Final Battle - 8

The further they went, the dimmer the light became.

The ice wall was gradually replaced by jagged black rocks, the surface of which was covered with traces of runes carved by human hands, and in some places were inlaid fragments of crystals that had long lost their luster.

Ji Wang carefully walked around the scattered discarded array materials on the ground. The cracked array plates, the rusted metal components, and the charred ashes of talismans that had failed to be drawn or had run out of energy were scattered on the ground, like a huge forgotten graveyard, burying countless failed attempts and grand ambitions.

The road winds downwards, eventually leading to a relatively spacious domed stone chamber.

In the center of the stone chamber, a relatively clean area on the ground was cleared out. A dazzling array was slowly operating, its patterns deeply imprinted on the rocky ground, flowing with a viscous and slow-moving dark light.

At the very core of the formation, a person was sitting cross-legged.

Listen to the bones.

He closed his eyes, placed his hands on his knees, and his fingertips glowed with a faint light that shared the same origin as the formation beneath him, as if he were somehow connected to this massive formation.

Hearing footsteps, he slowly opened his eyes.

Those were eyes that seemed to have burned away all emotions. There was no surprise, no hatred, not even focus; they simply stared blankly in the direction of Ji Wang and Huai Qing.

His gaze lingered on the two of them for a moment, then turned back in the direction they had come from, his nostrils flaring slightly.

"Posuo... is dead?" His voice echoed in the stone chamber, mingling with the low hum of the array, adding to the emptiness.

"Posuo is dead."

Qianji murmured on the eaves. Yueyuan, who was in front of him, obviously heard what he said, but did not make a comment.

Dressed in black, he almost blended into the first light of night at Bu Nian Guan, looking down at the scene below.

The bluestone slabs were shattered, the flowers and trees were broken, the pillars bore the scorch marks of the magical bombardment, the corpses of the demons were almost piled up, and blood covered the entire area as far as the eye could see.

The disciples who remained behind were either leaning or sitting, or supporting each other; all of them were injured and listless.

They formed a loose circle, protecting their more seriously injured fellow disciples and the teleportation array in the middle. Their swords and magical artifacts were still pointed at the eaves, but everyone's eyes were filled with shock, anger, exhaustion, and a hint of despair.

Not long ago, the protective array they relied on was quietly altered, followed by an attack launched by this unfathomable enemy and his assassin codenamed "Thousand Machines".

If it weren't for the hidden secrets in the layout of the Bu Nian Temple itself, coupled with the desperate resistance of the disciples left behind, there would probably be no one standing here by now.

Yue Yuan swept his gaze over the disciples below, who were covered in wounds but still clinging to life, and finally landed steadily on the figure who had just stepped out of the teleportation array.

The moment Bu Jiu landed, his gaze pierced through the billowing smoke and dust, meeting Yue Yuan's eyes.

"Lord Bujiu..." Xun Jing was at the very front of the disciples, and even though he had to plant his sword in the ground to keep his balance, he did not retreat at all.

His face was deathly pale, clearly indicating that he was seriously injured, yet he still tried to approach Bu Jiu.

Without hesitation, Bu Jiu took a half-step to the side, stretched out his arm, and gently pushed the staggering Xun Jing behind him.

Almost at the same time as he moved, You Hang had already supported Xun Jing's swaying body, his gaze also piercing towards Yue Yuan on the roof.

Yue Yuan's lips curved into a smile: "It's faster than I expected. It seems that Bai Gong has also failed."

After he finished speaking, he looked behind Bu Jiu and asked, "Where is my junior brother? Are you just going to leave him alone in such a dangerous place as the far north?"

He paused, then commented, "What a cruel heart..."

The old name from three hundred years ago, now uttered by Yue Yuan, was full of deliberate mockery and blasphemy.

Bu Jiu ignored him, raised his right hand hanging by his side, spread his five fingers, and made a grasping motion in the air towards the leaping abyss on the eaves.

"Boom—!" Flames suddenly erupted from beside Yue Yuan without warning, grazing his cheek as they swept past!

Yue Yuan didn't blink or move an inch. He only touched his skin lightly with his fingertips after the fire had passed. Not a single burn mark was left, only the lingering heat proved that the attack was not an illusion.

"Heh..." he chuckled softly, "Your temper has certainly grown. But leaving him there saves me trouble. Besides, it's about time anyway."

The moment the words fell, several disciples in the crowd below, whose injuries did not appear to be too serious, suddenly surged with power. They disregarded their injuries and rushed towards their unsuspecting fellow disciples.

From the surrounding shadows, several figures with the same aura as Qianji suddenly appeared, and the formation of array veins quickly formed where they stood.

Ji Wang did not answer Ling Gu's question about the cycle of birth and death.

His gaze swept over the massive array beneath Ling Gu's body, which was slowly rotating, and he did not step any further inside.

"Are you the last guardian of the formation?" Ji Wang's long sword hung naturally, its tip pointing to the edge of the formation in front of him. "If I take one step forward, will this formation trap me and kill me?"

Huaiqing quietly moved to the front of Jiwang. The flower branches drooped to the ground, and spiritual light spread out, enveloping the two of them and silently penetrating the surrounding rock walls and ground, probing for possible hidden traps or backup plans.

He looked at Ling Gu's fingertips, which were glowing with purple light, and realized that Ling Gu was not guarding the formation, but rather being swallowed by it.

Ling Gu slowly turned his stiff neck: "They are all dead. Posuo, Baigong, soon it will be me."

He suddenly raised his hands, looking at the increasingly intense purple light emanating from his fingertips. The light was spreading upwards along his arms, and wherever it passed, the blood vessels under his skin turned an eerie purplish-black: "The formation... is almost complete."

“No.” Huaiqing suddenly spoke in a deep voice, “The core pattern of this formation is wrong. Although it is similar to the main structure we deduced in the ruins of Yinchen Temple, the energy flow is completely different.”

Ji Wang's heart skipped a beat, and she glanced at him sideways.

Huaiqing gestured and said, "The core of the Yinchen Temple's formation lies in drawing the origin of all things to a single point. But this formation has a deeper and more dispersed structure, which is more like transmitting some kind of power."

"Transport?" Ji Wang's heart suddenly tightened. "Transport to where?!"

Before he could finish speaking, the Reverse Scale Shuttle he always carried with him suddenly began to tremble violently.

"Oh no!" Ji Wang exclaimed, his face draining of color instantly.

He realized that Yueyuan's true killing move was not in the far north at all! Or rather, the seemingly core formation in the far north was just a decoy; the power it was drawing from or gathering was being continuously sent to Bu Nian Guan!

What Yueyuan might want is not to refine Ji Wang's Dao Source using formations here, but to use the Bu Nian Temple as a base to make everyone a sacrifice.

Just as Ji Wang was in a state of confusion, Ling Gu's seated figure moved without warning.

Instead of standing up, they were suspended in a manner completely contrary to common sense, like puppets being pulled by invisible threads.

His ten fingers suddenly turned black and sharp, and he reached straight for Ji's lower abdomen.

Ji Wang reacted even faster. He didn't take the hit head-on; instead, he moved his feet away half a step like flowing water, and his longsword, along with its scabbard, swept across like a whip, striking the inside of Ling Gu's wrist as he attacked.

Missing her first strike, Ling Gu twisted her body strangely, as if she had no bones. Her fingernails whistled through the air as she launched a series of attacks from several unbelievable angles at Ji Wang's vital points. Each strike was insidious and cunning, targeting the nodes of spiritual energy circulation: "The one sitting there... it's your turn now."

Ji Wang's sword sheath fluttered, parrying and blocking, taking all the attacks. His footwork was agile, but his brows furrowed more and more tightly. Ling Gu's strength and speed far exceeded his expectations. What was even more troublesome was that his attacks carried a corrosive force, which was transmitted through the parries and tried to freeze the flow of his spiritual energy.

"He's been modified by the array; his physical body and part of his soul have assimilated with the array's foundation." Huai Qing, having already distanced herself to assist, said, "Hold on!"

Just then, unable to break through after a long attack, Ling Gu suddenly leaped backward, plunging his hands hard into the rocky ground beneath him!

The entire stone chamber floor trembled violently, and countless tentacles burst forth from the array patterns. Some wrapped around Ling Gu himself, causing his aura to surge, while others coiled around Ji Wang and Huai Qing from all directions.

As Ji Wang felt the restlessness of his Dao source being frantically pulled by the formation, and the omnipresent suppression and attacks around him, he finally drew his sword with a clang.

Wherever the sword's edge passed, the tentacles snapped off.

He thrust his sword straight into Ling Gu's heart, where the purple light was strongest and where the formation was most closely connected to him!

Without dodging or evading, Ling Gu's hands, wreathed in dark light, fiercely grabbed at Ji Wang's sword. His withered arms unleashed incredible power, actually clamping the sword's edge into his palm.

Ji Wang felt a tremendous force surge through the sword, making his hands go numb, his blood churn, and his body stagger backward half a step uncontrollably.

In that split second as he shifted his weight backward, two tentacles suddenly shot out from the seemingly calm rock beneath his feet and tightly wrapped around his ankles!

Immediately afterwards, even more tentacles tried to lift him into the air and throw him directly towards the core of the array where Ling Gu had just been sitting cross-legged.

"Xiao Bao!" Huai Qing was already preoccupied with her own situation, but seeing Ji Wang in danger, she rushed over there.

The next instant, two tentacles slammed into his left shoulder and right ribs.

Huaiqing groaned, her face turning pale for a moment. Without stopping, she waved the flower branch at Ji Xiang's side. As the green light passed, the connection between the tentacles and the array was temporarily severed, and the binding force suddenly loosened.

As Ji Wang felt the loosening of the restraints, he suddenly twisted his waist and abdomen, unleashing a ring of sword energy that severed all the tentacles wrapped around his body.

He broke free of his restraints, flipped in mid-air, and landed steadily back beside Huaiqing. Before he could even catch his breath, he used his sword to deflect the sharp claws that Linggu had seized in the process.

"Are you alright?" Ji Wang noticed the bloodstains at the corner of his mouth and his slightly disordered breathing, and quickly gestured for him to move away from the battlefield.

"It's nothing, just a superficial wound." Huai Qing wiped away the blood and stabilized the shrinking barrier around them. "The formation here is strange; its suppression and absorption of spiritual energy far exceeds our expectations... The faster we deplete our energy, the stronger the formation seems to become. Unless we can completely destroy his connection to the formation's core in one strike, we'll have to drag this out..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but the meaning was already clear.

They cannot afford a protracted war.