The Soul Devouring Beast’s path to break through to the next rank had only just begun, and it was already forced to stop due to Xie Jingxuan activating the Eight Extreme Trigram Fire Formation.
As its true body angrily roared, all the soul fragments that were about to be purified instead condensed in the sky and formed many fierce and brutal vile souls.
These vile souls were a few meters tall with bodies as black as ink and carried with them all sorts of emotional waves such as violence, oppression, brutality, and so on. They continuously dove downwards from the sky, wanting to rip apart and devour these instigators.
Xie Jingxuan closed her eyes and continued to focus on igniting the rest of the Sunshine Stone inside the ravines, not affected in the slightest by the descending vile souls.
However, Liang Zhong, Ban Hong, and the rest of the Dark Asura Hall martial practitioners looked like they were facing a terrible enemy.
Their expressions were serious, and they did their best to unleash spirit energy, forming all sorts of colorful shields of light to construct a tight defensive line that prevented the vile souls from entering.
“Kill! Kill! Kill, kill, kill!”
Gao Yu’s face was twisted as he abruptly stood up with eyes filled with madness and violence. There were clusters of vengeful spirits forming atop his Ogre-faced Rings.
He suddenly attacked the person closest to him, Ban Hong.
“Whoosh!”
A gray river formed by gray vengeful spirits flew out of his two palms and flowed at Ban Hong’s chest.
Ban Hong, who was expending all his strength into the purple spirit snake to form the purple spirit light defense line, turned cold as he raised his hand and readied to smash apart the annoying gray river.
If Ban Hong, who was in the Manifestation Realm, did not bother controlling his attack’s output, even if Gao Yu didn’t die, he would instantly suffer tremendous injuries.
“Don’t! Leave it to me!”
Qin Lie exclaimed, and before Ban Hong could actually attack, he hurriedly blocked in front of him. He hastily swung out the wooden sculpture in his left hand.
Light blue electricity stabbed outwards like numerous needles, and they blocked the gray river rushing towards Ban Hong’s chest. The multiple vengeful spirits screamed terribly and shrunk backwards when they touched the rampart electricity, shrinking back into the Ogre-faced Rings on Gao Yu’s fingers.
“Gao Yu! Wake up!”
Qin Lie took one step forward, and a fleeting bolt of blue lightning appeared from the tip of his hands, vanishing at the back of Gao Yu’s neck.
Gao Yu’s body shuddered as if he was electrocuted, and the blank look in his eyes gradually faded away as he began to wake up.
A few seconds later, Gao Yu woke up completely and nodded lightly towards Qin Lie. Then he sat down suddenly and focused on adjusting himself.
“These vile souls and evil spirits cannot break through our defensive line of light shields, but the evil mind and consciousness they gathered are not affected by them.” Liang Zhong cut in a word at an appropriate time, “Our defense line cannot prevent their minds from entering, so the two of you better be more alert in case you became controlled by their evil consciousness and attack us instead.”
The spirit artifact Liang Zhong called ‘Azure Moon’ hung atop the crowd’s heads. It was like an azure crescent moon unleashing a misty azure light.
The azure light was like the rippling patterns of the sea. Layer after layer and circle after circle it spread, forming an azure light shield.
It was also the outermost light shield.
The azure light shield’s existence was like a azure cover made out of ice, encircling everyone inside it.
The vile souls rammed into the azure light shield until the cover resounded with every collision, but they failed to break through the cover and enter.
Beneath the azure cover was the purple light shield formed by the purple spirit snake. This was the layer Ban Hong was responsible for.
And beneath those two, there were also two layers of ice blue and dark green light shields, and they were formed by the combined strength of the Dark Asura Hall martial practitioners.
At this moment, Liang Zhong, Ban Hong, and those Dark Asura Hall martial practitioners’ entire bodies were glowing brightly as they continuously drew out the spirit energy inside their dantian’s spirit sea, enhancing it further with their spirit artifacts before unleashing them to supply energy to those light shields non-stop.
“Our spirit energy can only play a defensive role, and it is unable to hurt those vile souls.” Liang Zhong frowned. “These vile souls formed from the soul fragments of the soul beasts cannot be affected at all by normal blades, chops, sword stabs, or other common attacks. The spirit shields also can only stop them from rapidly seeping through. Blazing fire and the berserk energy of lightning are their true bane.”
While he was speaking, the frenzied sounds of the Soul Devouring Beast’s true body inside the cave was growing louder and louder.
The stone pillars in the valley shook violently, and a terrifying aura gradually spread out along with the chilly air inside the valley,
“This isn’t good! Its true body is coming out!” Liang Zhong’s expression turned.
Qin Lie and the others also grew anxious.
“All of you, continue to defend the Miss from the vile souls’ attacks with the light shields. I will deal with its main body.” Liang Zhong’s expression tensed up, and after he instructed the crowd, he suddenly exited the layers of light shields.
The moment he walked out, the vile souls that had covered the sky turned mad and dove towards him.
“Swish Swish Swish!”
The azure crescent moon floating above Liang Zhong’s head abruptly brightened greatly. Colorful beams of cold blue lightning shot out in every direction.
All of the attacking vile souls slowed as if they had sunk into deep mud, and they screamed painfully when shone by the blue light.
Liang Zhong did not look at those vile souls. His eyes stared straight at the cave that was brimming with cold streams of air as he rapidly closed in on the entrance.
“Mister Liang watch out!” Ban Hong exclaimed.
“Aooo!”
A strange and terrible beast about five to six meters tall and tens of meters wide abruptly flew out of the cave with an angry roar.
This Soul Devouring Beast that had escaped from Nether Battlefield looked like a giant toad at first glance. Its dark brown body was covered in deep wrinkles, and in these wrinkles, were many ugly fist-sized pimples.
The pimples bulged along with its breathing body, spitting and swallowing thick streams of black.
Its three dark green eyes that were the size of a human head were displayed in a triangle on top of its tumor-like monstrosity of a head, and each one of its eyes emanated the gazes of chilliness, gloom, and evil.
It opened its mouth and roared. Within its mouth, were rows of sharp teeth shaped like broadswords. A cold light overflowed, causing terror among the men.
The moment the toad-shaped Soul Devouring Beast came out, its three gloomy and chilly eyes turned as one to look in Xie Jingxuan’s direction. With that, it proceeded to immediately charge at her.
“You’re not going anywhere!”
With a cold face, Liang Zhong pointed a finger at the Azure Moon. The Azure Moon abruptly changed and actually grew bigger to about the size of a millstone.
“Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh!”
The edge of the azure spinning crescent was sharp, and while shooting beams of blade-like light, it plowed towards the Soul Devouring Beast’s head.
The Soul Devouring Beast was absolutely furious. Its full body of ugly pimples suddenly bulged, and as if firing arrows, it shot out many streams of green water. Each one of these streams reeked of a terrible stench, as if they contained toxin inside them.
The Azure Moon was struck by the green water arrow and became stained with green poison. The azure light suddenly dimmed.
Liang Zhong’s expression was stern. His pupils suddenly turned azure, and clusters of azure light burst out of his body, instantly merging as one with the Azure Moon’s light.
The Azure Moon’s light turned bright again.
Qin Lie and the others were all intently watching the battle between Liang Zhong and the Soul Devouring Beast’s true body. Suddenly, they heard a rumbling noise in their eardrums, looked upwards, and only then realized that the vile souls were madly ramming into the light shields.
“Don’t look at me, protect the Miss with everything you have!” Liang Zhong yelled from the other side, “Before it reabsorbs its soul fragments, the true body of a Soul Devouring Beast is very weak. I have this completely under control. All of you simply need to guard the Miss and not let Soul Devouring Beast’s vile souls invade before she completely activates the formation!”
“Understood!” Ban Hong straightened. “Everyone, get your heads together and pour all your energy into the shield above your heads. Even if we die, we will not let a single vile soul slip through!”
“Yes!” The warriors of Dark Asura Hall responded in unison.
“Over there! Charge in that direction quickly! Eh? Dark Asura Hall, they are Dark Asura Hall’s men!”
“We’ve finally escaped the spirit beast horde’s pursuit!”
“Everyone, look quickly! Inside there. What is that spirit beast inside there?”
“……”
It was at this moment that there were exclamations from the periphery of the valley. The disorderly sounds of many footsteps also slowly resounded.
Qin Lie and Gao Yu were the ones who had it the easiest. When they paid attention and looked, they realized that Water Moon Sect’s Na Nuo and Crimson Flame Association’s Xiong Ba’s groups had already approached quietly.
Even further back were Shattered Ice Manor’s Yan Ziqian, Nebula Pavilion’s Tu Ze , and the others. They were also approaching from another direction.
Most of these people had injuries of all severities on their bodies. Many of them were in low spirits; Water Moon Sect’s Na Nuo and her people appeared gloomy, and their eyes were also overshadowed and dark.
It looked like they hadn’t put the sadness of their sisters’ deaths behind them yet.
When they arrived and saw the situation inside the valley, they all wore surprised expressions and subconsciously decided to come closer.
“All of you are not allowed to enter the valley!” Ban Hong immediately yelled out and stopped them. “The periphery of the valley is also the Soul Devouring Beast’s domain. His presence made sure that no spirit beasts would dare to enter here. Go to where our unicorns are, that is a safe zone, and no spirit beast horde would dare approach it.”
“Do not enter the valley!” On the other side, Liang Zhong did not forget to sternly instruct them even as he battled against the Soul Devouring Beast’s true body.
Currently, half of the Eight Extreme Trigram Fire Formation within the valley had been activated. Inside the bowl-shaped valley, the stone pillars at the outer edge were as red as forged iron. They even let out flames that connected to the ravines and formed a huge fiery web on top of the valley.
Not only could the existence of the huge fiery web prevent the Soul Devouring Beast’s soul fragments from slipping out and trap its cold and evil consciousness, the web could even burn the oppressive, gloomy, and maddening evil feelings that suffused the area.
As long as Na Nuo, Xiong Ba, and the rest did not enter the valley, the intersecting huge fiery web would prevent the Soul Devouring Beast’s evil consciousness from completely escaping the valley and stop it from rapidly invading their souls.
However, if they did not listen and entered the valley, then it was very likely that the negative emotions would evoke the evil thoughts inside their hearts, thus becoming affected by the Soul Devouring Beast and lose themselves just like Gao Yu before. They would turn into mad beasts and attack their own companions—this would add too many variables to the valley’s situation.
“We won’t come in.” Na Nuo was the first to express her opinion and led her sisters to where the unicorns were. Her dark eyebrows were locked in a deep frown. Watching the many vile souls diving into the light shield built by Ban Hong and his men and watching Liang Zhong and the Soul Devouring Beast’s intense battle, she muttered, “Only an idiot would go in and court death.”
Tu Ze had also come over. He, Zhuo Qian, Kang Zhi, and the rest were covered in dried blood, and there was no telling if this blood were theirs or the spirit beasts he killed.
“Are you okay, Qin Lie?” he asked.
“Of course I’m fine. How about you guys?” Qin Lie asked.
Tu Ze broke into a bright smile, “We’re all seriously injured, but no one died and we’re all still part of the living. Look, we are not a single man less.”
The moment he said that, Water Moon Sect’s Na Nuo, Crimson Flame Association’s Xiong Ba, and even Shattered Ice Manor’s Yan Ziqian and their people all looked unnatural.
“Hmph!” Yan Ziqian’s wore a cold facade.
“Uuu!” a girl from Water Moon Sect remembered her dead sisters and could not hold back from softly crying.
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