Just seeing those two names already set Yang Qing on edge much less the remaining of the four perils. The taowu looked like a mix between a tiger and a leopard. They possessed immense strength, but even with great strength, they cunning to the extreme, always choosing to place layers of traps before striking at an opponent. When a taowu targeted you, you would never know. They were expert manipulators and knew how to hide well, with one of their innate abilities granting them natural immunity towards all derivative techniques that relied on karma.

Yang Qing had once read about an infamous fiend cultivator who did everything deplorable under the sun from decimating cities to kidnapping and massacring victims from all over the continent regardless of their backgrounds. They could be a commoner or a prized disciple from a prominent sect, he never had any qualms in choosing his victims, though as his notoriety grew, he started to specifically target those from well-off backgrounds and tortured and brutalized them in the most agonizing and humiliating way possible.

Eventually, the parent organizations of his victims started targeting him using all manner of means, one of which was the derivation of karma, however, no matter which means they used, they could never find him. Years went by and his list of victims grew along with those who held grievances against him, till eventually from amongst his victims was a seed clan member who had been selectively nurtured to take over their clan which housed several soul formation experts. The seed clan member before her death had used a secret art that was tied to her clan's saint-grade artifact. Using the art, as long as the fiend cultivator was alive and remained on the continent, the artifact would be able to sense his general location within a hundred-kilometer radius of him.

The clan had relied on that art and artifact to track a peak domain expert who had killed one of their clan members for a treasure. No matter what means the peak domain expert tried to hide himself from the clan's pursuits, they still managed to find him and exert their revenge. However, despite the fiend cultivator being at the early stages of the domain realm, that clan was unable to track him. The clan only knew the secret art had been triggered based on the reaction of the saint-grade artifact that registered when the art was used, who used it, and where it was used. It was there that they found the peeled body of their clan member and a note written in blood which was basically the fiend cultivator mocking them and taunting them to find him if they could.Years passed by and they never could. No matter what they tried, it was like the fiend cultivator existed outside the bounds of reality. Every year that went by without him being captured, the fiend cultivator would make a showing of it by mocking them with the whole continent as his audience as the clan was pretty well known more so the abilities of the saint-grade artifact they owned.

Tens of thousands of years passed by without that clan ever finding him or the other enemies he had made and they could never figure out how he had managed to evade them. Some hypothesized it had something to do with his physique, others said it was a cultivation art, with others believing it to be the workings of a powerful artifact. Regardless of what it was, they all agreed that it was powerful to the point of making the fiend cultivator untraceable to soul formation experts and saint-grade artifacts.

The populace only came to know what it was when he died, which was one of the most ironic deaths Yang Qing had ever read about. The fiend cultivator blundered with one of his targets. He was always known for targeting those weaker than him, so as a domain expert, almost all his victims were in the palace realm.

One day he targeted a youth whom he found displeasing only because the youth looked too handsome. From what he had gathered about the fiend cultivator, almost all his victims had all been lookers, which led Yang Qing to think the fiend cultivator may have not been blessed in that particular area, sadly the scroll did not have an accompanying drawing of the fiend cultivator.

The fiend cultivator on seeing the youth instantly targeted him. The youth in question had the cultivation base of a middle-

stage core formation expert. The fiend cultivator ended up being burned to ashes by that youth who turned out to be a sect master of a renowned sect and was a soul formation expert who was just roaming about the continent. The fiend cultivator had chosen the worst target as the sect master in question not only was a soul formation expert but was one with a bloodline of the vermilion bird.How horrible must one luck be to stumble onto such a figure?

Without suspense, the fiendish cultivator was burned to ash, with the only things surviving the flames being five crystalline objects that turned out to have been the claws of a Taowu, which explained how the fiendish cultivator had been able to hide so well throughout of his life, as to where he even managed to find such a thing, it died with him when his soul and body were reduced to smithereens.

As for the taotie, its abilities amongst the four perils were well known. A creature of pure gluttony, known to eat anything under the sun, including even the sun itself. Just like the Qiong Qi which could not control its malevolence, the taotie could never control its urges to eat.

One of Yang Qing's close acquaintances, Fan Tao, the department head of the beast hall had a thin bloodline of the taotie, which gave her an incredibly sturdy physique that granted her brutalizing strength and immunity to all manner of poisons, curses, and miasma. Even a poison flood dragon at the domain realm would find it hard to incapacitate her with its poison.

However, no matter how much power it gave her, despite its thinness, the taotie bloodline gave her a voracious appetite, which in its extremes made her no different than a berserker beast that had lost all its senses except for one, devouring, attacking anyone and anything in sight. As a domain expert, she had better control of her urges, but when she was younger, from her admission, she had caused no small amount of trouble for her eldest sister, Fan Ru, the valley master of the Medical Valley.

Luckily for her, her sister was a prodigious monster who pounded her back to sanity whenever her episodes and then nursed her back to health with her profound alchemy skills. Out of fear, and a huge sense of self-preservation, Fan Tao worked hard to gain control over the urges which made it easier to control the stronger she became, and luckily for her, the purity of her bloodline didn't grow with her, and remained just as thin as she was born with, a deliberate move on her part because if she wished it, the Order had ways of strengthen.

But even as a late-stage domain expert with a firm grasp over the urges, now and then she needed to visit the bestial churning sea to hunt. She still needed to consume something to calm those urges.

Yang Qing could only imagine how troubling it would have been for her if she had a dense bloodline, which was why he could hardly close his mouth and eyes as he read about an organization named after a taotie.

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