Chapter 1028: Minor Collapse

At this moment, higher up on Lun Dao Mountain.

One peak, one tower, towering into the clouds, like two swords pointing at heaven, facing each other across the majestic Lun Dao Mountain.

This peak is named Xuan Tian Peak.

This tower is named Guan Jian Tower.

Xuan Tian Peak is the highest peak of Lun Dao Mountain, possessing the posture of standing atop the summit, and serves as the venue for the final duel of the "Heaven" sword debate during the Sword Debate Assembly.

After the fierce battles of the Earth-level sword debates, the successful prodigies gather atop Xuan Tian Peak to face the true sons of heaven in the final match, deciding supremacy.

To win the highest honor for their sects.

And to forge a more glorious Dao path for themselves.

Opposite Xuan Tian Peak stands a steep, sword-like tower, rising into the clouds, ancient and noble.

This is Guan Jian Tower.

It is the highest viewing platform for the Sword Debate.

Outside Guan Jian Tower, concealed arrays are set, and the tower's structure is engraved with various high-grade mist arrays, causing the tower to vanish, blending into the clouds and mist.

Ordinary people cannot see Guan Jian Tower at all.

Even most cultivators are unaware of Guan Jian Tower's existence on Lun Dao Mountain.

This towering tower is reserved for truly esteemed and noble "guests" to watch the Sword Debate.

From atop the tower, amidst the clouds, one looks down and sees the vast Fang Tian projection.

And countless cultivators, like ants in a swarm.

Those who enter this tower are truly either powerful or noble.

Elders of the Void-Exploring realm from each sect and each noble family, or Liu Yuhua abbots, or fifth-rank patriarchs.

Fifth-rank Dao Ting Sizhou Zhangsi.

Leaders of powerful Daoist forces from the Nine Provinces.

Further, core direct descendants of truly ancient noble families from Daozhou.

Dao Ting's Liu Yuhua-level inspectors, Zhou Zhangsi of the Demon Suppression Bureau.

And from the Seven Pavilions' power center, the Jian Zheng, even figures as elusive as the Ge Lao.

These are people ordinary cultivators will never encounter in a lifetime.

Inside Guan Jian Tower, hierarchy is equally strict.

Even among guests, there are distinctions of rank.

Each person may occupy only the height matching their status.

Moreover, every room in Guan Jian Tower is sealed, equipped with a dedicated fifth-rank void-transport array; entry and exit are utterly unknown to outsiders.

Those outside cannot see Guan Jian Tower, nor know who resides among the clouds.

Even those who ascend to Guan Jian Tower are confined to their own private chambers.

They do not know who else, at this very moment, is watching the battle within the entire tower.

Above them, perhaps, sits an heir of some ancient family.

A senior elder of a sixth-rank noble family.

A Jian Zheng of the Seven Pavilions, or even a Ge Lao with overwhelming power.

Even a member of the Dao Ting's Son of Heaven clan attending the match is not impossible…

Of course, there might be no one at all.

These true nobles, near the pinnacle of the Nine Provinces' power, may not all come to watch the sword debates.

Even if they come, they may not have time to attend every single match.

After all, the Heaven-level sword debates—the true, spectacular final showdown—have not yet begun.

At this moment, in the mid-level chambers of Guan Jian Tower.

The abbots of Tai A, Chong Xu, and Tai Xu Sanshan have, rarely, gathered together, sipping tea while watching the match.

The Sword Debate Assembly concerns sect rankings, the allocation of Qian Long spirit mines, and sect reforms—they are abbots, and cannot possibly be indifferent.

Previously, they did not attend every match.

Mostly, they came sporadically: one today, two tomorrow, sometimes not even one at all.

After all, abbots are very busy.

But now, as the sword debate has progressed this far, their hearts are truly uneasy.

Fifth place in the sword debate.

This ranking is extremely delicate.

One step up, and it becomes the Sida Sect.

Maintain it, and it remains the top of the Eight Gates.

But if they slip even one step back, both the Sida Sect and the top of the Eight Gates vanish.

Moreover, the current sword debate situation is dire—like rowing upstream; once they fall, climbing back up becomes truly as hard as scaling heaven.

In one's position, one must plan for one's duties.

They are all abbots, and long-serving ones; they know better than anyone the weight of this sect ranking.

Abbots of the Sida Sect.

Abbot of the top of the Eight Gates.

Abbots of ordinary Eight Gates.

The difference among these is truly immense.

And these three choices are almost all "a single step away."

One step further, and it would be the Sida Sect.

Hold steady, and it would be the foremost of the Eight Great Gates.

One step back, and it would be an ordinary member of the Eight Great Gates.

Nearly every single step made "all the difference in the world."

Faced with this situation, this opportunity for heaven-sent fortune hinging on a single thread, even an immortal would not be able to stay calm.

The three men, as sect leaders, all had deep reserves; not a trace of emotion showed on their faces.

But in their hearts, all of them were tormented by the gains and losses tied to this one step's difference, having spent countless sleepless nights over it.

But at this point, there was nothing more they could do to help.

Everything would have to depend on these children, to fight for themselves.

Whatever the outcome, they could only accept it.

Even if they lost, they could not blame these disciples.

Because these children had already given their all, had already done so very, very well — even far better than they had previously anticipated…

But even as they said this, they were still desperately hoping that Grand Void Gate could win.

They said nothing, and did not dare put pressure on Mo Hua and the others.

But in their hearts, they truly desired victory for Mo Hua and the others more than anyone.

By whatever means — as long as they could win, that was enough.

Win, and there was a chance to hold onto their current position, and even a chance to sit fifth while eyeing fourth, to advance one step further.

Every match's victory was as precious as a rare treasure.

But if they kept losing, everything would be gone.

The room was quiet; the steam of tea curled in the air.

The Sanshan Sect leader calmly drank his tea.

But however calm they appeared on the surface, their hearts were equally tormented.

Even more nervous than all the watching cultivators.

After drinking tea for a while, the Tai'a Sect leader finally could not hold back, coughed once, and slowly asked:

"This match… should… be winnable, right?"

The moment he asked this, the hearts of the Chongxu Sect leader and the Grand Void Gate Sect leader both jolted.

The Chongxu Sect leader could not help but say:

"Don't say it out loud! Fortune and misfortune depend on each other, loss and victory transform into one another — sometimes when you say you'll win, you end up losing; when you say you'll lose, you just might win…"

"The last Sword Debate was exactly like this — everyone thought we'd lose, and we ended up winning."

"Now that you're saying we'll win, don't let it turn out we lose in the end…"

The Tai'a Sect leader, cowed a little by this, still kept a straight face and said, "That's just mysticism."

The Chongxu Sect leader said, "The workings of heaven are profound upon profound — they cannot be wholly believed, yet cannot be disbelieved either. Sometimes, you just have to believe in a little ill luck…"

The Tai'a Sect leader sighed and said, "Then pretend I never said it."

After that, the three continued drinking tea.

But as they drank, the Tai'a Sect leader still could not feel at ease, and asked the Grand Void Gate Sect leader again: "Do you think we can win?"

The Grand Void Gate Sect leader's heart, which had never been all that calm to begin with, was stirred up once more into unease.

He said helplessly, "Not easy to win…"

"Are you saying it's not easy to win because of the 'mysticism' of heaven's workings, or because it's really not easy to win?" the Tai'a Sect leader pressed.

The Grand Void Gate Sect leader sighed and said, "The opponent is the Qiandao Sect — do I even need to say more about the Qiandao Sect's strength?"

The Tai'a Sect leader frowned.

The Grand Void Gate Sect leader said, "The Qiandao Sect's strongest disciple is Shen Linshu."

"Although no one admits it openly, this Shen Linshu actually surpasses Xiao Wuchen, Ao Zhan, and Duanmu Qing."

"He is the strongest among the Four Heavenly Talents of Qiandao."

"This Sword Debate may not have Shen Linshu, but it does have a Shen Cangfeng."

"Shen Cangfeng is the strongest talented disciple of the Shen family beneath Shen Linshu."

"Shen Linshu was born with Qilin blood, unrivaled on his own, his brilliance so dazzling it made all the other talents pale in comparison."

"With such a jewel in the forefront, Shen Cangfeng's reputation never stood out."

"But that is only relative to Shen Linshu — set against the other sects, this Shen Cangfeng is absolutely a top-tier talent."

"Wanting to beat him is really not that simple."

The Grand Void Gate Sect leader said slowly.

The Tai'a Sect leader nodded slightly.

The Grand Void Gate Sect leader, worthy of his noble clan origins, saw through these talented disciples with great clarity.

But hearing all this only made his heart even more uneasy.

The hard-won victory from before — could it have been just a "flash in the pan," with this match beginning a fresh losing streak?

That would truly be agonizing.

The Tai'a Sect leader sighed.

This was the trouble with Sword Debates — watching others debate swords, fighting each other to the death, with twists and turns, felt thrilling.

But when one's own interests were at stake, watching one's own sect disciples debate swords — especially during a losing streak — it was truly tormenting, enough to make one's heart turn to ash.

Not only the Tai'a Sect leader.

The seemingly composed Grand Void Gate Sect leader, and the Chongxu Sect leader who had begun studying "the mysticism of heaven's workings," were also not faring well in their hearts at this moment.

The sect masters of Sanshan, each harboring their own thoughts and even prior schemes, suddenly felt a sense of shared hearts and mutual understanding as they watched Mo Hua and the others discuss swords.

The distance between them had lessened.

The atmosphere had grown much warmer.

It truly felt like Sanshan was one lineage—sharing in glory and in loss, even trembling together.

But at a time like this, there was nothing they could do.

They could only sit together, drinking tea nonstop, appearing calm on the surface, yet watching the Fangtian painted shadows without blinking.

……

And at this moment, on the Fangtian painted shadow, Mo Hua had already tucked away his high-tier formations and reunited with Linghu Xiao and the others.

By now, the outer city of Qiandao Sect had already been breached.

In this kind of sword-discussion format, the outer city was inherently difficult to defend.

Moreover, with a sword-path prodigy like Linghu Xiao, whose sword Qi was razor-sharp, Qiandao Sect only defended symbolically before retreating to the inner city.

The inner city gate was the key.

It was also the gate that would decide victory or defeat in the siege.

But when Mo Hua arrived before the inner city gate, he found no one defending it; instead, the light of five layers of formations flickered atop the gate.

Among the Sida Sect, Qiandao Sect's formation mastery ranked first.

Though the formations on the gate were only mid second-grade, they were all top-tier defensive formations.

Five overlapping, the defensive effect was naturally very strong.

And at this moment, all five Qiandao Sect disciples were defending within the inner city.

The one at the front was Shen Cangfeng, tall in stature and somewhat gloomy in temperament.

At this moment, he gripped a heavy sword in his hand, secretly gathering strength—mighty spiritual power surging, sharp sword Qi converging upon the blade.

Judging by his sword Qi might alone, held back and unreleased, he was in no way inferior to Qiandao Sect's Xiao Ruohan.

Qiandao Sect's Heaven-Opening Earth-Splitting Sword Art.

This was a top-tier heavy-sword technique.

It was one of the oldest sword arts of Qiandao Sect, with tremendous power.

It was simply too grand and heavy, rather niche, so within Qiandao Sect, very few people practiced this sword art.

This sword art suited Shen Cangfeng perfectly.

It was precisely because of this Heaven-Opening Earth-Splitting Sword Art that Shen Cangfeng became the number one person beneath Shen Lin of the Shen family, and of all Qiandao Sect.

In this sword discussion, he was on the defending side.

But he did not want to merely defend.

That would be too passive, and would not display his true strength.

He wanted to turn defense into offense, and cut down every last one of the Grand Void Gate's five.

Kill the attackers, and the city would naturally be defended.

This sword discussion would naturally be won.

Especially Mo Hua…

A fierce glint flashed in Shen Cangfeng's eyes.

The Shen family and Mo Hua also shared no small grudge; if he could, he would of course want to cut Mo Hua down with his sword.

Therefore, others' defending the city was truly defending the city.

But Shen Cangfeng's intent was to kill.

He wanted to reinforce the city gate, using it as "bait" to wear down Grand Void Gate's strength.

Grand Void Gate had two threats.

One was Linghu Xiao's swordsmanship, the other was Mo Hua's formations.

The city gate itself was sturdy, and reinforced with five mid second-grade formations; to force the gate open, either Linghu Xiao would have to unleash a top-tier killing move,

or Mo Hua would have to use up all his formations.

Or both.

And once Linghu Xiao used a killing move, he could not finish regulating his breath in a short time, and would no longer be a threat.

Once Mo Hua used up all his formations, he would essentially be nothing but a cripple.

He himself would hold back his killing move, waiting at ease for the exhausted enemy; once Grand Void Gate broke through the gate, he would meet them head-on with a heavy strike.

In this way, the moment Grand Void Gate broke the gate would also be the moment of their annihilation.

Shen Cangfeng's gaze was icy.

……

Outside the gate, Mo Hua looked at the formations before him, sensed the killing intent behind the gate, his thoughts stirred, and he roughly guessed Shen Cangfeng's intent, sighing softly.

He had estimated: in a direct fight, the few of them simply could not beat this Shen Cangfeng.

Qiandao Sect's Shen Lin was certainly very strong.

But this Shen Cangfeng was not weak in the slightest.

This was the annoying thing about the Sida Sect of the Qianxue State realm.

Prodigies were like locusts—grab a handful and every one was big.

Moreover, in the current situation, Shen Cangfeng's plan was not bad at all.

To break the city gate would inevitably require great effort.

Either Xiaoxiao would have to unleash a big move, or he himself would have to throw in all his formations.

In that case, even if the gate were broken, they would not be able to withstand Qiandao Sect's sword Qi slaughter.

You don't need to use grand techniques or formations—slowly wearing them down works too.

But the problem is, the sword debate has a time limit; they must capture the city quickly. If they delay too long, once the time runs out, they'll be automatically declared defeated.

"This Shen Cangfeng has quite a deep mind…"

Mo Hua thought silently to himself.

Unfortunately, these people still don't know how far their formation skills have truly progressed.

Nineteen lines of a second-grade formation isn't the limit of second-grade formations.

Above nineteen lines, there are still many profound formation principles.

"Cover for me."

Mo Hua said to Cheng Mo and the others.

Cheng Mo and the others nodded in unison.

Then, Linghu Xiao began unleashing sword qi to bombard the city gate, applying pressure on the Qiandao Sect disciples.

Ouyang Xuan assisted with attacks from the side.

Situ Jian watched the surroundings, alert for ambushes from the Qiandao Sect disciples.

Cheng Mo stood beside Mo Hua, shouldering his great axe.

With his teammates providing cover, Mo Hua began laying out formations on the city wall.

The first formation was the Earthstone Formation.

This formation wasn't meant for breaching the city—it was meant to "seal" it, trapping all the Qiandao Sect disciples inside and preventing them from escaping.

Afterwards, Mo Hua laid out three more formations: high-grade second-grade nineteen-line killing formations.

One Metal-element Jin Guang Killing Formation, one Wood-element Mu Zang Killing Formation, one Fire-element Earthfire Killing Formation.

These three killing formations subtly embodied the Five Elements' generation and restraint, complementing each other to amplify their destructive power.

Moreover, these killing formations had specific targeting effects.

But they weren't targeting the formations deployed by the Qiandao Sect disciples.

Not even the city gate itself.

They targeted the high-grade second-grade formations that the Elders of Lundao Mountain had painted on the inner surface of the "city wall" before the siege.

Siege battles target the city gate.

Because the gate is the weakest point.

On either side of the gate stretch long, incredibly sturdy "city walls."

The walls are boundaries—right from the start, they were never meant to be attacked by disciples.

This was an unspoken rule.

These walls were wide and thick, personally inscribed with high-grade second-grade formations by the Elders of Lundao Mountain to protect the city.

They used high-grade second-grade formations because ordinary Foundation Establishment disciples' battles never involved third-grade Jin Dan-level power.

And generally, high-grade second-grade formations were more than sufficient.

No disciple with a normal mindset would ignore the weak "city gate" and instead go banging their head against the thick, hard "city walls."

But that was before.

Unfortunately, now these walls had met Mo Hua.

During his previous sword debate, while Mo Hua had crouched behind the wall sketching formations, he'd accidentally noticed that the wall's interior was packed with high-grade formations painted by Lundao Mountain's Elders.

Mo Hua couldn't help but feel a restless urge.

He was genuinely "itching" to do something.

It had been a very, very long time since he'd shattered a formation.

The last time he'd dismantled a formation was back in Tongxian City, when he destroyed a grand formation and killed the great demon Feng Xi.

Of course, Mo Hua didn't dare attempt a full-scale "dismantling."

First, he hadn't fully mastered the true second-grade Ni Ling Formation.

Second, this was the Sword Debate, with countless eyes watching—he didn't want to draw too much attention.

Mo Hua's plan was simple.

Trigger the explosion of the three high-grade killing formations, using the Five Elements' force to shake the inner high-grade formations of the wall, destabilizing their spiritual energy structure.

Hidden within these killing formations was a single "Ni Ling Line."

This Ni Ling Line wasn't complete.

But it was a trigger, a spark, capable of "igniting" the destabilized spiritual energy and causing it to invert, thereby triggering a chain reaction of imbalance among the wall's many high-grade formations, resulting in explosions.

The three killing formations alone couldn't destroy the wall.

Mo Hua didn't expect them to.

These three formations were merely decoys—to open a gap and deliver the Ni Ling Line's spark into the pile of explosives, triggering massive formation explosions…

This entire inversion process had been meticulously calculated by Mo Hua.

Once the explosions erupted, the fire would scatter and automatically "erase all traces."

No one would notice the small manipulations he'd made here.

As for the power…

Since it wasn't true "dismantling," but merely using "dismantling" as a trigger to ignite the formations' own explosions,

the essence was still the power of the high-grade formations.

The exact strength depended on how many high-grade formations within the wall the Ni Ling Line could destabilize.

Calculations were calculations; practice was practice.

The outcome was hard to predict.

But Mo Hua thought it probably wouldn't be too weak.

Moreover, this was the only way to win.

If they directly assaulted the Qiandao Sect disciples head-on, they'd most likely still lose.

Soon, Mo Hua had set up all the arrays, then said:

"Everyone, move far away."

Once Linghu Xiao and the others had retreated far enough, Mo Hua began to "light the fuse."

Inside the city walls, the Qiandao Sect disciples sensed a faint unease.

Someone tried to step out to investigate, only to find the city gates had been sealed shut by Mo Hua's arrays.

They couldn't get out at all.

Shen Cangfeng and several other Qiandao Sect disciples exchanged glances, their expressions darkening.

At this moment, they still didn't know what was about to happen.

Not just them—even the spectators didn't know what would happen.

Because Mo Hua's array setup process was rather dull.

The duelists hadn't yet reached the point of actual combat.

Most spectators still felt relaxed.

Inside the Observation Tower, the Sanshan Sect Master was quietly sipping tea.

Then, in the next instant, like a bolt from the blue, a deafening "Boom—" erupted.

Everyone felt a sharp pain in their eardrums.

A blinding flash of light pierced their vision.

And on the Sky-Reflecting Screen, flames instantly spread, explosions bursting like fireworks, dense and countless, covering the entire screen in an instant—a sea of light so intense it nearly blinded them.

(End of Chapter)