Chapter 1290: Chapter 1284: Let It Absorb
Chapter 1290: Chapter 1284: Let It Absorb
Li Wei floated into the air.
With the departure of the old fox and Banshu Qingping, the great battle resumed.
At this moment, there was obviously no need for Li Wei to make a move; cultivators from the Three Prefectures surrounded them in all directions.
Li Wei’s face was still somewhat dark.
During this trip to Grandhaven Prefecture, the family had intended to catch everyone in one fell swoop.
The Martial Academy’s Red Dust Immortal method commanded the Academy to slaughter commoners, absorbing their essence and souls in a manner no different from the Western Frontier, save for the absence of Dao Seeds.
The family had known about this and always suspected the people of the Martial Academy.
They never expected it to be the arrangement of the old fox and Banshu Qingping.
In the battle of wits against the old fox, the family had clearly fallen short.
The old fox had lived for an unknown number of years. With the ambushes in all directions completely exposed, what hidden trump cards were even left?
“The family had spies in Jade Mist Valley, which the old fox surely noticed. Looking at it now, he deliberately spared our family’s spies.”
As Li Wei deduced the situation, his face darkened even further, realizing they had been played.
“It was only because our Three Prefectures’ cultivators arrived that the Red Dust Immortal fled, and the Six Masters of the Martial Academy were besieged by our Li Clan.
Otherwise, how would the Red Dust Immortal, the Six Masters, and even Linghu Xian and the watchdog have given them the opportunity to absorb the essence and qi of the commoners buried deep underground?”
“This battle was exactly what gave them that opportunity; the old fox had been waiting for this very day.”
The anger in Li Wei’s heart gradually extinguished, replaced instead by a sense of relief.
With the appearance of immortals in the world, the true masterminds also began to show themselves.
It was fortunate that this time they encountered the schemes of the old fox and Banshu Qingping.
Although those two were extreme and their actions could not even be described with the word ‘animals’, what if it had been the schemes of someone like Min Tiange, or the Empress?
“It seems I need to drag Changsheng out of his slumber at home to help.”
Murmuring to himself, Li Wei looked down at the battlefield.
There was no longer any suspense in the battle’s outcome.
Whether it was half-immortals or true immortals, their true terror lay in their combat power surpassing that of ordinary cultivators, as well as their intrinsic ‘immortal methods’.
Linghu Xian wasn’t actually that powerful; at the very least, Linghu Xian didn’t dare to face him head-on.
What was truly disgusting was that Linghu Xian was almost always in a ‘stealth’ state, only locatable by Dao methods when he attacked.
However, this person’s trait was practically useless against the immortal method of the Red Dust Realm.
Now that the Six Masters shared the Red Dust Realm, coupled with the First Master’s Great Dao of ‘Memory’ and Li Zhiheng’s illusion assistance, Linghu Xian hit walls everywhere inside the Red Dust Realm.
As for the watchdog, it was a true immortal.
As the battle progressed, Li Wei also saw through the watchdog’s tricks.
Its tentacles were its true means of attack; the suction cups on the tentacles could absorb all techniques and Dao methods attacking them.
Its offensive capabilities relied entirely on the natural array formation in the sky, granting its tentacles formidable attack power, defense, and regenerative abilities.
But Li Zhiheng could sense that the watchdog was not yet fully mature, and even… inferior to the complete form of the Heavenly Dao Divine Heart.
If ranked by tiers, the Heavenly Dao Divine Heart would be Tier-2, while the watchdog was Tier-3.
It was just that this was the first time the cultivators of the Three Prefectures were facing such an entity and dealing with the methods of an immortal.
The massive battle against the watchdog raged on for a full three days.
The watchdog’s massive body actually became its hindrance.
This immortal, which had been fed by the Banshu family for an unknown number of years, now had every single one of its tentacles entangled in array formations by cultivators from all directions, facing a relentless bombardment from the sky.
The Fox Saint wasn’t wrong at all; none of the major factions from the Three Prefectures were honest.
An unknown number of people were lying in ambush in all directions.
Experts led the vanguard, but they also kept true desperate-situation trump cards hidden in the rear.
Especially Xu Xian of the Immortal Sect, who stood with his hands behind his back atop the jade staircase formed by a thousand Immortal Sect disciples.
After a full three days, he finally opened his eyes, his voice icy: “Since It wants to absorb, let It absorb to Its heart’s content.”
“What?”
The numerous cultivators who still found the watchdog troublesome were stunned.
The cultivators present, combined with hundreds of thousands of people from Azure Cloud Prefecture, formed the strongest group in the Three Prefectures.
Yet they couldn’t take down the watchdog for a long time, nor could they even find its vital weak point.
Fortunately, everyone had adapted to the rhythm of fighting an immortal, trapping the watchdog’s tentacles and preventing It from killing people and sucking blood.
Now let It absorb?
But as these words fell, Li Kuanghua, who was directing the Zhao Clan’s Old Ancestor to bite down on a tentacle, was suddenly startled.
She recalled the fate of Han Ju after he absorbed a breath of dragon qi spat out by Old Dragon back in the day, and her eyes instantly lit up.
“Old Dragon!”
Li Kuanghua let out a sharp shout. In the cloudy sky, the black dragon exhaled dragon breath brimming with nether aura. Instantly, the sky-propping tentacle writhed madly.
The cultivators of the Three Prefectures instantly understood. “It is an immortal. If we use demonic methods and let It absorb them into its body, it will be enough to destroy It!”
In an instant, demonic qi surged overwhelmingly between heaven and earth.
[Special Event — Slaying Immortals in Grandhaven Prefecture]
[Your family gathered the strength of the Three Prefectures to resolve the Peerless Hall, Jade Mist Valley, and the Banshu family’s watchdog in Grandhaven Prefecture, achieving a great victory.]
[Acquired Family Will: 200,000]
Rewards appeared on the panel. Li Wei knew that Grandhaven Prefecture was completely free of danger.
Maintaining his physical manifestation in the mortal realm, he sat on a raised rock far from the battlefield.
Ahead was the flat ground leveled by the massive cultivator battle. The earth trembled, and the watchdog’s tentacles still swayed.
Beyond the battlefield lay the increasingly approaching Blood Moon.
Feeling the tremors of the earth, he remained silent for a long time, constantly thinking about the parting words of the Fox Saint and Grandhaven Prefecture Lord Banshu Qingping, as well as the devastated sight of everything he had seen during this trip to Grandhaven Prefecture.
“Do we really… have to walk the same path as the Fox Saint and Banshu Qingping?”
A cool breeze blew past.
A trace of bewilderment flashed through Li Wei’s eyes, along with… a fleeting trace of fear.
This trip to Grandhaven Prefecture could be said to be the family’s first time gaining so much understanding of immortals.
To deal with one true immortal and one half-immortal, the Three Prefectures had exhausted all their strength.
Even as the Old Ancestor, he found it exceedingly difficult to deal with the bizarre Linghu Xian alone.
Aside from finding their weaknesses, only immortal methods could deal with immortals.
When the Blood Moon arrived, what could he use to fight the immortals? He didn’t know.
Behind him lay the lands of the Three Prefectures, Azure Cloud Prefecture, and the family he had painstakingly developed through countless hardships.
For the first time, Li Wei felt completely at his wit’s end.
At that time, there would be no schemes or calculations.
It would be a direct confrontation between the Southern Frontier and the immortals, and there was no telling how many immortals lurked beneath the Blood Moon.
……
Seven days later.
“Rumble!”
The originally white tentacles, now radiating an aura of negative energy, fell from the sky and crashed onto the ground, kicking up massive clouds of dust and smoke.
This was the watchdog’s very last tentacle.
Hundreds of thousands of cultivators had besieged the watchdog for seven days, but upon achieving their final victory, there was not much joy to be found among them.
They stared silently at the fallen tentacle that still exuded an oppressive might, feeling the primal fear lingering within their bloodlines, overshadowed only by the profound weariness that follows a great war.
“So this is an immortal.”
Xuanyuan Liqun murmured softly.
If it were the beginning of the battle, he would have likely flirted and exchanged suggestive remarks with the cold, mature female cultivators around him, but now he had absolutely no mood for it.
Hundreds of thousands of cultivators took a full seven days just to take down a single watchdog, and this place had gathered so many mighty figures.
After becoming a mighty figure, he was revered by the people of Clearpeak Prefecture, seen by the world as a deity.
Having lived through an incredibly long passage of time, he was essentially a god-like existence in the eyes of mortals.
As long as he wished it, with a mere wave of his hand, he could ensure an ordinary person reached the Golden Core realm in the future.
But facing an immortal, he felt just how fragile he truly was for the very first time.
He looked at the Iron-Eating Beast beside him. “Old Bear, have you ever seen something like this before?”
On Old Bear’s back was a hideous, jagged scar—a bite mark left by a suction cup on the watchdog’s tentacle.
Baring his teeth in pain, he shook his head. “When you get home, prepare for your funeral. Sleep with as many women as you can.”
Xuanyuan Liqun glanced in the direction of the Blood Moon without a shred of joy.
In the distance, Zhangsun Buhuo was tending to the remains of a fallen companion.
Seeing Zhangsun Feng approaching with a gloomy face, he hurriedly bowed. “Ancestor.”
Zhangsun Feng waved her hand and said solemnly, “Go back first. Have some of the children in the clan take our inheritance and set out to sea.”
“Yes.”
Zhangsun Buhuo left without hesitation, kicking a blackened tentacle of the watchdog as he went.
The anger on his face suddenly dissolved into a long, weary sigh. “When will these kinds of days ever end?”
She cast a glance toward an abyss in the distance, where the Li Clan’s cultivators were gathered.
The people of the Li Clan stood calmly by the edge of the abyss, while the Old Ancestor and the experts of the Xuanyuan Clan congregated together.
In the past, there was much treachery and mutual deception, but Zhangsun Feng knew that from now on, everyone faced only one single priority.
Survival.
…
As the tentacles collapsed one by one, the watchdog’s hiding place was exposed to the world.
It was a bottomless abyss, and from the very bottom echoed the sharp, babbling cries of an infant.
Li Dalong led the numerous experts.
Standing atop his silver coffin, they descended to the bottom of the abyss in a flash.
What met their eyes was the watchdog’s main body, heavily polluted by the demonic and evil qi unleashed by the numerous cultivators, and atop it knelt Banshu Weide, holding an infant.
“Eldest Brother.”
Holding a whisk, Li Yunlin was about to step forward.
He sensed the aura of entering the Dao realm emanating from Banshu Weide—it was the ethereal and elusive Dao of ‘Cloud’.
It was exactly this Dao path that allowed Banshu Weide to hide deep underground without being detected.
Yunbing had waited nearly a century for this Dao. Li Yunlin wanted to step forward, cripple Banshu Weide, and bring this Dao back to the family.
Li Yunbing stopped his eldest brother, shaking his head. “There is no rush.”
Banshu Weide wore an expression of absolute despair.
The immortal infant in his arms was crying and struggling. Sensing the arrival of the crowd, Banshu Weide spoke in a low, hollow voice.
“Ancestor was right. Immortals can only be suppressed; they cannot be controlled by us. Otherwise, all that awaits us is degradation—becoming neither human nor ghost.”
The crowd frowned slightly. They could see that Banshu Weide’s mentality had seemingly… collapsed.
“Believe me! He is a piece of trash. I can help you—help your descendants possess spiritual roots and become strong!”
The immortal infant reached out its hands toward the crowd, its crisp, clear voice echoing brightly.
“I am an immortal! I can help you become immortals, just like Banshu Weide!”
The immortal infant’s voice was brimming with bewitchment.
Banshu Weide obediently offered the immortal infant forward with both hands.
The numerous cultivators exchanged glances, able to feel the infant’s insidious temptation.
A few with weaker willpower had already lost the light in their eyes and began stumbling forward, but were firmly stopped by the stronger experts.
“Its power resides within Banshu Weide.” Li Dalong instantly understood everything and cast a glance at Li Zhiheng.
Li Zhiheng nodded. He stepped forward and picked up the immortal infant.
Cradled in Li Zhiheng’s arms, the immortal infant was just about to say something when its eyes suddenly widened in sheer terror.
“No, that’s not right! What is that thing on your body?!!”
“Noisy.” Li Zhiheng casually delivered a sharp slap across the immortal infant’s face. The infant trembled all over, not daring to utter another word.
Looking back at Banshu Weide, the crowd realized that Banshu Weide was physically connected to the watchdog’s main body. All the tentacles outside had been entirely manipulated by Banshu Weide.
With the demonic and evil qi emitted by the cultivators fully absorbed, Banshu Weide’s physical body was already on the verge of total collapse.
But what had collapsed even further was Banshu Weide’s mind.
“Hahaha! Ancestor always valued me, but I didn’t listen to his teachings and was reduced to a running dog for the immortals.
Banshu Qingping hid far too deeply; he is the Ancestor’s true successor.
He surpassed the Ancestor, and even I was kept completely in the dark by him. He was the one who managed to walk further.”
Banshu Weide’s face was blurred with tears, yet he wore a broken smile. “At least my Banshu family still has a future. I no longer have any path to survival. Kill me.”
“Alright.” Li Yunlin gave a slight nod.
He and Li Yunbing remained in place as the rest of the crowd dispersed.
Li Yunbing walked forward and squatted down in front of Banshu Weide. “Senior, this junior wishes to borrow your Dao.”
—
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