txolops Chapter 173 The Killing Intent at the Core of the Array, The Puppet's Shocking Change
Chapter 173 The Killing Intent at the Core of the Array, The Puppet's Shocking Change
The mountain path behind the main peak of Cangxuan is rugged.
Thick, dark red blood flowed across the bluestone steps, and the purple bamboo groves on both sides were leaning precariously, with broken bamboo stalks revealing whitish cut surfaces.
Several corpses of Cangxuan Sect disciples lay scattered in the mud, their eyes wide open, their deaths gruesome.
Gu Yan and Li Qingge clung tightly to the steep rock face, using the shadows of the rocks to silently make their way towards the core of the protective array.
In the sky ahead, golden sword energy collided with black heavy water, bursting out with dazzling light.
The thunderous roar caused the entire mountain to tremble.
Li Qingge walked ahead, her plain white skirt stained with mud and blood. Her back was straight, and her right hand was gripping the hilt of her sword tightly, her knuckles pale from the excessive force.
With each passing corpse of a fellow disciple, her breathing quickened, and her eyes were filled with pain.
Gu Yan followed behind, his eyes slightly closed, his hands forming a hidden hand seal beneath his wide blue sleeves.
The Grandmaster-level Everlasting Youth Technique was circulating wildly within his body.
The earth-shattering battles outside, which were a hellish inferno for others, were a feast for him.
Fallen cultivators, scattered spiritual energy, and shattered fragments of magical artifacts.
These remnants, containing immense energy, were quietly stripped away by Gu Yan using his divine sense before the world could digest them.
A faint, almost imperceptible wisp of green vitality, following the path of the falling rain, continuously seeped into the acupoints throughout his body.
The Divine Demon Golden Core greedily devoured the essence of blood and qi, and the cultivation barrier of the mid-stage Golden Core was being eroded little by little, becoming thinner and thinner.
A moment later, the two stopped in front of a solitary peak that resembled a lotus flower.
This is Lotus Peak, a forbidden area of the Cangxuan Sect. The core hub of the Taiyi Dividing Light Array is hidden in the heart of the mountain.
The area around the isolated peak is barren, with only bare black rocks.
At the entrance to the cave, two white jade pillars, each ten feet tall, stand.
Eight elite enforcers from the Enforcement Hall, clad in heavy armor and wielding halberds, stood like statues on either side, guarding the entrance.
Seeing that the guards were still there, Li Qingge's tense nerves relaxed a little.
Just as she was about to step forward to reveal her identity, Gu Yan suddenly reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"Senior brother?"
Li Qingge turned around, her eyes full of confusion.
Gu Yan didn't speak, but simply raised an index finger to his lips as a gesture to be quiet.
His gaze pierced through the rain, landing on the eight heavily armored guards.
There was no wind around, yet the eight guards were swaying back and forth in perfect unison with a slight amplitude.
Rain fell on their heavy armor, dripping down the armor plates, while a small pool of thick, black blood had accumulated in the cracks of the rocks beneath their feet.
Those were traces of foul blood flowing out of the body along the meridians of the legs after the heart meridian was shattered.
"They are dead."
Gu Yan's voice was extremely soft, yet it struck Li Qingge's heart hard.
Li Qingge's pupils contracted sharply, her senses instantly reaching their maximum.
Sure enough, those eight people did not have the vital energy fluctuations of living people, and even their souls had long since dissipated.
They were able to stand because each of them had an extremely thin, almost completely transparent spiritual energy thread connected to their Baihui acupoint on the top of their heads.
"This method is exactly the same as the one used to control Lu Ping to commit suicide."
Gu Yan's eyes were cold as he tapped the folding fan lightly in his palm.
The mastermind behind it all was indeed inside.
"I'm going in to kill him."
Li Qingge drew her longsword, the blade gleaming with a layer of frost in the dim light.
"Do not be reckless."
Gu Yan grabbed her and said quickly in a low voice.
"This person was able to infiltrate the array's core silently, so his cultivation must be unfathomable. He's also an expert in these strange puppet threads. If you try to attack head-on, you'll easily get your Qi Sea entangled by his threads. Junior Sister Qingge, listen carefully: once you're inside, you mustn't use any sword techniques. Just concentrate the ultimate icy sword intent of the Supreme Forgetfulness Record at the tip of your sword and look for an opportunity to kill with a single blow. Leave the rest to me."
Looking into Gu Yan's deep and determined eyes, Li Qingge felt a surge of security. She nodded vigorously.
Gu Yan took a deep breath, and the Tai Xu fragments in his Qi Sea began to circulate rapidly.
A wisp of silvery-white spatial law overflowed from his fingertips, transforming into an invisible, transparent film that completely enveloped him and Li Qingge.
The two concealed their presence, like two ghosts not existing in this world, and silently crept into the cold cave walls.
The deeper you go, the more spacious the space becomes.
At the end of the cave is a massive underground karst cave that is thousands of feet deep.
In the center of the cave, a golden sphere the size of a millstone floats.
This is the core of the Taiyi Dividing Light Array.
Thousands of golden array patterns, like the roots of a great tree, spread out from the sphere of light, deeply embedding themselves into the surrounding rock walls and earth veins, maintaining the operation of the massive protective array outside.
At this moment, directly beneath that golden sphere of light stood a figure dressed in a gray robe.
The figure had its back to the entrance, and wore a large straw hat that completely covered its face.
His hands were spread open, and transparent threads of spiritual energy continuously seeped from his fingertips.
Thousands upon thousands of threads, like a dense spider web, have firmly bound the golden array eye orb.
The gray-robed man did not attempt to destroy the array's core, but instead began to extract the millennia-old earth vein essence of the Cangxuan Sect.
Following those transparent threads, the pure golden spiritual power within the array's core sphere was being stripped away little by little, transforming into a decaying, ash-like energy that continuously flowed into the gray-robed man's body.
If Zhou Chongyue hadn't risked his life outside to maintain the formation, constantly filling the gaps with his own nascent soul essence, the formation's core would probably have collapsed long ago due to the depletion of spiritual energy.
Seeing this, Li Qingge was filled with rage.
The Cangxuan Sect's millennia-old foundation and the bloody battles fought by its 100,000 disciples outside have all become nourishment for this person to steal from the world.
Just as she was about to make a move, the gray-robed man suddenly stopped what he was doing.
"You two juniors have truly exceeded my expectations, managing to evade my Spirit-Severing Silk and sneak in here undetected."
The gray-robed man's voice was hoarse, harsh, and hollow.
He slowly turned around.
Beneath the straw hat, there are not human facial features.
It was a mask made entirely of grayish-white human skin sewn together, with only two dark holes in it, emitting a deathly, eerie light.
This is not a living person; it is a top-tier puppet that is remotely controlled.
"Junior Sister Qingge, make your move!"
Gu Yan didn't intend to waste words. The moment the gray-robed man turned around, he let out a loud shout.
Li Qingge's figure was like a white lightning bolt tearing through the night.
The Supreme Forgetfulness Record was activated to its fullest extent.
The temperature in the entire underground cavern plummeted to freezing.
Thick ice crystals instantly formed on the stalactites.
She gripped the sword with both hands, compressing all her spiritual power, divine sense, and emotions for the Cangxuan Sect into a single point of frost at the tip of the sword.
Man and sword became one, aiming straight for the gray-robed man's brow.
Faced with this stunning sword strike, the gray-robed puppet didn't even try to dodge.
A mocking glint flashed through the dark hole in the human skin mask.
He suddenly raised his hands, which had been hanging down.
"Clang. Clang. Clang."
The air resounded with the twang of countless bowstrings.
Hundreds of transparent threads that were originally hidden in the void tightened instantly, weaving into a giant net without any blind spots in front of the gray-robed man.
These threads are incredibly sharp, capable of cutting even space itself. If Li Qingge were to forcefully crash into them, she would definitely be shredded into countless pieces.
Li Qingge was in mid-air and could no longer use the momentum to change her moves.
Just at that critical moment, when Li Qingge was about to collide with the silk thread.
"break!"
Gu Yan snorted coldly, stood with his hands behind his back, and waved his wide blue robe.
But in the void layer that Li Qingge could not see.
Two paper sword attendants, one black and one white, arrived in an instant like ghosts.
The paper sword servant, which incorporates the accompanying meteorite iron, inherently possesses the ultimate spatial cutting law.
The white paper swordsman wielded his paper sword, the blade coated with the terrifying heat of Yin-Yang Heavenly Fire, and struck the node of the giant silk net with unparalleled precision.
Those transparent threads, which could be easily cut even by high-grade magic treasures, were instantly broken and melted upon contact with the dual impact of spatial laws and Yin-Yang Heavenly Fire, just like spider silk encountering raging flames.
A hole appeared in the giant net, just big enough for one person to pass through.
Li Qingge suddenly felt a void before her eyes, and the deadly threat vanished.
She assumed that Gu Yan had used some kind of supreme treasure bestowed upon him by his Nascent Soul master, and with that thought, she felt reassured and had no more worries. Her long sword went straight in and, without any hindrance, pierced the gray-robed puppet's brow through the hole.
"Click."
The ultimate, icy chill of detachment erupted in an instant.
The gray-robed golem's head froze into ice from the inside out, then shattered with a crash.
The headless puppet's body remained frozen in place.
Li Qingge landed, flicked her longsword, and shook off the ice shards on the blade.
"Senior brother, it's resolved."
Li Qingge gasped for breath and turned to look at Gu Yan.
However, Gu Yan's expression remained solemn.
A seven-colored light shone deep within his eyes as he stared at the headless corpse.
"Back off!"
Gu Yan shouted and rushed towards Li Qingge like a ghost, grabbing her slender waist and stomping his foot on the ground, retreating dozens of feet backward.
Just as the two left the spot.
The headless gray-robed puppet suddenly expanded violently, and a destructive spatial fluctuation erupted from its body.
"Do you think you can stop me by cutting a few threads? Now that you've been discovered, I'm too lazy to slowly drain the Cangxuan Sect's millennia-old heritage. Just destroy it all."
The piercing sound came from the puppet's abdominal cavity.
The puppet's belly suddenly exploded.
Inside, there were no internal organs, only a strange crystal the size of a fist, emitting a dim gray light.
That was an extremely compressed, filthy spiritual source.
Once this crystal explodes, it will not only completely destroy the entire array's core, but also reduce the land within a radius of a hundred miles to nothingness.
The outer protective formation will instantly collapse, and the 100,000 disciples of the Cangxuan Sect will be exposed to the Guixu Sect's slaughter without any defense.
"He's going to self-destruct and destroy the formation."
Li Qingge's face turned deathly pale, and she even forgot that she was still in Gu Yan's arms.
Faced with such terrifying destructive power, she felt a profound sense of powerlessness.
"Trying to destroy the formation? Did you ask me first?"
Gu Yan's eyes were icy as he shoved Li Qingge away.
"Junior sister, close your eyes and calm your mind. No matter what happens, don't look."
Gu Yan's tone carried an unquestionable authority.
Li Qingge subconsciously closed her eyes, using her spiritual power to block her vision.
After confirming that Li Qingge could not see his actions, Gu Yan stopped trying to hide them.
He clasped his hands together abruptly, pushing the fragments of the Taixu Demon-Suppressing Tower in his dantian to their limit.
In an instant, the entire underground cavern began to distort violently.
Above Gu Yan's head, a blurry, ancient pagoda-like silhouette appeared.
"The Great Void Devours the Heavens".
Gu Yan let out a low growl.
The dark, about-to-explode crystal, along with the space surrounding the puppet, was pulled by an irresistible suction force and instantly swept into the illusory image above Gu Yan's head.
"boom."
A muffled explosion rang out from inside the phantom.
The explosive energy, enough to destroy a hundred miles away, was forcibly compressed into an extremely pure spatial turbulence and spiritual storm under the suppression of the spatial laws of the Taixu fragments.
Gu Yan groaned, and blood, which could not be faked, spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Forcibly absorbing an explosion of this magnitude would cause his meridians to suffer a severe backlash, even if it were him.
But the fervor in his eyes remained undiminished.
He activated the Grandmaster-level Everlasting Glory Technique, frantically absorbing the explosive energy suppressed by the fragments of the Great Void into his Divine Demon Golden Core, like peeling away layers of an onion.
This is the ancient essence extracted and refined from the core of the Cangxuan Sect by the mastermind behind the scenes.
Others might fear that such violent energy would burst their Qi Sea, but Gu Yan had the Divine Demon Golden Core as a vessel and the All Things Transformation Furnace as a furnace, so he wasn't afraid of being overwhelmed, only of starving to death.
As this massive energy surged in, a crackling sound, like popping beans, emanated from Gu Yan's body.
The Qi Sea and Dantian expanded wildly, and the cyan patterns on the surface of the Divine Demon Golden Core became increasingly bright.
The immense power propelled his cultivation level; he was just one step away from reaching the late Golden Core stage.
As the aftershocks of the explosion subsided, the underground cavern returned to calm.
The golden array eye orb, having lost the extraction of the threads, began to slowly regain its luster, and the outer protective array also stabilized accordingly.
Gu Yan immediately withdrew the illusory image of Tai Xu, and at the same time forcefully shattered two insignificant meridians within his body.
"puff."
He suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood and fell backward, crashing heavily onto the cold, rocky ground.
Hearing the noise, Li Qingge suddenly opened her eyes.
When she saw Gu Yan lying in a pool of blood, and the terrifying puppet had been reduced to ashes while the core of the formation remained intact, her heart felt as if it had been squeezed tightly by a giant hand.
"Senior Brother Gu!"
Li Qingge's eyes reddened, and she rushed to Gu Yan's side like a madwoman, helping him up and letting him lean against her chest.
She frantically rummaged through her storage ring for various healing elixirs, constantly stuffing them into Gu Yan's mouth.
"Senior brother, how are you? Don't scare me. Did you use a forbidden secret technique of a Nascent Soul cultivator? I'm sorry, it's my fault. I've dragged you down with me."
Li Qingge's voice was filled with sobs.
She held Gu Yan tightly, tears streaming down her pale cheeks and onto his face.
Gu Yan weakly opened his eyes, his gaze unfocused, and forced a weak smile onto his lips.
He raised his blood-stained right hand and gently placed it on the back of Li Qingge's hand.
"Junior sister, don't cry. Immortality is not an obstacle. It's just that you overused the life-saving trump card left by Master, and suffered some backlash."
Gu Yan coughed twice, spitting out another mouthful of blood, and said in a weak voice.
"With the array's core preserved, the foundation of the Cangxuan Sect remains intact. We've thwarted half of the mastermind's plot. The rest is now up to Elder Zhou and the others."
Gu Yan gasped for breath, his gaze fixed on the cave ceiling, as if looking through the rock wall at the cultivation world outside.
"Chang Sheng only regrets that his cultivation is too low to expose the mastermind behind the scenes and tear him to pieces, so that he can pay for the blood debt of the people of Dongzhou."
Listening to Gu Yan's words, which showed that even in the face of life and death, he still cared about the greater good of Dongzhou.
Li Qingge's defenses gradually crumbled.
She held Gu Yan's hand tightly and pressed her forehead against his shoulder.
"Senior Brother's great kindness will never be forgotten by the Cangxuan Sect. Once this matter is over, Qingge will definitely ask the sect for the reward that Senior Brother deserves!"
Gu Yan leaned against Li Qingge's soft and fragrant embrace, smelling the faint fragrance of winter plum blossoms, as if he saw a top-grade spiritual treasure beckoning to him.
After a moment, Li Qingge came to her senses and, seeing that Gu Yan was unharmed, she was relieved and began to clean up the battlefield.
She picked up a palm-sized black crystal from the pile of puppet remains.
This crystal was originally supposed to be embedded in the puppet's heart to store the grayish-white substance that polluted the array's core.
Li Qingge walked up to Gu Yan with the crystal in her hand. "Senior brother, look at this."
Gu Yan took the black crystal and examined it carefully.
The surface of the crystal was covered with strange purple patterns, and the inside contained pure demonic energy that was full of destructive power.
This demonic energy is definitely not a power that those rogue cultivators who practice demonic arts in Dongzhou could possess.
It is profound and ancient, carrying an indifferent gaze upon all living beings.
"This is not from Dongzhou."
Gu Yan's eyes narrowed, and his tone became very firm.
After all, his clone, Blood Swordsman, had become one of the best in the Eastern Continent Demonic Sect since breaking through to the Golden Core stage. Even when he encountered those Nascent Soul Ancestors, they had no such demonic aura.
"Only the top demonic sects in Central Continent could possibly forge a demonic energy array core of this caliber."
Zhongzhou!
Upon hearing those two words, Li Qingge's body trembled.
This region is divided into five continents.
Although Dongzhou was vast and rich in resources, it was nothing more than a remote, rural place compared to the behemoth that was Zhongzhou.
The sects in Zhongzhou far surpass those in Dongzhou in terms of both foundation and strength.
"You mean, the forces from Zhongzhou are the ones who instigated this war between us and the Guixu Sect?"
Li Qingge felt a chill run down her spine.
If it is indeed a behemoth from the Central Continent that has set its sights on the Eastern Continent, then even if the Cangxuan Sect and the Guixu Sect cease hostilities and join forces, they will probably find it difficult to resist.
Gu Yan held the black crystal, his eyes gleaming.
He finally understood the true purpose of this scheme.
The mastermind behind it all didn't care about the Heavenly Fire or how many people died.
What he wanted was for the two overlords of Dongzhou to wear each other down, thus depleting their millennia-old foundation.
When the Cangxuan Sect and the Guixu Sect are both severely weakened, the forces of Zhongzhou can legitimately and easily annex the entire Dongzhou.
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