Chapter 213 - Battle Formation
Immediately, the blue small flag gave a buzz and after a wave, dots of blue light flew out. In addition, these dots vaguely formed the shape of waves that surrounded Liu Ming.
Liu Ming was surprised as he started to wave the flag and the waves also started moving as if they were real.
Suddenly, the flag in his hand pointed a couple of times forward.
Then, the waves curled and seven to eight thick white lines shot out and smashed into the wall.
The fortified wall was now covered in trembling light. Several holes, each differing in size, had appeared out of nowhere on the wall’s stone surface.
Seeing what had happened, Liu Ming frowned.
This was not particularly powerful for a mid-tier Totem.
As he was consumed by this thought, he inhaled deeply. The small blue flag blurred before he stuck the flag into his stomach and starting rapidly making hand signs.
Liu Ming"s body became obscured, then gradually became transparent before finally dissolving into the wave, vanishing without the slightest trace.
The wave thrashed to and fro in the center of the room, then shot skyward and stuck to the roof layer by layer. It then morphed into a vortex, whirling violently in the air.
A m.u.f.fled sound came forth from the wave. Suddenly it split into two blobs and after another burst of blue light, from each of the centers of the blobs unexpectedly emerged a shadowy figure of a half-translucent man. Incredibly, the two figures were identical to Liu Ming both in face and in dress. The two gazed at each other from a distance and could not tell real from fake. “Amazing – I never thought that this little treasure could change in such an astonishing way. How fortunate that on the day I faced my enemy, that member of the Sea Race, I did not give him cause to unleash the full strength of this Totem.” One of the shadowy figures morphed into a wave and crashed down as the other materialized into Liu Ming in his original form.
Now, though, his face was flush with surprise.
And like this, a few days later, Liu Ming and Hu Chunniang had ensconced themselves in the dwelling.
One was quietly healing, recovering Yuan Qi; the other was intensely concentrating on familiarizing himself with his recently acquired mid-tier Totem.
However, during this time period, all of the factions of Xuanjing had sent people to probe the barrier surrounding the palace and try to break through it, or at least to try to find its weak points.
The light barrier constantly changed accordingly, bearing with ease any sort of attack thrown at it. It seemed to have no weak points whatsoever.
Probably the only result to have emerged from these few days of probing was that the factions understood that no single faction would be able to breach this barrier alone.
Another two days later, the factions of Xuanjing seemed to have finally found the means to break through the palace barrier.
On this day, at exactly midday, thousands of cultivators who had been sitting outside the palace suddenly rose on command and started to form into ranks.
In an instant, three enormous ranks of various compositions had formed at the palace’s main entrance.
In one rank, each cultivator had a misty white sword. In another rank, each cultivator brandished a long, jet black knife. In the final rank, the cultivators donned light silver snares.
Some loose pract.i.tioners nearby saw this and were quite shaken!
Some of the more experienced among them were even more taken aback and several quietly uttered the two words “battle formation.”
At the same time, several strong people with odd auras flew out from among the thousands of allied cultivators.
From among them, an old man walked out and pulled a disc-shaped eight-trigram from his chest, slowly raising it high and pointing it towards the palace.
“Well if it isn’t the Great Master Rong, Xuanjing’s number one formation master. Looks like this time we might have a hope of breaking through the barrier!”
One of the loose cultivators watching from the sidelines called out with delight upon recognizing the old man.
The other cultivators who either recognized the “Great Master Rong” or had heard his name before also joined in the call, pleasantly surprised.
It was just at this moment that this Great Master Rong took the eight-trigram and suddenly hurled it high in the air, shooting out a one-handed hand sign at the same time.
A crisp sound rang out
The Eight Trigram Plate’s flashed and a huge illusory formation faintly flashed out for the fraction of a second.
“What are you fellows waiting for? Help me out here!”
Master Rong shouted out loudly!
Immediately, the other cultivators who had flown out broke into two ranks and stood at the ready as if prearranged. Each placed both of his arms on the shoulders of the one in front of him, and the two who stood at the front placed their palms on the old man’s back.
Two waves full of pure Fa Li violently surged towards Master Rong’s body.
The old man could only feel his body exploding with Fa Li, his Spiritual Pulses completely filling and surging with pure Fa Li, seemingly about to make his body burst open in the next moment.
The old man dared not hesitate and his ten fingers shot out at the light formation in succession like a wheel, each hand sign falling on all sides of the light formation with unmatched precision.
Each time he pointed, the light formation swelled, and in an instant, it had expanded to seven to eight meters in diameter large.
At just this moment, with a “weng weng” sound, countless multicolored symbols danced out from the center of the colossal light formation. After the formation quivered for a moment, a thick white light beam shot from its center and after a flash, slammed violently into the light barrier in front of the palace.
Upon the smash of the light beam, a ripple started to appear on the surface of the once-thick light barrier, and for the first time, the barrier began to flash slightly.
At this moment, from among the thousands of cultivators grouped into the three battle formations in front of the palace, an unidentified voice called out, “Let’s go!”
The hundreds of cultivators holding swords moved their weapons as one, the aura from their swords slicing through the air with one chop. The swords instantly combined to form one enormous sword of light, ten-odd meters in length before it ferociously descended into the light barrier in front of the palace in one fell swoop.
An earth-shaking boom resounded.
The blue light barrier suddenly bent inward, and the light started to flash intensely.
Precisely at the moment in which the sword of light vanished, the hundreds of other cultivators who were holding blades similarly thrust their blades into the air in a single slash, the dense light from the blades flew up with a twirl. The light then combined, becoming an enormous black knife of light, ten-odd meters in length, and gave off an astounding aura as it fell.
Another boom!
The black knife of light cut into the same place on the light barrier, instantly producing a “ci la” sound. A pale white mark appeared on the light barrier.
Witnessing this scene, the other loose cultivators let out a sound of surprise, their faces full of delight.
Now, the last several hundred cultivators wearing silver snares positioned themselves and threw up their snare-covered fists. A thickly dotted silhouette of a fist shot up, whirled itself into an enormous fist of light and then slammed down on the light barrier’s white mark.
Given the astonishing strength of the fist of light’s attack, no one had any doubt that it would spell the light barrier’s downfall.
However, just at this moment there was suddenly a blood-colored light in the center of the palace. A blood-colored sword of light several meters long shot skyward, and in a flash, pierced through the light barrier, resting violently upon the silver fist of light.
With a loud bang, the blood-colored and silver lights mixed together, and finally disappeared simultaneously in a flash.
Seeing this, the ten-odd high-ranking cultivators of the various factions who had been transmitting Fa Li into Master Rong’s body uninterruptedly were all shocked, and their gazes were unwittingly drawn to the center of the palace.
They saw grey clouds rising to the sky. Above, more than ten human cultivators in various dress stood tall.
These cultivators were all old and grey, though each of them brandished a sword where a pale blood-colored light emitted from the top, they were expressionless.
“Gong Sunlong, Xuan Du, Feng Tianhua, you guys! Do you realize that the current master of the palace is not one of us humans? Surely you wouldn’t defy us all to help the enemy?” A high-ranking cultivator of one of the factions with a head full of grey hair and an appearance likewise advanced in age, after discerning the ten-odd cultivators’ appearances clearly, shouted at them in shock.
Others were up in arms as well.
These so-called Gong Sunlong, Xuan Du, and Feng Tianhua were the three leading commanders among the Gold Spirit Guests other than Qiu Longzi.
At this point, others recognized some of the other human cultivators, and cried out “imperial cultivators.”
The other old men were Spirit Apostles that the imperial family had painstakingly trained during these year and outstanding ones at that. They were all at the rank of Late Perfection Spirit Apostles.
But these imperial cultivators and the three Gold Spirit Guests were not paying attention to what was happening outside the light barrier, rather, they were just holding their swords and gazing outward, coldly and silently.
The strangeness of the scene caused the high-ranking cultivators of Xuanjing’s allied factions to look at one another in concern.
“Don’t delude yourselves thinking that they will listen to you. Since they have learned my cultivation method, it is up to me if they live or die. How could they possibly risk their little lives for you?”
At this moment, a slow, drawn-out voice rang out from the center of the palace. Thickly dotted silhouette of human figure, an impressive array of palace guards clad in armor, two or three hundred in the group, flew out.
However, on top of the foremost cloud stood a lady adorned in jewelry and clad in blue imperial robes.
It was Empress Dong!
“It’s you, Empress Dong. You are a member of the Sea Race after all!”
One of the high ranking allied cultivators had evidently seen Empress Dong before, and upon seeing her perform technique, angrily yelled out.
However, as his gaze pa.s.sed over the hundreds of guards, a sense of terror grew unwittingly in his heart.
These guards exuded a very strong aura and the weakest of them was at least a Middle Spirit Apostles. There were even a few among them who were carelessly releasing spiritual pressure that made him, a Late Perfection Spirit Apostle, feel afraid.
“Oh, it’s the master of the Wind and Cloud Tower, but does my current status really matter now? I only came out to tell you one thing – don’t fool yourselves into thinking that you will be able to break through this barrier. This barrier of mine is connected to the entire formation; as long as I support it, even if you were to exert more than ten times as much force, it wouldn’t nearly be enough. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen to me and fall back. In two months’ time, the formation will have exhausted its energy, and all will be well. Otherwise, given that I have prepared for this many years, do you really think I do not have the proper techniques to deal with you?”