Inside Mingyue Palace, the faces of everyone caught in the sudden catastrophe turned deathly pale.
The instant they sensed something amiss, they followed Li Fan’s prior instructions and moved to activate the Random Teleportation Necklaces around their necks.
Yet to their horror, they discovered that this very lifeline had completely lost its effect.
And when the entire Mingyue Lake was hoisted into the sky like a plaything, the expressions on Su Xiaomei, Xiao Heng, and the others turned utterly ghastly.
“This terrifying might… it’s a Dao Integration Immortal Venerable!”
Terror and bewilderment flooded their hearts in an instant.
Was this really necessary? All they had done was earn a modest sum of contribution points.
A puny Mingyue Palace could not even withstand a Soul Formation cultivator, so why would a Dao Integration Immortal Venerable step in personally?
Yet no matter how chaotic their emotions ran, before a Dao Integration cultivator they were nothing more than ants, utterly powerless to resist.
They could only watch helplessly as Mingyue Palace was dragged farther and farther from the ground.
All of them were trapped like turtles in a jar, with nowhere to run.
“Little Sister, is this what you called great fortune?!” Yin Yueting’s face was frighteningly pale as she stared at her sister in utter disbelief.
Yin Yuzhen looked blank, at a complete loss.
Then, as if remembering something, she immediately said, “Don’t worry! Senior will definitely step in! We will surely turn calamity into—”
Before she could finish, a thunderous roar erupted from outside Mingyue Palace.
Everyone looked out to see a colossal mushroom cloud billowing upward, with Mingyue Palace at its center.
The white cloud expanded and billowed outward, engulfing Mingyue Lake in the blink of an eye.
High in the sky, Li Fan—the culprit behind the explosion—had a look of agonizing heartache on his face.
His original plan for the Essence-Devouring God-Startling Formation had covered only the grounds of Mingyue Palace, aimed at delaying a powerful foe for just a moment when they descended.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that this unknown Dao Integration powerhouse would refrain from attacking directly and instead sweep up all of Mingyue Lake in a single net, seemingly intending to haul them off somewhere.
Li Fan had been forced to spend several times the original cost to expand the scale of the Essence-Devouring God-Startling Formation’s self-destruction.
“Never mind. As long as I escape this time, it’ll still be a net gain.”
Having chosen to act, Li Fan hesitated no longer.
Carefully withdrawing a sharp black spike from his robes, he took aim at the silver threads in the sky and hurled it with all his might.
The moment the Essence-Devouring White Mist erupted, the silver threads recoiled instinctively, as if encountering a natural predator.
Yet an instant later, they ignored the mist brushing against them and bound Mingyue Lake even tighter.
A voice like muffled thunder resonated through the sky.
“Essence-Devouring White Mist? Hmph! Your Mingyue Palace is the head of all evils, ruining my grand designs. Even at the cost of burning away a bit of my lifespan, I will take you all down.
“If I don’t torment you thoroughly, it will never appease the hatred in my heart!”
Before the words faded, a streak of black light struck the silver threads.
“A Realm-Splitting Spike? Intriguing.”
The radiance of the silver threads dimmed slightly.
Immediately after, another streak of black light shot into the heavens.
“Go!” Li Fan’s voice rang out at the perfect moment.
Without needing Li Fan’s reminder, the moment the black Realm-Splitting Spike appeared, Su Xiaomei and the others realized their Random Teleportation Necklaces were functioning again and activated the teleportation arrays instantly.
Flashes of light flared one after another, and the members of Mingyue Palace vanished without a trace.
Relentless explosions resounded from below.
In the span of a breath, Mingyue Palace was reduced to ruins.
Above the ruins, a dark phantom slowly coalesced.
There was not the slightest trace of fury on his face; instead, he wore the playful expression of a cat toying with a mouse.
“Fleeing? Where could you possibly run?”
The black-robed cultivator gave his horsetail whisk a gentle flick. In the air before him, several threads materialized out of nothingness, branching out in different directions from this central point.
“A mere late Foundation Establishment cultivator courting death. I’ll start by catching you.”
The black-robed cultivator reached out his right hand, pinched one of the silver threads between two fingers, and slowly exerted force.
Where the silver thread vanished into the distance, space suddenly fractured and blurred.
Li Fan’s illusory figure gradually emerged.
At that moment, he was looking upward toward the sky.
A look of shock was frozen on his face, as though even his thoughts had been locked in ice.
Along with the surrounding scenery, his body was being steadily dragged back toward the black-robed cultivator.
Just as Li Fan was about to be completely ensnared, the black-robed cultivator’s movements suddenly hitched.
The playful smirk vanished from his face, replaced by an increasingly solemn scowl as he stared at the ground below.
The massive volume of Essence-Devouring White Mist that had just detonated had not returned to the White Mist Barriers that divided the provinces as it should have.
Instead, it was drifting down to the earth.
Then, like flowing water, it seeped continuously beneath the ground.
In just a few moments, vast amounts of the Essence-Devouring White Mist were swallowed by the earth.
This abnormal spectacle made even the black-robed cultivator, who had lived for thousands of years, furrow his brows.
“This is…”
A sudden surge of unease gripped his heart. His left hand rapidly formed hand seals to divine the truth, his expression constantly shifting.
Evidently, deducing the nature of this bizarre anomaly took a tremendous toll on him.
The aura around him fluctuated violently, and fine wrinkles gradually crept across his face.
Streaks of gray appeared in his hair, and blood began to trickle from his eyes.
After a long while, the black-robed cultivator violently spat out a mouthful of blood.
Then, he cried out in horror, “The Essence-Devouring Rebirth Formation?!
“Old ghost Blue Feather, you still want to prove your Dao and attain immortality even after death?!”
A shuddering wave of terror surged from the depths of his soul, and the instinct to flee took hold of the black-robed cultivator.
Yet immediately after, he looked toward the direction of Yuandao Sky City.
“No wonder! No wonder the usually peaceful Yuandao Province has been drowning in endless slaughter these past few years, with countless cultivators dying…
“And my Blue Feather Legacy Treasure plan went extraordinarily smoothly. He was actually scheming against me as well!
“This is going too far! Utterly intolerable!”
The black-robed cultivator gritted his teeth. “How could I ever let you get your wish?!”
At this moment, he could no longer spare any thought for the insignificant ants of Mingyue Palace.
Releasing the thread, he rushed frantically toward Yuandao Sky City.
***
“True…”
As his frozen, stagnant thoughts gradually recovered, Li Fan nearly blurted out “Reversion.”
Yet the dragging force from the rift in space had already vanished. Realizing he was safe once more, Li Fan forced himself to swallow the word back down.
“Is this the might of a Dao Integration Immortal Venerable…?”
Li Fan’s face was dark. Before such an absolute disparity in strength, all his so-called preparations were nothing more than a joke.
Just now had undoubtedly been the most perilous moment since his transmigration.
He had been able to perceive what was happening around him, yet his very soul felt frozen, leaving him incapable of taking effective action or even forming coherent thoughts.
If that black-robed cultivator had not been suddenly frightened away, Li Fan might truly have perished for good.
“Merely helping over five hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators emerge ahead of schedule was enough to draw out an expert of this caliber…
“No, that’s not right. Quite a few others were captured along with Mingyue Palace just now.
“There were probably plenty of people imitating my great enterprise of Dharma-lending.
“So, was it because the number of Foundation Establishment cultivators surged far too quickly all at once?”
Chapter 159