Chapter 153: Black Gold Serpent and the Pure white light
After diving around three-thousand meters deep, the protective Qi around Ye Chen’s body had already been compressed to just half a foot away from his body, which was a truly dangerous distance. Once the protective Qi broke, it would be quite difficult to rebuild it, which meant that, Ye Chen could only hold his breath until he could get some air.
Fortunately, they were already close to the bottom of the lake.
Boom!
A wave of violent shock waves spread out in all directions. From the front, faint multi-coloured light streams rose up, some of these light streams were incredibly fierce, some seemed as dense and heavy as mountains, some even froze the surrounding water, it all looked extremely astonishing.
“A battle is taking place about a mile away from us, let’s go and take a look.”
Ye Chen used his soul power and said to the other three people.
A magnificent palace was built at the bottom of the lake, with an unknown material that looked like both gold and jade, but it was neither of them. The entire palace was shining with a multi-colored light, it seemed incredibly mysterious and stunning.
Surrounding the palace, was a broad square paved with white marble. There were nearly four hundred disciples surrounding a tens of meters long, scaleless serpent, that was partly grey and partly gold, some of those disciples were launching their attacks at the serpent.
This serpent was especially fierce, even when facing group attacks launched by nearly four-hundred martial artists, it still held its head high and seemed almost invincible. Ordinary attacks couldn’t even break its defensive Qi, only attacks launched by Hidden Dragon Ranked Clasping Yuan Realm martial artists could harm it by a little bit.
“Ancient Black Gold Serpent is unimaginably powerful, our individual attacks can’t possibly hurt it. Let’s make a battle formation and attack it.” The one who made this suggestion was the top-ranked disciple of the rank 7 institution of the White Mystery Nation, White Deer Martial School, named Lu Zhao, a young talented martial artist, 61st on Hidden Dragon Ranking.
“Lu Zhao is right, let’s make a formation!”
The other Hidden Dragon Ranked young martial artists had all clearly realised that if they keep attacking this serpent separately, this fight might last years; therefore, by using their prestige, they ordered the other disciples around them to form a formation.
“…They always get all the benefits, but when there’s trouble, they just turn to us and use us.”
“Eh, what can we do about it? They’re way more powerful than us. This Black Gold Serpent needs to be taken out sooner or later, otherwise, none of us would be able to get into the Heaven Dream Battle Palace”
“Just bear with it! You can also act like this when you break into the Clasping Yuan Realm.”
Many of the other disciples were quite unpleasant about being ordered by these Hidden Dragon Ranked young martial artists, after all, a lot of their junior or senior brothers and sisters died in these people' hands. Therefore, they subconsciously wanted to reject the orders given by them, yet, none of them dared to do so, you could just imagine how bad that feeling was.
“Ah!”
On the other side, a disciple let out a hoarse cry before he was killed cruelly. The murderer was not the Black Gold Serpent, instead, it was Yuanheng Ying, who was so brutal and violent that people would begin to shiver just by hearing his name.
“I have shown my respect, but you just didn’t want it, why should I let you live then?” said Yuanheng Ying, and then showed a malicious grin, he raised his head and said to the others, “Anyone who won’t listen to me, will die!”
“Such a monster! He killed a person just like that!”
Seven to eight meters away, Zhu Mei couldn’t help but be angered.
Lou Hanshan let out a sigh and said calmly, “I think we should just stay here for a while. That Yuanheng Ying is a born killer, if we go over, he will probably push us to the front lines as expendable warriors, to fight against that serpent. Although that serpent is only a fifth-grade demonic beast, ancient demonic beasts are always extremely powerful and have amazing defense, even mid Clasping Yuan Realm martial artists wouldn’t want to directly face an ancient demonic beast…Eh? Brother Ye, where are you going?”
Lou Hanshan was trying to convince them to not join the fight, but Ye Chen already walked out.
As he took a few steps forward, Ye Chen turned around and said, “We don’t have to hide from him, we can build our own battle formation, I believe that many disciples who don’t like him will join our formation.”
“Exactly, our Junior Brother Ye is also as powerful as that Yuanheng Ying, so why should we just stay back?”
Luo Hanshan gave a bitter smile.
The protective Qi formed a sealed shield around each martial artist’s body, only the air that was needed by the human body could permeate the shield. Ye Chen took a deep breath. The reason why he decided to go there and confront Yuanheng Ying was not due to him being extremely confident about his power or him believing that he could evenly fight against Yuanheng Ying, instead, it was because he didn’t want to lose his determination as a sword artist. As a decent sword artist, the first required quality was to fear nothing; unless there was a huge level-difference between his enemy and himself, hiding was never a way of solving issues, on the contrary, it would just diminish his determination.
Moving swiftly, the four Sky Cloud Martial School’s disciples darted into the group of disciples in a few blinks of an eye.
“You!” Yuanheng Ying threw a sideway glance, and seemed a bit surprised. He licked his own lips and said in a creepy voice, “You, come over here, to the front.”
Seeing this, some of the other disciples showed fear on their faces. Clearly, Yuanheng Ying was pushing the four of them to the front as expendable warriors, in other words, Yuanheng Ying wanted them to die. However, the Black Gold Serpent was a legendary ancient demonic beast, just a few expendable warriors could never stop it, this just meant that more of them would be pushed to the front as expandable warriors after the first batch died. Nevertheless, although these disciples had all realised that Yuanheng Ying might possibly send them to the front as expendable warriors, they could only hold their heads down and do whatever Yuanheng Ying said. None of them dared to disobey Yuanheng Ying, as he was a complete monster; at least, against the serpent, they still had a slight chance of victory.
Without even glancing at Yuanheng Ying, Ye Chen sent out his voice by the use of his Zhen Qi.
“Who wants to join our battle formation and fight against this serpent with us?”
Once he said these words, all the others were extremely shocked, even those who had been fighting against the serpent at the moment, turned around and glanced at him.
Yuanheng Ying showed a twisted grin, and said, “You’ve challenged my patience again and again, good, today, you have to come over here and listen to every single word I say, or else you’ll die in a very ugly manner.”
“You know, trying to kill me may cost you your own life, I’m just afraid that you can’t afford it.” Ye Chen’s resonant voice resounded across the water. Now, the fierce sense of power released by him was even stronger than before, it also contained an unmovable determination.
The previous fight between Hong Qianjun and himself let him have a deeper understanding of the sword intent. At this stage, if he wasn’t limited by his cultivation level, he could kill Yuanheng Ying as easily as killing a dog; even now, he still had thirty percent chance to kill him. Therefore, there was no reason for him to not step forward.
“Cool, since you want to die so eagerly, I’ll just lend you a hand. Eagle Sky Strike!”
Yuanheng Ying was extremely angry, he shook his body and abruptly darted out, and an eagle silhouette condensed from Zhen Qi swooshed out of his body, it came roaring towards Ye Chen.
“Chop!”
Once Ye Chen let a stream of sword Qi out, the water was forced up in huge streams; the dazzling stream of sword Qi even made all the others feel slightly dizzy.
Puff!
A long and deep cut appeared on the eagle silhouette’s chest, it instantly gave a long and shrill cry, it flapped its pair of enormous wings against the sword Qi, and let out a metal-clashing noise.
In the very next moment, fierce streams of power swooshed into this area, and madly rolled up into a huge water sphere over ten meters large, it then began swelling rapidly.
Boom!
The water sphere exploded with a thunderous boom that seemed to shatter the entire bottom of the lake.
“What?! Did he just take an attack launched by Yuanheng Ying? Who is this? A Sky Cloud Martial School’s disciple? What’s his name?”
“Even if Yuanheng Ying has only used eighty percent of his power, a Late Condensing Reality Realm martial artist couldn’t possibly take that move. It’s unbelievable!”
“Don’t you feel that that seems like sword intent?”
“Ah! Yes! How could I not realise that?! That definitely is the sword intent! No wonder he wasn’t afraid of Yuanheng Ying.”
The other disciples couldn’t help but exclaim.
Yuanheng Ying’s eyes turned red, like the eyes of a devil, they clearly showed his killing intent. As for the sword intent, he didn’t pay too much attention to it. In his eyes, the sword intent meant nothing on a dead sword artist. If he didn’t kill Ye Chen today, Ye Chen would absolutely become a huge trouble to him, in the future.
“You have to die today, I already wanted to kill you back there. None of my targets has ever survived after I wanted to kill them.” Yuanheng Ying activated his Zhen Qi and released an even larger and more solid eagle silhouette, it flapped its wings and brought up a tsunami like surge.
“Enough!”
A bland voice abruptly interrupted the fight.
Looking towards the origin of the voice, everyone’s looks slightly changed.
That was Xue Hen, a top-ranked disciple of the Sky Serpent Nation’s rank 7 institution, Formless Martial School, 57th in the Hidden Dragon Ranking, even higher than Yuanheng Ying.
Xue Hen continued blandly, “Taking out that serpent is our first priority, after that, you can do whatever you want.”
Yuanheng Ying turned his head around and said with a dark face, “Xue Hen, I have never offended you, you shouldn’t step into my business either.”
“I’m just reminding you to not forget the true purpose of this journey, you can only ruin yourself by acting recklessly.”
“Yuanheng Ying, Xue Hen is right, let's take out this serpent first and unlock the Heavenly Dream Battle Palace’s gate. Put other things aside for now.” said Lu Zhao.
Slightly holding back his Zhen Qi, Yuanheng Ying decided to endure Ye Chen for another short while. Once he gets into the Heavenly Dream Battle Palace and gained some improvement in his cultivation, he should immediately kill Ye Chen. As for now, he was indeed not sure if he could kill Ye Chen. He had already seen how powerful the sword intent could be in the last Hidden Dragon Ranking, it was unimaginable.
Luo Hanshan grinned as he thought, ‘That Yuanheng Ying doesn’t seem to have an upper hand against Brother Ye, otherwise, he would never listen to others. It seems like Brother Ye was absolutely right, we can never step back when facing an equally powerful opponent, it’s not good for our future development.’
Ye Chen didn’t know what Luo Hanshan was thinking, he only shouted out, “Whoever wants to join us can come over here right now, I assure you that no one can hurt you!”
“I’m in.”
“Me too!”
“And us, the Seven Mystery Martial School!”
Instantly, a large group of disciples gathered around Ye Chen, many of them came from Yuanheng Ying's formation. This once again enraged Yuanheng Ying so much that even his eyes began shining with a blood-red light.
Hiss
As an ancient fifth-grade demonic beast, this Black Gold Serpent was horribly powerful. Even after being attacked by groups of martial artists for so long, it still continued to be energetic and violent. From time to time, two to three disciples would be smashed into pieces by its tail, and blood would puff out in the water.
However, at this stage, whatever it did could only be struggles before its death. No matter how powerful it was, a serpent could never fight evenly against hundreds of martial artists; after a while, the serpent finally lowered its head, its strong defence was about to fall apart, and it could no longer block the powerful attacks.
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
Streams of powerful attacks struck its body, squeezing out puffs of blood streams. Every single attack launched by the Hidden Dragon Ranked martial artists would accurately strike its vital body parts, and was tens of times more powerful than the ordinary disciples’ attacks. Therefore, when those Hidden Dragon Ranked martial artists had joined hands, the situation of this fight had been instantly reversed.
In around half an hour, the Black Gold Serpent let out a shrill howl, its gigantic body heavily thudded against the bottom of the lack, and it stopped breathing.
Creak
Once the serpent died, the Heavenly Dream Battle Palace seemed to have perceived something, and the enormous iron gate automatically opened. A pure white light spread out on everyone’s body.
Buzz!
Ye Chen felt his Zhen Qi slightly shake, and then he found that showered under the white light, his cultivation suddenly achieved the peak of Late Condensing Reality Realm. This whole process was completely natural and smooth, without any difficulties. He couldn’t help but pause briefly in shock, and then murmured, “Perhaps, in that fight against Hong Qianjun, the amount and quality of my Zhen Qi were both improved, and I could have achieved the peak-level by cultivating for a couple of days, and now this white light shortened that time.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translated by: Law
Edited by: Jaggerjakk
From XianXiaWorld