The afternoon sun was shining brightly at Qingyun Sect.
Lin Zhou lay on a bamboo chair, his feet propped up on the stone table beside him, playing with a fragment of a rune he had pried off from the core of the formation, his brows slightly furrowed.
"Those high-dimensional shadows last time were wiped out quickly, but I feel like this formation is lacking something." He muttered to himself, "The power is enough, but it's not 'at will' enough. It needs to be improved."
He shouted into the air, "System, do you have any improvement plans?"
A cold, mechanical voice from the system echoed in his mind: [Host must explore independently; this system does not provide specific solutions.]
"Hey, pretty arrogant." Lin Zhou pursed his lips, not annoyed at all. He wasn't a conventional person to begin with, and figuring things out on his own actually suited him better.
He got up and dusted himself off, first setting up a few simple isolation arrays around the courtyard—not because he was afraid someone would break in, but mainly because the destruction of four high-dimensional projections last time had already caused quite a stir. If this improvement went wrong and blew up the Qingyun Sect, he would have to find another place to sunbathe, which would be troublesome.
The isolation array glowed with a pale blue light, completely isolating the courtyard from the outside world. Lin Zhou nodded in satisfaction, walked to the core runes of the Spirit Gathering Array, and squatted down to study them.
"Gathering spirits to slaughter relies on converting spiritual energy into killing power... What if we added something else?" Lin Zhou stroked his chin, his eyes lighting up. "How about the power of the Dao?"
He didn't understand formations, let alone the taboos of integrating Dao principles with formations; he just felt that "it felt right."
"Let's give it a try."
Lin Zhou stretched out his finger, and a wisp of gray aura swirled around his fingertip—that was his Dao of Life and Death, the cycle of birth and death, carrying the rhythm of the flourishing and decay of all things; immediately afterward, a sharp white light wrapped around it, the Dao of Sword that he occasionally pondered, incomparably sharp, capable of cleaving through illusion.
He casually added salt and chili to a dish, relying on his intuition, and stuffed both principles into the core runes of the formation.
At first, nothing happened.
The runes at the core of the formation still shimmered with a pale golden light, and the principles of life and death and the principles of sword remained quietly inside, as if they had only been given two strands of ordinary spiritual energy.
"It doesn't work?" Lin Zhou scratched his head, a little disappointed. "Was all that effort for nothing?"
Just as he was about to extract the Dao principles, a sudden change occurred!
"Buzz—!"
Suddenly, a blinding red light erupted from the core of the formation! The Dao of Life and Death and the Dao of the Sword, like irreconcilable enemies, collided violently! The hazy aura of life and death and the sharp white light exploded instantly, colliding and tearing wildly within the formation!
"not good!"
The old locust tree in the corner of the courtyard suddenly shook its branches and leaves, and a dark green barrier instantly appeared on its trunk, wrapping itself up tightly. The leaves trembled as if it had seen a ghost—it had lived in this courtyard for over a thousand years, and this was the first time it had ever felt such a terrifying aura!
The space of the entire courtyard began to distort and tear apart, with dark spatial cracks spreading like a spider web. The air was filled with terrifying fluctuations of sword intent roaring and life and death annihilating, as if the entire Qingyun Sect would be crushed into dust in the next second!
"Whoa, did we mess this up?" Lin Zhou was also startled; the commotion was much bigger than he had anticipated. "If I had known that the Dao Principles were this volatile..."
He dared not be negligent; his lazy gaze instantly sharpened, and he stretched out his right hand, gently pressing down on the air.
"Behave yourself."
As soon as the words fell, a gigantic hand that blotted out the sky suddenly appeared in the sky! The hand seemed to be formed from chaotic energy, with faint halos of Dao principles flowing around its edges, carrying the majesty to suppress all things, and slowly pressed down on the raging array core.
"Boom—!"
The giant hand collided with the violent aura within the formation. There was no earth-shattering roar, only an invisible pressure spreading out, forcefully smoothing out the cracks that tore through space, and forcibly pressing the clashing laws of life and death and the laws of sword together, forcing them to "blend together".
The white light still roared, and the hazy aura still struggled, but under the suppression of the giant hand, it gradually lost its temper. Like two fighting monkeys being held down by an adult, they were still baring their teeth, but could no longer cause any trouble.
After an incense stick's time, the red light at the core of the formation slowly faded, turning back into a pale gold. The principles of life and death and the principles of the sword no longer clashed; instead, they seemed to be twisted into a single rope, entwined within the runes, emanating a new aura that was both sharp and profound—possessing both the sharpness of the sword and the cycle of life and death, adding a touch of the "Dao" flavor to the previous "Slaughter of Ten Thousand Spirits".
Lin Zhou withdrew his giant hand, the sky returned to clarity, the spatial rift disappeared without a trace, only a faint trace of fresh air remained in the air, and even the sunlight seemed to be tinged with a layer of golden light.
He walked to the core of the formation, picked up a fragment of a rune, sensed the Dao principles flowing within it, and smiled with satisfaction: "It's done, this should be powerful enough."
The old locust tree carefully removed the barrier, shook its leaves as if to breathe a sigh of relief, and gently swayed its branches in the direction of Lin Zhou, as if complaining about the danger it had just experienced.
"Sorry, Old Locust Tree, be gentler next time." Lin Zhou waved to the old locust tree, then lay back on the bamboo chair and patted his chest. "Luckily, I didn't go too far, otherwise this Qingyun Sect territory would be gone. It's not easy to find such a good place to sunbathe again."
Sunlight streamed into the courtyard again, the bamboo chair swayed gently, and Lin Zhou hummed a little tune as he pondered what to eat for dinner.
It was as if the near-cataclysmic improvement to the formation just now was nothing more than a child playing with a toy.
Only the now quiet "Gathering Spirit Array" (now called "Dao Slaughter Array") slowly circulates underground, each rune entwined with the Dao principles of swords and life and death, silently guarding this mountain and its ever-restless master.
Xiao Chen was covered in blood, and his hand holding the gun was trembling slightly. The two Nascent Soul stage elders of the Xuan Tian Sect were like two mountains, pressing down on him and making it hard for him to breathe. Zhao Hao and several Nascent Soul stage cultivators were like maggots clinging to his bones, constantly harassing him and giving him no chance to catch his breath.
"Cough..." Xiao Chen coughed up a mouthful of blood, and the wound on his waist reopened, the smell of blood filling his nostrils. He had never felt so frustrated—he clearly had the strength to fight, but he was dragged down by the gauntlet battle until his spiritual energy was exhausted, and even his spear intent became sluggish.
"Senior Brother!" The third junior brother (tentatively called Qing Shu, to be changed later) held the scroll, barely managing to withstand the attacks of the two Nascent Soul cultivators. The spiritual light on the scroll was fading, clearly indicating that he was about to give up. Although he had not received guidance from his master, he had managed to stop the two by relying on the scroll's divine power that he had comprehended on his own, which was already his limit.
Seeing Qing Shu in grave danger, a resolute glint flashed in Xiao Chen's eyes.
We can't afford to wait any longer! If we wait any longer, not only will we die, but we'll also implicate our junior brother!
"Let's give it our all!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com