The Pathway

On the other side, the colossal fire hydra was having a field day with the argonians and scavens. The ma.s.sive hydra"s body was at the level of a total-grade worldly artifact, despite being a pure fire princ.i.p.al. Since they couldn"t do much to its pure elemental body, the hydra was proving impossible for the army facing it, to defeat it. But the most dangerous thing of all, was its speed. The speed of its movement and attack, would rival that of a peak stage nascent soul.

At this stage, only two of the hydra"s head had been destroyed. Though, this drastically reduced its power, the hydra was fighting with more burning rage. It was now looking more of the annihilation of the argonians and the scavens. Already, more than half of their army had been destroyed by the hydra. The sheer display of power by the hydra, testified to its terrifying might and significance.

This was no ordinary, circle of Springflame, guardian. Whatever it was or they were, that the hydra was guarding, would be of top values. The more reason for the humans to get their hands on the treasures.

The hydran battle was huge, but, it was the battle between the two contingents" leaders, that drew Jufeng"s attention. The quality of the attack moves being displayed was staggering.

Jufeng continued to watch on, as the argonian blurred forward in a blue lightning shimmer. The green ma.s.sive body armour on the argonian body, started to disintegrate and was cascading from its body as it moved with impossible lightning speed. He had covered the ground between them less than a heartbeat, thrusting forward, in a thousand in one move, a glaive that was shimmering, violently, with blue lightning bolts. Shi Lingxin shadowed himself back in a blinding speed, but the argonian followed, exceedingly fast for a Jindan level cultivator, his lightning glaive distorting and causing spatial ripples as they continued to exchange strikes. In a mirage of movement, they traded thousands of blade strokes as they broke, and moved again, and again.

Jufeng could hardly follow the blurring speed of their movement. He couldn"t believe what he was looking at. They were supposed to be Jindan cultivators, but from what he was seeing, they were not in a making of Jindan. How could that even be? Straining his eyes, Jufeng continued to follow their movement in a valiant attempt.

The argonian had made a named martial arts move.

"The Lightning-glide."

This was a master level devastating martial art.

Shi Lingxin was blocking with total comprehension of the deadly outcome if he lost focus and make mistakes. Their weapons were moving too fast for other cultivators to clearly see. His defensive robe, turned a glancing lightning thrust in a shower of shadow sparks. The glaive continued to cause giant spatial ripples in the air as it pa.s.sed.

Suddenly, the argonian"s move changed without disrupting his initial attacking move. Staying in the blue lightning blurr, there were ma.s.sive lightning pulse and bolt webs, spiralling out of it. With every, thousand in one, thrust of the glaive, the spatial ripples were now burning the air and scorching a wide area of the ground.

Shi Lingxin went briefly onto the attack with a giant shadow burst and an array of eclipsing shadow spears in an attempt to disrupt the move. His attack would have caused mortal injuries to any low level cultivator, but each of the spears was met and blocked, and the sound of their blades came like a thunderous shattering gla.s.ses.

The argonian pressed his glaring opportunity. Like a blurring ancient caster, he dipped and weaved his way through the shadow burst, cutting through the shadow spears with his pulsating glaive. He spun in a double circle before releasing his glaive. The glaive turned to a thousand raging blue-white lightning bolt that sped towards Shi Lingxin, covering the whole area and causing spatial rifts.

Apprehension dawned on Shi Lingxin as he recognize the move executed by the argonian. A mystical art.

"The Rift-World."

The argonian had used two named move in succession. Shi Lingxin decided, he would have to use a named move of his too, otherwise, he would be in dire trouble. He made a firm hold on the ground with his feet and slightly shifting, he executed his own defensive move.

"The Silent-Shade."

Although it was a Jindan level mystical art, it was a powerful one still. The thousand raging blue-white bolts collided with the walls of shadow and disappeared. There was no sound of impact but the effect on Shi Lingxin, was a devastating one. How could the argonian be this powerful?

He was still thinking of how powerful the argonian leader was, when the argonian appeared in front of him with a glaive meant to pierce Shi Lingxin"s heart. Shi Lingxin was to turn with his spear and deflected the glaive to the side. The deflected thrust strike caught Shi Lingxin across the ribs. It didn"t do much damage to him but his robe was giving off large amount of shadowy smoke. A sign that the robe was loosing its potency.

Shi Lingxin whirled around and hurled gigantic shadow wraiths forward, but the argonian cut through them like water. Shi Lingxin was aware of the fleeing time. He knew they had limited time before the dawning of the Springflame for another hundred thousand years on the side of the argonians. The humans and the scavens already had their own periods. They would wait the dawn of time until it was their turn to explore the Springflame again. That was the traditional ways of things in Aalag.

This was the last day of the argonian period in Springflame and it was only a limited time now until the dawn of Springflame. No time to waste.

Then the argonian split into two images and one of the images flew forward to the left of Shi Lingxin while lightning bolts danced on the ground all around them. Shi Lingxin twisted with a powerful swift grace, parrying the lightning blow with his spear and filling it with more shadow essence as he swiped a mournful shadowy trail down the image"s chest, but his blow was turned by an eloquent slide of the glaive. The image had already pivoted out of the way when Shi Lingxin caught a glint of enormous red bolt in the air, from the right side, and quickly manifested a shadow dome of energy.

The impact was a deafening thunder. Jufeng, who had been achingly following the battles was on his knees, holding his head. With the pain in his head subsiding after a time, he looked around himself. There were few cultivators affected by the impact, but to his total astonishment, there were many cultivators still standing and watching.

The heaven"s forsaken body cultivators and the cursed argonians. Why couldn"t he have a body like that too? He had been practicing the Trueworld bodyweight technique since childhood. And the reverse one too. He looked at them again and observed their bodies.

"Tremendous bodies. They must have been practicing a great technique for thousands or millions of years."

He sighed and turned his attention towards Shi Lingxin.

The golden core dual cultivator had been, agonzingly, biding his time, as he battled the argonian leader. He had thoughtfully, observed what it would take for his ultimate move to be successful. They had two major obstacles. The hydra and the argonians alongside the scavens. He had waited for half of the hydra"s head to be destroyed before he finally decided to act.

He knew the argonian was stronger than him physically. Though, he wasn"t sure about the mystical arts, he knew that the argonian wasn"t better than him in martial arts. Although, he was aware of the argonian"s glaive as a low-grade heavenly treasure. He couldn"t delay any longer. It was time to leave the Springflame. Since he didn"t know the number of argonian contingents heading their way. The battle energy here would have resonated far into the distance.

Shi Lingxin had been relying on the Shadow-Lock to make his ultimate move. But the issue was to align the lock in a correct pattern around the argonians and the hydra. And now, the Shadow-Lock stones were in place. The last stone had been aligned correctly by a Jindan cultivator who managed to get behind the hydra after great difficulty. He threw six pellets of shadow into the air. Pellets that had taken hundreds of thousands of years to pack with refined shadow essence. His power at the Jindan level, couldn"t activate the Shadiw-Lock, but with six pellets holding hundreds of thousands of years of shadow essence, he could activate it. The pellets would be serving a greater purpose now.

With that, he activated the Shadow-Lock.

Jufeng watched as the whole place in front of him was quickly engolfed in a devastating shadow world. He couldn"t see through the shadows and the people inside, couldn"t come out either. This was a nascent soul level of mystical attack. Shi Lingxin had done this due to the shadow energy he had been storing inside the pellets. Genius. Jufeng took a glance towards the golden core cultivator in time to see him spun his spear overhead before slashing it down in an arc.

Jufeng continued to stare at the standing figure of Shi Lingxin while admiring his brilliant thinking. He was slowly nodding his head when he saw the figure of Shi Lingxin, disintegrated into nothingness.

"Uh?"

He looked around only to see others looking at the Shadow-Lock area without paying attention to the dissipated figure of Shi Lingxin.

"Am I missing something?"

He asked to himself silently, but his expression was that of bewilderment.

"Order Of The Afterlife."

A golden core cultivator beside Jufeng, slowly muttered.

"Only his uncle, the hegemon, has mastered the art. But he"s on his way to. This is a supreme martial art. Only two other confirmed martial arts of its kind, I know of. Pride of the True Glory and Oath Of The Fallen Souls."

He slowly turned his gaze towards Jufeng and spoke gravely.

"If you know a supreme martial art, then, you may be on your way to become a true legend."

Jufeng was still lost in thought, when the shadowed area became visible. The whole place was filled with the bodies of the argonians and the scavens. But the most disturbingly unusual thing, was the bodies of the standing argonians and the scavens. They were still standing with their eyes opened, but were long dead. The leader of the argonian was covered in transparent white stone. Or was he turned to a transparent white stone statue? Shi Lingxian was standing at the other end where the hydra was few minutes before. But the hydra was no longer seen.

This reminded Jufeng of Lang Hai and Liu Luoyang. The remarkably powerful martials arts he had seen them displayed. Truly, beyond words.

Shi Lingxin a.s.signed some of the body cultivators to stay guard while he arranged a few to himself. He opened the secret entrance to the large area under the circle of flame wirh the springster and turned to the few cultivators.

"Come with me."

This circle of Springflame was literally, a lake of Springflame. Inside the large area that resembled a conjecture of chambers, they found a relatively high amount of Iranium gold and silver coins. The place was not short of artifacts too. One low-grade luminous artifact, one pure-grade heavenly artifact and two high-grade worldly artifacts. This was more successful than they had antic.i.p.ated. Together with the Iradium coins they found in the other circle of flame, it was a heavenly blessed voyage.

"We are out of time here. We leave now."

The most difficult part now, was getting home. The only possible route back would be through the argonian pa.s.s. If they want to, safely, navigate their way through the argonian pa.s.s, they had to move before dawn. They had chosen the argonian Bardarth ceremonial day to use the pa.s.s. The argonians would be busy with their ceremonial festivity and focus less on the pa.s.s. Though, there was the dangers of the scrounging scavens, it had worked for them in the distant past.

It was a risk they had to take.

Under the cover of the invisibility array, they silently left the area. Few hours on the Iling ocean, they arrived at the they arrived at Ralat river where they diverted towards the argonian pa.s.s. As they neared the mountainous region of the pa.s.s, they could feel the eerie atmosphere that enveloped the whole area. Since they couldn"t turn back, they forged ahead silently. The invisibility formation was still active.

They were at the middle of the mountainous area, when they were all frozen in place. The cloudy mountain tops became clearer. Ten golden core scaven cultivators, led by two peak stage golden core cultivators, were at the top of the mountains. They were accompanied by two green robed argonian cultivators. Large white orbs of ice were floating around them.

Frozen Stars lock.

No escaping this one from the inside. Once it"s locked, everything inside including the s.p.a.cetime, would be frozen. The Orbs would then start to come together, hence, shrinking the s.p.a.cetime inside the lock. This would eventually cause the s.p.a.cetime to implode, thereby, killing all that was inside.

As the orbs were getting dangerously closer, a golden colored portal suddenly opened. The energy released from the opening of the portal, swiftly dispersed the orbs, thus, releasing the s.p.a.cetime of the area.

Jufeng and the other cultivators, apart fron Shi Lingxin, were not aware of entering the frozen lock. It was as if nothing had happened, that the s.p.a.cetime was flowing naturally the way it should be. Except, they had stopped moving at the middle of mountainous region and were sorrounded by an army of scavens and two argonians.

And a portal, that was opening in front of them.

A white robed elderly man with a flowing white hair, white eye brows and long white beards, came out of the portal. He was holding two small bags with intricate designs of pure beauty.

Almost simultaneously, two more portals opened and two men stepped out of the portals respectively. One was wearing a gold-lined emerald green robe while the other was wearing a glowing midnight black robe. Their ancient and powerful presence, couldn"t be mistaken in any circ.u.mstances.

Despite masking their auras, the divine presence of the three rulers had caused the cultivators to fall on their knees and bowed deeply. How could they even look at the faces of their mighty rulers? They could suffer grave consequences despite not knowing who the rulers were.

The white-robed elderly man gave the two men a curt nod as he spoke.

"Highest Giraq, King Lhunox. I meet you two well."

"Sovereign Yin Qiang. We meet you well."

Highest Giraq and king Lhunox returned the curt nod.

"And I believe your visit here is not interfering with these juniors" affair, sovereign Yin Qian."

"Sovereign Yin Qian wouldn"t intentionally do that, would he?"

"King Lhunox, don"t you know me before now? But since you mentioned it, wouldn"t they be spoiling this beautiful day and the gift I brought, as promised? If they continued disrupting this lovely peace?"

Sovereign Yin Qiang displayed the two bags as he smiled at the two rulers.