Free Web NovelChapter 297: Chapter 26: Melee
This was a True Spirit that could already affect the real world!
The moment Wang Ping’s gaze fell upon the True Spirit’s tangible, twisted body, it felt as if all sorts of desires were about to burst from his skull. The most prominent among them was carnal lust, and in that single instant, many terrifying thoughts were born in his mind.
Then came all sorts of negative desires, like the greed in his heart. He had always been obsessed with the Taiyin Evil Cultivators’ method for rapid Spirit Gathering, a classic representation of humanity’s dark side, and it was now being infinitely amplified.
There was also jealousy toward the power of the Xiao Shan Lord, giving rise to the idea of seizing his inheritance, and even thoughts of taking the entire Zhongzhou World for himself.
"Center yourselves! Don’t let the True Spirit affect your minds!"
Zi Luan shouted, the first to break free from the endless desires. As he cried out, a spell flashed through his hands, and five Blessing Talismans materialized before him. He then shot them into his own Spirit Sea, as well as those of Wang Ping and the others.
"True Spirits are incredible. I almost fell prey to a Heart Demon," Yu Lian’s voice rang out in Wang Ping’s Spirit Sea, her tone laced with lingering fear.
Now clear-headed, Wang Ping stealthily purged the talisman Zi Luan had shot into his body. He then used his Primordial Spirit Consciousness to forcefully suppress the aberrant desires before casting an Armor Talisman upon himself.
Just then, a piercing shriek erupted from the ground, accompanied by an omnipresent, searing heat. This True Spirit was a fire spirit. The heat was followed by a surge of raging flames and, in the next instant, the world—plunged into darkness by the True Spirit’s corruption—was lit brilliantly ablaze.
"It’s a fire-elemental True Spirit!"
A large array formed around Zi Luan. Dozens of longswords streaked across the sky, cleaving through all the incoming flames, while the Wood Spirit Qi they stirred up neutralized the burning Spiritual Qi.
RUMBLE—
With a great rumble, the corrupted earth began to crack and splinter. A giant snake over a hundred feet long burst forth. Its body was pitch-black and wreathed in blood-red demonic energy. After emerging, it rapidly took human form, drew a greatbow, and loosed three arrows that trailed streams of blood-red energy.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three thunderous reports echoed from deep within the fractured earth.
It all happened in a flash. Seeing the Snake Demon about to flee, Daoist Wu Quan, who was moving into position beside Zi Luan, decisively unleashed the ochre pagoda in his hand, smashing it down to block the demon’s escape.
CLANG!
A dull thud rang out. The powerful impact sent the Snake Demon reeling back to the edge of the city.
"Take a good look! There are three True Spirits here! If we keep this up, all of Mozhou Road could be torn apart!" the Snake Demon roared in exasperation.
As he roared, two shrieks echoed from the pitch-black sky north of Changwen Prefecture City, where two potent energies were running rampant. One of them was the unmistakable aura of a True Spirit.
Meanwhile, above Changwen Prefecture City, high in the clouds dyed crimson by the flames, two Third Realm Cultivators were also locked in battle. One was a Taiyan Cultivator, while the other’s energy fluctuations were strange—powerful, yet elusive as light and impossible to grasp.
"That aura is just like Guan Xi’s!"
Yu Lian’s voice reminded Wang Ping in his mind.
Upon hearing this, Wang Ping immediately formed a hypothesis. "It might be the Jimin Association!" he said to the other four, voicing his speculation.
"Then let’s finish this quickly!"
Wu Quan roared, "Fellow Daoist Tianshan, help me take down this Snake Demon first!"
"Alright!"
Tianshan Daoist summoned the gourd from his waist. Its mouth spewed out a dense cloud of pitch-black metallic particles. In the Inspiration Realm, these particles formed a powerful magnetic field that cut off Spiritual Energy. Then, under Tianshan Daoist’s control, they surged toward the Snake Demon like a tidal wave.
"Changqing, don’t let the energy leak from this area! It would be disastrous if it reached the Great Sea to the south!"
As Zi Luan spoke, a bronze bell appeared in his right palm. The bell expanded rapidly until it seemed large enough to encompass all of Changwen Prefecture City.
Hearing Zi Luan, Wang Ping surveyed the entire battlefield. With a flick of his hand, a hundred Golden Armor Soldiers materialized and instantly fanned out, landing around the outskirts of Changwen Prefecture City. As Wang Ping’s Primordial Spirit Consciousness unfurled, dense green grass sprouted from the corrupted earth, quickly followed by vast tracts of forest.
The Wood Spirit Qi generated by the forest created a perfect seal, preventing the corrupted spiritual energy from leaking out and forming a visible protective shield. The moment the shield materialized, it shot up from the ground to the heavens, seeming to encompass even the space above the clouds.
At that moment, an array manifested around Ganxing. Five longswords, each shimmering with a different halo, materialized above it. Yet, he didn’t charge forward to fight the True Spirit. Artifact Cultivators, for all their combat prowess, had a fatal weakness: they were unable to contend with True Spirits.
Ganxing had not summoned his weapons to face the True Spirit; instead, his gaze was fixed on the distant sky.
Two streaks of light flashed across the sky, piercing through the protective shield Wang Ping had erected and landing a few hundred yards to his left. An identity projection hovered above each of their heads: the golden Five Elements Diagram of the Daoist Scripture Hall. This meant they were two Third Seats!
"Wen Yang!"
Zi Luan shifted slightly to Ganxing’s right, swiftly bringing the bronze bell in his hand down over the True Spirit below. Accompanied by a clear chime, he turned his gaze to the two newcomers. "Why are you here?"
"Fellow Daoist Zi Luan, please don’t misunderstand. Friend Wen Yang was recently on my island discussing the Dao over tea. Today, I had planned to visit the True Yang Mountain Region with him, but we happened to see the distress signal from the Mozhou Road Daoist Scripture Hall."
The space beside Wen Yang rippled like water, and a man appeared. He wore long white robes, his skin was fair, his face was clean-shaven, and his long hair drifted freely. To his left, his right, above him, and below him, a blue treasure pearl floated, each one emitting a dense Water Spirit Qi.
"So, it’s Yunchunzi. How very coincidental of you!"
Zi Luan raised an eyebrow. As he spoke, he waved a hand, and the bronze bell that had trapped the True Spirit shrank rapidly, landing back in his palm in an instant. He had suppressed a fire-elemental True Spirit of an equal realm with nothing more than a flick of his wrist.
"You must have sensed the chaos in the northern forests. No one is handling that area yet!" He pointed north of Changwen Prefecture City.
"Leave it to us!"
With that, Yunchunzi transformed into a streak of light and shot through Changwen Prefecture City—which had dimmed once more with the capture of the fire-elemental True Spirit—with Wen Yang close behind.
Meanwhile, the Snake Demon, entangled by the countless metallic particles, was once again beaten back to the ground by Wu Quan. His face was a mask of fury. Seeing Wu Quan block his escape route and with Zi Luan now free, he gritted his teeth, pulled a fist-sized black crystal from his storage pouch, and crushed it. He then downed the red-and-black liquid that flowed out in a single gulp.
"ARGHH!"
The Snake Demon let out a furious roar as blood-red cracks webbed across the surface of his body. A torrent of demonic energy billowed from the fissures, forcing Tianshan Daoist and Wu Quan, who had been about to press their advantage, to halt in their tracks and retreat as fast as they could.
Having bought himself a moment, the Snake Demon used his last shred of conscious thought to bolt high into the sky. A few muffled thuds echoed from above the clouds, followed by two figures fleeing at top speed toward the sea in the south.
"Don’t give chase! That’s the Demon Race’s Blood Sacrifice Secret Technique. He’s using the bloodline power of a Giant Demon. For the next fifteen minutes, if he decides to fight with his life on the line, we could all end up severely wounded!"
Zi Luan paid the two fleeing figures no mind. Instead, his gaze shot up toward the clouds, where one of the combatants had been injured by the Snake Demon’s sudden, violent charge.
