Cao Yun took out his 'Twenty-Four Mountains and Eight Rivers Compass' while Sun Liao was trying to delay Long Huafang with temporary array formations. Very soon, Cao Yun understood why Sun Liao had asked him to do it for him. Everything was a bit shifted from what his compass was telling him. Thanks to his mind cultivation, that was exhausting him, he could see reality beneath the illusion but it was a lot of effort.
Sun Liao could easily form his small array formations because they were excessively weak and temporary. But for an array formation such as the Soul Waking Bell, that was another story altogether. Cao Yun was really familiar with only four of the Eight Directions principles: Qi Circulation, Yin-Yang Alternation, Five Transformations and Nine Halls. The first three came from his study of alchemy and the last one was the subject of Sun Liao's recent lessons.
He had a small understanding of Twenty-Four Mountains and Eight Trigrams. Twenty-Four Mountains was the main principle permeating to how to read a compass more efficiently. And Eight Trigrams was somehow related to the interactions of Yin and Yang, and even to the Five Elements as well. For example, his martial art was using Wind, which was one of these Eight Trigrams, related to the Wood element. But his understanding of these was more theoretical than anything.
Finally, the last two principles he knew almost nothing about were Sixty Rotations and Twelve Earthly Branches and Ten Heavenly Stems. Both of them were related to the celestial bodies and the flow of time. They were probably the most difficult ones to get a feel for. This didn't mean they were the hardest to master, but getting started in them was tough.
Cao Yun had the Soul Waking Bell array formation in head and he started to plant his flags around Sun Liao and Long Huafang.
The girl was still only seeing the Sun Crowned Rooster who was Sun Liao in her illusions. She was desperately trying to get to him but her movements were impeded by strange forces she could not understand. Despite her lack of knowledge on the matter, it was obvious to her that these were array formations. Originally, she was supposed to break free of one to prove they were nothing much. However, she was now trapped in several layers of low level array formations. This was infuriating.
Unfortunately, Sun Liao could not set up powerful array formations in a fight yet. And with the illusion around him, it was already exceptional to be able to set any at all.
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Farther from this scene, there was a man in black and purple whose face was completely hidden. He was standing in front of a metallic plate inside a small array formation. As he wasn't a Mortal Warrior, he had used a smaller array formation to activate the plate and entrap Cao Yun and the persons close to him into the Ten Directions Mind Corrosion array formation. This was a 5-star Human array formation causing illusions in order to force everyone inside to kill each other.
The man could clearly see what was going on as he was outside of the range of the Ten Directions Mind Corrosion array formation. He was controlling the illusions to an extent. Witnessing Cao Yun almost unaffected who was setting up flags, he got worried and tried to amplify the amount of energy sent to the plate but it had almost no effect.
One of the side effect was that the array formations set up by Sun Liao became less and less effective as his perception got even more distorted. And Long Huafang clearly felt the strength hindering her movements lessen.
The demonic cultivator then tried to focus much of the illusions around the three guards. And it worked. They were seeing more and more monsters attacking them and they began striking the air. But for them, it was quite real. Very soon, the illusions distorted again and made them believe that the Ebony Snake Dragon who was really Cao Yun was responsible. The beast was staying away from them while controlling other smaller beasts to attack them from a distance.
As their state of mind was slowly corroded by the illusions, the three men decided to attack the Ebony Snake Dragon. They didn't want to fight such a demonic beast unless it was necessary but apparently, it was. The three guards were used to working together. They were members of the Red Cliff Faction and spent most of their time outside the Wubei Sect to gather ingredients and barter them against what they really needed. As such, they had a great coordination together. Even though they were only 9th-grade Mortals, they could probably fight and win against a 1st-grade Mortal Warrior or early 2nd-grade Mortal Warrior even. With a good battle formation, there was always strength in numbers.
Believing that the Ebony Snake Dragon was their enemy, they slowly surrounded him. The beast was staying in the same vicinity, turning around a certain spot. Indeed, Cao Yun stayed around Sun Liao and the advancing Long Huafang to set up the Soul Waking Bell array formation around them. As he was completely absorbed in his task, he failed to notice the guards until they were already in position.
The first one attacked with his polearm. Cao Yun dodged at the last moment and was immediately attacked by another guard. In fact, he quite literally threw himself on his attack. 'The Moon Grounds the Sun'. Cao Yun completely changed his direction by increasing his speed. However, the only escape route was barred by the last guard. Cao Yun found himself unable to find a way out of their encirclement. He could feel that they would be able to attack him no matter which way he went.
'Imperial Throne'. A gush of wind was sent in all directions. 'Dragon's Twin Horns'. As the wall of wind was going toward the guards, Cao Yun hid several small attacks within. He was focusing both on the fight and on setting up the array formation. His main objective was to free Sun Liao from the illusions. Then, with his expertise, he would probably be able to destroy all the illusions. He had four flags left to position, if he was correct. His Soul Waking Bell array formation would not be Perfect, not even very good, but he only needed it to work even a little bit.
The guards had good intuition and dodged most of the attacks. Those who hit them were rather weak. Indeed, they were just meant as a distraction. However, in their illusions, they saw the beasts all around them become more active and ready to kill them. They were filled with a sense of urgency. If they did not kill the Ebony Snake Dragon, they would soon die.
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Hence, fearing for their life, they went back after Cao Yun. He got attacked right when he was setting down a flag. Unable to react in time, he focused on defending. 'Dragon's Chest'. He had hesitated to use 'The Son of Heaven's Spear and Shield' but he didn't want to counterattack yet. Unless he was really in danger of dying he would not harm the guards he had himself hired for protection. That would be really too stupid to be killed by your own guards though. The attack was extremely powerful as the guards were desperate and even with his strong defense, Cao Yun felt his ribs break. His organs were protected but this was a very close call.
Once again, he tried to escape only to feel trapped by the other two guards positioned at the perfect locations to cut off his escape route. No matter what he did, he was always harassed by them. They were sealing his movements just by being at the right position. Cao Yun began to use his 'Shen Visualization' to determine where they would go. As they focused on cutting off his path, he could somewhat predict where they would move to next.
In his sea of consciousness, the fourth star seemed to get more and more active. A blue-white hue shined in the sky as this small binary star rotated. This star, the Room Star, was half the size of the Horn Star. In fact what the guards were doing was exactly what this star was about, controlling the enemy's movements. Suddenly, Cao Yun got an illumination!
Instead of trying to predict their moves, he could control them. If he knew that they would position themselves according to his own position, instead of being controlled by them, he could quite literally put them exactly where he wanted them. This was not really the move from the Room Star, but it was getting closer and closer to it.
Only three flags remained for the Soul Waking Bell array formation to be done. Cao Yun quickly put down two others. His strategy had worked, but the three guards were better than that. Seeing that the beast was using their tactics against them, they adapted, without even talking with each other. Cao Yun got completely cut off from the very spot he needed to go to complete the array formation.
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On the other hand, Long Huafang finally broke free from all the array formations which were getting weaker by the second. 'Wolf Walks on the Moon'. She appeared right in front of Sun Liao. The poor boy saw the image of the Silver Tailed Wolf with its fangs closing on him, too fast for him to dodge. 'The Dragon Bears its Fangs to the Wolf'. The sword of Long Huafang penetrated Sun Liao's skin and tore a hole in his liver.
Hearing his yell of pain, Cao Yun turned around and saw the girl ready to strike again. She was preparing 'Tail Follows the Sky'. If she performed this attack, Sun Liao would be beheaded in an instant. He had no way of resisting as he wasn't a close-range fighter.
With this threat on the head of his friend, Cao Yun decided to go set the flag disregarding the danger. Jumping right toward one of the guards, he finally activated 'The Son of Heaven's Spear and Shield'. The moment the flag came down, a polearm went straight for his neck. The strike was stopped by a thick layer of Wei Qi but the shock still inflicted pain on soft tissues in Cao Yun's throat. He diverted a bit of the strength in his spear. But instead of sending it back to the guard, he sent everything in the ground by striking at nothing.
Sun Liao with blood around his mouth and a deep laceration in his liver was seeing Long Huafang's sword coming right for his head. It was in the shape of one of the three tails of the Silver Tailed Wolf. This was utterly horrifying. His senses were good enough to see it coming but his reflexes were unable to allow him to dodge in time. As the tail was almost touching his neck, he saw a glimpse of a sword in it. The Soul Waking Bell array formation was just completed. It was at around two third efficiency but it still allowed Sun Liao's mind to see through the veil of the illusion.
Hoping that Long Huafang was as perceptive as he was, he screamed. "Stop!"
The sword stopped just before cutting him. Long Huafang was also now seeing a human face in the Sun Crowned Rooster, Sun Liao's face. Remembering all the fight, she finally understood that she was not fighting a beast, but a man. Sun Liao fell on the ground, putting pressure on his wound with both hands.
"You finally realize it?! We're in an illusory array formation! Look around you, Chen Guo is fighting against his own guards."
Looking around, she saw vague figures moving not too far from them. Long Huafang was ready to go when Sun Liao stopped her.
"If you leave this spot, you'll fall back into the illusion, not even knowing that this is one. Let me do my work." Even with his gushing wound, Sun Liao was trying to use the Soul Waking Bell array formation to enhance his senses and find the gates and palaces of this array formation.
He then commanded her to help him up so he could use his bow. This array formation was in theory extremely powerful. But the truth was that it came from a plate, and Sun Liao knew it. An array formation that wasn't fully harmonized with its environment had many weaknesses and he had found quite a few of them. Moreover, the one behind it wasn't very powerful so Sun Liao could easily exploit these weaknesses.
Cao Yun, a bit wounded, was in a bad situation. He had absolute faith in Sun Liao's abilities but he hoped that he would be fast. However, the guards stopped attacking. Even through the illusion, they saw that the Ebony Snake Dragon had disregarded a perfect opportunity to retaliate and it made them think. Not unlike Sun Liao, they were slowly realizing that something was fishy. As they were used to working outside the Wubei Sect, they had already been confronted to array formations of all kinds. And even if illusory array formations were rare, they knew about them as they were deemed the most dangerous. They could even make you kill yourself or your dearest friends.
This pause was enough time for Sun Liao to obliterate the illusion with seven arrows. He targeted several gates to disrupt a few palaces. On his arrows he had put fragments of small spirit stones and array formations. This was an ingenuous way of duplicating the ability of a Mortal Warrior. This tiny amount of Qi in the right place was able to disrupt the web of Qi. Then, they just had to watch nature itself dissolve it, once weakened.
But this wasn't over, Sun Liao had also deduced the position of the culprit.
"He's there!"
The guards who had understood what had happened turned toward the place he pointed at. There, a man in black and purple was sitting down. The backlash from the array formation being destroyed had stunned him a bit. In a flash, all three of the guards were around him, ready to strike.
"Surrender!"
"It seems like there is no more choice..." The man in black and purple took off his hood. Under it, Sun Liao saw a face he had seen before.
"Lü Bai?! So it was you!"
"Indeed... I admit that I underestimated you..." He was a 9th-grade Mortal himself, but the guards were three and they were trained fighters. He had no way to escape.
"I don't have a choice, then..." He lowered his head and a wave of heat rose from him.
The three guards immediately understood. "He's going to detonate his Dantian." This was a suicide technique. By condensing all of your Qi in your Lower Dantian, you could make it explode, destroying most of your body and the people too close to you.
The guards jumped backward as Lü Bai's body disappeared in a fiery explosion. Even the small array formation and the plate in front of him got destroyed and everyone had to close their eyes because of the light.