Chapter 453
When the black-robed youth Zhang Wei was defeated head-on by Li Shiyin, the red-robed woman Zhang Yan led ten Golden Core cultivators into the Earth Gate's formation space.
Upon entering this formation space, they were greeted by a lush green forest. The trees were dense and verdant, with vines intertwining everywhere, making it seem like they had stepped into a primeval forest.
Zhang Yan looked up but couldn't see the sky through the thick canopy of leaves and branches. She flew upward to check what was above the trees, but found nothing except the formation barrier. Landing back on the ground, she surveyed the area and noticed that while the place was teeming with life, it only contained trees and vines, with no beasts or animals of any kind.
The forest had only plants, no animals; no wind, and no sound. The vibrant life carried an eerie hint of death.
Zhang Yan drew her sword and slashed forward, releasing a stream of petal-like sword energy that cleanly cut through more than ten large trees.
"These trees are unusually hard, not ordinary ones," she told the Golden Core cultivators behind her. "This forest was created through cultivation techniques."
Such a vast forest, all created through cultivation techniques—how powerful must that cultivator be?
And with this strange atmosphere...
The Golden Core cultivators exchanged glances, all feeling uneasy and sensing danger.
A bare-chested man asked, "Are we going deeper into the forest?""How else can we kill our targets and break the formation?" Zhang Yan replied.
As a Wood Spirit Root sword cultivator, Zhang Yan actually felt quite comfortable here. Besides, as a Primordial Spirit cultivator, she had nothing to fear.
But as the bare-chested man looked at the thick trees and vines ahead, his mind automatically conjured images of them coming alive, making the forest seem like the maw of a giant beast waiting to devour its prey.
He swallowed hard and said, "Perhaps we should strategize here first."
Zhang Yan turned and looked him up and down, sneering, "Looking at your muscular build, I assumed you were a body cultivator. Why are you so cowardly and afraid of death?"
"I'm just saying that rushing in blindly would be dangerous," the man turned and looked at the formation barrier, suggesting, "Why don't we directly attack the formation barrier and break this formation from within?"
"Care to guess why we're not attacking the formation from the outside, and instead going through the trouble of entering to kill the formation's guardians?" Zhang Yan asked.
Why?
Because it wouldn't be worth it.
Breaking the formation violently from the outside would require too much energy and time; it would be more efficient to follow the formation master's method of breaking it.
The bare-chested man understood this principle, but looking at the formation barrier—a wall covered in vines—he speculated, "Perhaps breaking the formation from the inside won't be as difficult."
"Do you know who set up this formation?" Zhang Yan asked.
The bare-chested man certainly knew.
As soon as Zhang Yan spoke, his mind involuntarily recalled the bloody scene at Zhican Valley that day. His muscular body tensed as he muttered, "Qin Ran."
"Would someone like Qin Ran... leave such an obvious weakness?" Zhang Yan sneered and walked forward with her sword.
The bare-chested man fell silent.
The other nine Golden Core cultivators thought for a moment before following her.
However, in reality...
If there had been enough time, Qin Ran indeed wouldn't have left such a weakness. But they didn't have enough time, and this formation wasn't completely set up.
The containment formation, teleportation formation, and illusion formation hadn't been installed yet.
Without the containment formation, they could indeed break the formation from within;
Without the teleportation formation, the formation's guardians couldn't gather together to defend each formation space;
Without the illusion formation, the formation's changes became fewer and more predictable, making it harder to defend and resulting in more casualties.
A person's reputation can cast a long shadow—they had been frightened by Qin Ran's name alone.
They walked deep into the forest for a long while without encountering anything unusual, except that they couldn't find anyone.
Stepping over a thicket of thorns, Zhang Yan looked ahead and still saw only the shadowy outlines of trees.
"How long have we been walking?" she asked.
"About the time it takes to drink a cup of tea," someone answered.
"Could this Earth Gate be unguarded?" the bare-chested man asked curiously.
"That's unlikely... Watch out!" The person speaking suddenly warned.
In front of Zhang Yan, a vine as thick as an arm silently slid down from a tree, trying to bind her.
But she was a Primordial Spirit cultivator—she raised her sword and easily cut the vine.
"Looks like someone is here," she smiled.
But the next moment, the severed vine lashed out at her again. The vine's vitality was extremely strong, growing over ten meters in an instant.
While this vine was attacking Zhang Yan, the large trees near the ten Golden Core cultivators behind her suddenly came alive. They pulled out their roots and branches, with over a dozen old trees either trying to bind or whip them.
Seeing this, the ten Golden Core cultivators quickly employed their various abilities, each dealing with one or two trees and defeating them.
Zhang Yan traced the vine to its source, uprooted it, and flicked it aside with her sword, saying, "They didn't act earlier but are acting now, which means we must be getting close to where the formation's guardian is."
She reminded them, "Everyone be careful."
As she continued forward, after a few steps, a nearby tree suddenly split open like a giant beast opening its bloody maw, trying to swallow her whole.
The tree split without warning, startling Zhang Yan. She swung her sword backward, cutting the split tree horizontally into two pieces.
"How frightening!" Shocked and angry, she struck several more times, her petal-like sword energy turning the large tree into sawdust.
Seeing her behavior, the cultivators behind her felt their hearts tighten—what a terrifying female cultivator. She seemed even more fierce and frightening than the tree.
A delicate-looking female cultivator quietly patted her chest and continued walking forward.
But...
As she took a step, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her foot. She quickly looked down and saw that her foot, shoe and all, had been pierced through by the grass below!
Grass?!
"Ah!" She couldn't help but cry out in pain, quickly lifting her foot.
The green grass came up with her foot, still rooted and piercing through her sole, following her movement.
"What is this thing?!" she asked urgently.
The others looked over at her, all momentarily stunned to see her foot pierced through by grass.
Pierced by grass?
One of the cultivators reacted slightly faster and came back to his senses, walking toward the female cultivator to take a look, but after just one step, he too cried out in pain.
Looking down, his foot had also been pierced by the grass!
"Everyone stand still!" Zhang Yan shouted in time.
She bent down and pulled up a blade of grass to examine it, discovering that at some point, the grass had become incredibly sharp and as hard as a low-grade magical tool.
This type of grass covered the entire forest. It had been fine when they walked through earlier, soft and harmless, but only became hard and sharp when they reached this point.
Trees, grass—she looked around—the whole forest was made of these things.
She began to feel that something wasn't right.
"This grass is everywhere, it would be difficult to clear it all," she said. "We'll just fly instead of walking on the ground."
Without any better options at the moment, they could only do as she suggested.
The two Golden Core cultivators whose feet were pierced could only accept their bad luck, pulling out the grass and applying some medicinal powder to their wounds.
The grass was just sharp, without any other properties. They only suffered momentary pain, and though the wounds didn't heal quickly, it wouldn't significantly affect their subsequent actions.
As they flew through the air continuing their exploration of the forest, the bare-chested man suddenly looked down, seeing the dense carpet of grass below. Thinking of his two companions' pierced feet and how sharp the grass was, the grass tips made him feel uneasy, and he said:
"It's good that it's only on the ground and can't shoot up at us, otherwise it would be quite troublesome."
As soon as he spoke, everyone felt a sense of foreboding. They all looked down, and sure enough...
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh..."
The grass blades from the ground all launched upward, like needles or flying swords shooting up at them in the air.
The entire forest floor was covered in this grass, countless blades shooting up at them in what seemed like an endless stream.
Fortunately, they were all Golden Core cultivators, and the grass was merely sharp—with hardness close to low-grade magical tools and ordinary speed. They easily used their techniques to either destroy the grass blades or fan them away to other places. Apart from catching those two unlucky cultivators off guard at first, the grass posed no real danger to them.
Although...
They had always been there, just as annoying as mosquitoes.
While flying and driving away these "mosquitoes," the bare-chested man sighed after a while: "This grass doesn't have much killing power, but if you add those vines and tree whips from earlier, it becomes quite troublesome."
As soon as he finished speaking, the entire team suddenly stopped moving.
"Huh?" He was momentarily stunned.
"Can you please shut up?!!!" Zhang Yan finally couldn't hold back and scolded him.
And at that moment, the trees and vines around them moved.
It wasn't just one tree or one vine that moved. It was everything - all the plants around them started moving.
The vines were like whips, some trees swung their roots, others swung their branches, like spears and whips, all attacking them!
These trees weren't too bad - not hard enough, and their attacks weren't fast enough. They could handle them calmly, cutting them down with their magical arts.
The problem was...
When tree branches were cut off, they would quickly grow back; when vines were severed, they would rapidly regenerate. They could only completely kill the plants by uprooting them entirely.
And there was another problem...
Now, it seemed that every tree, every plant in the entire forest would attack them.
It looked as if the guardian of this space had deliberately waited until they were in the middle of the forest before manipulating all the plants.
While clearing away the grass leaves shooting from the ground and dealing with attacks from surrounding plants, these Golden Core cultivators were indeed powerful - they still had strength to spare and could continue searching through the forest.
That delicate female cultivator was casting spells while flying with the team. As she flew over what appeared to be a decrepit thicket formed by accumulated leaves, suddenly, the leaves split open into a large mouth... it wasn't leaves, it was a giant flower, its petals splitting apart like a spring, swallowing her in one gulp.
"Save me!"
She was terrified, screaming as her magical power surged through her body. Her spell exploded, instantly blasting the flower into fragments, and she emerged from the flower unharmed.
The others turned around just in time to see her emerging from the flower.
"There are flowers!" She panted heavily, still shaken as she said, "The flowers eat people."
"Flowers?" The bare-chested man punched through an incoming tree branch and frowned, "Speaking of flowers, have you noticed a floral scent in the air?"
"What?!" Zhang Yan was startled by his words. She suddenly remembered that this formation was set up by Qin Ran, and considering what he had done in Zhican Valley - using two terrifyingly powerful poisons - could it be possible that this forest was poisoned!?
Sometimes it's strange how when people aren't aware of something, it doesn't exist, but once they think of it, it immediately becomes real.
Like quantum mechanics.
Before the bare-chested man mentioned the floral scent, no one could smell it in the air; but as soon as he mentioned it, they all immediately noticed the flowery fragrance in the air.
And if they hadn't thought about the possibility of the fragrance being poisonous, they wouldn't have felt anything wrong; but once they had that thought, they suddenly realized their blood circulation and magical power were flowing more slowly.
It really was poisoned!
They quickly confirmed this bad news.
It wasn't just poisoned now - it had been from the very beginning, just that the poison level had been so subtle, so minimal, that they couldn't detect it.
Until now, when they were deeply poisoned and showing symptoms,
Only then did they realize it was truly poisoned.
These eleven people had been harassed by strange things since entering this formation space. Due to their powerful cultivation, these things couldn't cause them much harm, but they were as annoying as mosquitoes.
Each time it was like being bitten by a mosquito, very slight, but gradually, they discovered the harassment was escalating, and now, it had become a form of torture.
They had to deal with the endless grass leaves from below, the endless trees and vines from the forest, the occasional man-eating flowers, and the omnipresent poison in the air.
They felt the torture, felt the fatigue, felt the pain.
But they had already entered this formation space, had already gone deep into the forest, there was no turning back now - they could only press forward and kill the Dao Sword Sect cultivators in the forest.
The atmosphere had long since become oppressive. They took the antidote pills distributed by Zhican Valley and continued dealing with the forest, exploring forward.
The bare-chested man uprooted three huge trees in succession, clearing out a clean space. Looking around and seeing nothing but trees, he sighed: "We've been in here so long, fighting nothing but trees. Weren't there supposed to be ten Golden Core cultivators, twenty Foundation Establishment cultivators, and one powerful formation guardian? Where is everyone?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Yan couldn't help but slap her forehead, silently lamenting "Oh no."
At this moment, the delicate female cultivator finished casting her spell, slapped a tree branch in half, quickly stepped forward, gathered power in both hands, and chopped down, completely splitting the tree.
Just as the tree split...
"Chi ying!"
A sword light suddenly appeared from within the split tree, striking the delicate female cultivator, cleaving her in half with one stroke!
"Villain!"
The quick-reacting cultivator discovered it first, channeling his magical power to send a spell blade slashing through the air.
But after the sword light succeeded in its attack, the cultivator inside the tree dove back in and disappeared.
Golden Core cultivators had strong vitality, so the delicate female cultivator wasn't dead yet.
But... she was close to it.
In such an environment, no one could tend to her. Even the male cultivator who was quick to react and cared deeply for her could only leave her with a magical defensive shield to protect her while she tried to piece herself back together.
Afterward, they had to deal with the mosquito-like attacks from the forest.
"Ah!!!"
The bare-chested man couldn't take it anymore. He went berserk, his muscles bulging as he exploded with all his power. He charged forward, one punch per tree, throwing thousands of punches in succession, destroying over a thousand trees and clearing out an enormous space.
"You cowards! If you have the guts, come out and fight me face to face!" He stood in front of a large tree, raised his fists to the sky and roared, "What kind of hero hides in the shadows?"
As soon as his words fell, a sword energy burst out from the tree in front of him.
"This is exactly what I was waiting for!"
The bare-chested man grinned ferociously, clapping his palms together to meet the sword energy, instantly crushing it to dust. He stepped forward to the great tree, threw a punch that shattered it to pieces, and the Dao Sword Sect member who couldn't escape in time was punched out, smashing against another tree and spitting out a mouthful of blood.
But that Dao Sword Sect member gave him a cold smile, turned around, and disappeared into the tree behind him.
"Ahhh..."
The bare-chested man was furious and charged forward, intending to smash that tree to pieces as well.
But as he exerted force, a sudden weakness came over him, causing him to stumble. This mighty Golden Core body cultivator actually tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face.
"?"
What was happening!
He was very confused - he was a body cultivator, a Golden Core cultivator, how could he become so weak and powerless?
But when he tried to get up again, he found he had no strength in his hands either.
Only then did he examine his internal condition...
His blood essence and magical power had turned to porridge, too sticky to circulate properly.
He was poisoned, severely poisoned.
The antidote pills from Zhican Valley were completely useless. Plus, his recent all-out attacks with rapid circulation of magical power and blood essence had accelerated the poison's effects.
This poison wouldn't kill him - given time to recover, he would soon be back to normal.
But when he managed to turn himself over, he saw the trees he had just cleared away growing back at a visible speed.
Before he could despair, sharp grass tips were pressing against the skin of his back.
The grass was growing.
Soon, the grass penetrated his body and started growing from within him.
Golden Core cultivators had powerful vitality, so he still wasn't dead.
But... he was close to it.
Zhang Yan had brought in ten Golden Core cultivators, and as these ten cultivators spent more time in the forest, they encountered more bizarre events, their numbers dwindled, and after enduring endless torment, finally, only she remained.
She did eventually meet the guardian who maintained this formation space.
She unleashed her magical power with full force, channeling all her energy into her sword qi. Her petal-like sword qi, resembling butterflies, danced outward in all directions from her as the epicenter, spreading throughout the entire formation space. The indiscriminate attack of these petal blades cut through everything - every tree, every blade of grass, every flower - completely clearing the formation space of all vegetation. Finally, at the very center of the formation space, she saw them.
On a throne woven from blue-green vines, Yao Qingke sat like a queen, wearing her natal magical weapon - a glowing green ring - on her right hand. Behind her, the throne extended thirty tendrils of blue-green vines, and on each tendril stood a member of the Dao Sword Sect.
They all looked down at Zhang Yan, this powerful Primordial Spirit cultivator, regarding her as if she were a lamb awaiting slaughter.
Deeply poisoned, with her internal magical power too viscous to circulate properly, and exhausted both physically and mentally from torture, Zhang Yan truly had little strength left to resist.
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