way for us to hold them back!"

"It's that man! He has something to do with all these demon beasts suddenly appearing and attacking us like this! If we don't kill him, there will be no end to these monsters!"

At the same time, Bai Hua was sitting fully concentrated in a meditative position inside a small pond located on top of a large altar.

"How dare you resist!? Just give up your body to me and stop fighting against it!" An arrogant voice suddenly echoed out from inside the body of Bai Hua sitting in a meditative position, as a barely visible silhouette of an elderly man manifested next to his body with a pissed off look on his face.

"Are you perhaps thinking about having those pitiful idiots come to your rescue? Or maybe you just want them to weaken me? Hehe, stop daydreaming, those insects are at most at the Core Formation Realm! The small horde of demon beasts I made from the local wildlife is more than enough for me to deal with them!" The silhouette floating next to Bai Hua mocked. Hoping that he would just give up and allow him to take over his body without struggling.

After all, even if he could take over the body, the soul remnant did not want to expend all its energy on the task and end up weakened for a period of time afterwards if it could be avoided.

Not only would that be extremely dangerous as someone much weaker than itself could kill it, but it also very clearly knew that its currently location was not really anywhere safe in the first place. Having a drawn-out fight for Bai Hua's body was not anything desirable…

"…"

"Tsk… If you really don't want to give up your body without resistance, don't expect me to be gentle!"

Fwoosh!

Seeing Bai Hua remain silent as he desperately tried absorbing the spiritual water below him to increase his soul strength and better ward off the invasion of the remnant soul, the silhouette disappeared back into his body and before long a stream of blood began trickling down from the corner of his mouth.

"Look! The man is about to succeed!"

"We have to stop him! If he successfully breaks through, we will all be dead!"

The people from the Ghost Howl Sect had no idea about the struggle happening on top of the altar and only thought Bai Hua was behind the horde of demon beasts that came over to attack them all of a sudden.

Feeling the powerful aura and seeing the precious spiritual water on top of the altar slowly being absorbed by him only resulted in further strengthening this belief.

"Looks like we won't be able to make it out of here alive… At least the young master managed to escape…"

Surrounded by over five berserk demon beasts at the Core Formation Realm, the elder who had been tasked with guarding the young master of the Ghost Howl Sect could not help smiling sadly to himself.

He had discovered the demon beasts only a few seconds before the rest of the expeditionary force and had used a large part of his strength to directly throw the young master out of the encirclement that had been forming around them at that time, while telling him to escape and not look back.

"At least I managed to repay the debt I owed for you saving my life back then…" Muttering this to himself as he watched even more Core Formation Realm demon beasts swarm over towards him, the elder slowly felt himself become weaker and weaker with each passing second before one of the demon beasts attacks managed to pass through his defences-

Swish!

And pierce through his heart. Instantly killing him.

The rest of the Ghost Howl Sect members didn't fare any better than their strongest elder, as they slowly began dying one by one.

Even if the demon beasts were not as strong as what their cultivation realm suggested, the sheer amount of demon beasts numbering in the thousands was simply way too much for them to handle with only a small expeditionary force of around a hundred people.

Not to mention they also had to deal with the blue spider horde earlier…