A Demon Emperor comparable to the mid-stage Nascent Soul had fallen beneath Mount Tianzhu without offering the slightest resistance.
The three Lu brothers, who had just been about to advance, turned pale with fright and froze in their tracks.
Within the Tiandu Sect, a vast number of disciples lay strewn across the ground, senseless or dead, felled by the self-detonation of the blazing fire giant.
Those who remained conscious could not help cheering.
"Reinforcements! Reinforcements have arrived!"
Atop Mount Tianzhu, the four True Persons sensed this as well, their faces lighting up with wild joy.
Yet in the very next instant, their expressions changed drastically.
"Do not let the demoness escape!"
Within the Bagua formation diagram, Jinxiuxian, who had been veiled beneath the murky gray mist, seemed to have sensed the shift outside. She began battering the formation with reckless abandon.
Her graceful silhouette flickered in and out of view, looking ready to burst from her cage at any second.
Naturally, this sight did not escape the notice of Luo Chen's group.
*Clad in white, adept at transformation and evasion, possessing yin soul attributes, and carrying that faint, ghostly aura... That demon must have been the entity whose presence filled me with dread back in the Blade Dominance Domain.*
*Only by striking without warning and combining the power of the three of us with the Tiandu Sect's grand formation were we able to wipe him out.*
*With that done, we can act with a free hand.*
This had been the initial plan Luo Chen devised.
They would pool their strength, catch their foes off guard, and eliminate the most threatening one first.
Now that the objective was accomplished, they could proceed with greater composure.
Jinling gave his natal golden feather a flick and lunged straight toward Demon Emperor Qiansuo, the closest to him. The moment they clashed, the sky darkened and the earth shook as they locked into an intractable melee.
Fenghua Fairy did not hesitate either. A fierce glint flashed across her eyes as she charged at Huangfengke.
Their two figures transformed into two ferocious gales—one azure, one yellow—chasing and entwining with each other. The clash soon spilled beyond the Tiandu Sect's mountain gate, sweeping outward across ten thousand li.
That left only the three Lu brothers!
They were also the strongest force among the remaining enemies.
Though none of them appeared to have reached the mid-Tier 4 realm individually, all three were masters of formations.
Moreover, the three brothers bore nearly identical appearances; they undoubtedly understood the art of combined combat. Banded together, they would prove far more troublesome than an ordinary mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator.
And Luo Chen took this enemy upon himself!
As long as they each disposed of their opponents, they would still have the strength to fight even if Jinxiuxian broke free later, with the three of them joining forces with the four elders of the Tiandu Sect.
Golden light flashed in his eyes. With his wide sleeves fluttering, Luo Chen blocked the three demons' path.
"Luo Chen, the Alchemy Grandmaster. Please, enlighten me!"
Hearing Luo Chen announce himself, the three brothers showed an almost identical shift in expression, each registering a hint of surprise.
Yet quite clearly, none displayed any fear.
"Lu Changsheng!"
"Lu Changqing!"
"Lu Chang'an!"
"We ask for your guidance!"
Before the words faded, Lu Chang'an waved the black banner in his hand. A fierce gale swept out, spreading a dense, murky demon qi.
Seeing this, Luo Chen disengaged without a second thought.
With an explosive crack in the air, Luo Chen reappeared a hundred zhang away.
He then stepped into Moon Steps, dodging the rolling black demon qi and closing straight in on the three demons.
His movement technique was eerie and unpredictable.
Yet Lu Changqing struck the bronze mirror in his hand and lightly barked, "Slow! Slow! Slow!"
With three successive calls, the bronze mirror beamed three streaks of clear, luminous light.
*Whoosh!* Luo Chen easily dodged the first.
*Whoosh!* The second grazed past him by a hair's breadth.
*Whoosh!* At the third, Luo Chen looked back at the moon, coming to an abrupt halt and barely avoiding it, save for the hem of his robe brushing against a wisp of azure radiance.
And it was precisely this single wisp that caused Luo Chen's figure to abruptly seize with sluggishness.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...*
A torrent of black qi surged from all directions, encircling Luo Chen tight.
The eldest, Lu Changsheng, sat cross-legged on the ground, placing his hand heavily atop the compass.
*Clack, clack, clack...*
The compass rotated, producing a piercing, mechanical grinding sound.
"Worthy of being a powerhouse hailed as a slayer of demons—he is truly difficult to suppress."
Hardening his resolve, Lu Changsheng bit his lip and spat a mouthful of blood saturated with pure magic power onto the compass.
As if freshly lubricated, the compass spun with sudden speed, and the noise it made grew far less grating.
With the compass spinning rapidly, Lu Changsheng floated up into the high sky from his cross-legged posture.
Looking down at Luo Chen from above, Lu Changsheng barked,
"Fellow Daoist, please enter the array!"
He pressed both hands downward against empty air, and within a hundred li, a terrifying pressure instantly descended.
Even the ground was forced downward by several zhang.
Under this horrifying weight, Luo Chen was driven directly into the grand array.
*To deploy a formation in the middle of battle—even if done by three working together—truly speaks to their mastery over formations.*
Standing amidst the boundless black mist, Luo Chen wore an intrigued expression.
Looking up at the three ethereal silhouettes in the sky that flickered between visibility and emptiness, he called out in a loud voice, "What is the name of this array?"
The leisurely voices of the three Lu brothers drifted down.
"We might as well let you die with complete understanding!"
"This array was created by us three brothers, and it is named the Nine Chapters of Melting Bone."
"Whoever enters shall have neither flesh nor blood left—it erodes the soul and melts the bone!"
Three voices came from three different directions, proving that the positions of the three were constantly shifting.
With the three serving as the core formation eyes, their perpetual movement made them nearly impossible to pin down. It was clearly a 'living array.'
No sooner had the words landed than a rolling wave of black mist crashed in.
Without hesitation, Luo Chen struck with his palm.
The Qingyang Great Handprint collided with the black mist, and both annihilated one another.
A fire phoenix shrieked as it soared forth, tangling furiously with another wave of coalescing black mist before both vanished into nothingness.
"*Roar!*"
A heaven-shaking dragon roar erupted as a flame dragon descended outside the array.
As if in response, a black dragon composed of black mist slithered out from within the array, rising without hesitation to meet it.
Under the watchful eyes of many low-tier disciples of the Tiandu Sect, the two colossal dragons roared wildly and crashed together, their tremendous magic fluctuations grinding a massive mountain into fine powder.
Presiding over the grand array, Lu Changsheng trembled inside, his eyelids twitching violently.
*The Nine Chapters of Melting Bone are structured in sets of three. In the blink of an eye, three chapters have already run their course! This Alchemy Grandmaster truly lives up to his reputation, forcing our array into such passive exertion in so short a time.*
Lu Changqing sent a divine sense transmission: "Eldest Brother, we need to pour in more magic power, or the array's operation will suffer!"
Lu Changsheng snapped, "Do not act rashly! Leave it to me and Third Brother!"
"Understood!"
Inside the array.
Luo Chen drew back his hand from its incantation gesture, looking grim.
Suppressed on the inside, while attacks directed outside proved ineffective.
This array was far less simple to break than he had imagined!
In particular, the cores of the array were three living Demon Emperors. With their constant movement, even pushing his Eye of Illusion Breaking to its absolute limit yielded no immediate insight into the formation eyes' foundations.
Perhaps he should not have entered the array?
At the time, with Luo Chen's capabilities, as long as he had been willing to pay a slight price, he could have forcibly pulled back and opened up the distance.
Yet had he refused to enter, the three Demon Emperors would likely have ignored him and turned to attack the Tiandu Sect instead, easing the pressure on Jinxiuxian.
And once Jinxiuxian broke free, the consequences would only be far worse.
*Very well. Since you suppress me with an array, I shall answer with an array of my own!*
Luo Chen gave a cold sneer and stomped his foot heavily onto the ground.
"Sword array, arise!"
In the next instant, countless sword qi burst from the soil!
Carrying a horrifying cutting intent, they swept across all directions.
Countless tendrils of black mist rushed forward, but before the mist could even take shape, it was shredded to nothing by the sword qi.
This spectacle caused the three Lu brothers' expressions to change dramatically.
"When did he set down a sword array?"
"It must have been before he moved against Bailan! Since he planned to strike and kill in an ambush, he was bound to leave behind hidden preparations!"
"Release another three chapters! Second Brother, you break this sword array!"
Sharing a single heart and mind, a brief exchange was all it took for them to understand their respective duties.
The black banner shook heaven and earth. Violent black qi poured out in torrents, transforming into little deer with formidable antlers that charged into the sword array.
Black deer and sword qi slaughtered each other, mutually canceling out.
Looking at the familiar shape of those little deer and recalling the name of the array, a flash of realization dawned in Luo Chen's mind.
*So these three demons' true forms are jiuzhang deer!*
He was no stranger to this breed of beast.
Back then, a herd of low-tier jiuzhang deer had blocked the path in Mount Jiudie between Dahe Market and Tianlan Immortal City, forcing them to take a detour.
Beasts of this kind preferred to live in herds, dominating a territory by sheer force of numbers.
Ordinary cultivators dared not provoke them.
Yet such beasts had their flaws. Masked beneath their ferocity in packs lay weak individual strength and an exceptionally low ceiling.
One rarely heard of a jiuzhang deer breaking past bloodline constraints to reach Tier 4 and take human form to cultivate the Dao.
Yet who could have thought that this time, he would encounter jiuzhang deer Demon Emperors—and three of them at once!
"Accumulating over three thousand years, the Million Mountains of the Eastern Desolation have truly raised an incredible brood of beings!" Luo Chen murmured, his pale golden eyes sweeping across his surroundings.
Under the relentless pounding of the black mist, his Great Five Elements Sword Formation was already teetering.
Suddenly, a streak of murky azure light shot in from outside the array.
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
Five consecutive beams of light struck, each faster than the last.
The five sword pills were forced to reveal themselves within the grand array.
The sword qi tearing through all directions began to slowly disperse.
Looking up, a Daoist in multicolored garments with his hair bundled in a gourd topknot was holding a bronze mirror in the sky, aiming its reflection directly at the five elements sword pills.
Seeing this, Luo Chen felt a pang of regret and swept back the five elements sword pills in a single grab.
*If not for the disparity in grade among the five sword pills, how could their true bodies have been exposed so easily in a clash?*
*Still!*
*It is enough!*
A ruthless glint flared across Luo Chen's face. His magic power erupted, and the Wither-Bloom Divine Restriction inside him was quietly unraveled.
A surge of magic fluctuations so vast it bordered on terrifying permeated the array, to the point that even the ambient spiritual energy outside answered the call, roaring toward him.
Senluo Fire Prison!
Empowered by the domain's might, he transformed into a streak of red light, charging straight for the mirror-wielding Daoist in the sky.
"How can this be? Why is he unaffected by the array's suppression that severs harmony with heaven and earth?!"
"It was that sword array just now! It temporarily countered the isolating force of the Nine Chapters of Melting Bone Array, allowing him to gather his domain and throw off the suppression of our array!"
"Second Brother, you're exposed!"
Between the question and answer, the eldest, Lu Changsheng, cursed in sheer panic.
The second, Lu Changqing, naturally understood his current predicament.
In order to break the Great Five Elements Sword Formation, he had personally driven the bronze mirror to disrupt the operation of its five elements, but in doing so, his own true position had been revealed.
Now, Luo Chen charging straight toward him was clearly meant to shatter their three-legged balance.
The moment his position fell, the Nine Chapters of Melting Bone Array would collapse on its own.
"Help me!"
Even as Lu Changqing cried out for aid, he gritted his teeth and turned into a streak of azure light, darting frantically around the array.
The other two dared not slacken. The third brother, his magic power falling short, had already begun spitting essence blood to forcibly drive the array.
"Chapter Seven: Bone-Melting Qi!"
A cloud of deep, fathomless black mist erupted from the banner, surging toward Luo Chen.
A foul, pungent stench filled the air.
With an antidote pill held in his mouth, Luo Chen neither ducked nor dodged, plunging headfirst into it.
The Xuanchen Armor stirred into motion, manifesting its inner and outer dual layers.
The qi armor billowed, grinding away continuously.
Amidst sizzling hisses, the physical body of the Xuanchen Armor became pitted and scarred.
Yet Luo Chen forcefully weathered this chapter, his pale golden eyes locking firmly onto a certain spot.
"Now that you've exposed yourself, don't think you can hide beneath my eyes again!"
With a savage grin, he reached out a claw toward that location.
Azure light shot forth. The Cloud-Seeking Divine Claw stalled for a heartbeat and missed its mark.
Yet Lu Changqing's silhouette was exposed once more.
Luo Chen charged again with explosive speed.
A spectral, eerie wind drifted in, corroding the soul and seizing the spirit, dragging one into oblivion.
*Is this the eighth chapter?*
Understanding dawned on Luo Chen, yet he possessed no clean counter. Holding his breath, he charged straight into the wind.
The vast foundation of his divine soul was stimulated to its limit, and the Kai Mao Art unfolded continuously within his sea of consciousness, keeping his mind clear.
His speed slowed noticeably.
Yet his forward momentum showed no signs of stopping!
The three presiding over the array wore horrified expressions. "How can this be? The Soul-Corroding Wind that Lord Ditian retrieved from Soulsever Cliff cannot corrode this man's soul? Just how deep is his soul's foundation?!"
"No, we cannot let his hands be freed!"
"Bring out the ninth chapter!"
The three conferred and hesitated no longer.
The sound of the banner staff snapping echoed through the sky as vast amounts of black mist poured from the shattered banner, surging into the compass and the bronze mirror respectively.
Replenished by the black mist, the two treasures expanded with rumbling roars, swelling into massive objects resembling millstones.
Two gigantic millstones—one on the left, one on the right—rotated in opposite directions, grinding toward Luo Chen.
This was none other than the final chapter of the Nine Chapters of Melting Bone Array, named by the three brothers the Yin-Yang Mill. It could grind away a cultivator's mighty magic power as well as their fragile physical body.
Even within the Million Mountains, this move possessed an illustrious record, having once ground a formidable mid-Tier 4 Demon Emperor to death.
*Phew...*
Having weathered the Soul-Corroding Wind, Luo Chen snapped back to full alertness.
He then saw two massive millstones slowly drifting toward him.
They appeared far off, with vast space between them, seemingly leaving ample room to maneuver.
Yet when he tried to execute Airburst Step, Moon Steps, and Ninety Thousand Li, he found the space cramped and stifling, making it difficult to advance even a single inch.
*Spatial restrictions!*
*This array contains a massive number of spatial restrictions among its foundational formations, all to prevent the enemy from escaping.*
With Luo Chen's understanding of formations, everything became clear in an instant.
Not only that, but with his combat instincts, he swiftly realized that if he merely sought to flee, he would never make it out before the Yin-Yang Mill closed in.
"Since I can't escape, I'll just tear it apart!"
With a vicious glint in his eyes, Luo Chen tapped a finger against his chest.
The boundless origin qi that had been nurtured for over a century surged through his entire body.
His frame expanded and swelled, just like a demonic beast revealing its true form.
A giant nine zhang tall appeared in everyone's vision in the blink of an eye.
Neither dodging nor evading, he raised a palm the size of a hill and slammed it directly toward one of the massive millstones.
Such a sight was truly chilling.
Yet what proved far more horrifying was another deafening sound.
*Rumble!*
Before anyone could anticipate it, endless brilliant light erupted from the Bagua diagram.
Tremendous power discharged against Mount Tianzhu, right beside it.
With a single blow, Mount Tianzhu—the very core of the Tiandu Sect—was snapped in half.
The towering mountain, as though broken by a giant hand, crashed down toward the earth.
Jinxiuxian had returned to the world!
Not only that, but a streak of white light shot out from the collapsing mountain peaks, rocketing toward the battle where Jinling was engaged.
"Watch out! There is an insidious, sinister entity—it has swallowed the Nascent Souls of my three junior brothers!"
Tianquanzi's shrill, sorrowful cry resonated between heaven and earth.
Chapter 839