Chapter 459 - Chapter 459: Chapter 451 Soul Craving Tendril Staff_1

Chapter 459: Chapter 451 Soul Craving Tendril Staff_1

The Slash Martial Skill’s Critical Chop and Rupture were simultaneously displayed.

Hiss!

After a muffled sound, the body of the Mysterious Gu Master was chopped into two. In front of Qin Niu’s Ink Blade, he had not the slightest ability to defend himself.

Even Qin Niu was stunned for a moment.

Under normal circumstances, flesh and blood would at least produce the sound of bones being cleaved.

Some powerful warriors would even wear armor, helmets, and the like, making them even more difficult to kill.

Soon, he made a new discovery.

After the Mysterious Gu Master’s black robe was sliced open, there was no human body inside, just a dense swarm of insects.

A large number of poison bees flew out from it.

Qin Niu was stunned for a moment, then understood what was happening. That Mysterious Gu Master didn’t have a physical body at all, or rather, his flesh had never been there in the first place.

This technique was extremely similar to that of the residual soul of the Green Demon.

He had witnessed it once before, so it was no longer strange to him.

“Green Demon Bees, Shadow Fire Bees, kill for me!”

Qin Niu quickly reacted, dispatching the Shadow Fire Bees and the Green Demon Bees to fight together.

The goal was one, to hold back this Mysterious Gu Master and utterly eradicate him.

As soon as the Green Demon Bees flew out, their demonic might directly intimidated the poison bees inside the black robe. They were so frightened that they scattered and fled, not daring to confront them.

The Green Demon Bees were now incredibly powerful; even Spirit Qi Realm experts without special defensive means were easily killed by them.

“Damn it, damn it… To think you obtained two such fierce poison bees! My Steel-winged Wild Bees, painstakingly cultivated for so many years, are no more than trash before them.”

The voice came from within the Vine Staff.

Merely having experience and knowledge is far from enough to cultivate an Insect Pet. One also needs high-grade food for pet training, and most importantly, an excellent queen insect.

Beyond that, one requires some special opportunities and luck.

The Green Demon Bee was a specially cultivated insect to begin with, virtually impossible to replicate.

In other words, barring accidents, only Qin Niu would have the Green Demon Bee.

Even Green Demon himself, if he hadn’t preserved any eggs or larvae of the Green Demon Bee, wouldn’t be able to cultivate another one.

The Black Scale Bees of this Mysterious Gu Master were many times more powerful than regular poison bees.

But you know, goods judged side by side reveal the inferior, and comparisons between people spell doom.

Pets fear comparison the most.

Compared to the Green Demon Bee, his Black Scale Bees were mere waste.

“You won’t escape today.”

No matter how the Mysterious Gu Master roared with rage, Qin Niu remained cold and merciless as he had the Green Demon Bees and the Shadow Fire Bees slaughter those Black Scale Bees.

The bodies of the Black Scale Bees were covered in black scales, wrapping around them in layers like a tailored set of scale armor. Even their six legs were covered in scale armor.

The wings were a weak point.

However, their wings bore traces of the Steel-winged Wild Bee, suggesting they were bred through crossbreeding with them.

This method of cultivation was extremely common.

At that moment, the slaughter was entirely one-sided.

The Black Scale Bees fell from the sky like raindrops. The Shadow Fire Bees, being extremely irritable and powerful, massacred the Black Scale Bees with ruthless ferocity.

Seeing things going south, the Mysterious Gu Master immediately controlled the Vine Staff, attempting to fly away.

Too bad it was already too late.

Qin Niu leaped into the air, swinging his blade mercilessly at the Vine Staff.

He was aiming to destroy it.

If his guess was correct, it was likely that the Mysterious Gu Master’s soul was residing inside the Vine Staff.

Destroying the Vine Staff, naturally, the Mysterious Gu Master would have nowhere to hide.

A dense cloud of black Qi burst out from inside the Vine Staff, fiercely resisting the Blade Qi that Qin Niu had chopped down. The Vine Staff shook violently in the air, as if it was about to fall from the sky at any moment.

The chop that Qin Niu had just delivered didn’t produce the critical hit effect nor the rupture effect.

Therefore, its power was limited.

He quickly drew his sword and struck again.

This time, he executed a Critical Chop.

Bang!

The dark energy emerging from the Vine Staff failed to withstand the chop, causing the staff to fall to the ground with clear marks of the blade on it.

“Die!”

Qin Niu’s strikes were ruthlessly fierce as he chopped down once more.

This time it was even more terrifying; he unleashed the Rupture special effect.

Crack!

The Vine Staff was directly chopped into two pieces.

A wisp of black Qi panickedly flew out from within the staff, trying to escape quickly.

A bizarre scene ensued – Qin Niu’s Ink Blade seemed to generate a fearsome suction force, rapidly absorbing the wisp of black Qi along with the energy within the staff.

“No… no…”

The black Qi struggled desperately, emitting a piercing scream of extreme panic.

Unfortunately, it was to no avail; in the end, it was violently sucked into the Ink Blade.

Qin Niu observed all this with a contemplative expression on his face.

Having nourished the Ink Blade for so long, its sentience seemed to be growing stronger along with its ability to release Blade Qi.

This blade had always been bloodthirsty.

But it was the first time it devoured the soul of its victim during a kill.

Qin Niu was somewhat concerned that the blade would ultimately follow a sinister path.

Just like the legendary Blood-Draining Divine Blade, and the swords Ah Bi and Yuan Tu, they were top-notch weapons of evil.

He worried that one day he would be backfired by the Ink Blade, controlled by it, and turned into a killing machine.

If that happened, he would have fallen into the path of wickedness.

After completely devouring the wisp of black Qi, the Ink Blade didn’t stop; it continued to absorb the energy within a section of the Vine Staff.

This Vine Staff was certainly no ordinary one; it appeared dark brown and very common.

Old vines deep in the mountains were extremely similar to it.

Qin Niu stared at the Vine Staff and scrutinized it closely. At the severed section, there were faint traces of gray Qi swirling. Apart from that, the interior of the Vine Staff contained numerous tiny pores. The surface of the staff bore brown, fine granules densely and evenly spread across the entire staff.

The more he looked, the more familiar it appeared.

“Why does this Vine Staff look so much like the Soul Craving Tendril Wood mentioned in Master Mo Yang’s ‘Plants Illustrated Handbook’?”

There were various types of soul-nourishing trees, ranging from towering trees to low-lying vines.

Master Mo Yang had only seen two types.

One was very similar to locust trees and could grow to forty or fifty meters high, requiring one or two people to encircle it.

The essence of it resided in the heartwood, which alone held value for soul nourishing.

Yet for such trees, nine out of ten were hollow.

These tall soul-nourishing trees were highly prone to being hollow. Once hollow, their heartwood was practically useless.

This was why soul-nourishing trees were so precious and rare.

Master Mo Yang additionally noted that among soul-nourishing trees, nine out of ten were hollow, and the occasional solid ones could only be considered as mediocre.

In other words, even if the soul-nourishing tree was not hollow and its heartwood was usable, it was still not a superior quality.

What qualified as superior?

They needed to endure for a thousand years and withstand thunder tribulations to be considered treasures of this world.

Using such wood for soul nourishing, it could restore even a fragmentary soul.

There was no need to even think about such prime quality – even if it existed, immortals would surely take it away.

Then there was another type of soul-nourishing wood, which took the form of a vine.

It was known as Soul Craving Tendril Wood or Soul Craving Tendril Staff, which was easier to obtain compared to the previous type of soul-nourishing tree.

A purplish-brown color was considered high-quality.

The Soul Craving Tendril Staff also had the effect of nourishing souls, though its efficacy couldn’t match that of the previous type of soul-nourishing wood.