74 Inciting A War

*Things like sexism and racism are purely for worldbuilding and to make it more realistic. Thank you for your understanding.*

Merely a few tens of hours later, Qing Fang felt himself return to peak condition so he prepared to leave.

He had many things on his mind and many things he felt he had to do right now, with the end goal of creating a favourable situation in which he could amass even greater amounts of blood.

Even though he had scavenged a huge amount of blood when the two Catsiths fought the subordinates of Baron Kang, Qing Fang didn't like the idea of always cultivating small amounts and then searching for more.

He wanted to create a great ocean of blood that he could cultivate at any time and would not run out from even decades of cultivation!

After that, he would then sink back into a long seclusion. And even though Qing Fang wasn't particularly fond of spending huge amounts of time in seclusion considering his own age was relatively small, he forced himself to.

After all, he was on an enemy planet. The sooner he broke through the bounds of worldly cultivators and ascended to Stage 6, the better. The Clan had forsaken him while he was still human, and Qing Fang felt an estrangement from all humans due to his demonic appearance.

Qing Fang stood up in the small enclosed underwater cave and checked on the well-being of the natural treasures: the water lotus and fire lotus. The swirling natural Laws that encompassed them were acting as the shield from strong cultivators' eyes. That was another reason, or the main reason, why he hadn't uprooted them and stashed them away yet.

Then, he looked up to hundreds of holes that he had punched into the rocky ceiling. Inside five of the many of them, a single spatial ring was stowed. He tried to make the holes seem as natural as possible, even forming solid rock in his hands like clay and making them into stalactites he pushed into the rock.

It was good enough for now. Well, even if cultivators found them, only Stage 5s had a chance of lifting all five at the same time due to the colossal weight of all the blood within them.

"Master, are we going?" Nu Li spoke from the side as he had seen Qing Fang stand up.

"I am going to start some trouble. If you go you will just end up as a pile of dust, do you still want to come?" Qing Fang said emotionlessly as he didn't even turn his head to look at Nu Li and approached the exit of the cave, the pool.

Nu Li didn't answer.

Qing Fang then turned to look at Nu Li and saw his pathetic bearing. It seems that Nu Li was constantly aware of his uselessness and weakness, the only thing he could do was lift things that were much too heavy for him.

"I want you to go and find the other slave that yet lives, however, was lost in the mayhem when I was discovered." Qing Fang spoke. He wouldn't allow Nu Li to sit and do nothing.

Hearing Qing Fang's words, Nu Li's eyes flashed immense surprise before happiness came over him. He looked at Qing Fang expectantly as he spoke with concealed joy.

"One of them lives? I thought they had all died when we escaped to the marshes... Who is it?"

Qing Fang's eyes rolled around under his eyelids, sending Nu Li a glance. The dragonman, waiting in anticipation, didn't care about this and only eagerly waited.

"It is the one who named himself Long. I want to go and find him while I'm gone. Do not return to this place before I return as strong cultivators could follow you without your knowledge. If I am still gone by the time you return with him, spend your time hunting weak beasts and store their blood safely." Qing Fang said these words before turning away from Nu Li.

The slave had given him a strange feeling recently as if he had grown closer to Qing Fang. It was obviously the effect of Qing Fang's bloodline power, however, Qing Fang expected Nu Li to be a little troublesome still. However, he was not.

Qing Fang stepped atop the small pool and let himself sink into it. He passed the Stage 5 Marsh Squid without any trouble and surfaced on the outside next to the lake.

The night was complete darkness.

The low growls of beasts in the night and their shining eyes were all that accompanied the quiet shimmering of the watery marshes in the dark. There were no lights and it was as if one had been thrust into an abyss, the unnerving noises sending one into fear.

The marshes were barren of human presence and only beasts lingered, and the night was much more beastly. It was unpredictable, dangerous and was a time of hunting and death.

Qing Fang stood horrendously tall as he turned his neck to look about in the night, his huge eyes glimmering with red light that shone over the marshes like a godly presence. Every organism cried out in panic if that red spotlight neared even a hundred meters from them.

Looking about for a while, Qing Fang gracefully lifted his hulking leg and eloquently thrust it back to the floor from whence it surfaced.

Instantaneously, a large wave like a thunderous applause emerged and the water of the lake turned into a stormy sea. Mounds of mud were expelled from where Qing Fang stood and surged in a wave that engulfed all before it, the force unceasing.

From that spot, it was as if the huge white demon vanished as he burst into the air.

Immediately streaking hundreds of meters into the air and the harsh winds of the high sky falling upon him and encompassing him, Qing Fang slowly slowed from his jump and began to fall.

However, two hulking fleshy wings awakened from behind him, armed with terrifying spears of bone as they spread wide. Carrying Qing Fang wherever he pleased with a torrent of harsh winds, Qing Fang turned into a blur in the night sky and vanished at tremendous speeds.

Looking down as he cut through the night, Qing Fang pondered.

'Previously, Nu Li told me that he ventured ten kilometres deeper before he came across the Catsith kitten. However, I have a feeling that I would have to venture deeper to normally come across one.' Qing Fang thought as a placid expression was on his face.

Where Qing Fang's cave was, twenty-five kilometres deep, was where Stage 3 beasts started to appear. However, they were the weakest of the weakest, only lower Stage 3 and barely progressing in cultivation.

On that thought, Qing Fang guessed there must be some universal hierarchy among the beasts of the marshes. A hierarchy in which beasts fought to be deeper into the marshes, with the weaker ones expelled to the shallows and the stronger ones taking their place wherever their strength put them.

This could probably be because beasts nearer the city would be hunted by humans for their bones, claws, fangs and fur. So, they wanted to live deeper where the humans would not trespass because of the existence of the Catsiths.

However, it could also be because there were benefits to be had when living deeper.

Qing Fang was more inclined to the second, although the first could hold true as well. His reason for this was the fact that the Catsiths chose to live in the deepest parts of the marshes.

And while Qing Fang did not know how such a beastly cultivation race came to be living in the sewers of Qingpu planet when they certainly had the strength to overlord a different medium-level world, the location must play a big part.

As for what lay at the bottom, Qing Fang would only find out with time.

Thirty kilometres deep was when stronger middle Stage 3 beasts started to emerge. In this part of the marshes, it was already seen as extremely deep as the terrain of the marshes further started to change.

The huge ravine overhead, where the light seeped through, became thinner and thinner until Qing Fang couldn't fit through with his body. He looked at this with knowing eyes as Nu Li had told him of it before: that the marshes winded down into a huge cave that led underground.

The marshy ground only got unkinder and harder to traverse. It got to the point that the ground was essentially riddled with pockets of small lakes that were filled with murky black water. Looking into them, Qing Fang was surprised to find that they winded down for hundreds of meters.

Seeing this, Qing Fang was quite shocked. The ground was essentially a huge lake with the soil and earth being extremely soaked and floating to the surface. Qing Fang knew that there was probably an underwater world down there and these little pocket marshes were where some beasts surfaced by drilling through the earth.

Though, there was probably nothing down there as only unintelligent beasts inhabited it. The point at which beasts achieved intelligence through cultivation was normally Stage 5, though stronger beasts with a lineage such as Catsiths would have intelligence from birth.

The light from above simply disappeared as the air got much chillier and unforgiving. At the sides of the cave where the marshy ground met with the rocky cave walls, there was some relatively solid ground that housed even trees and other large flora. Though, due to the unkind temperature, they were all leafless, with their dead brown branches winding in every direction.

It was really quite nightmarish. Dead trees amongst chilling grey and cold air, with strong beasts lurking under the ground in the dark waters...

Qing Fang came to be thirty-five kilometres deep after a while and it was a hellscape.

The place was completely pitch black and so cold that some mortals would instantly go into shock because of it. Now in something similar to a huge cave, the wind shrieked and howled as it blew and was like icy daggers on the skin.

The trees looming to the side only got bigger and more lifeless, their branches reaching over and scraping across the cave ceiling that was constantly wet and dripping with chilling black water. Some branches even converged in the middle and formed something that looked like an eery pathway to hell.

The ground was also nearly full of murky black water, with some areas of hard stone that concocted into many wiry pathways that led outside. The sheer size of the cave was many kilometres across and was like a world of its own.

The beasts here strengthened to being peak Stage 3 and Qing Fang accurately surmised that Nu Li had previously chosen to turn back here. The wiring branches of dead trees were where the Catsith kitten that had followed Nu Li to its death had laid.

There was nothing for him here. It was a cold and unforgiving land that had sparse opportunities, yet many concealed dangers. So, Qing Fang moved on.

Moving even further into the winding downwards cave, Qing Fang saw many violent movements on the surface and many roars of power as well as pitiful roars of pain. Beasts on the surface and in the water were constantly fighting as this place was riddled with bloodshed.

The beasts had gotten exponentially more violent, to the point that they were all crazed. It was probably from the territorial disputes, with weaker beasts being expelled outwards towards the city.

Seeing the movements of hundreds of beasts, Qing Fang thought.

'At some point, I will definitely return along this path and conduct a massacre, collecting all the blood of the beasts here. Beneath my feet, I must have passed thousands of beasts already. That much blood would do well being claimed.' Qing Fang thought, always thinking of his cultivation.

He was not wrong, all the beast blood that the marshes had to offer was simply terrifying. However, it would take a lot of effort to amass and collect it all.

In reality, Qing Fang had thought of getting more slaves at this moment. However, he shunned that thought. Going back to the human city was not an option short term. Especially since he had met with Baron Kang and they were probably aware of his existence and the magnitude of authority and danger he supposedly possessed, from Baron Kang's eventual words.

That, and because of what Qing Fang was planning to do.

He wasn't here to simply have a look over the marshes. Well, he was interested, but he had a greater purpose for being here now. And the first step would be to find some weak Catsiths. With the terrain, he would only come across the weakest first. However, that suited Qing Fang very well.

After all, he wouldn't want to run into an extremely strong Catsith that could kill him if he could help it.

Qing Fang kept on moving and the air that only got icier didn't bother him. His body was full of vitality and warmth and for him to be bothered by the frost, it would either have to be formed by a cultivator or some profound weather fueled by natural Laws. Regular cold couldn't hurt him with this body.

Eventually, he came to be fifty kilometres deep into the marshes. Here, Quasi Stage 4 and some lower Stage 4 beasts ran amok. The magnitude of their numbers diminished heavily, however, their ferocity only increased.

Yet, Qing Fang still saw nothing. Not even from using his powerful eyes to haze deep into the water.

He moved on.

And when he was eighty kilometres deep, he finally saw what he was looking for.

In the abyss of the dark, Qing Fang's red eyes gazed down amid the screaming chilly air. The water was deep and dark and even some thin sheets of black ice had manifested due to the temperature.

Here, Qing Fang saw lower Stage 4 beasts running about like numerous flies and even saw middle Stage 4 beasts regularly. Their forms differed, however, most of them had greyed eyes if no eyes at all. They were all blinded by the darkness that they had lived in their entire lives.

Qing Fang's eyes gazed down on a group of beasts that were running about with a playful attitude as horrifying screeches in the form of speech echoed out endlessly. They ranged between a meter and two meters tall and their short grey fur was something Qing Fang had acquainted himself with recently.

It was a group of juvenile Catsiths.

Their bodies were naturally emaciated like all the other Catsiths Qing Fang had seen thus far, their bones glaringly pressing against their skin. Their surprisingly large yellow eyes undoubtedly let them see clearly in the complete darkness from the way they were chasing each other amid all the noisy screeches they were emitting.

And of course, they regularly phased in and out of dark black mist that let them hide in-between space and also teleport.

However, Qing Fang was not too bothered by it. Although he couldn't see through the black mist of the lower Stage 5 female Catsith he had fought, he could see through the black mist bloodline power of its kitten. And also of these juvenile Catsiths.

All of them were bigger than the kitten Qing Fang had killed, but nowhere near as large nor strong as the female Catsith he had nearly lost his life against merely days ago.

All of their cultivations were between middle Stage 4 and peak Stage 4 so Qing Fang could unfortunately not make killing them much easier by simply using his Blood Law fragments. He would have to go down and kill them with his bare hands.

And he didn't waste time in doing so.

There were only six juvenile Catsiths that were running around and intelligently playing with each other. Easy.

Just as two of the Catsiths got close to each other, Qing Fang rushed down with horrendous speed and directly crushed them both beneath his feet with the impact. Qing Fang's large clawed feet neared the Catsith's height and dwarfed them as they stomped upon the crushed flesh beneath them.

The two had been flattened into a mess of colourful organs, red meat and white bone as their eyes popped out of their sockets and organs pushed out of their mouths due to the pressure.

Qing Fang didn't care about the horrified gazes of the other juvenile beasts and directly picked up the corpses before shoving them into his maw, unhinging his jaw and squeezing the bodies down his throat in one piece!

They were stricken there with fear, and only one of them had started running away.

Qing Fang kicked off the ground and rushed over, grabbing two frozen Catsiths by their necks and killing them soon after by crushing their necks into something finger-width. The other Catsith started running as well, and Qing Fang leisurely chased while shoving two more corpses down his throat!

Once he had finished, he immediately increased his pace and reenacted the exact same movements, grabbing either one by the neck and killing them before consuming them whole!

After swallowing six juvenile Catsiths in succession, Qing Fang felt extremely full and satisfied. He would use their blood and meat to nourish his body instead of increasing his cultivation.

As for why Qing Fang was searching for and killing baby Catsiths?

To start a war!

A war was exactly what he wanted. To capitalise off of the conflict between humans and Catsiths and steal mountains of blood! As for Catsiths targeting humans after the disappearance of their children, Qing Fang knew it would work.

After all, it already has been done.

Qing Fang was about to rise into the air again before finding more juvenile Catsiths, however, a burst of golden light suddenly came before him!

Looking over, it originated from a small cave in the rocky wall and was not at all directed at him, which calmed him.

Qing Fang had curiosity on his face as he gradually moved over to the small passage.

*3,065/3,000 words*