Chapter 122: Ambushed

"Sixth Senior Sister!"

Just as the black shadow was only fifteen steps away, a slightly tense and hoarse voice shattered the deathly silence. The sound brought visible relief to the other seven cultivators, their faces were drenched in sweat like streams.

Li Yan’s sharp cry echoed like a thunderclap in this space. All the meditating cultivators snapped their eyes open at once. Some looked around in confusion, and within a breath, startled cries rang out one after another.

Figures shot to their feet in haste, and in an instant, protective auras lit up all around them as the disciples activated their defensive light shields.

Even though they knew these shields and any talismanic barriers were useless against the immense black shadow in the sky, instinct drove them to respond immediately.

Gong Chenying also stood up. As she looked at the vast shadow looming only steps away, her expression shifted slightly.

In truth, she had already felt uneasy ten or so breaths earlier. It wasn’t a divine sense warning, it was battle-honed instinct from years of life-or-death combat. At the time, a sweep of her divine sense showed Li Yan and the others tensely watching a specific direction.

But her divine sense found nothing there, just void. She guessed the shadow was nearing, but trusting Li Yan and the others, she had forced herself to remain calm and continued recovering her spiritual power.

She understood her own importance. The more spiritual energy she regained, the more help she’d be in the coming battle. But the instant Li Yan shouted, she opened her eyes without hesitation and the sight before her made her heart skip a beat.

The overwhelming black shadow was only a dozen or so steps away. If it accelerated now, they wouldn’t even have time to stand, let alone flee. No time to think.

"We're going!"

With a sharp cry, Gong Chenying activated her body’s protective aura. Azure light flashed from her hand as she took the lead and shot toward the center of the ancient path into the massive yellow sphere.

Inwardly, Gong Chenying praised Li Yan’s courage. From the moment she sensed something was wrong to when he gave the warning, he had earned them more than twenty precious breaths of time, enough for her to recover significantly more spiritual power. Surely the others had, too.

As the ripples of the sphere engulfed her, the first thing Gong Chenying saw inside was a vicious savage face, part demon, part beast covered in dense spines. A long tongue flicked in and out, and its narrow eyes glared menacingly from several zhang away.

Behind it, dozens of spirit beasts let out deafening roars and a barrage of attacks came hurtling toward her...

...

Inside the sphere, carnage stretched across the battlefield. Corpses were strewn everywhere.

Gong Chenying, cold and ruthless, drove her elbow back with deadly force, smashing into the head of a second-rank Earthspike Lizard whose face still held an expression of shock and disbelief.

The beast's skull, seemingly forged from iron and bronze, caved in on one side from the blow.

A flash of golden light gleamed from Gong Chenying’s other hand. A golden axe spun out from the lizard’s abdomen, bringing with it a dark-colored demon core that floated briefly in the air before she snatched it up and tucked it into her storage pouch.

With dust rising all around, the massive body of the beast collapsed with a thunderous thud. It let out a few ragged breaths, but the light in its eyes had faded, it was clearly dying. Moments later, it lay still and silent.

All around, cultivators gasped for breath. Gong Chenying looked up briefly, it had been only three breaths since she acted. The black shadow above, no longer supported by blue crystal prisms, was rapidly corroding and falling apart.

"Clean up the battlefield. We leave in five breaths."

With that, Gong Chenying leapt into the open field. With a wave of her jade-like hand, the bodies of Wraith Sect cultivators flew into the air and swiftly entered a storage pouch at her waist. Her face remained expressionless.

When they had entered the sphere, they were instantly surrounded by a pack of demon beasts with no time to catch their breath. Leading them was a second-rank Late-stage Earthspike Lizard.

The enemy didn’t even wait for her to stabilize her stance. Before she had fully entered, that lizard struck out immediately, not even bothering to deploy the blue crystal, clearly intending to end the fight quickly before the shadow arrived.

Gong Chenying had activated her protective shield the instant she entered. Though she expected a tough fight, the suddenness still caught her off guard.

That the enemy wouldn’t even use the blue prism, despite the looming shadow outside, made their intent clear: finish them as fast as possible.

As the beast’s twin cleavers, each as broad as a door came crashing down at her head, Gong Chenying snorted coldly. Calm despite the danger, her divine sense told her that the beast’s cultivation exceeded her own. A direct clash would do her no good.

But with her fellow cultivators filing in behind her, retreating would block the passage and get others killed.

Fortunately, the enemy couldn’t know beforehand where her group would emerge. So when she appeared, the second-rank beast had still been ten zhang away. Though it attacked immediately, it couldn’t unleash its full power in such haste.

Gong Chenying’s spiritual power surged. Azure light flared across her body as a streak of azure energy slashed from below upward, not directly at the cleavers, but carving out space before and behind her.

As her long halberd cleaved upward, her protective shield expanded rapidly. In an instant, a dual-layered protective dome nearly four zhang wide formed around her, created from the aura of her halberd and her body’s spiritual energy.

At the same time, a thunderous boom echoed above. The cleavers struck her shield with explosive force. The point of impact sparked dazzling azure light like water bursting forth, accompanied by a rapid series of sizzling "z-z-z-z" sounds.

Seeing this unexpected resistance, the second-rank lizard's eyes flashed with killing intent then with a lewd glint.

Now that it had seen Gong Chenying’s face and her tall, alluring figure, lust surged in its heart.

With a beckoning gesture, the two cleavers leapt back into the air. With a single motion it pointed upward, transforming both weapons into black monstrous lizards, which spiraled down to crash into her protective barrier.

Gong Chenying’s beautiful eyes narrowed. As the phantom lizards smashed into her dome, the other beasts behind the leader unleashed their own attacks, some spat razor wind, others hurled fire with their claws, striking her from all directions in a storm of force.

With so many strikes, all mixed with a second-rank beast’s assault, no ordinary cultivator could endure it.

But Gong Chenying’s phoenix eyes flashed with icy brilliance. She didn’t retreat a single step. Her spiritual power howled like a storm, and her dual-layer defenses burst with radiant light.

The Earthspike Lizard standing in the distance grew furious as it watched, glaring at the horde of lesser demon beasts behind it with seething hatred. With an onslaught that overwhelming, that female cultivator should’ve been obliterated, how could there be anything left of her to enjoy?

But the other demon beasts had already launched their attacks. If he stopped them now, their techniques would backlash, leading to heavy casualties. With so many injured or dead, passing the next trial would become impossible. He’d be doomed to die within the Wheel of Life and Death himself.

He cursed inwardly in rage.

“A bunch of brainless fools!”

Completely forgetting the orders he had given earlier.

“As soon as the human cultivators enter, attack with all your might. Spare no effort. Any who disobey, kill!”

Yet, just as all the attacks were about to land on Gong Chenying’s dual-layer shield, over a dozen beams of light shot outward from within the barrier to meet the onslaught. In that brief moment, a dozen figures appeared inside the shield she had held.

The moment they emerged, their eyes met a sky full of blinding light and a killing intent that soared to the heavens. Alarm bells rang in their minds.

There was no need for Gong Chenying to say a word. The newcomers immediately unleashed their spiritual tools and treasures to counter the barrage. Explosions erupted in rapid succession, and the incoming attacks were momentarily held at bay.

Only the two black monstrous lizards managed to strike the shield directly, shaking it violently and causing those inside to stagger from the impact.

Crack! Crack!

In a flash of blinding light, the dual-layer barrier shattered. The two black beasts dimmed slightly but continued lunging straight at Gong Chenying.

Gong Chenying hadn’t been certain the cultivators following her would act in time. She had gambled. If she’d lost, she would’ve been drowned under a torrent of deadly spells.

Her face remained calm and emotionless. As the attacks landed, she quickly formed a strange seal with her left hand in front of her chest. Her other hand flicked forward, tossing several spirit stones ahead.

With that graceful motion, a circular wall of earth surged from beneath her feet, expanding rapidly. In the blink of an eye, it had grown to over a zhang in height. The spirit stones embedded themselves into the spinning wall.

As soon as the stones were absorbed, the wall lit up with vein-like patterns. Lines of light emerged one after another, swiftly connecting like rivers flowing into the sea. In moments, they had formed a glowing bulwark shielding her and the cultivators behind her.

The two black monstrous lizards crashed into the wall, sending a flurry of yellow earth flying. More attacks from the first-rank beasts swarmed forward.

Thud-thud... Boom-boom... The wall trembled under the barrage, its thickness gradually diminishing.

Yet, when the dust cleared, it had once again held firm. Behind the earthen wall, Gong Chenying’s lips were already stained with blood. She had borne the brunt of the entire onslaught almost alone and was now injured.

“A formation?”

The second-rank Earthspike Lizard narrowed its eyes, his enemy had withstood a storm of ferocious attacks.

And now, behind Gong Chenying, dozens more cultivators had appeared. As they emerged, each immediately launched powerful attacks. Beams of all colors intertwined and detonated in mid-air.

The Earthspike Lizard realized the ambush had failed.

Above his head, zzzzhhhhh sounds intensified. With a rumble, two earthen platforms rose from the ground. He pointed, and the two black monstrous lizards reverted into twin broadswords, which shot back from the earthen wall and returned to him.

He cast a long glance toward Gong Chenying. A grin stretched across his savage face, and his narrow tongue flicked across his nose. Without a word, he leapt onto the platform behind him.

With a single breath, he spat out a floating blue crystal prism. He grabbed it, pouring his spiritual power into it. A pillar of brilliant blue light shot skyward, slamming into the ceiling of the sphere above.

“Finish this quickly!”

Gong Chenying didn’t even bother to wipe the blood from her lips. With a quiet command, she too leapt onto the platform behind her. A pat at her waist, and a blue crystal prism appeared in her hand.

To take on a Late Foundation Establishment expert and dozens of Qi Condensation cultivators head-on with just a Mid Foundation Establishment cultivation, and still hold the line, word of this feat would surely cause shock and awe.

In cultivation, the gap widens the higher one ascends, even just a single minor realm difference can create a chasm as vast as the heavens and earth between two cultivators.

Yet Gong Chenying had proven herself overwhelmingly powerful.

Before entering this place, Gong Chenying had already formulated a strategy, array formations. It was also one of the main reasons the sect had chosen her for this trial.

Even a Late Foundation cultivator without knowledge of formations, facing a group of peers and dozens of lower-realm cultivators attacking together, would only be able to dodge and flee, abandoning their comrades. But Gong Chenying, leveraging her mastery of arrays, had carved out a sliver of hope in the face of certain death.

What followed shocked everyone, how quickly the tide turned.

Those two from Boundless Peak who had once been at odds with Li Yan, Qi Busheng and Mi Yuanzhi, seemed to go berserk. They were the first to launch a full assault.

Their insect swarms, cultivated with their own blood essence, were bred for overwhelming numbers. Upon release, thousands of insects surged forward like a wave, engulfing the enemy demon beasts. The opposing beasts numbered over twenty, many of whom had already taken damage during the earlier battle.

Under this fierce assault, the remaining Wraith Sect cultivators also released their spirit beasts, poisonous insects, and noxious mists, instantly throwing the enemy ranks into chaos.

Most low-level demon beasts relied on brute strength and instinct rather than awakened abilities. With few of them having developed innate techniques, many simply charged forward with raw power.

Within a few breaths, several beasts were shrieking in agony as clouds of insects burrowed into their eyes, noses, and mouths. After a few convulsions, they fell dead.

Some even went mad after inhaling the poisonous miasma and turned on their own allies. The battlefield became a paradise for venomous insects, which danced wildly in the air, though none dared approach the second-rank Earthspike Lizard.

In just moments, the Wraith Sect cultivators had reversed the situation and seized the upper hand.

Qi Busheng and Mi Yuanzhi, meanwhile, kept casting sideways glances at Li Yan. At this moment, Li Yan seemed rather unremarkable, occasionally flicking his hand to attack, prompting sneers of disdain to creep onto both their lips.

(Chapter End)