Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1208 - 1207 - Ancient Terror

Lind looked at his right hand as if he had never seen it before. For thousands of years, the black ring had been there. The sage words of Haro when talking about the Dao and even guiding him in his duties as a True Lord had been invaluable.

Lind felt lost. His assumptions were wrong. Heaven was not punishing him for defying it, Haro had broken the rule that a cultivator had to face their own tribulations. As a progenitor he only had to survive but as a True Lord he had to face it on his own.

A True Lord cannot be a coward and hide away from his trials. The harsh requirements were necessary given the authority invested into them. Lind's assumptions had been wrong from the start!

He wanted to ponder it a bit more but his current circumstances did not allow it. He noted the terrified fox girl next to him but she was all right. He was curious why traces of Haro were on her but he examined the weaving he had created.

It had been half instinct when his harmony had been flared to life by the Celestial Qi. The dizziness and nausea were wiped away in an instant. He realized that while his harmony was being suppressed, his elemental cores in his crystal were perfectly fine. No wonder the others had no issues!

"Ignores natural and demonic elements in formations or refined items but repelled by Celestial Qi. The soulless or their controller felt something and fled so Fiend Qi is susceptible as well. What are these things?" Lind picked up the small girl. He had questions for her and quickly found others passed out.

He examined them and their bodies were fine but their souls were weak. It was very different from Fiends. They would extract wholesale the soul and all vital energies from the body to refine as cultivation materials.

What he found around him was more like their very existence was being siphoned away but unlike with Fiends, he felt no revulsion. It meant it was a natural occurrence! What did that mean?!

It meant there was something under Heaven and Earth that was not a violation of life like the Fiends!

"They can recover too, unlike with Fiends. Nothing is missing, it is just drained. Elixirs or pills could help them." The differences were critical but where Fiend techniques could carve out a person a piece at a time, the current state was only temporary.

It sounded familiar but he could not quite place it.

He spent the day gathering everyone and found they were all equally unconscious and barely alive. Haro had taken all his materials but he found a few in the tower to make some elixirs to help restore a few of the demons and aether children.

He studied how each recovered but it was simply like they had exhausted their vitality by burning their life to power an Art or pushing their cultivation at the cost of their life.

Their meridians and body were perfectly fine. It was only the spiritual side that was affected.

"A force that feeds on the spirit but if interrupted can be recovered from. Immune to Arts, formations, and artifacts as well. What is it?" He knew he had read about it before but it was vague. Had it only been a guess in some jade slip?

There were many beasts and existences that were only barely grasped in the lower realms, yet something like what he faced now should have been extremely important!

Something that could drain the spirit to death was critical to know about! Defenses and appropriate artifacts were critical to defend oneself!

The speed was also terrifying. It could float on the winds of the peaks but it left a few questions to him.

It wiped out towers that could hold hundreds of warriors. Demons were powerful beings in each realm but the current foe wiped them out without an attack fired.

There was also the fact his harmony was drastically affected as well. The spirit, his harmony, and a complete immunity to standard defenses.

Nothing physical could possibly match the criteria. Even if it was a projected attack or some kind of beast Art, it would still be subject to formations and artifact defenses.

A pure spiritual being should also be subject to that so what was he dealing with? He noticed the beasts were more terrified even in their sleep compared to demons and others.

Race memory really did recognize the threat but then why no clear warning?

"Powerful enough to take our Radiant Tiers like stick figures but weak to Celestial Qi. No body thus far but clearly able to interact with us. An Art seems unlikely as our defenses would react." As more restrictions were laid on the culprit, he suddenly paused.

Before he left the Heaven Realm, he had the chance to peruse an Inheritance of profound knowledge and had delved into everything he could.

He had not only looked at his own needs but broadened his knowledge base in general. That included higher realm life forms. Plants, aether beasts, and even the known races changed as the realms progressed.

The absence of manifestation was replaced by Elementals while the fallen demons also awoke variant physical bodies as they advanced.

Harpies and such were all demons but it was the result of pursuing the corrupted path of the demonic cultivation path.

There was a very thin section on non-corporeal creatures. They were damned rare and only really started to show up at the 4th layer of the Celestial Fields. The conditions for their birth and nurturing were ridiculously high.

Phantoms were corrupted forms of Immortal souls on the brink of collapse but finally gave in to latching on to mental bonds for their victims. It would drive a cultivator mad but they would both live.

Eventually, the phantom would destroy the mind but it would take considerable time. A powerful will could also defy them.

Creatures like that required powerful cultivators to die or lose their body and then a massive amount of time passing before they fell.

"Phantoms could ignore artifacts but formations would still react. Can't be them but there were several unique creature–" His voice stopped as he paled.

He finally recalled what matched all his conditions.

Wraiths. Unlike phantoms or other soul based creatures, they were not born from a single being.

It required a lot of death and all at the Immortal Realm!

The other thing that made it them were the whispers. Wraiths mimicked their victims final words to trick new victims to fall into their web.

"Yet, the towers had been here for close to 900 thousand years. Why only show up now?" He was trying to figure it out when his heart froze.

It was him! He broke the Fiend apparatus and freed the Celestial Fields! The boundary between layers had been returned to normal!

The damn things would have happily been feeding without a need to move thanks to the spiritual attack on the realm itself! The stray spiritual energy was there for the taking!

It left many major questions about how they existed in the 3rd layer but the point was he was the sole being that could fight them!

Wraiths were a terrifying race that only Sovereign Tiers could fight! Their ability to touch on the Dao was why. Laws, elements, and creations were useless in front of a wraith!

Haro had known! Somehow, Haro had known that Celestial Qi was effective!

Lind narrowed his eyes at the reason why.

"Direct manipulation of reality. Celestial cultivators do not advance by simply incorporating Qi but by experiencing the very fabric of the world. The weavings made from them change the rules!" Lind made a breakthrough at that moment.

He had been using Celestial Qi like the other elemental sets. He incorporated it into his weavings, elixirs, and Forging like it was normal but he was acting so limited!

A wondrous smile spread on his face as he realized how powerful he truly was!

The dome he had created around the tower suddenly shimmered. He frowned as he could not see anything but he knew his enemy was there. He examined the area with his Eyes and Touch but he only saw his weaving.

The wraiths, if they were the cause, were invisible.

He conjured his Celestial elements and fueled his harmony with it. The stream of fire shot out and traversed the entire surface of the weaving.

At first, it simply made the weaving emerald but then a scream drew his eyes to the south and his body stumbled at what he saw.

A massive form straight from Hell! It has no clear features but a mouth was open and screaming at him. There were 2 more creatures on the west and north sides.

They terrified Lind as he got a read on their strength.

"Peak Radiant Tier! All 3 of them are Peak Radiant Tiers!" His weaving would not hold! If there was just one, he might be secure but the shimmering barrier was weakening! He had to reinforce it or think of something else.

Celestial Qi was the most draining on him yet it was all he had!

He quickly found some compatible ores and beast cores in the armory but he did not act picky. He had no time to be perfect as his weaving could fall at any moment. While people were recovering, they were still defenseless!

They would all die and he had no confidence to re-erect the ward! He had one shot and he had to make it count!