The Undying Immortal System

Chapter 467 – Life 120, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster 5

When I opened my eyes, I found myself back in my tent at the base of the mountain, only two weeks before we would launch our attack on Blackblade Hall. We needed a plan for dealing with the Hall’s blood formation, and we needed a way to block their soul attacks without my direct intervention.

Instead of trying to solve these problems on my own, I gathered up my elders and every member of our first cohort of disciples. Once everyone was assembled, I sent them to a clearing on the Plane of Woody Earth for a private conversation.

“We will attack Blackblade Hall in two weeks.” I motioned to the white, fist-sized orb that sat on a pedestal to my right. “Inject your qi into this orb. It will show you exactly what that attack will entail.”

Revered Elders YuLong and Meng LuYao stepped forward first, as was their right. Then came Sect Master Kan, followed by Grand Elder JiuLi.

Seeing the worry that appeared on the elders’ faces, most of the disciples hesitated, giving Suba HaoRong an opening. He stepped forward at once, head high and back straight. When he placed his hand on the orb, the confidence in his expression made it clear that he considered himself an unofficial elder. Once the transfer of memories was complete, however, his confidence vanished, and he could only stumble to the side on trembling legs.

This reaction wasn’t overly surprising. As the one who led our Disciples into battle, HaoRong had been on the front lines when the blood formation activated. I had witnessed his death, and my memories of that gruesome scene were now carved into his soul.

HaoRong’s reaction made the other disciples even more hesitant, but after taking a moment to steady himself, Ye Sheng stepped forward, followed closely behind by Bao Ming. This broke the deadlock, and one after another, everyone walked up to absorb my memories.

When the last disciple finished, everyone was standing around in loose clusters, faces pale and eyes unfocused. Before fear of the inevitable could take root, I sent out a sharp pulse of qi to grab their attention and motioned for them to reform ranks.

“Think through everything you learned and look for a way to counter the Hall’s trap.” I swept my gaze over the crowd of worried youths. “Elder YuLong and Sect Master Kan are in charge of our army. Bring any ideas you have to them. We need a plan that ensures everyone’s survival while exposing as few of our true capabilities as possible. You have two weeks.”

Our previous trip up Pale Mist Mountain showed that Blackblade Hall didn’t plan to launch any soul attacks until we were trapped within their blood formation. Therefore, during our third ascent, instead of scanning for attacks that wouldn’t come, I used my earth qi to search for any formations that we had overlooked.

No matter how hard I looked, though, I couldn’t find any. The formations might have been too well hidden, but I was more inclined to believe they simply didn’t exist. After all, why trap us so far away from their hidden army?

This suspicion was confirmed when we reached the edge of the Hall’s encampment.

The blood formation hadn’t yet been activated, so there were no signs of energy buildup. However, when I swept the area with my earth qi, I immediately noticed that the rocks under the encampment were far more porous than those elsewhere on the mountain. Moments later, I found stones that were far more solid than they should have been, standing out like diamonds buried in loose soil.

If these stones had been part of an active formation, the energy coursing through them would have both strengthened them and locked them in place. We would have needed to visit each node one-by-one and send powerful attacks into the ground to destroy them. At the moment, though, they were inert, devoid of both qi and blood. This gave us a few more options.

Instead of directly attacking the encampment like we had the last time, YuLong brought our army to a halt near its edge and made a show of studying it. Every thirty seconds or so, he gave a set of orders, moving groups from one place to another, and giving me time to work.

With a subtle flex of my earth qi, I pulled the two nearest formation stones through the ground until they rested directly beneath my feet. Then, I tossed them into my inner world. Once this was done, I strolled through the army, located a few more stones, and repeated the procedure.

The camp in front of us was massive, and I could only extend my earth qi a few dozen meters before losing control of it, so most of the nodes were too far away for me to collect. Since Blackblade Hall didn’t have any cultivators above Martial Grandmaster, I might have been able to use a Shadowed Soul Pill to sneak into the camp and dismantle the formation entirely. However, with all the nodes near our army taken care of, we were no longer in imminent danger, so why risk letting the Hall know what we were up to?

Once everything was ready, I walked over to YuLong, smiled, and nodded. He responded by immediately raising a hand and shouting into his hand-held formation.

“Earth!”

From here, the attack proceeded much the same as last time. Flaming plants destroyed the tents, while corpses and monstrosities charged our army. Guandaos flashed in the midday sun, and blood splashed across the rocky ground. The only difference was that I moved with the army, pulling up each formation node as they came within range, before even a single drop of blood could come near them.

Once our entire army was well within the camp’s perimeter, our front lines didn’t push any farther, simply allowing our enemies to come to us. I, meanwhile, took up a position at the center of our army and activated my technique for detecting soul attacks.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

With each minute that passed, dozens of enemy cultivators lost their lives. Those on our side were becoming slightly exhausted, but we were all still alive, while the forces arrayed against us were dwindling rapidly.

Eventually, whoever was in charge must have decided that this had gone on long enough, because the formation activated, and blood oozed from the earth—beneath our opponents’ feet, not ours. The porous rocks had allowed blood to flow to all the remaining formation nodes, but since there weren’t any nodes near our army, this didn’t really affect us.

Howls of pain echoed across the mountain, but the members of our sect just stood back and watched in grim amusement. They didn’t even have to fight anymore. All of our opponents were trapped in oozing blood.

Suddenly, I detected a surge of power from the distant mists.

“Shield up!” I shouted as the first soul attack entered the range of my detection technique.

Our people didn’t hesitate. They immediately clustered around the nearest Master, who activated their shielding formation. These shields were only powerful enough to deflect a few low-level attacks, but having already experienced the strength of our opponents, I was confident this would be enough.

“Circle around!” shouted YuLong. “Attack the mists!”

Following the plans that we had drawn up more than a week ago, our people marched around the blood formation while remaining huddled together under their soul shield. This allowed me to drop the detection technique and use my earth qi to scan for further traps.

Striding confidently to the front of our army, I passed the vanguard and hurried up the mountain on my own. I was a massive, flashing target, and several members of Blackblade Hall couldn’t resist taking a shot at me.

I was a Grandmaster, so the Saint’s rules prohibited me from attacking Masters and Disciples. However, if a Master or Disciple attacked me first, I was well within my rights to respond.

As I was struck by one attack after another, I released needle-thin beams of soul power and ended the lives of everyone who had been bold enough to attack me. Then, once the attacks stopped, I activated a movement technique, charged into the mists, and headed straight for those who had released the most powerful attacks during the initial volley.

The moment I passed through the outer layer of mist, the world around me opened up, and the once-dense fog became thin and transparent.

Roughly eighty black-robed cultivators appeared in front of me. Two dozen were on the ground, dead from my earlier attacks. Then, when a new round of attacks flew at me, another two dozen joined them.

I wanted to expose as little as possible in this fight, but using targeted soul attacks to take out a few Masters and Disciples was practically meaningless. After all, I still had to take out the Hall’s Sect Master, and that would require showing even more of my abilities.

Still, following the Saint’s rules, I didn’t attack anyone who didn’t attack me. I left them for my sect to deal with, while I rushed forward to take out the Hall’s leadership before they could escape.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry so much. While I was rushing to the largest, most conspicuous building on the mountain, the sect’s leadership was rushing to the battle, and we met halfway.

Without saying a single word, I pulled on my soul and sent a needle into each of these leaders—except the one who was wearing the fanciest robes. The strength of these needles was limited to what I considered Grandmaster-level soul power, but the precision and control I exhibited still allowed me to kill my opponents with ease.

In the blink of an eye, only the Sect Master was left standing, but after a sweep of my guandao, he fell to the ground, powerless but alive.

“How did you learn to create those monstrosities?” I asked, placing the blade of my guandao against his neck. “Those people covered in burns and metallic lesions. I detected wu in their bodies. What did you do to them?”

The Sect Master looked at me with wide, frightened eyes, but instead of responding, he turned his head back the way he came.

“Sovereign Rothariel! Please, save me!”

Lifting my eyes, I followed the Sect Master’s gaze and found two men walking in my direction.

The younger man was a Martial Master who looked to be from the Nine Rivers Domain. His blue and gold robes were slightly gaudy, but they were of the cut and style that was common there. Interestingly, this man was a true Rank 2 body cultivator, with both his skin and tendons reinforced with wu.

The other was a middle-aged man with pale skin, blue eyes, and short blond hair. Instead of robes, he wore a white button-up shirt, black pants, and a black trench coat. A quick check with energy vision was enough to confirm that this was Sovereign Rothariel.

The Sovereign looked at the Sect Master and shook his head in disgust. “After everything we invested in you, Blackblade Hall couldn’t kill a single member of the Amorphous Blade Sect. None of them are even seriously injured. How… disappointing.”

“Sovereign Rothariel, please. Give me another chance. I… I—”

The Sovereign snorted, cutting him off. “The rules of this invasion are set. No foreigners of a higher Rank than the invasion’s leader may interfere. Are you asking me to defy the Saint? To defy all of the Saints?”

With a grim chuckle, the Sovereign looked away from the Sect Master, condemning him to death. “Supreme Elder Su Fang, it appears our organization will soon have an opening. Considering how quickly your sect is advancing, this low-level spirit mountain is nothing. Join us, and the reward you receive will be… exceptional.”

I smiled and bowed my head. “Thank you for the offer, Sovereign Rothariel. I will seriously consider it. For now, though, I have no plans to change allegiances. We can talk again once this invasion has been dealt with.”

The Sovereign gave me a wide smile, revealing fanged teeth. “I look forward to it, Elder Su. If you change your mind, contact Demon Master Yong here. He knows how to get in touch with me.”

Raising his right fist, the Sovereign took several long moments to charge his glove with qi and intent. Then, he struck the air, creating a portal.

“By the way, I have taken the liberty of removing all of the Hall’s most talented members. They are now members of the Devil Domain—not Blackblade Hall. As I am sure you will agree, such recruitment cannot possibly be considered interference.”

I smiled and bowed my head once more, knowing that I wasn’t in any position to argue. “Of course not, Sovereign Rothariel.”

“Still, compensation is due. I have added a few cultivation techniques to the Hall’s library. Feel free to experiment with them. They should prove far more useful than those scraps offered by your Bureau.”

With that, the Sovereign turned and disappeared into the portal with Demon Master Yong.