The Undying Immortal System

Chapter 466 – Life 119, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster 5

During our second ascent of Pale Mist Mountain, the core of our army’s vanguard was a group of more than a dozen crafters, made up of both Masters and Disciples. Steadily climbing the mountain’s lower slopes, half of these crafters focused on scanning the area with qi vision, while the other half extended tendrils of energy to probe the ground for any hidden dangers.

With any luck, this group would detect any and all traps that Blackblade Hall had prepared for us. However, Meng LuYao and I remained on full alert, just in case. While she kept her eyes peeled for illusions, I was on the lookout for soul attacks.

One of the techniques that I had learned over the past few days allowed me to create a bubble of soul energy around our entire army. Not only would this bubble alert me if someone tried to use a soul attack against us, but it would also slow such attacks down, giving us more time to react.

This technique was definitely useful, but it came with a couple of severe drawbacks that made it less than ideal under ordinary circumstances. While it was active, I couldn’t use my qi for any other purpose. I couldn’t attack or defend. I could still use energy vision, but I couldn’t probe the ground for hidden traps. Also, this bubble was, essentially, just an extremely thin extension of my soul. Yes, it could detect and slow soul attacks, but it did so by blocking them with a tiny fragment of my soul—a fragment that would end up being destroyed during the process.

I really didn’t like leaving my soul so exposed, but in the end, destroying this entire bubble would do less damage than a single Rank 1 Cicada Pill. Considering the dangers ahead of us, this was a cost I was more than willing to accept.

That said, this bubble only slowed attacks. It didn’t stop them. Blocking one of the Hall’s Disciples from using a soul attack on one of our Disciples would have violated the Saint’s rules. The slowing effect was only allowed because it was a byproduct of the detection process.

So, each of our Masters was carrying a defensive formation that was capable of blocking most low-level soul attacks. If I detected an incoming attack, our Disciples would huddle next to a Master, and the Master would activate their formation, keeping everyone safe.

Though far from perfect, I was optimistic that these defenses would be enough to keep everyone safe.

The lower reaches of Pale Mist Mountain had changed significantly over the past two weeks. Instead of being a relatively uninteresting scrubland, the mountain was pockmarked with caves and tunnels as far as the eye could see. From the look of things, after our first ascent, the Hall had chosen to pull back all of their hidden body cultivators, not allowing us to pick off each group one at a time.

Of course, while this appeared to be the case, there was no way we were going to trust such appearances. No matter how things looked, our crafters remained vigilant and carefully scanned the ground for anything the Hall had left behind.

No matter how hard we looked, though, no one found anything. Step by step, we continued our ascent, and before long, we stood at the threshold of the largest encampment on this side of the mountain. We could have chosen to go around, but we had come here to destroy Blackblade Hall, and we could only do that by confronting them.

At the edge of the encampment, YuLong raised a hand and spoke into a formation that amplified his voice. “Halt! Reform ranks!”

Immediately, the crafters in our vanguard fell back, melting into the rest of our army, while a group of fire, wood, and earth cultivators stepped forward.

Once everyone was in position, YuLong spoke into his formation once more. “Wood!”

The wood cultivators took out a bundle of seeds and flooded them with wood qi, causing them to grow at an incredibly rapid pace. This kind of accelerated growth usually led to sickly, withered plants, but considering the fate of these seeds, this was of little concern.

“Earth!”

The earth cultivators took the quickly growing seedlings and used catapults formed from the mountain’s stone to launch them toward the camp in front of us. As they flew, the seedlings sprouted and sprayed the camp with a fine mist of pollen.

“Fire!”

The fire cultivators launched great gouts of flame, targeting not the camp, but the rapidly falling plants and pollen.

These were mortal plants that were entirely useless for alchemy. However, they were excellent kindling. Ye Sheng and Bao Ming had specially bred them to produce large amounts of pollen that would burn as long as possible.

When the burning plants landed, the makeshift tents immediately caught fire, and the once blood-soaked encampment turned into an all-new kind of hell, with the flames of devastation spreading in every direction.

This didn’t last long, though. All at once, the tents burst apart, smothering most of the flames and revealing the army hidden beneath. Hundreds of cultivators, corpses, and abominations appeared in front of us. Then, as if given some hidden signal, they charged.

“Ranged units, fall back!” shouted YuLong. “Melee to the front!”

Our army shifted, and our best guandao wielders rushed to meet the enemy. The Disciples stood at the front, while the Masters held back, only moving forward after identifying a fellow Master.

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As more than a hundred guandaos flashed in the midday sun, our enemies fell one after the other.

It was an absolute slaughter. None of our opponents made any effort to fight strategically, and only the barest handful of cultivators activated a single technique. They all just ran at us like an unruly mob.

This was almost certainly due to whatever the Hall had done to their souls, but our people showed them no mercy. We pushed forward, keeping our opponents trapped in the smoldering remnants of their encampment.

“Something’s not right,” said YuLong, eyeing the battle warily. “At this rate, we’re going to win this fight without suffering a single casualty. Even if Blackblade Hall doesn’t care about these people, it doesn’t make any sense to waste their troops like this. They could

be trying to wear us down, but what’s the point? We can just go back down the mountain and rest once this battle is over.”Nodding, I poured more qi and soul power into my detection technique, expanding its range and slightly improving its capabilities. This consumed a significant amount of energy, and I couldn’t keep it up long, but it allowed me to detect souls, not just soul attacks.

I motioned to the distant mists. “There's a group hiding over there. I can only detect 80 or so, but there might be more farther in. Not sure what Rank they are.”

YuLong frowned. “This is a lot of bodies to waste on some poor excuse for an ambush. It only makes sense if they have some way to trap us here.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but how could they trap us? There was no sign of an army attempting to encircle us, and no one had detected any hidden formations. It was possible that there was a formation buried several dozen meters under the mountain, but if it was powerful enough to keep us trapped, I should still be able to sense it with energy vision.

My mind quickly sorted through the possibilities, landing on the only one that fit.

“There has to be a dormant formation buried under the mountain, too deep for us to detect its residual power. Such a formation would take a long time to activate, though, and during this activation phase, we would have more than enough time to detect its presence and escape. This fodder must be here to keep us distracted.”

YuLong looked over at me. “Can you sense such a formation?”

I shook my head. “If it's there, the Hall hasn’t started activating it yet.”

At the front of our army, corpses, abominations, and cultivators continued to fall. Blood flowed freely from every cut, staining the ground and soaking into the earth.

“More than half their army is already dead,” said YuLong. “If you’re right, they should have already activated their formation. Why haven’t they?”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I just looked away and watched the battle in front of us. Every minute or so, our army took another few steps forward, heading ever deeper into the enemy’s encampment, leaving the bodies of the dead in their wake.

Were they just trying to draw us farther in? Possibly, but…

As I stared at the bodies on the ground, my eyes widened in shock. Then, horror.

Blood flowed from every cut, far more freely than it should have. It didn’t pool or puddle in depressions. It soaked into the ground, leaving behind nothing but dark brown stains. I didn’t have a clue what this could mean, but I was certain that it was a sign of the Hall’s trap.

My eyes shot to YuLong. “We need to get out of here. Retreat, now!”

After only a second of hesitation, YuLong nodded and shouted the command. “Fall back!”

The moment he issued this command, before our army could even process it, a giant formation flared to life below our feet, covering the entire encampment and hundreds of meters beyond. Gathering so much energy should have taken several minutes, but it all appeared suddenly, as if from nowhere.

I turned around, expecting to find a barrier that would block us from retreating. However, no such barrier materialized. Then, I heard screaming and whirled back to face the front.

Blood oozed from the ground, flooding around our people’s boots and crawling up their legs. Once it caught hold, it wouldn’t let go. As it climbed, it was like acid, burning through cloth and skin alike. People tried to use their guandaos to free themselves, but when cut, the blood acted like water, smoothly parting and reforming an instant later.

“We have to destroy the formation,” I muttered.

I scanned the field with energy vision and found 30 glowing red orbs scattered around the camp, enough nodes to create a powerful Rank 3 grand formation. Destroying these nodes wouldn’t be overly difficult, but they were all buried. I wouldn’t be able to get to them without using my qi, and to do that, I would need to cancel my technique for detecting soul attacks.

After only the barest moment of hesitation, I pulled YuLong's arm. “Follow me.”

We raced to the nearest formation node.

“Strike here. Straight down. You need to go down at least five meters.”

YuLong’s only response was to thrust his guandao into the ground and let out a powerful burst of qi. The ground shattered, and the first node broke apart.

“Next one,” I said, turning to dash away.

Just as we started to move, a series of soul attacks flew from the mists higher up the mountain. The most powerful of these were aimed at YuLong and me, while weaker attacks flew toward our Disciples and Masters.

Our people couldn’t move, so they couldn’t huddle under the protection of the defensive formations I had given our Masters. If these attacks landed, dozens of our people would be cut down without any opportunity to resist.

I closed my eyes and let out a heavy breath. “Sorry, YuLong.”

I released a wave of soul power that completely crushed the attacks and flowed into the mists to end the lives of everyone who was hiding there. Then, I dropped the detection technique, pulled on my earth qi, and crushed the nodes of the Hall’s formation in short order. Finally, I used one last wave of soul power to bring down any enemies that hadn’t succumbed to the oozing blood.

Once this was done, I pulled out an orb and recorded my memories of the battle. Then, I gathered up my elders to apologize.

“My attack killed the Hall’s Masters and Disciples, violating the rules of both the invasion and the domain. Blackblade Hall is finished, but our sect won’t be able to escape punishment.” I gave each of them a weary smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what will happen to you, but by taking my own life in atonement, I can hopefully spare you the worst of it.”

JiuLi drew a breath to respond, but YuLong placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head, stopping her.

With one final glance, I sat down, swallowed a poison pill, and retreated through time.

You have died.