Chapter 1499 Golden Sap

Swoosh!

Lin Xun waved his sleeve and a stream of azure light flew up, crisscrossed in the air and transformed into a dao rune forbidden array that enveloped the area he was in.

Instantly, he seemed to have vanished from the spot, and even his aura was concealed.

It was a kind of aura-restraining forbidden array. Before he came here, he had also given Zhao Jingxuan, Toady, A’lu, and the big black bird each an array board.

When brought out, it could conceal their auras and prevent anyone from detecting traces of them, except for those who had mastered some sort of special searching technique or someone at the supreme Saint stage.

After setting up the array, Lin Xun turned his hand over and several tokens floated into the air.

Two of them were Flying Immortal Tablets, which were for storing Fortunes of War Merits and were a key item for entering the Kunlun Dominion.

Another was the Ancient Wasteland Badge, which was given to him by Spirit Servant of the Immortal Sacred Mountain. Once one instilled their will into it, they could use it to teleport back to the Ancient Wasteland Domain when the Conflict of the Nine Domains ended.

At the same time, the Ancient Wasteland Badge also had the function of storing battle merits which would later be used to exchange for great dao luck.

One was the Location Talisman, and Zhao Jingxuan, Toady, A’lu and the big black bird also each had one. If they activated the talisman with their spirit power, they could locate the approximate positions of one another.

Lin Xun put on the Flying Immortal Tablet and the Ancient Wasteland Token one by one, then he held the Location Talisman in his hand and quietly activated it.

Buzz—

The talisman projected a five-sided diagram, with each corner representing one person’s position.

When their location shifted, the corners of the diagram would also change.

Lin Xun’s face immediately turned overcast.

The Location Talisman had failed as it was unable to determine the locations of Zhao Jingxuan, Toady, A’lu or the big black bird!

“It’s either because of the interference of the laws of heaven and earth in the Nine Domains Battlefield, or my current location is too far away from them...” Lin Xun concluded, putting away the talisman.

Shua!

Then, Lin Xun unfolded an extremely rudimentary map.

It was a distribution map of the Nine Domains Battlefield, mapped out by Zhao Jingxuan.

In the past, two Conflicts of the Nine Domains had broken out, so it was not difficult to know the geographical distribution of the Nine Domains Battlefield.

The map was in a ‘well’ structure, which could also be called a nine-square grid.

There were nine great domains, and the other eight domains were located in the other squares on the map.

For example, the Great Luo Ancient Domain was located due north, taking the top center square.

In the Nine Domains Battlefield, it was called the Great Luo Territory.

In the Great Luo Territory, the City of Protection was built as the base camp for experts of the Great Luo Ancient Domain.

For example, the Blood Demon Ancient Domain was located in the northeast, taking the top right position of the nine square. This area was called the Blood Demon Territory.

And so on. The layout of the other domains was similar.

Every time the Conflict of the Nine Domains broke out, experts who were teleported into the Nine Domains Battlefield would immediately head to their own territory and camp in order to accumulate their strength and team up on the battlefield.

Whereas the Ancient Wasteland Domain was located right in the center!

This was the middle square of the Nine Domains Battlefield map, which was also regarded as the heart of the battlefield, a seemingly advantageous geographical location.

But the middle square was surrounded by enemy forces as though it was being ambushed from all sides. The territory of the Ancient Wasteland Domain seemed to be trapped in the center!

Based on geographical location alone, the experts from the Ancient Wasteland Domain were already at a disadvantage.

Being ambushed on all sides meant they were being attacked on all sides!

Therefore, once the Nine Domains Battlefield opened up, unlike the experts of the other eight domains, almost no one from the Ancient Wasteland Domain would choose to head to the Ancient Wasteland Territory located in the core of the battlefield.

Everyone knew that the enemies of the other eight domains had already made a pact to first eliminate the Ancient Wasteland camp, and then compete for superiority. If a cultivator from the Ancient Wasteland Domain showed up in the Ancient Wasteland Territory, they would definitely be targeted by everyone.

Lin Xun knew that Ancient Wasteland Domain experts’ first line of action when they entered the Nine Domains Battlefield was not to kill enemies.

But instead to hide!

Only by spreading out their power could they avoid the other eight domains taking them out all at once.

Moreover, it was best to keep hidden until they reached Sainthood, since at that time, they would have the ability to compete with the other eight domains.

It was, of course, a shameful and frustrating choice they had to make, but it was the reality.

In the Nine Domains Battlefield, face and dignity were no longer important. Survival was the most important.

Of course, this was only the general structure of the Nine Domains Battlefield.

The Nine Domains Battlefield was extremely vast, with each area like a world of its own and many unknown dangers lurking about.

For example, there were spatial tears, fiendish mist swamps, and tides of blood light. Every one of those was strange and ominous.

Additionally, many secret realm worlds were dotted throughout the different areas of the Nine Domains Battlefield.

Some secret realm worlds were so terrifying that even Saints would meet with death.

Whereas other secret realm worlds contained unimaginable and astonishing fortunes...

Lin Xun couldn’t help from furrowing his brows as he stared at the simple map in his hand. He was in some sort of a blood-colored desert, but it was impossible to tell where he was on the map.

“Never mind, now I can only assess the situation as I go and act accordingly.”

After contemplating for a long while, he withdrew the dao rune forbidden array with a wave of his sleeve and darted towards the distance in a flash.

Swoosh!

He seemed to have disappeared into nothingness with the Suanni Qi shrouding his entire body.

He did not move particularly fast nor did he travel by air. This was because the astral fiendish energy that lingered thousands of feet above in the air could obliterate even Saints upon contact.

Moreover, since the power of his spirit sense covered only a radius of around one thousand feet, if he traveled too fast, he might be caught off guard if he encountered anything.

He was certain that even Saints would not dare to activate the teleportation art on the Nine Domains Battlefield. A spatial crack alone was enough to swallow them up.

......

Several minutes later.

At the end of the blood-colored desert stood a seemingly endless black wood forest, and the sky above the woods was obscured by extremely dense and creepy blood-colored light.

Lin Xun scanned the surroundings, but the atmosphere alone already sent chills down his spine.

The primeval forest stretched endlessly across the land. The forest was still and silent, yet it gave off a bloodlust aura and even a sinister intent.

It seemed to be not a forest, but instead a land of death!

Do not enter the forest.

There could be dangers and ambushes waiting within there.

But in the eyes of Lin Xun, the ominous black woods could come in use.

At least, even if he encountered a formidable enemy inside the forest, he would have opportunities to escape.

After thinking about it for a moment, Lin Xun entered.

The forest was dark and eerie, with towering ancient trees guarding the darkness that created a humid and gloomy atmosphere. The forest floor was carpeted with rotten leaves, and branches as thick as buckets were wrapped around the trunks of trees like huge pythons.

As he navigated through it, he became increasingly cautious.

Snap!

A quarter of an hour later, after inching forward for miles, Lin Xun suddenly captured with his spirit sense a sound that resembled snapping branches.

His black eyes narrowed. There was movement inside the eerie, dead forest. Even if it was extremely faint, it was very unusual.

After pondering for a moment, he quietly moved towards the direction of the subtle noise.

After a while, he quietly flashed onto a thick branch. He closed his eyes, and his spirit sense carefully penetrated the countless branches and leaves to investigate the area in the distance.

Soon, he discovered a figure.

It was a woman-like figure. She wore a guarded expression on her cold and stern face and was dressed in an animal skin martial attire.

She had long deep green hair that flowed down to the lower half of her body, which was a snake tail covered with golden scales. It was a snake woman.

Snippets of information flashed across Lin Xun’s mind. She was from the Golden Demon Snake Clan, one of the ten major clans in the Blood Demon Ancient Domain.

The clan was skilled in spirit attacks and tended to swallow enemies’ spirits to grow their own cultivation. Hence, they were also known as ‘Spirit Eaters.’

Undoubtedly, the woman-like figure was a descendant of the Golden Demon Snake Clan!

She carefully crouched down at the root of a huge tree with a crude bone blade in hand.

Then, she gently cut open the root that was as thick as a thumb.

She looked very focused and serious, as if she was facing a formidable enemy.

Before long, she took off a section of the root and golden liquid dripped out from the severed part of the root, which she collected into a porcelain vial.

The woman in martial attire let out a long sigh of relief, got up, and left.

Not long after that, she found another target—an ancient tree with bare branches that resembled a dragon lying on its back.

Unlike the other trees nearby, this tree had cracks and splitting in its trunks and its branches, and its body seemed to be crafted from bronze, radiating a metallic sheen.

Just like before, the woman crouched down, took out the bone blade, and carefully cut off a section of the roots.

From beginning to end, she was completely unaware that she was being watched by a pair of eyes in the dark.

Before long, a smile curved her lips as she looked at the golden liquid she had collected.

Then, she snuck further into the forest and specifically searched for ancient trees with bronze branches and harvested the mysterious golden sap.

Lin Xun followed her like a shadow, observing quietly without disturbing her.

When it came to the understanding of the Nine Domains Battlefield, the other eight domains were far better than the Ancient Wasteland Domain. They knew many things about the Nine Domains Battlefield, including the opportunities, dangers, and what should be avoided.

The reason for this was very simple. In the first two Conflicts of the Nine Domains, as the winners, the other eight domains grasped information about the Nine Domains Battlefield and passed them on to future generations. Even if years had passed, cultivators of later generations still knew about this information.

As for the Ancient Wasteland Domain, as a result of their disastrous defeats in the first two Conflicts of the Nine Domains, very few people were able to return alive from the battlefield and they had suffered huge casualties.

Naturally, it was impossible to pass down the information they grasped about the Nine Domains Battlefield like the other eight domains had done.

This was the difference between them!