Chapter 1137

917 What on earth is this?

Any formation requires a formation eye; this is the formation's pivot.

It also requires an energy source; this is the formation's driving force.

The Despair Guards are positioned beyond a hundred paces, within two hundred.

Apart from yellow sand that blots out the sky and yellow sand on the ground, not a single element needed for a formation could be seen in that area.

Neither the pivot nor the driving force required for laying a formation was to be seen.

Yet Master Ban insisted that the Despair Guards had been caught in some kind of labyrinth formation?

When it came to formations, the Farmhouse could also be considered experts.

Among them, the sect-guarding formation was called the Twenty-Four Earth Blessings.

It was derived from the twenty-four solar terms.

Laying the formation required at minimum two people; each additional person doubled the formation's power.

So the moment Tian Hu heard Master Ban's words, he could not help but snort and say with a laugh,

"Old Ban, are you blind? Apart from sand, there's still only sand there—where would any labyrinth formation come from?"

Upon hearing this, the other experts of Despair Shanzhuang all nodded involuntarily.

Even the manor lord Cheng Jiao felt this was rather preposterous.

After all, although he himself did not understand formations, General Fan, who trained the Despair Guards, and every one of the Despair Guards were thoroughly versed in formations.

How could a mere labyrinth formation beguile the Despair Guards?

Master Ban saw that no one believed him, and Tian Hu was even speaking rudely.

For a moment, the old man was so angry his face turned red.

Only his cultivation was, after all, ordinary.

He could not even get past a quicksand trap.

Let alone prove that the Despair Guards had been bewitched by a labyrinth formation.

Yet if he let others mock him, Master Ban still could not swallow the anger.

He immediately took a mechanical trigger from his bosom and said to Cheng Jiao,

"Manor lord, I request to deploy the Zhu Que!"

Hearing this, Cheng Jiao could not help but glance at General Fan beside him.

Now that the Despair Guards were trapped, General Fan was precisely the commander of these Despair Guards.

In just this short while, one or two of the Despair Guards had already fought each other to a white heat, on the verge of drawing blood.

Every single Despair Guard was an important fighting force for Cheng Jiao.

They were also a major asset for him to keep in line these martial artists of the Nine Provinces who had come from all corners of the land.

Therefore, if General Fan could find no way to help the Despair Guards out of their predicament, Cheng Jiao feared he could only agree to Master Ban.

Ever since the Despair Guards had fallen into chaos, General Fan had been plotting countermeasures.

He had even secretly employed means to contact and even control the Despair Guards, but each and every one had failed.

It looked as though the distance between the two sides was only a little over a hundred paces.

Yet contact between the two sides seemed to have already been severed.

At this moment Master Ban made his proposal, and Cheng Jiao looked over again.

General Fan reckoned that unless he acted himself, there was absolutely no way to help the Despair Guards.

But if he could act himself, the manor lord would long since have given the order.

"Very well! Deploy the Zhu Que!"

Although General Fan wore an iron visor, Cheng Jiao read his expression at a glance.

After discerning General Fan's difficulty, he simply let Master Ban act.

"Wow! Zhu Que? What's a Zhu Que? Is it a divine beast like Pixiu?"

Miss Xiao Li, hearing the voices from this side, quietly sidled up to Hearing Gai Nie and asked in a low voice.

As she spoke, she also stroked the slumbering little Pixiu.

Ever since Hearing Gai Nie had seen this little Pixiu, the little Pixiu had been fast asleep.

If not for the tiny, fluffy body rising and falling from time to time, Hearing Gai Nie would have thought the fellow was dead.

Hearing Miss Xiao Li's question, Hearing Gai Nie could not help but shake his head and replied,

"I don't know either…"

Hearing Gai Nie was wholly devoted to the Way of the Sword, and next to that the School of Vertical and Horizontal.

Beyond those, what he actually knew was really not much.

"Yes, sir!"

The moment Master Ban heard Cheng Jiao agree to deploy the Zhu Que, his face lit up with joy.

He even gave a marvelous puff of his beard at Tian Hu, who was not far off.

Tian Hu, hearing that the Zhu Que could be deployed, also looked rather displeased.

At once he saw Master Ban pull the mechanical trigger.

After a while, there was not the slightest movement.

"Huh? Old Ban, is your gadget broken? Can't you summon the Zhu Que anymore?"

Seeing that there was no movement after a long while, Tian Hu immediately gloated.

Although they were both within Despair Shanzhuang, under Cheng Jiao's command to be dispatched,

Tian Hu was by nature arrogant and proud, and looked down most on people of ordinary cultivation like Master Ban.

Clearly, this old man's cultivation hadn't even reached the Earthly Immortal Realm.

Yet he received the Manor Lord's deep respect.

Every time Tian Hu thought of this, he felt doubly indignant.

Seeing now that Master Ban's mechanism had failed, he mocked him all the more.

Whoosh!

The very next instant after Tian Hu's mockery, a gust of fierce wind rose from flat ground.

The yellow sand nearby could be seen being flung up in great swathes.

Chirp chirp…

A phoenix cry came from beyond the nine heavens.

The crowd looked up and saw what seemed to be a black speck flying rapidly from the direction of the sun.

At first it was only the size of a single black speck, but as the chirping phoenix cry rang out again and again,

that black speck had already reached above their heads, becoming a colossal creature.

It was actually a mechanism that looked like the divine bird phoenix!

Exactly!

This was indeed a mechanical construct.

"What on earth is this?"

Seeing this mechanical construct appear, Miss Xiao Li's jaw nearly dropped.

Though she was the Holy Maiden of the Lu Li Tribe, her cultivation was ultimately only at the Grandmaster level.

Not to mention the Earthly Immortal Realm, she was still far from even the Absolute level.

So when it came to experience and knowledge, she was truly limited.

This mechanical construct was covered throughout with ingenious structures of mortise-and-tenon joints, gears, and the like.

Yet it could flap its wings, cry out loudly, and move with remarkable agility.

Such a mechanical construct could almost pass for the real thing.

"It seems this Master Ban has truly staked everything…"

Hearing Gai Nie glanced at the mechanical Zhu Que overhead, then looked toward Master Ban.

Such an ingenious mechanical Zhu Que — within the Great Qin, aside from the Mohists, only one other house could produce it.

Whether within the Mohists, or within that other house, or even within all of Great Qin, this mechanical Zhu Que was surely no ordinary treasure.

Yet for Cheng Jiao's sake, Master Ban had brought it out this time.

Clearly this old man had already completely submitted himself to Cheng Jiao.

Hearing Gai Nie found it strange — he himself had some ties of friendship with the Mohists.