Chapter 198 - Greater Transmutation Array
‘This has to go!’ Ye Wei, being closest to the lotus, could tell that it was far from over.
‘Light clone!’
‘Peerless Sword Qi’
The young Runemaster refused to be a victim and let the city‘s population of over a million perish because of a madman’s pride.
With complete focus and determination, Ye Wei ignored his body’s limits and channeled all of his remaining energy. With the Qi sword as a drill and his clone as protection, he recklessly penetrated through wave after wave of radiating energy, towards the lotus.
‘Kid, just give up! All is already lost! The explosion will wipe everything out, and a radius wider than five hundred miles will be flat ground in moments!’ The progenitor laughed, seemingly looking forward to the disaster.
Ye Wei ignore every word he heard and kept his eyes focused on the blooming lotus.
‘Are you stupid? You might even be able to survive if you used your speed to run in the opposite direction.’ The progenitor genuinely could not understand the young Runemaster’s actions.
“Shut up!” Ye Wei squeezed the words out of his bleeding lips. Even with his Qi sword and his clone negating the impact, his skin was cracking and tearing.
Just seconds of trying to push himself though the energy waves covered him in blood.
“Not here. Not here. Not her...” Ye Wei’s mumbles became more and more inaudible. All he could feel was pain. His will was what kept him going, although his body was telling him to it couldn’t continue.
“Chook!”
The fierce energy waves were denser close to lotus, and this caused his Qi sword to break apart, melted and turned into a paste texture.
Ye Wei was now only ten feet away, but every inch forward was the greatest struggle he had ever faced.
‘Maybe, just maybe I will be able to suppress the lotus with the Mystic Mount’s power in my Sentient…’ Ye Wei thought to himself, as he watched his clone crumble.
‘Three feet!’
Ye Wei’s body was now under more than twice the pressure without the clone relieving the energy waves. Ye Wei’s skin was burning and his muscles were tearing, even strengthened by the Supernova runes his bones were beginning to crack.
While his body was becoming weaker and falling apart, his gaze became sharper. His Supreme blood was activated by the pressure and heat. The lotus’ energy was destroying his body while his blood repaired it at a rapid rate.
The repeated destruction and rebuilding was the most pain Ye Wei had ever felt. The slicing and destruction had numbed his senses, and he could not feel his body at points, however, his body was becoming stronger from the process.
“Argh!” With his inherited power, Ye Wei screamed and slowly overcame the distance between himself and the lotus.
***
At the Drakehead, Helian Jieyuan opened his eyes, disturbed. He stood up and lifted his hand, pointing his palm at Green Moon City.
“This reading is off the charts! How could a god’s prime level demon even get into the city without anyone noticing!?” Helian Jieyuan’s twisted facial expression showed his panic. “How dare they ignore the holy treaty!’
The royal’s figure turned into a blur, disappearing swiftly and quietly.
Like all powerful cultivators, the royal family’s Grand Elder was extremely prideful. He very seldom got himself involved in disputes between parties he thought was below him. Helian Jieyuan was almost insulted by the outburst that disturbed his training.
***
Ye Wei’s shaky right hand was no longer covered by skin, but that did not stop him from reaching and attempting to grab the lotus.
“Tzss!”
The scalded muscles on his fingers was peeling off by the time he touched the demonic plant, and all five of his fingers were just bones.
“Argh!” The remaining muscles on Ye Wei’s face twitched involuntarily as he used his will-force to clench his fingers onto the lotus. The moment he gripped it, he became light, able to use some of the lotus’ energy. With the extra energy, he sped upwards while trying to crush the flower with his will-force and Qi.
“This is it!” Ye Wei said while above several layers of clouds. He could feel the pulsating lotus’ energy had stopped intensifying.
Even with Supreme blood in his veins repairing at an outrageous speed, Ye Wei was running out of Qi and will-force. But not knowing exactly how strong the explosion was going to be, he decided to just keep flying upwards for as long as he had the energy to.
“Tatatata!”
The demonic lotus vigorously rattled against Ye Wei’s fleshless hands, emitting a red glowing energy.
“Is it trendy these days to be so reckless? Doesn’t school teach kids to value their lives anymore?” Just as the energy started expanding, a spatial tear opened in the sky and a white-bearded man suddenly appeared next to Ye Wei.
“It’s you…” Ye Wei was relieved to see Helian Jieyuan. As he was already past his body’s limit, and seeing that help had arrived, he passed out from fatigue.
“This kid was ready to sacrifice his life for the city... This level of selflessness is even more impressive than his talent for cultivation. It seems I have indeed kept my eyes on the right person!” The bearded royal quickly caught Ye Wei. With admiration, he gleefully looked at the unconscious youngster in his arm.
Before this incident, the grand elder saw the talent in Ye Wei and recruited the young Runemaster because of his respect for the Glacial Emperor. Now though, he truly appreciated Ye Wei’s temperament and spirit; he knew he would be a future powerhouse.
“Bang!”
The demonic lotus unleashed its destructive power, but the explosion had be confined and stayed the same size, held and contained by Helian Jieyuan’s Qi.
“Zoom!”
The aura around the royal Grand Elder glowed rose golden as he put his specialized runes into it transforming it into one-rune-thick screen.
‘Of course it’s a demonic lotus! What was I thinking? The demons wouldn’t achieve anything if they started a war here…’ Helian Jieyuan untightened his frown and swiped his arms wrapping Ye Wei in a golden runic weave.
‘Greater Transmutation Array!’ With just a few hand seals, the Grand Elder channeled the primal energy around him, turning nature’s power into his own. It perfectly melded with his runes and the energy shined and flowed like molten glass.
Using less than a hundredth of a second, Helian Jieyuan fluidly made nine more hand seals. The energy around him stretched into a long, thin thread and knitted itself into a complex array.
The array blasted open a dark rift in the sky.
“Bang!” The noise was not proportion to the miniature explosion, the crack swallowed the energy of the lotus.
The crack then spat out a cube of light, and contained inside was the lotus. With only two seconds, the Grand Elder took control of the whole situation.
Helian Jieyuan levitated peacefully above the clouds while looking at the lotus and thought to himself. ‘If it were a full bloom, even I wouldn’t be able to control it.’
“The Prime Dragon Ridge technically belongs to the Ye’s... I should pay them back somehow.’ The Grand Elder muttered, looking at the runic weave with a smile on his face. “This kid is a Ye and the Glacial Emperor’s inheritor, he has great temperament too.”
“The lotus goes to you then! And we are even!” Helian Jieyuan shook his head, and managed to fight his urges to claim this rare plant as his own. He flicked his finger, and the lotus immediately melted into Ye Wei’s shoulder.
“How did you not die from this...?” The Grand Elder finally had the time to take a closer look at Ye Wei’s injuries, and he frowned while sighing. After flicking his sleeves, the old and the youngster disappeared.
***
The news of Ye Wei’s stand against the Lu’s, and his victory over Lu Qianhuan, spread across the city within the day. Two days after that devastating battle, the whole state was aware of what happened at Green Moon City.
Martial families within the state were concerned, and all showed interest in how the Lu’s reacted to the elder’s death. Even the Green Army and the Runemaster Union were paying attention to this new development.