Chapter 77: Demonic Calamity (1)
As per usual, Su Chen performed his experiments as he continued to guide Iron Cliff’s cultivation - ever since dividing responsibility over the Flight Network, the pressure on Su Chen had greatly decreased.
Iron Cliff was cultivating the True Spirit Sculpture. After developing the Theurgy Arts, Su Chen realized the importance of consciousness power. Not only did he spend more time on personally cultivating his consciousness power, even Iron Cliff was dragged into it.
However, to the Cliff Race, cultivating consciousness power was extremely difficult.
As he practiced, Iron Cliff’s eyelids began to droop before he began to snore rhythmically.
“Sizzle!” A coil of flames descended on Iron Cliff’s skin and sizzled as it burned. The pain immediately jolted Iron Cliff awake, and he hurriedly resumed his cultivation. The area that had been burned away by the flames very quickly recovered and disappeared without a trace.
As Su Chen watched the wound recede, he sighed, “It seems like if you keep cultivating this True Spirit Sculpture, your consciousness power might not increase much, but your ability to resist flames will go up.”
Iron Cliff scratched his head. “Master, the Cliff Race has always had weak consciousnesses. We never relied on something like this, so I might not end up using this ever even if I practice it.”
“This is exactly why I keep pressing you to cultivate your consciousness power,” Su Chen replied. “No Light Shaking Realm cultivator has ever appeared amongst the Cliff Race. I a.n.a.lyzed your bodies before; actually, there aren’t really that many differences between the Cliff Race’s body and a human’s body. Even though your physique is much brawnier, the core essence is quite similar. But in terms of consciousness power, the Cliff Race is a bit weaker than humans. If you want to condense your Lotus Platforms and reach the Light Shaking Realm, you will need the support of your consciousness energy. That’s why I think that the bottleneck afflicting the Cliff Race is actually their consciousness energy.”
“Alright, then I’ll keep cultivating,” Iron Cliff replied helplessly.
“It’s alright. Let’s take it a bit at a time; after all, we have a lot of time on our hands,” Su Chen chuckled.
“Ok,” Iron Cliff agreed. He was worried about falling asleep again, so he picked a new topic of conversation on his own. “Right, Master, what time are you thinking of asking the Gu Clan for an engagement?”
“I still need to wait for a good opportunity to make everything feel natural. Don’t talk too much - focus your attention and release your consciousness. Try and spread it externally, using your consciousness energy to sense the outside world…… Tell me, do you feel anything?”
“Wind is blowing past my face, water vapor in the air is floating around, and Origin Energy is flowing……” Iron Cliff slowly said as if he were sleeptalking. Everything he was sensing was exactly what a beginner consciousness cultivator would sense.
Su Chen nodded with satisfaction. Even though Iron Cliff seemed like he was a bit dense, he was actually quite a bit smarter than most other Cliff Race individuals.
“I also…… smell something b.l.o.o.d.y,” Iron Cliff said as he sniffed a few times.
What?
Su Chen was taken aback before he suddenly sensed something as well. His expression sank.
Iron Cliff was still sitting there sensing the environment with his eyes closed. “I sense a pressing wave of power getting closer and closer…… it seems primordial and wild in nature…… What an imposing presence! It feels hard to breathe!”
Iron Cliff’s body began to tremble. He yelled loudly, “What is this? Master, how come I feel like darkness is encroaching?”
“Because it is,” Su Chen replied coolly.
Iron Cliff’s eyes snapped open. He saw that the skies above him had suddenly become dark without even realizing it.
The darkness rolled over the ground like a thick fog. Swallow River City was completely shrouded in darkness now.
As day seemed to turn into night, a formless pressure enveloped the surroundings.
“This…… what’s going on?” Iron Cliff was shocked.
“It’s just as you said and sensed,” Su Chen said slowly.
Whoos.h.!.+
Boom!
A streak of lightning flew through the air, thunder booming behind its wake. It charged towards them and disappeared off into the distance almost seemingly at the same moment.
The darkness seemed to grow denser as a wild aura began to pervade the very air.
“It’s a Demonic Beast! A huge one!” Iron Cliff blurted out.
He finally understood what was happening.
Demonic Beast Infiltration!
Even though the humans had set up a large army at the border to defend against the Beast Race, it was inevitable that large numbers of Demonic Beasts broke through those defenses and infiltrated human territory. They would then unleash slaughter and chaos upon their prey.
Any Demonic Beast that could break through the border guards was definitely no normal Demonic Beast.
Dark clouds filled the sky and Demonic Qi surged into the air. It was obvious that a powerful Demonic Beast had arrived on the scene.
“Lord-Cla.s.s! It has to be at least a Lord-Cla.s.s beast!” Iron Cliff yelled in shock.
As if in response to Iron Cliff’s yells.
“HOWL!”
A thunderous howl pierced through the dark clouds, shortly followed by the emergence of a ma.s.sive head.
The head was as large as a house, and its snake-like lower body looked almost like hills contouring the ground. Lightning flickered across its eyes.
As soon as the ma.s.sive snake appeared, it opened its gaping mouth at the ground below it. A thick column of lightning suddenly beamed down onto the ground, slamming into the west side of Swallow River City. It was as if a blade had suddenly descended from heaven and carved out a ma.s.sive crater in the ground. Anywhere the lightning went, the people nearby were instantly incinerated.
Powerful, vicious, frightening, explosive!
This was the power of a real top-tier Demonic Beast.
“Demon, don’t think you can get away with acting so brutishly!” At this moment, a voice boomed through the sky as a streak of light shot into the air.
It was Gu Xuanmian.
Streaks of brilliant light flew forth from his hand. They glowed like stars in the darkness, illuminating the dark sky. They landed on the Lightning Snake’s body and exploded in a fiery blaze.
This was the Gu Clan’s Flying Flower Hands. However, under Gu Xuanmian’s control, this skill appeared to take on a life of its own.
However, the ma.s.sive snake completely ignored him. It crashed head-on into the flying flowers and opened its mouth wide.
Another column of lightning shot out of its mouth, but this time it was directed at Gu Xuanmian.
When faced with this column of lightning, Gu Xuanmian didn’t dare tackle it head-on. He hurriedly dodged, avoiding the attack. The column of lightning shot past him and slammed into the ground.
Just as another hundred people were about to be incinerated by the blast, another streak of white light surged forwards, intercepting the column of lightning.
“Six-Directions Battle Elephant!”
With a loud howl, a ma.s.sive image of a white elephant appeared and forcefully endured the blow from the column of lightning.
“It’s the Fang Clan’s Patriarch, Fang Zhaoyang!” the people below cried out one by one.
At the same time, two figures shot into the sky.
One was dressed in white robes, while the other was dressed in golden armor. It was the other two Bloodline n.o.bility Clan Lords: Liu Wusheng and Zhong Yuanqi.
As soon as the two of them appeared, Zhong Yuanqi yelled, “Every cultivator at the Light Shaking Realm, join forces with me and face this beast!”
“Yes, sir!”
Following his yell, twenty or so people shot into the air.
Swallow River City was truly one of the larger city’s in Longxi Region. There were many more Light Shaking Realm and above cultivators present here than in Clear River City.
When there was no joint enemy, these Bloodline n.o.bility Clans often fought amongst one another and exploited each other. But Su Chen had to admit that as soon as a joint enemy appeared, the people serving as the backbone of the entire human race were also these Bloodline n.o.bility Clans.
It was undeniable that, despite all the sc.u.mmy things that happened here or there, most people were still aware of what their duties were.
The Bloodline n.o.bility Clans enjoyed their high status most of the time, but they would still be on the front lines when they needed to fight.
Even so, that ma.s.sive serpent only glanced disdainfully at the Origin Qi Scholars surging in its direction.
Then, it let out a low howl.
The howl reverberated like that of a dragon’s.
Following that howl, the thick column of lightning appeared again, but this time there were more than a hundred of them that formed a densely weaved net of lightning that crashed down onto the entire city.
“Demonic King! It’s a Demonic King!” Panicked cries began to fill the air.