A Bloody Battle!
Over the next few days, the clearing party continued southwest, and the mist deep in the Great Maple Mountain Range gradually turned into poisonous miasma...
Then the earth began to tremble.
At first, only the dead leaves jumped. Soon, even the towering trees swayed, and a continuous rumble of heavy footsteps came from the dense forest ahead.
The beast horde had risen again. Unending roars echoed through the mountains!
Lü Fangzhi stood with his longsword in hand, brilliant sword radiance bursting forth around him. He pointed his sword ahead and gathered his strength, his expression grim...
"Prepare for battle!"
Lü Fangzhi bellowed, and every cultivator immediately readied their own methods, poised to strike. At a time like this, no one dared run.
Against the charge of the beast horde, their only chance of survival was to stick together!
Among the trees, hundreds upon thousands of pairs of scarlet eyes lit up at once.
This was no mindless charge.
Thick-skinned black boar demons led the charge, while swift wolf demons guarded the flanks. Countless venomous snake demons and demonic insects lurked in the canopy overhead.
The Demon Beasts' formation was even tighter than that of the human cultivators!
"Loose!"
At Lü Fangzhi's sharp command, the waiting cultivators unleashed the fireballs, water arrows, and wind blades in their hands together!
Law Techniques poured forth, forcibly holding the rampaging beast horde at bay!
For a moment, flesh and blood flew everywhere.
Seeing this, Lü Fangzhi immediately brought out a set of formation flags from his Storage Bag. The flags scattered and swelled in the wind!
In the blink of an eye, they formed a great formation covering a hundred zhang in every direction. Countless golden threads linked together in a dense, inescapable net.
The formation descended, instantly trapping the beast horde.
Countless charging Demon Beasts were sliced into chunks of flesh by the golden threads in the blink of an eye. Level 1 Demon Beasts fell in swathes like wheat...
The faster the horde charged, the faster it died!
It was a one-sided slaughter, and some of the Demon Beast materials were even ruined.
To complete the Supreme Purity Sect's Mountain-Clearing Order, Lü Fangzhi was really going all out, even bringing out a trump card he had kept at the bottom of the chest.
Shi Jian remained at the very back of the group, his enormous body shielding the members of the Sun Clan.
He looked toward the battlefield ahead, which resembled a meat grinder, his gaze as calm and unruffled as still water.
This was the norm in the world of cultivation: struggles over resources, wars between races, and survival of the fittest. There was no reason to speak of!
A level 1 iron-armored rhinoceros circled around from the side.
Eyes red, it charged Sun Bo'an. Seeing that the old fellow had no time to react, a pitch-black bear paw came swinging down...
"Bang!"
The rhinoceros's skull caved in, and its enormous body flew sideways, snapping three great trees before it died on the spot.
"Don't get distracted on the battlefield. Stay focused!"
Shi Jian withdrew his paw and wiped the blood off in the mud.
Lü Fangzhi glanced back but said nothing more. The battle was fierce, and he had no time to concern himself with this "gravely injured" Foundation Establishment bear demon.
Half an hour later, the first wave of the beast tide was completely routed...
Demon Beast remains covered the ground, and blood stained the entire forest red. The stench of blood in the air was thick enough to make one sick.
"Quick! Gather the spirit materials!"
Lü Fangzhi laughed aloud, the blood on his sword's edge not yet dry.
The Qi Refining cultivators' eyes lit up, and they rushed at the corpses on the ground, skinning them, pulling out tendons, stripping bones, and taking cores. These were all gleaming Spirit Stones!
Sun Bo'an also brought the immortal slaves forward to help dismantle the corpses.
Just then.
Shi Jian's eyes flew open, his fur bristling instantly as his vertical pupils contracted into thin slits!
The sky suddenly darkened. It was not because black clouds had blotted out the sun, but because a terrifying Yao Qi had covered the entire sky.
A gale sprang up, bringing with it a suffocating pressure.
Trees fell in swathes all around. The cultivators cutting up the Demon Beast corpses stopped as one and stared into the distance in terror!
A terrifying dark figure, dozens of zhang tall, stood atop a distant mountain peak.
It was a giant ape covered in dark golden fur, its arms hanging past its knees. An ape's roar shook the heavens, and it simply stood there in silence.
The terrifying presence it exuded was enough to press countless cultivators into bowing low...
A level 5 demon general!
A being equivalent to an Early Golden Core human cultivator, and its presence was extraordinary. It might even be a rare variant with an ancient bloodline!
"A d-demon general..."
Lü Fangzhi's voice shook, and his fingers trembled instinctively.
The cultivators who had been so frenzied moments ago now had weak knees. Many collapsed to the ground, foam spilling from their mouths.
Golden Core pressure was simply not something those in the Qi Refining Realm could withstand.
The pressure on their Divine Sense alone was enough to make low-level cultivators faint. If mortals had been there, they would have dropped dead on the spot...
Sun Bo'an fell to his knees, the bones throughout his body cracking.
Shi Jian dug all four limbs firmly into the ground, his Demon Power circulating madly as he forcibly withstood the terrifying pressure...
He stared fixedly at the great ape demon and cursed inwardly:
This monkey's Qi and Blood are far too abundant. It definitely doesn't have an ordinary Demon Beast bloodline. It must carry an extremely rare ancient bloodline...
As the thought crossed his mind, Shi Jian saw the giant ape open its bloody maw and let out a heaven-shaking roar. The sound waves took form as ripples that spread ceaselessly outward.
Several mountain peaks in their path were the first to collapse and shatter!
Just then.
An intensely brilliant sword light tore through the air from the direction of Cangshi Valley. It was so fast that it ripped straight through the terrifying demonic pressure covering the sky and earth...
The sword light stopped a hundred zhang before the giant ape, revealing a figure dressed in purple-and-gold Daoist robes.
It was none other than Zhao Qing, master of White Cloud Temple!
At that moment, an abnormal flush colored his face, and his eyes shone with ruthlessness.
Without a word of nonsense, Zhao Qing rapidly formed seals with both hands. In an instant, the brilliant sword light split into more than ten thousand sword shadows...
The sword shadows gathered into a storm of Sword Qi, surrounding the giant ape on all sides!
"Vile beast, die!"
Seeing Zhao Qing so enraged, the giant ape burst into wild laughter, its voice booming like thunder. "Well, well, old Zhao Qing!
"Your lifespan is nearly spent, yet you still dare come seeking death!"
The next instant, a mountain-sized fist smashed into the sword shadows, producing an ear-splitting clang of metal...
The Sword Qi filling the sky could not harm the giant ape in the slightest, and it shattered the attack with a single punch!
The aftershocks of the Golden Core battle directly devastated the terrain below.
As the remnants of Sword Qi swept past, hundreds upon thousands of ancient trees were reduced to powder. When the giant ape threw a punch, its aftershock plowed a trench through the earth...
Seeing that the two Golden Core beings had begun fighting.
Lü Fangzhi finally came to his senses and flew off into the distance without looking back. Heaven and earth were vast, but nothing mattered more than staying alive...
When things went wrong, he turned tail and ran!
He did not need to warn anyone. Everyone was fleeing like mad. In a battle of this level, even the slightest brush with it...
Would leave them reduced to ash, their bodies dead and their Dao extinguished!
The Golden Core Realm was only the third realm on the path of cultivation.
But it was also a dividing line.
Such was cultivation: a difference of one realm was often as vast as the gulf between heaven and earth!
Shi Jian shielded the others and summoned a demon cloud, carrying the immortal slaves and the three members of the Sun Clan as he fled madly toward the outskirts...
Meanwhile, in the sky above the mountain range.
After the giant ape smashed more than ten thousand sword shadows to pieces, Zhao Qing bit the tip of his tongue and spat out a mouthful of Essence Blood...
He clapped his hands together, and a seal shot into the sky!
"White Cloud Seal, suppress!"
The next instant, the White Cloud Seal grew to the size of a small mountain and crashed down toward the giant ape's head with crushing force...
The giant ape roared and raised both arms to the sky.
It actually caught and held up the enormous descending White Cloud Seal. Terrifying demonic pressure swept across more than a hundred li, as though it were about to be suppressed.
"Boom!"
The deafening crash echoed for a hundred li in every direction...
A shock wave visible to the naked eye swept outward, shaking great swathes of mountain peaks into collapse and injuring many lesser cultivators.
Shi Jian crouched behind a boulder, using his Demon Power to protect the others.
He looked up at the battle in the sky, sneering inwardly. Zhao Qing looked impressive, but he was already strong on the outside and hollow within...
After he spat out that mouthful of Essence Blood, the deathly air around him had clearly grown heavier. Every time he activated his Law Treasure, he was drawing little by little on what remained of his vital essence and lifespan...
The giant ape, by contrast, fought with ever more vigorous Qi and Blood, showing no sign of exhaustion.
Even though it looked somewhat battered, its presence remained steady.
Looks like this old Daoist really can't hold on much longer.
Shi Jian quickly calculated inwardly. If White Cloud Temple fell, White Cloud Commandery would surely descend into chaos. He had to find the Sun Clan a way out in advance.
In any case, he could not afford to lose what they had built up now!
In the sky.
The giant ape suddenly heaved with both arms, forcibly sending the mountain-sized White Cloud Seal flying...
Zhao Qing shuddered as though struck by lightning. His body swayed violently, and he suddenly coughed up a great mouthful of black blood.
The black blood splashed onto his Daoist robes, a shocking sight.
The giant ape seized its chance to finish him while he was down, driving a huge palm straight at Zhao Qing's chest. It was forcing him toward death!
"Vile beast, you forced my hand!"
"Die with me!"