88: stealthily approaching creditors

Once he left the Star Remains Secret Realm and returned to the chaotic void of the Myriad Realms Battlefield, Liu Qingtian immediately raised his vigilance to the maximum.

Near the exit of the Secret Realm, the energy fluctuations were still chaotic, and the aura of many Cultivators remained. Clearly, many people had just come out or were still lingering nearby, waiting for an opportunity.

The threat of the two Golden Body Realm Elders from the Yunlan Sect was like a thorn in his back; no one knew if they had set up eyes at the exit or had invited a stronger existence from the Sect to block them.

"brother, we are quite the hot commodity now. I reckon quite a few people are looking for us." Wang Gou's voice sounded beside him. His tone was still relaxed, but the content pointed out their current situation. He was clearly floating right next to Liu Qingtian, but if he hadn't taken the initiative to speak, Liu Qingtian's Divine Sense would have unconsciously ignored his existence. This talent for having "extremely low presence" was truly bizarre.

Liu Qingtian ignored his teasing, his tree soul calm as he fully activated the Primordial Stillness Form Concealment Art and the power of the newly acquired Shadow Devouring Willow Branch. He saw his massive Demon Willow main body rapidly shrink and change, its color becoming dark and dull, almost merging with the background void turbulence.

At the same time, that shadow-colored willow branch extended silently, emitting a faint devouring fluctuation, further disrupting the light, energy, and even the traces of Karma around him, making the concealment effect multiply.

Like a fish slipping into the deep sea, he chose a path far away from the mainstream direction, one with a complex spatial structure and turbulent energy, and began to sneak away silently.

Seeing this, Wang Gou chuckled, his figure flickering, becoming even more blurred, as if he had become a part of Liu Qingtian's shadow, following closely without falling behind in the slightest. His method of concealment was different from Liu Qingtian's; it was not about actively distorting or devouring anything, but a more essential "being ignored," as if the Laws of the world automatically classified him as "irrelevant background information."

The two, one in the light and one in the dark, coordinated with unexpected tacit understanding, shuttling through the perilous void.

Along the way, they indeed encountered several groups of searching Cultivators. There were Disciples in Yunlan Sect attire setting up checkpoints at key nodes, and there were other lone travelers with clearly malicious intent, their eyes scanning everywhere. Once, a tyrannical Golden Body Realm Divine Sense even swept over the area where they were located like a searchlight.

Whenever this happened, Liu Qingtian would immediately stop all movement, restraining his aura to the extreme, like a truly dead and silent space floating rock. As for Wang Gou, he "disappeared" even more completely; even if Liu Qingtian didn't deliberately lock onto him, he could barely feel his existence.

That Golden Body Realm Divine Sense scanned back and forth several times, seemingly detecting a faint abnormality, but in the end, it failed to find Liu Qingtian, who had completely merged with the environment, and Wang Gou, who was nearly "non-existent," and moved away with displeasure.

After narrowly avoiding several interrogations, Liu Qingtian found a huge meteorite remnant with a maze-like internal structure floating in the void. He drilled inside, opened a temporary Immortal Cave in the depths, and set up a concealment Restriction.

"Safe for now." Liu Qingtian breathed a sigh of relief. Continuous high-intensity stealth and sneaking consumed a lot of mental energy.

Wang Gou sat on a nearby stone, stretched, and said, "Oh, sneaking around is really exciting. But brother, your concealment skills are decent; they're almost catching up to my... uh, half."

Liu Qingtian couldn't be bothered to respond to his boasting and began to check his own state, counting his gains from the Secret Realm. The biggest harvest was naturally his Breakthrough in cultivation and his mastery of the poison path, followed by the storage Magical Artifacts he obtained from the Yunlan Sect Youth in Brocade Robes and several unlucky Cultivators.

He first took out the most exquisite storage ring and probed it with his Divine Sense. As expected of a Sect Disciple, his assets were quite abundant. Inside, there were not only a large number of Spirit Stones and Medicinal Pills, but also several Spiritual Artifacts of good quality, as well as some Jade Slips recording the Cultivation Techniques and Divine Abilities of the Yunlan Sect. Although they were only the basic parts, they still had reference value. What interested Liu Qingtian most was a map made of special beast skin, which marked several known dangerous areas and resource points in the Myriad Realms Battlefield. It was much more detailed than the crude goods Lin Feng had given him.

"We're rich, we're rich!" Wang Gou leaned over, his eyes shining as he watched Liu Qingtian count the spoils, although he didn't seem to care much about these things himself; he was purely joining in the fun.

Liu Qingtian sorted out the useful resources and was just about to study the newly fused Shadow Devouring Willow Branch when suddenly, in the depths of his tree soul, the purple-black great halberd—burying netherworld—vibrated slightly.

Immediately after, a cold, indifferent intent without the slightest emotion sounded directly in his mind:

"Debt interest, settlement."

An invisible suction force suddenly came from burying netherworld. Liu Qingtian immediately felt that his Late-stage Kai Shan Realm cultivation, which he had just broken through and had not yet fully stabilized, actually had a faint trend of falling! The Demonic Power Origin that he had worked hard to accumulate in his tree heart was being extracted bit by bit and merged into that bottomless great halberd!

At the same time, a piece of new information flooded into his consciousness:

"This interest: equivalent to three-tenths of the Origin of a Late-stage Kai Shan Realm Cultivator. Remaining debt principal... accumulated interest..."

Following that was a series of hair-raising numbers.

Liu Qingtian's tree body shook, his face becoming extremely ugly. The "usury" of burying netherworld had arrived on schedule, and this time it directly extracted his cultivation Origin! Although he had been mentally prepared, personally feeling his power being forcibly stripped away still made his heart bleed.

"Yo, the creditor has arrived?" Wang Gou seemed to have noticed the fluctuation in Liu Qingtian's aura and that fleeting, obscure connection. He raised his eyebrows, a gloating expression on his face. "brother, you're doing quite well for yourself, aren't you? Not only are you being hunted, but you're also in debt up to your neck?"

Liu Qingtian glanced at him coldly and did not answer. He quickly activated the Primordial Ancient Wood Visualization Diagram to stabilize his somewhat floating state of mind and cultivation, while simultaneously taking out several pure Star Crystals and poison-type Materials he had obtained from the Secret Realm, trying to approach burying netherworld.

Sure enough, burying netherworld sent a faint fluctuation, seemingly more interested in these "hard currencies." Liu Qingtian endured the pain of losing them and fed most of the precious Materials he had harvested into it. Only then did the suction force extracting his Origin slowly stop, and the debt amount decreased slightly, but it was still an astronomical figure.

Looking at the harvest from the Secret Realm that had instantly shrunk by more than half, Liu Qingtian's thirst for power became even more urgent. If he didn't improve his strength and earn more resources as soon as possible, he would forever be dragged down by this heavy debt, and might even be sucked dry of his Origin and die!

He suppressed the irritability in his heart and refocused his attention on the present. The most urgent task was to thoroughly digest the gains from the Secret Realm, stabilize his Realm, and familiarize himself with his new abilities. Then, he must find a way to earn a large amount of resources as soon as possible, whether by taking on battlefield missions or exploring unknown dangerous areas.

And this mysterious Wang Gou by his side—whether he was a blessing or a curse—also needed to be figured out as soon as possible.

He closed his tree eyes and began to enter a deep state of Cultivation. In any case, strength was the foundation of everything.

Seeing Liu Qingtian begin to Cultivate, Wang Gou curled his lips in boredom but didn't disturb him. He just played with the glowing stones by himself, humming that out-of-tune little song, as if all the disturbances in the outside world had nothing to do with him.

In the temporary Immortal Cave, only the faint hum of energy circulation and that lingering, off-key little song remained.