Chapter Seventy Six: A Well
“No Border!”
“Leave City!”
“Daybreak!”
Ding Ning’s face did not change, his voice was extremely calm. As he stepped forward, he called out the names of three sword moves and drew three paths with his left hand.
Shen Xuan, Li Xixing and Hu Jingjing were so shocked they went numb. Their vital energy moved almost unconsciously and each attacked.
The three different sword essences of distinctly different strengths once again caused a wondrous change. With a boom, a ball of golden light suddenly fell and scattered outwards. Dozens of golden rays slashed around and several more of the middle aged man’s flesh tentacles were cut.
The odd middle aged man opened his mouth and gave a real scream. But there was no use. With each tentacle cut off, he visibly weakened. The wind and rain he summoned was torn apart by Ding Ning’s clear shouts.
Ding Ning seemed to walk normally in the wind and storm. With every step towards this middle aged man, multiple tentacles were cleaved. He slowly walked in front of this man. As he reached the man, there were only a few tentacles left connected to the purple tree. The severed tentacles spewed energy in the air like cut blood veins.
Purple fluid flowed out of the middle aged man as the tentacles were hacked, and he appeared transparent.
Ding Ning walked until he was ten feet in front of this man and quietly looked at him.
The man reached out with both hands as though to grab him. Yet with this movement, the man could not stand up and fell backwards.
Shen Xuan, Li Xixing and Hu Jingjing stopped behind Ding Ning. The trio looked at this middle aged man who was looking up at the sky and their lips trembled uncontrollably. Nothing could describe what the they felt right now.
This was an astounding expert who had injured Shen Xuan with one peerless sword essence yet Ding Ning had managed to defeat the other by matching him move for move. This surpa.s.sed all their understanding, much less how he had verbally guided them to use different sword essence to fight back. Especially how Ding Ning did not just know their sword moves but how he managed to draw out their sword essence. This was something that no one had been able to do before in the cultivator world. All this was impossible and illogical. They did not know where to start.
Ding Ning looked in silence at the middle aged man who had fallen at the roots of the purple tree. This middle aged man had great power, and was able to respond to enemies yet he clearly could not think and did not possess a complete mind. This meant this middle aged man was not alive and also not a cultivator who used a secret method. Yet only he could clearly sense that the middle aged man still had a lively power, a kind of vitality.
What are you really? Why is it like this? He could not help but repeat in his mind. Then his gaze moved past this man towards the purple jade like tree behind him.
Previously, the middle aged man’s body and his terrifying presence had blocked their sight and senses. Now that the man had fallen, he could see the place where the man was connected to the tree was actually a crack. It was like someone had slashed at the tree and then many flesh tentacles had grown out of the wound and connected with this person.
But Ding Ning was certain that this middle aged man’s power did not come from this purple tree. The invisible little silkworms in his body were surging. Because of a strange presence, these little silkworms felt madly anxious and even terrified.
What could make the Nine Death Silkworm feel terror?
Ding Ning took a deep breath to calm himself down and then his gaze moved down. There was a well under the crack in the giant tree. The giant free should have grown from the edge of the well, getting bigger and bigger until almost the entire well was surrounded by the tree.
The well was square. There was no water in the well, only descending stairs and a kind of presence that Ding Ning did not know was dangerous or not.
Wind and rain swept through the world. Some of the powerful beasts fighting around the Mountain of Ancestors completely calmed down and scattered in shock. The peerless sword essence had disappeared and so had the spirit rain. Without the temptation of the rain, the beasts were overcome by terror and did not dare to look back. The stone dust and the sap of the odd green gra.s.s was still flowing down the slopes.
This Wuzhi shaman called Zhan Moke, a man who was both the state’s teacher and a prophet, did not seem to realize that his shoes were soaked in the green gra.s.s sap. He should be a very patient and stable man but when he stood on the mountain path and sensed that peerless sword essence disappear, his facial muscles twitched and his gaze was extremely complicated, containing many unspeakable emotions.
“It really was defeated.”
The sect master of Spirit Void Sword Sect, the legendary Gu Huai, thought the same but had different feelings. His odd smile held a hint of happiness and ruefulness.
“What is down there?” Wu Lianzi could not help but ask Zhan Moke, his curiosity overcoming his feeling of being betrayed.
That nimble and rapidly changing sword essence could not have been made by fixed restrictions or seal weapons. But the ancestral lands had been sealed for many years. Could there still be a peerless cultivator living there?
Then in the next moment, Wu Lianzi grew angrier. Because of scorn, Zhan Moke did not answer his question at all, not even looking at him.
Here, a prince of Wuzhi like him seemed irrelevant.
**
“How did you know my sword moves?” Under the purple tree, Shen Xuan stared hard at Ding Ning’s face like he was going to burn holes.
“You did not create this move. Since it was pa.s.sed down, there are many possibilities how I learned and this is not important.” Ding Ning met Shen Xuan’s hungry gaze and shook his head. He said quietly with great confidence, “The key is that I am stronger than you imagine and the stronger I am, the more working with me makes sense.”
“Are we going …To shatter this thing?”Li Xixing finally recovered his calm. He looked at the odd middle aged man trembling on the ground. Were they going to cut him up? Then he hesitated. He felt that this could not be described as a person. Regardless of what this was, he still felt it was extremely dangerous. If Ding Ning were not here, if it were him and Hu Jingjing here, his choice would be to crush this middle aged man and the purple tree until they were dust.
“No. They have come,” Ding Ning shook his head and said softly as he looked towards the slope. He started to walk and motioned for everyone to follow, including Shen Xuan who was staring at him silently.
However, he did not go towards the well, but moved to the other side of the purple tree and the rear of the well..
On the slope where stone dust mixed with gra.s.s sap in a flow, three figures appeared about.