Stellar Transformations

by I Eat Tomatoes

  Because Xiuyaoists usually spend time practicing, they are very bored, and therefore many of them are very eager to chase some Xiuxianist.

  “8 Xiuyaoists.” Qin Yu considers the probability of killing these 8 Xiuyaoists. After a while, he slowly shakes his head: “No, I can’t handle these 8 guys quickly. Also, when Sang Mo sent his clan’s members out, he must’ve given them a method for transmitting messages. Even if I could kill these 8 quickly, they’d send a message and so many Xiuyaoists would gather in this area, which would be very bad.”

  “The 8 of you are very lucky.”

  Without activating the stellar energy in his body, Qin Yu pierces through the water like an arrow using his physical power. The principle of the body-maneuvering skill he practiced in the past is to turn water resistance into assistance. With Qin Yu’s body and his water-piercing body-maneuvering skill, his speed is still very fast.

  In a short while he has already gone very far from those 8 Xiuyaoists.

  “Using physical power alone to go through the water is still slower than using stellar energy.” There are no Xiuyaoists in his surroundings according to his holy sense so he begins to activate his stellar energy, preparing to go forwards extremely fast from now on. However --

  Qin Yu’s face changes color abruptly.

  There are unexpectedly 2 Xiuyaoists up ahead. Even worse, judging from the fact that they are searching with their expanded holy senses, they are probably also Qin Yu’s pursuers.

  “It’s been only 10-odd li but I’ve encountered other pursuers again.” Qin Yu finally knows how densely distributed his pursuers are, especially within this area of 100,000 in radius, where almost all Xiuyaoists conveniently expand their holy senses to search when they are free.

  These 2 Xiuyaoists looks very muscular. One of them is bald and wearing armor. The other is even more muscular. His whole body’s skin has a dark blue color and there is a pitch-black stick in his hand.

  “Hey, bro, today is really boring. Recently you haven’t surfaced to hunt, have you?” The armor-clad bald man says to the blue large man casually.

  The blue large man says with a mysterious smile: “Of course I have. When I came to the waters near the continent to hunt last time, I was very lucky to run into a fishing boat. There were 10-odd people on the boat, including even some women. At that time I turned into my true form and ate half of them up at a gulp. Then I sucked the rest in my storage bracelet. Ha-ha, when those people saw my true form they all yelled ‘sea monster’.”

  “Then could you let me also …” The bald man signals to the blue large man with a look.

  The blue large man says laughingly: “All right, all …” Before the blue large man can finish saying, a fist penetrates his chest and, moreover, it lands exactly where his heart is located. This man’s heart is immediately shattered.

  “Go to hell!”

  There is a hint of ruthlessness in Qin Yu’s eyes. When he heard what these 2 men said to each other, he became determined to kill them.

  As soon as the bald man takes a look at Qin Yu, he is greatly shocked: “Who are you?” This bald man is horrified by the fact that before he could feel an aura Qin Yu already killed his friend directly with a punch. This speed was really terrifyingly fast.

  With a faint smile on the corners of his mouth, Qin Yu stares at the bald man: “You’re going to be the target of my Soul Examination!”

  “Soul Examination, what does it mean?” The bald man is astounded in his heart.

  The Soul Examination can only be used when the opponent’s soul still exists. If a person’s body dies, his soul will quickly leave the body to enter the cycle of reincarnation. Therefore, there are 2 ways to perform the Soul Examination on a person. The 1st is to examine his soul directly when he is alive. The 2nd is to kill him then immediately examine his soul, taking advantage of the time when the soul is yet to leave the body.

  However, because that blue large man has been dead for a while, his soul has already left, and therefore Qin Yu can only consider this armor-clad bald man the target of his Soul Examination.

  “You’re … a Xiuxianist, that Xiuxianist who killed Sang Mo’s son?” The bald man suddenly says.

  Qin Yu slightly raises his eyebrows because the opponent has quickly recognized him.

  “You’ve unexpectedly recognized me. Tell me, how did you do that?” He asks while staring at the bald man, who secretly lets out a breath because the opponent did not attack him immediately, which also gives him a slim chance of escaping.

  He has no intention of fighting Qin Yu. After seeing how Qin Yu killed his friend with a blow just now, he has made a judgment about Qin Yu’s power.

  The bald man says with a flattering smile: “This is really very simple. Your body doesn’t have a Xiuyao aura. Your aura is different from ours. Also, a Xiuxianist who dares to go deep into the ocean is either an extremely powerful expert or a completely ignorant rookie, but in the upper part of this area, there is no …”

  Before the bald man can finishes saying, he suddenly sees Qin Yu’s body, which is 10 m away from him, make a swaying movement and arrive at his face in an instant.

  “Ah!”

  The bald man immediately reacts, wanting to resist. However, when has just thrown a punch …

  Bang!

  With a series of noises of bones being smashed Qin Yu’s fist directly shatters the bald man’s fist then, while he is shocked, proceeds to pierce through his chest and break his heart into pieces. At the same time, Qin Yu’s left hand makes a violent grab at the bald man’s head.

  Xiumo -- Soul Examination!

  After a while, Qin Yu pulls back his hands. Concurrently with this, he gets the jindans of these 2 Xiuyaoists, both of whom are at the middle phase of the Jindan stage.

  He gave the bald man a chance to talk because he did not want any mistakes to happen. If he had tried to kill the bald man right after killing the blue large man, that bald man would definitely have defended with all his might.

  If the bald man had self-destructed, he would have had to run away to avoid the explosion, which would have given the opponent’s soul enough time to float off. Therefore, Qin Yu allowed the bald man to talk, but when the opponent had just said half of what he intended to say, he sprang into action.

  “Let’s get rid of the corpses to remove all traces.”

  He sucks the 2 Xiuyaoists’ dead bodies, weapons and armor in his spatial ring. Ordinary Xiuzhenists have storage bracelets with small spaces so they would have to deal with some useless things before doing this, but Qin Yu just does not care.

  Sucking the bodies in the spatial ring is absolutely the best way to remove all the traces of what happened.

  Having absorbed the memories of that Xiuyaoist, now Qin Yu understands everything about the entire underwater world of Xiuyaoists. All of his doubts have disappeared in an instant. He cannot help giving a faint confident smile: “I see!”

  Chapter 8: Nowhere To Run

  The ocean is immense and seems limitless. The islands on the ocean surface are the territory of Xiuxianists and Xiumoists while the boundless underwater world is the territory of Xiuyaoists, whose power is much greater than that of either Xiuxianists or Xiumoists.

  There are 3 superpowers in the underwater world of Xiuyaoists, just like 3 big empires.

  The 1st is the Azure Dragon Palace. The overlord of the palace is, of course, a divine beast azure dragon in his true form. He is called the no. 1 expert of the overseas Xiuzhen world. Even super experts among Xiuxianists and Xiumoists cannot compare with him.

  The 2nd is the Nine Demons Hall, which has 9 leaders, whose true forms are Purple Demon aquatic dragons, a mutated kind of aquatic dragon. Even though they are not as strong as the Azure Dragon Palace overlord individually, as 9 brothers, they enjoy an advantage in number. Moreover, each of them is a super expert.

  The 3rd is the Blue Water Mansion. The Blue Water Mansion master is a mutated divine beast -- a Three-Blue-Eyed toad. His 3rd eye is ext
remely fearsome and has very strange offense. He is slightly weaker than the Azure Dragon Palace overlord, but because of that unusual 3rd eye, not even the Azure Dragon Palace overlord is certain of beating him.

  In the underwater world of Xiuyaoists, these 3 superpowers are like 3 super empires. They occupy an area of water that is millions of li in radius each. Nobody dares to shake their positions of power so they are absolute overlords under the water.

  There are small powers under these 3 superpowers.

  The waters ruled by the Nine Demons Hall have a radius of 90 million li. There are 8 lesser powers in this area, all of which are under the control of the Nine Demons Hall, and the leader of which is the Blood-red Cave, which is in charge of the northernmost region, which is 8 million in radius, of the Nine Demons Hall’s territory.

  “The structure is very clear, just like on the Qian Long continent. The Azure Dragon Palace, the Nine Demons Hall, and the Blue Water Mansion are very similar to 3 big dynasties. As far as the Blood-red Cave is concerned, it’s like a county subordinate to the Nine Demons Hall. And I’m currently in the waters controlled by the Blood-red Cave.”

  Qin Yu’s mind is now clear.

  Previously, he knew nothing about the underwater world of Xiuyaoists so naturally he was scared. A person is only afraid of the unknown. After understanding everything, even though Qin Yu knows that there are countless Xiuyao experts under the water, he has relaxed a lot mentally.

  This underwater world of Xiuyaoists is obviously larger than the Qian Long continent and, moreover, there are many more experts here as well. The 2 worlds are simply not on a par with each other. Several tens random Xiuyaoists alone from the underwater world can easily wipe out the entire Qian Long continent.

  A continent of mortals and an underwater world of Xiuyaoists are simply not on the same level.

  “Ah, ah, it turns out this is the reason why Xiuyaoists can quickly tell that I’m an outsider.”

  2 jade cards appear in his hand.

  These jade cards were taken from the bodies of the 2 Xiuyaoists killed moments ago. The upper halves of the jade cards have 2 words, Nine Demons, and the lower halves of the cards have a word, Blood-red. These few words are all emitting a special aura.

  In the beginning the Great Majesty of the Nine Demons Hall gave an order, that is, in the territory controlled by the Nine Demons Hall, all Xiuyaoists who have reached the Jindan stage must receive a jade identity card. In the Nine Demons Hall’s waters, Xiuyaoists who belong to the same power cannot fight each other.

  There are 9 kinds of jade identity cards for Xiuyaoists in the territory of the Nine Demons Hall.

  They are Nine Demons Blood-red, Nine Demons Great Shell, and so on.

  There are 8 lesser powers like the Blood-red Cave in the Nine Demons Hall’s territory so naturally there are 8 kinds of jade identity cards like the Nine Demons Blood-red card. The last kind of jade identity card is the Nine Demons card. It is given to the Xiuyaoists who are directly under the Nine Demons Hall and are not controlled by the 8 powers.

  No Xiuyaoists in the Nine Demons Hall’s territory are allowed to kill the ones with the Nine Demons cards. Anyone who breaks this rule will be punished by the guards of the Nine Demons Hall.

  A Xiuyaoist with a Nine Demon Blood-red card is not allowed to kill another one with the same kind of jade identity card, but he can kill any Xiuyaoist who has a different kind of identity card.

  The Nine Demons Hall gave this order to make the 8 lesser powers fight each other, thereby losing power. Moreover, no one can kill the Xiuyaoists controlled directly by it. So, naturally more and more Xiuyaoists have become its immediate subordinates.

  There is a hint of a smile on Qin Yu’s face.

  “From now on, I’ll become a member of the Blood-red Cave, which is under the Nine Demons Hall.” He personalizes a jade card by blood and sucks it in his body then conveniently throws the other card in his spatial ring.

  The Nine Demons Hall has never worried that outsiders will take these jade identity cards by force. It cannot even wait for some experts from the outside to accept them.

  Once a Xiuyaoist has a jade identity card, he can sense the information about another’s jade identity card with it. If they have the same kind of identity card, this will mean they belong to the same powerhouse. If their identity cards are of different kinds, they can fight each other.

  Of course, he can also fight someone from the same powerhouse as his if he is confident that he can hide this from the rule-enforcing squad or that he can resist this squad.

  Previously, mainly because Qin Yu and Xiao Hei did not have jade identity cards when they dived deep into the ocean, they were quickly spotted by those Xiuyaoists.

  “But … even though I’ve got a jade card, my body still doesn’t have a Xiuyao aura.” Qin Yu slightly frowns. Xiuyaoists’ auras are commonly referred to as demonic auras, which are very easily recognizable to all Xiuyaoists. This is also the reason why those Xiuyaoists were able to judge that Qin Yu was a Xiuxianist in an instant.

  He feels that a complication has arisen.

  Because he has a jade identity card, Xiuyaoists can sense the aura on his card. If they do not pay close attention to him then they will not be able to discover his true identity, but if they observe his aura carefully then they will notice that he does not have a demonic aura, which will put him in serious danger.

  “A demonic aura.” Qin Yu frowns deeply while mumbling repeatedly.

  His mind however is pondering nonstop. Xiuyaoists can recognize each other thanks to, firstly, the jade identity cards and, secondly, their demonic auras. After all, because most Xiuyaoists use their human forms, they look very similar to Xiuxianists and Xiumoists.

  “That’s right, Northern Darkness!”

  A faint smile appears on the corners of Qin Yu’s mouth.

  The Northern Darkness is a Xiumo secret skill which is more difficult to practice than the Soul Examination by several levels. To perform the Northern Darkness, the user must combine his spiritual energy with his body’s elemental energy. The Northern Darkness has 2 functions. The 1st is to suppress the user’s aura and the 2nd is to accelerate his practicing progress.

  If he wants to suppress his aura, he will only need to execute the skill with a little spiritual energy, and his entire aura will be swallowed up.

  If he wants to speed up his practicing progress, he will have to perform the skill with a lot of spiritual energy. Not only will his entire aura be swallowed up, the natural holy energy in his vicinity will be absorbed completely as well. At that time, in the eyes of observers, the user of the Northern Darkness skill will look like a black hole, sucking in all holy energy near him.

  Examining someone with the holy sense is, firstly, to examine his holy sense and, second, to examine the aura that his body sends out.

  “Once I use the Northern Darkness, my aura won’t be sent out. Other people not only won’t be able to feel my aura, but even my spiritual energy as well. Perhaps the enemies will think that I practice a certain special Xiuyao technique.”

  This is an eclectic solution.

  Qin Yu is not a Xiuyaoist so he cannot form a demonic aura that Xiuyaoists naturally send out from their bodies. But he only needs to absorb his entire aura. If other people discover that they cannot feel his aura at all, they will generally think that he is a mysterious expert.

  Qin Yu, who is pondering about practicing the Northern Darkness, simply does not notice a small green fish not far from him.

  When Qin Yu examines his surroundings using his holy sense, he pays no attention to ordinary fish and shrimps and only cares about those who have at least reached the Jindan stage. This small green fish is a Xiantian level small fish, the likes of which are very commonly seen in the depths of the ocean.

  ……

  In the Sang clan’s palace,

  Sang Mo is sitting alone in the main hall, sadly drinking wine mouthful after mouthful. After spending several days searching wit
hout finding Qin Yu, he has now engaged the help of 30 experts from the Green-eyed fish clan, which can be said to have eyes everywhere in the ocean.

  “Senior Sang Mo, the killer has been found.” A man whose face has green scales quickly walks into the main hall then says smilingly to Sang Mo while bowing.

  Sang Mo immediately stops the cup in his hand.

  “You said … the killer had been found?” His eyes glitter with killing intent.

  That man from the Green-eyed fish clan says proudly: “Isn’t it only an area of 100,000 li in radius? 30 members of my clan have been searching together. Each of them controls over 1000 fish. There are countless fish at the bottom of the ocean, so who would pay attention to a common fish?”