Chapter 179: Qinglan Light-Splitting Technique

The Spirit Sparrow's diligent attacks gave Xu Chen a chance to catch his breath.

This giant Soul Beast, resembling an octopus, possessed formidable strength, at least at the middle or late stage of the Danyuan Realm; its most terrifying aspect was not its body, but the horrific Soul impact it unleashed during every battle.

Although Xu Chen appeared to have the upper hand in every exchange, in reality, he was suffering a thousand losses to inflict eight hundred, gaining no advantage whatsoever.

He had not seen Yiyun Zhenren get injured with his own eyes, but he could now roughly guess that Yiyun Zhenren must have suffered a severe backlash to his Soul while fighting this Soul Beast, leading to his grave injuries.

Yiyun Zhenren ranked as the Sixth Elder in Yuqing Hall, with strength at the early stage of the Danyuan Realm, not much stronger than Yulong Zhenren had been.

And his Master, Xuanhe Zhenren, had only just reached the Golden Core stage, his cultivation realm having barely stabilized; if he waited for his Master to come and help, he feared he would only implicate him and cause him to get hurt as well.

After clarifying this point, Xu Chen fully activated the Thunder Fire Pestle and launched a rainstorm-like assault on the Soul Beast.

For a time, the Thunder Fire Pestle danced across the sky, with bolts of cyan lightning smashing onto the Soul Beast's massive body like meteorites, while the Spirit Sparrow also flapped its large wings, feathers flying, launching fierce attacks at the Soul Beast, its sharp claws and beak frantically scratching and pecking in a desperate, life-or-death state of combat.

Under the frenzied attacks of the man and the bird, the massive Soul Beast roared and bellowed, its giant tentacles, over ten zhang long, sweeping across the sky in all directions like rolling stones and logs.

The boom-boom-boom of explosions rang out in the center of the Five Elements Illusion Cloud Array like a thunderstorm.

Cyan lightning flashed and vanished continuously.

From time to time, the Spirit Sparrow would also open its beak to spray out dense spirit light.

The thick Black Mist permeating the array was blown away in this terrifying battle, revealing a clear space of several hundred zhang in radius, allowing cultivators standing on the surrounding mountain ridges dozens of miles away to see the fleeting flashes of light from the battle in the center of the array with their naked eyes.

A pitch-black giant beast like a small mountain, a seven-colored giant bird fluttering in the air, and a faint streak of lightning along with a mass of hazy cyan spirit light.

"Which expert went in just now? Such formidable strength."

"Riding a Spirit Sparrow in, it must be an Elder from Yuqing Hall."

"That can't be right, the only person from Yuqing Hall stationed at Black Wind Ridge is Yiyun Zhenren, but I heard he escaped after being injured right at the start."

"Only Yuqing Hall in the Great Song territory keeps Seven-Colored Spirit Sparrows; it must be that another Danyuan Realm senior from Yuqing Hall has arrived."

"This Soul Beast is stronger than the last one."

"Why hasn't Xuanchen Zhenjun made a move yet?"

Countless cultivators watched in terror while simultaneously exchanging information.

Xu Wen stood on a mountain peak at the edge of the array's core, watching the violent sounds of battle coming from the gap in the array, his face twitching uncontrollably.

One should look at a person with new eyes after three days of separation.

Only he knew that it was Xu Chen alone inside; although there was a Third-Tier Spirit Sparrow helping, a beast is just a beast, and its strength was very limited. With even Uncle-Master Yiyun being unable to withstand a single blow, Xu Chen was somehow seemingly locked in a stalemate with the Soul Beast.

He was only in the Kaiyuan Realm, and even if he had reached Foundation Establishment, he would only be at the early stage of the Zhenyuan Realm; why did he possess such powerful strength?

Furthermore, he seemed to be using the secret Thunder Technique of Yuqing Hall.

Could it be that the Supreme Elder had specially taught him when Xu Chen went to Yuqing Hall last time?

Xu Chen's experience at Yuqing Hall was already well-known to the Yuqing Hall disciples currently stationed at Black Wind Ridge.

On the day Xu Chen arrived, he fought the inner sect's second senior brother, Yi Zhen; it seemed like a draw, but in reality, the outcome had been decided. Given the difference of a major cultivation realm, the fact that Xu Chen did not fall behind meant that Yi Zhen had lost.

And what shocked everyone even more was that during the battle, Xu Chen had used the secret technique created by the Supreme Elder, Baiyun Zhenjun: Cloud Flow Step.

One day later, Xu Chen had again gambled on alchemy with the inner sect disciple Han Qing at the Danyuan and won once more.

These two consecutive victories established Xu Chen's formidable strength and reputation among his peers in the Great Song Immortal World, and even in battles against those of higher realms.

Relying on these two victories, Xu Chen had suppressed all fourth and fifth-generation disciples of Yuqing Hall, leaving a group of Elders speechless, ultimately forcing them to grit their teeth and let him read all the various secret techniques and arts in the Scripture Pavilion.

What made Xu Wen feel the most ashamed was that after that giant Black Spider Soul Beast appeared last time, it was also Xu Chen who arrived first to save the Third Elder, Huayang Zhenren, and then fought the Soul Beast to a standstill, while he himself had rushed in to show off, only to be knocked unconscious in a single blow.

After that injury, Xu Wen had been depressed and reclusive for a long time; after recovering from his wounds in Wild Wolf Valley, he had been ordered to guard Black Wind Ridge.

As he fought more Soul Beasts and faced various strange and bizarre ones, he felt more and more how eerie they were.

The hardest thing to deal with regarding Soul Beasts was not their physical attacks, but their endless, bizarre Soul attacks.

Uncle-Master Yiyun had been defeated by this giant octopus-like Soul Beast in a single exchange.

The situation was almost exactly the same as when he faced the Black Spider Soul Beast last time; any contact with Magic Treasure or Divine Sense and Yuan Qi would result in a terrifying Soul backlash.

Yiyun Zhenren had been caught off guard by a moment of carelessness.

Xu Wen recalled the time he first came to the Taiyuan Sect to deliver the invitation, and cold sweat broke out on his back.

At that time, Xu Chen was only in the middle stage of the Kaiyuan Realm, yet he showed no fear when facing two Zhenyuan Realm cultivators; if he hadn't intervened to stop Junior Sister Lan You's attack and angered him, they both likely would have been killed on the spot.

And when the Seventh Elder, Yulong Zhenren, was injured by Xu Chen in Jingshi, it was said that Xu Chen was only at the early stage of the Kaiyuan Realm then.

Low cultivation, high strength, bold yet meticulous, low-key and patient, mysterious and unfathomable, possessing a sense of chivalry and benevolence, and also incredibly cunning...

In an instant, Xu Wen's thoughts were complex, and he kept mentally labeling Xu Chen with countless tags.

However, at this moment, Xu Chen, who was in the center of the array, had reached a point where he was riding a tiger and could not get off.

Controlling two top-grade Third-Tier Magic Treasures to attack continuously made his Yuan Qi consumption like a bottomless pit that could never be filled, making it impossible to unleash the full power of the two treasures.

Whether it was the Qinglan Light-Splitting Mirror or the Xuanqing Thunder Fire Pestle, Xu Chen could currently only activate about twenty percent of their arrays at most, so their power was naturally greatly reduced, barely reaching the level of a low-grade Third-Tier item.

In less than half a cup of tea, his thick Yuan Qi, which was as strong as that of an early-stage Danyuan Realm cultivator, had actually hit rock bottom; he could hold on for at most another dozen breaths before it was completely exhausted.

The giant Soul Beast looked covered in wounds, with three tentacles severed and its hard armor, which covered its body, tattered and torn, while black mist surged from its body like thick smoke; but in reality, Xu Chen knew that such injuries posed no threat to a Soul Beast, and as long as he stopped attacking, the Soul Beast would recover to its original state in at most half an hour.

He had wanted to use the Blue Light Treasure Bottle to take this Soul Beast in, but after trying to communicate with it countless times, the Blue Light Treasure Bottle had no reaction at all, not even the resistance it had shown in the past.

At this time, the Third-Tier Spirit Sparrow also had its feathers in disarray, its two huge wings were almost stripped bare, and it could barely fly anymore, only able to peck around the Soul Beast on the ground, its steps unsteady, as if its Soul had begun to grow muddled.

Just as Xu Chen was hesitating whether to retreat first and wait for his Master to arrive before thinking of a solution together, the Soul Beast suddenly erupted, and one of its tentacles wrapped around the Spirit Sparrow in a flash.

"Scree... coo-coo-coo..."

The Spirit Sparrow flapped its wings hard, emitting a shrill, miserable cry, its sharp claws kicking and scratching at the tentacle; although it tore large chunks off the tentacle, it was ultimately wrapped tighter and tighter by it.

Xu Chen gritted his teeth and activated the Thunder Fire Pestle, pouring all his remaining Yuan Qi into it; as a massive bolt of lightning exploded on the Soul Beast, the tentacle wrapping the Spirit Sparrow was blown off at the root and rolled away.

"Disciple, step back! Let Master deal with him!"

Just as Xu Chen pulled out Spirit Liquid and gulped down a mouthful to replenish his Qi, a familiar voice rang in his ear, and at the same time, a Wind Blade over ten zhang in size tore through the air toward them.

"Master, no..."

Xu Chen exclaimed, but it was already too late to stop him.

Wind Blades struck the Soul Beast heavily, causing green and black light to explode with a bang; a wound several zhang long was suddenly slashed into the Soul Beast's body, while a thin, tall figure that had just appeared behind Xu Chen let out a muffled groan and plummeted downward.

Xu Chen felt like crying but had no tears.

His Master was not here to help, but to cause trouble.

Although Xuanhe Zhenren's strike appeared to have severely wounded the Soul Beast, it only further incited the Soul Beast's fury; roaring, it actually abandoned the Spirit Sparrow, and several tentacles wrapped in churning lightning coiled toward the falling Xuanhe Zhenren.

Xu Chen was shocked and lost all color, directly abandoning the Thunder Fire Pestle and pouring all the surging primordial energy transformed from the Spirit Liquid into the Spectral Mirror hanging above his head.

The ancient bronze-colored Magic Treasure instantly erupted with blinding cyan-blue spiritual light, and six mirror surfaces, each over a zhang in size, suddenly manifested from the black mist; from each Copper Mirror, a cyan figure identical to Xu Chen sprayed forth.

This was the most mysterious inheritance of Yuqing Hall, the Qinglan Shadow Technique.

It is said to have been created by the founding ancestor, Jade Pure Immortal Venerable, thousands of years ago.

Chixia Zhenjun utilized this technique to refine this Magic Treasure, allowing one to cleverly cast this Magic Spell while in the Danyuan Realm, though its power is closely related to the user's own strength; it can release up to thirty-six mirror surfaces in total, manifesting thirty-six Qinglan Shadow clones.

The strength of each shadow clone is also related to the user's strength, reaching at most eighty percent of their cultivation level—naturally, this only applies to basic attributes like Soul and primordial energy intensity, and is unrelated to the Magic Treasure.

At present, Xu Chen's strength, entirely dedicated to controlling the Spectral Mirror, could barely unleash the first layer of the Magic Treasure's power, releasing six shadow clones at once.

As soon as the six shadow clones emerged, they each lunged at the several tentacles coiling toward Xuanhe Zhenren, while simultaneously forming hand seals to release different Magic Spells such as wind, fire, thunder, and earth, smashing them against the massive tentacles.

Meanwhile, Xu Chen's true body flashed, grabbed Xuanhe Zhenren, and rapidly retreated from the battle circle, flying a hundred zhang away.

(End of chapter)