The swarm of flies blotted out the sky and sun.
Wei Yuan sat in his chair, cup in hand, sipping tea that did not exist at all. With his other hand, he reached out to snatch a fly that had crawled into the room, trapped it beneath a bell, and casually tossed it into his Dao Foundation.
The nether flies surged forward wave upon wave; as soon as one vanished, another crept inside. Yet the moment they entered the room, they turned sluggish and dull. Once, when Wei Yuan stretched lazily and left one alone, it simply pitched headlong onto the floorboards, its jointed legs twitching uselessly, unable to move.
At this moment, a small five-tiered pagoda stood on the table as well, emitting invisible ripples. Counting the two perched on the windowsill, there were three Mortal-Suppressing Pagodas inside this small space. The nether flies were not of high rank to begin with, so under the suppression of three pagodas, they were naturally immobilized.
After catching dozens of nether flies in succession, Wei Yuan took advantage of a spare moment to look toward the Shamans. Their shelter was presently enveloped in a dome of light, over which countless nether flies crawled, gnawing away madly. Yet the barrier was warm and resilient; each bite from the nether flies took off very little. Even with flies blanketing its entire surface, the barrier alone could hold out for half a shichen, not to mention the continuous replenishment it received.
Wei Yuan pointed a finger, and a protective light dome appeared over his small house as well. There were over a hundred such Dao arts, and Wei Yuan knew at least seven or eight.
The instant the light dome emerged, nether flies swarmed across it. Wei Yuan felt his Dao power drain away like water from an open sluice, entirely unable to keep up with the consumption. In the blink of an eye, it was devoured completely, having lasted less than ten breaths from start to finish.
Wei Yuan felt a prick of embarrassment. Switching to an advanced Dao art, he cast a dome of deep, radiant amber that clearly looked out of the ordinary. This art doubled the defensive strength, but it consumed three times as much Dao power. In the hierarchy of Dao arts, this was considered a rare, high-tier technique.
The effect and potency of most Dao arts were largely fixed, with only a few scaling according to the grade of one's Dao power. Paying three times the Dao power for double the effect was entirely normal; going any higher, even several dozen times the Dao power might not yield double the result.
The moment the amber dome went up, Wei Yuan's Dao power gushed out like floodwaters bursting through a gate. This time, the barrier lasted a bit longer—a full thirty breaths—but in essence, it made no difference.
Wei Yuan still knew an even more advanced defensive Dao art that consumed thirty times the Dao power to deliver triple the base version's defense. However, he decided there was no point in casting it, if only to save himself from further humiliation.
These two arts clearly demonstrated just how terrifying the nether flies were. Without prepared fortifications, Dao arts and origin souls were utterly defenseless against them.
Yet the light barrier over the Shamans' shelter seemed to mock Wei Yuan in silence.
Wei Yuan sprang to his feet. Estimating the distance between them, he produced an elongated cauldron in his hands, loaded a five-tiered pagoda inside, rested it on the windowsill, and aimed straight at the Shamans' shelter.
The five-tiered pagoda shot out of the cauldron, crossing dozens of li to slam right into the Shamans' light barrier!
The barrier was extraordinarily thick and viscous; the small pagoda lodged into it, unable to advance or retreat. But in the next instant, at Wei Yuan's command, the five-tiered pagoda abruptly detonated. A raging storm of Dao power blasted the barrier until its light flickered unstably.
Inside the shelter, the Shamans were knocked off balance. A shamaness tumbled into Shengxin's arms, while another Shaman Scholar fell across Huixin's back.
"What happened?" the shamaness cried in panic.
Shengxin finally turned grave. Casting a pained glance in Wei Yuan's direction, he said in a heavy voice, "He self-detonated his Dao Foundation. Sigh... An Earth Tier foundation self-detonating, no wonder the power was so immense... Wait, Earth Tier?"
Shengxin suddenly realized something was amiss. How could this opponent possess only an Earth Tier foundation? Even among those with immortal foundations, there should barely be a handful of people of his caliber.
He hastily looked outside, only to see flashes of radiance as five-tiered pagodas came hurtling toward them one after another!
At this moment, Wei Yuan endured needle-sharp stabs of pain in his sea of consciousness. Each time he fired off a five-tiered pagoda, another would appear in his hand, which he loaded into the elongated cauldron, infused with Dao power, blasted outward, and detonated upon impact with the Shamans' barrier.
A five-tiered pagoda was equivalent to an Earth Tier Dao Foundation, and its self-detonation packed a qualitative leap in power compared to before. Each time a pagoda struck, even the Great Shaman's barrier saw a visible decline in strength. Wei Yuan estimated that three or four shots could whittle down a tenth of the shield's resilience, which lifted his spirits. Ever since Eldest Senior Sister gave him the five-tiered pagoda model, Wei Yuan had crafted a few whenever he had free time, and over fifty small pagodas were currently lined up beside Jade Mountain.
Under the relentless bombardment of Mortal-Suppressing Pagodas, even the Great Shaman's frantic channeling of power could not halt the barrier's decline. In the blink of an eye, it had deteriorated to the point where it could shatter at any moment.
Suddenly, an arc-shaped blade of light swept through the air, cleaving two incoming Mortal-Suppressing Pagodas into four pieces!
Wei Yuan looked over while enduring the pain in his mind, only to see that the defensive barrier had vanished. It appeared the Great Shaman had actively withdrawn it. Yet he had little choice; how could defense ever match offense? Even as a Great Shaman, he could not hold out against Wei Yuan's furious bombardment.
With the barrier gone, the Great Shaman struck in anger, severing two of Wei Yuan's pagodas in what seemed more like an outburst of rage.
Wei Yuan, however, had long planned his next move. Without bothering to clash tempers with the Great Shaman, he fired four or five pagodas at the shelter in quick succession, each on an erratic trajectory. The two flying straight for the shelter were severed by the Great Shaman, while the other three veered noticeably off course, landing several zhang away, so the Great Shaman did not even bother to intercept them.
Yet when Shengxin sensed the Dao power rapidly surging in those three spots, realization struck, and his face changed drastically!
The three stray five-tiered pagodas detonated one after another. Violent shockwaves hurled dozens of nether flies and tons of earth and stone straight against the shelter. The Shamans' shelter had been built specifically to keep out nether flies, so its structural strength was fairly ordinary. How could it withstand the concussive force of three Dao Foundation detonations at point-blank range?
It rocked violently, deformed in an instant, and had its entire roof torn away!
Countless nether flies swarmed toward the Shamans like sharks catching the scent of blood.
One nether fly that had already crept into Wei Yuan's room, dazed and disoriented by the suppression, suddenly sensed the indistinct call and actually attempted to crawl back out the window to join the assault on the Shamans.
Wei Yuan reached out with his large hand, grabbed the nether fly by its stinger, yanked it back, and tossed it into his Dao Foundation.
From the Shamans' camp, a pillar of white light shot into the sky. Shengxin grabbed a shamaness in each hand, maintained a milky-white barrier of light, and soared into the high sky, flying away in the direction opposite the incoming swarm. In mere moments, nether flies blanketed the barrier, and countless more converged on it like a tempest, turning it into a massive ball of flies over a dozen zhang wide in the blink of an eye!
The Great Shaman was formidable indeed. Even under such circumstances, his flight speed remained astonishingly swift, vanishing past the horizon in moments.
From the collapsed shelter came several piercing shrieks. The four Shaman Scholars and shamanesses who had failed to escape in time were swarmed by nether flies and stripped clean to the bone in an instant.
The sight was bloody and horrifying, yet well within Wei Yuan's expectations. His purpose in coming to the Nether Cold Realm was to destroy Nether Shaman Shu Li's realm here while killing as many Shamans as possible. Exploration and spoils were merely incidental.
With the Shamans gone, Wei Yuan became the nether flies' sole remaining target. Swarms crawled across the small house, constantly probing for an opening, then crept through the window one by one—only to be plucked away the moment they came inside.
The vast majority of the flies took off again, rejoined the swarm, and continued their flight into the distance.
Half a shichen later, the swarm finally receded, and this bout of Fly Weather drew to a close. Wei Yuan dismantled and stowed away his small house, then walked over to inspect the Shamans' camp. The ground was scraped clean with nothing left behind, as if those fallen Shamans had never existed in this world.
Wei Yuan lingered no longer and returned to the Native Realm. This trip had yielded a handsome harvest: not only had he secured the complete pair of short blades, but he had also eliminated several formidable Shamans.
Chapter 208