NOVEL NEXT chapter 31 - God's Will.
This person wore a white Daoist robe, a lightning mark flashing on the left side of his chest — without a doubt someone from Jinglei Cliff.
At that moment he was grumbling, “Even someone like me, Feng Si, is a Golden Core cultivator, yet why am I always stuck doing guard duty?”
“Ugh! Better start dismantling the formation. You can’t ignore the Senior Elder’s orders!”
He stroked the narrow whisker on his lip, stood up with perfect composure, formed the array seals and prepared to collapse the formation.
Just then a flying sword shot out from a corner, darting with incredible speed toward Feng Si.
That sudden sense of danger made Feng Si break his seal and switch to another technique.
A lightning shield materialized, appearing exactly in the flying sword’s path and firmly blocking the thrust. The flying sword then lost momentum and fell to the ground with a clink.
He turned slowly to look at the group that had fired the flying sword and stroked his beard.
“I didn’t expect anyone would come. What, are you going to attack a Golden Core cultivator like me?”
Silence answered him; no reply came.
Feng Si spat in displeasure and then said, “Since you won’t speak, then die.”
As his words fell, a one-meter-wide path of lightning shot out from beneath his feet toward Fang Qing, Gu Yuan and Yin Mo. It moved at terrifying speed and absorbed the lightning in the soil along its way, growing ever more powerful.
Fang Qing stood at the front, rooted in place, silently gathering her momentum. Gu Yuan was in the middle; with a flick of his left hand he pointed at the ground, drawing the loose earth into a solid earthen wall that stood firm before them.
Yin Mo pulled out a variety of talismans, winced at the pain but without hesitation activated them all to temporarily bolster Fang Qing /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ and Gu Yuan.
The lightning path sped forward and struck the earthen wall like a rushing horse.
Feng Si had the formation supporting him and his cultivation level also overwhelmed Gu Yuan’s, so the result was predictable.
A tremendous boom rang out and the earthen wall shattered, blasted apart by the lightning path.
Gu Yuan reacted swiftly and formed another earthen wall to block the lightning path again.
This time the lightning path failed to smash through.
Blood Surge combined with the talismans’ enhancement had greatly amplified Fang Qing’s strength; she was now only a thin membrane away from Golden Core power.
She therefore posed a real threat to Feng Si.
Watching Fang Qing’s charge and the danger she brought, Feng Si quietly raised his guard.
He did not truly believe these young people could take his life, but he was careful — the cultivation world had many stories of those who underestimated an opponent and were killed across realms, overturned by an enemy from the gutter.
To avoid becoming one of those stories, he decided to fight seriously. Otherwise, the next tale might bear Feng Si’s name.
Feng Si moved to take the three more seriously.
He first spun a three-hundred-sixty-degree lightning shield around himself with no blind spots, then stomped his foot and brandished his right hand to launch two different types of attack.
The lightning path Fang Qing had seen earlier came again, but this time there were three paths instead of one, and more than a dozen lightning spheres that crackled like little thunder-snakes rained down from over Feng Si’s head toward her.
All these attacks were aimed at Fang Qing alone; Feng Si completely ignored Yin Mo and Gu Yuan.
Feng Si’s assault was unquestionably at Golden Core level, a full realm above Fang Qing’s current state; standing alone to block it would require tremendous exertion.
But she was not alone.
“Leave these attacks to us. Use your blade to cut him down!” Yin Mo threw out a white orb toward Fang Qing and called.
A white shield wrapped around Fang Qing, its surface shimmering. It was beautiful and yet imparted a strong sense of protection.
The moment the shield appeared, a dozen flying swords shot toward those lightning spheres, colliding with them one for one and sacrificing themselves to stop them in front of Fang Qing.
That was obviously Gu Yuan’s doing.
Since his breakthrough past the Foundation stage, his greatest gain had been enough spirit energy to manipulate objects.
Under Mo-shi’s instruction in the art of weapon control, his skill with flying swords had become second nature. Combined with the greatly increased Luotian spirit energy he now wielded, the strength of those flying swords was excellent even for someone at Foundation level.
Feeling the backup from behind, Fang Qing ignored the lightning path under her feet and drove straight at Feng Si.
The lightning path’s damage was absorbed by the white shield; the shield took countless cracks, as if a light touch would shatter it. Still, Fang Qing reached Feng Si.
Because she moved so fast, Feng Si had no time to react and could only watch the cold gleam slash toward him.
A blade of cold light infused with blood intent cut heavily at the lightning shield around Feng Si.
The lightning shield exploded into fragments of starlight laced with thin bolts, then Wu Qian straightly slashed at Feng Si’s neck — Fang Qing’s style unhesitatingly went for the head.
But when the cold gleam passed, what appeared before Fang Qing was not flying blood but Feng Si’s body dissolving into a lightning illusion and vanishing into the air.
In that instant Fang Qing understood.
It had been a clone or a phantom.
She sharpened her attention to the fullest, keenly sensing her surroundings to try to locate Feng Si.
Feng Si did not hide; the next moment he appeared a dozen meters in front of her.
There was a faint blood mark on his neck — undoubtedly left by Fang Qing.
He was touching the wound on his neck, staring at Fang Qing with a slightly strange expression and sighed, “Maybe I’m getting old. I nearly lost my life to a mere fellow with innate cultivation. Little girl, your strength is quite good; you might become the strongest martial artist, but your path ends here.”
As he spoke his body began to float upward, and dark, oppressive clouds gathered above the three of them.
Lightning flowed within the clouds, a brutal power building, and all three felt a sensation of being locked under Heaven’s gaze, as if they would be erased at any moment.
Under the brooding, stifling clouds, Fang Qing planted her blade and stood with furrowed brows.
She vaguely felt that within those clouds there was an enormous, all-embracing force watching her.
It seemed this was truly Heaven.
Because she was being stared at by that power, her body went ice-cold and powerless; she could not move.
She could only barely stand with Wu Qian, unable to act, feeling like an ant.
“Jinglei Cliff’s ultimate technique, Tianyi · Execution. It is said this move can invoke Heaven’s will to erase anyone who faces it directly.”
Feeling that faint sense of scrutiny, Yin Mo looked up at the sky and said slowly.
He could still speak and make small movements, unlike Fang Qing who was completely immobilized.
“I know,” Gu Yuan said, stepping forward slowly as if moving through great resistance and walking toward Fang Qing.
As he walked he asked Mo-shi in his sea of consciousness, 'Mo-shi, what should we do now?'
Mo-shi, inside his mind, did not answer; instead he looked ahead of Gu Yuan.
Before him loomed a five-clawed golden dragon hundreds of meters long, radiating golden light.
The five-clawed golden dragon majestically looked down at Mo-shi, opened its maw and, with a roar that split clouds and rocks, said to Mo-shi, “I agreed to your conditions.”
Then the golden dragon swept its gaze across the surrounding darkness and proudly declared, “Kid, let me show you the power of the Golden Dragon clan!”