Chapter 51: Acquiring Information and Practicing the Nine Transformations Body

Facing such a formidable opponent, the archer lost all will to resist. He spilled everything he knew like beans pouring from a bamboo tube, asking only for a swift and painless death.

Qin Anyu did not break his promise. With a single sword strike, he granted him a quick release.

Though people often say that a miserable life is better than a good death, there comes a stage where a clean death is truly preferable, as it at least preserves a shred of dignity.

Walking up to the fleeing cultivator who had been struck by an arrow, Qin Anyu found that he was already dead, which left him somewhat disappointed. He had wanted to extract some information from him, not expecting that a casual arrow would kill him outright.

He collected the man's weapon and storage ring, then gathered the weapons and storage rings of the other two deceased middle-stage Qi-gathering cultivators. He discovered that, much like the first archer, none of them possessed any primordial stones.

Approaching the first middle-stage cultivator who was still lying on the ground, Qin Anyu used a large saber to sever four fingers from his right hand. The cultivator woke up with a shrill scream.

Seeing that it was Qin Anyu, he immediately tried to spring up, only to let out successive screams of agony instead.

He could not get up.

When charging at the three middle-stage Qi-gathering cultivators, Qin Anyu had "accidentally" snapped this man's right thigh. Combined with the severed fingers of his right hand, there was no way he could leap up; he could only writhe and wail.

Qin Anyu took the man's storage ring to inspect it, repeating his earlier words: "State the purpose of your coming, and I will grant you a swift death."

The cultivator followed the usual script, his eyes turning resolute and his tone unyielding: "I will not yield. Do your worst."

Noticing the more than ninety primordial stones inside the man's storage ring, Qin Anyu smiled indifferently. "I have already killed quite a few middle-stage Qi-gathering cultivators from your Vast Heaven Gate, and you are the only one whose storage ring actually contains primordial stones. It seems you are held in high regard."

Just like the archer before him, the moment his storage ring was probed, the cultivator felt as if his skull was about to split open, and blood instantly gushed from his seven orifices.

He did not understand why this was happening, but he knew that his spiritual soul power was utterly defenseless against the opponent.

When he received the storage ring, the deacon who handed it out had told him that as long as he bound it with his blood, no one else could ever view its contents.

Later, he had read in a manual that individuals possessing terrifyingly powerful spiritual soul power could forcibly erase another person's blood-bound artifacts. Those with bizarre soul power could peer into someone else's storage ring without a sound, and even quietly extract items from within.

Now he understood: Qin Anyu's spiritual soul power was vastly superior to his own.

He also felt a wave of sorrow. The intelligence report issued by his sect stated: Qin Anyu is foolish but possesses immense physical strength; at the ninth stage of Qi-nurturing, he can fight middle-stage Qi-gathering cultivators on equal terms. His explosive power is formidable enough to launch surprise attacks that kill mid-stage cultivators.

He was no ninth-stage Qi-nurturing cultivator at all—he was clearly in the middle stage of Qi-gathering! And it wasn't just that his strength was great; it was freakishly, monstrously massive! Furthermore, his spiritual soul power was beyond bizarrely powerful.

With these realizations came absolute clarity, and a calm born of despair washed over him. "You are powerful. The Vast Heaven Gate completely miscalculated your strength, and because we provoked you, our sect will suffer a severe, perhaps even devastating blow. Even so, you will not extract any information from me."

Qin Anyu smiled faintly. "You are mistaken. Asking you to speak is merely to spare you some suffering. After all, when life becomes worse than death, there is no dignity left."

Qin Youqin walked up behind him and asked, "First Young Master, do you need help?"

He turned to look at her and asked, "Can you do this too?"

Qin Youqin nodded. "I saw Zhang Qili and Qin Datong do it before. It's just brutal beating."

Qin Anyu immediately shook his head. "You don't need to concern yourself with this. Go and recover your strength."

When he first saw her, her arm was broken—inflicted, no doubt, by such brutal beatings. He did not want her witnessing that kind of scene again.

However, he had no intention of using methods like that either.

As a dignified Immortal Emperor, resorting to such crude tactics would be a loss of face. He would use something far more ruthless.

With a flick of his blade, he struck downward, and the middle-stage cultivator let out a muffled groan as his other thigh was shattered into pieces. "Well? Are you ready to answer now?"

The man still clenched his teeth, glaring at him with bloodshot eyes.

Qin Anyu smiled and said, "There's no rush. Keep holding out. Once all four of your limbs are completely pulverized, I will take you to the Dali Kingdom and hang you outside the gates of Kun City. If you have family members, I will invite them to come and admire your display."

"Qin Anyu, do not drag one's family into this."

"Qin Zhuo is my father, Dai Linglong is my mother. They are my family."

"My Vast Heaven Gate will not let you off."

"Wrong. I am the one who will not let the Vast Heaven Gate off. This young master said it long ago: whoever dares to touch a single hair on their heads will have their entire household exterminated, and the worst offenders will have nine generations wiped out. As for the Vast Heaven Gate, since they dared to capture them, there is no longer any need for your sect to exist. How many of you survive will depend entirely on my parents' condition."

"Ha, what a pipe dream! The ravings of an ignorant child."

"Yang Jixiu, I will take you to Kun City. But first, you must savor a bone-deep agony."

He swung his sword in a series of rapid strikes, crushing the man's remaining two limbs into pulp, and then shoved a stop-bleeding pill into his mouth. "This is the hemostatic pill you were carrying. It should ensure that you live long enough to see your family in Kun City."

Through the previous interrogation, he had already learned that the man was named Yang Jixiu, a deacon of the Vast Heaven Gate who had led a team into the Song State this time for two purposes: first, to secretly capture the three siblings, and second, to expand the sect's influence within the Song State.

Hearing Qin Anyu call out his name, Yang Jixiu's expression turned as ashen as dead ashes.

Being able to name him meant the other party knew where his family was. The likelihood of them being captured to witness his display was extremely high, and the final state of that scene would be directly tied to his own performance.

Without wrestling with the thought much longer, he spilled everything he knew.

True to his word, Qin Anyu gave him a swift and painless death.

Approaching the other three, Qin Anyu said, "The air quality here isn't good. Let's change locations."

Qin Lingxue replied, "Eldest Brother, those people fled. If they come back to attack us, we won't be able to hold out for long."

He smiled and said, "The middle-stage Qi-gathering cultivators are gone, and the archer is gone. If they dare to come back, that will be our fortune."

Qin Youqin opened her eyes wide and asked, "Does the First Young Master mean you want us to use them to practice our footwork?"

Qin Anyu nodded. "How clever. Your realms are higher than theirs; although your absolute physical strength is roughly comparable or slightly less, opponents like them are still much more agile than the beasts in the secret realm."

He then changed the subject. "However, given your current states, what suits you best right now is to practice a body-refining cultivation technique called the *Nine Transformations Body*."

He then demonstrated the movements while explaining them, and the three of them followed along.

The movements were very slow and very soft, resembling stretches yet unlike them, leaving the deepest impression of being utterly awkward.

Before they had even finished the third movement, Qin Wushuang let out a loud cry of "I can't take it anymore!" and immediately collapsed onto the ground, his limbs twitching.

As soon as the fourth movement began, Qin Lingxue also collapsed to the ground, her small face contorted with pain, her entire body convulsing uncontrollably.

Before the fourth movement was complete, Qin Youqin fell just like them, without the slightest exception.

Before the fifth movement was finished, Qin Anyu himself slumped to the ground, silently cursing his own carelessness. Such "sudden inspirations" must not happen again in the future.

Yet he forced himself to maintain a calm expression—after all, the Peerless Immortal Emperor still needed to save face.

Deep down, however, he was wondering just what kind of freakish monster their ancestor was, to have perfected a body-refining technique so agonizingly torturous.

As a direct descendant and freakish genius of the Qin clan, he had read all of the clan's techniques and memorized the origins of every single one. After all, the clan's heritage was founded on thoroughly studying all the myriad techniques under heaven before ultimately creating one's own.

This *Nine Transformations Body* was something their ancestor, Qin Mian, had obtained in a perilous zone in the lower realm. Later, after seeing a mural, he fused the two together and practiced the technique continuously until he ascended to immortality.

After attaining the status of Immortal Emperor, he summarized, organized, and deduced the techniques he had practiced, perfecting several of them—the *Opening Heavens Primordial Scripture* and the *Nine Transformations Body* being two of those sets.

Qin Anyu had perused the *Nine Transformations Body* from the lower realm's secret realm, and he had also seen the version depicted on the mural, but he still felt that the version perfected by their ancestor Qin Mian was the most perversely brutal of all.

Because practicing it was so excruciatingly painful and uncomfortable, he had once deduced a new version of the *Nine Transformations Body* for himself after practicing it for a period. Though its effects were slightly inferior, it was still quite useful for body refining.

"When this Immortal Emperor attempted the heavenly tribulation and failed, the shortcoming lay entirely within my physical body. Therefore, in this lifetime, I must cultivate the freakish *Nine Transformations Body* of our ancestor."

Far away in an unknown realm, a middle-middle-aged man let out an "Achoo," causing the wind and clouds to shift color.

Nearby, a playful young woman waved her hand to calm the surrounding environment and giggled, "Father, don't ruin such a picturesque little realm, oh."

Another plump middle-middle-aged woman at his side smiled faintly. "Brother Mian, someone is missing you."

The middle-aged man swept his gaze across the surroundings with a boundless expression and muttered, "Which bastard junior is cursing me?"