I Want to Go Home

As another tremor shook the air, the water curtain shielding the flying vessel flickered, visibly weakening by a third.

The young immortal master summoned his magic artifact, but the other party's presence vanished in an instant.

"Humph! A rat who hides his head!" With a cold snort, he couldn't tell whether they'd just been attacked by a human cultivator or a demon beast. He immediately adjusted the flying vessel's course slightly and sped onward.

After waiting a while without further incident, several of the immortal seedlings asked nervously, "Immortal Master? Just now... did someone really dare attack you?"

"Humph! Most likely some filthy robber cultivators. They simply failed to recognize my flying vessel. There's no need for you to panic!" The young immortal master lifted his chin disdainfully.

"Robber cultivators?" The several immortal seedlings didn't understand. Their imagined picture of the Immortal Realm had shifted.

"Robber cultivators!" Li Ji'an was quite familiar with those two words.

"Were the ominous signs caused by robber cultivators?" He didn't trust what the young cultivator had said. How could anyone fail to see such a huge flying vessel? Besides, why would they attack twice?

And yet, after those two attacks, they really hadn't struck again.

"Something's wrong!" Li Ji'an suddenly snapped his eyes open.

"Immortal Master, be careful! We may have fallen into a villain's ambush!"

"Hmm? An ambush? Do you know what the Immortal Realm is like? In Cangyun Prefecture, who would dare ambush me? Besides, my flying vessel is traveling at full speed. It can cover a hundred li in an instant. Who could possibly ambush it?" The young immortal master froze, then shot Li Ji'an a scornful glance and sneered.

Li Ji'an furrowed his brow. The only reason he'd spoken up to warn the man was that they were all in the same boat now.

He'd already figured out why the other party had stopped attacking after those first two strikes.

They had clearly been deliberately herding the flying vessel in a certain direction, just like a sheepdog herding sheep.

The young immortal master had changed course. They must be close to whatever ambush the enemy had prepared in advance.

The other party had set an ambush beforehand and even knew their flight path, while this fool was still young and arrogant. This was bad!

Vrrrmmm—

As Li Ji'an considered how to save himself, the world suddenly began to hum.

His ears went numb in an instant. Looking up, he saw an invisible barrier, like a net cast over the sky, appear out of nowhere.

The flying vessel, racing at high speed, was abruptly frozen in midair.

The tremendous inertia sent everyone inside hurtling forward, slamming into the water curtain.

"Pfft—" The immortal seedling with the weakest martial cultivation was struck so hard that his organs ruptured, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Apart from Li Ji'an and Zhao Shuyao, who had immediately circulated their qi and blood to shield themselves and escaped unhurt, everyone else suffered injuries of varying severity.

And that wasn't all. After the flying vessel was frozen in midair, it struggled for a single breath before rapidly shrinking, until it became a little boat no bigger than a palm.

Once the ten immortal seedlings fell away from the water curtain, they had nothing beneath their feet to keep them aloft. They plunged straight down from a height of a hundred zhang.

Only then did Li Ji'an see the endless yellow sands below, stretching as far as the eye could see!

"Spirit Trapping Array!" It took the young immortal master a full three breaths to react. He stared at the immobilized flying vessel in disbelief, his heart shaken.

The Spirit Trapping Array was a high-grade, first-tier formation. It could trap high-grade magic artifacts and was difficult to set up without an experienced Formation Master. Its Formation Base Materials were also extremely costly—not something ordinary robber cultivators could afford.

As it happened, the flying vessel his own old ancestor had bestowed upon him for bringing these wretches here was a high-grade vessel. Aside from the Spirit Trapping Array, he'd have been almost invulnerable across all of southern Cangyun Prefecture.

This was clearly meant for him!

"Who's there? Get out!" The young immortal master held the Chongshan Seal aloft, poised as though he would hurl it the next instant.

"Fwoosh—" A few Fireball Techniques were the only answer.

"Cowardly rat, take this!" The Chongshan Seal slammed down toward a patch of sand below, knocking the fireballs aside in a spray of sparks.

Clearly, the fireballs posed no threat to him while he held the Chongshan Seal.

After all, his Chongshan Seal had also been bestowed by his old ancestor. It was a genuine High-quality Magic Artifact!

But before he could rejoice, his expression changed drastically.

The several fireballs were streaking toward the ten immortal seedlings plunging downward.

"So this is what you were really after?"

With no time to command the Chongshan Seal, the young immortal master's magic power surged violently. "Vast Heaven and Earth, rise as a shield!"

Rumble—

The earth shook as a three-chi-thick earthen wall burst up from the yellow sand.

But it was too late. Some of the fireballs had already pierced the earthen shield, howling toward the falling immortal seedlings.

Bang!

"Ah!"

One immortal seedling was struck by a fireball. Sparks flew as the flames engulfed his entire body, and his shrill wails rang across the sandy wasteland.

"Immortal Master, save us!" The other immortal seedlings who saw it were scared out of their wits and screamed for help in hysterical desperation.

"Ah! I don't want to die! I haven't become an immortal yet..." Another person burned to ash in the flames.

Even the first immortal seedling to crash into the water curtain, rupture his organs, and spit blood had no escape. He'd fallen unconscious, but was burned awake alive, letting out a soul-rending scream.

Fireballs, wails, billowing smoke... The scene grew more chaotic, and the remaining immortal seedlings were all overcome with terror.

"This isn't the Immortal Realm. It's hell!"

"I don't want to become an immortal anymore! I'll just be a mortal. I want to go home..." Someone was so frightened that he burst into tears, wishing he could return home that very moment.

"How is this immortal?" Zhao Shuyao was trembling all over. She hadn't even had a chance to show the strength of a Qi and Blood Grandmaster.

Only Li Ji'an had been prepared. His qi and blood surged through him, and with his powerful spirit and keen senses, he grabbed Zhao Shuyao by the collar and deftly dodged three consecutive fireball attacks.

"Pull yourselves together! If you want to live, you'll have to save yourselves!" Seeing that the remaining immortal seedlings were about to die, Li Ji'an gathered his breath in his dantian and let out a roar like rolling thunder.

The sound was like a lion's roar. It shook the other immortal seedlings out of their stupor, and they finally came to their senses.

Only then did they notice that the young Guiding Immortal Master was fighting two opponents, both shrouded in white mist. He was outnumbered two to one—how could he possibly spare time to save them?

At the same time, two more figures emerged from beneath a nearby sand dune. Both had their faces covered.

"You two, hurry up and slaughter the Blood Slaves. Don't let your guard down."

"Don't worry, Uncle. They're just a bunch of ordinary mortals. Killing them will be as easy as slaughtering chickens and dogs!"

With that, the two moved like the wind, reaching the seven remaining immortal seedlings in the blink of an eye.

"Let's see who kills the most."

"Fine by me!" The two made a wager.

"Immortal Masters, spare me!" One of the immortal seedlings, already scared out of his wits, saw the two immortal masters flit toward him and immediately dropped to his knees, begging for mercy.

"Whoosh!" The masked man on the left flicked his hand first. A wind blade shot forward in an instant, severing the immortal seedling's head as easily as slicing a watermelon.

"Ah!" The gushing hot blood drenched the clever young female immortal seedling from head to toe. However clever, however calculating, however many tricks she had up her sleeve, none of it helped in the face of utter terror. All that remained was her frightened wailing.

"Quiet!" The other masked cultivator pointed sharply at her with two fingers.

"Whoosh!" A sword, thin as a cicada's wing, pierced straight through her heart.

"Don't just sit there and wait to die! Fight back!" Li Ji'an's face darkened to the extreme as he watched the several people hailed as the realm's prodigies in the Immortal Bestowed Dynasty get killed so easily, without offering any resistance.

The yellow sands stretched for ten thousand li, with no end in sight. There was no escape.

Only by fighting back could they win a sliver of hope for survival!