The members of the three great sects each sought out one of the remaining sect teams. The extra sect team found themselves facing Chang Shu. As for Shen Mengqi and the others, Chen Xu realized they had already vanished, seemingly blending perfectly into the arena to the point where even his mental detection could not find a trace.
"Mist, hiding their tracks? But you cannot defeat the moon simply by hiding," Fang Yuan said from the sky, watching Shen Mengqi and the others as they concealed themselves on the arena. He then looked toward the drifting smoke of the Tianxin Incense. "Still an outside anomaly. Are you planning to make a change?"
The battles at the Qi Refining stage were essentially straightforward clashes of Daoist laws. Relying on the amplification and defensive capabilities of their arrays, each side poured out their true qi without reservation.
Colorful fireworks, strange mimicked water-elemental lifeforms, and ground spikes that spread continuously alongside exploding rocks filled the field. It had to be said that battles at lower cultivation levels were the most visually entertaining.
There were some moments of tactical skill, such as Senior Brother Ling of the Shuanghua Sect, who performed Daoist techniques while simultaneously directing his teammates to neutralize incoming spells based on the generation and overcoming cycles of the Five Elements.
Chen Xu watched with great interest, not planning to intervene for the moment. Meanwhile, he focused most of his attention on Chang Shu. He had already designated this naturally divine being, who was suspected to be related to the moon, as his ultimate enemy in this assessment.
Unlike the formal teams of the great sects, Chang Shu was breaking the enemy formation alone.
She leapt lightly into the air. Facing the incoming Daoist techniques, she gave a gentle wave of her right hand, and a beam of spiritual light descended from the sky to protect her. Those Qi Refining spells all struck the protective spiritual light and instantly dissolved like a ball of snow thrown into a fire.
When she flew over the enemy team, she folded her hands over her chest and formed a hand seal. True qi surged from her body and surrounded her like a full moon. Suddenly, she plummeted downward. The moment she hit the ground, the full moon exploded, and a clear, cold, ghostly aura spread in all directions. The moon itself shattered into individual osmanthus flowers that scattered everywhere.
This Falling Moon move directly blew apart the people maintaining the array. The osmanthus flowers that drifted down afterward carried a powerful erosion of the Yin attribute when they landed on people.
"What freezing spiritual power! Those with fire spiritual roots, quickly pass a thread of fire spiritual qi to protect the others!"
"It is no use! Even fire spiritual qi cannot withstand this Yin spiritual qi. My dantian is about to be frozen solid!"
"What?"
While they were still thinking about how to deal with the scattered osmanthus flowers, the sounds of slaughter came from behind them.
The rest of Chang Shu's team had already arrived. Although the rogue cultivators lacked combined attack techniques, these people were friends who had traveled with Chang Shu for a long time, and their cooperation was seamless.
A burly man with an iron chain as thick as a wrist and dozens of meters long wrapped around his body let out a loud shout. The chain fell from his body, and he quickly grabbed one end, infused it with true qi, and began to swing it.
The iron chain seemed to have a mind of its own as it moved through the air. First, it targeted the osmanthus flowers floating in the sky, sticking to them before slamming fiercely into the crowd. With the help of the chain's force, the freezing erosion spread even faster.
Of the remaining people, half stood in front of the burly man to block incoming spells. The others used the cover of the chain to continuously clear out those whose bodies had been invaded by the cold, sweeping them off the arena one by one.
By the time Chang Shu landed from the sky, the battle had just finished. Only the burly man remained, retrieving the iron chain and slowly wrapping it around himself again.
The battles of the other teams were still ongoing, though they were also nearing their end.
The strength of the great sects was overwhelming compared to ordinary sects. With straightforward suppression through Daoist laws, they slowly closed the distance. Then, the sword cultivators or physical cultivators in the team would interfere with the enemy's footing. Once the array was broken, defeat became a certainty.
At this point, only five teams remained: Shen Mengqi's, the three great sects, and Chang Shu's.
Having just experienced a battle, they fell into another silent stalemate.
Just as Chen Xu was planning to continue observing, he detected a momentary flicker of Shen Mengqi's aura behind the Bihai Sect team. Chen Xu understood that this was intentionally leaked to him.
Thus, Chen Xu imitated Chang Shu and flew into the air, heading toward the Bihai Sect team. At the same time, two massive bone palms hovered behind his shoulders like a pair of wings.
The people of the Bihai Sect saw Chen Xu flying toward them and stopped their breathing exercises. They began to form hand seals, holding their power without releasing it. They were waiting for Chen Xu to get close enough to avoid being tricked by a feint and wasting their true qi for nothing.
From the air, Chen Xu also sensed the spiritual qi gathering in the hands of the Bihai Sect members. He swept his gaze behind them. Shen Mengqi and the others were already very close, and a hint of mist had emerged.
Chen Xu accelerated, flying directly over the Bihai Sect team. After baiting out their prepared Daoist techniques, he flew even higher into the sky.
While the opponents were still confused by Chen Xu's goal, the screams of their own people being injured came from behind them.
"A Sword from the West!"
"Wind Vortex Revolve!"
The two sword cultivators and the spear-wielding Zheng Hong pierced into the Bihai Sect team like two sharp arrows.
Shen Mengqi raised her hands to her chest, her left and right hands each forming an orchid finger gesture as they overlapped. She was maintaining the mist surrounding everyone.
Shi Jing and Ma Ku were still nowhere to be seen.
The Bihai Sect reacted quickly and hurried to join forces to block the enemies. Various Daoist techniques were launched at the three of them, but the spells actually passed right through the mist and struck the ground behind them.
"There is something strange about that mist!"
"Liuli, that woman in the back, go and interrupt her!"
The one called Liuli was a petite woman. She pulled a hairpin from her head and placed it in her palm while running quickly toward Shen Mengqi. At the same time, she muttered under her breath, channeling true qi into the hairpin.
But the three who had charged into the enemy formation acted as if they had not seen the opponent's movements, continuing to attack forward blindly.
Meanwhile, Chang Shu saw the battle starting again and planned to kick out another team. She looked around and decided to choose the Xuanhuo Sect team.
She took to the air again, but this time her flight speed was even faster. She gathered spiritual power as she flew, forming the shape of a full moon.
"Careful! Form the Mystic Fire Gold-Refining Array to break her Yin moon power!"
The Xuanhuo Sect reacted quickly, changing their array. Under Chi Xin's direction, everyone's true qi gathered in one place. Through the mystery of the array, a strand of mystic fire was generated and spat toward the full moon in the sky.
But Chang Shu ignored it, acting as if she had not seen the mystic fire as she continued to fly rapidly toward the Xuanhuo Sect team.
Soon, the mystic fire latched onto the full moon and spread across its entire surface. However, the flight of the full moon was not hindered in the slightest; it even became faster.
"Are you joking? She is not even afraid of mystic fire?!" Chi Xin was both shocked and angry, but he did not lose his reason. Seeing that the full moon was unstoppable, he quickly directed the formation to adjust. "Change the array to Five Fires Sustaining Fuel!"
On the other side, Liuli's preparations were also complete.
"Bihai Yin Spring, the underworld reflects three lives, the soul is severed and life departs, Profound Yin Soul-Breaker!" After finishing the incantation, Liuli sacrificed the hairpin and shouted, "Go!"
The hairpin turned into a streak of light and shot toward Shen Mengqi at high speed.
Just as it was about to hit, Shi Jing appeared, covered in rock armor, and stood in front of Shen Mengqi. The hairpin nailed itself directly into Shi Jing's chest. The rock armor only held for a moment before many cracks appeared, and the hairpin continued to vibrate as it embedded itself deeper.
Seeing this, Shi Jing immediately mobilized his true qi to condense more rock armor to surround it. But the hairpin was made of some unknown material, and the eerie aura it emitted could devour spiritual qi to strengthen itself.
No matter how much rock armor he condensed, he could not stop it completely.
Looking at Liuli not far away, whose hands were joined as if she were still controlling the hairpin, Shi Jing simply raised his hand and released a Rock Cracker. Many shattered stones burst from the ground and shot toward Liuli.
But the expected dodge did not happen. An invisible spiritual shield blocked the stones.
"A spiritual power shield? Troublesome." Since the strike did not work, Shi Jing planned to change direction. "Then let us see how far you can control it from."
Suddenly, Shi Jing's head detached from his body. His body, still holding the hairpin, merged directly into the ground, using the Earth-Walking technique to flee rapidly underground.
One hundred meters, two hundred meters... once he reached three hundred meters, Liuli could no longer maintain her stance. She looked at Shi Jing in shock. "What kind of Daoist law is this!"
Then she spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed violently onto the ground.
Shi Jing did not answer. He silently controlled his body to return via Earth-Walking, reattached his head, and pulled the hairpin from his chest. He held it up to examine it in the sunlight. "It is actually quite pretty." He glanced toward Zheng Hong in the crowd.
Before the Bihai Sect captain could make any other reaction, a fierce aura of flames bloomed behind him. He spun around and saw Ma Ku, who had been missing this whole time.
"Fellow cultivator, my apologies."
A five-colored fire lotus slowly rotated in front of Ma Ku's chest before instantly exploding. The violent impact directly sent the Bihai Sect members flying. Even the nearby teams were affected by the shockwave and had to activate their arrays to block it.
Because the Xuanhuo Sect had to maintain the Five Fires Sustaining Fuel array, they could only choose to endure it head-on. The shockwave swept past, causing several cultivators at the front to stagger.
Within the full moon, Chang Shu casually waved a beam of protective spiritual light to shield her teammates behind her. Then, she drove the full moon to descend.
Unlike before, the full moon did not explode this time. Instead, because Chang Shu continuously poured true qi into it, it became larger and larger until it encased all the members of the Xuanhuo Sect.
Chang Shu jumped out of the full moon and raised her hand to point lightly outside the arena. The full moon, containing the members of the Xuanhuo Sect, flew off the stage.
While everyone's attention was drawn to that full moon in the sky, Chen Xu retracted his mental strength and quietly arrived above the last sect team, the Shuanghua Sect.
He calculated the range and then struck his two massive bone palms together downward. The sound and impact drew the attention of the people below.
"Above us! That one from the Bone Path!"
"Shift your spiritual power! Direct the array upward for defense!" Ling Zilong quickly commanded.
Just as the spiritual power flowed into the array, skeleton soldiers crawled out from beneath everyone's feet.
The surging skeleton soldiers ignored the Daoist techniques released in panic and chose to directly hug the cultivators. Multiple skeleton soldiers locked onto a single cultivator. Then, even more skeleton soldiers rushed out, pushing the locked people and skeletons into the center. Three breaths later...
A small mountain of skeletons stood tall, and Chen Xu landed lightly on its peak.
The power of the cold attribute continuously eroded the bodies of the cultivators. Chen Xu's massive mental strength also extended through the skeleton soldiers like a mountain pressing down on everyone's heads.
After a long moment, Chen Xu looked toward Chang Shu and gave a slight smile, clasping his hands together. "Chen Xu of the Bone Path."
Then, a staircase made of skeleton arms emerged from the peak of the skeleton mountain to its base. Chen Xu walked down the steps.
When he stepped onto the arena, the skeleton soldiers in the mountain crawled back into the ground one by one, like evil ghosts returning to their nest. They left behind only the unconscious members of the Shuanghua Sect team on the ground.
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