This time, Li Qiang understood just how formidable Hua Meiniang was. When Fu Shan had faced her on Mars, his strength had been so overwhelming that her power had not shown. Now Li Qiang had developed enough discernment to tell the good from the bad.
Peach blossoms filled the sky like a skyful of blades, whirling around Lei Tianxiao with piercing whistles that tore through the air.
Green sword shadows danced at tremendous speed, yet even a barrage as dense as bursting beads could not stop the petals' assault. Lei Tianxiao shouted, "Heavenly Firmament Battle Armor!" An exquisite suit of green armor appeared on his body, shooting out countless green rays that barely held off the advancing petals.
Hua Meiniang's expression immediately grew grave. Donning battle armor meant fighting for one's life. She, too, gave a sharp cry. "Peach Blossom Battle Armor!"
Li Qiang silently cheered. He had gained the most precious thing of all: time to catch his breath.
None of the three played by the rules. Li Qiang understood nothing-as the saying went, the ignorant knew no fear. Hua Meiniang was rebellious by nature and did as she pleased, while Lei Tianxiao was sinister, ruthless, and vicious beyond measure. Facing one another, all three harbored their own schemes.
Li Qiang had to find every possible way to escape. He was the weakest of the three. Whichever of the other two confronted him, only death awaited him.
Hua Meiniang was the sort who went looking for trouble even when there was none. Here was Lei Tianxiao, weaker than she was, who had just treated her as though no one else mattered. How could she pass up the chance to bully him thoroughly?
Lei Tianxiao, however, had a mission. He had to capture Li Qiang and take him to Qianjie Star, and the capture had to be carried out in secret. Once it was exposed, it would mean provoking both the Chongxuan Sect and the Primordial Beginning Sect. These two sects possessed tremendous strength in the cultivation world. If they joined forces to retaliate, the consequences would be terrible.
Hua Meiniang's sudden intervention had caught him unprepared. Worse still, she actually knew Li Qiang. If word of this got out, he would have more trouble than he could carry away. Fury blazed three yards high in Lei Tianxiao's heart.
The Heavenly Firmament Battle Armor suddenly shone in all directions, striking down the petals around him. Lei Tianxiao drew out another of his treasures, a Gang Piled-Stone Horn. This unusual weapon had a highly distinctive method of refinement. It was ground from gang jade stone and refined through all manner of complex procedures. Its owner also had to cultivate it over a long period before wielding it freely. It was exceedingly rare.
As Lei Tianxiao poured true essence power into the Gang Piled-Stone Horn, rings of red light spread from it. With a thunderclap, a mass of sparks scattered and splashed outward along with the red light.
Hua Meiniang said, "Is that all? Watch my Hundred Flowers Vie in Beauty!"
Li Qiang watched while recovering. He knew he absolutely must not speak now. If he attracted their attention, he would be in trouble. He quickly activated the Shadow Dream Armor to avoid being caught in their battle. Anxiety filled his heart. He had no idea where Zhao Hao and Mei Jingjing had run off to.
An enormous hidden force pressed toward him. Li Qiang followed its momentum and flew backward, avoiding it while taking the opportunity to position himself behind Lei Tianxiao, slightly to one side.
Rage assailed Lei Tianxiao's heart. His strength was still far inferior. He watched Hua Meiniang drive her true essence power, sending flowers formed from energy at him. The Gang Piled-Stone Horn was already radiating its strongest red light, yet it still could not hold them back.
"Little Lei-Lei, don't take this as your big sister scolding you, but with those few little tricks, how dare you come strutting around showing off? Go back to Qianjie Star before it's too late. Stop making a spectacle of yourself here." Hua Meiniang teased him smugly.
"You forced me into this! I'll stake everything...!"
A white orb appeared above Lei Tianxiao's head, with nine pitch-black holes in its surface. Amid several shrill screams, wisps of dark red smoke emerged from the holes. The smoke swelled upon meeting the wind, turning into six humanoid monsters. All six howled grotesquely at Lei Tianxiao, baring their teeth and grimacing as they made to turn on him.
Lei Tianxiao pointed at the white orb above his head. Six beams of white light stabbed into the six monsters. He shouted, "A feast lies before you! Get moving! Go!"
The six monsters charged out with savage howls. Hua Meiniang cried out in alarm, "Lei Tianxiao! You actually dared to refine cultivators' Nascent Souls! Aren't you afraid of violating the taboo?"
Countless clouds of pink smoke rose from Hua Meiniang, rapidly swirling around the six monsters. She immediately seemed unable to cope.
Using Nascent Souls to refine weapons was the gravest taboo in the cultivation world. If discovered, every cultivator would rise up to attack the offender. With so much at stake, Lei Tianxiao absolutely could not let Li Qiang escape. He also wanted to kill Hua Meiniang to silence her. Gambling everything on one throw, he had brought out that most forbidden weapon, the Nine-Aperture Soul-Seizing Orb.
Li Qiang knew things were going badly. If Hua Meiniang lost, he would find it hard to escape with his life as well. Seeing that she seemed to be struggling to resist, he acted decisively. The Cold Spirit Giant Palm flew from his wrist and hurtled straight toward Lei Tianxiao's back.
Lei Tianxiao was concentrating entirely on directing the six Nascent Souls. He had never expected Li Qiang to strike at him suddenly with a palm attack. He had thought Li Qiang had already lost the ability to fight, and now he paid dearly for it.
Boom! The Cold Spirit Giant Palm's power was no small matter. Although Li Qiang's cultivation was insufficient to unleash all its profound capabilities, the sneak attack still made Lei Tianxiao spray blood wildly. Without the Heavenly Firmament Battle Armor's protection, he would have been gravely wounded on the spot.
Temporarily deprived of Lei Tianxiao's direction, the six monsters' ferocity plummeted. Delighted, Hua Meiniang seized the chance to release six of her favorite hidden weapons, Love Flowers.
The six Love Flowers drifted out tenderly and lingeringly. Each was like a devoted lover, infatuatedly entwining its beloved. In an instant, tenderness filled the faces of the six Nascent Soul monsters.
Rage assailed Lei Tianxiao's heart, and another mouthful of blood trickled from his lips. He knew the Love Flowers' power all too well. Once a spiritual entity became entangled by them, it was in terrible trouble. He tried to force the six monsters to dodge, but it was already too late.
Without a sound, the six Nascent Souls suffered a fatal blow. It was an injury to the heart, and they visibly began to wilt.
Lei Tianxiao sprayed a mouthful of heart's blood onto the Nascent Souls. The Nascent Soul monsters rallied once more. Although they no longer possessed their earlier power, they at least became fierce again for the moment. Spitting out that mouthful of heart's blood severely depleted Lei Tianxiao's vitality, but he could no longer concern himself with that. If these two escaped, the future troubles would be endless.
Seeing the Nascent Souls revive, Li Qiang was astonished and shaken. Such things lay beyond his imagination. While they fought until heaven and earth turned dark, he quietly retreated behind a rock, turned, and flew away close to the ground.
In his panic, he truly paid no heed to his route. Flying madly at an extremely low altitude, he gradually drew farther and farther away from them. Li Qiang breathed a sigh of relief, rose into the air, and raced in the direction Zhao Hao and Mei Jingjing had retreated.
He had consumed far too much true essence power. Li Qiang landed in a forest and recovered for a short while, then tried to fly up to survey the terrain. To his astonishment, he could no longer fly out. However high he flew, the forest's trees grew just as high.
Alarmed, he landed on the ground.
Where was this?
Li Qiang was stunned. He flew level through the dense woods for a long time-several hundred kilometers by his own estimate-yet still failed to leave the forest. When he had descended from the sky, this forest had not seemed very large. After pondering for a long time, he concluded that he had fallen into the legendary Bewilderment Forest.
"Calm down, calm down!" Li Qiang kept reminding himself. To identify this formation, he had to rise into the air, which was currently impossible. A grand formation like this had to have a formation eye. If he could find it, perhaps he could break the formation.
Upon careful examination, this forest looked no different from the forests he normally saw. The only strange thing was the absence of any living creatures. He could not find even an ant, let alone birds. His surroundings were terrifyingly silent. Reaching out, he tore a large piece of bark from a tree to make a mark. Every few trees, he left another mark as he continued onward.
Looking at the countless marks left on the surrounding trees, Li Qiang no longer even had the strength to smile bitterly.
He could not fly through the sky or travel over the ground. What about underground?
Li Qiang sprang up and shouted, "Right! I haven't tried underground!" He had not yet learned how to travel underground. Taking out the Jade Pupil Slip Fu Shan had given him, he immediately began searching and soon found the relevant information. But after reading it, his head drooped in dejection. He first needed to refine a Law Treasure for underground travel.
He took out the Primordial Beginning Sect's Jade Pupil Slip and searched that as well. Li Qiang was certainly wealthy in resources, possessing the texts of two sects.
He cheered. At last, he had found it. With the Shadow Dream Armor, he could travel underground.
Putting away the Jade Pupil Slip, he circulated his true essence power, and halos began flowing over the Shadow Dream Armor. He leaped up and plunged headfirst into the ground. To Li Qiang, it felt like diving into water, except that he had to sense all the surrounding terrain with his spiritual perception.
Being underground felt truly wondrous to Li Qiang. Although he could not see with his eyes, everything around him was imprinted in his mind, as though he could see it with perfect clarity.
After traveling underground for a while, Li Qiang rose to the surface. Finding himself apparently still in the forest, he sank underground again and continued.
Suddenly, Li Qiang sensed that something in the distance seemed to be drawing him. He turned and headed in that direction.
His body felt light. Opening his eyes, he found that he had entered a passageway. Li Qiang casually took a large flashlight from his bracelet and shone it around. This was a yellow passageway. He did not know what material its walls were made from; they felt slightly sticky and slippery. Looking back at the place where he had entered, he found it had vanished without a trace. The passageway was smooth, without the slightest sign of damage.
A thought stirred in his mind. He tried to pass through the passageway wall using the Earth Traversal Technique, and sure enough, he could no longer get out.
He continued slowly along the passage, feeling his way forward.
Rounding a bend, he found a descending staircase ahead. Everything along the way astonished Li Qiang. Not a speck of dust lay in the passageway. It was clean beyond belief, and he had found neither people nor objects.
At the bottom of the stairs, he saw red light flickering far away at the end of the passageway. Startled, Li Qiang slowly approached with his guard up.
The roaring sound of burning grew louder and louder, and the red light grew brighter.
Li Qiang was truly nervous. He had no idea who had built this place or who its owner was. Carefully circulating the Shadow Dream Armor and gripping the Hundred-Blade Spear tightly, he approached slowly, step by step.
At the end of the passageway stood a hall with a vaulted dome. The dome resembled the deep heavens, and the starlight twinkling across it was remarkably peaceful and serene.
At the very center of the hall, a vivid red block roughly a meter square hung in midair. Beneath it, a mass of purple flame also hovered, burning ceaselessly. There was no visible source for the fire, as though it had been burning naturally all along. The roaring sound came from that mass of purple flame.
Li Qiang remembered reading about this in a Jade Pupil Slip. It seemed to be an immortal realm method of crafting treasures called Heavenly Fire Purification, something beyond a cultivator's capabilities. He simply did not know what was being refined here.
Four passageways led into the hall. Li Qiang hesitated for a while, unsure whether to touch the block or leave for now. He was intensely curious. Just what was being refined here? He remained very cautious. If this truly was an ancient immortal refining a treasure, as described in legend, there would certainly be extremely powerful defenses.
He extended the Hundred-Blade Spear and touched its tip to the purple flame.
In an instant, the spear tip melted. Greatly alarmed, Li Qiang hurriedly withdrew the Hundred-Blade Spear. A small clump of purple flame clung to its head, burning down along it like a lit match.
Li Qiang knew that the Hundred-Blade Spear had been refined with Samadhi True Fire and possessed extremely high heat resistance. Yet this tiny clump of purple flame could actually melt it. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, it would have been hard to believe.
Two of his Law Treasures had been destroyed in a single day. Just thinking about it was painful enough. Seeing that the little clump of purple flame was about to reach his hand, Li Qiang had no choice but to discard the Hundred-Blade Spear. After consuming the spear, the flame seemed to possess intelligence. It leaped from the ground and sought out the hand with which Li Qiang had held the spear.
Li Qiang cried out, shaking his hand frantically in fright. Agonizing pain came from his hand. He had not felt such pain in a long time. Putting his hand into ordinary fire would feel no different from putting it into warm water, but this purple flame could melt even the Hundred-Blade Spear.
Only then did Li Qiang understand. With purple flame like this, there was no need for any defenses at all. Whoever touched it would immediately burn and melt away.
The Shadow Dream Armor proved tremendously effective. His burning hand began to shine.
Li Qiang sat painfully on the ground, trying to neutralize it with true essence power. Gradually, the purple flame vanished from his hand, but he knew it had already burned its way inside his body. Along the inside of his arm, it stubbornly advanced toward his Nascent Soul.
Just as Li Qiang was on the verge of despair, the purple flame was stopped outside his microcosm, and something wondrous happened.
Li Qiang immediately sank his consciousness into his Nascent Soul and drove his microcosm's circulation with all his strength. An immense, familiar power surged in, extremely similar to the Purple Flame Heart's energy. The Purple Flame Heart floated out of the Nascent Soul's body to above its head. The purple flame seemed impatient to merge into it. In an instant, Li Qiang's entire body blazed with light.
As though receiving an order, the large mass of purple flame burning in midair suddenly enveloped Li Qiang. Deprived of its support, the strange block fell from the air.
Had he not already sunk his consciousness into his Nascent Soul, leaving his whole body without sensation, the purple flame might have burned him into unconsciousness from pain the moment it touched him.
The Purple Flame Heart inside Li Qiang began absorbing vast quantities of the incoming purple flame. With this rapid replenishment of energy, his Nascent Soul visibly began to grow.
After an unknown length of time, the Purple Flame Heart finally finished absorbing all the surrounding purple flame and sank back into the Nascent Soul's body. Receiving the boundless energy within the Nascent Soul, the microcosm began spinning rapidly.
In a very short time, Li Qiang seemed about to cross beyond the Nascent Soul Realm. He was already approaching the Leaving the Body Realm.
Returning to his physical body, he found that the Shadow Dream Armor had automatically completed an evolution. Li Qiang felt that his cultivation had advanced enormously and secretly counted himself fortunate. Without the Purple Flame Heart as his foundation, he feared that not even ashes would have remained of him this time.
He walked over to the block that had fallen to the ground. Its vivid red color had faded, and it had shrunk considerably. Numerous cracks slowly appeared across its surface, with golden light flashing within them. A thought flashed through his mind: there had to be a Law Treasure inside.
He nudged it gently with his foot, and cracking sounds came from it. Li Qiang watched with some excitement. Suddenly, it burst apart with a bang, and a spindle-shaped object radiating intense golden light flew out.
Li Qiang hurriedly reached out to catch it. The object moved extremely fast, giving off faint thunderclaps as it darted about wildly.
Fortunately, his cultivation had just increased greatly. Otherwise, he would not even have been able to keep up with it, much less catch it. After exhausting his efforts, Li Qiang finally forced it into a corner. Throwing caution aside, he used the Light-Splitting Shadow-Catching Hand and at last caught its body between his fingers.
The object was no more than three inches long, slightly flattened and diamond-shaped, flashing with golden light and covered in fine streaks of purple radiance. Even pinched between his fingers, it kept jumping. Not knowing how to use it, Li Qiang could only put it into his bracelet for now.
Without the purple flame's illumination, the bright hall grew dim. The four passageways left Li Qiang at a loss, unsure which way to go. Just then, there seemed to be a sound from the passageway directly opposite him. Unable to resist, he walked into it.
What a long passage. This passageway differed somewhat from the one he had come through. The entire corridor was pale cyan, glowing a luminous green under the flashlight's yellow beam.
As he walked on and on, he suddenly heard a soft plunk, as though something had fallen into water. Li Qiang started in alarm, and the entire passageway blazed with light.
The pale cyan walls began rippling like water brushed by a gentle breeze. Rings of ripples spread along the passageway. Having never seen walls like these, Li Qiang was somewhat at a loss.
"What is this? It's pretty frightening," Li Qiang muttered to himself, reaching out to touch the wall. Strangely, it felt just like putting his hand into water, but when he withdrew it and looked, his hand was dry.
Li Qiang decided to ignore it for now and walked a little farther. Waves actually began rising on the passageway walls. Growing uneasy, he gritted his teeth and thought, Perhaps everything will be fine once I get through. Not daring to keep walking, he began flying forward.
Towering waves churned and roared.
The passageway suddenly became an enormous whirlpool. "Shit!" Li Qiang managed only that one word before he was swept inside.
Damn it, what the hell is this? A passageway turns into a whirlpool? It makes no sense! Li Qiang cursed inwardly as his entire body spun at high speed with the current. Not knowing what dangers he might encounter next, he quickly activated the Shadow Dream Armor. His whole body immediately blazed with light. Gradually steadying his mind, he struggled to escape his predicament.
Slowly, everything grew calm.
He did not know how deep it was below or how high it was above. Everything around him was exceedingly strange. Floating in this substance with the properties of water, Li Qiang was stumped. How could he get out? Strings of bubbles slowly rose from below. More and more bubbles appeared, gradually circling around him.
"Ding-dong." The bursting bubbles made pleasing sounds. Those sounds were beautiful and melodious. The continuous sounds of bursting made one feel as though drifting among the clouds, floating toward immortality. A flicker of wariness crossed Li Qiang's mind, and he abruptly came to his senses. Only then did he feel the astonishing pressure around him. Each time a bubble burst, the pressure increased another degree.
Had the Shadow Dream Armor not just evolved, the pressure now would have been enough to crush his physical body to pieces. Alarmed, Li Qiang once again sank his consciousness into his Nascent Soul and resisted this inexplicable assault with all his strength.
A layer of roving hidden force emerged from Li Qiang, forcibly pushing away the bubbles around him. The pressure forced him to keep accelerating his microcosm's circulation. Having just absorbed the purple flame, the Purple Flame Heart played a tremendous role. Boundless energy was converted into true essence power through his Nascent Soul. In this brief span, Li Qiang's cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds.
Splendor returned to simplicity. It had come inexplicably and departed just as inexplicably. Opening his eyes, Li Qiang discovered, unsure whether to laugh or cry, that he was hovering in the middle of the passageway. Everything that had just happened seemed like a dream.
He continued flying cautiously forward.
He soon reached the next hall. Having suffered that earlier setback, Li Qiang was even more vigilant. Everything here had exceeded his imagination. Stopping at the hall's entrance, he first examined it carefully.
This was a deep blue hall containing nine pillars, each so thick that it would take two arms to encircle it. The pillars were made of a strange substance. Within them, clouds and mist could be seen swirling ceaselessly.
Something also hovered in the center of this hall: an ancient-looking cloud table, with several objects resting on it that he could not make out clearly.
Moving a little closer, Li Qiang recognized one of the objects, and delight rose in his heart. It was a Jade Pupil Slip. He guessed that it might contain a record of the formations here.
Just as he was about to fly inside, a tiny figure flew out of a passageway to the side, repeatedly waving his hands at him. One glance was enough to tell that he was a Nascent Soul.
Extremely curious, Li Qiang asked tentatively, "Am I not supposed to go in?" The Nascent Soul nodded repeatedly. Li Qiang asked again, "Why can't I go in? Is it very dangerous?" He took a step toward the Nascent Soul.
The Nascent Soul seemed terrified and retreated some distance. "You... who are you? How did you pass through the Star-Density Grand Formation and enter the Star-Extinction Grand Formation?" His voice was clear, thin, and faint.
Seeing his fear, Li Qiang softened his voice and spoke gently. "My surname is Li. My name is Li Qiang. Hello, I'm glad to meet you. Can you tell me who you are? I won't hurt you."