Chapter 2442: Chapter 2442
The two leaders exchanged glances and agreed to each send three men to accompany Ye Liuyun inside.
"Stay close to me! Move as fast as you can and keep pushing forward. Just when you feel like you can’t hold on any longer, you’ll reach the entrance to the secret realm," Ye Liuyun warned them before stepping in.
The men nodded nervously and followed him in a frantic dash.
Of course, those poor souls didn’t make it far before they collapsed from poisoning, never even catching a glimpse of the so-called secret realm entrance.
With a smirk, Ye Liuyun collected their storage rings and snatched two high-grade medicinal herbs before rushing back out.
Before anyone could question him, he shouted, "Your men got into a fight with the savage beasts inside! I managed to grab a couple of herbs on my way out—here, see for yourselves!"
He tossed the herbs to the two leaders, who examined them and found his story convincing.
"Take us in!" the soldier leader demanded, his suspicions now cast aside.
The royal leader was about to follow when one of his subordinates tugged at his sleeve. He hesitated, then stopped. "I still have my doubts. Let’s send more men in first to scout."
So he dispatched three more martial cultivators inside.
"At least one of them has some sense," Ye Liuyun thought to himself before leading the others back into the valley.
Once they were gone, the royal leader turned to his subordinate. "Why didn’t we go in? What if our men are ambushed?"
"The scouts I sent earlier were instructed to report back immediately if they found the secret realm. Since they haven’t returned, something’s clearly wrong. We can’t afford to take that risk," the subordinate explained.
"You’re saying that kid’s playing us?" the royal leader asked.
"Very likely!" his subordinate replied.
At that moment, the soldier captain burst out from the valley encased in a protective energy shield. Without a word, he immediately turned tail and fled.
"Something’s definitely wrong! They must have fallen for that kid’s trap!" the royal leader’s subordinate exclaimed.
By then, Ye Liuyun had already collected all the soldiers’ storage rings and was leisurely strolling out.
"You’re quite sharp!" Ye Liuyun remarked approvingly upon hearing the subordinate’s words.
"Do you have an antidote artifact?" the subordinate asked.
"Something like that," Ye Liuyun replied evasively.
"You’ve got some nerve," the royal leader sneered. "Do you even know who that man who just escaped is? He’s Liu Tianyi, the youngest son of the Sacred Dynasty’s Grand Commander! By letting him go, you’ve just invited an entire army to hunt you down!"
Ye Liuyun chuckled and countered, "Who said I was letting him leave?"
"Oh? What do you mean?" The royal leader frowned in confusion.
"Check your palm," Ye Liuyun said with a smirk.
Skeptical but uneasy, the royal leader opened his hand—only to see tendrils of dark energy faintly swirling across his skin.
"Damn it, the herbs were poisoned!" his subordinate realized first.
"What? What do we do?" The royal leader panicked before rounding on Ye Liuyun in fury. "Hand over the antidote now!"
Ye Liuyun chuckled darkly, "Antidote? There never was one. I never intended to let any of you walk away alive!"
Seeing their leader’s predicament, his subordinate grimaced and drew his sword without hesitation. "Bear with it, my lord!" With one swift motion, the blade flashed downward, severing the poisoned hand clean at the wrist.
"Aaaargh!"
The royal leader howled in agony, staring dumbfounded as his own palm thudded to the ground. His subordinate immediately pressed a detoxification pill into his mouth. "Channel your vital energy to heal the wound!"
"Seize him!" the wounded noble gasped, pointing a trembling finger at Ye Liuyun while his other men scrambled to obey.
Unfazed, Ye Liuyun unsheathed his Demon-Slaying Blade with a metallic ring, ready for battle. But then both the noble and his men froze in horror—blackened blood oozed from the fresh stump, the discoloration creeping up the severed veins.
The poison had spread far beyond the hand. Amputation came too late; the toxins already coursed through his entire body.
The subordinate recoiled instinctively, putting distance between himself and his dying master. "Hold your weapons!" he barked at the others before turning to Ye Liuyun with forced calm. "This is Xiao Yulang—the Left Chancellor’s only son. Name your price for the antidote. Anything."
Ye Liuyun merely arched an eyebrow, studying the man with detached curiosity. "And you are? Which faction do you serve?"
Caught off guard, the subordinate stiffened but answered, "Ling Hai. My father is the Chief Law Enforcer."
Behind them, Xiao Yulang collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, his body convulsing weakly before going still. The ashen hue of death already painted his features.
Ye Liuyun unleashed his doppelganger, launching a direct soul attack on Ling Hai before turning his attention to the other martial artists.
After the doppelganger planted a slave seal on Ling Hai, it swiftly moved to assist Ye Liuyun in eliminating the remaining fighters, relishing the thrill of battle along the way.
By the time the dust settled, Xiao Yulang was already dead. Ye Liuyun wasted no time in stripping the resources from his Interspatial Ring before setting off in pursuit of Liu Tianyi’s fleeing figure.
Ling Hai obediently trailed behind Ye Liuyun, now reduced to nothing more than a loyal servant.
It didn’t take long for Ye Liuyun to track down Liu Tianyi.
To his surprise, the man wasn’t dead—yet. Poisoned and unable to channel his vital energy, Liu Tianyi had collapsed mid-flight, desperately swallowing antidote pills in a futile attempt to suppress the toxin.
"Still alive? Consider yourself lucky," Ye Liuyun muttered, mildly impressed. The man’s antidote must have been remarkably potent to keep him breathing. Fate, it seemed, wasn’t done with him yet.
Without hesitation, Ye Liuyun implanted a slave seal into Liu Tianyi, then siphoned the poison from his body, saving his life.
"Thank you, Master, for sparing me!" Liu Tianyi gasped, still shaken from his brush with death. Though resentment simmered beneath the surface, the slave seal forced his gratitude to spill forth.
"Hmph."
Ye Liuyun acknowledged him with a grunt, then ordered both him and Ling Hai to surrender all their resources from their storage rings. Once emptied, he made them discard the rings themselves—just in case they carried any tracking mechanisms.
Ling Hai and Liu Tianyi were far from useless—Ling Hai was sharp-witted, while Liu Tianyi possessed formidable combat prowess.
That was precisely why Ye Liuyun had kept them, stashing them away in his spatial realm as reserves.
To Ling Hai, Ye Liuyun was anything but ordinary. The man had single-handedly outmaneuvered and wiped out an entire group—no mediocrity could pull that off.
So when he sensed the enslavement mark Ye Liuyun had placed on him, defiance never even crossed his mind. The mere thought of resisting made him shudder, terrified that Ye Liuyun might snuff him out without a second thought.
But Ye Liuyun didn’t particularly care what these enslaved cultivators thought. The marks were just tools to keep them in line, forcing them to gather resources for him.
Gradually, he realized something: the stronger he became, the less he needed to rely on others.
With each subsequent battle, Ye Liuyun fought with increasing ease. Thanks to the enslaved cultivators scouring resources for him, his cultivation reserves grew richer, and his time for training stretched longer.
