Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“I’m going to the castellan’s manor to activate the formation.” Rou Lingyun watched as the last blood-red pillar of light burst forth and pursed her lips as she looked toward old man Li.

“Alright.” Old man Li glanced at her, then gathered qi around her to restore her severely injured body. He covered her and Li Yu with a protective barrier, then left for what used to be the castellan’s manor with the other cultivators in tow.

“There’s a change in the plan! This amount of resources alone was nowhere near enough to get through the two barricades and enter the void.” Xia Yun’s expression fell as she watched from the shadows. She had a bad feeling about this.

But nobody dared to trust each other, and the group had gone separate ways. So, even though she had noticed something amiss, there was nothing she could do about it.

“Damn it.” Gu Suihan’s wisp of spiritual sense inside Li Yu’s ring could see what was going on very clearly. But besides sending back information to Gu Suihan, there was nothing else it could do. “I can only hope that this formation isn’t strong enough to break the Qin emperor’s barrier. I don’t know what my master changed in the formation either,” it thought.

“The formation is 30 meters beneath the ground, so I’ll need everyone’s help,” said Rou Lingyun quietly after taking a deep breath and pointing downwards.

She had just uttered these words when the ground began to bubble like rolling waves, spraying in all directions and opening up to form an enormously deep hole.

Inside the hole, lines, and lines of formation runes were woven together and gave off a dim and frosty glow. A bright spark would go off every now and then, and the aura of the faraway, vast yet dark void slowly filled the hole. In the middle stood a terrifying-looking altar that was about ten meters in height. It was covered in signs of wear and tear, which made the altar look even more ancient.

“This Equal Spirit Order you belong to is quite capable huh? And very ambitious too – you’ve even managed to get this thing here,” snorted the white-haired young man. There was a glint in his eyes as he looked carefully at the altar.

“But all our efforts went to waste right at the end, didn’t it?” said Rou Lingyun quietly. But her tone wasn’t one of sadness or disappointment. Instead, it sounded a little excited.

But that was nothing surprising. If the plan hadn’t suddenly failed, the chances of her snatching the credit from Xia Yun would have been nearly zero. She wouldn’t be leading the way now.

“Anchor the skies!” she shouted. Her hands moved so quickly to form a seal, one could only see the afterimages of her arms. The Positioning Stone floated into the air and shone like a crystal as it was embedded into the altar.

A humming sound instantly resounded throughout Fengyang. The ground began to shake. Extremely deep trenches broke open for no reason, and beams of blinding light shone brilliantly suddenly.

The formation runes around the altar started to move slowly. The etches, and impressions formed by the laws of nature slowly lit up in various colors.

“Oho, there is movement within the space!”

All the Nascent Change cultivators were extremely sensitive to change. Within moments, they could sense that the invisible barrier around them had loosened up considerably.

Woong! Rou Lingyun ignored their words and proceeded to thrust out the last seal. She bent a finger and drew a line in the air.

A humming sound filled the air as five red pillars of light shot into the sky, bringing with it the roars of countless vengeful souls and the howling of angry ghosts. It exuded a dark red hateful and murderous aura that seemed almost real. All of it suddenly gushed into the formation below, following the miles and miles of formation runes and entering the altar in the middle.

“The skies turn to nothingness, determine the position of the stars, break through all barriers!” she called out. Ripples ran through the air around her, causing her white dress to flap. Her black hair danced wildly like clouds in the icy winds. Her small face was flawless but emotionless like it was covered in frost. Her expression was tense, solemn, and grim.

In that instant, the altar exploded with a shocking brightness. The qi within a thousand-mile radius whooshed toward the pillars of light as though they had received the command to do so.

They turned into one pillar shooting out from the altar, like an arrow that could reach the sky, a spear that could pierce through the clouds as it flew upward, dashing relentlessly toward the seemingly thin and frail barrier of light in the sky.

Craaack! The barrier of light above immediately gathered countless, trembling dao runes around itself as though it had just suffered a scare. The dao runes came toward the barrier like moths to a fire, forming a humongous set of runes that glowed brightly and was determined to block the attack of the pillar of light.

“Everyone, we have to put in our best efforts!” Rou Lingyun felt like she could hear the groaning of the barrier as it struggled to hold up. A look of joy lit up her small face.

“Hurry, hurry!” The expressions of the Nascent Change cultivators also began to light up, and they couldn’t stay calm and indifferent anymore. They immediately took their places and contributed whatever internal energy they had to the pillar of light, hoping to break right through the barrier. Once that happened, they would be free to go anywhere they wanted.

“Hold still!” An indifferent yet absolutely domineering voice resounded from the skies. The previously trembling barrier that looked on the verge of shattering was fortified and blocked the pillar of light from getting through.

“The barrier has reached its limit! We’ve got to put in more effort!”

This voice made everyone more excited and not afraid because this voice wasn’t coming from the emperor but from the barrier itself. Otherwise, the altar would have been reduced to pieces instantly.

“We offer a blood sacrifice!” yelled the Nascent Change cultivators. They couldn’t hold back anymore since they could see a glimmer of hope.

In that instant, the last hundreds of thousands of their surviving family members screamed as they dropped dead and turned into a bloodied mist that flowed into their bodies. With the additional energy in their blood, the internal energy they unleashed became even more powerful.

What were fellow countrymen? What were clans? What was family?

These things meant nothing to the cultivators now that their lives were at stake. Earlier on, they had put in much effort to protect them. But now, they killed their families with their own hands in order to get the energy within their blood. All for that slim chance of getting out of here alive.

“It’s not enough! It’s not enough!”

As time ticked by, the clash between the pillar of light and the barrier had reached its climax. Both sides were giving their best. Countless spiritual and magic weapons were destroyed by their Nascent Change owners without regret for the sake of gaining whatever qi they could get their hands on. They swallowed countless pills in hope of holding up for a little more time.

Craaack! An awful cracking sound resounded suddenly, but it sounded like melodious singing to them.

“Keep going!” Rou Lingyun looked at the sky excitedly and ignored the brilliance from the clash as she kept her eyes on what was happening without blinking. She became even more excited and exclaimed these words when she saw a clear crack in the barrier, but immediately after she made that exclamation, the light around the altar began to flicker nonstop. The runes on it looked like they were getting jumbled up.

Everyone was shocked to watch as the altar creaked suddenly as very thin crack lines appeared all over itself.

“It can’t hold up anymore?” Gu Suihan slowly came out of hiding. A mocking smile spread across his lips as he looked toward the center of the city. He stood next to the last red pillar of light that had shot out from the fifth corner of the formation that he had altered earlier. This pillar was mightier than the other four by several times, and the fiendish qi it carried was several times more concentrated as well.

“What will they do now?” The scholar slowly appeared from beneath the ground, but there wasn’t a trace of dirt on his scholarly robes.

Tang Xiaoyun held his halberd in his hand as he came running out of a nearby residence with a lot of dirt and mud on his face. He spat some dirt out and said, “They’d probably give it their best shot!”

“Are you sure they won’t give up?” Xia Yun had a conflicted look in her eyes as she looked straight at Gu Suihan.

“Every cultivator is someone with great mental resilience and someone who’s extremely selfish. They’re not far from death now.” Chamu held his giant axe in hand as he came forward. His steps were like those of a dragon, sturdy and heavy. He made the streets shake when he walked.

“They are indeed not far from death. But I’m looking forward to finding out how they’re going to die.”

Gu Suihan gave the ground a stomp, and the laws of nature spread out to become an invisible layer that concealed their presence. They stood side by side and looked into the distance as though they had spotted something very interesting out there.

“Are they going to kill each other? Or bankrupt themselves?”

Gu Suihan smiled, causing his eyebrows to curve like two crescent moons and his eyes to narrow, covering the frostiness that threatened to spew out from inside them. “I’m really looking forward to this!”