Chapter 384: As if Cutting Down a Yao God
Clarifying Truth, Tong Xinghai, and the others looked at Chu Xiu, their eyes carrying a hint of confusion.
In the earlier struggle, Chu Xiu had plenty of opportunities to intervene, yet he never once did so.
Even when his subordinate, A’Lin, was killed, he didn’t move in the slightest.
Tong Xinghai and his remaining followers couldn’t help but resent this.?All of them had witnessed Chu Xiu’s strength with their own eyes. Had he intervened, Su Yi couldn’t possibly have killed all those people!
When he sensed the crowd’s gazes, Chu Xiu couldn’t help but laugh. “Earlier, I was conflicted. Should I give you further chances to submit and work by my side, or not? Now… I already understand. Someone like you must be destroyed. Only then can I rest at ease.”
“It took you all this time just to make that decision?” asked Su Yi. “You don’t strike me as the indecisive type.”
“Of course not,” laughed Chu Xiu. As he spoke, he pointed at the thirty-three stone steps below the palace. “Fellow Daoist, please look.”
The crowd instantly followed his gaze.
Those massive stairs carved of what seemed like divine gold or immortal jade surged with wisps of blood-colored light. The lights?wriggled like serpents as they surged into the stone statues lining the sides of the staircase.
The towering statues then shone with faint, seemingly illusory red luster. It flickered in and out of few, making it hard to notice unless you were paying attention.
“A blood sacrifice formation?” Su Yi’s eyebrows shot up.
Chu Xiu nodded. “That’s right. I arrived here a few days ago and discovered that the sixty-six stone statues lining the stairs each hide enormous secrets. After extensive contemplation, I deduced with certainty that the restriction covering the statues would absorb the blood essence of any living thing that dies in the Immortals’ Sword House.
“Oh, right. I also found a few ancient texts within the ruins. They said that this formation is called the ‘Blood Sacrifice Spirit Array’, and that it was placed here by the third-generation leader of the Immortals’ Sword House, Bai Changhen.”
Chu Xiu laughed and added, “The sixty-six stone statues each seal and confine a wisp of soul. Each once belonged to a valiant expert of the Immortal Sword House. So long as it absorbs sufficient blood essence, the formation can unleash limitlessly terrifying power.
“With the power of a True Spirit divine beast, the formation could even obliterate any cultivator below the Imperial Realm!”
He then glanced at Su Yi once more. “Alas, the blood essence power of those who’ve fallen within the ruins of the Immortals’ Sword House is merely ordinary. Thus, the power of the formation is at most sufficient to slay someone in the first level of the Spirit Dao, the Spiritual Manifestation Realm.”
Although he made it sound like an awful pity, his words shook his followers’ hearts.
“My Lord, why didn’t you circulate the formation and kill Su Yi earlier?” Tong Xinghai couldn’t help but ask.
The others were wondering the exact same thing.
However, it was Su Yi who answered. “Because there was nowhere near enough accumulated blood sacrifice power to circulate the formation. Now that I’ve killed eight people, the combined power of their shed blood is enough to run the formation, albeit just barely.”
Chu Xiu clapped and exclaimed, “Fellow Daoist, you’re absolutely right.”
Tong Xinghai, Clarifying Truth, and the others felt their hearts grow cold, and they felt a chill in their hands and feet. They suddenly realized why Chu Xiu hadn’t intervened. He was trying to gather enough blood essence to circulate the Blood Sacrifice Spirit Array!
The people fighting Su Yi were nothing more than sacrifices!
Who wouldn’t have been alarmed to discover this fact?
A’Lin, Water Monarch Blue Shark, and the others were Chu Xiu’s subordinates, yet he didn’t care about their lives at all!
This made him cold and heartless to the extreme.
Even Hua Xinfeng gasped; Chu Xiu’s display of cold-hearted ruthlessness left her stunned.
But it seemed Chu Xiu didn’t even notice their strange gazes. He just laughed, “But Fellow Daoist, there’s one thing you didn’t guess.”
“Oh?” Su Yi arched his brow.
“The Blood Sacrifice Spirit Array isn’t just powerful; it also serves as a key. So long as it contains enough blood essence, it can awaken the valiant souls within the sixty-six stone statues and open the power sealing the palace gates.”
The crowd was stunned.?The formation is really hiding such a secret?
But Su Yi only laughed dryly. “I’m afraid that awakening the souls within all sixty-six statues won’t be so easy.”
Chu Xiu sighed. “You’re right. I was worried about the same thing earlier, which is why I decided to found my own orthodoxy and recruit disciples from far and wide. If I gathered cultivators from all over the world, I could most likely gather enough blood essence to open the palace gates.”
This declaration left most of those present both shocked and furious.
Aside from Elder Yun and Rong He, the others all felt aggrieved.
So, Chu Xiu had recruited them solely for the sake of collecting their blood essence and opening the palace gates!
In other worlds, they were ultimately nothing but prey. The moment he needed their lives, he’d sacrifice them without hesitation.
He’s just too treacherous…?thought Hua Xinfeng. Her heart shook.
Earlier, when she heard Chu Xiu announce his intentions to found the Celestial God Transformation Sect, she assumed he wanted to build up his forces and take over the world.
Who’d have thought that that wasn’t even remotely the case?
The sect was just a ploy to lure cultivators to his side. He would then use their blood esence to achieve his true aim: opening the palace doors and seizing the opportunities inside!
“Why tell us this? Don’t tell me it’s just to prove your strategic brilliance and assurance in your inevitable victory?” asked Su Yi, as calm as ever.
“No.” Chu Xiu shook his head and laughed. “I just wanted to take this opportunity to ensure that you’d all know peace in death.”
He pointed at his chest and said seriously, “To tell the truth, I’m quite compassionate. Even when I kill someone, I can’t bear to let them die in confusion and uncertainty. When they die, I want them convinced of their defeat. That’s always been my guiding principle.”
When they heard this, the crowd’s hair stood on end, and they felt chills course down their spines.
Su Yi laughed too. “In a bit, when I kill you, I’ll tell you a secret too, something you would have guessed.”
“That so?” Chu Xiu feigned surprise, then burst into laughter. “Alas, the secrets of the dead don’t interest me.”
As he spoke, a lustrous white sword shot out of his sleeves. The name “Bai Changhen” was engraved on the blade in tiny text.
Sword in hand, Chu Xiu swept his gaze across Tong Xinghai and the others. “Everyone, my earlier promise is still in effect. So long as you obey my orders, I won’t harm you. After all, I’m truly short on manpower right now.”
Then, he looked at Su Yi once more. “Fellow Daoist Su, do you dare test the power of the formation the third generation leader of the Immortals’ Sword House placed here personally?”
Hua Xinfeng’s heart tensed, and she looked at Su Yi in concern.
“And here I thought you were a worthy foe. You’ve really disappointed me,” sighed Su Yi.
“If I can borrow the power of the formation to kill my enemies, why attack personally? Don’t you know that a prudent man doesn’t place himself in danger?” laughed Chu Xiu.
As he spoke, the pointed the little white sword into the air, and his voice boomed like thunder. “Activate!”
The sound reverberated through the air.
Boom!
The stone statues on the bottom nine steps of the giant stairway shook, as if awakening from countless years of slumber.
Yao qi surged out of them, soaring into the heavens and blotting out the sun.
Beneath the crowd’s stunned gazes, terrifying figures formed over the statues, one after another, bathing them in vast swathes of yao qi.
One was shaped like a lion or tiger and as vast as a mountain.
One had a head the size of a house and a single horn, with hooves like iron and legs like pillars, and a body covered in crimson scales.
One had a snake’s head on a human body. Its hands clenched twin hammers, and lightning crackled around it.
….There were eighteen monstrous entities in total, and when they appeared, the power of the restriction surged forth like a rising tide and permeated the air.
The terrifying suppressive power alone left Tong Xinghai and the others feeling suffocated, as if they’d been plunged into an icy abyss.
“How terrifying!”
The power those eighteen figures emanated was completely beyond the Three Realms of the Origin Dao. It wasn’t much different from that of legendary Spirit Dao cultivators.
But it was as if Su Yi didn’t even notice. He just glanced at the tense, uncertain, quivering Hua Xinfeng and laughed dryly, “Weren’t you quite bold just now? What scared you so badly?”
Hua Xinfeng was stunned.?You’re seriously in the mood to joke even at a time like this?
“Get him!” Chu Xiu suddenly pointed his snow-white sword at Su Yi.
The eighteen terrifying monstrosities reacted as if locking onto a target. They shot through the air and directly at Su Yi, bringing the vast, towering energy fluctuations of the restriction with them.
Rumble!
The leader was a yao with a snake’s head, a human body, and twin hammers. The power of the restriction formed streaks of black lightning in front of him, each as thick as an arm and surging with baleful energy.
In the blink of an eye, he charged toward Su Yi. When he was just one hundred feet away, he swung his hammers with all his might.
They descended like bolts of heavenly lightning. The resulting destructive aura filled the distant onlookers with an unprecedented sense of helplessness and despair.
All of them asked themselves if they could block such an attack, and they feared they couldn’t.
Su Yi, however, only smiled. He then stretched his hand toward the palace gates and grabbed.
Bzzz!
A clear glyph appeared on the gates.
“Ah?!” Hua Xinfeng was the closest, and she recognized it at a glance. It was the same symbol array that Su Yi had casually engraved on the door when they first arrived.
At the time, Shang Luoyu had mocked him for it.
Yet now, when the glyph surged back into view, the vast and inscrutable power of the inscription swept forth like the tide and gathered in Su Yi’s palm, forming an illusory Dao Sword!
The Dao Sword was three feet long and formed entirely out of the mysterious power of the restriction.
Sword in hand, Su Yi slashed horizontally.
Boom!
Radiant glyphs filled the air and swept forth in a rain of sword qi. It was just a casual swing, yet it split the snake-headed yao leading the pack directly in two, as effortlessly as if he were made of paper.
Immediately afterward, the serpent-headed man’s twin hammers burst into flecks of light, and the concentrated power of the restriction disappeared into nothingness.
Tong Xinghai and the others were, without exception, dumbstruck and tongue-tied. They were so stunned that they were rooted to the spot.
When he saw this, Chu Xiu’s calm composure finally cracked.
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