"Whoosh..."
Golden light blazed across the sky.
Aunt Mei flew into a rage out of humiliation and thrust her right hand down. Beneath her palm, the Peak-Guarding Grand Formation over the entire Back Mountain of Cold Moon Peak suddenly lit up.
Countless threads of dark cyan light gushed from cracks in the mountain, weaving an enormous net in midair. Tiny electric arcs churned along its edges, completely enclosing the Bamboo Grove and the hundred yards around it within an airtight independent barrier.
The air instantly froze.
Spiderweb cracks appeared across the flagstones beneath Lin Shisan's feet, a cold, eerie glow seeping through them. His soles seemed glued to the ground, and the instant his circulating spiritual power touched that dark cyan light, it grew markedly sluggish.
"Lin Shisan, you should have understood the day you made a scene at Nine Yang Pavilion that neither the Immortal Alliance nor Nine Nether Mountain would spare you."
Aunt Mei stood at the edge of the net of light, her ink-black robes snapping in the night wind. In her palm rested a palm-sized dark cyan Jade Talisman-the core Formation Disk of the Peak-Guarding Grand Formation. "You think bringing a sword cultivator means you can walk out of Cold Moon Peak? How naive..."
She flipped her wrist. The Formation Disk spun violently, and the barrier's entire net of light abruptly contracted by ten feet.
Lin Shisan felt crushing pressure closing in from every direction. The Dark-Golden Mark on his chest grew slightly hot, but his spiritual power circulation remained suppressed, half a beat slower. His gaze passed Aunt Mei and settled on the deep-red figure behind her.
"Hu Niu." Lin Shisan's voice was quiet, yet it pierced the humming of the net of light. "Come over here."
Hu Niu stiffened sharply. Her fingers tightened further