Begin your practice with the crane-shaped stance.

Chapter 104 Breaking the Formation (Bonus Chapter for 1k Monthly Tickets)

The large group of people set off for Chihuo Mine.

The rocks along the way gradually turned an eerie dark red, the air was filled with a pungent smell of sulfur, and the surrounding temperature rose sharply.

Xia Dong blended into the Eagle Wolf Guard's ranks, silently activating the Xuan Snake Inner Armor to cover his body with a faint, invisible layer of protection, completely isolating him from the restless heat.

He looked up and saw that the Crimson Fire Mine in front of him was like a giant beast lurking in the rolling heat. Black mist swirled at the entrance of the mine, and the dark red flames could be vaguely seen flickering like the eyes of a wild beast.

Xiang Qianhu rode atop his armored, scaled horse, his face ashen.

He raised his hand and waved it heavily, and a squad of elite Eagle Wolf Guards quickly drew their standard-issue swords, slapped the backs of their blades against their horses, and advanced in formation, attempting to probe the strength of the mine.

Just as the imperial guards stepped into the basin in front of the mine, a sudden change occurred. The cracked ground suddenly tore open several gaps, and pillars of dark red fire shot into the sky like venomous snakes.

This was no ordinary fire; it was clearly mixed with a dark gray-black aura of malevolent energy.

Clearly, the demons of the Wusheng Sect were well-prepared, directly utilizing the natural earth vein fire of the Crimson Fire Mine to set up an extremely dangerous "Fire Array".

The elite guards at the forefront had no time to dodge; their protective aura was easily pierced and ignited the moment it came into contact with the fiery flames.

They didn't even have time to scream before they were reduced to charred remains on their horses, collapsing to the ground with their mounts.

The remaining elite cavalry were terrified, and their formation instantly fell into chaos. Only after the centurion leading the troops shouted themselves hoarse did they retreat back to their main camp in a sorry state.

The first probing attack resulted in a major setback, demoralizing the army and forcing them to set up camp several miles outside the battle lines.

The atmosphere inside the central command tent was extremely tense.

Commander Xiang, Deputy Commander Wang, Lord Qian, and Master Guyue were all gathered together. Xia Dong, as the captain under Lord Qian, stood respectfully to the side along with Zhao Ting.

Master Guyue sat upright in the first guest seat, dressed in spotless white robes, his expression exuding aloofness and superiority.

She showed no emotion whatsoever at the deaths of the Eagle Wolf Guards.

Her voice rang out coldly: "This is a fiery array set up using the earth's veins. The Wusheng Sect forcibly fused the crimson fire energy from the earth with the corpse fiery energy. Ordinary martial artists and cultivators cannot withstand the erosion of the fiery energy; touching it will surely lead to death."

Xiang Qianhu frowned slightly and said in a deep voice, "Does the True Man have a way to break the formation? If we forcibly use human lives to fill this bottomless pit, I'm afraid that before we even see the main force of the Wusheng Sect, most of the elite troops of my Qianhu garrison will be lost. At that time, it will be really difficult to explain to the imperial court."

Master Guyue's gaze narrowed slightly, and his aura rippled almost imperceptibly due to a hint of urgency deep within him.

For her, the sole objective was to quickly clear away the obstacles in front of her and penetrate deep into the heartland to seize the Sacred Heart Lotus Seed. She stopped wasting words: "Let's proceed according to the established plan. Next, I will personally unleash the Taiyin Divine Light," to tear open a breach in a short time. The moment the breach forms, the experts of your Eagle Wolf Guard must swiftly rush into the formation, find and destroy the array's core that maintains its operation. Once the core is destroyed, the evil fire will dissipate, and the army can then advance unimpeded to wipe out the remaining forces of the Wusheng Sect."

Xiang Qianhu Ziguang hesitated for a moment, then decisively agreed.

Since Master Guyue was still undeterred by the difficulties after witnessing the power of the Fiery Array, the Eagle Wolf Guards naturally had nothing to say.

Xiang Qianhu immediately turned around and began to mobilize his troops.

Hearing the faint breathing from the side, Zhao Ting secretly circulated his magic power to suppress the surging emotions in his heart.

When he heard Qianhu call out the roll, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he and Xia Dong had been assigned to the second echelon, where they only needed to follow up and attack after the formation broke.

He knew that this was because Lord Qianhu had given face to Master Guyue, and because he was on good terms with Xia Dong, he had also managed to get a safer job.

Xia Dong kept her eyes down the whole time, like a stubborn rock that had no presence at all.

With the plan finalized, the atmosphere inside the tent became extremely tense, and even the surrounding spiritual energy seemed to have stopped flowing.

Everyone accepted the order and strode quickly to the front of the formation.

At this moment, everyone's gaze, filled with a mixture of awe and reverence, focused on Master Guyue, holding their breath and waiting for her thunderous strike that would tear through the sea of ​​fire.

The Lonely Moon Immortal rose gracefully from the front of the battle.

She lowered her eyes, like a fairy from the moon palace, and her slender, jade-like fingertips gently traced a line in the air.

In an instant, a bone-chilling cold erupted from her center, and even the sweltering air around her, distorted by sulfur, instantly condensed into visible ice crystals.

Taiyin Divine Light.

A pure, almost tangible, pale blue moonlight shot out from her fingertips, like a peerless frost blade that cleaved the heavens and earth, cutting straight into the core of the churning evil fire array.

Extremely cold and domineering.

The originally arrogant and rampant dark red pillar of fire, capable of instantly igniting the protective spiritual light of ordinary cultivators, emitted a teeth-grinding "crack" sound the moment it touched this dark blue divine light.

The raging fiery flames and the billowing earth vein corpse energy were frozen solid into eerie dark red ice sculptures, even the leaping flames were frozen in place.

:

The hard ground froze in mid-air.

Immediately afterwards, with a muffled "bang," the huge ice sculpture shattered inch by inch under the residual power of the Taiyin Divine Light, turning into a sky full of icy powder.

With this single strike, the extremely dangerous Fiery Array was forcibly torn open, creating a huge gap tens of feet wide. The continuous chilling aura suppressed the remaining earth vein fire, making it impossible for it to emerge again.

"This old Taoist nun is truly terrifying. She's only at the Foundation Establishment stage, how can her supernatural powers be so strong?" Xiang Qianhu was secretly astonished.

Little did he know that after obtaining the cultivation notes of Master Xu of Xuantian Temple, Master Guyue, with his extraordinary talent, had already touched upon the mysteries of the laws of heaven and earth in his comprehension of the Taiyin Divine Light.

At this moment, Xiang Qianhu had no time to worry about much else.

Upon seeing the breach open in the great formation, Commander Xiang immediately drew his sword and roared in anger.

Immediately afterwards, the Eagle Wolf Guards surged in through the gap like a black torrent, and the battle instantly became fierce.

The clash of swords and the dark, malevolent aura intertwined in a fierce battle, with severed limbs and severed bodies rising into the sky accompanied by a strong stench of blood.

Just when the fighting was at its most brutal, another unexpected event occurred.

The malevolent aura above the mine suddenly surged violently, and a huge banner emitting decadent music and eerie pink light appeared out of thin air. It was the "Blissful Red Dust Banner," a treasure secretly laid out by the Wusheng Sect.

This magical artifact descended like a tidal wave, precisely trapping the white-clad figure charging at the forefront.

"We've taken them down!" Before the Wusheng Sect demon hidden in the shadows could even rejoice, the "Lone Moon True Man" shrouded in the cloak of worldly dust did not display the earth-shattering counterattack that a Foundation Establishment Perfection Grand Cultivator should have.

The white-clad figure became ethereal for a moment, then with a soft "bang," it transformed into a yellow talisman that spontaneously combusted amidst the pink miasma, instantly turning to ashes.

This was clearly a "substitute talisman" of extremely high quality.

Master Guyue was shrewd and experienced. She had previously noticed a clue through the storage bags of the three assassins from the Wusheng Sect and judged that the Wusheng Sect must have a conspiracy against her.

Therefore, they had already extracted more clues from Pei Hongling.

But she was shrewd and calculating, and did not deal with Pei Hongling directly.

Instead, he kept Pei Hongling by his side, avoiding alerting the enemy and instead turning the tables on them.

The true Master Lonely Moon had already used his unfathomable concealment technique to silently bypass the chaotic frontal battlefield, transforming into a faint shadow and heading straight for the depths of the mine.

She paid no attention to the fighting on the periphery; the Sacred Lotus Seed was her goal for this trip.

Meanwhile, the Wusheng Sect leaders on the main battlefield, seeing their ambush fail, were thrown into disarray and began a hasty retreat towards the widest main mine tunnel deep within the mine.

Xiang Qianhu stood at the front of the battle formation, his eyes blazing.

Seeing that Master Guyue had disappeared and the enemy army was in a state of collapse, his greed for the Sacred Lotus Seed instantly overwhelmed his reason.

"All troops, advance! Don't let a single demon escape!" With a surge of magical power, Commander Xiang gave the order and led a large number of Eagle Wolf Guards in a ferocious pursuit along the main mine tunnel.

Xia Dong was originally mixed in with the charging team, lagging behind at a leisurely pace.

However, just as he was about to step into the wide main mine tunnel, he slowly withdrew his foot.

While others charge forward, he keeps retreating the more he charges.

Seeing this, Zhao Ting abruptly stopped, turned to the group ahead, and shouted, "There's something amiss with the ley lines on our flank! Beware of an ambush by the demons! I, the centurion, will cover your retreat. Everyone, give chase!"

Xia Dong couldn't help but secretly give Zhao Ting a thumbs up for his quick thinking.

He just couldn't be that shameless!

The two brothers naturally broke away from the main force of the advance, and with a swift movement, landed steadily behind a boulder on the outer edge of the mine tunnel.

Not long after the elite cavalry led by Commander Xiang ventured deep into the main mine tunnel, a deafening roar suddenly erupted from the crimson earth beneath their feet.

Rumble!

The main mine tunnel's rock walls collapsed with a deafening roar, and countless enormous dragon-severing stones, inscribed with strange sealing runes, crashed down from the dome without warning.

In the blink of an eye, that wide escape route was completely blocked, and the array's light flowed, trapping Xiang Qianhu and a large number of the main force of the elite cavalry.

The violent tremors stirred up clouds of dust.

Inside the main mine tunnel, smoke and dust filled the air, and the faint light flowing on the Broken Dragon Stone appeared particularly dazzling in the darkness.

The trapped Eagle Wolf Guards were thrown into chaos, their cries and the clanging of weapons filling the air.

However, Xiang Qianhu, who was in the center of the crowd, remained calm in the face of the chaos.

He casually brushed the dust off his shoulder, his gaze piercing through the dimness, and said in a deep voice to the two deputy commanders beside him, "Immediately use the Earth Escape Talisman; we must pass through directly. We absolutely cannot let the Sacred Heart Lotus Seeds fall into the hands of True Person Lonely Moon alone!"

Wang, the deputy commander, and the other two naturally knew what a blessing the Sacred Heart Lotus Seed was, so they had no objections whatsoever. They immediately took out a high-level Earth Escape Talisman from their storage bags and poured their magic power into it without hesitation.

However, just as the earthy yellow spiritual light emanating from the talisman enveloped the three people and attempted to merge into the ground, it seemed to have struck an invisible iron wall. The spiritual light let out a mournful cry and instantly dissipated into nothingness.

The three men's faces instantly turned ashen.

"Damn it! This wretched place has been secretly set up by a sorcerer with a 'turn the earth into steel' formation, rendering the earth-遁符 (earth-遁符, a type of talisman) completely ineffective!"

His previous composure vanished, replaced by a ferocious expression of anxiety on Commander Xiang's face. He abruptly turned to the panicked guards and roared, "What are you all standing there for! Immediately begin clearing the fallen rocks! Even if you have to dig with your bare hands, dig this passage open!"

Standing behind the boulder, Xia Dong listened to the muffled rumbling from underground and looked at the main mine tunnel blocked by boulders, feeling extremely fortunate.

If it weren't for his quick thinking, he would probably be trapped underground like a turtle in a jar, helplessly becoming cannon fodder for the big shots.

Xia Dong secretly plotted how to continue lying low amidst the chaos, waiting for things to calm down.

Just then, a very light footstep approached silently from the side and behind.

Xia Dong's eyes sharpened, his blood and qi instantly tensed, and he was about to use the Dragon-Capturing Hand to strike first when he heard a familiar voice:

:

sound.

"Come with me."

It was Pei Hongling who came.

She was wearing a gray robe that concealed her aura. She glanced at Xia Dong with a complex expression and said in a low voice with great speed, "Master wants you to come with me to another exit to wait for her. Once she comes out, we'll leave together."

Xia Dong hesitated and did not answer.

"No doubt about it, my master has placed a life-and-death curse on me. If anything happens to my master, I won't survive either," Pei Hongling said calmly.

Xia Dong nodded.

The situation is currently chaotic and unclear, so we should try our best to align ourselves with Master Guyue.

With the cards he has up his sleeve, he should be able to deal with Pei Hongling.

However, he did not invite Zhao Ting. After all, his elder brother's cultivation was not even as good as Pei Hongling's, and if he went along, he would be a burden if something happened.

Moreover, he needed Zhao Ting's help in dealing with the Eagle Wolf Guard's affairs.

Seeing that Xia Dong agreed, Pei Hongling didn't say anything more, but silently led the way.

On the way, Xia and Dong followed behind, neither letting their guard down.

A rusty hatchet is in hand.

At such close range, if Pei Hongling made any unusual move, he could deliver a fatal blow to her with his martial arts cultivation at the Transcendent Realm.

Pei Hongling could naturally sense Xia Dong's murderous intent, but she was too lazy to explain.

Anyway, Ziwan is a lunatic.

If it weren't for the fact that her life was in her master's hands, Pei Hongling would have wanted Xia Dong to be torn to pieces and suffer a terrible death just for the humiliation she suffered in the room that day!

"He doesn't treat Qin Wan well." Pei Hongling knew that Xia Dong and Qin Wan had always been in contact, and Qin Wan had received benefits from Xia Dong.

At first glance, it might seem like she hates someone the most right now, but actually, Xia Dong, and even her master, aren't at the top of her list. It's Qin Wan.

Ever since Qin Wan came up the mountain, she had keenly sensed that Qin Wan had diverted her master's attention.

The master even intentionally or unintentionally passed on his mantle to Qin Wan, which was unfair to her.

She was the one who became an apprentice first, and her family background was far superior to that of the merchant's daughter.

That lowly woman, what right does she have?

Hengyi, when she seduced Xia Dong, she thought that if she succeeded, she could not only get rid of her master's control, but also let Qin Wan see that the male archer she had been longing for could lick her toes with just a flick of her finger.

However, the script did not go according to her wishes at all.

In what ways is she inferior to Qin Wan?

First it was Master, then Xia Dong —

The resentment and malice that arose from these emotions almost made Pei Hongling wish she could destroy the entire world.

But she couldn't give up!

She cannot lose to that lowly woman.

She is determined to win back what she has lost.

Deep underground in the mine, a fierce, malevolent aura permeated the air.

The Lonely Moon True Bow is less than ten feet away from the Earthly Fiery Pool that nurtures the Sacred Heart Lotus Seed.

:

:

Six powerful evil cultivators blocked her way.

The leader, Xiu Can, clad in black robes, released spiritual pressure that was clearly at the peak of the Foundation Establishment stage.

"The Five Ghosts of Tianshui, the Black Spider Dharma King, do you think you can deal with me, you cowardly rats hiding your heads and tails?" Gu Yue Zhen Gong stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the six cultivators in front of him with disdain.