The great tide bore down in full force.
The cultivators who had entered Wuwang Hall fled desperately for their lives.
Qin Sang was no exception.
The tide surged with ferocious momentum. Fragments that had previously managed to survive intact within the turbulent currents were instantly ground to dust upon being swept into the deluge—one could well imagine its devastating power.
At this sight, how could Qin Sang care about tailing Su Zinan? Seeing the incoming tide, he vigorously flapped the phoenix wings behind him and bolted outward without looking back.
Su Zinan and his group were at the very front, bearing the brunt of the onslaught.
Qin Sang trailed behind them, part of the second wave.
Yet the tide moved at terrifying speed. Within mere breaths, even the cultivators at the outermost perimeter sensed the horrifying impact bearing down from above, descending into a frantic scramble.
Spurred by the great tide, the turbulent currents grew even more violent.
Whoosh!
Transforming into a streak of lightning, Qin Sang fixed upon a direction and shuttled through the gaps between the grey currents.
Resisting the turbulence was already no easy feat.
Under the imminent threat of the great tide, everyone was frantic to seek shelter, rushing toward the periphery of the grey deluge as fast as they could. Caring for nothing else, each fled for their lives. The helpers Su Zinan had enlisted were hardly united in purpose; several were soon scattered and separated.
At the same time, Qin Sang lost track of Su Zinan as well.
They had not even caught a glimpse of Wuwang Hall itself, yet the perimeter was already fraught with deadly peril. Qin Sang now truly believed that Deity Transformation cultivators could be trapped inside.
Rumble!
The heavens tore asunder overhead.
With the Heavenly Eye Butterfly warning him in advance, Qin Sang appeared somewhat calmer than the others, repeatedly slipping through the fissures between currents without mishap—at the very least, his life was not in immediate danger.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Ahead, six or seven turbulent currents were about to converge.
Qin Sang's eyes narrowed. In an instant, he charted a safe path, dodging through several maneuvers and bursting out from a gap between the currents.
With a resounding boom, the currents collided behind him, blasting apart into an expanding cloud of grey mist. The aftershocks pursued Qin Sang's fleeing figure, only to be left behind in his dust.
Qin Sang had encountered this scenario more than once and paid it no mind, his eyes fixed ahead to evade potential hazards.
Just then, the Heavenly Eye Butterfly suddenly sent a warning.
"Someone's there!"
Qin Sang glanced to his left.
Inside Wuwang Hall, his spiritual sense was disrupted by the turbulence and his divine consciousness restricted, far inferior to the Heavenly Eye Butterfly's Heavenly Eye divine ability.
Earlier, he had relied entirely on the Heavenly Eye Butterfly to track Su Zinan.
Looking toward the direction signaled by the butterfly, Qin Sang saw only boundless turbulent currents; the other party, likewise, was unable to detect his presence.
Qin Sang swept his eyes over the surrounding turbulence and deliberately adjusted his trajectory to draw closer.
For the moment, the Heavenly Eye Butterfly could not clearly see the person's face, but faintly discerned that they were driving a jade-tablet-shaped magic treasure. The tablet hovered before the person's glabella, projecting beams of purple light to forge a path forward.
However, the treasure protecting their body seemed to be a different one—a Daoist robe. Billowing outward, the robe was covered with patterns of clouds and thunder, shimmering with clear radiance.
Whenever a current drew near, the clear radiance on the robe converged toward it, conjuring the pattern of the Eight Trigrams in midair.
The Eight Trigrams seemed imbued with a yielding, pliant force capable of deflecting the brunt of the currents. The robe merely rippled faintly; the cultivator appeared even more at ease than Qin Sang.
Naturally, this was only surface-level. The person only dared let weaker currents approach, meaning their cultivation was likely not very high.
This was already the third person Qin Sang had encountered.
If it were one of Su Zinan's cohorts, he intended to find an opening to approach and bide his time. Otherwise, he had no wish to stir up unnecessary trouble.
"Probably not one of Su Zinan's associates..."
Qin Sang recalled that none of Su Zinan's companions wore such a robe.
Unexpectedly, as Qin Sang moved closer to allow the Heavenly Eye Butterfly a clearer view, the clear radiance around the cultivator suddenly dimmed.
At the same time, a milky-white flash of light flickered and vanished overhead. The timing was exquisite, striking precisely when the robe was manifesting the Eight Trigrams and the defenses elsewhere were at their weakest.
"This..."
Qin Sang was taken aback.
The white light did not seem to come from that cultivator, and it looked rather familiar.
He soon recalled the source of that familiarity.
"Could it be...?"
Qin Sang's expression shifted slightly. He watched as the cultivator staggered, and the protective clear radiance extinguished completely, leaving only the bare robe.
The robe crumpled, revealing a handsome young cultivator.
His face was contorted in agony and ferocity, nearly pitching headfirst into the turbulence.
The jade tablet above his head wobbled and tumbled straight down, instantly swept away by a passing current without a trace. Yet the young man lacked even the strength to recall his treasure.
Summoning the last dregs of his strength to dodge a nearby current, his eyes filled with sheer terror. He hurriedly pulled several medicinal pills from his mustard seed bag and crammed them indiscriminately into his mouth.
To his despair, the pills proved completely useless.
An ashen grey pall rapidly spread across his face, and his aura turned chaotic.
The next moment, his expression froze solid. His twisted features stiffened, permanently locked in a grotesque freeze-frame of mingled horror and agony.
Pfft!
A bloody hole burst open from inside his glabella, and out flew a diminutive beetle. Translucent and crystalline throughout, it looked as though carved from fine jade.
Once the beetle emerged, the man's aura perished at astonishing speed. He fell right there—not even his Nascent Soul managed to escape.
"It really is the jade beetle!"
Qin Sang's gaze darkened.
Since entering Zhongzhou, he had acted with great prudence and encountered few powerful foes. The strange-faced man and this jade beetle had left a deep impression on him. Lu Zhang had nearly been killed by poison in an instant, forcing Qin Sang's avatar to deploy a spirit treasure.
He had not expected that following Su Zinan to Wuwang Hall would lead him to the jade beetle once again.
The jade beetle's outward appearance had not changed much, yet it seemed even more formidable than before. It could now dispatch its true body, leaving that cultivator utterly powerless to resist and dead on the spot.
His Nascent Soul had likely been devoured by the jade beetle as well.
Such virulent poison was truly something Qin Sang had never seen before in his life.
The fat silkworm's performance had always been exceedingly reliable; even during its third transformation, it had been able to ward off the poison of a Transformation-stage frog-fish. Previously, Qin Sang felt that with the fat silkworm by his side, he had no reason to overly fear the strange-faced man. Now, his confidence was somewhat shaken.
"Where is the strange-faced man?"
Outside Wuwang Hall, Qin Sang had not noticed him.
He ordered the Heavenly Eye Butterfly to push its divine ability to the fullest. He saw the jade beetle spread its wings and flutter them lightly, its mouthparts wriggling as if savoring a fine delicacy.
It shook its head, seemingly struggling against something, then turned to fly off, only to be caught by a hand.
The newcomer was indeed the strange-faced man.
Behind him trailed another person—the disciple from whom Qin Sang had previously seized the five-colored poison spider.
Neither master nor disciple had needed to intervene personally; deploying the jade beetle alone was enough to execute a successful ambush. The disciple flicked the poison whip in his hand, wrapping it around the corpse's mustard seed bag, then watched coldly as the corpse was shredded by the turbulent currents.
"Let's go!"
Having achieved their strike, the two continued fleeing outward.
The jade beetle lay obediently in the palm of the strange-faced man—somewhat tamer than last time, yet blood-red light still suffused its eyes. Its ferocity was unmistakable, actively resisting his attempts to suppress it.
Qin Sang watched their departing backs, then looked up at the looming deluge overhead. Instead of retreating, he advanced, speeding up to pursue them.
All of this had transpired in the blink of an eye.
They had not flown far when the great tide finally crashed down.
Due to being so far ahead, even though Qin Sang and the others fled toward the edges as hard as they could, they still had to withstand the shock of the deluge—though its force was substantially weaker than at the center.
The sky and earth shook.
The great tide was right upon them.
Its momentum was earth-shattering.
Qin Sang felt a wave of suffocation and instinctively held his breath. He drove the Ruyi Pearl to its absolute limit; the fire lotus seed had long since flown from his glabella to meld into his demonic fire, rapidly spreading over the surface of the astral barrier until it formed an outer mantle of flames.
Boom!
The flames on the barrier stuttered simultaneously.
A colossal force slammed into him.
The protective barrier creaked and groaned.
Submerged by the deluge, Qin Sang felt as though a mountain had crashed into him. In the next instant, his field of vision turned a murky grey, filled everywhere with violent, turbulent forces.
At this moment, he was like a fish in a stormy sea, swept helplessly along by the tide.
The chaotic energy dragged him along, tossing him about violently.
Qin Sang frantically beat his phoenix wings while his heart formed the first seal of the Seven Master Buddha Seals, the Auspicious Seal. The bones throughout his body popped and cracked as Buddhist light faintly emerged from his skin. Mobilizing the full strength of his physical body, he forcibly stabilized himself within the tide.
At the same time, the Heavenly Eye Butterfly's gaze never left the strange-faced man and his disciple.
Just as Qin Sang expected.
When the deluge slammed down, the master and disciple were indeed separated.
The strange-faced man treated his disciple decently enough; at the final moment, he brought out the wooden armor plate that had once blocked the Fourfold Tengshe Seal, casting a spectral image of armor above his disciple's head.
That disciple was already a Nascent Soul cultivator, and a wooden mirror guarding his heart emerged over his chest. With the additional protection of the spectral armor, his survival was secured.
Seeing the master and disciple torn apart by the tide, Qin Sang enacted his premeditated plan. Immediately channeling the Auspicious Seal, he cast his movement technique and arduously worked his way toward the disciple. The chaotic deluge served as the ultimate cover; Qin Sang had no need to deliberately conceal himself.
Inside the tide, everything was utter chaos.
Even with all his divine abilities deployed, Qin Sang found it impossible to fight against the current and reach the disciple right then. He promptly shifted tactics, focusing on ensuring he did not lose track of his quarry.
Outside Wuwang Hall.
The immortal cultivators, regardless of their cultivation realm, raised their heads to gaze up at the great tide cascading down from on high, their faces etched with shock.
If any Nascent Soul cultivator failed to react in time, falling in battle was by no means out of the question.
"Back then, the masters from Bajing Guan and Ganlu Zen Monastery fled Wuwang Hall in disarray right after a wave of the grey tide, and practically every one of them was injured..."
There was no lack of people present who had experienced the previous event, and they sighed in recollection.
Someone nearby pressed, "Between the two grey tides, which was stronger?"
If neither Bajing Guan nor Ganlu Zen Monastery could endure it, would the successors of the Deity Transformation masters die in here?
The speaker gazed upward for a long time before shaking his head slightly. "Judging purely by the celestial phenomena, it seems less intense than last time. But don't forget, the grey tide back then appeared only an hour after Wuwang Hall opened. How much time has passed now? Just wait and see—there will surely be something even more terrifying later!"
The crowd stood dumbfounded.
It was hard to imagine what an even stronger grey tide would look like.
As the grey tide rolled downward, its speed finally began to slow.
Inside the tide.
Noticing that the grey deluge was beginning to wane in power, Qin Sang immediately swung into action. Combining the Seven Master Buddha Seals with his movement technique, and blazing a path with demonic fire, he forged ahead by force, gradually closing in on the strange-faced man's disciple.
The disciple remained entirely oblivious.
Having weathered the strongest shockwave of the tide, the phantom image of the wooden armor gradually dimmed and faded away. The heart mirror on his chest shone with brilliant green radiance, sufficient to preserve him.
He was entirely focused on braving the tide, never imagining that someone would dare spy on him and harbor malicious designs amid such a deluge.
"Huh? He has already broken through to the mid-Nascent Soul stage. No wonder the strange-faced man brought him in."
Drawing near in secret, Qin Sang confirmed the man's cultivation realm and felt somewhat surprised.
He still remembered this man's performance during the battle back then.
Aside from the five-colored poison spider and the poison whip, he possessed no noteworthy methods; calling him mediocre was generous.
After all these years, who would have thought his cultivation would advance so much? Naturally, his combat strength would no longer be what it once was.
However, this did nothing to shake Qin Sang's resolve.
He quietly awakened the fat silkworm and draped a layer of Poison-Warding Armor over himself. Hesitating for a moment, he chose not to deploy the Sun God Tree for a swift resolution, but instead summoned the Jinchen Sword.
Then, he waited for his chance with supreme patience.
The tide subsided to a certain threshold.
The time had come!
A cold gleam flashed through Qin Sang's eyes. Spreading his phoenix wings wide, his figure moved like a ghost, darting through the cracks in the chaotic energy. In a few flashes, he appeared right behind the strange-faced man's disciple.
Only now did the disciple sense something amiss. Whipping around abruptly, he saw with sheer horror a streak of sword light thrusting straight toward his face.
The sword light flashed like lightning.
The disciple felt a sharp sting at his glabella, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks in abject terror. Fortunately, he had kept the heart mirror active all along.
Green light surged, brimming with vitality.
Fine vines abruptly sprouted from its surface, growing at breakneck speed to instantly weave a circular vine shield before the sword light.
At the same time, the disciple lashed out with his poison whip, unleashing a whip shadow while hastily retreating.
Yet to his surprise, when the sword light struck the vine shield, no sound rang out. The green radiance turned somber and murky as an obscure gloom spread across it.
The interior of the deluge was already murky grey, and now it grew darker still.
The disciple froze for a moment, then realized what was happening, his face draining of color. "A sword array!"
In his desperation, he formed hand seals in rapid succession. The heart mirror flew up from his chest, and countless vines sprouted madly, turning the surrounding space into a seamless cage of vines within moments.
"Who on earth are you?! There is no enmity between us—why ambush me so despicably?!"
"Despicable?"
Qin Sang sneered, his voice elusive.
When the whip shadow came bearing down, Qin Sang neither dodged nor parried.
The whip shadow cracked viciously against his protective barrier, failing to breach it. Multicolored toxins seeped in, only to be completely blocked by the Poison-Warding Armor.
Qin Sang did not bother wasting words with him. The Seven Kills Sword Array surged into the vine cage, its sword threads solidifying into physical substance and brutally grinding forward.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The disciple could only watch in frantic dread as vine after vine was shredded by the sword threads. In a flurry of panic, he pulled dozens of multicolored jade vials from his mustard seed bag.
Opening his mouth, he spat out a streak of light, revealing a poisonous scorpion.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The jade vials shattered one after another, releasing a myriad of venoms into the air.
A twinge of heartache flashed in the disciple's eyes as he seized the poisonous scorpion, violently pulled out its stinger, and forced out its venomous blood to merge with the cloud of poisons.
The next moment, the concoction underwent a qualitative transformation, amalgamating into a seven-colored poisonous mist that condensed into the fierce silhouette of a venomous scorpion, pouncing outward with astonishing speed.
The sword array failed to impede it in the slightest.
Seeing the poisonous mist bearing down, the fat silkworm perched on Qin Sang's shoulder with gleaming eyes. Without waiting for Qin Sang's command, it opened its mouth and spat out a halo of poison-warding light; the bead spinning within it swallowed the poisonous mist whole.
The disciple was dumbstruck. He completely failed to notice a cluster of demonic fire silently gathering beneath him.
Boom!
The demonic fire erupted. The vine cage was instantly ripped apart, and the flames leapt onto the disciple, searing straight through his protective true essence.
Agony surged through him.
Terrified, light flickered atop his crown as his Nascent Soul escaped its vessel. Just as it prepared to execute teleportation, two bizarre hums—a "Heng" and a "Ha"—struck his soul with excruciating pain.
A momentary delay meant doom beyond redemption!
By the time his senses cleared, he was already trapped within the sword array, his mind dazed, having completely lost all power to resist.
Chapter 1585