Chapter 30: The Butian Peak Master

In his previous life, Lu Yang painstakingly studied formations, and the grand formation ultimately inscribed on the Blood Yang Sword Pellet was a sword formation called the "Blood-Washing Heavenly River Sword Formation Diagram."

The formation was divided into the Three Talents and Nine Palaces, using the river of sword qi unleashed by the Blood Yang Sword Pellet as its mainstay and the Heavenly Demon Blood-Dissolving Divine Light as its auxiliary. Lu Yang had also specially designed three hundred and sixty formation eyes. According to his plan, as long as he found three hundred and sixty cultivators to take their places within them, the formation's power could be brought to its utmost.

He had already thought this point through.

Once he took back his Innate Qi Myriad Spirits Banner from Liu Xin's hands, he would have the banner spirit take its place in the formation eye—saving effort, offering convenience, and allowing him to carry it on his person.

But for now, he could only personally oversee the formation.

"Open!" Lu Yang formed a hand seal, the Blood Yang Sword Pellet hummed, and within the formation a Heavenly River surged from south to north, spanning the heavens, boundless to the eye.

Lu Yuanchun, Zhao Xuhe, and all the others now found themselves fallen into the Heavenly River. The river's waters roared, and every second endless sword qi came slashing down. A few cultivators of slightly weaker cultivation only managed to let out a single scream before becoming a spray of blood amid the Heavenly River.

Lu Yuanchun's face changed drastically at the sight.

"Impossible! Although my master previously told me this person understands formations, I never gave him time to set one up—why have we still fallen into a formation?"

Lu Yuanchun naturally could not understand.

That was because the Blood Yang Sword Pellet was no ordinary treasure, but a formation treasure. A so-called formation treasure uses a formation as its treasure—a thought moves and the formation is complete, requiring no setup at all!

And now, falling into the formation had already exceeded Lu Yuanchun's expectations.

After all, formations borrow the wonders of heaven and earth, draw upon the power of heaven and earth, and are claimed to be invincible within the same realm. Although he prided himself on his considerable strength, once fallen into the formation he had lost his confidence.

Was he truly going to capsize in a ditch today?

Thinking of this, Lu Yuanchun's expression grew uglier and uglier, no longer the earlier certainty of victory, and even Zhao Xuhe beside him grew uneasy:

"Senior Brother, this formation—"

"Junior Brother, be careful. Today's matter likely has other variables." Lu Yuanchun instructed in a low voice while sending the Jin Guang Treasure Mirror into the air to protect himself.

At this moment, Lu Yuanchun still harbored a shred of wishful thinking. In his view, Lu Yang was merely an ordinary disciple who had stumbled upon an opportunity. Although he knew quite a few things, after all his time since entering the sect was still short—even if he understood formations, how much could he truly master? As for the formation before his eyes, perhaps it was the legacy of some predecessor?

Yet in the next second, Lu Yang shattered his illusion.

Lu Yang's expression was cold. With a thought, he pointed a finger, and the originally clear river of sword qi Heavenly River instantly took on a stinging, blood-red hue.

Heavenly Demon Blood-Dissolving Divine Light!

Although this divine ability possessed tremendous power, famed as "a graze wounds, a touch kills," on the other hand it also showed that it only displayed its might upon a hit.

Miss, and it accomplishes nothing.

Yet within the "Blood-Washing Heavenly River Sword Formation Diagram," Lu Yang had solved this flaw—as long as one was within the formation, one was effectively soaked in the divine light!

In other words, once unleashed, it was guaranteed to hit!

In an instant, Lu Yuanchun felt the ground shake and the mountains tremble. The remaining junior brothers screamed one after another, and then within moments were reduced to human skins!

"Not good!"

Lu Yuanchun's face changed drastically in an instant. He then gritted his teeth, shifted his hand seals, and the aura of the Jin Guang Treasure Mirror above his head instantly became chaotic and violent.

Lu Yang only needed a glance to react at once.

"Self-destructing a treasure? How naive!"

The Jin Guang Treasure Mirror was clearly a top-grade treasure. If Lu Yuanchun detonated it, there was indeed hope of tearing open the formation diagram and thereby carving out a path to survival.

But the premise was that Lu Yang did not understand formations.

Ordinary formations, even with someone overseeing them, could only operate according to set rules—they were dead formations. Yet with a formation master present, it was entirely different.

Because a qualified formation master could fully adjust the formation on the fly according to the changes of the battle. Thus, a dead formation became a living one, and its power was naturally incomparable—not to mention that the "Blood-Washing Heavenly River Sword Formation Diagram" had been personally created by Lu Yang, and he wielded it as easily as moving his own arm.

Therefore, at the very instant Lu Yuanchun detonated the treasure, Lu Yang moved.

He was seen with one hand calculating with his fingers and the other adjusting the formation patterns, instantly dispersing the explosive force originally concentrated at one point throughout the formation.

Once the explosion was dispersed, its power dropped sharply several times over.

The formation that should have been broken open naturally remained intact, and even seizing the gap created by the Jin Guang Treasure Mirror's shattering, it swallowed Lu Yuanchun and Zhao Xuhe in one stroke.

Zhao Xuhe didn't even have time to scream before he was instantly reduced to a dried corpse.

"Impossible! This thief is actually a formation master!?"

Lu Yuanchun's face went deathly pale. He felt his flesh and blood pouring out like floodwaters bursting a dike, and he was about to follow Zhao Xuhe's footsteps to an unnatural death.

"Blood-Dissolving Divine Light—"

With life and death hanging in the balance, intense fear swiftly doused his fury. Lu Yuanchun's eyes were about to split from their sockets yet he was helpless, and in the end he lowered his head as if accepting his fate.

"Boom—!"

The next second, a jade pendant at Lu Yuanchun's waist quietly shattered, then erupted with boundless radiant light, and in an instant tore open Lu Yang's grand formation!

Lu Yang's pupils contracted at the sight, and he looked up toward the sky.

Where his gaze reached, he saw the radiant light trace out a shape, and above his head, ten thousand zhang high in the vault of heaven, it formed into a vast face—calm, solemn, and majestic without anger!

That face betrayed not the slightest emotion, its pair of eyes bright as sun and moon. Even though Lu Yang only met its gaze for an instant, his eyes stung to the point of tears, and his body's true qi was weakened out of thin air by seventy to eighty percent, nearly failing to maintain his flight, causing Lu Yang to nearly plummet from the air.

The face looked down, its voice like thunder emerging from the mountains:

"Audacious!"

The voice was not loud, yet it seemed as though it carried the mandate of heaven, making Lu Yang a being despised by heaven and earth, and even the surrounding spiritual qi fled from him as if avoiding him.

That invisible gaze seemed to press down upon Lu Yang with the weight of Mount Taishan itself.

The surrounding ground even cracked inch by inch because of it.

Such a scene naturally alarmed the entire Butian Peak.

In an instant, throughout Butian Peak, countless disciples in closed-door cultivation were startled awake one after another, emerging from their cave dwellings, looking up at the giant face in the sky with expressions of terror.

"Greetings, Peak Master!"

"Greetings, Peak Master!"

Some senior disciples of Butian Peak recognized the face's features, and instantly felt their scalps go numb. Without a word they prostrated themselves on the ground, continuously kowtowing in salute.

The Butian Peak Master!

Lu Yang finally learned the identity of the mysterious master behind Zhao Xuhe—the Butian Peak Master, a Foundation Establishment True Person who presided over one of the Inner Sect's Four Peaks of the Initial Saint Sect!

"Boom—!"

As the words fell, the formation diagram Lu Yang had painstakingly cultivated in his past life instantly began to crumble, with vast swathes of formation patterns even exploding right where they stood.

Seeing this, Lu Yang could not help but reveal a helpless smile.

The gap between Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment completely exceeded his imagination; his twenty years of hard work and effort were not even a match for the True Person of Foundation Establishment's two words!

A single light reprimand, and it came to this?

(End of this chapter)