Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 192 - 185: Encirclement (Part 1)

Chapter 192: Chapter 185: Encirclement (Part 1)

Blue skies and white clouds, the clouds so low it seemed they could fall at any moment.

The highland of the withered yellow grassland was everywhere dotted with tiny white and gray rocks, like shattered glass. Spiky pine trees, black and standing tall, were scattered about, east and west, like upside-down tacks on a map.

In the distance, the snowy mountains alternated between white and black, with a few dark spots rushing toward this place.

Bang!

One of the dark spots viciously smashed into the ground, kicking up a large amount of mud and broken stones beside a creek.

"Huo Yingli, at this point you still want to run?" Other dark spots descended from the sky, revealing a group of strange men whose chins sported a second mouth.

When they spoke, they used the mouth in the normal position, but the second mouth at the jaw kept moving involuntarily as if saying something, occasionally revealing a glimpse of blood-red within.

The person who had fallen to the ground slowly got back up. She was a young woman in black clothes, with black hair and black eyes.

"You think destroying this body of mine will kill me?" the woman’s face showed a thick sneer.

Almost half of her waist was gone, and yet no blood could be seen flowing out.

"Just an insect master. We’ve already asked for assistance from the Four Sects’ Daoists to deal with your insects. Did you really think you could escape?" A man said coldly.

"Then just watch. Did the Four Sects really think I was unprepared?" The woman sneered, and as soon as she finished speaking, a golden hammer suddenly fell, brutally smashing her head to pieces.

Her head was crushed to a pulp, and there was no sign of brain or blood; it was like an empty shell.

The group remained expressionless as they retrieved the golden hammer.

"This one’s temporarily dealt with. Let’s hurry to other places now."

The leader soared into the sky, followed by several others, flying towards the distance.

Mid-flight, a bright light shot up from the ground, turning into a mass of light tens of meters wide that sliced the group in two like a pair of black scissors.

They were cut apart, front to back.

"Who is it!" someone yelled in the midst of an explosion.

"It’s the yellow sand! Run!" another voice urged urgently.

Scattered, they turned into streaks of light and fled in all directions.

Spurt.

A mass of black qi burst into the sky, Shunzhi’s scissor blade released a large number of headless black bees, enveloping the fleeing people in a smoke-like cloud.

The black mist churned and soon struggled out a bit of golden light, shooting into the distance, before everything calmed down once again.

For a moment, the dark mist descended from the sky, burrowed into the ground, and all quieted and disappeared as if nothing had happened.

********************

At the edge of Snow Mountain, a group of people slowly advanced at the foot of the mountain like ants.

"This is the encirclement point our several regions are responsible for, Rosa Snowfield," Hua Lin stood at the forefront of the team, appearing to advance with the team but was actually floating in the air, stepping on a colorless Flying Sword.

Lin Xin rode his horse beside him, and the other Suppressors did the same; the inland Suppressors and the frontier Suppressors stood on two sides respectively.

Lin Xin stood alone on the third side, forming a triangle with people from the other two sides.

"Do we have any information on insect masters?" Huang Kun asked in a low voice.

"No, insect masters are quirky and varied in form and ability; they are a special species developed by the insect mother through various secret techniques. But they have one thing in common: they all have a large number of subordinates, which is also why we are required to come here for extermination," Hua Lin replied in a low voice.

"We will meet up with people from other regions here and then concentrate together for the encirclement."

"Is it not enough to have a Foundation Establishment Stage expert lead the team?" Hu Nan asked, puzzled.

"If we had a few more leading experts join us, the chances would be much higher," Hua Lin explained. "You will understand once you get in there."

Seeing his point, Lin Xin and the others did not ask further.

The team slowly moved forward, the wind and snow gradually picking up, large flakes of heavy snow mixed with fine hail falling, continuously hitting everyone.

At first, it was quite small, but as the hail grew larger and the snowflakes denser, some people could no longer resist and began to find something to cover their heads with.

The clanging sounds of impact were incessant.

Lin Luo reached out and suddenly a hailstone the size of an egg appeared in his hand; it was crystal clear and transparent, and inside was a black insect that was slowly struggling.

"Be careful!" His expression changed at once. "There’s something strange about this hail!"

After that shout, everyone in the team immediately became alert, all noticing this detail.

"Use talisman paper!"

Someone took out an Ice Defending Talisman, ignited it, and a thin white film covered their heads, causing all the hailstones to slide off and hit the ground.

After the hail shattered, black bugs slowly crawled out, swelling gradually from the size of a fingernail to that of a ball as if they were being inflated.

These bugs, resembling beetles with sharp mouthparts and a pair of transparent cicada wings on their backs, vibrated their wings and flew toward the crowd.

Sword Light flashed instantly, and white bands of energy continuously bisected the bugs. These creatures were fragile and easily defeated, but their numbers were vast.

Lin Xin stood still, his arm occasionally blurring as the Spirit Heart Villa’s Spiritual Light Sword disappeared and reappeared, repeatedly slicing through the encroaching bugs which burst open, spewing their fluid like water balloons.

One cultivator’s Spiritual Light Shield was constantly splattered with the fluid, emitting wisps of white smoke from the corrosion and growing visibly dimmer. He was so busy dealing with the surrounding bugs that he didn’t notice until his Spiritual Light Shield suddenly extinguished completely, causing tiny droplets of the fluid to instantly splatter onto him.

Ah!

He screamed as the splattered substance rapidly corroded into his flesh, eating through his clothes and creating fist-sized bloody holes in his skin – even his face suffered a large gaping wound, revealing the red interior of his mouth through the right cheek.

Just a moment’s pause, and he was covered in splashes of fluid from the slain bugs nearby. His screams halted abruptly, and he fell to the ground, rolling and struggling until he turned into a puddle of pus and blood, his clothes completely dissolved.

The others couldn’t help in time and could only watch as he dissolved into gore within a few breaths, all with shock on their faces.

"Someone is casting a spell!"

Hua Lin’s expression remained calm. Within a two-meter radius around him, any bugs that approached were instantly frozen into ice blocks and sealed again, all without him making a single move.

On the other hand, the other Suppressors were still occasionally taking action to repel the bugs.

"Brother Hua, do you have any good remedies?" Huang Kun, on behalf of the Suppressors from the inland, hurriedly asked. Casualties had begun to appear in their group, and some cultivators with lower levels of cultivation could no longer withstand the bugs’ fluid, falling to the ground and dissolving into pus.

The only ones who were able to hold out were Spirit Heart Villa and the Suppressors team guarding the border, especially those three shabbily dressed Suppressors. Their Sword Light was extremely fast, bursting the bugs from afar before they could get close, preventing any splattering fluid from reaching them.

Their faces were indifferent, showing no signs of panic or anxiety, evidently accustomed to such situations.

"If we had a Formation, that would be best. We could rely on the Formation to hold out. We’ve just started on our way, and there might be even bigger troubles ahead," said Hua Lin indifferently. "If we can’t completely repel and kill the Bug Master this time, the inhabitants of the Four Sects’ territory are at risk of being overrun at any moment. The real elite masters have all gone to the front lines to fight the Bug Mother; now, only we are left to act."

"Each of us has brought our own Formations. Why don’t we set up our individual Formations to resist?" Xiao Yi shouted loudly.

Everybody agreed and went to gather their own people to form Formations. Being Suppressors, with the support of major forces and resources, naturally they all had accumulations of such defensive methods.

After their leaders returned, everyone had their mainstay and began setting up Formations. Some proactive groups had already started forming small Formations earlier, and with the call, they instantly joined into larger ones.

Globs of indistinct light rose up, blocking the hail of bugs constantly falling from the sky.

Lin Xin also returned to his team. At Spirit Heart Villa, Lin Luo and Ouyang Fei had already started directing the villa’s experts to form a Formation.

The experts took their respective positions, with bright white lights glowing beneath their feet, stepping forward continuously as Inner Qi was infused into the ground, leaving behind deep and solid footprints in the snowy ground, adorned with complex Formation Patterns and symbols.

Very quickly, a vast array of formation patterns were etched out one by one, with white light connecting into one piece, soaring into the sky and transforming into a giant umbrella, which slowly stretched open above everyone’s heads.

Lin Luo took a few steps forward, a piece of Spirit Jade shattered in his hand, its Spiritual Energy exploding out. He waved his hand and threw a blood-red Spirit Talisman, which was the core of the formation talisman specially made by Lin Xin beforehand.

As the Talisman Paper burnt away, a huge red rune gradually emerged on the hazy white light of the umbrella’s surface. It looked like a twisted sheep’s face.

The entire giant umbrella enveloped all thirty members of the manor, with plenty of room to spare, leaving large empty spaces.

The ice hail smashed onto the surface of the umbrella, not sliding off, but rather being directly evaporated by the immense heat of the umbrella’s surface, along with the bugs inside, completely vaporized.

Lin Xin’s body flashed with red light as he stepped into the formation casually; looking up, the whole formation formed a conical space, blocking everything around and easily resisting the ice hail and bugs.

"Teacher, this formation is centered around the Fire Spirit Talisman you inscribed. It’s a small mobile formation designed and crafted by a junior formation master. It can withstand all attacks below the Innate level without consuming much. What do you think?" Lin Luo approached and whispered.

"What’s its name?" Lin Xin nodded in satisfaction.

"It’s called the Fire Spirit Formation," replied Lin Luo.

"How much does it specifically consume?"

"One piece of Spirit Jade can sustain it for five hours. It can withstand hundreds of attacks at the Innate level," Lin Luo said without batting an eye.

"That’s not bad," Lin Xin didn’t feel the consumption was too much at all, but Ouyang Fei and other manor experts who heard it all changed their expressions.

"I thought the formation was perfect just now, but now it seems... it’s all about burning money!" Having been stationed abroad for a long time, Ouyang Fei, although a retainer for the manor, was not quite clear on just how wealthy the manor was. Hearing about such consumption, she was also taken aback. Seeing the unchanged expressions on Lin Xin and Lin Luo’s faces, and their casual demeanor, it was clear that one piece of Spirit Jade meant nothing to them.

Thinking again about the storage bag she carried on her, she roughly understood.

"Being able to enter the manor is indeed lucky for us," someone nearby sighed softly.

Ouyang Fei deeply agreed with this sentiment.

Lin Xin lifted his gaze towards the origin of the falling ice hail, which was gathering in large clusters, forming a vortex-like round of black clouds.

The black clouds were strange; the center of the vortex was indented, like the mouth of a creature, retreating inward then spitting out again, emitting vast amounts of snowflakes and ice hail as if being squeezed out.

"It looks like this hail won’t cease anytime soon, but utilizing such a powerful spell must consume a lot. If we can endure this onslaught, we’ll be much more at ease afterward," Hua Lin’s voice spread around, and the sound of the falling hail couldn’t block his voice transmission.

Lin Xin turned his eyes to look around.

Among the people there, three places looked the most relaxed. (To be continued. If you like this work, we invite you to cast your recommendations and monthly votes at Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)