Chapter 2367: Chapter 2367 Divine Sense Attack
Finally, after pursuing this spot, Mu Yuantang found traces of combat, which proved that Ye Liuyun was indeed ahead of him.
Based on the Sound Transmission Talisman tracking, everyone else was behind that spot. Hence, the fresh battle marks ahead could only belong to Ye Liuyun. Without hesitation, he led his men forward in pursuit.
While Mu Yuantang, who was still unsuspecting, stubbornly trailed behind. Ye Liuyun persisted in employing the same strategy to draw them farther into the woods.
Then, Ye Liuyun suddenly made a halt.
His Golden Phantom Eyes saw a swarm of venomous wasps gathering in the distance.
"That explained the dwindling number of the feral beasts in this area!"
In an instant, he signalled the troops under his command, telling them to covertly link their shields to create a barrier.
Meanwhile, he quietly summoned the Devil Vine to drag him underground.
Mu Yuantang, sensing something amiss, was just about to extend his Divine sense to investigate when one of his soldiers suddenly cried out in distress.
The back of the man’s neck was stung by a scout wasp, which caused an immediate and horrifying swelling.
Distracted, Mu Yuantang tossed the soldier an Elixir before turning his attention back to their surroundings. However, he failed to spot anything unusual.
Some troops had started swatting the wasps with flames.
The wasps were about the size of a finger segment, they were easy to spot. Hence, the group could proceed without much difficulty.
Before long, though, the wasps swarmed in massive numbers that progress became utterly impossible. A huge, swirling swarm of wasps swooped down on them from afar, casting a shadow over the sky.
Meanwhile, the poisonous wasps that had been hiding out in the vicinity swarmed in from all directions.
Amid the mayhem, several wounded soldiers flopped to the ground in a state of excruciating anguish.
"Shields up!"
Mu Yuantang yelled the order after realising the danger. However, the unprepared soldiers were only able to quickly defend themselves with flames.
Only Ye Liuyun’s subdued soldiers had anticipated this. They immediately formed a tight circle, raising interlocking defensive barriers that encased them in a protective dome.
When the others saw their defensive tactic, they scrambled to mimic the movement and gathered to erect improvised shields. Some, however, were abandoned outside the defences and left vulnerable.
In the meantime, Mu Yuantang erected a protective shield with an artefact and securely encased himself in it.
Just then, the massive swarm descended, crashing against their shields like a living storm.
"Perfect timing!" Ye Liuyun seized the moment. With the Devil Vine clearing his path, he slipped beneath one of the defensive domes and launched a series of Divine soul attacks against the soldiers within the group.
Even when they knew about the attack, they couldn’t flee and could only endure. Within moments, Ye Liuyun had subdued over forty more prisoners.
"Fall back!"
The swarm continued its relentless assault as Mu Yuantang patiently waited for the swarm to go away. With reluctance, he ordered a retreat after seeing that his troops couldn’t hold out indefinitely.
The soldiers maintained their defensive formations as they inched backwards in retreat.
Unfortunately, several of them were rendered immobile since their fixed artefacts could not be moved. Leaving them stranded.
Those who defended themselves with flames were able to dart away.
At last, Mu Yuantang and his closest bodyguards managed to escape the deadly grasp of the poisonous wasps.
"Where are the others?"
He realised he had only about ten soldiers left behind him when he turned around.
"Probably their defensive perimeter was too slow to react," one soldier speculated.
Meanwhile, beneath the ground, the Devil vine silently crept its way through the ground.
Ye Liuyun released the Anaconda he captured earlier to assist in digging and burying all the soldiers underground before covering them with soil.
The swarm of wasps, now without targets, gradually dispersed. But after the last of the buzzing faded, Mu Yuantang was left dumbfounded.
Except for a handful of lifeless troops on the ground, having succumbed to severe poisoning, the remainder had mysteriously vanished.
Eighty-two of those soldiers, now under Ye Liuyun’s control, had been stashed away in his Spatial realm.
The remaining five, who had relied on protective barriers, were buried alive. Ye Liuyun couldn’t be bothered to deal with them further. Instead, he had the Anaconda and Devil Vine carve a path underground, bypassing the territory ruled by the venomous wasps.
After what felt like an eternity, Mu Yuantang watched as only five soldiers clawed their way out of the earth while the rest never resurface.
Ye Liuyun had already advanced to scout the region by that point. He reckoned there was no way Mu Yuantang’s feeble remnants would risk pursuing him at this point.
Even if so, he had the numerical upper hand. Hardly a concern for him. Hence, he continued his exploration of the secret realm.
He released Songstress from his Spatial world. After all, this was her expedition. His role was merely to assist her and handle Mu Yuantang.
Songstress, anxious to increase her Divine soul strength, struck up a conversation with Ye Liuyun as they strolled. The ease with which he subdued martial practitioners with it left her in awe of his skill.
Ye Liuyun nodded in agreement. "Divine Soul power is indeed crucial," he cautioned, "But it’s also incredibly dangerous. We should never wield it recklessly against others."
The reason he dared to attack others was that he could see their Divine Sense strength, and his Ocean of Consciousness was protected by the Universal God Token, making him immune to counterattacks.
"To master it thoroughly, you need to reach at least three times the strength of an average martial practitioner!"
Ye Liuyun believed that even if his Divine Soul was twice as strong as an ordinary martial practitioner’s, it still wouldn’t be safe unless he could gauge his opponent’s power.
"Because using the Divine Soul attack is always a life and death bet. There’s no such thing as a draw," Ye Liuyun explained to the songstress.
"Very well, for my own safety, I will prioritise fortifying my own Divine Soul power."
After some thought, Songstress agreed that it was indeed a risky move. Even if she became stronger, it was better not to provoke others unnecessarily.
However, Mu Yuantang and the other dozen or so of his warriors were retreating to the main troops.
He was unprepared for such severe setbacks right from the start.
Once reunited with his troops, he immediately dispatched messengers to summon another two hundred men into the secret realm, ordering them to guard the entrance to prevent Ye Liuyun and Songstress from escaping.
When Wan Weihou received the news, he couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction.
"Seems like Mu Yuantang ran into trouble right after he stepped in. I wonder how this will all play out."
Meanwhile, as Ye Liuyun and Songstress traversed a valley, they were ambushed by toxic gasses.
In every corner of the valley, strange, brightly coloured flowers were in full bloom. The flowers released dense clouds of poisonous vapour as the couple walked past, despite their seemingly innocuous appearance at first.
To their surprise, not only Ye Liuyun and Songstress delightfully absorbed the poison, but also they summoned humans and beasts who had trained in the Fatal Scripture to join them in refining the energy.
Ye Liuyun recalled everyone to his Spatial World only after the strange blossoms had exhausted all of their poison. Then, he continued along, accompanied by Songstress.
After traversing the valley, they finally caught sight of the infamous Zestrone Cliff in the distance.
The ridge towered into the clouds, covered with an unsettling crimson hue.
This wasn’t the natural colour of the rock, rather, it was some mysterious liquid seeping into the stone like blood from an open wound.
The cliff face was dotted with dozens of dark caves, each with its murky depths hiding untold dangers.
Any attempt to mount the sheer rock walls was bound to send anyone into danger, with their razor-edge sharpness and the unknown dangers lurking within those foreboding tunnels.
