When encountering danger, the stone toad had instinctively used a life-preserving illusion technique, scattering a spirit illusion seed to shed its carapace like a cicada slipping its shell.
Unfamiliar with the stone toad's temperament, the grotesque-faced cultivator had inadvertently fumbled his grasp.
Seeing the stone toad fall into his master's grasp only to turn into a flower seed in the blink of an eye, the gray-robed cultivator swung from joy to despair, the smile that had just begun to form freezing instantly on his face.
At that moment, the Baose Bell flared to life once more.
Qin Sang had merely dimmed and brightened the Baose Bell, temporarily resolving the crisis.
No change could be seen in the grotesque-faced cultivator's expression, but his eyeballs rolled, snapping instantly toward Qin Sang. His eyes were as vivid, bloodshot, and crimson as the centipede-like red welts crisscrossing his face.
Catching a clear view of the grotesque-faced cultivator's appearance made Qin Sang distinctly uncomfortable. It was hard to imagine what an esteemed late Nascent Soul cultivator had done to reduce his appearance to such a grotesque state.
As the treasure's light cascaded down, the stone toad's figure was illuminated once more. Trapped between wolves ahead and tigers behind, caught among Nascent Soul cultivators, small and helpless, it could only flee in another direction.
Lu Zhang went from shock to delight, shouting a word of praise.
Having been warned by Qin Sang in advance, he had prepared himself before the grotesque-faced cultivator could realize something was amiss. Twisting his body immediately, he rapidly closed in on the stone toad.
The grotesque-faced cultivator's gaze swept over Qin Sang, an odd gleam flashing through his eyes. Suddenly, he opened his mouth and spat out a blood sword, which transformed into a streak of bloody light in an instant.
*Whoosh!*
A dense stench of blood spread through the air.
The blood sword flickered, reappearing right behind the stone toad. Its tip pointed straight at the toad, showing no sign of slowing down. Judging by the grotesque-faced cultivator's posture, he intended to destroy the stone toad outright!
A purely spiteful act that harmed others without benefiting himself.
Not only was Lu Zhang furious beyond measure, but the gray-robed cultivator was also thoroughly astonished. They had merely lost the upper hand just now, and it remained uncertain who would ultimately claim the treasure; yet his master, upon the slightest turn of events, sought to destroy the stone toad, even willing to expend his own essence blood.
The command echoing in his ears left him no time to ponder.
The gray-robed cultivator hurriedly retrieved a five-colored whip.
It was a short whip, brightly colored like his five-colored venomous spider, crafted entirely from linked segments of bone.
*Snap!*
The gray-robed cultivator cracked the five-colored whip, sending a whip silhouette lashing toward Lu Zhang like lightning.
Wherever the whip shadow passed, the miasma seemed to encounter a void funnel, frantically swallowed whole. The miasma in the entire space was practically drained dry before outside miasma surged in to replace it.
The whip shadow itself condensed and solidified even further.
If struck, Lu Zhang would surely suffer severely.
Fortunately, Qin Sang finally freed his hands.
A fierce blade ray slashed toward the whip shadow.
The gray-robed cultivator was merely a step away from the mid stage, still a tier below Qin Sang's avatar. Even with the advantageous terrain, he could at best bridge the gap between them.
The temperature plummeted.
Snowflakes fluttered through the air.
A flurry of loud crackles erupted, echoing through the subterranean depths.
The Snow-Treading Divine Saber unleashed its divine might, slashing through midair. The whip shadow wriggled like a serpent, yet with every twist and turn, a blade ray intercepted it right on time, rendering it powerless to reach Lu Zhang.
Lu Zhang kept his eyes straight ahead.
The stone toad was vital to Lu Zhang's cultivation and had been hard won; he could not stand by and watch it be destroyed here.
With a flick of his arm, the jade bracelet on Lu Zhang's wrist flew off, spinning at high speed and transforming in midair into a white halo of light that looped unerringly toward the blood sword.
Ring after ring of ethereal bracelet silhouettes rapidly contracted inward, each carrying the power of binding and suppression, crushing down on the blood sword in the center.
The bloody glow on the surface of the blood sword showed signs of scattering, but the sword itself remained unshaken.
A succession of bangs rang out.
Although the grotesque-faced cultivator had struck in haste, the blood sword's power remained astonishing. Only after obliterating over a dozen bracelet silhouettes and thrusting nearly half its blade through the jade bracelet's center did its momentum show signs of waning.
Seizing this brief opening, Lu Zhang took the chance to close in on the stone toad, waving his sleeve to cast out a fine silver net that cascaded down from midair.
The stone toad was still fleeing for its life, its form shifting through various shapes, yet beneath the Baose Bell's radiance, it had nowhere to hide. It was on the verge of falling into the net.
Yet Qin Sang felt that something was amiss.
Especially the grotesque-faced cultivator's gaze: like a venomous snake, he seemed to have been watching Qin Sang all along, giving him the prickling sensation of thorns at his back.
At that moment, unable to break through the jade bracelet's barrier in time, the blood sword suddenly flashed with a white ray at its center, vaguely revealing the silhouette of a jade beetle within.
Qin Sang glanced over, his expression freezing slightly.
It was a spirit insect he had never seen before.
Even among the ancient texts he had read in the past, there was no record of such a creature.
However, seeing that the jade beetle had wings identical to those of the Corpse Flame Moths, and recalling the swarm they had just slaughtered, there had to be a connection between the two.
"Careful!" Qin Sang shouted.
Right then, the jade beetle spread its wings and hovered in midair. Its pair of tiny eyes was just like the grotesque-faced cultivator's—crimson and sinister. Having devoured the cultivator's essence blood down to the last drop, it immediately spat out a surge of peculiar, milky-white light.
The white light targeted not only the stone toad, but Lu Zhang himself!
The light possessed no earth-shaking momentum.
And the jade beetle appeared delicate and lovely.
Yet this very combination concealed terrifying danger.
Lu Zhang brought his hands together, the fine silver net curling inward to finally capture the stone toad. He swiftly drew in the net and retreated in haste, but he was still grazed by the edge of the white light.
*Swish!*
The white light arrived in a flash.
*Bang!*
The spirit robe on Lu Zhang surged, forming a layer of protective true astral qi, yet it could not prevent the white light from seeping through.
Lu Zhang's nose twitched, his face changing drastically.
Immediately afterward, an ash-gray pallor washed across his face, draining away all color in an overtly unnatural fashion. Even his protective divine astral qi shook violently, showing signs of scattering.
Lu Zhang pressed his paired fingers against his chest several times in rapid succession, forcing down the ash-gray pallor, only for it to surge back upward in the blink of an eye with even greater ferocity.
What alarmed Lu Zhang even more was that the qi and blood throughout his entire body showed signs of stagnation.
"Haha!"
The grotesque-faced cultivator laughed wildly. "Good! Good! Even more potent than I anticipated! What a pity my Gu King has yet to reach major completion; otherwise, this single strike would have sent your soul straight to the Yellow Springs!"
Amidst his wild laughter, the grotesque-faced cultivator curved his five fingers into a claw. His skin turned coarse like tree bark, and his arm bizarrely transformed into a long vine, lunging straight for Lu Zhang's forehead like a hawk striking a hare.
If that blow landed, five bloody holes would surely be gouged into Lu Zhang's skull.
Whether his Nascent Soul could escape then would be far from certain.
At the critical juncture, Lu Zhang produced a bottle of unknown medicinal pills, threw back his head, and poured them all into his mouth, forcing a distorted howl from his throat.
*Buzz...*
The azure bell, currently entangled with the wooden bead, vibrated violently. Suddenly vanishing into thin air and breaking free of the wooden bead, it reappeared right above Lu Zhang's head.
The azure bell shook, aligning over Lu Zhang himself, and dropped abruptly.
*Bang!*
The wooden claw struck the azure bell squarely.
With a resounding clang, ripples spread across the azure bell's surface. Incredibly solid, it remained completely unscathed, merely blasted away to crash into the stone wall on one side.
Lu Zhang's fate was unknown.
The grotesque-faced cultivator narrowed his eyes. Rather than pursuing the azure bell, he turned his gaze to Qin Sang, eyes gleaming with greed as he hissed in bizarre laughter. "What pure Wood Spirit aura!"
Chapter 1559