Out of Hou Yi"s nine successive arrows, the first arrow was the weakest, but that was because he was acc.u.mulating strength! Even Qin Yun had to ignite his Essence Soul to withstand Hou Yi"s ninth arrow.

"Similar force?" Qin Yun thought. "Hou Yi has long made it public that the power he figured out is something known as Heart Force. It"s a different, special strength that"s independent from physical or Dharmic powers. However, just grasping the basics is extremely difficult."

Qin Yun"s time was precious. He felt that he did not even have enough time to cultivate his Sword Dao; therefore, he naturally did not waste time cultivating "Heart Force" which was extremely difficult to grasp.

Heart Force was a entirely different system separate from physical and Essence Soul Dharmic powers.

Just grasping the basics or cultivating to the mid-stages of Heart Force… was of little help to perfected Great Dao experts like Qin Yun. After all, Qin Yun was already an existence who was approaching Hou Yi in strength.

"Once I transcend the Itinerant Immortal tribulations and obtain eternal life I can consider cultivating in Heart Force," thought Qin Yun. "The reason why Hou Yi is so strong is because other than normal Dharmic powers cultivation, he also cultivates in the Heart Force. By augmenting his archery with the Heart Force… it causes the might of his archery to become extremely powerful, to the point of reaching the might of the Heavenly Dao realm.

"However, it"s said that not more than ten people have cultivated the Heart Force to the third realm in the entire Three Realms! Hou Yi is the only one who has cultivated it to the level of a perfected Great Dao expert; what"s more, he"s the founder of this system," thought Qin Yun.

The Heart Force lineage was just too difficult.

…

"Swoos.h.!.+"

"Swoos.h.!.+"

Golden arrows streaked across the spatial tide. There was no way of hiding or dodging from even a single arrow. The woman who was tens of thousands of feet tall initially viewed the arrows with contempt, but soon, she turned alarmed.

She had discovered that the might of the arrows were increasing exponentially!

If the first arrow was said to damage her in the slightest, most trivial way, then the second arrow"s might was thirty percent stronger. However, the damage she incurred doubled. The third arrow"s damage on her rose severalfold… As such, the might of the arrow gradually exceeded her limits. The damage inflicted on her was rising exponentially.

"If my Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p was here, you wouldn"t have been able to injure me!" The woman roared angrily. She did not hesitate to transform into a stream of light and flee into the distance.

She was escaping!

"Will you be able to flee?"

Hou Yi"s eyes were cold. He delivered the fifth arrow and with a flash, it struck the distant woman.

The arrow was just too fast!

As a sword immortal, Qin Yun"s Intrinsic Flying Sword was far inferior in speed to Hou Yi"s arrows, not to mention that the woman was flying with her body alone. In the face of Hou Yi"s arrows… the speed of flight was simply pathetic.

"Ah." The fifth arrow quaked the woman"s body as it turned much dimmer.

The immense increase in strength in the fifth arrow made the woman feel despair. "His arrows are growing stronger! Is there no end to it?"

Even if it did not increase in strength, another two or three of the "fifth arrows" were enough to annihilate her.

"Spare me," the woman immediately sent a voice transmission. "My treasure will all be yours. I can tell you information about this spatial tide. All I ask is for you to spare my life."

Faced with an irresistible force, she chose to beg for mercy.

However, the quartet ignored her pleas. Hou Yi continued shooting, delivering a more terrifying sixth arrow.

The dazzling beam streaked across s.p.a.ce. The woman desperately tried to dodge, but the arrow had hit her the moment that thought came to her. She let out a tragic scream and her body dispersed like bubbles. All that was left were some treasures floating in the spatial tide.

"Retrieve." Kong Xuan waved his hand and pulled the treasures with his Five-colored Divine Light.

"She even begged for mercy." Goumang shook his head. "Back when she sneaked up on us and wanted to kill us, she showed no mercy… But the moment she realized she wasn"t our match, all she knew to do was to plead for mercy. Too late!"

Kong Xuan laughed as well. "And she wanted to give us information? Would we dare believe the information she gives us? Who knows if she might deliberately misrepresent things and scheme against us."

Qin Yun and company had no plans on entrenching themselves in the spatial tide for extended periods of time. They were only here on a expedition. They did not have any desire for so-called information that they couldn"t even trust.

"Where"s her corpse?" Qin Yun frowned.

"She doesn"t have one," said Hou Yi. "Her power is very similar to my Heart Force. However, my Heart Force is purer, while her power is more chaotic and evil… I"m guessing that she is a unique life formed from the power of the soul and reached her present realm after a long period of cultivation. She does not have a body, so killing her wouldn"t leave behind a corpse."

Qin Yun felt somewhat frustrated.

"Brother Qin came to the spatial tide for the corpses of other-universe experts so that he can sacrifice them to the Three Realms," said Kong Xuan with a smile. "Yet, he came out empty-handed. However, we received quite a bit of her treasures. We can give some of the treasures to Brother Qin."

"Yes, give some of the treasures to make up for Qin Yun"s loss," said Hou Yi.

Qin Yun shook his head. "There"s no need."

At this point, there were increasingly few treasures that aided him.

"That won"t do. We can"t just take advantage of you like that," said Goumang.

"When out adventuring, fairness is very important," said Hou Yi.

"If you discover anything that can be useful to an Itinerant Immortal like me, or helpful to my transcendence of the tribulations, then give it to me," said Qin Yun. "I won"t take anything else."

Kong Xuan smiled. "Let"s see what treasures she left behind."

With that said, he flipped his hand.

The rundown s.h.i.+p appeared, floating in the middle of the spatial tide. It looked very ordinary.

However, Qin Yun and company could tell at the glance that it was only so on the surface. In fact, there was a ma.s.sive pocket world within.

"This Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p contains a world inside," said Kong Xuan. "If my judgment doesn"t fail me, this world had countless living beings in the past. Now, they have all been reduced to their fundamentals. This Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p"s might is rather evil and also good at defense. If one were to hide in the s.h.i.+p… an enemy"s attack will have to first crack open the Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p"s obstruction before the owner inside can be injured."

Hou Yi nodded in agreement. "This Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p is a Connate Cardinal treasure that"s very suited to that woman. If she had the Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p with her, it would probably take my eighth or ninth arrow to kill her."

"Without the Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p and that saber… her strength did get halved. She probably felt aggrieved at the moment of her death."

"That"s all I"m capable of," Kong Xuan said with a smile. Following that he began searching through the treasures when he was suddenly taken aback. Following that, he looked at Qin Yun. "Brother Qin Yun, you sure are lucky."

Qin Yun replied in astonishment, "I"m lucky?"

"Look."

Kong Xuan waved his hand and a ma.s.sive corpse the size of a hill appeared. The corpse had a head that resembled a mountain goat"s. It had red eyes and it wore black scaled armor all over. Its body emanated a ba.n.a.l and evil aura.

"This corpse and this saber share nearly identical auras," said Kong Xuan as he picked up the blackish-red saber and looked at the ma.s.sive body. "Perhaps this saber was this corpse"s, but he was killed by the woman. Let"s leave the corpse to Brother Qin Yun. You won"t be rejecting it, right?"

"No, not at all." Qin Yun was already grinning widely. He was overjoyed for the corpse was obviously powerful.

While the four were splitting up the treasures, three extremely tiny "worms" were lurking within the spatial tide. The worms were one with the spatial tide, so be it Qin Yun, Hou Yi, Goumang, or Kong Xuan, who was best at domains, none of them could detect the worms.

The three worms secretly followed behind Qin Yun and company.

…

Elsewhere in the spatial tide, there was a ma.s.sive floating island which spanned five thousand kilometers across. It was a Small World in and of itself.

Deep in the island stood a magnificent palace.

A silver-armored man walked into a hall and bowed respectfully. "Island Lord."

At the throne right at the top of the hall, a figure appeared out of thin air. It was a white-haired man wearing loose robes. He looked down at the man.

"Island Lord, Fifth Supremacy is dead," said the silver-armored man respectfully.

"I can sense that"s she"s dead." The white-haired man nodded. "How did she die?"

"My three spatial worms have been tailing her all this while. She encountered four experts from another universe. One on one, none of them are Fifth Supremacy"s match. But among them is someone who is good at s.n.a.t.c.hing treasures. He"s not strong, but the way he s.n.a.t.c.hes treasures is strange and unpredictable. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the Nine Netherworld s.h.i.+p and other treasures from Fifth Supremacy, so she was forced to enter the battle empty-handed. Even so, most half-step Primordial realm experts would not be able to injure her."

"Three of the four other-universe experts similarly can"t injure her. However, the fourth uses a bow and arrow and was able to injure her. After shooting six arrows, he killed Fifth Supremacy."

The white-haired man nodded slightly after being briefed. "Killed after only six arrows? That"s not considered strong, but he can be of use. As for the one that s.n.a.t.c.hes treasures, he"s quite unique. What about the other two?"

"The other two are somewhat mediocre and won"t catch your eye," said the silver-haired man.

The white-haired man nodded. "In that case, arrange for Third Supremacy and his men to be sent. Capture alive the one good at s.n.a.t.c.hing treasures and the archer. As for the other two? Since they are mediocre, just kill them."