Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1231 - Cannibal Valley
Chapter 1231 – Cannibal Valley
A terrifying spear, laden with the Thunder God’s will, pierced the void. Its trajectory was invisible to all but Liu Wuxie. Moments later, a flame no larger than an index finger streaked forward like a meteor, vanishing into the air before him.
“Why does my soul feel as if some strange energy has locked onto it? Do either of you feel it as well?” the middle elder asked, glancing at his companions.
“I felt it too,” the other two elders replied, nodding gravely. An invisible force seemed to have locked onto their primordial spirits.
“It’s a soul attack,” Elder Long said, his brows furrowed. Over the years, he had witnessed the rise of many prodigies, even those who had cultivated the True Dragon Physique, yet few had impressed him.
Most practiced that physique solely to access the dragon clan’s mythical arts. When he saw Liu Wuxie, however, his eyes lit up. He had been waiting too long for a youth like him.
The Soul Spear plunged into the soul sea of the man on the left. He let out a shrill scream, collapsing to the ground while clutching his head in agony. At the same time, a cluster of flame slipped into the soul sea of the man on the right before he could react.
What followed left even the heavens silent. The Soul Fire struck the man; he convulsed as flames burst from his five orifices—eyes first, then nose, mouth, and ears—engulfing his head in an instant.
The three elders behind Elder Long stumbled back as horror twisted their faces.
“F-Fire!” one of them stuttered, his voice shaking. None of them could comprehend what they had just seen. No flame they knew of behaved like that. Heavenly flames or even the True Samadhi Fire would ignite the body’s surface. However, Liu Wuxie’s flame erupted from within, as if he had set the man’s very soul ablaze.
Elder Long’s expression also hardened, and his eyes filled with both awe and fear. He recognized the truth—this was no ordinary soul technique, but an attack that directly destroyed the mind.
“ARGH!” The two men writhed on the ground, howling in unbearable torment.
When Liu Wuxie landed, even he reeled in shock. He had not expected the Spirit Clan’s soul attacks to be this formidable. At that moment, he realized that he had underestimated them.
The Spirit Clan was once on the Indigo Bamboo Star, yet vanished along with the True Martial Continent. Now, he felt the weight of their legacy.
It all happened in a blink. Both men lay dead—the Soul Spear wracked one with agony before death, while the Soul Fire reduced the other to a dry husk.
With a flick of his finger, Liu Wuxie summoned demonic flame that reduced their corpses to ash, keeping only their interspatial rings. He now had a more precise measure of his own power, and confidence burned in his eyes. He was sure he could stand against five ninth-level Origin Conversion cultivators.
“What now? Are we truly going to let him continue this slaughter?” the three elders asked, turning to Elder Long.
Since he was present, Elder Long’s words carried weight. The Primordial Pagoda’s fifth floor sets ninth-level Origin Conversion cultivators as the peak opponents, yet Liu Wuxie had already surpassed them.
Allowing him to continue meant countless more deaths.
“Send him to the Cannibal Valley,” Elder Long said.
The three elders protested at once.
“That violates protocol. The fifth floor doesn’t include any Cannibal Valley scenario.” If the upper echelons discovered the change and pursued the matter, they knew the blame would fall on them.
Elder Long waved away their concern. “I’ll bear the responsibility alone if anything happens.”
If the upper echelons started asking questions, he would take the blame himself, leaving the three elders untouched.
“Give us a moment to discuss,” they said, withdrawing to a corner. They disagreed immediately and quietly weighed the risks among themselves.
After about a minute of deliberation, they returned and nodded in agreement. They would accept Elder Long’s proposal. From the instant Liu Wuxie entered the Cannibal Valley, his survival rested entirely in fate’s hands.
They walked to the crystal wall, pressed a hidden switch, and the world on the other side shifted. Fog boiled up from the ground, blurring every outline until the scene dissolved.
When Liu Wuxie’s vision cleared, he found himself standing at the mouth of a valley.
“A forced scene change. Who’s pulling the strings?” he murmured, frowning. By rights, the environment wouldn’t shift before his five days were up. He wondered whether someone had entered Room D and altered the setting behind his back.
“It seems someone has taken note of me,” he said, lifting his gaze to the sky. Someone deep within the Primordial Pagoda was watching—of that he was certain—though he could not judge whether their intent was kind or cruel.
“He’s too sharp. He’s probably discovered us,” the three elders said with wry smiles.
Studying the valley entrance, Liu Wuxie accepted that he had no choice but to spend the remainder of his time here. Very well—he had come to temper himself. He would meet whatever this place offered head-on.
He stepped into a shadowy forest, and ancient trees and grotesque blossoms greeted him. Some flowers were as broad as water tanks, large enough to swallow a person whole. The place felt eerie; no one had set foot here for years.
“Elder Long, there’s no designated reward for the Cannibal Valley. What do we grant him if he comes out alive?” the three elders blurted, suddenly anxious. By the rules, Liu Wuxie deserved a reward if he survived—but this scenario did not exist on the fifth floor, and they had prepared no prize.
“If he makes it out, I’ll reward him myself,” Elder Long replied with a faint smile. He would pay the price from his own pocket.
Relieved, the elders settled down to watch.
Inside the valley, the trees towered like pillars, their boughs crawling with venomous insects and vicious beasts. Even a ninth-level Origin Conversion cultivator would struggle to survive here.
Liu Wuxie summoned the Heretic Blade and sharpened his awareness to a razor’s edge. Dry leaves crackled underfoot as he advanced, and a constant rustling in the underbrush hinted at crawling things just out of sight.
A black shadow flicked toward him.
“A Threadworm!” Liu Wuxie snapped. His Ghost Eye had been active since he entered, so he saw every subtle movement in the gloom.
Though weak in brute force, Threadworms were the bane of cultivators. Their poison was bizarre and unstoppable; once inside a body, they would ride the blood flow, becoming impossible to expel as they devoured a cultivator’s true essence, stripping them of all defense.
If they entered through an arm, amputation was the only hope. If they pierced the torso, even an immortal would be helpless. In this world, everything had a nemesis—Threadworms were the nemesis of cultivators.
He couldn’t physically react in time, but Ghost Eye mapped the worm’s trajectory with cruel clarity.
In the Primordial Pagoda, the four elders clenched their fists. Elder Long, who had proposed the Cannibal Valley, felt the weight of his choice; if Liu Wuxie ended up dying here, the fault would be his.
“He’s done for,” the elders whispered. The sect had sealed the valley for years, as even Primal Origin experts perished within it. They saw no chance for Liu Wuxie, so it was no wonder they hesitated to open this place.
Threadworms ignored defenses and burrowed through pores, eyes, nostrils, and mouth; few knew how to counter them.
Just as the worm neared Liu Wuxie’s face, the Heretic Blade flashed down.
The Threadworm split cleanly in two. Barely the size of a baby’s pinky, no one could have detected it without Ghost Eye.
“That was close!” all four elders muttered in relief—Elder Long included.
A chill lingered in Liu Wuxie’s chest. He hadn’t known creatures like this existed, and their appearance doubled his caution.
If he had known he was in the Cannibal Valley—the graveyard of cultivators—what would he have thought?
He slowed his steps and refused to dismiss Ghost Eye. The landscape shifted in subtle ways, and even the lattice of tree roots stood out to his sight.
Just then, multiple Threadworms lanced toward him at blinding speed.
The elders tensed again. Even Primal Origin cultivators died once Threadworms entered their bodies.
Liu Wuxie steadied his mind. The Heretic Blade burst into afterimages, blade-light lacing the air as he shredded the worms before they could close.
Their offense was not terrifying; the terror lay in the fact that no one could guard against them.
“How did he calculate their paths and react so fast?” the three elders behind Elder Long murmured, shocked. Cultivators feared Threadworms precisely because their trajectories defied prediction.
The fact that Liu Wuxie could track and counter them in an instant bordered on the monstrous.
As the worm bodies hit the ground, vines erupted from the soil and coiled around his ankles.
“Damn it!” Liu Wuxie roared, carving them to powder with a single sweep. But the assault had only begun; several massive blossoms surged from the side, petals yawning wide.
“Cannibal Flowers,” he said, breathing hard. Still off-balance from the vines’ tug, he had no room to dodge. In the next heartbeat, the Cannibal Flower could swallow him whole.
