Chapter 149: Battle of Golden Core

After entering the Barren Land, Huo Yunzi had already been flying for ten days, yet still saw no sign of the Foundation Establishment cultivator named Lan Ming.

Because of this, he grew increasingly furious, but today he suddenly sensed the other's aura, which lifted his spirits, and his crimson eyes released an eerie red light.

Huo Yunzi gave a hehe cold laugh and said: "Hehe! Brat, this old ancestor let you run for a month first, but in the end you still can't escape my palm."

Having said that, he flew at extreme speed toward the direction he had sensed.

In the depths of the Barren Land, Wang Ping had already been waiting here for three days; this feeling of silently awaiting a powerful foe's arrival was especially tempering for his state of mind.

Every minute and second felt like a year dragging on; several times he had the urge to flee, but he forcibly suppressed it each time.

Now he had reached Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment, cultivating all five elements, and already qualified to challenge early Golden Core cultivators; moreover, with the Vajra Pestle and Heaven-Overturning Seal added, Wang Ping himself did not know how strong he had become.

If he lacked top-grade spirit stones and the Five Elements Forbidden Formation, he might have fled in panic, but he already possessed these conditions, and Wang Ping felt he could give it a go.

With the cultivation of Great Perfection Foundation Establishment to battle and slay a late Golden Core cultivator, no matter what method is used, as long as he can kill it, that elevation of essence, energy, and spirit will definitely allow him to take a fierce step forward in the Foundation Establishment realm.

This is exactly what Wang Ping needs; to walk the path of the Five Elements returning to one, he is destined not to cultivate in the ordinary way, but to seek life in death, to gain a sliver of hope from nine deaths and one life, so that he can walk this path more steadily.

This is his resolve, just as it was when he reached Great Perfection of Qi Refining.

Three days later, Wang Ping's brow throbbed violently; a fear spreading through his whole body made him tremble uncontrollably. He suddenly lifted his head and looked ahead; after ten breaths, a point of red light suddenly flared.

Just as he had seen in his dream, it was extremely fast— a change in the blink of an eye; only two breaths later, the red dot had become a red light mass the size of a head.

Wang Ping slowly rose to his feet, opened the formation disk he had been holding, thought for a moment, then scattered tens of thousands of spirit stones around him. In the next instant, within a fifty-li radius centered on him, yellow, gold, blue, cyan, and red light shot up into the sky, and in the blink of an eye a five-colored great formation covering a fifty-li radius stood erected in the Barren Land.

Seeing this, Huo Yunzi wore a mocking expression; a Foundation Establishment cultivator, even after setting up a third-rank forbidden formation, what power could it wield? Without sufficient spiritual power, its might would at most threaten only those who had just broken through to Golden Core.

To cultivators like them at late Golden Core, it was nothing more than a slap's fate; Huo Yunzi had come this far, naturally not a arrogant sort, and he naturally understood the principle of a lion fighting a rabbit, but he had never heard of an elephant needing to exert full force to crush an ant, so he really could not imagine what threat the cultivator before him could pose.

Even if he were given a spiritual treasure, it would still pose no threat to him.

Thinking this, his right hand flashed with red light as his inner spiritual power frenziedly condensed; in an instant, a huge fiery-red hand ten li in radius coalesced out of thin air, which he fiercely slapped forward.

Precisely because the spiritual qi of heaven and earth is isolated here; otherwise he would directly produce a fiery-red handprint covering a fifty-li radius and slap that brat together with the formation straight underground.

Huo Yunzi wore a cold smile; this was that brat's calculation, the isolation of heavenly and earthly spiritual qi here greatly affecting him.

Hehe, the idea is not bad, but the huge gap in realm cannot be erased by this alone.

This strike of his was purely an attack condensed from his internal fire spiritual power.

With his current spiritual power quality and quantity, even a fiery-red handprint formed from just one percent of his spiritual power would have a terrifying heat sufficient to severely burn a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

In fact, as Huo Yunzi had expected, the moment that fiery handprint condensed from fire spiritual power touched the formation, a heat that a Foundation Establishment cultivator could barely endure already permeated the formation's interior.

Wang Ping's wood spiritual power was almost completely restrained, but now that he cultivated all five elements, his wood spiritual power instantly converted to water spiritual power; the Ninefold Waves technique operated, and an endless stream of water-attribute spiritual power formed layer upon layer of water curtains around him, completely enveloping him.

At the same time his body turned golden, a phenomenon that appears only when the Vajra Body technique is cultivated to the Vajra level.

With these two measures, he managed to isolate more than half of that terrifying heat; this was not yet the most deadly part, as the not-yet-fully-activated Five Elements Forbidden Formation was nearly scattered by a casual strike from that Golden Core cultivator.

Sure enough, it is a late Golden Core cultivator? This is also because the spiritual qi here is isolated, preventing the Golden Core cultivator from drawing on the surrounding heavenly and earthly spiritual power; otherwise its power would be even more terrifying.

The gravity on Wang Ping's face increased another notch; he turned up his formation disk by one level, instantly doubling his spiritual power output, and consequently the power of the Five Elements Forbidden Formation also doubled.

Huh!

Huo Yunzi's face showed surprise; it was actually blocked, a dual-system Great Perfection Foundation Establishment cultivator who also cultivated the body.

"Interesting! But this is still not enough!"

Huo Yunzi again swung out a fiery-red handprint; this time he used one-fiftieth of his spiritual power, yet its power was not merely doubled.

Seeing this, Wang Ping again raised his spiritual power output by one level; this time he did not prepare to sit and await death, quickly forming seals with both hands, and the pseudo-Dao technique Water Marsh, which comes with the top-tier water system art Ninefold Waves, was swiftly unleashed.

The Five Elements Forbidden Formation's five-colored light flashed extremely fast, finally turning azure-blue; all spiritual power within the formation was completely converted to water spiritual power, and as Water Marsh emerged, a lake directly appeared within the fifty-li radius.

As the fiery handprint was about to fall upon the Water Marsh, Wang Ping formed a sword seal, and thirty-six azure-blue giant swords condensed from water spiritual power appeared above the Water Marsh.

Wang Ping quickly brought his hands together; in the blink of an eye the thirty-six light-swords merged into a single azure-blue light-sword about a thousand zhang long.

"Slash!"

Wang Ping let out a great shout, and the azure-blue light-sword slashed toward that enormous fiery handprint with fierce momentum!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The eternally silent Barren Land resounded with earth-shaking explosion after explosion.

Immediately following the explosion sounds came a large amount of white mist.

This vast white mist mingled with chaotic spiritual power; even Huo Yunzi, with his Golden Core level cultivation, could not see through it.

Yet this did not improve his extremely foul mood; after two consecutive strikes he had failed to take down a single Foundation Establishment cultivator, and his face flushed red with embarrassment.

Humph!

Huo Yunzi let out an angry snort, flicked his right sleeve, and flung the vast white mist before him far away; soon the five-colored great formation appeared before his eyes.

Ignoring the devastated battlefield left from their earlier clash, Huo Yunzi flew straight to a point five li outside the formation, his crimson eyes for the first time carefully scrutinizing this Foundation Establishment cultivator who had taken his spirit pearl.

Being able to make his two strikes come to nothing, if he did not take it seriously anymore, it would be somewhat an insult to Huo Yunzi's intelligence.

Wang Ping endured the surging blood within his body as he saw Huo Yunzi flying toward him; he knew the preliminaries were over, and next he would likely enter the truly dangerous moment.

"Lan Ming, right? What gall, what mettle! Old me, Huo Yunzi, have cultivated for three hundred years and have never seen a cultivator like you who dares to brandish a blade at a late Golden Core True Person!" Huo Yunzi's face, originally flushed with anger, suddenly turned calm and breezy, his words even filled with praise for Lan Ming.

Wang Ping calmly said: "Just forced into it!"

Huo Yunzi nodded, his tone gentle, saying: "Lan Ming, hand over that treasure, and I, who values talent, can let you go, even take you as a closed-door disciple; once I break through to Nascent Soul and attain the position of True Lord, you will then be my sole closed-door disciple! How about that?"

Wang Ping curled the corner of his mouth into a slight smile: "Senior Huo Yunzi, do you think I, the junior, would believe your words?"

Huo Yunzi's faint smile immediately vanished, his tone turning unpleasant: "Kid, do you think I'm just toying with you?"

Wang Ping shook his head and said: "Not at all; now we two are roughly evenly matched. If I, the junior, were to withdraw this formation, then later the senior would be strong and I weak—wouldn't that make me like fish on a chopping block, to be slaughtered at the senior's pleasure?"

As Huo Yunzi looked at the Foundation Establishment cultivator before him with a confident expression, saying they were currently evenly matched, he couldn't help but burst into loud laughter, then with a cold face said: "Kid, who gave you the confidence to think that blocking my two casual strikes means you can be on equal footing with me?"

Wang Ping calmly said: "Then senior, just exert twelve percent of your strength; I, the junior, will await with bated breath!"

"Hahaha! Good, good, good! Since ancient times, you Lan Ming can be called the first arrogant one in the Foundation Establishment realm; back then the Formation Sect possessed peerless talent, and at Great Perfection Foundation Establishment they had slain five early Golden Core cultivators, yet they did not dare challenge the dignity of late Golden Core cultivators; old me wants to see what ability you, this junior, have to utter such arrogant words!"

"Solar Blazing!"

Huo Yunzi let out a great roar, and suddenly a dazzling, eye-catching pattern of light appeared on his chest!