Tragic

He said all this in front of everyone, and the cultivators felt a surge of excitement.

The Yaoguang Sect had been around for hundreds of thousands of years, and its guest elders had always enjoyed benefits that made people green with envy—better even than those of elders in ordinary sects.

The cultivators exchanged excited glances, secretly vowing to give it their all.

Inside the formation, the whole atmosphere changed.

Their spirits were up. Gu Qingshan nodded to himself at the sight.

Leng Tianxing truly came from a top sect. He knew how to handle people, and just a few words had fired everyone up.

When charging into a demonic horde as vast as mountains and seas, anyone without fighting spirit and conviction would soon be overwhelmed by despair.

And then they would all be done for.

Leng Tianxing concluded, "Get ready. We'll move the moment the formation disappears."

No one objected. Everyone got to their feet.

Gu Qingshan stood as well, stealing a glance at the others.

At the front of the group stood Wu Jin and Ma Liu, both broad-shouldered and brimming with vitality.

Wang Cheng, responsible for the left flank, held a longsword. On the right, Luo Xiao rested a broad, ghost-faced saber on his shoulder.

As for Leng Tianxing, he held nothing but a fan. His expression was cool and composed as he stood silently among them.

Gu Qingshan narrowed his eyes and swept his gaze over the group. He had a rough idea of what they were capable of.

—Two Martial Arts Grandmasters, a sword cultivator, a saberist, and a Five Elements Cultivator.

Add himself, a "formation master," and it was a decent lineup.

As Gu Qingshan considered this, the cultivators silently made their final preparations.

The formation's light flickered on and off, then finally faded away without a sound.

Wu Jin roared, "I'm going first!"

"Go ahead. We'll follow right behind you." Leng Tianxing clapped him on the shoulder, cheering him on.

Wu Jin let out a mighty shout. The muscles all over his body swelled, and his abundant qi and blood turned into two streams of white vapor that jetted from his nostrils.

He grunted, slowly lowering his shoulder and aiming his heavy, spike-covered pauldron at the area beyond the formation.

"Mountain-Pressing Lean!"

With a thunderous shout, Wu Jin strode out of the formation and charged dozens of meters in a single rush, relying on his sturdy pauldron.

The demons along his path were either sent flying or skewered through the body by the spikes.

A demon caught on his pauldron was seized by Wu Jin, who snapped its neck and tossed it aside.

After charging several dozen meters, his momentum began to fade. Wu Jin swung his two enormous fists and smashed wildly.

"Continuous Thrusting Fist! Die, all of you!"

Caught off guard, several monsters with ghostly faces and beastlike bodies were pounded into bloody pulp by Wu Jin.

One breath, two breaths, ten breaths.

Huff, huff, huff!

Wu Jin exhaled a cloud of white vapor, his body slowing for a moment.

After unleashing his full strength, he was already showing signs of fatigue.

"Let me take over!"

Ma Liu replaced him, transforming into a gigantic figure. He swung an iron staff, knocking the demons along the way this way and that.

Seizing the moment, Wang Cheng drew his longsword while Luo Xiao unsheathed his saber, and the two leaped out together.

Blades flashed, layers upon layers, slicing the demons at Wu Jin and Ma Liu's sides into clouds of bursting blood mist.

Gu Qingshan followed without hesitation. Gripping the formation plate, he shouted, "Spirits of the earth, heed my command—split!"

The waves of demons surging toward them suddenly dropped downward.

The earth beneath their feet cracked open into deep, bottomless fissures, trapping them inside and leaving them unable to move.

Leng Tianxing looked surprised.

Though this formation master's cultivation wasn't high, he could set up formations with effortless ease. His knowledge of formations was profound.

He would make a fine ally.

"Now's our chance!"

Leng Tianxing raised his fan and immediately formed a hand seal to cast a spell.

"Frost Blade True Sever!"

Thin white lines, radiating fierce cold, abruptly appeared in front of the group. Like a reaper cutting down wheat, they swiftly sliced through the demons trapped in the earth.

A huge stretch of the demonic tide suddenly cleared, easing the pressure on those at the front.

Gu Qingshan finished setting up Entrapment Formation, tossed the formation plate in front of his chest, and rapidly tapped the air with both hands.

"Wind, fire, thunder, water—gather the spirits of heaven and earth!"

A streak of light connected into a ring, enveloping all six of them.

"What?! A mobile Spirit Gathering Array!" Leng Tianxing exclaimed.

Several Foundation Establishment cultivators stared in astonishment, but soon sensed their Spiritual Power slowly recovering. Only then did delight appear on their faces.

Wu Jin laughed heartily. "Ha ha! What a formation master! If we make it back alive, I'll make you my sworn brother!"

Wang Cheng, a cold-faced swordsman, flicked the Black Blood from his sword and declared, "What a rush!"

Normally, a Spirit Gathering Array could only be set up in one place. Once moved, it would lose its effect.

Only a formation master with profound attainments could temporarily create a small mobile Spirit Gathering Array around himself.

Gu Qingshan's display had successfully stunned everyone.

No one dared look down on him anymore.

Formations were already among the hardest of the Six Arts to learn.

Only divination was more difficult.

Mastering both formations and divination was like swimming upstream against a waterfall, or climbing a heavenly precipice.

Ordinarily, out of a hundred cultivators with exceptional talent, perhaps five or six could advance to the Golden Core stage.

Yet among a hundred equally talented cultivators, not one might make any progress in formations or divination.

That was one reason Gongsun Zhi was so highly regarded in history.

"Good."

Leng Tianxing praised him, forming a seal with his left hand and sweeping his fan with his right as he unleashed his spell.

"Frost Blade Soul Snatch!"

The air warped slightly. Ring-shaped crescents of ice shot through the air, slicing the demons coming up from behind into a field of severed limbs.

The group continued onward like this, soon covering more than half the distance.

"We're almost there!"

Seeing the two body cultivators showing signs of fatigue, Leng Tianxing shouted encouragement.

Everyone's spirits lifted.

Gu Qingshan looked around and suddenly warned, "Wang Cheng, Luo Xiao, you're too far away! You're in danger!"

The sword cultivator and the saberist had grown caught up in the slaughter among the demons, and were getting farther and farther from the group.

They were already beyond the range of Gu Qingshan's formations.

Wang Cheng heard the warning and glanced back at him, hesitating. Then Leng Tianxing bellowed, "Get back here!"

Wang Cheng's heart jolted, and he was about to dart back.

But it was too late.

A gigantic Ghost Hand burst out of the earth, seized Wang Cheng, and squeezed him into a round, blood-spurting ball of flesh.

The fierce sword cultivator died just like that.

His longsword, spattered with blood, was still spinning in midair, about to fall into the endless demonic horde.

In the blink of an eye, Gu Qingshan reached out and summoned all the Spiritual Power in his body, pulling Wang Cheng's longsword through the air and drawing it back to him.

On the other side, saberist Luo Xiao turned and ran, but a half-height Crimson Gold Ghost grabbed his leg and knocked him to the ground.

Almost as soon as he hit the ground, Luo Xiao's head was bitten off by a ghost hound before he could even scream.

Afraid another demon would snatch its meal, the ghost hound clamped down on Luo Xiao's head and raced away,

while the other demons swarmed forward, frenziedly devouring Luo Xiao's corpse.

The stench of blood roused the demons, and they shrieked with excitement once more.

More and more demons came charging toward them.

With two cultivators dead, the pressure on the rest increased sharply.

Before long, Ma Liu and Wu Jin were covered in blood, not a single unbroken spot left on their bodies.

Gu Qingshan's heart tightened. "How much farther?"

Leng Tianxing hesitated. "We're almost there. Should we just charge through in one go?"

Gu Qingshan looked at the two body cultivators and said in a low voice, "No. Demons are experts at reading the situation. They know we're pushing ahead, so they must have something prepared."

He turned the formation plate and shouted, "Water, wind, mist, earth—Azure Nether Sky-Reaching Array!"

This formation could only be used twice. Once they used it now, they would have no way left to evade the demons.

The formation plate lit up, drawing in the spiritual essence of heaven and earth from the surrounding void.

Water, wind, mist, and earth, the four kinds of spiritual essence, arranged themselves in a special pattern. The formation was complete in an instant.

With a whoosh, the cultivators on the verge of collapse vanished before the demons' eyes.