Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 541 - Stopping The Formation

"What?" Ma Rong and the Second Elder turned towards Alex when he shouted out that name. 

"Song Zun, that's him. That's the original body of Song Zun who was just a clone. He's after the thing in the Forbidden Fields," Alex shouted as the understanding of what was happening came to him.

He gasped as he understood more. "Master, he wants my body to make me his clone. That is the only way he can survive in the Forbidden Fields. That's why he is after me," Alex shouted.

The old man's eyes showed annoyance through the mask. "Tsk, you idiot. Why are you going around giving out information?" he scolded the Third Elder.

The Third Elder's eyes changed from glee to fear. "I'm sorry father," she said.

"Whatever, just kill them so we can be done with. The formation won't last very long," he said.

"Bu-But father, he's my—"

"Screw your husband. If I tell you to kill, you kill," the old man shouted. 

"Y-Yes, father," she said and turned towards the Second Elder. "I'm sorry, dear. It seems you lost your chance to leave."

A tear flowed down the Second Elder's face while his face grew resolute. "No, don't be. I was stupid to fall in love with you in the first place."

He held up his sword, pointing directly at her, and said, "I won't make the same mistake again."

Wen Cheng walked up to his side and got into an awkward stance with his sword pointed at her as well. 

The Third Elder still looked at the Second Elder and said, "I promise! I will make your death as painless as possible."

"Tsk. So much talki—"

The old man was halfway through speaking when he was attacked by Ma Rong. The cold air reached him before even she did. 

The old man immediately employed his movement technique, putting in physical force and Qi into his legs to create one snappy jump that would send him elsewhere in an instant. 

He didn't really have control over his body when he did this, but it was the fastest he could be, so he always employed this technique. 

Ma Rong saw him run away and went after him. She wouldn't let the old man get close to her disciple at all. 

The Second Elder and Wen Cheng started fighting as well against the Third Elder. 

Wen Cheng sent a green slash flying towards the Third Elder, who sent a brown slash of her own to block the slash. Her attack turned out to be slightly stronger and went past the green slash to attack Wen Cheng.

The Second Elder appeared in between and hit the slash away with his own sword. He placed his palm against the flat side of his sword and wiped it until his hand ran off the sword.

A burst of blue flame erupted from where he touched, making his sword burn with fire that was truly at a very high temperature. 

He dashed forward and swung the sword at his wife. The Third Elder saw the attack coming and brought up an earthen wall in front of her.

The Second Elder easily destroyed the wall, but there was no one on the other side. His wife had already left the place and went to Wen Cheng to kill him first. 

Wen Cheng saw her coming and used his Elusive Heavenly sword to dodge the close-ranged attacks. He also retaliated with his own attacks, but due to the lack of grip and strength from his off-hand, they didn't do much.

The Second Elder returned, attacking her from behind, but the Third Elder was too agile. She immediately turned, parrying his sword, and used her feet to produce an earth spike that directly targeted his chest.

The Second Elder managed to block it, but he was pushed away. At the same time, multiple rocks were sent hurling towards Wen Cheng, who barely managed to stop them with his sword.

Right when he blocked the final rock, he realized that the woman was missing. A chill went down his spine when he sensed her behind him with her sword nearly reaching his neck.

He was going to die. 

HISS

A snake appeared out of nowhere and attacked her, forcing her to stop her attack and dodge away. 

Wen Cheng turned towards her and got into his stance again. 'This woman is dangerous,' he thought. The Second Elder appeared next to him and got into stance as well. He too had realized that his wife had been hiding her skills from him all along. 

Little green, Ma Rong's snake, appeared next to them and got ready to fight under the orders of its master.

Immediately, the 3 of them rushed forward, fighting against a sole woman who was finally showing struggle as there were too many fighters against her.

Ma Rong was still chasing after the old man who did nothing but kite her to tire her. She knew that and was letting him do that. 

The more he thought he was winning, the better it would be for her when she sneak-attacked him. For now, she had to keep attacking without her attacks doing anything to the old man. 

Alex was left alone, doing nothing. The battle around him was way too high level for him. It wasn't like when he fought Black Venom where he was confident that he could dodge her. 

These people were a realm higher than her, and the difference was very apparent. If not for his spiritual sense and focus mode, Alex couldn't even keep track of half the attacks that were happening around him. 

He understood that he couldn't help them at all right now. The only help he could do was bring someone from outside to aid the others in battle.

However, the barrier was tough and Alex couldn't destroy it all. "Master should be able to shut it off at a moment's notice if she used her Yin Qi to stop the energy of the formation plate," he thought. However, his master was busy. 

If she stopped for even a moment, the old man would definitely come for her. Alex went invisible and concealed his aura to disappear. This way, his master could probably stop the formation at once.

However, just as he went invisible, a wave of spiritual energy went past him. 'Dammit!' he thought. The old man had spiritual sense too. 

Alex didn't know how or where he acquired the spiritual sense, but he did and that was terrible for him. Now, his master couldn't leave the old man to stop the formation.

"I will have to do it," he thought. He didn't let go of his invisibility or his concealment and ran towards the formation plate before standing in front of it.

"What do I do now?" he thought. As far as he knew, there were 3 normal ways to shut down a formation plate.

First, you could destroy the formation plate, however, that required a lot of strength since the metal was made to withstand the attacks of very high leveled True realm cultivators. 

Alex knew without even trying that there was no way he could break the formation. Still, he needed to try it, just to be sure. 

Alex took out his sword and brought it up way overhead. The sword started glowing golden with metal Qi with a bright white outline around it thanks to his Sword Intent. 

He took a deep breath and brought it down very hard at the formation plate. He expected the sword to hit the formation plate, yet not leave single damage. 

However, what happened instead surprised him even more. Before his sword could even touch the formation plate, a barrier appeared around the plate.

His sword rebounded off of the barrier, sending his hurtling back. 

"What?" he cried out loud. The formation plate that produced a barrier, had a barrier protecting it as well. 

'Shit! That's ingenious,' Alex thought. Usually, a True rank formation could only do 2 or 3 things at once.

Most barrier formations used it to create a barrier, then used the other 1 or 2 base formations to either stop sound and images from leaking outside or put a disorienting formation to mess with their opponent. 

However, the old man's formation did none of that. Alex couldn't tell if it had a 3rd function or not, but the 2 function of the True grade formation in front of him was to create a barrier to stop the enemy from leaving and then another barrier to stop them from tampering with the formation plate. 

Alex had never even thought of doing something like that before.

"Dammit! This means the other 2 methods won't work either," he thought. 

Aside from destroying the plate, the other two methods for stopping a formation were to remove the energy source from the plate. 

If Alex had removed the energy source, the formation would end on its own. 

The final way was a bit more dangerous. What one could do was tamper with the formation strokes themselves and make it so that the formation no longer did what it was supposed to. 

99 times out of 100, the formation would just stop working. However, there was a chance that the formation would end up turning volatile and end up as a make-shift bomb. 

Alex wondered what he could do since neither of the 3 methods was doable due to the barrier.

That was when he noticed something. He noticed the number of strokes on the formation plate.

As expected, this formation did 3 things, not 2. 

"What's the third effect of this formation?" Alex thought.. He needed to find out.