A moment later.
"Everyone, I, Lou Shiyi, will go on ahead!"
Standing beside the formation, Great Elder Lou smiled and cupped his hands toward Xu Taiping and the others, his face full of carefree ease.
"Take care!"
Everyone cupped their hands toward Lou Shiyi as well.
Apart from Xu Taiping, Cloud Crane True Lord and the others did not actually know what dangers Great Elder Lou was about to face, so they all remained fairly calm.
They merely urged Great Elder Lou to stay focused and vigilant after possessing the demonic beast.
Xu Taiping, however, remained silent.
Only just now had he learned from Cloud Crane True Lord and the others why they had ultimately decided to let Great Elder Lou go first.
First, Great Elder Lou was the only cultivator among them whose Primordial Spirit, like the Azure-Eyed Evil Lord's, had reached the peak of the Thirteenth Stage.
Only with a sufficiently powerful divine soul could someone possibly possess that demonic beast alone.
Otherwise, even without anyone lying in ambush, the demonic beast would likely devour them during the possession instead.
Second, after breaking through to the Transformation Realm, Great Elder Lou had fused his Primordial Spirit with a rare bonded soul artifact-
"The Three-Origin Nail."
The Three-Origin Nail was not merely an extremely rare offensive soul artifact.
Like other defensive soul artifacts, it could also protect against three successive devastating blows to the Primordial Spirit.
It effectively gave a cultivator three lives.
However, after those three devastating blows, the Three-Origin Nail would inevitably shatter, and the cultivator's Primordial Spirit would scatter into oblivion along with it.
Xu Taiping murmured inwardly:
If he can withstand three devastating blows in succession, then as long as we seize the right moment, we can absolutely save Great Elder Lou.
Just as Xu