Chapter 155 — Collision! [Part 1]

Lin Qian stood quietly in the air, gazing at the vast mirage in the distance, every hair's breadth of it rendered in perfect clarity.

He could not see what was happening inside the talisman game, but the sudden appearance of the Five-Colored Tower had astonished him. Others might not know its provenance, but he had seen with his own eyes Zuo Yan buy that very artifact in the Hundred Treasures Flying Pavilion.

Clever as the Five-Colored Tower was in some respects, it was only a half-finished product. In his eyes it was no great artifact at all, to say nothing of having anything to do with a natal artifact.

And yet, what the Five-Colored Tower had just displayed was unmistakably a natal artifact!

Something must have changed during this interval.

Just then the mirage shuddered violently, the image dissolving into a blur so that nothing could be seen.

The spectators, who had been watching with bated breath, erupted into an uproar.

What was going on? Had something gone wrong with the Mirage Light Phantom Array?

Lin Qian was taken aback as well. There was no questioning the stability of the Mirage Light Phantom Array that Tiansongzi had laid down. Could some mishap have occurred inside the Pine-Wave Pavilion?

He was not the only one surprised; no one was more surprised than Tiansongzi himself. He had spent no small sum laying out the Mirage Light Phantom Array, and now an unforeseen mishap had occurred before his eyes. He could not help knitting his brows.

A sect master beside him was likewise puzzled. "By all rights, the Mirage Light Phantom Array should not fail."

"Indeed," the other sect masters chimed in one after another.

The Mirage Light Phantom Array was a thoroughly mature and stable talisman game, refined to the point of utter familiarity. The one laid down this time had nothing unusual about it save its far greater scale than ordinary.

Suddenly Tiansongzi's eye twitched.

Someone noticed his odd expression and could not resist asking, "Fellow Daoist, have you discovered something?"

Tiansongzi's expression was as usual as he smiled and said, "Merely a small mishap."

Sure enough, hardly had his words fallen than the mirage returned to normal, and everyone's attention was swiftly drawn back to it.

Yet a faint alarm surfaced in Tiansongzi's eyes. The Pine-Wave Pavilion was a cave-heaven artifact, held in trust by each successive master of the Secluded Bamboo Hall. Just now he had sensed a surge of incomparably powerful spiritual power erupt within the Pine-Wave Pavilion—and it was this surge that had disturbed the Mirage Light Phantom Array and thrown it into disarray. That surge was like a meteor streaking past: swift to come, swift to go.

He turned his gaze to the great formation within the mirage.

The place where the spiritual power had erupted was there!

Whose spiritual power had erupted? Zuo Yan's? Or someone else's?

The outcome of Yu Bai's elimination neither surprised nor saddened him. To have undergone such a trial by real combat once would be of great benefit to Yu Bai. As for the rest, he did not care. Yu Bai might brood over it, but this was precisely the experience Tiansongzi had wished him to meet.

Gentle and humble as Yu Bai usually was, he was in truth unversed in the ways of the world, and a heavy pride lay at the bottom of his heart. That young-master air was all but the quality most apt to appear in the core disciples of the Weilan Sect.

Tiansongzi turned his gaze back to the great formation.

He could not help admiring Pei Xu. Among the disciples of the Wukong Inkstone, apart from Luo Li, who still carried a trace of the young master about him, neither Wei Sheng nor Zuo Yan had been touched by it in the slightest.

These two young men had daubed this session of the Sword Trials with its two boldest, most vivid strokes.

The Moon-Cry Collapsing Sound!

Within the great formation, everything shattered into fine powder; dust and mist shrouded the array, and ever finer, ever more minute they were ground!

Amid the drifting dust, Zuo Yan spread both arms wide like a deity, motionless, his eyes hollow and indifferent, devoid of the least emotion. When the dust and mist drew within ten zhang of him, they were blocked as by an invisible wall, unable to cross so much as a step.

The strongest killing move of the Heaven-Ring Moon-Cry Array, one of the seventy-two sub-formations, shook the Pine-Wave Pavilion! The Collapsing Sound, which nothing could withstand, swept across the pavilion like a hurricane, and wherever it passed, countless tiny spirit beasts fell dead, blood spilling from their mouths and noses.

As the Collapsing Sound swept past, every cultivator felt his qi and blood convulse and his spiritual power nearly slip from his control; all were struck with dread!

If cultivators outside the talisman game were affected thus, the pressure faced by the five within it was a hundred times greater!

Su Xiu's delicate brows twisted into a knot, and a look of pain showed on her face.

She had still underestimated the might of the great formation! Beneath the Collapsing Sound, her spiritual power had nearly scattered outright, and her magnetic shield had almost collapsed on the spot. She clenched her teeth, dared hold nothing back any longer, and with her whole body's spiritual power surging, desperately poured it into the Obsidian Sword!

The magnetic force distorted space, and within the shield her figure turned illusory as a play of light and shadow.

Luo Li's situation was little better. A thread of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth; his cultivation was not as deep as the other four, and a single blow had already wounded him! Yet the corners of his mouth suddenly curled upward, and the fighting spirit in his eyes rose rather than fell—frenzied, blazing!

Last time I drove you to such a sorry state, and you did not concede. This time you have driven me to such a sorry state...

How can I lose to you...

His pupils flared wide. The flying sword hovering before him gave a clear ringing note, its blade trembling with a faint hum, and like a streak of flowing light it plunged into the earth before his feet, sinking to the hilt.

He dropped to one knee, head bowed before the sword, and murmured low, "I depart!"

I depart... I depart... I depart...

The lingering echo coiled and drifted about him, and the figure hovering before him—like a female ghost—abruptly grew distinct. A woman in plain white robes, her hair bound up, stood there in poignant grace; her gaze was full of quiet reproach, and she gave a soft sigh as she raised a slender pale wrist.

A ribbon of blue-green and crimson light flew from her hand and stood before the two of them.

Chang Heng stood there expressionless. The ground beneath his feet split inch by inch, then crumbled into ever finer flying ash, and he remained unmoved. Before him the Blood Spider seemed to have been provoked to fury, hissing and roaring, the black runes covering its body suddenly blazing with light.

A blood-hued screen tinged with black rose before the man and the spider.

The sallow-faced man, clad in heavy armor and gripping a bronze dagger-axe, exhaled and raised his voice.

A dazzling light burst from the tip of the bronze dagger-axe. Though it clearly thrust at empty air, it met as though with tremendous resistance, inching forward bit by bit, each inch exceedingly difficult. The light at the tip grew ever more blinding, until no one could bear to look upon it!

Before Gui Feng, the little ghost king let out a child's babbling coo, waving little hands soft and pink as lotus roots, and with each wave of those small hands, layer upon layer of ghastly green light screens appeared. Thin and fragile as eggshells, they shattered the moment they were set.

At last dismay surfaced on Gui Feng's face.