"Another one..." Flying high above the ancient forest below him, Xuan Hao helplessly looked down as a giant crow demon beast flew towards him from the ancient forest below.
The demon beasts flying up to attack him from time to time had become common as Xuan Hao already knew that most of the demon beasts in the ancient forest below had already been unsealed at this point in time.
At this point, the crow demon beast with a wingspan of at least a dozen or so meters arrived a few hundred meters away from Xuan Hao as it prepared to launch an attack, its claws giving off a dangerous feeling as it quickly closed the short distance between itself and Xuan Hao.
"Screech!" Getting closer and closer to Xuan Hao who ignored it this entire time, the crow demon beast let out an angry screech as it claws shone in an eerie black light before it was soon only a little over 10 meters away from him.
"Screech?" It was at this point the giant crow demon beast suddenly noticed something weird as it felt the world around itself disappear and instead it was replaced by an endless ocean of swords.
The crow demon beast was fully engulfed in Xuan Hao's pseudo sword domain and before it could react, the sword ocean swallowed it up completely. Killing it instantly before it could let out one last screeching sound.
On the outside, Xuan Hao looked over and saw the crow demon beast suddenly freeze for a moment before it was filled with countless sword wounds all over its body.
Bang!
The crow demon beast did not remain flying after the wounds appeared on its body and soon crashed into the ancient forest below.
A group of demon beast nearby heard the commotion and soon swarmed over to devour dead body of the crow demon beast.
Xuan Hao did not pay any more attention to the dead crow demon beast and resumed his journey towards the border area of the Nascent Soul Realm area.
What happened earlier was simply Xuan Hao using the power of his pseudo domain to kill the crow demon beast. The image that the crow demon beast had of a sword ocean engulfing and attacking it from all sides was simply the image that Xuan Hao's pseudo domain had.
While not a complete domain yet, Xuan Hao still manged to bring out some of the true essence of his future sword domain.
Following the Untold Swords Mantra, Xuan Hao's future sword domain would be able to manifest an untold number of swords into an endless sword ocean that could be used to attack his opponents. At its current stage, Xuan Hao could only use it to launch an attack if the opponent was kind enough to walk directly into his domain like the crow demon beast did.
Outside of that, Xuan Hao would be able to use his pseudo sword domain to strengthen his attacks even further. The strengthening brought about by his pseudo sword domain made Xuan Hao confident that he would be able to move however he wanted in the Nascent Soul Realm area of the secret realm without fearing the Half-Step Domain Lord demon beasts!
This was not to say Xuan Hao wanted to fight with them, as that would most likely end up attracting other Half-Step Domain Lord demon beast the longer the fight went on.
But Xuan Hao did not really worry too much about this. After all, he could always run away if things became too dangerous for him... A tactical retreat!
Xuan Hao did not really care much about "fighting to the end" or upholding his "honour" or something ridiculous like that. Life was way more important, and he doubted any sane cultivator would die for the sole purpose of saving a bit of face...
...
The journey to the border area went relatively peacefully, with only a few demon beasts at the earlier and sometime middle stages of the Nascent Soul Realm launching an attack at Xuan Hao from time to time as the demon beasts on the ground below happily devoured what remained of them after their unfortunate encounter with Xuan Hao did not end as planned for them...
"So, this is the formation pillars at the edge of the Nascent Soul Realm area, they look way smaller compared to the others..." Arriving at the border area, Xuan Hao instantly spotted one of the formation pillars stretching far into the sky above, but compared to the other formation pillar, they were way smaller and looked simpler.
Xuan Hao went up to the formation pillar in front of him and tried to inspect it with his divine sense like he had done in the past together with Chi Hu but was disappointed when all he saw was a myriad of different formations.
Nothing like the domain power left in the other pillar was left behind for him to comprehend or maybe there was something located beneath the countless formations, but Xuan Hao would never know...
Moving his vision away from the formation pillar, Xuan Hao looked at the surrounding ancient forest and did not spot the small palace mentioned by the treasure hunter anywhere nearby.
According to the treasure hunter, the small palace was located at the border area in the rough direction he was currently at, but even then, Xuan Hao could not spot the small palace even when he surveyed the surrounding area from above.
Maybe the small palace was not visible when looking from above and was instead hidden beneath the ancient trees. After all, the treasure hunter did say it was a small palace instead of just calling it a normal palace...
With this in mind, Xuan Hao descended and began to search the area around the border from the ground.
According to what the treasure hunter said, the border area should be swarming with Half-Step Domain Lord demon beast, similar to how the border of the Core Formation area had a lot of Half-Step Nascent Soul Realm demon beast!
Compared to when he was far above the ground where a random flying demon beast spotted him every now and then, danger could be lurking around every corner as Xuan Hao cautiously made his way through the ancient forest.
Not daring to let his guard down as he searched for the small temple. Staying cautious in case any demon beast decided to launch a sneak attack on him.