The Ancient Soaring Serpent raised its dark, crimson slitted eyes. Unbeknownst to it, Wen Li had already flown above its head, lingering right in its blind spot.
In the next instant, the massive serpent head twisted, snapping fiercely at her previous position as if longing to crush her to pieces in a single bite.
“ROAR!”
Missed again!
When it looked up, Wen Li was still nowhere to be seen.
It glanced left and right, but found nothing.
Did she run away?
A rare look of surprise flickered in the Ancient Soaring Serpent's crimson slitted eyes. It swept its spiritual sense around, only to discover—
“Oh, I've been spotted.”
It turned out Wen Li had been exploiting its field of vision all along. No matter how it turned, she remained directly above its head, only exposed now that it had used its spiritual sense.
“Wen Li, I'm here to help you!”
Du Mojin rushed over with his sword drawn. Both he and Lin Qing were sword cultivators.
Wen Li didn't hear him though, shouting loudly,
“Hold On!”
Du Mojin, who had been charging over mid-air with sword in hand, slammed the brakes in panic.
“Huh?” Hold on for what?
Taking advantage of his momentary pause and lapse of focus, the Ancient Soaring Serpent seized the opportunity. It whipped its massive, razor-sharp tail through the air, swatting at his chest like swatting a fly.
BANG!
Du Mojin was sent flying into the branch of a towering tree before dropping straight down, buried in fallen leaves.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“Wait, my weapon is named 'Hold On'. I was calling out to my weapon! Why did you stop?”
Wen Li stood flabbergasted.
Having just barely crawled up from the ground, Du Mojin spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Agh!”
Du Mojin, usually an upright, proud prodigy, looked up with a rare glint of pure resentment. Gritting his teeth, he felt a sharp pain in his chest—
—from sheer rage.
Through gritted teeth, he hissed, “You named your weapon Hold On?!”
What sane person gives their beloved weapon such a psychotic name?!
Wen Li felt embarrassed. “Isn't it useful for stalling enemies? That way I get the chance to stab them first. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
The effect was great, except she had targeted the wrong person.
Du Mojin trembled all over with rage.
However, seeing that the Ancient Soaring Serpent had gone completely rabid and was now playing a game of Snake with Wen Li, he had no choice but to lift his sword and fly back up.
Meanwhile, the six cultivators who had been sprawled on the ground had mostly caught their breath. Some hid to the side to quickly swallow pills, while others scrambled away on hands and knees to escape.
After clashing with the great demon, they had lost nearly half their cultivation. They were in no state to fight any longer.
Suddenly, Yao Dai's ear twitched. A look of slight surprise flickered across her eyes, quickly replaced by intense excitement.
“Lin Qing, go help them! I can protect myself.”
“It... seems I don't need to...”
Lin Qing stood frozen, his eyes wide with horror and disbelief.
“What?”
Yao Dai quickly looked up, only to see Du Mojin—who had just charged up with his sword—getting knocked down by a single frontal hit from the great demon. Coughing blood, he was pinned to the ground, unable to get up for a long while.
Lin Qing panicked. “That great demon is definitely Third Realm Late Stage!”
Equivalent to a late-stage Golden Core cultivator!
A single sub-stage difference meant a late-stage cultivator could take on four or five early-stage ones. But a difference of an entire full realm? A single strike could obliterate hundreds of Foundation Establishment cultivators.
If the great demon hadn't been severely injured beforehand, they wouldn't even have seen those six cultivators surviving.
“I'll hide further away then.”
Seeing that Lin Qing's full attention was on the battlefield, Yao Dai sidestepped into a retreat.
Meanwhile...
Seeing Du Mojin get sent flying in a single move after hoping he could buy her a little time, Wen Li sighed.
“Why was that so fast? Oh well, close enough.”
She drew "Hold On"—a kitchen knife.
Forming hand seals with one hand while holding the kitchen knife in her right, Wen Li levitated into the air, her sleeves fluttering. She tossed five high-grade spirit stones toward the ground, where they landed precisely around the Ancient Soaring Serpent in the positions of the Five Elements.
A sharp chill flared in Wen Li's clear eyes. She instantly rushed to the core of the array with Hold On in hand, channeling a surge of pale red spiritual energy straight down the blade and into the array eye.
“Rise!”
As she looked up, a thread of light flickered across her pale pupils.
In the next instant, a brilliant golden glare suddenly burst from the forest ground.
A complex and intricate Grand Five Elements Array violently erupted from the ground, expanding outward from the center. Wen Li grabbed the heavily injured Du Mojin, barely retreating twenty meters backward.
The barrier formed as the array rose blocked the Ancient Soaring Serpent's next strike perfectly.
BOOM!
The array activated; the killing trap unfolded.
The array rings—woven of gleaming gold and crimson—surged rapidly, firing wave after wave of murderous wind blades at the Ancient Soaring Serpent. Trapped within, the serpent had no way to escape and could only scramble to defend itself.
Dangling in the air out of habit as Wen Li held him, Du Mojin's eyes quivered.
“Your array...”
It contained a maze array, a sword array, and an illusion array!
This was an advanced composite grand array! He had only ever seen something like this in sect-guarding formations.
The blood on the corner of his lips hadn't dried yet, but Du Mojin didn't even care to wipe it away.
Just a moment ago, Wen Li had been playing hide-and-seek with the great demon, making quips to distract it—so how had this array been set up in the very next second?
He hadn't seen her survey the terrain, calculate the nodes, or lay down the array lines at all! Where did this array come from?
The whole process couldn't have taken more than ten seconds!
Wen Li raised an eyebrow proudly. “Impressive, right? I paid a fortune for someone to design this template so I could just copy it.”
Du Mojin fell silent. Was this truly a case of "money makes the mare go"?
Still, weren't array masters infamous for keeping their noses held high? How could someone let someone else copy an array so complex, grueling, and extraordinarily difficult to construct?
“If you're so rich, why take such a risk for three thousand mid-grade spirit stones?” he asked, still perplexed.
“You don't have children—illegitimate or otherwise—do you?” Wen Li asked back.
Du Mojin's face flushed red, feeling a sense of helpless outrage like a widow having scandalous rumors spread about her.
“I am wholeheartedly devoted to the Dao and have never married. How could I have children?”
“Precisely my point! If you don't raise kids, you don't realize how expensive daily life is,” Wen Li said as if it were obvious. “Every bit counts, even a tiny mosquito has meat. Money is made by earning, not saving.”
“Fair enough.”
Du Mojin sighed. That makes sense. Daoist Wen Li is so young, her shoulders must be weighed down with immense pressure.
Wait.
“Aren't you in Foundation Establishment?”
“Didn't you see for yourself?”
“Aren't arrays limited by the array master's spiritual energy?”
Although the power of an array was influenced by many factors—such as the precision of calculations, the master's mastery over the array, and the laying down of array eyes and lines...
...it fundamentally relied on the array master's spiritual energy strength.
Wen Li tilted her head. “And?”
“It's about to break the array!”
Wen Li's eyelids twitched. She immediately grabbed Du Mojin and dashed away from their spot. Sure enough—
“ROAR!!!”
The array was forcefully shattered.
The Ancient Soaring Serpent was completely enraged now. Opening its mouth, it spewed a torrent of scorching fire, burning the trees where they had just stood straight to ashes. When the wind blew, not a speck remained.
“Stay far back. Wouldn't want my blood splattering on you later.”
Leaving those words behind, Wen Li charged forward once again with the kitchen knife in hand.
Du Mojin was thrown back far into the distance, right into Lin Qing's arms.
Lin Qing said hastily, “Isn't she an array cultivator? With no one to buy her time now, how is she supposed to set up an array?!”
Array masters were fragile glass cannons who drew diagrams; in a solo fight without a team, they were absolute pushovers, since setting up an array took time and intense concentration.
What enemy would be dumb enough to wait out a ridiculously long wind-up time instead of stabbing you on the spot?
Du Mojin was equally baffled. “I have no idea.”
Yao Dai, who had disappeared for a moment, suddenly popped back up and blinked. “Ah, didn't my master say she specializes in spell cultivation?”
She never mentioned being an array master at all.
Lin Qing and Du Mojin turned to look at her in unison, realizing a massive oversight.
“Huh?”
Specializes in?!
So this is what she's like in something she doesn't specialize in?!
Rate on N.U.
