A large mass of ice mist attacked, and the Crimson Wind Bird released flames to resist, maintaining a stalemate for a time.
Then, Zhang Ling activated the White Jade Fan, further condensing masses of ice wind and large patches of ice thorns to continuously attack the Crimson Fire Bird.
After a quarter of an hour, Zhang Ling made a hand seal and released his flying sword, fully displaying the Giant Sword Technique, releasing hundreds of sword lights at once, condensing them into a giant blue sword seven or eight zhang long, directly severing the Crimson Wind Bird's neck.
The Crimson Wind Bird cried out in sorrow, its massive body falling to the ground, scattering large amounts of blood. Its severed head seemed to retain some vitality, its eyes blinking a few times, and with a flash of red light, a faint red firebird phantom rushed out.
The phantom was only palm-sized, flying around in panic, trying to find a way out, but the next moment, a yellow light hand suddenly stretched out from the cloud of mist, directly grabbing the firebird phantom in its grasp.
With a thought, Zhang Ling brought the Crimson Wind Bird's demon soul, enveloped in a ball of yellow light, before him. He raised one hand, and a small gray bottle appeared in his palm.
The yellow spiritual light dissipated, and the firebird phantom regained its freedom, flying towards the sky in an attempt to escape. But Zhang Ling began to chant a low incantation.
The gray bottle in his hand trembled slightly, revealing some black runes, and a few wisps of green smoke floated from the mouth of the bottle.
The green smoke was very thin, but in an instant, it condensed into several black chains, which stretched out with a whoosh and wrapped around the firebird phantom. With a flash of black light, the firebird phantom was directly pulled into the black bottle.
This was a special magic item, the Soul Gathering Bottle. It could be considered a top-grade magic item, crafted from a top-grade black jade. He had also placed some Soul Nourishing Wood shavings inside.
The demon soul, stored within, could maintain its soul power for several years without dissipating.
Zhang Ling tapped the array plate a few times, and the array plate stopped rotating, the spiritual light on it dissipating all at once, and he put it away.
The cloud and mist released by the Water Cloud Wind Driving Array also thinned out in an instant, dissipating within a few breaths.
He quickly waved his hands several times, and a dozen array flags of various colors flew back from all directions. Zhang Ling put all these array flags into his storage bag.
At the same time, he also collected five or six fist-sized spirit stones of dim color into his storage bag.
These middle-grade spirit stones had also been largely consumed, leaving only these few remaining, their light dim. Just using this array once was equivalent to consuming thousands of low-grade spirit stones.
Arrays were indeed expensive things.
But in the blink of an eye, Zhang Ling smiled, looking at the Crimson Wind Bird's corpse on the ground. He used his flying sword to directly open a large hole in the beast's chest, taking out a fist-sized, crimson-red gem.
This was a fire-attribute demon core, but because the desolate beast had been eroded by turbid energy, a few strands of grayish-white threads appeared on the demon core, which were traces of the turbid energy.
To use this demon core, it would have to be refined first. Fortunately, the required spiritual liquid was not difficult to prepare, and there were several recipes available.
These spiritual liquid recipes were public in the Flowing Cloud Cultivation World, and he had collected several.
Finally, Zhang Ling directly used his flying sword to strip the materials from the demon beast's body. Especially the few crimson feathers from the Crimson Wind Bird's tail, which were good materials for refining artifacts.
In addition, there were also two pairs of wings, a pair of bird claws, and some other materials that could be exchanged for a lot of resources.
It took Zhang Ling more than an hour to strip all the materials from the Crimson Wind Bird, storing them separately in a storage bag.
Finally, he released the Corpse Bear, spending more than a quarter of an hour to refine five or six masses of essence blood from the Crimson Wind Bird's flesh for it to absorb. Refining this essence blood would surely increase the Corpse Bear's strength a lot, and with careful cultivation, it might even be possible to cultivate it into a high-level corpse monster.
Afterward, after a simple cleanup of the battlefield, Zhang Ling left the nameless mountain peak and headed towards the Crimson Wind Bird's nest.
The Crimson Wind Bird's nest was on the upper half of that stone mountain. On a cliff face, there was an oval-shaped cave entrance with a diameter of more than ten zhang. Zhang Ling walked in without hesitation. He had already explored this place before, and there were no other desolate beasts inside besides the Crimson Wind Bird he had killed.
Soon after, Zhang Ling arrived at a spacious stone cave of a hundred zhang in size. There was also a large hole in the center of the cave's ceiling, which was the Crimson Wind Bird's usual exit.
Entering the stone cave, Zhang Ling also sensed traces of fire spiritual energy. The temperature in the air was no lower than that of a volcanic area.
The surrounding rock walls were black and red. There were also countless cracks on them. On some of the stone walls, there were also some rhombus-shaped red crystals that looked very beautiful.
Zhang Ling took down some crystals and checked them. These were just ordinary crystals, not of much use to cultivators, at most they could only be considered decorative items.
He released his divine sense to cover the entire space. There were also many stone pillars in the space. Underneath a black stone with a diameter of ten zhang. A pile of white bones was stacked on the ground.
This black stone was where the Crimson Wind Bird usually rested, and the pile of white bones was several zhang high. The white bones were not small, so it seemed that they were other desolate beasts that had been captured and killed by the Crimson Wind Bird.
Among them, Zhang Ling also found a few beast bones that still retained weak spiritual power. These bones were called spiritual bones and were also a kind of artifact refining material. Spiritual bones mostly only appeared on demon beasts or desolate beasts with high-level strength.
Looking at the situation, the Crimson Wind Bird had also killed several high-level desolate beasts. This kind of strength was rare in the surrounding hundreds of miles. It was probably the overlord of this area.
In the pile of white bones, Zhang Ling also found a few human skeletons. Seeing these, Zhang Ling thought of the small team of Chen family cultivators that Yun Hu had mentioned.
He searched through these white bones for a while and actually found seven or eight storage bags and several broken magic artifacts.
Among them, there was also a storage bag that belonged to a high-level storage bag. There were not many things inside, but there were quite a few spirit stones, about fifty to sixty thousand spirit stones. Adding the other storage bags, it could be considered an unexpected gain.
Zhang Ling looked around and did not see any trace of Xuan Yang Fire. He was not in a hurry and began to search in the Crimson Wind Bird's cave.
Soon after, he came to the other side, where it was a fiery red expanse, with a patch of crimson leaves growing in the rocky ground.
On closer inspection, these leaves were half a palm-sized, but were triangular in shape. The leaves did not grow on trees, but grew on vines that were as thick as thumbs.
The main body of the vine was a thick black vine, as thick as an arm. This vine was coiled around several giant stones. What was strange was that there were also red veins on the vine, and it was slowly coiling like a snake.
"Eh, this is a third-order demon vine, the Flame Fire Vine."
