Deep in the region where the Poison God's Heritage Trial was happening several thousand cultivators were running in every direction, panic clear in their faces as they were informed of a distraught piece of news that would make anyone's hair turn white.
"RUN!" one random cultivator said as he used every ounce of his Qi and power to move in a random direction away from the trial area.
"What's going on in here," said a cultivator of a brown skin tone, he was accompanied by several other cultivators. A man wearing a full set of Blue Robes, another man in a full set of white robes, and a scholar's hat. And two female cultivators, these were the companions and friends of Shen Bao.
One cultivator of the several hundreds stopped near them, "Are you all insane, why are you still here, have you not heard the news?!" he asked.
"What news?" Meng Hao asked, confused and interested.
"The Primordial Serpent is coming! Run for your lives, it's not worth waiting here to steal the winner's loot if you die!" he said and then zoomed past them.
"So, this is the reason they're all here? They wanted to take away the winner's heritage. Quite shameless," Yuyu said.
"Can you blame them," Master Rain said, "It's a lot of power for one man," he added.
"We'll have to wait though, look, some aren't as afraid of the serpent as the rest," Liang Yu added.
It was as she said, several cultivators were actually waiting, some had clear signs of anxiousness on them, but they still waited for the portal to open again.
"How did they even know that the trial was going to end with a clear?" asked Yuyu "Several times this trial had been done and no one cleared it before," she said.
"It's the serpent, every time you have a few cultivators that stay waiting outside, but since the serpent never moved, they always deduced that the trial had ended in failure, and now that the serpent is moving, they knew that it was a success, but seeing that the gate has yet to open and the serpent is too close for comfort, most of them decided to leave," Zhang Tian said.
"I hope that Shen Bao clears it… this isn't going to be difficult, but if anyone I know could clear something like this, it gotta be him," Meng Hao said.
"You have a lot of trust in Shen Bao junior brother," Zhang Tian said.
"Thank you kindly for the words, but I trust him and would trust him with my life even, he is a good man," Meng Hao said.
"Indeed he is, let's just wait then," Zhang Tian said.
Suddenly, something in the distance seemed to move, at first it looked like two massive stars approaching, only for the cultivators to understand that it was nothing but the eyes of the Primordial Serpent.
"Are you ready Master Rain?" asked Zhang Tian.
"Yes, this should be interesting," he said as he flexed his hands.
"Wait, what are you doing?" asked Meng Hao.
"What do you think, we're going to stop this ugly worm," Master Rain said confidently.
Meng Hao looked at the incoming serpent, one of its eyes was easily the size of a moon, and its body was easily able to consume a planet whole and the more it approaches the bigger it looked.
How are they going to stop something like that?
Master Rain then raised his hands, calling upon, tens of thousands then hundreds of thousands of inscriptions that floated in the air.
Zhang Tian on the other hand waved his fan summoning an equal number of golden butterflies that linked themselves one to each of the symbols. Then he waved it again, making the butterflies fly forward toward the serpent.
Master Rain continued producing the symbols as Zhang Tian fused and sent them forward, millions upon millions of butterflies flew forward enough that every cultivator present had to momentarily stop, either to watch, or to be amazed at the sight, but they didn't trust that those small butterflies could even hope to cause any halt or damage to the incoming creature.
"This should be enough," Master Rain said as he wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead.
"How long can we stop that thing for?" asked Zhang Tian.
"Since it has been asleep for a while, we should be able to stop it for an hour at most, let's just hope Shen Bao makes it out, oh, speak of the devil," Master Rain said as he noticed the Portal opening in the depth of space.
Suddenly two men came out of the portal.
And just as the group's expressions of joy appeared on their faces, it was quickly changed to that of confusion, then realization, then denial.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" shouted Yuyu as for Liang Yu, her face turned pale as sheet of paper.
"What's wrong?" Meng Hao asked as he saw the despair on the faces of everyone.
"He…didn't make it…" Zhang Tian said, slightly shivering.
"What are you talking about? Shen Bao cleared the trial, are you all blind or something?" asked Meng Hao.
"Child, keep fooling around and I'll make sure you never live the day to regret your words," Master Rain's solemn words spoke deeply into Meng Hao's mind that he felt his soul about to break.
"W-wait… I understand, that boy there, that's Shen Bao's avatar…" he said.
"Wait, really?" asked Zhang Tian.
The words from Meng Hao's mouth gave hope back to everyone.
"What do you mean an avatar?" he asked.
"I guess he never told you, it's something he made, he's been switching between his main body and that, now please release your pressure, you're going to kill me, Master Rain…"
"Right, well, if the boy is right, we should be moving soon," Master Rain said.
Looking at the two that just came out of the portal and the several dozen cultivators rushing toward them with malicious intent was a clear sign that a fight was about to happen.
A soul-rending roar echoed in the distance, with enough power that the fabric of space began tearing echoed.
Looking forward the giant serpent was approaching fast.
"I'll take control of this, Zhang Tian, go assist Shen Bao," he said.
Just as Zhang Tian was about to move, he frowned, "Wait, do I really need to move…" he said as he looked at the situation from afar, the man next to Shen Bao's avatar was someone pretty famous.
And just as the dozen or so cultivators approached enough to realize who it was, most of them turned tail and left, while a few brave, and pretty foolish ones continued on.
"You dare?" the man spoke, "Then be consumed!"
With those words, the ma raised his hand causing a surge of Qi never before seen from a King Class cultivator to surge outward in a torrent of black smoke that manifested into the jaws of beasts of old and monsters of nightmares.
The smoke surged forward like a tidal wave, making those who decided to keep the charge immediately hesitate half of them turning tail to escape and the rest too indecisive on what to do.
Yet once the smoke reached them, none lived to tell the tail as not even bones skin or flesh remained as they were completely devoured.
The man didn't even bother with the people that escaped as he was more worried about something else, "Well, that's a big issue," he said.
Shen Bao's avatar turned to see the massive serpent approaching at a speed so great that it would make it nigh impossible to escape or run away from it.
"Fuck…" he said loud enough for everyone to hear.
"We better run," he added.
"I will not disagree with you on that," the devourer spoke and the two of them flew forward.
"SHEN BAO!" shouted Meng Hao, grabbing the attention of the two cultivators.
Shen Bao nudged the man next to him and the two of them moved toward the source of the call.
Several other cultivators hesitated between chasing after them or running away.
But the presence of the Devourer was too much for them to risk anything. Not even the Spears of the Fire lord dared go against him without the presence of someone of a higher caliber like a general of the Fire Lord army who is probably the only one that can go toe to toe against him.
"What are we doing here?" asked Shen Bao.
"It's you, Shen Bao, right?" asked Liang Yu first, the worry on her face was clear, and she needed confirmation.
"Of course, it's me, what do you think," Shen Bao replied.
"Your voice and looks are different, but that sassiness is the same. What happened in there," said Master Rain.
"I'd be more than happy to answer, but I think we should be leaving for now," he said.
"And go where, since you cleared the trial, we really can't go anywhere that thing will start following you until the end of the universe," said Master Rain.
"Wait really, persistence ass… I don't like having a stalker, what the hell did I ever do to it," Shen Bao replied.
"it's not what you did, it's what Du Shen did, and now it hates all those who are of the poison path and devours them," Master Rain said.
"So, are we planning on stopping it?" Shen Bao asked.
"Well, for now, yes, but I don't think it will be enough to just stop it, we need to actually make it think twice about chasing after you," Master Rain said.
"And how are we going to do that?" asked Shen Bao.
"I have a plan," Master Rain said and soon the serpent arrived in contact with the butterflies.
The golden butterflies began fusing into the serpent, one after the other. And soon, the entire body of the serpent was painted gold with those butterflies but its speed didn't go down one bit.
"Master Rain… I don't feel like it's slowing down…" She Bao said.
"Your turn, Zhang Tian," Master Rain said.
"Right then," Zhang Tian raised his fan high up and said, "Wisdom of the Ages! Dimensional Displacement, World Reversal!"
Instantly every butterfly on the serpent's body shone bright and the entirety of the massive serpent disappeared from sight as if it was never there.
"Alright, this should do the trick," Zhang Tian said as he wiped some of the blood on his nose.
"Wait what happened?" spoke the Devourer, this was the first thing he said since he joined the group.
Shen Bao's brows rose up then said, "Hey! That's plagiarism that's my technique!" he said jokingly.
Everyone besides Master Rain Zhang Tian and Shen Bao knew what happened, so the rest were utterly confused.
"Wait, what did he do, I don't understand, did you teleport the snake somewhere?" asked Meng Hao.
"No," Shen Bao shook his head, "He actually severed the serpent's connection to the dimension we're in, basically he trapped it inside a dimension that's adjacent to us. But I highly doubt this will be permanent," he said.
"Nope, at most it should stop him for one hour," said Zhang Tian.
"One hour isn't enough to run anywhere though," Meng Hao said.
"No, but it's enough for me to make it so when the serpent is out, he'll never find me," Shen Bao said smiling and then pulled out a couple of talismans and began inscribing on them while everyone looked completely confused at what was going on.
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