Against The Heavens

The talisman he received was in the shape of a silver crescent moon, the same one they had used when Li Yang was first brought to the Yuan clan. With this talisman, he could not only use all the spatial arrays of the Royal Dragon Pavilion, but also all of the permanent spatial arrays that the Yuan clan had over the continent. Thanks to several arrays built into the talisman, as well as the fact that it was refined by the Yuan clan patriarch, even if he lost the talisman, the Yuan clan could activate the arrays and have the talisman return on its own.

After picking up the talisman, Li Yang walked to the edge of the clan, returning to the array they had used when he first arrived here. He placed the talisman against the formation, causing it to light up with a blinding light. s.p.a.ce around Li Yang turned viscous and constricting, coiling around him as he was sent away through s.p.a.ce.

Once the light vanished and s.p.a.ce returned to normal, Li Yang arrived in a small room that was completely empty, the walls and floor covered in winding runes that formed a complex array. Li Yang left the room and took a small flight of stairs upwards, opening a door that was located at the top of the stairs.

Once he pushed open the door, he was in the Royal Dragon Pavilion branch located in the Fire Cloud city where the contest to earn a spot for the Huo clan compet.i.tion had taken place. A female receptionist came up to Li Yang, but he simply showed her the talisman, proving that he had the right to use the spatial array.

He didn"t stick around Fire Cloud city for long, leaving it right after arriving. The first mission he intended on finishing was a bit of a distance away from this city, and it was to take down a group of bandits that had taken up shelter in a mountain. The group was a nuisance, but they stayed far enough away from Fire Cloud city that taking care of them was troublesome for the Fire Cloud city lord.

Li Yang quickly moved away from the city, running at full speed to cover as much ground as possible. After he ran so far that he was no longer able to see the city, he found a small and barren mountain that didn"t hold any people. He gave the entire mountain a quick sweep, making sure that there truly wasn"t anyone there, and then glanced at Jinwu and Shenlong.

"Alright you two, you can undo the disguises for a bit, let me see how much you"ve grown."

To hide the fact that Jinwu and Shenlong were Divine beasts, Li Yang made them disguise themselves, especially while they were in the Yuan clan. Because of that, even he didn"t know how much the two had grown over the last two months.

The two gave a short nod of their heads, putting some distance between them and Li Yang. Their bodies then started to change, Shenlong turning from his snake form back into his dragon form, stretching into a one-meter-long serpentine dragon. The violet spines that grew down his back had grown a little larger, and his four legs had grown a bit thicker. Li Yang guessed that since he was one meter long in this form, he would be half a meter long if he split up with Huanglong.

Jinwu, on the other hand, had changed quite a bit more after absorbing a large amount of fire in the Yuan clan training ground. Without the disguise, he was no longer the size of a normal crow, he was now one meter long and had a wingspan of three meters. His eyes had taken on a faint golden color, and although his feathers were still black in color, the tip of his left wing had a faint golden sheen, while the tip of his right wing had a faint blue sheen. It had only been two months, but both had grown quite a bit, making Li Yang rather happy, petting both of them on the head.

"You should try to keep your disguises on at all times from now on, with how you look now, I can"t really say that you are normal Demonic beasts."

One was clearly a dragon, while the other was starting to show signs of being a Golden Crow. If others saw them like this, it wouldn"t require too much knowledge to figure out what they were, something that could spell disaster for Li Yang and the two of them.

The two nodded their heads, returning to their previous forms of a small crow and a golden snake, each taking their usual position on Li Yang"s body, Jinwu perching on his left shoulder and Shenlong coiling around his neck. With both of them in position, Li Yang resumed his running, heading directly for the bandit hideout.

Since he was running at full speed, and in a straight line, he managed to reach the mountain that the bandits called home after only three days of constant running. His speed was drastically increased thanks to his Qi and laws of lightning, so three days of constant running was enough to cross a considerably vast distance.

The mountain that the bandits had taken as their base was shaped like a large hook, with the tip of the mountain bending forward and casting a shadow over the forest beneath it. The mountain was somewhat small, only around 10 kilometers tall. Somewhat short and gnarly trees created a large forest around the mountain, providing ample room for both bandit lookouts and Demonic beasts alike.

Li Yang hid in the forest right after arriving in it, covering up all traces of him and slowly sneaking closer to the mountain. He spotted two bandit lookouts while he was moving, but he simply steered around them for now, memorizing their locations. Once he reached an area close to the outskirts of the mountain, he stopped moving and hid among the treetops, using the leaves to hide his body.

He then glanced at Jinwu and Shenlong, who both already knew what they had to do. Shenlong split in two, Huanglong slithering off into the forest, and Shenlong slithering towards the mountain. Jinwu also took off, heading in the opposite direction of Huanglong, vanishing into the forest.

Li Yang had no intention of just charging into the bandit hideout, he first wanted to see how many bandits there were, and just where they were located. The mission summary contained a little bit of information about the numbers and strength of the bandits, but it was always better to make sure that you were certain.

Li Yang didn"t stay still either, activating his lightning-based search technique and starting to stealthily scour the forest, memorizing the locations of every bandit he encountered, as well as what direction they were moving or observing.

The four continued to do this for an entire day, before finally meeting up again at the spot where they had split up. Huanglong and Shenlong fused back together, and then Shenlong and Jinwu started to relay to Li Yang all the information they had gathered. After gathering all the information, Li Yang rubbed his chin slightly, gazing at the mountain with narrowed eyes.

"That"s quite a few, and there are a lot of tunnels and caves they can use to escape. Fighting in such enclosed quarters also isn"t something I"m terribly fond of..."

Their numbers were quite a bit larger than the mission briefing first mention, a little over 300 bandits of varying strength, with the leader having reached the middle stage of the Ascending Heaven realm. Jinwu and Shenlong didn"t interrupt Li Yang"s thoughts, quietly waiting until he snapped his fingers.

"Alright, I guess that"s the best option. Jinwu, Shenlong, can the two of you continue to keep an eye on this area? I gotta go pick up some things."

Even if the bandit leader had only reached the middle stage of the Ascending Heaven realm, Li Yang had no interest in taking on him and his 300 men at the same time. Jinwu and Shenlong nodded their heads, taking off and continuing their scouring of the area.

In the meanwhile, Li Yang started to run back to Fire Cloud city. Three days later, he stepped into the Fire Cloud branch of the Universe Merchants. He didn"t waste any time, walking over to the first person he saw wearing the uniform of the Universe Merchants, stating what he was looking for, flashing his silver talisman while he was at it.

"I need the blood of Demonic beasts that have reached the middle stage of the Ascending Heaven realm. They all need to have the earth or stone element, and I need about 300 liters of blood. I will also need a Stoneheart Flower, a Frostking Caterpillar, an Everlasting Crystal Core, a Mindchilling Ganoderma, and the heart of a Stonefaced Manticore who has reached the late stage of the Ascending Heaven realm."

The man he was talking to felt his head spin after hearing what Li Yang was looking for. This was the lowest level of this branch, so everything here could be bought using normal money, but everything Li Yang was looking for could only be purchased using Spirit Stones. This man was only a steward for the lower level, he rarely ever dealt with Spirit Stones. But he was still a professional, so he put on a calming smile and gave a slight bow.

"I"m afraid I"m not cleared to handle such items, please wait a moment while I bring over someone that can help you."

Li Yang nodded his head and proceeded to quietly wait while the man left, quickly returning with a charming woman with a buxom figure and flowing crimson hair. The woman had worked in this line of business for quite some time, so she saw that Li Yang wasn"t looking to waste time, so she immediately jumped to business.

"We have all the items you are looking for, but most will have to be taken out of our own storage and transported here using a spatial array, running up a small fee. The total for everything will be 3065 Spirit grade Spirit Stones."

Li Yang had expected the price, but he still felt a pinch. After buying the map in Cloud"s End, as well as counting what he got in the Yuan clan, he had only around 5000 Spirit grade Spirit Stones left, and he would need quite a few of those for his cultivation, so he couldn"t just hand them all over. After giving it a bit of thought, he took out 2000 Spirit Stones from his interspatial ring and handed them to the woman.

He then took out another interspatial ring, filling it with some of the items he had in his interspatial ring after his most recent endeavor in the Cloud Wilderness, where he killed people from the clans and sects. Once he felt that he had thrown in enough items, he handed the ring to the woman.

"Here are some Spirit Stones, and these should cover the rest."

The woman accepted the Spirit Stones and then swept the contents of the ring. After tallying up everything, a beautiful smile appeared on her face. She cupped her hands at Yao Jun, giving him a slight bow.

"Pleasure doing business with you, please wait while we prepare the items."

The woman sent away the man who Li Yang had first spoken to, having him fetch all the items. After waiting for half an hour, the man returned with some sweat on his brown, handing an interspatial bracelet to Li Yang. Li Yang checked the contents, nodding his head when he saw that everything was there.

He bade the two people farewell, and then left the Universe Merchants, running back to Jinwu and Shenlong. This was the third time within a short period of time that he was taking this path, so he popped two pills while running to make sure that he was still in peak condition.

Once he reached the spot where he had split up with Jinwu and Shenlong, he sat down and took a moment to rest, waiting for the two to return. Thanks to their bloodline connection, the two knew that he had returned, so they quickly hurried back and told Li Yang everything that happened during the six days he was gone. After hearing everything, Li Yang nodded his head.

"Alright, we"ll wait for nightfall, and then lure everyone into the mountain. Until then, I"ll be preparing a little."

After speaking, Li Yang took out the interspatial ring filled with everything he had asked for. He moved a bit further away from the mountain, to a place where he was certain none of the patrolling scouts would venture, and then took out everything from within the ring. These were the ingredients to an array he was planning on drawing up, making it easier to deal with the large number of enemies.

He inserted his Qi into the large amount of blood, causing it to turn into a ma.s.sive orb of blood that floated in front of him. He inserted some of his fire, causing the blood to slowly boil. He isolated the orb using some more Qi, preventing the smell from spreading out.

Once the blood was boiling, he threw in the Frostking Caterpillar and the Mindchilling Ganoderma. After tossing them into the boiling blood, Li Yang also inserted his Qi into the two ingredients, extracting their essence and fusing it with the blood. After both ingredients had been drained and melted into the blood, he threw in the Everlasting Crystal Core and the Stoneheart flower, repeating the process. The last thing he threw in was the heart of the Stonefaced Manticore, as well as a few drops of his own blood. Once his blood and the heart of the manticore were fully fused with the blood, he was left with a large orb of grayish-brown blood.

The process sounded simple, but it took Li Yang a little over half a day just to finish up the ingredients and prepare the ink for the array. And this was one of the simpler arrays that required little work, a different array might require several days, or in some cases, years to prepare. Drawing it would also take at least three hours, so he had to work fast once the sun set.

Once the sun vanished over the horizon and darkness fell over the forest and the mountain, Li Yang got to work. He put the orb of grayish-brown blood into a separate interspatial ring, drawing out small amounts as he moved around the entire mountain, occasionally even walking over the mountain. He slowly drew a large array that resembled the gaping maw of a dragon.

With the array fully drawn, the night entered its darkest stage. Li Yang returned to the forest but moved closer to the main entrance of the bandit hideout. Once he felt he was at a comfortable distance, he created a large orb of ice and threw it at the entrance.

The orb shattered, releasing the fire and lightning within it. The fire mixed with the lightning and caused a ma.s.sive explosion that shook the entrance, and the high heat caused the ice to vaporize and spread a thick mist over the entrance, blocking the vision of the guards there.

After doing this, Li Yang proceeded to calmly wait as loud shouts sounded out from the bandits. More bandits came out from the forest, swarming to the entrance, so Li Yang threw another orb of ice that added to the confusion. He then continued to wait, calmly observing as more and more bandits came swarming from the forest, desperately trying to protect their hideout from the enemy attack.

Once he was certain that all the bandits had gathered in the mountain, or at least very close to the mountain, he sent out some of his Qi and activated the array he had drawn up.

The entire mountain and the area around it started to release thundering cracking sounds after the array activated, thick spikes of stone growing up from the ground all around the mountain. Once a total of 108 spikes, each at least 200 meters tall, had grown up from the ground, they completely encircled the mountain.

A large crack then cut the mountain in half, and then it folded in on itself. The crack turned the circular formation of the 108 spikes into two half circles that now tried to smash together. The spikes pierced into the mountain and completely shattered it, causing it to collapse in on itself. What was once a strong mountain, was now just a ma.s.s of rubble.

The array didn"t stop after turning the mountain into rubble, it continued to press the mountain downward, causing it to sink into the ground and vanish. With the mountain gone, all that remained were some traces of the blood used to draw the array, as well as the shattered ground.

Li Yang stopped hiding, stepping forward and walking over to the shattered area. He stretched out an arm, sending some Qi into the array, giving it an order. The ground in front of him started to tremble, a pillar of stone starting to rise up in front of him. Laying on top of this pillar was the completely crushed and mangled corpse of the bandit leader, the only intact parts on his person were his head and interspatial ring.

Despite the attack looking so all-encompa.s.sing and brutal, Li Yang was able to control it perfectly. He had to deliver this head to prove that he had completed the mission, so he couldn"t risk having it get destroyed. He lopped off the head and picked up the interspatial ring, storing them both into his own ring before turning around and leaving. He had completed 1 mission, but 11 still remained.