Chapter 706

"Looks like I have to shed some blood… it's the only way…"

He let out a bitter laugh, and just as the sword formation was about to collapse, he pulled a talisman from his chest and flicked it into the air.

"Heaven and Earth, boundless chaos—borrow the power of the Dao!"

The Dao art of the Xuanxinzheng Sect activated once more; a natural force of Dao surged from his fingertip, passed through the talisman, and shot onto the sword formation.

Then, behind the sword formation, a talisman appeared floating in midair.

Under the talisman's reinforcement, the sword formation, moments from collapse, gradually stabilized.

Yan Chixia had blocked the full-force strike of Master Changsheng, but the colossal impact between the two erupted instantly.

The terrifying force didn't just shatter the already crumbling walls and courtyards of Lanruo Temple.

It also caused the celestial energy within a hundred li to spiral into chaos.

The chaos in celestial energy triggered extreme instability in this realm.

The fluctuations in power were about to reduce the entire Lanruo Temple to ashes.

Mu Huali and General Zhebie, who had just left Lanruo Temple, reached the mid-slope and noticed this situation.

They were first stunned beyond words, feeling as if they had narrowly escaped death.

If they had hesitated even slightly, or if Yan Chixia had directly targeted them, their corpses would already be cold.

Who would have thought the gap between top-tier experts and mere masters was this immense!

So what if they had made the Heavenly Dao Golden List?

The gap between them and masters like Master Changsheng and Yan Chixia was still nearly an insurmountable abyss.

Then, they were filled with sudden joy.

They were the Thirteen Wings of the Great Yuan, experts who had made the Heavenly Dao Golden List.

Naturally, they could sense the anomalies in celestial energy.

They felt the celestial energy raging uncontrollably due to the clash of the two masters.

Lanruo Temple, at the epicenter, was on the brink of destruction.

If the clash directly destroyed Lanruo Temple,

would the seal of the Yin Yue Cave Heaven be broken?

If so, then their mission would be more than half accomplished.

The Great Yuan wouldn't need to expend effort fighting the Xuanxinzheng Sect.

At this moment, Mu Huali and General Zhebie wished the clash between Master Changsheng and Yan Chixia would grow even fiercer.

Better to destroy Lanruo Temple quickly than to descend and summon the army.

Just as they entertained this thought, a four-colored divine light suddenly flared around Lanruo Temple.

The next instant, four figures appeared around Lanruo Temple.

"Four Spirits Array—activate!"

The four figures shouted in unison; though the celestial energy still churned from the clash of the two masters,

Lanruo Temple, moments from ruin, instantly entered a state of stillness like Mount Qingshan—no trace of disturbance remained.

"Four Spirits Array… these are the Four Divine Generals of the Xuanxinzheng Sect?"

The sharp cry reached Mu Huali and General Zhebie; they saw this change—unexpected yet perfectly logical.

Though Mu Huali had never seen these four before, he deduced their identities.

"Correct! Grand General, I've never seen the Azure Dragon, but the other three are precisely the Xuanxinzheng Sect's Bai Hu, Zhu Que, and Xuan Wu!"

General Zhebie, an expert archer, had developed astonishing eyesight since becoming one of the Thirteen Wings.

Even from afar, with the residual shockwaves of the battle and the Four Spirits Array's energy interfering, he still recognized the four spectral figures.

"I didn't expect the Azure Dragon was here too!"

Mu Huali sighed deeply, yet felt this was only natural.

"Grand General, shall we descend and summon the troops?"

General Zhebie, seeing their plan to destroy Lanruo Temple through the battle's aftermath fail, and now witnessing the four Divine Generals of the Xuanxinzheng Sect appear,

knew Master Changsheng and Yan Chixia were locked in furious combat—there was virtually no room left for negotiation between the Great Yuan and the Xuanxinzheng Sect.

He realized that to break the barrier of Lanruo Temple now, they could only fight outright, and immediately asked Mu Huali.

Mu Huali glanced toward Lanruo Temple and faintly saw a figure in blue robes looking down at him.

That gaze was clearly a warning.

A warning to him and the Great Yuan not to dare provoke war with the Xuanxinzheng Sect.

Hearing General Zhebie's question, Mu Huali waved his hand decisively,

"Go! Summon the army—today, there's no peace left with the Xuanxinzheng Sect."

After all, their strategy had long been set: the Great Yuan had chosen the Yin Yue Imperial Court over the Xuanxinzheng Sect.

Now that the Xuanxinzheng Sect refused to see reason, war was the only path.

The two gathered their true energy and used lightness arts, soon arriving at the camp at the mountain's foot.

After explaining the situation on the mountain to the Long Xiang Seng, the Long Xiang Seng also agreed to go to war.

Immediately, the elite troops of the Great Yuan, along with dozens of court sages, packed up and marched en masse up the mountain.

When Mu Huali and General Zhebie descended the mountain, using lightness arts, they had moved with complete ease.

But now, leading the army up the mountain, they sensed something was wrong.

The path that had been perfectly clear on the way down now confused the troops as they entered.

After walking for a long while, they weren't just going in circles—

the vanguard reported back: they had seen the rear guard.

"Damn! I didn't expect the Xuanxinzheng Sect to not only have decent Wu Gong cultivation, but also Daoist techniques, and even be well-versed in formations!"

Long Xiang Seng heard the report, and his face immediately darkened.

Though he did not understand formations, he had heard them explained by Living Buddha Lianhua.

The Daoist practitioners of the Central Plains not only cultivated the martial Dao.

Some even combined Yin-Yang, the Eight Trigrams, the Book of Changes, and the like, to study the arts of Qi Men Dun Jia.

Among them, the Qi Men alone contained countless formations!

Right now, the Great Yuan army's vanguard was clearly at the front, yet had bumped into the tail of the rear guard.

All of this was clearly the doing of a master of the Xuanxinzheng Sect, who had laid a labyrinth formation across these mountains and forests, causing people to lose their way.

"Master Long Xiang, what should we do now?"

Though Mu Huali was the commander of this expedition and was also well-versed in the Dao of battle formations,

the Qi Men formations of Wu Lin people were not among battle formations.

Therefore, faced with such a situation, he could only ask Long Xiang Seng.

Yet Long Xiang Seng's main cultivation was the Long Xiang Prajna Art.

This art focused on training strength, with Wu Gong moves as a supplement.

His knowledge of formations was extremely limited.

After pondering for a while, he could only force a bitter smile and speak,

"Formations are truly this old monk's weak point.

As the Living Buddha once said, to break a formation, one must either know where the formation shifts and break it according to its pattern,

or one can only break it by force!"

Since even Long Xiang Seng did not know how to break a formation by its pattern, clearly only the path of breaking it by force remained.

"How exactly do we break the formation by force?"

General Zhebie asked directly.

"Either we destroy all the objects used to set up the formation."

Long Xiang Seng pointed at the grass, trees, sand, and stones all around and said,

"When masters of the Central Plains set up formations, they mostly use the natural things of the world. These grasses, trees, sand, and stones could all be used by them."

This statement was actually just another correct but useless remark.

Although the mountain where Lan Ruo Temple stood was not a steep, towering Gaoshan,

this mountain was still about a hundred zhang tall and covered an extremely vast area.