Martial Peak

Moving around indiscriminately would only lead to triggering more Spirit Array traps, akin to seeking one’s death.

Sure enough, with all the Spirit Arrays arranged around Dragon Cave Mountain’s periphery, the more than eighty Saint King Realm cultivators that entered to probe its defences were wiped out in just half an incense worth of time.

Ning Xiang Chen could hardly believe his eyes!

That was eighty plus Saint King Realm cultivators! If he were to encounter such a force, he would have no choice but to avoid head on confrontation, but now, without even needing to deploy a single soldier, Dragon Cave Mountain had easily annihilated them.

What did a dragon den count for? This little hilltop was clearly more terrifying than any dragon den or tiger cave!

However, Ning Xiang Chen also realized that with the power of these Spirit Arrays alone, it would have been impossible to kill those eighty or so Saint Kings so quickly. The decisive factor was the expenditure of the master who had arranged these Spirit Arrays.

The Array Cores of each of these Spirit Arrays was actually a powerful artifact! With these Spirit Arrays powering these artifacts, the might they could display was greatly enhanced, making it impossible for those Saint Kings to put up any kind of resistance at all.

Just how many powerful artifacts were used to arrange all these Spirit Arrays? Ning Xiang Chen couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Back in Heavenly Fate City, Qian Tong and Fei Zhi Tu were also dumbfounded as they exchanged an astonished glance. Although they both knew that there were many Spirit Arrays arranged on Dragon Cave Mountain, they never thought that they would be able to display such power.

Eighty Saint King Realm had been sent in, but before they could even probe Dragon Cave Mountain’s depths, they had been eliminated. This time, the Xie Family, Myriad Beast Mountain, and Demon Blood Temple were bound to suffer a great loss.

“It seems Heaven Gathering Hall’s forces may not even need to move!” Wei Gu Chang snickered, taking great pleasure in others’ misfortune.

“Not necessarily!” Fei Zhi Tu shook his head slowly, “The attacking force only lost Saint Kings during this probe, none of the Origin Realm masters have acted yet. We should continue monitoring the situation.”

Wei Gu Chang pondered for a moment before nodding in agreement; after all, the might an Origin Realm master could display was in a different league compared to mere Saint Kings. While it was true that the Xie Family coalition had taken heavy losses just now, they hadn’t suffered a fatal blow.

Outside Dragon Cave Mountain, Xie Li, the old man from Myriad Beast Mountain, and the middle-aged man from Demon Blood Temple all wore gloomy looks, their expressions were all dark. None of them had anticipated that Dragon Cave Mountain’s defensive power would be so overwhelming. Even without those three drinking old men acting, all of the Saint King Realm disciples they had deployed had been killed.

If all the Spirit Arrays around Dragon Cave Mountain were this strong, Saint Kings wouldn’t be able to play much role here other than becoming sacrificial pawns.

After hesitating for a moment, Xie Li suddenly proposed, “Friends, shall we try attacking separately?”

“Attacking separately?” The old man from Myriad Beast Mountain frowned.

“Yeah, there seems to be a massive number of Spirit Arrays arranged at the front of this mountain, so breaking through from this spot won’t be easy. But since that’s the case, we can simply try attacking from different directions. This Xie doesn’t believe that this mountain is completely surrounded by such troublesome Spirit Arrays, it’s bound to have weak spots,” Xie Li explained.

“Yes, what Brother Xie says makes sense,” The old man nodded in agreement, feeling that what Xie Li said was correct, immediately following up, “Then this old master will take that side.”

Saying so, he pointed his finger towards a certain direction, signaling to the disciples of Myriad Beast Mountain to follow him, sat down on his Blue-Eyed Blood Toad and flew over.

The middle-aged man from Demon Blood Temple naturally had no objections and immediately brought his Sect’s disciples in the opposite direction.

The others from Sea Heart Sect and Flowing Cloud Valley did not move, instead choosing to stick together with the Xie Family and follow Xie Li’s lead.

Immediately, the coalition of forces split into three groups and began probing Dragon Cave Mountain’s defenses from three different directions.

Xie Li’s eyes flashed a ruthless light and issued a few commands before waving his hand and rushing towards Dragon Cave Mountain. Under his leadership, a dozen or so other Origin Returning Realm masters, accompanied by several Saint Kings each, split up and began advancing forward while maintaining a high degree of wariness.

Divine Senses began probing every rock and patch of grass on Dragon Cave Mountain, the invading enemy unwilling to miss the slightest detail or suspicious place in worry they would accidentally trigger a Spirit Array and doom themselves to disaster.

This extremely cautious approach soon bore fruit.

Several traces of Spirit Arrays were quickly discovered by these masters and were subsequently avoided with great vigilance. Even if someone did accidentally touch some restriction or trap, they didn’t fall into the kind of hopeless situation that had been witnessed moments earlier.

After all, with the addition of Origin Returning Realm masters, even if someone fell into a Spirit Array, they could put up some resistance.

What made everyone even more overjoyed was that, after the Spirit Arrays arranged around Dragon Cave Mountain had displayed such profound might, they seemed to have exhausted their strength and could now only display relatively weak attacks. Even if some of these arrays were triggered, they could be easily resisted by the Origin Realm cultivators.

After proceeding a distance of five hundred metres and not suffering any casualties, the attacking forces’ morale soared upwards as many people began directing malicious glares towards Chang Qi’s group of three who were still casually drinking. It was as if these invaders couldn’t wait to soar over to these three old men and cut off their heads to vent the anger in their hearts.

A moment later, the many cultivators following Xie Li arrived just twenty metres away from Chang Qi’s group of three and Xie Li raised his hand to signal his group to stop. Staring at these three old men with a cold glare, Xie Li sneered, “You three, if you have any other means, why not let this Xie experience them now? Otherwise, I’m afraid you won’t get a second chance.”

Hearing this, Chang Qi simply looked over at him without the slightest panic on his face and smiled very strangely, “Brother Xie, why do you think you were able to travel this far unscathed? Do you really think my Dragon Cave Mountain is so easily trespassed?”

These two faint questions caused Xie Li’s face to fill with alarm as he cried out, “Not good!”

As he spoke, he lashed out with a jet black long whip. This whip seemed to contain a potent Wind and Thunder Attribute energy and was clearly a powerful artifact. Striking out, it was like a dragon soaring out of the sea towards Chang Qi’s chest.

What made Xie Li feel strange though was that Chang Qi didn’t make any attempt to defend himself, simply remaining where he sat smiling towards him, not moving at all.

Xie Li’s plan had been to capture Chang Qi in order to force Dragon Cave Mountain to act cautiously lest he be hurt, but how could he have anticipated that facing his vicious attack, his opponent would not even try to resist?

[Hmph, courting death!] Xie Li’s eyes flashed sharply, not retracting his whip but instead pouring his Saint Qi into it, intending to instantly kill Chang Qi.

*Hong…*

With a loud bang, the jet black whip struck Chang Qi’s body and released a burst of lightning, splitting its target apart and reducing the nearby table and chairs to dust. Even Hao An and Ning Xiang Chen who were sitting nearby were not spared.

When Chang Qi’s body was torn apart, the two of them also burst into pieces.

However, there was no spattering of blood or smell of iron, nor did it feel like he had hit anything. Xie Li’s eyes shrank as he called out in shock, “An Illusion Array?”

Looking again, there was no table or chairs in front of him, and even the surrounding scenery had disappeared, being replaced by a dull grey world with no sun, moon, or stars. All that surrounded Xie Li was a barren world that stretched out without end.

Unexpectedly, he had stepped into an Illusion Array his enemy had arranged, causing Xie Li’s heart to sink.

What disturbed him even more though was that the Origin Realm masters who should have been accompanying him were now all gone, leaving just four Saint King Realm cultivators beside him.

It seems that the moment this Illusion Array activated, all the masters in his group had been separated and forced into a situation where they had to fight alone.

“How can this be?” Xie Li’s complexion became ugly. How could a puny little hilltop arrange such a profound Spirit Array? He suddenly felt that it was not a wise decision to provoke Dragon Cave Mountain.

While the group of cultivators headed by Xie Li were trapped in an Illusion Array, the group from Myriad Beast Mountain was also struggling hard.

The Myriad Beast Mountain cultivators, led by the old man, had detoured around Dragon Cave Mountain preparing to look for a weak spot in its defences. Everything had gone smoother than anyone expected and it seemed that the direction they had chosen to invade from had no powerful Spirit Arrays to block them. Without much difficulty, this group had soon made it halfway up Dragon Cave Mountain.

The old man leading the group even noticed that many cultivators were hiding inside a cave up ahead.

This caused the old man to rejoice and immediately prepare to end this once and for all by breaking into that cave and finding Yang Kai.

But all of a sudden, his good fortune came to an end as Monster Beasts of all different shapes, ranks, and sizes, seemingly composed of flaming red aura, strangely appeared all around his group just after this old man gave the order to attack.

The old man was shocked by what he saw as these Monster Beasts clearly didn’t have physical bodies and were simply condensed of pure Fire Attribute energy. On top of that, these Monster Beasts seemed a bit familiar to him.

It was not until one of the young disciples following him shouted that this old man suddenly realized that these things were the Fire Spirit Beasts that were supposed to be unique to the Flowing Flame Sand Field.

[How could these things appear in this damned place? There doesn’t even seem to be a strong Fire Attribute Aura in this area?]

Although he didn’t understand how this was happening, the old man didn’t show any fear and was even somewhat happy instead because Fire Spirit Beasts would produce Fire Crystal Stones when they died. Each Fire Crystal Stone was a treasure that could be used for Artifact Refining or Alchemy. The only shortcoming was that Fire Crystal Stones could only be acquired by Shadowed Star’s cultivators when the Flowing Flame Sand Field opened.

But now, with such a large group of Fire Spirit Beasts in front of them, the gains would definitely not be small if they could kill them all.

Feeling excited, the old man began coordinating with his Blue Eyes Blood Toad to kill these Fire Spirit Beasts.

Soon though, the old man noticed something wrong. No matter how many of these Fire Spirit Beasts he beheaded, none of them produced a Fire Crystal Stone! It was as if these Fire Spirit Beasts didn’t have Fire Crystal Stones to begin with.

Instead of a great harvest, this fight turned into an endless killing grind with several of the leading Fire Spirit Beasts equivalent to Ninth-Order Monster Beasts causing considerable casualties among the old man’s disciples.

The old man became enraged and used a powerful Secret Technique to cut open a path through these Fire Spirit Beasts.

Unfortunately for him, the Fire Spirit Beasts with strength equivalent to Ninth-Order Monster Beast simply refused to die no matter how much he attacked, as if they were immortal.

This situation occurred several times in succession, causing the old man to gradually become anxious.

Although most of these Fire Spirit Beasts weren’t difficult to deal with, enough ants would still be able to bite an elephant to death. If they continued fighting like this, besides a few of the stronger Origin Realm masters in this group, everyone else would certainly die.