Chapter 104: The Temple of Transformation Once More

Within the Azure Wood Grove, Jiang Yan walked slowly ahead with his hands clasped behind his back, while Tang Wan trailed half a pace behind, following closely step by step. Around Tang Wan's feet, seven translucent jade-green little beasts frolicked and bounded, occasionally letting out bleating cries as they circled around Tang Wan and Jiang Yan.

Whether it was because the Azure Hookwood had vanished from Langya Heaven, or because Jiang Yan carried a piece of Azure Hookwood on his person, these several Wood Beasts had utterly attached themselves to Jiang Yan and his fellow disciple. After expressing to Tang Wan their wish to follow them, they refused to return to Langya Heaven.

The pair, along with their seven beasts, were now hurrying toward the Hunt Demon Gate. There was less than half an hour before the Hunt Demon Gate would collapse. If the two could not reach it before then, they would be trapped in Linqing Prefecture forever. Consequently, Jiang Yan felt quite helpless toward these Wood Beasts that kept slowing their pace.

"Hummm..." A vast, far-reaching drone suddenly sounded from the west of the Azure Wood Grove, followed by a milky-white radiance brightening the western sky.

"Hummm, hummm..." As the milky-white glow grew ever brighter, the droning from the Hunt Demon Gate also swelled louder and louder.

"Senior brother?" Tang Wan looked to the west, her face filled with confusion as she gazed at Jiang Yan.

"The Hunt Demon Gate is opening. Let's go." Jiang Yan fixed his eyes on the distant gate to the west, but his heart too was full of doubt—wasn't it true that only by combining Azure Hookwood and a beast core could the Hunt Demon Gate be activated? Why was it already opening now?

"Shhh..." Jiang Yan's form transformed into a flash of azure-tinged golden light, racing toward the direction of the Hunt Demon Gate.

Tang Wan looked down at the seven Wood Beasts on the ground and furrowed her brow. These beasts could never keep up with her Earth-Spanning Golden Light technique...

"Bleat, bleat..." Several of the Wood Beasts, watching the direction Jiang Yan had gone, jumped and cried out excitedly. It seemed they wanted Tang Wan to hurry after him, but the duration of Tang Wan's Spirit-Communication Art had already lapsed, and she could not understand what the leaping, bleating creatures meant.

"Shhh..." The Wood Beast that had been leaping most eagerly, seeing that Tang Wan could not grasp its intent, suddenly twisted its head around and, with a vigorous bound, threw its small body straight against a large tree beside them.

"Ah!" Tang Wan let out a startled cry. At that speed, the little beast would surely bash its head until it bled.

"Eh?" But there was no bloodied head as Tang Wan had imagined, nor even a trunk shaking from the impact. Tang Wan watched in astonishment as the Wood Beast slipped with ethereal lightness into the trunk of the great tree, leaving only its little head poking out to gaze at her. Utter amazement filled her heart.

"Bleat, bleat!" The Wood Beast's cry came from far away, as its head emerged from the trunk of yet another distant tree, bleating at Tang Wan in delight.

"Wood Evasion..." Tang Wan glanced at the other six Wood Beasts at her feet in surprise. She had never expected these crystalline little creatures to know Wood Evasion, and to perform it so deftly, able to hide within tree trunks.

"Shhh, shhh..." Seeing the delight on Tang Wan's face, the remaining six Wood Beasts dove into the trunks of the great trees. But when they poked their heads out again, some emerged to the east, some to the west, and some even to the north. In an instant, the whole Azure Wood Grove was filled with the bleating of Wood Beasts.

Tang Wan, forcing a stern expression, pointed toward the direction of the first Wood Beast, then turned herself into a beam of golden light and sped westward.

The Wood Beasts that had poked their heads out in the north, south, and east, seeing Tang Wan point west, all withdrew their little heads back into their trunks. The next moment, when they popped their heads out again, they were all on the same tree trunk where the first Wood Beast had appeared.

Seven translucent little heads peeking out from a single tree trunk—that was quite a sight to behold...

"Shhh..." The golden light that was Tang Wan swept around the great tree.

"Bleat..." The Wood Beasts called out once, then retracted their heads and hurried off in the direction the golden light was fading away.

"Shhh..." Tang Wan's golden light alighted at the forest's edge. She stood behind Jiang Yan, frowning at the large group of tense, bristling cultivators in the distance.

To the west of the Azure Wood Grove lay a stretch of open ground, and beyond that, to the west again, rose tall stands of man-eating flowers. In the center of the clearing stood a white ring of light several zhang high—that should be the Hunt Demon Gate. It did not yet seem fully formed, still spinning slowly as a pale halo.

Around the Hunt Demon Gate, a large circle of cultivators had gathered. At the very center of the circle stood a group of monks from Huasheng Temple. Yet these monks looked rather wretched in appearance—their robes torn, their garments stained with blood, and their shaved heads covered in red welts of dried gore.

Several monks protected a single monk in the middle whose condition was the most pitiable of all. In his left hand, he held a green sapling, identical to the Azure Hookwood sapling within Jiang Yan's sect-leader ring. But his right hand was gone, severed cleanly along with his robe from the shoulder down.

"You bald little brat! Hand over the Azure Hookwood at once and stabilize the Hunt Demon Gate! Otherwise, none of us are getting back to Linqing Prefecture!" A menacing-looking sect master of a first-rate sect shouted.

As the saying goes—ignorance breeds fearlessness. Within Linqing Prefecture, the ones truly capable of understanding the might of Huasheng Temple were probably only the Jinyan Sect and Huashan, and perhaps also Tianshan, which had suffered a hidden loss at their hands. These first-rate sects, knowing nothing of Huasheng Temple's power, naturally dared to hurl abuse at the trapped monks.

"Elder Wen, this humble monk has already said—this Azure Hookwood is meant to commune with our humble temple in Linqing Prefecture and stabilize the spatial passage within this Hunt Demon Gate. To anchor the Hunt Demon Gate, one must use the Azure Hookwood from the Langya Heaven within the Azure Wood Grove." The monk with the severed arm spoke slowly, his eyes lowered and brows knit in concentration.

"Where is Langya Heaven?" Hearing the monk's words, the assembled cultivators began murmuring among themselves. Though they had all gathered plenty of spirit herbs from within the Azure Wood Grove, the Records of Marvels contained no entry on Langya Heaven, and so they had no idea that a spiritual treasure like the Azure Hookwood grew within the grove.

"Langya Heaven is not mentioned in the Records of Marvels." The crowd of cultivators buzzed with discussion after hearing the monk's words.

"Everyone, don't be led astray by this bald brat! I, Old Wen, carry a copy of the Records of Marvels on my person! I've studied it countless times, and there's no Langya Heaven in there at all. In the past, the Jinyan Sect always activated the Hunt Demon Gate with high-grade beast cores. Since Huasheng Temple is this hunt's organizer, the task of activating the gate falls on them. Our time is running short—don't let this little monk trick you into missing your chance to return."

Old Wen, the sect master of the Wanglu Sect, was no fool; he knew the procedure for opening the Hunt Demon Gate in great detail. Coupled with the fact that he had just eavesdropped on the young monks' conversation, he grew quite arrogant in his demands.

"That's right, little monk! Activate the Hunt Demon Gate right now—we're all still waiting to go home!" Another first-rate sect master joined in the shouting. These sects had never passed through the perilous territories of the Man-Eating Flower Valley, the Black Bear Valley, or the Yellow Phoenix Slope, and so had no idea how rare beast cores truly were. They simply thought Huasheng Temple ought to fulfill its duty as the organizer of the hunt.

The young monks of Huasheng Temple were momentarily stunned, but found no words to refute them. Opening the Hunt Demon Gate was a task their abbot had charged them with before they set out. But in the Black Bear Valley, they had encountered a high-tier Fleshy Brown Bear King. After a ferocious battle, of the six monks who had come from Huasheng Temple, one was dead and five wounded—and Wukong, the monk with the highest cultivation, had even lost an arm. In the end, Wukong had activated the talisman array bestowed by his junior master uncle, and at the cost of his arm, trapped the Fleshy Brown Bear King long enough for them to escape with their lives.

Though the monks had escaped alive, they had failed in the task of hunting a beast core to activate the Hunt Demon Gate. Now, with all the sects pressing and reproaching them, they had nothing to say in their defense.

What worried the young monks even more was the fact that this Hunt Demon Gate had appeared without being activated by a beast core—it had been triggered suddenly when they drew near while carrying the spiritual treasure, the Azure Hookwood. According to what their junior master uncle had told them before departure, this activation might very well be different from previous ones.

"If it truly needs a spiritual treasure to anchor the Hunt Demon Gate, we're in trouble." The young monk Wukong thought anxiously to himself.

PS: This chapter came out a bit forced—please forgive me. Brother keleiyu, forget about recommendations and reminders for more chapters; after this goes to paid chapters, if you could give me an auto-subscribe, I'd be endlessly grateful...