Meng Hao stood on the top of the hill, calmly watching the violet-robed youth charging toward him. As he approached, he kicked up a wind, and the seven or eight tentacle-like vines expanded to the size of pythons. At their ends were wide mouths filled with sharp teeth.

"Mid Foundation Establishment stage," said Meng Hao calmly, his face not changing in the slightest. He himself was only at the early Foundation Establishment stage, but he had a Perfect Foundation. He might not know any techniques from the Foundation Establishment stage, but he had the boundless Core sea from when he was at Qi Condensation, thanks to the Sublime Spirit Scripture. Also, he had reached Foundation Establishment after having achieved the great circle of Qi Condensation.

He was equipped with all of this when he experienced his explosive growth during the Blood Immortal Legacy tournament. The battle prowess of his Cultivation base was at such high level that he was able to go up against a Dao Child of the Li Clan, Li Daoyi. Although he had not achieved victory, he had severed his opponent's arm. If it had been a Cultivator who was not a Dao Child, Meng Hao could have killed him easily.

After reaching the mid Foundation Establishment stage, he would definitely be able to hold his own against the Dao Children of the various Sects and Clans.

So, there is no need to even mention a mere Chosen of the mid Foundation Establishment stage.

The violet-robed youth approached with a cold smile and powerful killing intent. Meng Hao stood there, framed by the dark night, the moonlight shining down on him. His expression was as calm as ever as he lifted his hand, using his fingernail to slice open the skin on his finger. He stepped forward casually, and the instant the violet-robed youth arrived, waved his finger in a seemingly random fashion.

As the finger descended, a great wind sprang up. In response, the violet-robed youth's expression changed. His pupils constricted, and his eyes filled with disbelief. Suddenly, his vision turned red; this was not an illusion, it was real.

Everything was red, and there was only a solitary finger, covered with fresh blood. It shot toward him.

The vines wrapped around his arms had been viciously writhing forward with open mouths ready to devour; but suddenly they began to emit miserable shrieks. They quivered, and before they were even thirty meters from Meng Hao, had collapsed into blood.

The blood transformed into a shield which surrounded the violet-robed young man. All of this takes some time to describe, but happened in time it takes for a spark to fly off of a piece of flint.

The violet-robed youth began to scream. He no longer charged forward, but tried to move backward in retreat. Meng Hao sprang into action.

He took a step and then flew into the air toward the violet-robed young man. He lifted his hand and touched the blood shield with his index finger.

"Break." He said the word lightly, and then an explosion filled the air.

The blood shield collapsed, and the vines on the young man's arms broke to pieces. Only the violet-golden fruit rippled with signs of life. It seemed to be begging for mercy.

"You…." The violet-robed youth's face was pale and he coughed up a mouthful of blood. His eyes were filled with intense fear. This was the first time he had even shown fear; he was a Chosen of the Black Sieve Sect, and a violet-robed disciple at that. His position in the Inner Sect was very high, and he had never been defeated with battle magic. Usually people sought him out because of his popularity. But now, seeing the expressionless Meng Hao in front of him, he was filled with an unprecedented feeling of life-or-death danger.

At this critical juncture, the violet-robed youth lifted his hands and flashed an incantation gesture, then swiped his palm forward seven or eight times in succession. Each swipe sent ripples out, which then congealed into a massive, black-colored hand that faced up against Meng Hao.

Meng Hao, expression calm, opened his mouth and spat out the lightning mist. The mist slammed into the hand, and a boom filled the air.

The violet-robed young man's expression filled with despair. He was about to make another incantation gesture when Meng Hao arrived in front of him. Meng Hao's knee flew into the air, slamming directly into the young man's neck, whose head filled with a buzzing sound, and then an intense pain. The hand which had been making an incantation sign went limp, and his entire body bent to the side.

All of the blood in his body rushed to his head, making his once handsome face a dark reddish purple color. He opened his mouth to speak, his expression fearful and his body trembling. One can only imagine what he wished to say as he faced death.

He never spoke the words. Meng Hao stretched out his hand and used his fingernail to slice open the skin between the young man's eyebrows. His hand then made a strange gesture, and he pushed down.

A boom could be heard, and the young man's body flew backward like a kite with its string cut. All of the blood in his body, which had already gathered in his head, began to fountain out of the cut on his face. He couldn't even cry out. All he could see was blood, shooting out like a geyser from between his eyebrows. His pale body slammed into the ground and twitched a few times before lying still in death.

The blood that had shot out of his body seemed to be burning; it turned into a mist which then congealed into a drop the size of a fingernail. The drop of blood shot toward Meng Hao, who snatched it out of the air into his hand.

"Three generations of blood can form a small body; six generations of blood can form a full body, nine generations is called a Blood Spirit, or, death." Meng Hao spoke the words coolly. What he had just used on the violet-robed youth was none other than the Spirit Devouring Scripture.

"This violet robe indicates that he was a Chosen of the Black Sieve Sect. As a Chosen, he must have a powerful bloodline. He lifted up the blood and looked at it for a moment before putting it away. Then he looked down at the young man's corpse. He picked up the bag of holding, as well as the violet-golden fruit which had been begging for mercy just now.

The violet-golden fruit quivered in Meng Hao's hand as if it were alive and pleading for forgiveness.

"Meng Hao does not keep useless objects. What can you do? Show me." He tossed the violet-gold fruit onto the ground. It immediately began to wriggle. Vines sprang out of it, quickly growing in length. In the space of about ten breaths, there were ten or more vines, all of them thirty meters in length. They burrowed partly into the ground and then stretched up into the air, swaying back and forth, filling the area. It was quite awe-inspiring.

"Not good enough," said Meng Hao, shaking his head.

The tentacle vines trembled. Suddenly they bent, shooting toward the corpse of the violet-robed youth. Shockingly, it began to rip the corpse apart like a melon and swallow it down!

Meng Hao frowned as the vines consumed the body within the space of a few breaths. Then, each of the tentacles began to tremble and suddenly, leaves with glowing magical symbols began to sprout out. Meng Hao was quite shocked.

Not much time passed, and soon nearly one hundred leaves had appeared. The magical symbols drifted off of the vines and floated toward Meng Hao. They began to merge together to form a book of leaves!

Meng Hao took the book and flipped through it. His eyes filled with a bright light. The magical symbols were filled with the power of something similar to Spiritual Sense. After examining them closely, he realized that they described a technique.

It was called the Nineteen Black Cloud Strikes, and was the magical technique that the violet-robed young man had just now used to attempt to fight him.

Unfortunately, it wasn't complete. Only five of the strikes were described, whereas the rest were incomplete, missing various mnemonics. Perhaps the young man hadn't completely mastered the technique. Meng Hao studied it for a moment, his eyes narrowing. With his Perfect Dao Pillar, it wasn't difficult to deduce how to use the technique. After a while, he realized that the reason the manual wasn't complete was because the violet-gold vines were not powerful enough.

That having been said, he was still quite excited. He looked at the vines; if he allowed them to continue to develop, things would be different. He put away the book of leaves and nodded his head. He waved his sleeve, and a drop of blood flew out to descend onto the vines, branding them deeply. This blood seal was one of the random techniques that Meng Hao had acquired from the Blood Immortal Legacy.

The vines began to shake, and their color slowly changed. Soon, they were dark red, looking somewhat Demonic as they swayed in the air around Meng Hao. A Demonic aura drifted up from them, although it was almost impossible to detect.

Meng Hao looked at the vines thoughtfully for some time, and then glanced back at the ruins up ahead of him. Taking up the violet-robed youth's bag of holding, he examined its contents. Amongst several jade slips was one that attracted his notice.

It was pure white, and after casting his Spiritual Sense into it, a map appeared in Meng Hao's mind. On the map were many white dots, all of which were moving….

In addition to the white dots, there were about two hundred gray dots, most of which were also moving.

"This is…." He observed the map for a bit before he was able to determine his location. Then, his attention was drawn to a place not far away from where he was. There, he could see three white dots, one in front, two in pursuit. The person in front was being chased!

He frowned, and his heart began to pound. He sent his Spiritual Sense into the first of the three glowing lights, and an image appeared in his mind.

The image was none other than pale-faced Xu Qing. She was biting her lower lip and speeding forward as fast as possible.

In that instant, Meng Hao's killing intent rocketed to the sky. Studying the images of the two figures pursuing Xu Qing, he saw that one was the coquettish woman. She was being held by the playful looking young man named Zhao.

As soon as he saw this, a cold air began to emanate from Meng Hao's body, and his eyes shined brightly. The vines around him sensed his killing intent, and began to radiate the same aura of death.

Without the slightest hesitation, Meng Hao transformed into a beam of colorful light that shot toward Xu Qing's location. The swaying, red-colored vines followed, burrowing along underneath the ground.