Against The Heavens

The others didn"t know what was going on, but seeing the ugly expressions that Li Yang and Fang Ying wore, they could easily guess that something had gone terribly wrong. After all, the two had stayed perfectly calm even when faced with the panther they just killed, so things must have gone really south for their expressions to twist like that.

They all quickly ran through the hallway and returned to the throne room, Li Yang and Fang Ying taking the lead. They quickly reached the throne room and spotted the three other groups, which hadn"t lost nearly as many members as them. Li Yang"s narrowed gaze swept over all of them, his lips curling slightly as he cursed.

"What the f.u.c.k did you idiots do? Do you have any clue what sort of s.h.i.t you"ve pulled?"

He could see that a surprising amount of the people from the other groups looked rather content, they had likely found some nice treasures that they took for themselves, awakening the Devil"s Grasp Vine in the process. A female youth from the Tian clan group frowned slightly at Li Yang"s vicious tone, berating him.

"You should watch your tone when speaking to your sen...!"

Li Yang"s hand grasped her throat before she got to finish her berating, lifting her up from the floor and clutching her throat, a cold stream of energy invading her lungs. A slight sneer appeared on his lips as he glared at her, his gaze slowly moving to the pink-haired leader of the Tian clan group.

"Unless you plan on telling me what sort of s.h.i.t you"ve pulled, just shut up. I have no interest in hearing about what sort of "seniority" you believe you have. You, what the f.u.c.k did you do? What sort of items did you pick up? And you better not try to lie to me, I really have no patience for that right now."

The leader of the Tian clan group frowned slightly at the scene, but not because of how Li Yang was acting, but by the speed he had just shown. The speed he had just used was at a level where even she would have to take him serious, she had been unable to step forward and block him in time. She quickly collected herself, casting a sideways glance at Fang Ying, who had taken a step forward.

"We didn"t find anything special, only a few jade slips that can at best be considered a decent find for clans as large as ours. You should be asking the other groups what they found, they seem quite a bit happier than us. Now, unless you want us to engage in a grand brawl, I suggest you let her go."

The pink-haired leader gently swiped her interspatial ring as she finished her sentence, her eyes narrowing faintly. She also took out the jade slips after she finished talking, proving her words. Li Yang continued to gaze at her for a short second before he gave a wave of his hand, tossing the girl at the leader in a dismissive manner. He then moved his gaze onto the two other groups, his intentions clear. The other groups clearly didn"t want to reveal what they had picked up, but after looking at the palace falling apart around them, and the other groups glaring at them, they were forced to respond.

"We found their pill room and managed to acquire a large number of pills, pill recipes, as well as a few materials that can be used to make pills."

"We found their herb garden, and although practically everything had dried up, we found a plant that had absorbed all the energy of the withered plants."

While speaking, both groups brought out the items they had picked up, not wishing everyone else to collapse on them. When Fang Ying and Li Yang"s gazes landed on the gnarled heart-shaped ma.s.s of wood and vines that the last group brought out, both of them clicked their tongues at once.

"A secondary heart, can"t believe you managed to find an unguarded one. But well done, you might have f.u.c.ked us all."

The man-sized ma.s.s of wood and vines was one of the secondary hearts of the Devil"s Grasp Vine. They would usually be guarded pretty strictly by the beast, but it seemed like it couldn"t properly set up a guard, even an instinctive one, while it was hibernating.

Li Yang and Fang Ying had destroyed a tertiary heart earlier, but those hearts were of lesser importance to the beast, it wouldn"t even notice a few of those going missing. But this secondary heart, oh it would notice the moment anything happened to one of these.

The other groups didn"t quite grasp the situation, and how dire it could be, but they could guess a little just by seeing how the palace was falling apart, some casting worried glances around them while some glared at the group holding the heart. Li Yang and Fang Ying locked gazes, nodding their heads and then quickly dashing for the palace entrance, they had to see just what the situation was in the rest of the city. The other groups quickly followed, choosing to seek refuge in numbers until they understood exactly what was going on.

They quickly reached the entrance, the palace crumbling and collapsing behind them as they ran. By the time they reached the entrance, the prison area where they had fought the panther had already fully collapsed, a loud crashing sound informing everyone of the area"s fate. When they reached the entrance and saw the state of the city, both Fang Ying and Li Yang realized that the situation was worse than they originally thought.

Since the palace was at the center of the city, which was elevated above the rest of the city, they could see that the entire city was starting to collapse. Th.o.r.n.y vines were breaking through the ground and rising towards the sky, a cage forming around the entire city and sealing off any escape routes. The densest ma.s.s of vines was located at the far end of the city, the location of the primary heart. Fang Ying swept the entire city with her gaze, having already fused with Langshen just in case something happened.

"What do you think?"

Li Yang fell into a short silence after hearing Fang Ying"s question, softly tapping his chin while his thoughts raced. After thinking for a bit, and going over everything he had in his a.r.s.enal, he shrugged his shoulders casually.

"We still don"t have everything needed to set up the weaker version of the Creation Sealing Array, but even if we had everything we needed it would do us no good. The weakened version would not be able to paralyze the beast now that it is awake, and angry. With that being the case, we"ll likely have to deal with it in a different manner, we"ll probably also have to give up on extracting the energy in the primary heart and focus on escaping."

The energy in the primary heart would be supremely useful to them, but they would be unable to enjoy it if they were dead so there was no point in being too hung up on it. Liang Chen took out a piece of paper and drew a rough map of the entire city, marking over a hundred spots on the map and then handing it to Fang Ying.

"Here, have everyone here take up positions in one of the marked spots and then head over to this spot here. Just tell them that we"ll all end up dead if they don"t listen. Or you can use force, just get them there. This is all the blood I have on me right now, drip it out as you move and connect the various spots together, draw these three runes in each spot I"ve marked, I"ll deal with these six spots."

Li Yang handed over almost every last drop of blood he had, he could only forget about using it for his cultivation. Fang Ying didn"t ask exactly what Li Yang was planning to do, she had absolute trust in him. Since he told her to do this, it meant he would do what he always did, find some way to deal with the situation at hand. She accepted the map with a nod of her head, both of them leaning forward and sharing a kiss before parting ways.

Li Yang turned around and dashed away from the palace, quickly moving closer to the primary heart. He was confident that Fang Ying would manage to get the other people to the designated spots in one way or the other, so all he had to worry about was his own task. While he moved, he spread out what little blood he had kept for himself, using it to draw several small runes in a few locations where Fang Ying would bring the others.

He quickly reached the spot that was his target, a wide-open plaza located about 100 kilometers away from the primary heart. He threw away the empty jug he was holding, a trail of blood stretching out behind him and connecting him to the spots where he had drawn the runes. With this, almost every piece of the grand array he was planning was done, it only missed one last ingredient, the blood of a divine beast.

Liang Chen took a dagger out from his interspatial ring and slit open his wrists, splashing his blood on the ground around him. He crouched down and started drawing up complex runes, putting the finishing touches on the array as he used his blood as paint and his finger as a brush.

Li Yang enjoyed arrays, they were so simple yet so complex. Each line had a specific purpose and would unleash a specific amount of energy, the lines gathered together and formed runes, which would amplify and stabilize the power contained in each line. The larger the array, the more runes one would need to draw, some arrays were so large and complex that they required one to use smaller runes as lines to draw up larger runes. Li Yang could easily lose himself in arrays, studying the countless number of modifications one could make to an array to change its effect.

But right now he could not afford to lose himself in the drawing of the array and how to improve it, he simply had to quickly finish up the array just as he remembered it. It took him a little over an hour to finish up the runes around him, the number of vines surrounding the entire city growing more numerous with each pa.s.sing second, slowly pressing down on the city like a compressor.

After drawing up the last of the runes, Li Yang let out a deep breath and took a small bottle out from his interspatial ring. The bottle contained a single drop of light blue liquid, it was the medicine he had received from the elders of the Yuan clan when he first met them. Just his natural healing wasn"t enough to restore his energy fast enough, he would have to give it a little kick to speed it up. He swallowed the liquid, an icy cool sensation running down his throat and filling his entire body when the drop entered his stomach.

The cuts on his wrists quickly started healing, the flesh on his arms wriggling as the wounds closed up and energy started to flood his body. Li Yang let out another deep breath, standing amidst the b.l.o.o.d.y runes while he waited for Fang Ying to finish spreading out the other people.

After another half hour, the b.l.o.o.d.y runes beneath him suddenly started to release a faint light and discharge waves of energy. Li Yang lowered his gaze and connected his mind with the runes, something he could do since he was the one who had drawn up the array and was standing at the core of it. Waves of violent energy quickly flooded into his body from the runes, filling his entire being and causing every inch of his body to scream out in pain from being overloaded with energy.

This array he had drawn up had one simple function, to drain the energy of everyone who was standing on one of the marked spots and channel it all into the core, into Li Yang. With more and more energy flooding into Li Yang, the sky above the city quickly grew restless, golden clouds of flame covering the entire sky. Arcs of golden lightning crackled within the clouds and split apart the air, deafening every living creature in the surroundings with their thunderous roar, as if they were heralding the approach of the end times. An icy rain started to hail down on the city, the Qi in the air itself freezing and falling to the ground.

With the help of the array and the gathered energy of over a hundred cultivators, as well as the energy contained within the blood used to draw the array, Li Yang was able to emulate a sliver of the might he had when he was still in his prime and feared as the Thunder Monarch. But now he no longer had access to just lightning, he also had fire and ice. And looking at the scenery he conjured right now, he would be more likely to be referred to as the herald of the apocalypse.