Seemingly provoked by Zhang Zhiliang's words, the flames entangled with the Immortal Lords used their power as fuel, instantly flaring up with even greater ferocity.
Moreover, clinging like gangrene to the bone, they were nearly impossible to purge.
Even with Zhang Zhiliang repeatedly activating formations to shift the five Immortal Lords' positions, he could only slightly delay the crimson flames' spread.
"Fellow Daoists, offense is the best defense!" Immortal Lord Hongxi's voice rang out. As he spoke, an inverted mountain bore down toward Crimson Flame's head. Slender as a needle, the mountain felt as heavy as hundreds of millions of jun.
The flames wrapping Crimson Flame danced wildly, as though buffeted by gale-force winds, and her form sank downward involuntarily.
A shockwave erupted from the point of contact, sweeping outward in all directions and churning up massive waves that rolled steadily toward the outer reaches of the Congyun Sea.
When it brushed across Wanxian Island below, it even set the Seven-Colored Immortal-Felling Formation rippling slightly. Beneath the Inverted Mountain, firelight flickered. For a split second, Crimson Flame seemed to vanish, intending to repeat the old trick of relocating.
Unexpectedly, in the next second, she was forced back into view at the exact same spot in slight disarray. In the surrounding space, the faint silhouettes of countless undulating mountain ranges could be seen.
Crimson Flame was trapped like a prisoner in a cage of mountains, unable to move! She lowered her head slightly, seemingly pondering something.
Next, the onlookers saw the flames dancing across her body suddenly freeze.
Then, they contracted violently toward the center.
Before anyone could react, Crimson Flame had shifted from humanoid form into a spark of pure crimson fire.
Dazzling and scorching, it brimmed with destructive power.
Under the searing heat, the mountains imprisoning her began melting and collapsing. Just as Crimson Flame was about to break free, the other Immortal Lords' attacks struck without warning.
"Surging river waters, endless and unbroken!" A silver sash cascaded from the heavens. Like a roaming dragon, it crashed heavily against the flame.
Though the river water evaporated in an instant, this Lancang River seemed truly inexhaustible, pouring endlessly and slowing the flame's escape by another fraction.
"Die!" A child's tender voice rang out, laden with murderous intent.
Concealed amid the deluge of river water, a black-and-red figure appeared silently beside Crimson Flame.
Devoid of any life aura, even with Crimson Flame's perception, she only noticed him once he had closed in.
"Tianyang?" Li Fan was naturally familiar with this black-and-red puppet.
Unlike the towering colossus seen before, the Tianyang puppet had now returned to human size.
Even Tianyang's voice was no longer mechanical like before, sounding no different from an ordinary human's. Under the roasting heat of the crimson flame, anything that approached began to melt.
Even the Tianyang puppet, possessing Soul Formation strength, was no exception. Its exterior melted away constantly, like snow beneath the sun.
Yet the destruction of its body did not seem to impair Tianyang's combat power in the slightest.
Once its solid form completely disintegrated into a boiling, viscous black-and-red fluid, Tianyang instead fully unleashed his true power. "In this life, I, Tianyang..."
"...yield to no man!" The viscous fluid surged violently, resembling both water and fire.
It wrapped around the crimson flame, not flinching in the slightest no matter how intensely it burned, seeking to defile it with itself.
Forced by the onslaught, the crimson flame shrank once more.
As the focused fire rained down on Crimson Flame, the potency of the flames clinging to the Immortal Lords dwindled considerably.
Their attacks consequently grew all the more ferocious.
Besieged by five Soul Formation Immortal Lords, Crimson Flame kept compressing herself. Victory seemed within grasp. But...
Once compressed to the absolute extreme, the fire was no more.
Only a single, dazzling red speck that one could not bear to look at directly remained in the midst of the Immortal Lords' encirclement.
Then, the red speck moved.
At a speed beyond the perception of every cultivator present, it traced a zig-zagging crimson streak across the vast heavens.
Passing right through the viscous black-and-red mass, it punched a massive hole through Tianyang.
The substance at the core was vaporized entirely. The surrounding sludge churned, attempting to mend the hole, but was suppressed by the lingering heat, unable to reconstitute.
The Lancang River and the Inverted Mountain were likewise cleaved clean in two by the crimson line. The river dried up, and the mountain cracked apart. Two muffled groans sounded simultaneously.
Immortal Lord Haoxuan loosed silver arrows in rapid succession, yet the silver flashes could not match the speed of the flitting crimson line.
Instead, they were assimilated in the chase, turning into crimson firelight that shot back out in different directions. The crimson streak zig-zagged back and forth across the sky, sweeping through the firmament with reckless abandon.
Whatever stood in its way was vaporized by its destructive might.
Silver light flashed continuously as Zhang Zhiliang shifted the Immortal Lords' positions to fend off Crimson Flame's assault. Even so, the Immortal Lords' disadvantage grew wider by the moment. At this juncture, Zhang Zhiliang finally made another move.
One, two... thousands, tens of thousands...
Dense and countless silver cubes suddenly materialized across the canopy, completely sealing off the airspace where Crimson Flame and the five Immortal Lords were clashing.
They appeared disordered and chaotic, but Li Fan could tell that these array coronets, as vast as stars, were a mix of real and illusory, coming together into a certain formation layout.
"Spirit Convergence!" Zhang Zhiliang said coldly.
At his words, a portion of the array coronets in the heavens burst into silver brilliance together. An ultra-large Spirit Gathering Formation, composed of countless smaller Spirit Gathering Formations, abruptly emerged.
A fierce wind suddenly whipped across the Congyun Sea, raising towering waves.
Spiritual energy surged frantically into the sealed area, absorbed by the wounded Immortal Lords. In an instant, their combat strength returned to its peak.
"Glacial Chill!"
Zhang Zhiliang acted once again. Another section of array coronets flared with light at his command. The temperature in the sky plummeted, and ice crystals crystallized across the air.
Even the air seemed to freeze. The crimson line's movement could not help but slow.
"Deceleration!"
In an instant, countless silver-white threads shot from the array coronets, ensnaring the crimson line.
"Creation-Extinction!"
"Annihilation!"
Formation after formation was unleashed in succession under the combined power of the countless array coronets.
Crimson Flame's power was suppressed while the Immortal Lords were bolstered. As one waned and the other waxed, the battle gradually tilted toward equilibrium.
The shackles formed by the great sun and starry river in the sky cut off Crimson Flame's communion with heaven and earth.
Meanwhile, the five Soul Formation experts could recklessly draw upon the spiritual energy of the Congyun Sea to replenish themselves.
Although Crimson Flame in this lifetime was vastly stronger than when she was merely a furnace stoker, dragging things out like this meant defeat was only a matter of time.
Just as Li Fan thought the fight would continue as a war of attrition, another change occurred on the battlefield.
Sensing that she was sliding into a perilous disadvantage, Crimson Flame shifted from the searing, radiant speck back into a human figure.
"What is she doing?"
Not only Li Fan, but all the cultivators present were baffled by this sight. Yet the Soul Formation Immortal Lords embroiled in the fight felt a chill seize their hearts.
Phantoms of weapons forged entirely of flame materialized around Crimson Flame in the blink of an eye.
Sabers, spears, swords, halberds, axes, battle-axes, hooks, pitchforks... Crimson Flame's figure blurred.
Then, beside every single weapon, another Crimson Flame abruptly appeared! Heaven and earth froze in eerie stillness for a fraction of a second. Eighteen Crimson Flames in total struck out toward the five Immortal Lords.
A roar of shock swept through Wanxian Island.
"An avatar technique?"
"The Immortal Lords already had such a hard time dealing with one Crimson Flame. Now eighteen appear all at once... How can they fight this? Isn't defeat certain?"
"Not necessarily. There's still a noticeable gap between these avatars and Crimson Flame's true body."
"Even so, there are just too many of them! Look closely—the weapons Crimson Flame is using aren't just for show. Every strike is lethal, far more aggressive than before."
Amid the clamor of discussion, several cultivators already sensed an ominous foreboding.
They attempted to depart via the teleportation arrays, only to discover in horror that every array had stopped functioning.
Panic began to spread across the island in small waves. A few cultivators took to the sky in escape lights, hoping to fly away from the Congyun Sea alone.
However, most cultivators still believed the Immortal Lords of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals would not fall. They focused their rapt attention on this world-shaking battle.
At first, confronted by the sudden emergence of the eighteen Crimson Flame avatars, the five Soul Formation figures were indeed caught flat-footed. Every one of them was left severely wounded.
Still, with their Soul Formation cultivation, they were not so fragile as to be killed in an instant by these divided avatars. Under Zhang Zhiliang's potent support, they gradually regained their footing.
Even so, they remained heavily suppressed by the swarm of avatars.
"Everyone, stop holding back now!" Immortal Lord Hongxi's voice rang out.
"Go all out! As for who achieves Dao Integration in the end, it will depend entirely on our own fortune!"
"Just as I wished! Allow this old man to show his humble skills first!" Immortal Lord Haoxuan's hearty laughter reverberated through the realm. "Hit!" With a thunderous roar, eighteen silver arrows appeared without any sign of where they were loosed from.
Instead, they materialized abruptly upon the Crimson Flames, piercing clean through their chests!
"Lancang River cascades from the Ninth Heaven!" High in the firmament, river waters plummeted from afar.
Falling into the mortal plane, the torrent split into eighteen, clashing with the avatars like eighteen silver dragons.
*Creak...*
Tiny peaks, each merely the size of an ordinary person's finger, descended upon the heads of the Crimson Flames. A terrifying sound, as if space itself was being crushed, rang out. A prominent dent was pressed into each Crimson Flame's head, and as the peaks continued to sink, the rest of their bodies threatened to be crushed to powder.
The black-and-red sludge swelled violently with feral ferocity, also dividing into eighteen strangely shaped beasts that tore at the Crimson Flames.
The situation shifted once more, the battle turning abruptly fierce and deadlocked.
Shockwaves from their clashes swept continuously across the Congyun Sea below, whipping up colossal waves. Even Wanxian Island shook without pause, as if struck by an earthquake.
Dividing into eighteen was apparently an immense drain on Crimson Flame as well. Her color visibly dimmed.
With Zhang Zhiliang acting as a super-supply station, the Soul Formation Immortal Lords depleted far less energy. Gradually, the tide of battle began tilting in the cultivators' favor.
Sun rose and moon set; in the blink of an eye, three days had passed. Drained to exhaustion, Crimson Flame merged her eighteen avatars back into one.
Flames still flickered across her form, yet her former might was vastly diminished.
"Die!" Tianyang's murderous voice rang out again. Reconstituted into the black-and-red puppet, he slammed violently into Crimson Flame.
As if coordinated with Tianyang's strike, the waters of Lancang, the silver arrows, the Inverted Mountain, and the falling starry river all erupted in concert.
"Is Zhang Zhiliang still not going to make his move?"
"And Ye Feipeng..."
Seeing this battle to slay the anima of Heaven and Earth drawing to a close while neither of the two had made a move, Li Fan could not help but wonder.
He flew slightly higher and scanned his surroundings, trying to spot any sign of Ye Feipeng.
"Hm?" When he took in the surrounding scene, Li Fan's heart skipped a beat.
While all the cultivators were fixated on the epic battle in the heavens, Li Fan noticed that the surface of the Congyun Sea had dropped drastically without anyone realizing.
It was as though vast volumes of seawater had vanished into thin air; as far as Li Fan's eyes could see, in shallower waters, the seabed was now exposed.
"So he really hasn't given up." Remembering the Kunpeng divine ability Ye Feipeng had comprehended, Li Fan's eyes flickered.
Even as Li Fan took in the surroundings, Crimson Flame overhead finally showed signs of defeat under the relentless strikes of the five Immortal Lords.
The flames on her body guttered like a candle in the wind. The five Immortal Lords' finishing blow was imminent.
"Allow me to lend you all a hand as well!" Zhang Zhiliang's voice rang out right on cue. Yet to Li Fan's ears, his tone bore a hint of chilliness.
The hundreds of thousands of array coronets sealing the battlefield glowed faintly in unison, then went dark at the same moment.
The moment they vanished from the canopy, they quietly shifted positions. In a flash, a new formation snapped into existence.
"Spirit Convergence!"
Zhang Zhiliang's indifferent voice echoed once more.
That command had been heard countless times on the battlefield, and the cultivators present, including the Immortal Lords locked in combat, had grown accustomed to it.
However, unlike before... a giant, shut eye appeared in the sky. As the words "Spirit Convergence" rang out, the eye snapped open.
The super Spirit Gathering Formation activated—only, the area being drained of spiritual energy was no longer the Congyun Sea, but the battlefield beneath the eye's gaze!
The density of spiritual energy around them plummeted at a frightening rate. The five Immortal Lords realized something was amiss immediately.
"Zhang Zhiliang, you court death!" Immortal Lord Hongxi's voice, brimming with shock and fury, resounded across the firmament. The Inverted Mountain changed targets, hurtling toward the solitary eye in the sky. Yet the space ahead twisted continuously.
The unimaginably heavy mountain, seemingly capable of crushing all things, simply could not reach the eye in the sky.
Not only that, but the attacks from the other Immortal Lords, who had snapped back to their senses in furious outrage, also failed to breach this sealed pocket of space.
All of their attacks came to naught.
"The Liangyi Microcosmic Formation? You broke through to the Soul Formation realm?"
At this moment, Immortal Lord Ziyun, who had remained silent from beginning to end, finally spoke. Her crisp voice caused the expressions of Hongxi and the others to change drastically.
Zhang Zhiliang kept silent.
To the side, Crimson Flame, though heavily injured, seized this opportunity to attack the stunned Soul Formation Immortal Lords.
Hongxi and the others were forced to turn back and fight Crimson Flame.
Only, this time, not only had the spiritual energy within the Liangyi Microcosmic Formation drastically plummeted—denying them any recovery—the solitary eye in the sky also cast its gaze down from time to time, freezing their movements in place.
Before long, subjected to the pincer assault of Crimson Flame and Zhang Zhiliang, the Immortal Lords were battered and covered in wounds.
"Zhang Zhiliang, you are a dignified Soul Formation cultivator and a grandmaster of formations! How could you act so despicably?"
"Are you not afraid of becoming the laughingstock of the world?" Immortal Lord Lancang raged.
His reply was the deathly glare of the solitary eye.
Immortal Lord Hongxi had never imagined that they would fall victim to the schemes of their former subordinate. "Senior Jinri, please aid me in escaping!" he shouted anxiously.
The great sun in the firmament hesitated for a moment, then cast down a beam of golden light. But just as this beam was about to strike the solitary eye, a patch of dark cloud abruptly surfaced, blocking the light.
"Kid Zhang, go ahead and do what you must without worry! Jinri, that old bastard, won't be getting in your way!"
Zhang Zhiliang finally spoke at this moment: "My thanks, Senior."
"Heiya?!" Jinri's voice, tinged with surprise and fury, reverberated across the firmament.
Yet facing the dark cloud obscuring the golden sun, Immortal Venerable Jinri fell silent. Moments later, the sun blanketing the Congyun Sea slowly withdrew.
"Senior Jinri!" While parrying Crimson Flame's attacks, Hongxi let out an almost despairing cry.
There was no reply.
Seeing that their backer had also chosen to abandon them, a starry river suddenly flashed across the sky. Immortal Lord Ziyun transformed into starlight, piercing through space-time in an instant. Without a second word, she fled into the distance.
The solitary eye gazed into the distance, retracting its gaze after a moment. Zhang Zhiliang chose not to pursue, merely looking on as the trapped beasts fought to the death inside the Liangyi Microcosmic Formation.
To Crimson Flame, everything before her was an enemy to be destroyed, so her offensive never slackened for a moment.
And for the remaining four Soul Formation cultivators, survival was instinct. Facing Crimson Flame's onslaught, they could hardly refrain from striking back and simply close their eyes to wait for death.
Yet heavily injured and deprived of the aid of Jinri and Ziyun, how could they possibly match Crimson Flame?
Thus, despite their profound reluctance,
they were forced to play right into Zhang Zhiliang's hands, expending their very lives to whittle down Crimson Flame's remaining power.
Immortal Lord Lancang was the first to fall. Haoxuan and Hongxi died soon after. Only Tianyang, endowed with the most tenacious vitality, still struggled to hold on.
With the moment of harvest imminent—slaying an anima of Heaven and Earth and attaining the realm of Dao Integration Immortal Venerable right before his eyes—even someone of Zhang Zhiliang's shrewd composure could not help feeling a surge of excitement.
Just as he prepared to make his move,
he abruptly discovered that a shadow covering the entire Congyun Sea had fallen over him without his noticing.
With a roar like the splitting of heaven and earth, a terrifying exotic beast of indescribable proportions suddenly surged up from the ocean floor.
In a single gulp, it swallowed him along with Crimson Flame, who remained sealed by countless array coronets.
Chapter 303