Chapter 2276: Chapter 2278: The True Sage Appears Again (Second Update)
The first squad’s attack was weakening, but fortunately, the momentum of the golden light was also starting to be suppressed, and they still managed to block it.
At this moment, the macro-membrane shuddered again, and the second opening finally exploded as well. Another beam of white light spewed out, this one as thick as a water tank, and its force looked even stronger than the first.
Stronger than the first... this wasn’t a visual illusion, it was the truth. The surging energy didn’t necessarily weaken just because the first opening was venting it, since the energy conversion of the small world hadn’t fully completed.
In other words, the energy being vented from the first opening wasn’t as fast as the energy being converted by the small world, which led to this result.
Luckily, there were also three squads on standby here, and they rushed up the moment they detected the situation.
By now, the first opening had basically been confined within the third defensive shield.
Watching from the rear, Feng Jun’s eyes were opened wide; he couldn’t help sighing, "This battle formation runs so smoothly and naturally, it’s breathtaking. In the end, you really do need your own people to cooperate like this."
"Exactly," True Immortal Qing Ji nodded in deep agreement. She still vividly remembered how stunned she had been the first time she saw a battle formation in coordinated action. "Once you mix in outsiders, it’s basically a disaster waiting to happen."
Each of the Seven Gates and Eighteen Paths has its own battle formations, and there’s no way they’d teach others to master them. If you try to teach them on the spot, you can imagine how poor the coordination will be.
"It’s just so-so; they still can’t manage seamless switching," Elder Duan Liang’s standards were high. In his view, this level of coordination still had room for improvement. But he wasn’t someone who only nitpicked; turning his head to glance at Yi Jue, he spoke with a smile.
"Actually, the Spirit Plant and Lingmu Battle Formations working together are even stronger than this—unfortunately, they can’t be moved easily."
Yi Jue didn’t mind him bringing up Lingmu Sect. In fact, in many people’s eyes, the two sides weren’t so easily separated. After so long, even if she hadn’t been used to it at first, she had to get used to it.
She nodded. "You can’t put it that way. That’s a formation controlled by just a few people, it’s easier to coordinate. Besides, aside from being hard to move, the Lingmu Battle Formation doesn’t adapt well to fire attribute energy."
"This kind of energy can’t really be called fire attribute," Elder Duan Liang spoke at length, raising a hand to point. "This energy is multi-attribute. Lingmu’s vigorous vitality is actually very suitable for dealing with something like this."
While they were talking, the third opening exploded with a boom.
This opening was particularly fierce. Although three squads also managed to block it, one of the squads suffered casualties. Even through the third defensive shield, seventy or eighty Cultivators were literally shaken to death, including three Nascent Soul True Immortals.
Seeing three weakened Nascent Souls drifting in the air, the four Elders all sighed in unison. "Ah, it was still a bit rushed."
They didn’t find it hard to accept that a Nascent Soul’s physical body had been destroyed. Cultivators feared death too, but as long as they didn’t die of old age while stuck at a bottleneck, everyone was quite open-minded about life and death in battle.
The four of them merely felt that Xuanhuang and Yuangang hadn’t prepared quite thoroughly enough when making their plans. True Immortal Duan Liang remarked, "If the fourth opening is even more violent, I really don’t know what backup they’ve prepared."
Those three Nascent Souls were taken away by the rescue squad, but as one side weakened and the other grew, the defensive pressure at the third opening immediately increased. The three squads had no choice but to activate the defensive shield’s nodes and fall back three thousand li, using distance to relieve the pressure a bit.
As it turned out, three thousand li still wasn’t enough; they retreated a full seven thousand li before they barely managed to withstand this wave of energy.
However, compared to the fourth opening, the third wasn’t much of anything.
By the time the fourth wave of energy appeared, there were already four squads waiting for it. Clearly, the command center had also realized that the energy intensity inside the macro-membrane had exceeded their previous expectations, and it was necessary to take it more seriously.
Seeing this, Feng Jun shook his head and sighed. "Adding just one more squad—what’s that supposed to accomplish? This is basically a piecemeal ’drip-feed’ tactic. If I were in command, I’d add at least two more squads."
"You think they don’t want to?" Elder Duan Liang replied calmly. "It’s just that the energy intensity inside the macro-membrane hasn’t been fully tested. To safeguard the overall situation, the commander has to keep sufficient reserves in hand."
"Hmph," Elder Qing Ji gave a soft snort. "Which is why they really are being careless."
Feng Jun had originally thought the four squads would split into four groups, taking turns to receive this wave of energy. He was just pondering how they would rotate when he realized the four squads had actually paired up, forming two teams.
The advantage of this was that every strike had double the power. The downside was also obvious: the rotations were too fast, leaving them without enough time to gather qi, so the power of the second strike would drop sharply.
He was still considering how to break this situation when, after those four squads had taken turns launching their first strikes, two more support squads Blinked over—thirty-six Nascent Souls unleashing a combined attack together.
Strictly speaking, the combined strike of thirty-six Nascent Souls was weaker than that of a squad, but not by much.
However, the moment they made their move, Feng Jun sensed it clearly: there were gaps in attack strength, differences in timing, the attacks scattered instead of converging, and the effect was... really quite miserable. People don’t say "rabble can’t compare to regular troops" for nothing, even if their cultivation level is higher.
Still, having a high cultivation level does come with its perks. Seeing that the attack wasn’t very effective, some people immediately launched a second strike—this is exactly the benefit of not forming a battle formation: you can make a move more freely.
And it really worked to some extent; those seemingly casual strikes actually managed to forcibly drag things out until the combined squad unleashed its second volley.
Thus the fourth breach was stabilized, but then a deviation appeared at the fifth.
This time, the command center threw in five squads, but unfortunately, the first two two-squad combinations had already fired their opening salvo, and the fifth, a solo squad, had only fired once when that energy blast exploded with a roar and punched through the third defensive shield.
The fifth squad was also well trained. Seeing this, they knew full well they likely wouldn’t escape with their lives, yet the many cultivators still managed to stay calm, not breaking formation to flee on their own—that is exactly why a sect always trusts its own people the most.
If it were a bunch of cold-blooded types, or fanatical sect zealots, they might very well sacrifice these fellow sect members to buy a bit more time for the sect. But the squad leader of this team reacted extremely fast; seeing the situation turn bad, he simply took the whole squad and blinked away.
Anyway, the sect still had other response methods; why insist on butting heads and dying here?
Even so, the tail end of that squad was swept by the energy pillar, and one full fifth of its members still vanished.
Among these two hundred, the vast majority were Golden Core Masters, but there were also two Nascent Soul True Immortals anchoring the formation.
Unfortunately, in order to maintain formation, these two True Immortals were swept by the energy pillar and turned to dust in an instant, not even their Nascent Souls managing to escape.
—Well, Feng Jun only learned later that because those two Nascent Souls had been charging at the very front, both of them had life-saving substitutes prepared; whereas the three Nascent Souls whose bodies had been destroyed earlier, having failed to trigger such substitutes, were actually worse off.
Whatever the case, to see one-fifth of a squad disappear all at once still delivered quite a shock.
And what was even deadlier now was that the energy pillar had already blasted its way out of the third defensive shield.
Judging from its might and the turbulent power contained within, even a pure Nascent Soul support squad wouldn’t dare to take it head-on. Most likely, even ten million li away, it could still easily punch through a smaller continental plate.
If something like that really happened, Xuanhuang Sect and Yuangang Sect would have a lot of explaining to do.
But at that moment, a phantom suddenly appeared in the sky, over a thousand zhang tall, wearing a bamboo hat and carrying a fishing rod over his shoulder. At a glance he was clearly a fisher elder. He took the fish basket at his waist, aimed it at the pillar of energy, and barked, "Abomination, how dare you be so rampant?"
The massive energy pillar surged into the fish basket and then simply vanished without a sound.
"Greetings to True Sage Fisher Elder!" Some disciples shouted like a tidal wave. It turned out this phantom was none other than the Fisher Elder among Yuangang Sect’s four great True Sages—Fisher, Woodcutter, Farmer, and Scholar—who had not shown himself for several hundred years.
From afar, Feng Jun frowned slightly. So this is... a True Sage who has exited his body? What grade of artifact is that fish basket?
"No shouting," True Sage Fisher Elder snorted coldly. He took a few steps forward, his massive hand gripping the enormous fish basket as he pressed it against the breach in the third defensive shield and then... passed through, continuing to press down toward the second defensive shield.
Unfortunately, there were twenty to thirty li between the second and third defensive shields. As tall as his phantom was, his arm still wasn’t that long. "Hurry up and lock down the third layer of defense."
A supporting True Immortal squad rushed over from the side, passed through his illusory arm, and managed to patch the third defensive shield.
Feng Jun felt he didn’t really understand how the other side was operating, but the cultivator squads reacted quickly. Another four squads gathered and fixed their eyes on the just-repaired breach.
"Are you ready?" True Sage Fisher Elder’s muffled voice sounded. The next moment, his enormous body grew even more insubstantial, and the fish basket grew more illusory as well. After two breaths, when the energy pillar broke through the fish basket and emerged once again, that already extremely faint body vanished in an instant.
Feng Jun was left somewhat dumbfounded. Just what principle was this?
Yi Jue, however, nodded thoughtfully, speaking with clear admiration, "True Sage Fisher Elder’s Way of Illusion and Reality... is already close to perfection, isn’t it? Truly an eye-opener."
Elder Duan Liang only gave a soft snort. "It’s a pity that the might of heaven and earth isn’t something you can just casually borrow. True Sage Fisher Elder made an expedient move in a crisis, but the burden on him is immense as well. Even holding out for a mere ten breaths, he’ll need a good long while to recover."
So this is a manifestation of the laws of heaven and earth? Feng Jun had only ever heard of such a thing; he had never actually seen it.
Just as Elder Duan Liang finished speaking, more than seventy thousand li away, a surge of divine sense swept over, icy cold. "Which junior is this, commenting on a True Sage with such disrespect? Looks like I’ve stayed hidden too long—these newcomers have short memories."
At the source of that divine sense, a hazy figure could be seen. Separated by over seventy thousand li, his features were impossible to discern clearly, but it should be Fisher Elder’s true body.
Elder Duan Liang froze for a moment, then let out a wry smile. He cupped his hands and bowed. "Junior Taixu Duan Liang pays respects to True Sage Fisher Elder. This junior serves as the sect’s transmission elder; those words were truly spoken without thinking."
