Judging from the Heavenly Merit Board, Wei Yuan's instinct had not been wrong: this cloth-robed swordsman was indeed more formidable than a dharma idol cultivator with a consummate immortal foundation. And the root of his strength was that half portion of the Sword of Ten Thousand Generations and Autumns.
At the thought that he also possessed half of this sword canon, Wei Yuan felt a surge of excitement.
Yet he soon recalled the terrifying amount of spiritual energy he needed to advance. That was not something mere cultivation could satisfy—he would still have to farm.
Seeing this reward of heavenly merits, Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli both took on grave expressions, realizing the enemy had been unprecedentedly powerful. Holding nothing back, they joined forces to break the array. With the three of them acting together, their destructive power was astonishing; it took roughly the time to drink a cup of tea to shatter each minor world.
An hour later, the grand array was broken.
As the world shifted, Wei Yuan found himself standing on the rear mountain. The cultivators who had entered to explore were scattered across the vast slopes. In the center of the rear mountain lay a white jade plaza, which by now was mostly ruined.
That was the array eye where the cloth-robed swordsman had stood, a place that had almost become Wei Yuan's grave. Of the hundred Dao Foundation cultivators, over twenty had been lost. In one corner of the rear mountain, a mound of severed limbs and mangled flesh had appeared.
Wei Yuan went over to check and found the remains of all the missing cultivators gathered here. It seemed the monster had treated this place like a larder, dumping whatever leftovers it did not finish.
Among the missing cultivators was one of Yu Zhizhuo's junior brothers, while another had been hit by a blast of venom from the monster and suffered severe injuries, still unconscious even now. Had Sun Yu not happened to breach that minor world and administered timely treatment, this Hall of Heavenly Craft disciple would not have survived either.
Yet his primeval spirit and sea of consciousness had suffered severe corrosion and damage; the best possible outcome was that his path of cultivation was severed, with no further advancement for the rest of his life. The worst outcome would be the destruction of his Dao Foundation, regressing him to a Body Casting cultivator.
Wei Yuan felt heavy-hearted. Ordinary cultivators had almost no defense against the monster's venom; had he not baited the beast into expending three full-powered blasts of venom, over half of the cultivators might have perished.
A monster like this would crush Dao Foundation cultivators, slaughtering as many as came. And before the cloth-robed swordsman, even several dharma idol cultivators would not be able to retreat unscathed.
Even if three or four True Persons of the Dharma Idol realm led a team inside, they would still meet catastrophe. How could two such monstrous entities end up in a single grotto-heaven fragment?
Wei Yuan gathered the surviving cultivators. After a brief rest, they reformed their battle formation and marched toward the palace complex.
Sun Yu had also clashed with the monster and flicked some medicine onto it, which reportedly corroded away a large section of its body. Relying on the lingering medicinal scent, Sun Yu tracked the monster's trail, and the cultivators headed straight for the main hall.
The main hall stood thirty zhang high and a hundred zhang wide, utterly magnificent—only slightly smaller than the hall of the Tang Son of Heaven, matching the standard for feudal lords. But matching feudal standard applied only to size; in style and ornamentation, it was identical to the hall of the Son of Heaven.
By now, with the grotto-heaven having been shattered for many years, the grand hall's formations had long since failed. The interior was pitch-black, dark enough that one could barely see one's own hand before one's face.
Several cultivators launched glowing orbs that floated throughout the air, illuminating the entire grand hall.
The inside of the hall was in complete disarray, implements strewn everywhere. At the center of the hall stood an elevated dais holding a dragon throne. Yet the dragon throne was now cleaved in two; judging by the marks, it seemed someone had slashed through it.
Surrounding the dais had originally been red jade balustrades, and beyond that ran an open channel of flowing water. Now, shattered balustrades lay everywhere, and the channel was dry of water, containing only large patches of dried blood.
Traces of slaughter were everywhere in the hall. It seemed many cultivators had fought desperately here; judging from the remaining expanse of blood and the overwhelmingly dense yin qi and resentful aura, they had most likely met a grim end.
Ji Liuli said, "The signs of battle are only within the hall, falling back toward the main entrance, but none made it out the door. It seems these people were ambushed in the hall and tried to flee, but failed."
Yu Zhizhuo picked up a broken sword from the ground, examining its form and break closely before saying, "Standard-issue swords of Xu family cultivators, high-grade magical artifacts. They were probably all late-stage Dao Foundation elites."
Zhang Sheng said, "The traces are both old and new. The sword qi of the newer marks is visibly stronger. It seems the Xu family sent people to explore here afterward, more than one wave, but none returned. Well, we can't rule out the possibility that one or two slipped away."
Wei Yuan's expression darkened. "It seems the Xu family knew all along that this grotto-heaven fragment was perilous and deliberately lured us in."
Had he known earlier, he should have loosed a couple more arrows at that Xu family elder back then; perhaps he could have brought him down.
Wei Yuan pondered for a moment. With the man-eating monster seemingly the only remaining enemy, he divided the personnel into two groups. Wei Yuan himself, Zhang Sheng, Eldest Senior Sister, Sun Yu, and Feng Tingyu formed one team to hunt down the monster. The remaining cultivators formed the other team, using their battle formation for suppression and defense as they cleared the halls one by one, aiming to locate the monster's lair or uncover the secrets here.
For the Xu family to repeatedly send people into the grotto-heaven regardless of casualties, there was bound to be a major secret here.
Discerning the lingering medicinal scent in the air, Sun Yu led the way through palaces large and small, the surroundings gradually turning desolate. The buildings in this area were low and cramped, mostly dilapidated, with some even being makeshift shacks of branches and thatch. The ground was littered with filth from commoners' daily lives, completely at odds with the tall, magnificent palaces ahead.
This area seemed to be where servants and underlings of the palace lived, but the living quarters for servants in the palaces of feudal lords were vastly better than this.
It was as if someone had torn out the slums of Quliu Town and patched them onto a palace—indescribably discordant.
As the group moved through the structures, they were on high alert. Suddenly, a shadow drifted out from a nearby earthen hut, and a curtain of black water splashed down from midair!
Yet the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda shifted from illusory to solid, causing both the shadow and the black water to slow down at once. With a wave of his hand, Wei Yuan drew in all of the black water, while Sun Yu blew out a wisp of alchemical fire that struck the shadow. The moment the alchemical fire hit, the shadow monster let out a shrill shriek as the flames spread rapidly.
Around it, four immortal swords descended slowly, seemingly poised for a fatal blow.
With a shriek, the monster wheeled around and fled, tens of zhang away in an instant. But a curved, serpentine gleam of blade-light suddenly flared across its body, instantly raining down a large splatter of black water—Feng Tingyu had slashed it with her blade.
The monster shrieked once more and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The group's coordination was seamless. The true killing moves had come from Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu; Zhang Sheng's four swords descending together had only been a feint to frighten the monster into fleeing, thereby creating the opening for Feng Tingyu's final strike.
The martial path of the Hall of the Bright King was annihilation; whether its blade techniques were fierce or delicate, the essence remained the same. And whether an opponent was ethereal or corporeal, the damage taken from one of Feng Tingyu's blade strikes was identical—thoroughly crude, blunt, and unreasonable.
Though the monster had fled, it had suffered grievous wounds and was burned by Sun Yu's alchemical fire, making it impossible to escape tracking. The group was in no rush to pursue; they couldn't catch up in a sprint anyway, its lair was bound to be nearby, and a grotto-heaven fragment was an enclosed space—they could take their time searching.
All of them were seasoned in combat and slaughter, so they remained completely composed, advancing steadily step by step. Inflicting another wound or two would ensure the beast's death.
Wei Yuan glanced into the earthen hut where the monster had emerged, suddenly letting out a soft exclamation. "Someone actually lives here!"
Chapter 285