The Grand Formation flashed, its radiance spreading in every direction.
On the great ships nearby, soldiers and civil and military officials alike looked horrified. Along both banks of the Grand Canal, cries of alarm rose one after another.
"What's going on?!"
The instant Jiao Tongzi sensed the change outside, he turned into green smoke and appeared on deck. He immediately spotted the source of the disturbance.
"True Person Soaring was ambushed?"
Anger flashed across his face. Then he saw the Black-Robed Daoist bound by Black Chains and falling into the formation. Yet Jiao Tongzi made no move to help. Instead, he sneered.
"To dare attack the True Person—they truly don't know their own strength! That gaudy Golden Light carries an aura that beguiles the heart. It's clearly the Buddhist School's handiwork! They've never gotten along with the True Person and have suffered plenty at his hands. It makes sense that they'd strike now, though it's still surprising. After so many setbacks, they actually dare attack him? They're about to get slapped in the face..."
Drawing on his considerable experience, Jiao Tongzi reached a basic conclusion and waited for "True Person Soaring" to burst back up from the formation and show those monks just how formidable he was!
But what happened next left him bewildered—
The Black-Robed Daoist did not rise again as Jiao Tongzi had expected. Instead, streams of black qi and one hundred and twenty-eight Prayer Beads suppressed him completely!
"How is that possible!?"
For an instant, Jiao Tongzi felt his entire understanding of the world shake. Even his firmly established cultivation and the Spirit Light within him, which had been on the verge of reaching a higher level, swayed like a Bamboo Tower in a storm!
"Could nearly forty years of seclusion have left True Person Soaring weaker