Feeling that presence outside linger for a long while, until at last it withdrew into the distance—

Shen Yi picked a spot at random, sat down, and fell into thought.

His purpose had, more or less, been achieved.

To be honest — Wutong Mountain had a heaven's-favored prodigy like Nie Jun. Was it really possible the Thousand Demon Den didn't want to cultivate a few of the same?

It was styled the Thousand Demon Den.

But from what Shen Yi had seen so far, those who reached the demon-king tier numbered at most some two hundred, and the demon emperors no more than fifty.

The count of Spirit-Transformation existences was about the same as all the three-way alliance's cultivators put together.

Perhaps there were rather more at the very peak.

But one mustn't forget — these creatures occupied the most spiritually resplendent land the Nanyang Sect had ever held.

Plainly, this pack of demons had squandered far too many rare treasures of heaven and earth, spending them without restraint, and were badly in need of a person of ambition to put the whole lot to proper use.

The Thousand Demon Den's rules had been laid bare in full through the Gold-Winged Nine-Striped Demon Emperor.

The Dark-Tail and himself were both Thousand Demon Den demon emperors.

It had been robbed of its spirit-treasure — but so long as that treasure still belonged to the Thousand Demon Den, the matter was tolerable as far as those great demons were concerned.

Which meant that so long as he performed impressively enough, their tolerance would only grow.

"Never mind. No use dwelling on it now."

Shen Yi rose and walked out of the cave estate, and soon located the two Spirit-Transformation Pill herbs his demon souls had found last time.

Precious things of this order.

Growing wild and unattended within the old flood dragon's own territory — and the creature hadn't even bothered to open its mouth and eat them.

Compared to the world outside, where cultivators came to blows over a single precious herb, where an extreme-peak Mixed Origin white dragon had guarded…