Five Immortal Sects
Chapter 139: Wang Lang and Quan Jiuxing

From between Sky-Breaker’s brows, a beam of black radiance surged into the sky. The once-churning red mist, upon contact with this black light, began to emit a continuous chiiii-chiiii sound, like snow and ice melting under a flame. Gradually, the blue sky began to emerge overhead.

This strike from Sky-Breaker instantly stirred up even more of the red, flat creatures clinging to the palace walls. Sheets of red "wall skin" peeled away as shrill screeches echoed in waves. Their assault suddenly intensified by severalfold.

Yet the moment they brushed against the black light, their bodies, like the red mist, began to dissolve into liquid. Before they could even fall to the ground, they had already evaporated into rising steam and vanished.

In an instant, a wide swath of open space appeared ahead of Sky-Breaker and his group, allowing them to speed up once more.

Sky-Breaker glanced at the rank-one demon beasts following behind, a smile tugging at his lips. These were his valiant sons. Though he had just unleashed his innate divine ability, as long as he could widen the distance between them and the enormous shadow chasing behind by ten li, he would have enough time to recover his strength.

But then, just as they flew another hundred zhang forward at high speed, Sky-Breaker’s heart suddenly tightened. His expression darkened.

Within his divine sense, an overwhelming tide of red surged into view ahead, blotting out the sky as it bore down upon them. Countless red, flat monsters swarmed forward, shrieking as they lunged toward him.

Shock and fury filled Sky-Breaker's chest. The restriction ahead had unexpectedly activated to attack from behind, this was entirely unlike the trials expected during a passage through the Wheel of Life and Death. He raised his head and roared angrily:

“This isn’t the true Life… and… Death… Wheel!!”

Yet he hadn’t noticed that amidst the crimson cloud above, a few living bee gu were flitting about erratically. Even if he had seen them, he might have mistaken them as another facet of the formation's illusions.

After withdrawing from the yellow light ribbon, Li Yan quickly dashed toward the white light ribbon on the other side. There was a faint smile on his lips.

“I suppose by the time Sixth Senior Sister and the others encounter that group of demon beasts, the pressure on them will have lessened considerably!”

The bee gu he had released just now did not require cultivation with blood essence and relied purely on numbers. He had acquired them from Zhao Min over the past few years, partly to study gu toxins and partly out of sheer curiosity about gu insects.

After obtaining these dozens of bee gu, Li Yan had tested their venom and found they posed no threat to him whatsoever. But finding them intriguing, he didn’t return them to Zhao Min. Instead, he performed a simple ritual to bind them and kept them for himself.

Within the yellow light ribbon, he had released over a dozen bee gu. Wherever they flew, they would trigger the once-dormant restrictions.

These were originally meant to activate one by one as Sky-Breaker and his group progressed. Now, due to the bee gu, they had all been prematurely triggered in rapid succession. The number of red, flat monsters that Sky-Breaker had to face instantly multiplied several times over.

Li Yan's gaze turned cold as he looked ahead at the approaching white light ribbon, dancing endlessly like willow branches in the wind.

With just a few flickers of his figure, he stood atop the ribbon of pure white light. His form swayed rhythmically with its undulating motion…

Wang Lang’s handsome face was covered in a frosty sheen. He glanced at Quan Jiuxing beside him, then turned to the forty-three Qi Condensation stage disciples of the two sects behind them.

In one hand, he held a blue prism crystal, while the other hand continually formed hand seals. With every motion of his palm, dozens of sword lights howled down from the heavens, swift as lightning, leaving no trace of their path.

The sword lights rained from the sky like a storm, striking toward the dense mass of dark monstrous birds above the iron chain bridge. Feathers scattered and flesh flew in all directions.

These monstrous birds were pitch-black throughout, their bodies tough as refined iron. The Qi Condensation cultivators in the rear could not injure them unless they unleashed full-strength attacks from the tenth level or higher. Otherwise, they could only knock the birds back a few yards before they took flight once more.

Each black bird had a long, sharp beak like a crane’s, stretching nearly two feet long and gleaming with a sinister green luster. With each peck, the friction between beak and air produced a sharp sound, like cloth being torn apart with brutal force.

The sound was magnified dozens of times, it made one's teeth ache, eardrums feel as if they would split, and sent piercing pain through the skull.

The beak’s power was terrifying. A Qi Condensation cultivator’s protective spiritual light could be shattered into specks within just two or three strikes. If one failed to dodge in time, the next moment the beak would pierce clean through the body.

Even more bizarre were the birds' claws. Each foot had only two talons, aligned front and back like a character “一” (horizontal stroke), each ending in a sharply curved hook. From the flat underside of the talons protruded a bone spur, white and razor-sharp like a thin blade.

Once these claws latched onto something, they would curl and contract instantly, slicing whatever was caught clean in two.

At this moment, they stood upon an iron chain bridge spanning the river. Long iron chains flanked either side of the bridge as handrails. Beneath their feet were square wooden planks laid atop a series of thick chains, nothing else held the bridge together.

And below those planks roared the furious river, waves crashing endlessly.

Quan Jiuxing was fully focused on the attack coming from below. From the surging waters, golden serpents leapt again and again. Each serpent was thread-thin, about half a foot long, with needle-sharp triangular heads.

A pair of tiny eyes on their heads gleamed with a bloodthirsty light, while rows of jagged teeth glinted with cold gleam. They shot up from the raging river in swarms, raining toward the cultivators on the chain bridge like a volley of arrows.

When struck by the cultivators’ swords or spiritual weapons, sparks would fly off their bodies before they fell. Yet using the force of the river’s spray, they would launch themselves back into the air, fearlessly charging toward the cultivators again.

For a time, the bridge was beset from all directions, by the monstrous black birds stirring storm winds from above, by golden snakes rebounding after each strike, and by the cultivators’ spiritual power surging and colliding with the enemy. The iron bridge in the river’s heart swayed violently, and those on it could barely keep their balance.

All this was already enough to make anyone’s head throb. But the true terror lay in the river below. Whatever kind of water it was, no one could say but whenever a single droplet splashed onto the bridge, it would instantly corrode the wooden planks to nothing.

The moment the iron chains were touched by even a drop of the river water, they would instantly emit a cloud of black smoke. Immediately after, even the incomparably sturdy iron links would sink inward, leaving behind a deep depression.

Each time the golden thread-like serpents leapt from the river, they would bring splashes of water with them, water that drenched the chains and platforms, causing endless suffering for the cultivators from the Grand Profound Sect and the Ten Steps Court. Fortunately, Wang Lang and Quan Jiuxing had taken up positions to separately handle the aerial and riverborne attacks.

With a blue crystal prism in one hand and hand seals in the other, they guarded a large swath of space between them. Only a small portion of the attacks managed to slip through to the Qi Condensation cultivators, reducing the threat to them by more than half.

Even so, within just a quarter of an hour of entering this stage, their numbers had already dropped from forty-nine to forty-three, this after having advanced no more than four li.

Ahead, mist rose over the iron chain bridge, completely veiling the path forward. Although calculations indicated that six li remained, the sight before them made the bridge seem endless. Each step forward felt like an arduous ordeal.

“This stage is so difficult to pass… The challenges ahead will only grow worse. The losses in this one alone may exceed even those we suffered in the sphere trial.”

Wang Lang's expression was dark as he spoke in a low voice to Jiuxing, who was fully focused on repelling the attacks from below.

“Does Brother Wang have a solution?” Quan Jiuxing replied, his usual grace replaced by a look of grim exhaustion. “Here, there is no way to cheat heaven and swap fate. We can only take it one step at a time. Just as you said, if this continues, by the time we reach the ten-li mark, we’ll be lucky to have thirty people left.”

For a moment, the two men fell silent, the sounds of explosions and shrieks around them becoming their only conversation.

A dozen breaths later, as they continued to forge ahead and Wang Lang’s sword energy slashed through the air in crisscrossing waves, he suddenly spoke again.

“Our luck in this trial has been abysmal. We encountered demon beasts in the very first stage and weren’t able to regroup until the second. Then the third stage, again demon beasts! Eleven Qi Condensation cultivators perished before we managed to wipe them out. Why has our fortune been so cursed? We’ve yet to cross paths with even one group of those Wraith Sect fiends!”

“There were eight demon beast teams in total,” Quan Jiuxing said, the gentleness of his handsome features now replaced with killing intent and frustration. “We’ve already run into three of them in the first three stages. Statistically speaking, the odds are high that this one will belong to the Wraith Sect or the Pure Land Sect.”

It was no wonder he was filled with resentment. With only eight demon beast squads in the entire trial, their group had already clashed with three. They had entered this with high hopes of annihilating one of the Wraith Sect’s teams, but had yet to encounter a single one.

Just then, Wang Lang suddenly broke into a smile.

“Brother Quan, last stage you won the right to enter the sphere. I suppose it’s only fair that this time, your humble brother should go in.”

His voice clearly carried a note of bitterness. In the previous stage, the two had made a wager, each would defend against one side of the formation’s attacks and whoever reached the ten-li point first would enter the sphere first.

After setting that goal, Wang Lang and his fellow sword cultivators charged forward like a blade through soft mud, utterly unstoppable. But by the time they had reached around eight li, their momentum began to slow, their strength had waned.

Sword cultivators were indeed unmatched in offensive power, but their magical energy consumption was also the highest. Their strategy had always been swift assaults and decisive battles.

In the end, the Grand Profound Sect slowly overtook them. How could Wang Lang accept that? It wasn’t that the sword cultivators of the Ten Steps Court were inferior, in fact, quite the opposite. Had they met the Grand Profound Sect head-on in direct combat, there was a seventy percent chance the Ten Steps Court would have prevailed.

Losing that bet darkened Wang Lang’s face like storm clouds. He glanced toward the Qi Condensation cultivators under his command with a grim look.

Fortunately, those cultivators had endured decades of brutal training under his hand. Batch after batch had died along the way, and those who remained had long grown indifferent to life and death. Though their hearts trembled inwardly, none showed any emotion.

In the last stage, it was Quan Jiuxing who had led the two sects’ cultivators into the sphere. Wang Lang had been left outside, alone, keeping guard. All the while, his gaze anxiously scanned the sky behind them, where the massive black shadow loomed, sending chills through his heart.

(Chapter End)