SWDnovel Chapter 113 The Battle of Foundation Building
Chapter 113 The Battle of Foundation Building
Zhang Lin lay prone on the floor of the top floor of the attic, his spiritual sense shrunk to its limit, using only his naked eyes to peer through the hole in the window to observe the movements in the direction of the town hall.
He did not use his spiritual sense to perceive the battle between Foundation Establishment cultivators. Foundation Establishment cultivators are far more sensitive to spiritual sense than Qi Refining cultivators. As long as his spiritual sense reached out, both sides would immediately notice.
But he can see.
A flash of silver light appeared in his eyes, and the direction of the spiritual energy in the night sky changed.
The deathly aura that had been permeating the area around the town hall was pushed aside by an invisible force, forming a funnel-shaped vortex.
At the center of the vortex, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was constantly drawn in and gathered, condensing into wave after wave of attacks.
It is not magic.
The techniques have fixed methods for circulating true qi, combinations of hand seals and incantations, and fixed shapes and attributes.
However, the power of heaven and earth that Foundation Establishment cultivators can draw upon is different; it can be a wind blade, a giant palm, an invisible pressure, or an attack from all sides.
As long as one's spiritual awareness reaches, the power of heaven and earth will change according to one's will.
This is the foundation-building stage's understanding of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth.
While the Qi Refining cultivator was still condensing his internal energy into spells, the Foundation Establishment cultivator had already used the power of heaven and earth to directly crush him.
Zhang Lin's gaze fell on the east side of the town hall, where Zhou Huaili was located.
He was about sixty feet away.
At this distance, his attack could just cover the target. He had to wait until the most crucial moment to strike once and then retreat, otherwise he would be tracked and locked onto by the Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual sense.
Zhang Lin took out three items from his storage bag and lined them up in front of him.
The Blood Fiend Banner, a mid-grade spiritual artifact, is currently secretly absorbing the surrounding death energy and transforming it into profound yin energy.
The Mystery-Trapping Banner, a top-tier magic artifact set, will be needed next.
The Soul-Suppressing Bell, after being enhanced, becomes a mid-grade spiritual weapon. Its original characteristic is that the range of soul suppression has been increased to sixty feet. The new characteristics are sonic impact and spirit gathering.
The Gathering Spirit and Blood Fiend Banner absorb death energy to transform it into Xuan Yin Qi. As long as you absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth daily, you don't need to use true essence to drive it. Instead, you consume the stored spiritual energy.
Then he began to set up the formation.
It wasn't placed inside the attic, but rather in the streets and alleys surrounding the attic.
Concealing himself, he silently climbed out of the back window of the attic and squeezed along the wall into the narrow, spiderweb-like alleyway on the east side of the town hall.
One by one, the array flags were inserted into the ground several feet deep, into the soil at the corners of walls, along the edges of wells, and at the roots of withered trees. Each flag was activated with true energy, and then the breath-concealing technique was used to cover the spiritual energy fluctuations of the array flags in death energy.
The Misdirection Formation is not an offensive formation; its purpose is to trap, confuse, and create illusions for the enemy.
With Zhang Lin's cultivation at the Great Perfection of Qi Refining, this set of top-grade magic artifact array flags could not trap a Foundation Establishment cultivator for long, and might not even have any significant impact.
But if it can play even a tiny role at a crucial moment, then it's worth it.
After setting up the last secondary flag, Zhang Lin retreated to the third floor of the attic and placed his palm on the Soul-Suppressing Bell again.
Outside the window, the battle of wits has entered its second round.
Li Xiao crawled out from underground.
He had no choice but to come out.
The underground space was torn to pieces by hundreds of wind blades, and the yin energy of the earth veins was interrupted. Staying underground would only result in being suffocated to death.
The moment he broke through the ground, before the dirt on his black robe had even been shaken off, he was met with three pale golden arrows, armor-piercing arrows condensed from metal-elemental spiritual energy.
With a flick of his sleeve, Li Xiao unleashed a wisp of black mist that enveloped the three arrows.
The arrow pierced the black mist, making a hissing, corrosive sound, and after slowing down, he flicked it away with his finger.
On the knuckles where the arrow was deflected was a white bone ring, the face of which was a tiny skull with ghostly flames flickering in its eye sockets.
"Who are you?" Li Xiao asked in a deep voice. "I have no grudge against you, so why are you so ruthless?"
Zhou Huaili did not answer.
In a battle between Foundation Establishment cultivators, speaking is also part of the tactics. If the other party speaks, it's either to buy time or to prepare something in secret.
Blood trickled from the corner of Li Xiao's mouth, and his face was as pale as paper. It was clear that the blood he had just swallowed had consumed a great deal of his essence.
But since he dared to crawl out from underground, he must have a backup plan.
Zhou Huaili did not give him time to prepare a backup plan.
He flipped his right hand, and a bronze mirror appeared in his palm.
The bronze mirror is only the size of a palm, with a dark gold surface and a closed eye engraved on the back, the lines on the eyelid being as fine as a net.
Mid-grade spiritual artifact, the Spirit Communication Mirror.
Zhou Huaili poured his true essence into the mirror, and the closed eye on the mirror slowly opened.
A beam of pale golden light shot out from the mirror and shone on Li Xiao.
Li Xiao's expression changed drastically.
He recognized this object as a magical mirror, capable of revealing the flow of true energy and exposing weaknesses in surgical techniques.
If one's injuries were exposed by the mirror light, the sluggishness in the circulation of true energy would be revealed, and the opponent would only need to attack the weak points to defeat one without a doubt.
Without hesitation, he crushed a bone talisman with his left hand.
The bone talisman shattered, and a stark white bone wall rose from the ground, blocking the golden light outside.
The bone wall was translucent, and dozens of distorted human faces appeared on it, accompanied by piercing wails.
Zhou Huaili sneered.
The bronze mirror turned, and golden light swept across the bone wall.
The faces on the bone wall twisted and melted in the golden light, and the screams stopped abruptly.
The bone wall thinned and became brittle at a visible rate, eventually cracking open in the middle.
In the blink of an eye, a fist-sized gray bead appeared in front of Li Xiao.
The gray mist churned within the pearl, and countless tiny white skeletons could be faintly seen floating and sinking within it.
Ten Thousand Bone Pearl.
A low-grade spiritual artifact, refined from the bones of a hundred cultivators, containing the unique death energy of the White Bone Demon Sect.
Li Xiao bit his lip, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the bead.
The Myriad Bone Pearl trembled violently, and the surging gray mist within it suddenly expanded, transforming into a gray-white column of air about ten feet high that shot out.
The column of air burst out of the crack in the bone wall and swept towards Zhou Huaili.
Wherever it passed, the bluestone slabs on the ground were corroded into ash by the deathly aura, and the air was filled with a pungent, fishy stench.
Zhou Huaili finally frowned.
Although the death aura was not fatal to him, his true essence shield was greatly depleted by its erosion.
He retrieved the magic mirror, flipped his left hand, and a crimson talisman appeared in his palm.
Second-grade spirit talisman, Blazing Sun Talisman.
The talisman burned, and a crimson sun descended from the sky, colliding with the gray-white death energy.
Boom!
The white light engulfed the entire town hall.
The scorching heatwave spread outwards like a tsunami, instantly turning the surrounding wooden buildings and thatched huts into charcoal and burning the ground into cracked, scorched earth.
The deathly aura was mostly evaporated by the blazing yang energy of the Blazing Sun Talisman, and Li Xiao was also blasted back several feet by the shockwave, his back slamming against the stone steps of the town hall, spitting out a mouthful of black blood.
Zhou Huaili was also suffering.
The aftershocks of the Blazing Sun Talisman, combined with the corrosive effect of death energy, reduced his true essence shield by 30%.
But a hint of joy flashed in his eyes. Li Xiao's blood was his original blood, not the kind of blood he had just bitten his lip to appease the situation.
He was really hurt.
Take advantage of his illness and kill him.
Zhou Huaili put away the bronze mirror and then used both hands.
This time, he no longer tested the waters, but instead focused all his efforts on harnessing the power of heaven and earth.
Within a radius of two hundred feet, all the spiritual energy of heaven and earth converged on him like a tide.
The ground shook, the air hummed, and the undead that were originally infected by the death aura were crushed to the ground by this pressure, while the skeletal puppets shrank back into the ground, not daring to show their faces.
A 16-foot-long cyan sword materialized in mid-air.
The blade is light blue all over, with fine wind-elemental patterns flowing along the edge.
Before the blade even fell, its pressure had already crushed the stone steps in front of the town hall. The broken stones floated in the shockwave, collided, and shattered.
A hint of despair flashed in Li Xiao's eyes.
He couldn't withstand that blow.
But he has cultivated for over fifty years, climbing from the lowest level of the White Bone Demon Sect as a corpse-refining servant to a Foundation Establishment steward, experiencing countless desperate situations.
He gave it his all.