Hui froze, staring up at the mass of approaching cultivators. Subconsciously, he touched his robes, the place where he’d kept the jade bird his master had given him before sending him off to Twin Elemental City. Nothing remained. In all his changes and outfit swaps, the jade had vanished along the way.
He took a deep breath. Master might have noticed my pulse of qi earlier. He is Master, after all. Still, I can’t count on it.
The three representatives charged into the sky, firing off powerful magics as they charged. Three Mysterious Heavenly Forest cultivators peeled off from the mass of cultivators to meet the representatives, and the three pairs instantly locked in combat.
Hui drew the lotus seed out from his storage ring. He clenched it in his hand, biting his lip. Last time, the lotus beast was too powerful for Bai Xue to handle alone. If that’s the case, it should be at least at the peak of the fourth realm, if not at the fifth realm. She’s from an immature lotus blossom, and Bai Jingwen was weaker than Bai Fenfeng, but… but it’s better than having no hope!
Jin Xian landed beside him, carrying Gu Tian under one arm. She set him down and stepped aside.
Hui didn’t acknowledge her arrival. He hadn’t noticed when, but at some point, Jin Xian had become an extension of his will, to the point he didn’t need to consciously think to control her. She still possessed her own will, but allowed him to suppress it, quietly merging her subconscious with his.
“Gu Tian!” Hui barked.
“Y-yes!” Gu Tian replied, standing up straight.
“I’m about to release the lotus beast. Can you incite her to attack the other cultivators here?”
Gu Tian hesitated. After a second, he nodded his head once, shortly. “I’ll do my best.”
Hui drew a deep breath. He tossed the lotus seed into the air and made a hand sign, dispelling the seal on its shell.
The seed trembled. It split, and a green sprout burst from the gap. In the next instant, green flesh burst forth, forming Bai Jingwen’s shape once more. The lotus beast landed softly on the balls of its feet and took a step forward. Lotus petals sprouted over her body, forming robes. A lotus grew just over her ear, sprouting into a hair decoration. She turned and looked at Hui with seed-black eyes.
Hui reached out, then frowned. She’s equivalent to the mid fourth tier… not unimpressive, but not earthshaking, either. I need to power her up, somehow. It should be possible, right? Bai Fenfeng, after all…
Bai Jingwen stepped toward him, baring her teeth.
“Gu Tian!” Hui shouted, jolted back to reality.
Gu Tian lifted his flute. A mysterious melody sounded out, and the lotus beast froze. She shifted, then turned to the Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect cultivators. Veins burst out over her limbs. Her dark green hair flowed like vines through the air. She grit her teeth and charged into the battle.
As she ran, Hui pointed a finger at her back. He drew a songbird from within his dantian and passed it into her back. Bai Jingwen trembled, and in the same instant, her bodily might surged. Her cultivation base, too, soared.
Hui’s eyes widened. Compared to Bai Fenfeng’s lotus beast’s diet of death qi, it seems like using life qi is twice the results for half the effort! Immediately, he sent another two songbirds into her back, then another one. Bai Jingwen’s cultivation base surged to the peak of the fourth realm.
She charged into battle, swinging left and right. With no tact, she smashed directly through one cultivator after another, careless of friend or foe, simply attacking whoever she reached. Gu Tian’s flute trilled, and she froze and gripped her ears, growling. She glared back at Hui and Gu Tian.
Hui’s scalp went numb. No, Elder Sister! Not us!
Her eyes narrowed. A second before she stepped toward them, a Mysterious Heavenly Forest disciple charged forward and slashed into her gut. Green ichor splashed over the ground. Bai Jingwen spun around and slapped the disciple. His head spun off, a startled expression frozen on his face even as it bounced over the ground.
Hui gestured, and Jin Xian leaped into battle as well. Jin Xian and Bai Jingwen cut a wave through the disciples on the ground.
Just as the tides were about to change, the wave of new disciples arrived. Magical attacks blasted at Jin Xian and Bai Jingwen, and the two staggered backward. Despite their resistance, wounds opened up on their flesh, and black and green blood splattered over the ground.
Hui grit his teeth. He sent death qi to Jin Xian, bolstering her own, and another songbird raced toward Bai Jingwen. Jin Xian shivered and leaped into battle, while Bai Jingwen threw back her head and loosed a roar. The air itself trembled under the roar, and the nearest cultivators fell back, bleeding from their eyes and ears.
They’re mostly fourth tier or below. Mysterious Heavenly Forest is holding back its experts. Likewise, Sect Master Mu… He glanced above, where the man floated, his arms crossed, expression stony. He’s letting his sect experience battle, isn’t he? Using this as a chance to propel them to greater battle prowess, so they can scythe through the rest of the sects when he takes them on the attack!
I’m not anyone’s battle experience! I’m just a small cultivator, okay! Let me live in peace!
But if you won’t let me live in peace… ah, dammit! I don’t want to kill, I don’t like killing, but if you leave me no choice, then—!
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Bolstered by his injection of qi, Bai Jingwen and Jin Xian once again cut a bloody path through the cultivators. Bai JIngwen’s form twisted, constantly in flux. She got injured, then healed, injured and healed, on infinite loop. Hui watched her, half in a trance. The image of her body seared into his eyes, becoming a form of enlightenment for his body cultivation!
Lightning cracked, breaking Hui from his trance. He looked up, startled. Overhead, tribulation clouds gathered, weighty and dark. Hui glanced upward, then looked at Bai Jingwen. Another breath of qi, and she’ll burst directly into the fifth stage! But… the tribulation…
The tribulation! Heavenly Tribulation is incredibly dangerous, isn’t it? Why don’t I give these Mysterious Heavenly Forest disciples a taste of Heaven’s wrath? Hui’s eyes shone. Decisively, he fired his finger-gun and sent another songbird into Bai Jingwen’s back.
Bai Jingwen’s chest flew out, arms back, head tipped back. She howled again, fierce and powerful. The clouds churned, darkening to pure black. Filtered through the clouds, the light turned yellow-green, twisted by the power of the Heavenly Tribulation.
Sect Master Mu looked up, brows faintly furrowed. “Who’s drawing the Heavenly Tribulation…?”
Lightning gathered over Bai Jingwen. She stared up at it, her eyes narrowed savagely. Hui narrowed his eyes. That’s not going to strike enough people! I need to spread her aura over the field, but how…?
His eyes lit up. He drew a dozen wood talismans and threw them at Bai Jingwen. They slapped gently into her back. She peered over her shoulder, reaching for them. Before she could remove the talismans, Hui made a handsign. The wood talismans activated. Under Hui’s will, they formed into a thin, rootlike network that spread out from Bai Jingwen’s feet over the floor of the battlefield. Bai Jingwen furrowed her brows, confused, and lifted her feet, but didn’t attack the thin filaments. She shook her feet and took a step forward. The roots dragged along after her.
The wood qi resonated with Bai Jingwen’s aura. The roots began to emanate her aura as well, and the Heavenly Tribulation spread out overhead, drawn to the thin network of roots as well as Bai Jingwen herself.
The first bolt of lightning descended onto Bai Jingwen. She screamed and trembled, her skin blackened, pale lotus-root-like bones revealed under her green flesh. In the next breath, flesh reformed over her bones, only to evaporate again as the lightning struck. Bai Jingwen screamed and ran, attempting to evade the lightning.
Hui furrowed his brows. The tribulation spread out. Why is it only striking Bai Jingwen?
Her aura! It’s strongest on Jingwen. Hui closed his eyes, reaching out to the root network. Jin Xian stood in front of him, blocking everyone from reaching him.
His qi met the network, and instantly, a shimmering world of green spread out before him. Stars burst out here and there, connected by thin, spiderweb filaments. In the center of the web, a huge ball of green stood out as the sun compared to the distant stars, almost too brilliant to look at.
There’s the problem! Hui snorted to himself, shaking his head. He reached out to the huge mass of aura and drew about sixty percent of it away into the network.
Bai Jingwen shuddered and staggered, suddenly weakened. Distantly, a segment of roots suddenly glowed with extreme green light, and a bud formed, struggling upward into soft flesh.
A disciple next to the bud stared, confused. He lashed out at the bud with his sword.
Lightning blasted from the sky and slammed into the disciple on its way toward the bud. The disciple stiffened, then fell limply to the ground, destroyed by the fifth stage’s Heavenly Tribulation.
Hui grinned. He opened his eyes, using his soul’s third eye to watch the network and his ball of aura beneath the fierce battle above. Gesturing, he steered the aural mass through the network, pausing it under one disciple after another. Wherever he saw a close fight, he guided the aura near the Mysterious Heavenly Forest disciple. Again and again, lightning struck, smashing down one Mysterious Heavenly Forest disciple after another.
The Heavenly Tribulation trembled, clouds blackening. The lightning flashed back and forth in its clouds, growing stronger with each pass. More and more lightning built up, until the cloud could hold no more. Lightning rained down on the battlefield. This lightning ignored the mass of aura, and instead indiscriminately struck at anything that had a scrap of Bai Jingwen’s aura in it. Mysterious Heavenly Forest and the righteous cultivators fled together, neither willing to fight in the sea of lightning that materialized between the heavens and the earth.
Bai Jingwen howled at the sky, clawing upward at it. Lightning dug holes in her body and singed her flesh, but she continued to scream defiantly at the heavens. Her body healed, but slower, no longer able to keep up with the damage. The aura in the roots and in her body flagged, weakening.
Hui’s eyes flashed. I understand, now. These passages, these roots, are like qi passages. The aura takes the place of qi. Burn qi, regenerate the body!
Blow after blow hammered Bai Jingwen. Her flesh peeled away, her roots collapsed, and she shriveled down into a seed. Overhead, the Heavenly Tribulation slowed. The lightning quieted, and the Heavenly Tribulation began to disperse. Bai Jingwen had failed to withstand the tribulation.
Waving his sleeve, Hui collected the seed. A quiet pulse of life qi remained within the seed, and he breathed out a sigh and put it away in his storage ring. Seems like the lotus beast has a truly powerful life force! Even the Heavenly Tribulation can’t destroy it.
Eyes still glimmering with the light of enlightenment, Hui gestured, reshaping the roots. They formed into an enormous talisman formula, glowing with wood qi. As the lightning sizzled to a halt and the battle fell into a lull, Hui slammed his hand down on the edge of the root network. The talisman activated, glowing a brilliant green. Wood qi spiraled toward Hui, sinking into his body and reforming it. He shivered. Green light burned from his body. It flew toward his forehead, where it formed a third petal mark opposite the second. This one was green and glowed with fierce life force as the wood qi continued to soak into Hui.
The trees around them began to tremble and shrivel up as their wood qi coursed into Hui. Hui took a deep breath and glanced around, suddenly aware that everyone’s eyes were on him. The sudden descent of the Heavenly Tribulation had halted the battle, and the roots which became a talisman formula drew everyone’s attention. He swallowed and bit his lip. Too slow, too slow! I need to go faster. I’m in the middle of a battle, after all!
Hui killed his qi, suppressing it down. Momentarily, the talisman went dim.
Sect Master Mu stopped in midair. A second ago, he’d taken a step forward, shocked by the sudden withering of his forest after the Heavenly Tribulation. Now, he stopped. He snorted dismissively and shook his head. “Overreaching. Naturally, whatever technique he was attempting… failed. He’s a thousand years too early to develop a new technique in the middle of battle!”
In the next second, Hui’s eyes flew open. Green qi burned in his eyes and beamed from his forehead. A black hole appeared in his hands as he drew in all the wood qi from the forest around him. Shockingly, some of the Mysterious Heavenly Forest disciples staggered as green wood qi emerged from their pores and flew toward Hui. Standing in the middle of a maelstrom of wood qi, he seemed to be devouring the whole forest!
His body began to transform. A greenish sheen colored his skin, and the maelstrom began to lash away some of his flesh, as though the body transformation art made him weaker, rather than stronger. However, where the flesh stripped away… almost instantly, he regenerated the wound!
Sect Master Mu’s eyes widened. He bared his teeth. “This lowly worm dares to try and drain my forest of qi right in front of me? Who gave him the right!” He stepped forward, and in a flash, appeared in front of Hui, the prismatic wooden sword already slashing toward Hui’s abdomen.