Chapter 527 - 524: Subduing the Hellhound
The Karma Fire Red Lotus unleashed its overwhelmingly mighty power at this moment; the fierce Demigod Realm undead, faced with the Red Lotus Karma Fire, surprisingly lacked any strength to fight back and was directly incinerated to ashes.
Even though the flames of this lotus were definitely not Innate Karma Fire, Qin Feng felt that the fire contained so many characteristics that it should possess some functions of Karma Fire; thus, Qin Feng shamelessly dubbed it “Karma Fire.”
After all, the Lifebound Spiritual Fire of the undead curse crow had the power to burn Qi Fortune and destiny, and while different from Innate Karma Fire, it shared similarities. Coupled with the purifying power of Sacred Flame, such a term wasn’t too far-fetched.
As the Immortal Artifact erupted in power, it refined the Demigod Realm undead with a single strike and completed the task assigned by its master. It immediately returned to a peaceful state, retracting all flames, and now looked just like a delicate and beautiful red lotus, with none of its prior formidable appearance evident.
Qin Feng gazed at the red lotus in front of him, finding it quite to his liking.
Indeed, it deserved to be an Immortal Artifact fused with the Fire Origin; its power had surpassed his expectations.
However, an Immortal Artifact is ultimately an object, a treasure to assist cultivators in battle. It still required a cultivator’s command to unleash its greatest might. The Artifact Spirit was also just newly born with a faint glimmer of Spiritual Intelligence; its existence was merely to facilitate the user. It lacked a complete personality, especially since it was newly born, so Qin Feng did not expect it to constantly fight for him.
Moreover, the power that was primarily consumed in that strike came from the Karma Fire Red Lotus’s upgrade. Now, if he wanted to wield this Immortal Artifact again, he would have to use his own True Yuan.
Qin Feng’s eyes rolled, and he did not immediately take it back. Instead, he cast his gaze toward the hellhound that showed terror.
This was a fierce beast equivalent to the Dharma Image Realm, a rare existence that one might not encounter even in a lifetime. Originally, with Qin Feng’s cultivation, it was absolutely impossible to subdue such a ferocious Spiritual Beast.
Not to mention him, all the Purple Mansion cultivators of the Beast Taming Sect – unless they happen upon a lucky chance for their Spiritual Beasts to advance first – even peak Purple Mansion cultivators could hardly subjugate a Dharma Image Realm Spiritual Beast.
After all, there is a tremendous disparity in combat power between ordinary Purple Mansion cultivators and Dharma Image Realm cultivators. Once a cultivator consolidates a Dharma Image, facing cultivators of lower realms is like an adult fighting a child, with a clear gap between them.
Now, it was different for Qin Feng. Wielding the might of slaying a Demigod Realm undead, he immediately disturbed the spirit of the hellhound.
Originally, when it was confronted by the attack of several Spiritual Beasts like the White Dragon and Qingluan, it was unafraid, even managing to put the Spiritual Beasts in disarray and securing the upper hand. This demonstrated the might of this hellhound.
But when it witnessed the fearsome undead that had easily suppressed and turned it into a pet, also easily incinerated to ash by Qin Feng’s burst of flame, it instantly lost the will to continue fighting.
In any case, it wasn’t particularly loyal to that Demigod Realm undead; it had only been unlucky to be caught by the other party while wandering in the Undead Realm. Now, fleeing would actually grant it freedom.
However, just when it was about to escape, it was blocked by those several Spiritual Beasts.
First, the White Dragon desperately interrupted its attempt to flee the valley and leap on top of an adjacent mountain peak. Then the Soul Devouring Vine Demon continuously waved its vines, firmly entwining the hellhound. No matter how much it struggled, even if the hellhound ignited flames as red as magma upon its body, turning the vines to char, the Vine Demon persisted stubbornly in its obstruction.
The other Spiritual Beasts also fought desperately to block it, buying time for Qin Feng.
Qin Feng pointed his hand, constantly channeling True Yuan into the Karma Fire Red Lotus. But soon, he inwardly lamented his plight.
He, who once had a cultivation far surpassing peers, now found that his cultivation was simply insufficient to control such a mighty Immortal Artifact. His True Yuan input into the Karma Fire Red Lotus was just a drop in the bucket, like a vast fertile field receiving but a handful of water, barely enough to moisten the soil.
Indeed, the power of an Immortal Artifact was too great, and not entirely advantageous for a Small Cultivator like him.
Thankfully, the Artifact Spirit was present, preventing Qin Feng from being completely unable to activate the Immortal Artifact.
Following Qin Feng’s intention, the Artifact Spirit maneuvered the Karma Fire Red Lotus to hover right above the hellhound’s head. The lotus quivered, and its petals slightly unfurled, immediately releasing boundless fire and sharp Sword Light toward the hellhound below, forcing the large dog to dare not move.
Remembering the miserable fate of the Demigod Realm undead refined to ash earlier, the hellhound dared not resist any further. It quickly retracted all its power and allowed the Soul Devouring Vine Demon to completely wrap around its body, presenting an image of tame submission, while also issuing whimpering sounds.
It had decided to surrender.
As a hellhound that had previously surrendered to a stronger opponent when unable to win, submitting to an even more powerful master now seemed like an acceptable outcome.
Although this new master didn’t seem to be very strong, merely flaunting a powerful Divine Artifact.
But since it couldn’t resist the opponent’s strength and didn’t want to die, choosing to be obedient was better.
Therefore, it conceded defeat.
Once it had yielded the first time, yielding a second time didn’t seem so difficult to accept.
Seeing this, Qin Feng immediately smiled.
He hadn’t put away the Karma Fire Red Lotus but instead used a lot of True Yuan to place it over the head of the hellhound in order to intimidate the large dog and try to subjugate it.
Unexpectedly, this hellhound showed such a lack of integrity, not even resisting before choosing surrender.
If it had chosen to flee desperately, Qin Feng, being unable to wield the Immortal Artifact and relying only on his subordinate Spiritual Beasts, might not have been able to subjugate this ferocious monster.
Now that it had chosen submission, Qin Feng naturally wanted to strike while the iron was hot and make this a reality as quickly as possible.
Otherwise, if time dragged on, not only would he need to consume more True Yuan to maintain the oppressive force of Karma Fire Red Lotus, but it might also raise this monster’s suspicions.
He stepped forward and reached out to grab the top of the Hellhound’s head.
The Hellhound kept a tight watch on Qin Feng’s hand.
This hand was full of flesh and blood, bursting with vitality, the flesh clear and lustrous, overflowing with Spiritual Energy. If it were to bite down, it would undoubtedly become the tastiest meal it had ever eaten in its life!
However, it quickly suppressed the greed deep in its heart.
Because along with the descending hand came that exquisitely beautiful red lotus flower.
It was extremely fearful of the Karma Fire Red Lotus and didn’t dare to harbor any thoughts of greed for the flesh of its soon-to-be master, fearing that it too would be burned by those powerful flames until not even bones remained.
So, it obediently let Qin Feng’s hand pat its massive forehead a few times.
Especially when it heard Qin Feng say in the language of the Human Clan that from now on it would be his Spiritual Beast, it even more so let its guard down, completely losing the will to resist, and it did not fight back even when Qin Feng sent it into a strange Divine Artifact Space.
After that, once it was refined by the powerful Law within the Demon Refining Pot, it became the strongest force under Qin Feng’s command.
The speed of this refinement was very fast because the Hellhound did not resist at all; it even willingly dropped its defenses, allowing the Laws of the Demon Refining Pot to enter its body, merging with its Divine Soul like a well-behaved child, much to Qin Feng’s satisfaction.
Qin Feng sent the Hellhound into the Netherworld Treasure Pearl space of the sixth layer, because it was a Netherworld like the Undead Realm outside, very suitable for the Hellhound to inhabit.
Even more so, Qin Feng intended to cultivate this Hellhound as the main Spiritual Beast of the sixth layer.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to seek out Netherworld Beasts with greater strength and potential, like the Ghost Dragon of Ghost Dragon City, which were plentiful in the Netherworld of the Ancient Great Tribulation and possessed the potential to match Divine Beasts. If one were to cultivate them as a Demon King for the sixth layer space, their potential would be boundless.
But in his regular life, he had no chance of venturing into the Netherworld; if not for this trial, he wouldn’t have come to this Undead Realm, let alone go to other Netherworlds to subdue powerful Netherworld Beasts.
Now that he had the opportunity and had also subdued the Hellhound, Qin Feng wasn’t going to be greedy for more, and soon came up with several routes in his mind for cultivating the Hellhound’s advancement.
Although there weren’t a surplus of dog-like Spiritual Beasts, if one really looked, some unique dog-like creatures with Bloodline Divine Powers could be found within the Cultivation World.
For example, the Heavenly Dog, famed for being able to devour the sun and the moon, was a noble of dogs, an Exotic Beast known to be no weaker than the Divine Beasts race.
There was also the legendary Roaring Celestial Dog, which was extremely well-known!
Among the hands of Jue Tian Ancestor of the Beast Taming Sect, there was a Divine Beast Diting, which was said to have some connection to the Netherworld.
These were dog-like Spiritual Beasts from the Cultivation World; similarly, there were also strong dog-like monsters and Demons in other worlds, and Qin Feng was confident that as Biluo widely launched expeditions, he would definitely be able to find more suitable Spiritual Beasts to cultivate the Hellhound.
Just as he was feeling delighted about these ideas, suddenly the White Dragon let out a roar and spewed a scorching Holy Flame towards the valley entrance.
With the outburst of the Holy Flame, it was like poking a hornet’s nest; a chorus of wails and howls suddenly filled the valley from outside, creating noise that was irritating and troubling to listeners.
At the same time, countless strands of Yin Qi rose into the air, enveloping all sides of the valley.
“Hmm?”
Qin Feng was taken aback, quickly turning his head only to see a formidable Undead casting Death Qi to counter the purification of the Holy Flame at the entrance of the valley.
Outside the valley, and even all around, numerous Ghost Items suddenly appeared, shadowy amidst the mist or revealing their forms, their eyes fixed on the several Spiritual Beasts and revealing a bloodthirsty craziness and an inexplicable fervor.
“What’s going on?”
Qin Feng was shocked, then quickly realized that the earlier fight must have attracted the attention of these Undead.
All of his Spiritual Beasts were creatures of life, and there was the Soul Devouring Vine Demon – an extremely vibrant Wood Element plant – whose incessant life aura would naturally draw the notice of many Undead after being in the Land of Undead for some time.
Previously, the presence of a powerful Demigod Realm Undead probably deterred other Undead from entering its territory.
But as one of the Undead could no longer contain its inner desire for slaughter and attempted to sneak into the valley, it was discovered by the White Dragon and repelled with a blast of Holy Flame, instantly causing all the surrounding Undead to experience turmoil within their spirits.
Then, seeing that the powerful Demigod Realm Undead had yet to show up, these simple-minded and unintelligent Undead could no longer withstand the temptation and rushed toward the valley.