Shi Qingfeng was horrified and instantly activated his Magical Treasure, the Five Elements Eight Trigrams Mirror.
Having seen the gruesome state of the corpses, all the Cultivators were on high alert. Though their flight was slow, they constantly maintained a full output of Magical Power to their Defensive Magical Treasures. How could one of them have their Golden Core ripped out in an instant?
Even though all the Cultivators present had reached the Late Stage Golden Core in their Cultivation, their breathing grew heavy.
For a moment, only the agonized screams of the gravely injured Cultivator could be heard. He had lost his Golden Core and crashed heavily to the ground.
A Golden Core is the culmination of a Cultivator’s Three Treasures of Essence, Qi, and Spiritual. To have it instantly ripped out meant that even if the Cultivator didn’t die immediately, they would lose all their Magical Power, becoming even weaker than a mortal.
If not for the nourishment of his Magical Power having made his physical body incredibly tough, the fall alone would have killed him.
A foot planted itself on his chest. With a downward press, it crushed him to death.
The evil creature that killed the Golden Core Cultivator finally revealed its form. It was a four-armed monster with black skin, standing a full ten feet tall. Ghastly white bone jutted from the angles of its face, and it wore a Bone Bead Necklace.
It stuck out a long tongue, licked the freshly plucked Golden Core, and swallowed it whole.
Sensing the abundant Magical Power within the Golden Core, the monster revealed a look of satisfaction. Its nimble tongue was just about to pry open the corpse’s skull to suck out the brain.
A jet of True Fire shot toward the corpse on the ground with the speed of a thunderclap.
It was the dead man’s Senior Brother from the same sect. Unwilling to see his Junior Brother’s body desecrated like this, he had tried to incinerate it with True Fire.
The monster’s arm suddenly shot out and caught the ball of True Fire in its palm.
The True Fire erupted, its searing heat capable of melting gold and boiling iron, of turning everything within a hundred feet to ash. Yet, the monster simply crushed it in its palm, scattering it into a shower of sparks.
After snuffing out the Spiritual Fire, it calmly sucked the brain dry.
Witnessing this scene, the mouths of the assembled Cultivators went dry.
They had been chosen to participate in this contest for the Nine Marvels; none of them were mediocre. This evil creature before them had only burst from a Cultivator’s skull a few days ago, at which point it could not have been larger than a human brain.
The scratch marks on the inside of the skull were perfect proof.
In just three or four short days, this monster had already grown to ten feet tall. The transformation was astounding.
"You don’t bother to save your own kind when they’re alive, but once they’re dead, you put on a show of wanting to destroy the body to preserve some dignity."
Having licked itself clean, the monster’s pair of yellowish-brown eyes roved quickly over the Golden Core Cultivators before it, choosing its next target.
"How hypocritical you Cultivators are."
In the next instant, it used some unknown Escape Technique and appeared before a Golden Core Cultivator in a flash. That Cultivator’s Divine Thought had never been so focused. He instantly activated his Defensive Magical Treasure, the Juntian Shield, and raised it before him.
Before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, a searing pain erupted in his abdomen. The abundant Magical Power in his body felt as if its source had been cut off, depleting in an instant.
The monster had already reappeared in the distance, holding another Golden Core. It popped the pill into its mouth like a piece of candy.
The will of every Cultivator began to waver. The Juntian Shield was a High-level Defensive Magical Treasure, but it had been almost useless against the monster.
Their own Defensive Magical Treasures were not much better.
"Don’t panic!"
Shi Qingfeng let out a long cry.
"With this creature’s Tunneling Speed, if we scatter and flee, we’ll just be picked off one by one! Not a single one of us will live! I’ve already seen its weakness!"
The monster licked the corner of its mouth with its long tongue and said with some curiosity:
"Now this has me curious. After all, even I don’t know what my weakness is."
Shi Qingfeng’s eyes were fixed on the monster.
"The two fellow Daoists you killed were both using Defensive Magical Treasures that rely on the artifact itself to block attacks. Your arms can momentarily become intangible when you strike."
Defensive Magical Treasures can be divided into two types based on how they repel attacks. The first type relies on the physical toughness of the Artifact’s body and the Restrictions set within it to block attacks. The second type, when activated, materializes a Protective Spirit Light with various elemental properties.
Magical Treasures that materialize a Protective Spirit Light can provide 360-degree, gapless Defense against attacks from all directions, and their response time is extremely fast. Their only drawback is that their Defense Power is a notch weaker than that of Magical Treasures that rely on a physical body to block attacks.
They are especially inferior when dealing with Armor-Piercing attacks like Sword Qi.
The moment Shi Qingfeng’s voice fell, all the Golden Core Cultivators present raised their Spiritual Light Protective Shields. Even those who didn’t have Magical Treasures that could materialize a Protective Spirit Light used their own Divine Techniques, either forming a Spell with their hands or activating a Spirit Talisman.
The monster’s playful expression suddenly froze. Its method of bypassing Defensive Magical Treasures had been seen through after killing only two people.
This Cultivator before it was no amateur.
Although he had exposed the monster’s trick, Shi Qingfeng didn’t relax in the slightest. It hadn’t been long since the creature had crushed a Spiritual Fire with its bare hand. He hadn’t seen any Gang Qi on the monster’s hand; it had clearly crushed the fire with the Power of the Flesh alone.
The Divine Killing True Fire from the Divine Fire Sect was by no means weak, yet it had left almost no mark on the monster’s hand.
In terms of Body Refining Skill alone, this monster was no weaker than Xiang Dingtian.
The mere thought of Xiang Dingtian’s Overlord Body, which could withstand a direct hit from a Flying Sword, gave Shi Qingfeng a headache.
In the next instant, the monster once again used its astonishingly fast Tunneling Speed, vanished from its spot, and lunged for a Golden Core Cultivator who was relying on a Talisman to maintain his Protective Spirit Light.
A thought flashed through Shi Qingfeng’s mind. He had already been focusing his attention on that particular Golden Core Cultivator.
He had discovered that although the monster was strangely familiar with cultivators’ techniques and used bizarre methods, it had little experience in Magical Combat. Its attacks were very easy to predict.
The next moment, he summoned his Five Elements Eight Trigrams Mirror and used it to reinforce that Golden Core Cultivator’s Protective Spirit Light.
The originally thin Protective Spirit Light flared brightly, suddenly taking on a sense of fortitude as immovable as Mount Tai.
Although the monster sensed that something was wrong, it was too late to pull back its attack.
With a sound like tearing silk, the reinforced Protective Spirit Light was instantly ripped open. Five horrifying gashes appeared on the Cultivator’s body.
However, the resistance from the Protective Spirit Light bought him enough time to react. Overcome with fear, he executed an Escape Technique and put some distance between himself and the monster.
"Suppress!"
Shi Qingfeng shouted, mobilizing the Suppressing Power of the Five Elements Eight Trigrams Mirror.
The monster felt its shoulders sink as an infinite weight pressed down on it, as if it were suddenly carrying a small mountain on its back.
"Junior Sister, the Demon-Binding Rope!"
He used the Array Power to temporarily suppress the monster, but Shi Qingfeng knew clearly that with this creature’s Power, it wouldn’t be suppressed for long.
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