Duan Fei rushed forward in order to prevent being killed by his fellow sect members.
"I'll hold it off, you guys retreat!"
Over a dozen people said in unison: "Good, hold on for as long as you can."
Duan Fei was stunned: "Shouldn't you be showing reluctance and grief?"
"You know clearly what kind of person you were before, how could we bear to stop you now that you're finally acting like a man?"
"Go on, Wu Senior Brother! We support you in spirit."
Wu Haosheng rushed towards the demonic beast desperately: "Demonic beast, I'll have your life!"
As Wu Hao charged forward prepared to die, there was a flash of lightning and thunder, sending dust flying.
Several dozen people jumped out from the dense forest and started violently beating the fifth-order demonic beast.
Wu Hao forgot to even put down the sword he had raised.
He turned back to look at the dozen or so fellow sect members behind him, who were watching the show with amusement, not having any intention of escaping at all.
"How did he even manage to live until now?"
"I've been wondering the same thing. With his intellect, how did he become so renowned before?"
"He's changed recently, but it seems his intellect has become even lower."
"I think it's the power of love."
"That makes sense."
The fifth-order demonic beast roared and snarled to no avail, suffering attacks of swords, fire, lightning, and mystic arts of the five elements.
In the end, still unwilling and stifled, it died.
After finishing the job, the rest was left for the people coming later to handle.
Xiao Chenfeng looked at Duan Fei, who was still holding up his sword, and asked doubtfully: "What's with the pose? What are you trying to do holding up that sword?"
Duan Fei awkwardly put down the sword and explained: "I just wanted to help!"
Over a dozen people walked over and saluted: "Greetings, Elder Brother Xiao."
Xiao Chenfeng nodded lightly: "Mm. Except for Ye Xuan, Liu YuXin and Zhang WanLing, almost everyone is here. Let's go deeper to find higher-order demonic beasts!"
Duan Fei perked up and volunteered: "Eldest Senior Brother, I'll lead the way. I'm familiar with this area."
Someone mocked: "He's quite familiar indeed. I think he's more familiar with running his mouth!"
"I feel there's no need to find them. With Senior Brother Duan's mouth, he can attract the demonic beasts over."
The others nodded in agreement: "That could work."
Duan Fei jumped up angrily from their ridicule: "That was just coincidence. I'll say 'come here, sixth-order demonic beast,' will it come or not?"
As he spoke, he shouted towards the surroundings: "Sixth-order demonic beast, come here!"
"See, nothing came! I told you it was just coincidence."
"Roar!" A beast's roar frightened Duan Fei into jumping three feet high.
Everyone looked at him together: "Jinx."
Duan Fei aggrievedly ran to a tree to sulk.
As everyone prepared to fight, Wang Ziyan led a group of female disciples over.
"Eldest Senior Brother, you guys killed another fifth-order demonic beast!"
Xiao Chenfeng calmly said: "There may soon be a sixth-order one added. But we'll need your help."
Sima Ruoxue vowed confidently: "Where's the sixth-order beast? I'll smash it to bits."
Everyone pointed in the direction the sound had come from: "Go ahead!"
Sima Ruoxue immediately rushed in that direction. She came back quickly too.
"It really was a sixth-order demonic beast. I lured it over."
Everyone was speechless: You call that luring it over? You clearly fled back desperately from its chase!
Xiao Chenfeng raised his sword: "Get to work."
"Let's start."
Then, a violent gust kicked up at the scene, with lightning and thunder flashing through.
Sima Ruoxue even took up a small tree and went to pound the beast with it.
Although the sixth-order demonic beast was comparable to an early Foundation Establishment stage cultivator, it couldn't beat the group's greater numbers and magic treasures, on top of their physical attacks.
The sixth-order demonic beast struggled desperately to no avail, and reluctantly met its end here.
Its last thoughts before death were: "Have Golden Core cultivators nowadays become so vicious? They used to flee at the sight of me!"
"Next time I definitely won't provoke these cultivators moving in groups. I was just unlucky this time."
Looking at the slain demonic beast, everyone gained a deeper understanding of the power of unity.
Wang Ziyan asked: "Eldest Senior Brother, shall we go look for a seventh-order demonic beast?"
Xiao Chenfeng considered briefly: "No need. Let's just hunt demonic beasts in this region."
"Alright."
Time passed quickly, and before they realized, it was already the sixth day.
"Eldest Senior Brother, how should we split the cores?" Wang Ziyan asked.
Xiao Chenfeng turned to look at everyone: "What are your thoughts?"
"I think we should just take a few cores each, and give the rest all to one person. That way, we can compete for the first place rewards."
"I agree with this approach. Not only can we obtain the first place rewards, it also doesn't impact our sect's overall score."
"The question is, who do we give them to?"
Everyone expressed their opinions. They were stumped on the issue of who to give the cores to.
Xiao Chenfeng spoke: "The Eldest Senior Brothers of each Peak cannot take them. I'm sure you all understand why."
Everyone nodded.
"Then how about we give them to the youngest junior sister? What do you all think?"
"I agree."
"I agree too."
In the end, the choice fell upon Sima Ruoxue.
Wang Ziyan patted her shoulder: "I'm rooting for you."
Sima Ruoxue promised: "When I obtain the rewards, we can cultivate the martial skills together. For the spiritual medicines, we can sell them for spirit stones and split those. For the pills, we can have internal sales, then split the spirit stones. What do you think?"
No one objected. It was better than being unable to rank and obtain any rewards after all.
Xiao Chenfeng surveyed the group and asked: "Where's Duan Fei?"
The crowd made way, revealing Duan Fei sulking behind a tree.
Duan Fei felt extremely depressed. These past few days, everyone forbade him from doing anything, only allowing him to make use of his jinxing ability.
His nickname had changed from the previous "Scumbag" to the current "Jinx".
Xiao Chenfeng walked over: "There's still some time left. Hurry up and get to work."
Duan Fei even felt like dying.
What had Ye Xuan's group of three been doing the past few days? Of course, killing monsters and robbing them.
When it was almost time to leave the secret realm, Liu YuXin and Zhang WanLing gave all of their obtained demon cores to Ye Xuan.
Ye Xuan definitely could not accept them! He returned some to the two women, because he believed the amount he had obtained was enough for the three to compete for the top three spots.
When the time was up, over four hundred proud geniuses of heaven were transmitted out. Most of the others had already been sent out in advance by Ye Xuan.
Those not from the Qingyun Sword Sect had gathered together early on. Some of them had also been sent out early by Ye Xuan.
When it came time to hand in the cores, there was only one disciple per sect who had an exceptionally large number of cores. The rest only had a few first-order demonic beast cores, of course not including Ye Xuan's group.
"First place, Sima Ruoxue with 265,331 cores. Second place, Wu Hao with 215,637 cores ...... Seventh place, Ye Xuan with 145,617 cores. Eighth place, Zhang WanLing with 21,351 cores. Ninth place, Liu YuXin with 19,732 cores. Tenth place..."
(Whether sixth-order demonic beast cores or third-order cores, everything was converted to first-order cores, with the ratio being 1:10 per order)
Hearing these rankings, Ye Xuan simply couldn't believe it. He roared furiously: "I refuse to accept this. You're all cheating!"
Li Qingfeng now wished he could strangle this brainless Ye Xuan to death.