"It's too dangerous for you to try to save someone; there are definitely powerful beings guarding the Great Strength Beast headquarters," Hun Lao said, a touch of concern in his voice.
"What is there to fear? I have the Space Teleportation Token. If I encounter strong opponents, I can just teleport back," Ye Yunfei replied.
The Space Teleportation Token was now one of Ye Yunfei's most important trump cards!
Not long ago, the reason Ye Yunfei was able to escape safely while being pursued by over a dozen Heavenly Emperor-level experts was precisely because of the Space Teleportation Token!
"Hmm, with that Space Teleportation Token, you can indeed flee instantly. Alright then. But you still need to be careful," Hun Lao thought for a moment before agreeing.
"Do you know what Miss Qi E looks like and her Soul Body's aura?" Ye Yunfei asked a giant.
Ye Yunfei was currently standing on a giant's shoulder. This particular giant wasn't participating in the battle; his main task was to protect Ye Yunfei.
As soon as the fighting started, he had taken Ye Yunfei and retreated far to the side.
Elder Qi believed Ye Yunfei had come along just to watch the show and had no intention of letting him join the fight.
"I do," the giant nodded directly.
"Then tell me Miss Qi E's appearance and Soul Body aura," Ye Yunfei said.
"Alright." The giant thought for a moment and then simulated Miss Qi E's appearance and Soul Body aura.
These giants had straightforward personalities; they answered whatever was asked without suspicion.
Once he obtained Miss Qi E's appearance and Soul Body aura, Ye Yunfei immediately activated the Space Teleportation Token and vanished in an instant.
The giant's shoulder was incredibly broad and thick, and his immense strength made him not particularly sensitive to subtle changes. He actually didn't notice immediately that Ye Yunfei had disappeared from his shoulder.
It was only moments later that he suddenly realized Ye Yunfei was gone.
"Little brother, little brother, where did you go..." The giant called out anxiously but couldn't find any trace of Ye Yunfei.
By this time, Ye Yunfei was already using the Space Teleportation Token, teleporting continuously towards the Great Strength Beast headquarters.
Along the way, Ye Yunfei saw many Great Strength Beasts on guard.
Since Ye Yunfei was using the Shadow Concealment Secret Art and constantly teleporting with the token, his movements were extremely stealthy, so he went undetected.
After more than half a day, Ye Yunfei arrived before a range of towering mountains.
Over a dozen massive mountain ranges intertwined like dragons, forming a vast and magnificent mountainous region.
Great Strength Beasts were active everywhere within the mountains.
This was the lair of the Great Strength Beasts!
Their lair was much simpler than the Giant Clan headquarters.
The Giant Clan headquarters was a massive, albeit crude, city with quite a few structures.
The Great Strength Beast lair, however, had almost no proper buildings; the vast majority of beasts lived in natural caves or valleys.
"I need to find a way to sneak in, find out the exact location where Miss Qi E is being held first," Ye Yunfei thought aloud.
"This is the Great Strength Beast headquarters; there are definitely powerful members of their race guarding it. And those powerful beasts would definitely be at the Heavenly Emperor level, perhaps even stronger. If I just barge in and get discovered, the consequences could be troublesome," Ye Yunfei mused internally.
The dozen or so Heavenly Emperors who had been chasing him earlier didn't dare enter this planet. Ye Yunfei understood they mostly didn't want to provoke the Giant Clan and the Great Strength Beasts, the two most powerful races on this planet.
So Ye Yunfei didn't dare underestimate the Great Strength Beast race.
"Brother Situ, come out and see. Can you transform into one of these Great Strength Beasts?" Ye Yunfei suddenly thought of Situ Kong'er, who had been cultivating in seclusion inside the Phantom Tower all this time.
Situ Kong'er's Seventy-Two Transformations Divine Ability could theoretically transform into anything. But the Great Strength Beasts possessed immense power; Ye Yunfei wasn't sure if Situ Kong'er could mimic it.
Situ Kong'er appeared beside Ye Yunfei and looked towards the distant mountains.
At that moment, Ye Yunfei was hidden within space. Hun Lao was employing a secret art that twisted and concealed the space where Ye Yunfei was located.
"I should be able to transform into one of the smaller Great Strength Beasts. The smaller ones are weaker and easier to mimic. Plus, weaker beasts wandering around the headquarters wouldn't attract much attention," Situ Kong'er said.
In fact, as Situ Kong'er had been in closed-door cultivation recently, the time he spent cultivating inside the Phantom Tower had been extremely long—at least several hundred years. His realm and power had been steadily rising, and he had now cultivated the Seventy-Two Transformations Divine Ability to an even higher level.
Next, Ye Yunfei and Situ Kong'er found a lone Great Strength Beast nearby, one of weaker strength. Using a surprise attack, Ye Yunfei punched and exploded the beast's head in a single strike, then teleported its corpse into the Phantom Tower.
Then, Situ Kong'er transformed into that Great Strength Beast and swaggered confidently into the Great Strength Beast headquarters.
Ye Yunfei instructed Situ Kong'er to wander through this vast mountainous region, searching for any possible locations where Miss Qi E might be imprisoned.
The Great Strength Beast that Situ Kong'er had transformed into was just a minor character, usually performing the lowest tasks within the headquarters, so none of the other beasts paid him any attention.
Not long after, a certain place caught Ye Yunfei's attention.
It was a massive valley.
While many Great Strength Beasts were active in other parts of this vast mountain range, none dared approach this valley. Neither the valley nor the surrounding area had a single Great Strength Beast in sight.
More importantly, Ye Yunfei detected a familiar aura emanating from within that valley.
It was precisely the Soul Body aura of Miss Qi E!
Although Ye Yunfei's current Soul Power level couldn't compare to the Soul Emperor's, it was already close to that of an ordinary Heavenly Emperor!
On top of that, the small black millstone Ye Yunfei obtained in the Sword Grave was constantly within his Soul Sea, continuously tempering his Soul Power energy, causing it to steadily improve.
Thus, Ye Yunfei's Soul Power perception was already incredibly powerful!
It had even begun to faintly approach the Soul Emperor's perceptive ability, though there was still a small gap at present.
It was precisely because of this powerful Soul Power perception that Ye Yunfei was able to sense Miss Qi E's aura not long after entering the Great Strength Beast headquarters.
"This is the place! Let's find a way inside!" Ye Yunfei whispered to Situ Kong'er.
"That valley has many formations laid out!" Hun Lao suddenly spoke up.
"Yes. I've already noticed. But the style of these formations is as crude as the Great Strength Beasts themselves," Ye Yunfei said with a smile.
Although the Great Strength Beasts possessed formidable power, their skill with formations was pitifully low.
"This is clearly a forbidden area, yet there are no Great Strength Beasts guarding it. Could it be because of these formations? It seems the beasts have quite a bit of confidence in the formations within this valley," Situ Kong'er remarked.
"Most likely that's the reason. That's perfect; these formations are trivial in my eyes," Ye Yunfei said.
Next, Ye Yunfei appeared, waved his hand, teleported Situ Kong'er back into the Phantom Tower, then activated the Shadow Concealment Secret Art, concealing his form, and quietly approached the valley.
Ye Yunfei held the Space Teleportation Token in his hand, ready to activate it and leave instantly if discovered.
However, to Ye Yunfei's pleasant surprise, he walked all the way to the mouth of the valley without encountering any obstruction.
Several large-scale formations tightly sealed the valley entrance, with formation energy rippling out from time to time, causing the space to slightly distort.
Ye Yunfei had already studied these formations. He stepped through them in one stride, as if entering unguarded territory.
Inside the valley, Ye Yunfei passed through over a dozen more formations consecutively before seeing, in the central area of the valley, a plaza paved with stone slabs. Within the plaza, hundreds of massive stone pillars surrounded an ancient altar.
The thick stone pillars were carved with many totems related to the Great Strength Beasts, exuding an ancient aura of bygone eras.
"Looks like this should be a place where the Great Strength Beasts hold sacrificial rites, or perhaps their ancestral lands," Ye Yunfei said.
"Those stone pillars, combined, form a large-scale formation. It appears this formation has been set up here for a very long time. Beneath those pillars, there's an underground cave. That Miss Qi E is probably imprisoned inside that cave, as her aura is emanating from there," Hun Lao said.
Hun Lao's spatial perception was astonishing, even surpassing Ye Yunfei's, so he immediately detected the underground cave.
"Those stone pillars indeed form an ancient formation. The reason the Great Strength Beasts don't post guards here is precisely because they have great confidence in the formations within this valley," Ye Yunfei nodded.
Ye Yunfei's figure flashed as he entered the plaza, standing before the hundreds of stone pillars, beginning to study the formation composed of them.
Moments later, Ye Yunfei had fully comprehended this Pillar Formation and stepped into it.
This Pillar Formation was left behind by the ancestors of the Great Strength Beast race, guarding their ancestral lands here.
Most beings on this planet specialized in strength; their formation skills were pitifully low.
Thus, this formation was actually one of the highest-level formations on this entire planet!
But for a formation master like Ye Yunfei, it was trivial.
Inside the Pillar Formation, Ye Yunfei saw the entrance to a tunnel.
He walked into the entrance and descended continuously.
Throughout this process, Ye Yunfei kept the Space Teleportation Token in hand, ready to activate it at any moment.
Before long, Ye Yunfei found himself inside a vast underground cavern.
The cavern was chaotically scattered with massive, bleached-white skeletons, emanating powerful energy pressure.
These were all Great Strength Beast skeletons.
Ye Yunfei could tell these skeletons had been lying here for an extremely long time.
"It seems this is most likely the ancestral lands of the Great Strength Beasts. These skeletons probably belong to powerful ancestors of the race," Ye Yunfei said as he observed the terrifying pressure-emitting skeletons.
"Great Strength Beast demon cores!" Ye Yunfei suddenly spotted numerous demon cores amidst the piles of skeletons, his eyes gleaming.
"Look! That should be Miss Qi E!" Hun Lao suddenly pointed at a distant pool and said to Ye Yunfei.
The pool was about two hundred square meters. Floating in the center of the pool was a female from the Giant Clan. She had fair features and a well-proportioned figure, but her size was far too massive to fit ordinary human aesthetic standards.
The surface of this Giant Clan woman's body was crisscrossed with cut wounds, from which blood was gushing out, merging with the surrounding pool water.
The pool water was infused with a large quantity of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
After a quick glance, Ye Yunfei realized these Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures were all for body tempering!
"So it's true! A powerful Great Strength Beast wants to use Miss Qi E for cultivation! They've soaked her here, letting her Origin Blood constantly drain out, becoming part of the pool water. Then that powerful beast will absorb this pool water for cultivation!" Ye Yunfei understood the situation after a brief thought.
Miss Qi E was in a comatose state.
Ye Yunfei waved his sleeve, directly scooping Miss Qi E out of the pool. After a quick check, he teleported her into the Phantom Tower. There was nothing critically wrong with her; she was just sealed and had lost quite a bit of her Origin Blood.
"This pool water and the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures soaking in it are all precious body tempering resources! And all those Great Strength Beast demon cores are also treasures for body tempering! Hun Lao, I've hit the jackpot! We've come to the right place this time!" Ye Yunfei was extremely excited.
"Yes, a windfall indeed," Hun Lao laughed.
Just at that moment.
Boom... Boom...
Rhythmic, heavy footsteps echoed from outside. Some being was about to enter.
"It's an incredibly powerful Great Strength Beast! Be careful!" Hun Lao exclaimed in shock.
"The powerful Great Strength Beast who planned to use Miss Qi E for cultivation has returned!" Ye Yunfei frowned, also somewhat startled.
Immediately, Ye Yunfei moved at his fastest speed, collecting all the pool water in front of him and teleporting it into the Phantom Tower.
Then he gathered up all the Great Strength Beast demon cores in the cave.
There were over a hundred in total!
All of these over a hundred demon cores were left behind by famous powerful ancestors of the Great Strength Beast race!
Next, Ye Yunfei activated the Shadow Concealment Secret Art, concealing his form, and hid near the cave entrance/exit, the Space Teleportation Token gripped in his hand.
Hun Lao also activated the Heavenly Path Tower to help Ye Yunfei conceal his aura.
A few breaths later, a Great Strength Beast emanating a terrifying aura of power walked into this underground cavern.