Chapter 716: Chapter 716

The Primordial Unity Ring tightened, causing the Azure Shark to writhe in agony.

Yet after receiving Qin Sang’s promise, the Azure Shark seemed to forget the pain entirely. It stared at him, eyes fierce and gleaming with disbelief and desperate hope.

With a powerful flick of its tail, the Azure Shark turned and surged in the direction Qin Sang had pointed.

Qin Sang scanned his surroundings, then activated a talisman and summoned Sword Qi Thunderclap. His evasion light flickered a few times before he vanished into the distance. After flying several li, he caught sight of the Two-Headed Hou running across the surface of the sea.

Its foreleg was injured, but with the aid of its wind-forged wings, it could still sprint over the waves.

At its current cultivation, the Two-Headed Hou could split into six clones that were virtually indistinguishable from the real body. Each clone even retained a portion of the beast’s true strength. Without direct combat, it was impossible to tell real from fake with the naked eye.

If it truly intended to escape, most opponents would never be able to trap it.

Qin Sang felt relieved that he had seriously injured the beast first. Otherwise, he would have long since lost track of it.

Hearing movement behind, the Two-Headed Hou turned both heads to look back, glaring fiercely at Qin Sang. The vertical pupils in its foreheads suddenly lit up, releasing two beams of azure light that transformed into twin whirling wind blades.

The blades flanked Qin Sang from both sides, striking in perfect synchronization.

"This is the real one."

Qin Sang's gaze sharpened.

The pressure from those wind blades made his skin tingle with pain. That alone confirmed their power. A clone could never produce such an attack. This was the true body.

But what truly pleased Qin Sang was that he could sense the beast's aura weakening again after using its splitting technique. His strategy was finally paying off.

Throughout the long night of pursuit, he had passed up multiple chances to intercept the Two-Headed Hou. If he had gone all out, using talismans and Sword Qi Thunderclap, he would likely have caught it already, as its current speed was slightly inferior to his own.

Instead, he chose to keep his distance, trailing it just closely enough to keep up, without forcing it into desperation. He wanted it to believe escape was possible, while never giving it time to rest.

Under his relentless harassment, the heavily wounded Two-Headed Hou had been forced to burn through its strength repeatedly, using supernatural abilities to fend off danger. At last, it was nearing its limit.

As the wind blades slashed toward him, Qin Sang remained calm.

The sword light swirling around him flickered briefly.

The Ebony Sword suddenly appeared in front of the wind blades. With a sharp flicker, it split into two streaks of sword light that intercepted the attacks from both sides.

At the same time, Qin Sang tilted his head back and let out a long howl, summoning the Azure Shark and the flying yaksha to him.

The time was right. It was time to draw the net tight.

However, this beast was at the middle stage of the Demonic Core Realm. A cornered counterattack would be ferocious. Qin Sang was not entirely confident.

And his true goal was not to kill the Two-Headed Hou, but to capture it alive.

The flying yaksha had just engaged one of the beast’s clones. Hearing Qin Sang’s call, it struck the illusion with a powerful palm, then immediately turned and left. The Azure Shark, having just locked onto another clone, hesitated briefly but also chose to return.

As the wind blades clashed with the spiritual sword, a flurry of azure fragments exploded outward. The wind blades began to scatter.

The ebony sword trembled and let out a high-pitched hum. It escaped the collision, flashed once, and shot back to Qin Sang’s side.

This exchange left Qin Sang slightly ahead.

To his surprise, after launching the wind blades, the Two-Headed Hou did not flee. Instead, it turned to face him, both heads glaring with ferocity. Its vertical pupils gleamed with murderous light, jaws lowered, fangs exposed, and low growls rumbled from its throats.

Qin Sang’s heart tightened. The beast was clearly preparing for a final desperate strike.

The moment that thought passed, its form shimmered. Two clones split off from its body and vanished on the spot.

Qin Sang cursed inwardly and immediately flew backward.

A split second later, three identical Two-Headed Hou lunged at the spot where he had just stood. Had he not reacted in time, he would have been torn to shreds.

Failing to land a hit, the Two-Headed Hou pressed the attack without pause.

Its wind-forged wings quivered and shattered into a storm of wind blades that filled the sky. The real body and its illusions lunged forward again.

Unfortunately for the beast, the Azure Shark and the flying yaksha had already arrived.

Qin Sang nimbly avoided the wind blades, spotted the illusions, and ordered his two companions to destroy them. With the clones dispatched, the three launched a joint assault on the beast itself.

The final gamble failed. The Two-Headed Hou grew weaker still, losing even its wind wings. Unable to defend against attacks from all sides, it was overwhelmed and left floundering.

Panicked and desperate, it began burning its origin energy and unleashed several counterattacks, all of which Qin Sang deflected with ease.

At last, the Two-Headed Hou fell into despair. It let out a mournful howl and tilted one head to the sky. Its jaws parted, and a streak of azure light burst forth.

Within that azure light was a single pill-like object.

The azure radiance gleamed with a sorrowful beauty. The demonic core within it trembled ceaselessly, and an overwhelmingly powerful aura surged outward from the haze.

The Two-Headed Hou was actually attempting to self-detonate its demonic core.

Faced with this sight, Qin Sang showed no sign of panic. With a sweep of his hand, three streaks of ghostly light shot out and landed beside the Two-Headed Hou with a sharp swooshing sound, instantly transforming into three massive ghost banners, flapping violently in the wind and waves.

For the past fifteen years, Qin Sang’s life had been singularly monotonous, only hunting beasts and cultivating.

Determined to stay clear of the chaos between the two factions, he had not only avoided returning, but instead relied on the warning function of the Primordial Unity Rings to venture deeper and deeper into the Demonic Sea.

In all those years, he had not interacted with a single cultivator.

Enduring that kind of solitude was not difficult for someone resolutely devoted to the path of cultivation.

While cultivating, he had also been pondering.

Before the next opening of Seven-Kill Hall, he would likely break through to the middle stage of the Core Formation Realm without issue. But progressing further to the late stage was certainly out of reach for now.

Without a breakthrough in realm, continuing to cultivate after reaching the middle stage would yield limited returns.

How could he rapidly increase his strength and prepare for entering Seven-Kill Hall in the future?

Taking an alternate path, the two most obvious directions were to temper the body or to cultivate the primordial spirit and strengthen his spiritual consciousness.

Among the spoils Qin Sang had collected over the years, he had come across a few methods related to these paths. But they were all mediocre at best. Their effectiveness was open to debate. Even those arts preserved in Treasure Tower Peak of Shaohua Mountain were underwhelming for Core Formation cultivators. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novel•fire.net

Originally, if not for being schemed against by Dongyang Bo, Qin Sang would have returned to his sect and formed his core smoothly, gaining access to the most guarded treasures of Shaohua Mountain. He had no doubt those would have included such methods.

In general, cultivation arts for tempering spiritual consciousness or the physical body were rare. Top-grade arts were especially scarce. Qin Sang had no desire to join another sect and be bound by restrictions, which made his chances of obtaining such methods even slimmer.

After much thought, Qin Sang had no choice but to consider other options.

For example, the corpse core.

Ever since forming his core, he had kept the corpse core as a backup. Whenever his true essence ran dry, unsealing the corpse core granted him far greater endurance than other cultivators of the same realm.

But Qin Sang felt that simply using such a rare and hard-won corpse core as a stamina reserve was wasteful. It deserved a more significant purpose—something worthy of the hardship he endured to acquire it.