Chapter 379: Heavenly Blood Jiangshi (1)
The sight was so unbelievable that nearly everyone on the battlefield stood there with half their minds gone.
A master who had reached the Supre Peak Realm and one who had even overco the effects of the Inverted Heaven Blood Formation had been killed without even managing to react.
And then—
"You bastaaaard!!!"
Driven mad by his junior brother's aningless death, Yangmuja charged at the Jiangshi with bloodshot eyes and swung his sword. True to his reputation as one of the Twelve Heavenly Pillars, his sword was laced with Force Qi condensed from Extre Yang Qi, but the mont it clashed against the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's casually swatted right hand—
BANG!!
—He was sent flying backwards like a fly being swatted away.
Yangmuja managed to twist his body mid-air and land safely after being thrown roughly ten feet back, but blood was already trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"How dare you!!"
He charged again, but the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi had already lost interest in him entirely.
Pat.
With lightning speed, the Jiangshi drove its fist straight through the chest of the last remaining Martial Alliance expert nearby.
SPLAT!
Without skipping a beat, the Jiangshi locked onto its next prey, shifting its body with a phantom-like movent bordering on Ethereal Shift.
And of all the people on the battlefield, the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's next target was Hyeokryeon Seon-ah.
"!!!"
Reacting just a fraction of a second too late, she desperately scraped together every last drop of internal energy left in her Dantian to parry the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's strike. But before she could even bring her hand up in defense, the Jiangshi's fist was already rocketing straight toward her heart.
‘Is this really how I die...? Like this...?’
At the crossroads of life and death, the world within her view slowed to a crawl and every movent caught by them started to stretch out like a dream, but that only made the approaching death feel all the more vivid.
She knew at this mont that no matter what she did, that fist was going to pierce her heart before her hands could stop it.
And at that very mont, soone tore through the slowed current of ti and appeared at her side.
CLANG!!!
A brutal screech of tal colliding with flesh imdiately echoed out, and the Jiangshi's deadly fist was forcefully deflected, rely grazing past her ribs.
"Get back!"
Imdiately following the clash, Il-mok’s familiar voice pierced her ears.
He had barely kept pace with the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's movents and swung the Ascension Sword to deflect the Jiangshi's fist to the side.
Only then did Hyeokryeon Seon-ah snap out of the slowed haze, and she frantically jumped back.
She wanted to help her brother, but the fight unfolding right in front of her was not one she could insert herself into. After using her lightness skill to put distance between herself and the Jiangshi, she managed to call out her thanks to Il-mok.
"Thank you, Big Brother. Hk..."
The words barely left her mouth before blood surged up her throat and spilled out.
Even though the Jiangshi's fist had rely grazed her side, the sheer shockwave from the deflected blow had inflicted severe internal injuries.
anwhile, now that he bore the full onslaught of the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's assault after pulling Hyeokryeon Seon-ah out of danger, Il-mok let out a furious shout.
"What the hell are the rest of you doing!!"
It was practically a cry for help.
If he were forced to fight this monstrosity alone, he wouldn't just fail to buy ti, but could be slaughtered at literally any given second.
"How dare a re lowly Jiangshi!"
Right on cue, a raging Yangmuja closed in on the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi again and slashed at it with his sword.
"Good grief."
"Get over here, now!"
The Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal and the Beggar King launched themselves toward the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi as well.
Seeing this, the other lesser experts who were standing relatively close to Il-mok also attempted to jump into the skirmish, but...
"Ghk..."
They were not able to be of any particular help.
Just like Hyeokryeon Seon-ah, so collapsed from internal injuries just from the shockwaves grazing them.
Take the old Shaolin monk, for example. He managed to slip into the monster's guard for a split second while Il-mok, Yangmuja, the Beggar King, and the Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal pinned down the Jiangshi's limbs.
WHAM!
"Amitabha.... cough...cough..."
He struck the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi square across the back with his palm technique, and then imdiately doubled over coughing up blood from the recoil.
It didn't take Il-mok long to figure out why.
‘Damn monster.’
The enormous Qi flowing through the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi was saturated with terrifying killing intent.
The rage, grudges, malice, and killing intents of thousands of living beings were absorbed and then compressed into one giant vessel that is the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi.
Exposure to that concentrated malice ant that any warrior who hadn't reached the Realm of Truth would either drop dead on the spot or suffer devastating internal injuries. The mont Il-mok caught on to this, he bellowed out a warning.
"Anyone who hasn't reached the Realm of Truth, stay back!!"
He could already picture them violently collapsing from the sheer backlash of their own strikes like that old Shaolin monk.
Hearing that warning, Jin Hayeon and Ouyang Mun who had just finished moving the unconscious Hyeokryeon Seon-ah sowhere safe and were about to join in stopped in their tracks. The other warriors who had been moving in to attack the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi did the sa.
In that mont, a grim chant drifted over from where the Blood Cult sorcerers had gathered.
“O’ Spirits of Earth and Wood, Spirit of Earthly Branches, Open the Gates of the Eight Blood Spirits and Descend!”
With no reason left to maintain the Inverted Heaven Blood Formation, the Blood Cult sorcerers began chanting their incantations one by one, and a sinister wave of Qi started to build around them.
But Il-mok saw this as an opportunity instead.
"Miss Jin! Take the others who can't fight the Jiangshi and cut down those sorcerers!"
He judged that it would be excellent to send those who were of no help in facing the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi to deal with the sorcerers.
BANG!!
"Ugh..."
Of course, the price he had to pay to bark out orders after orders in mid-combat was that he had to brace himself hard against the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's punch.
"Why the hell are you looking away in a fight like this, you stupid demonic bastard?!"
Yangmuja berated Il-mok as he swung his Extre Yang Qi-laced sword at the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi. But the Jiangshi ignored the blade entirely and instead fixed its attention on the off-balance Il-mok and threw a punch to finish him off.
"Ha!!"
To save Il-mok from certain death, the Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal and the Beggar instantly flanked the monster, unleashing the Taiji Sword Art and the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms to intercept the Jiangshi's devastating punch.
BANG!!!
Explosions rang out simultaneously from both directions.
"Good heavens..."
"That thing really is a monster."
The Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal and Beggar King grimaced as they muttered to themselves after barely having managed to stop the Jiangshi's blow. And it wasn't just because of the brute strength behind that punch.
Yangmuja's sword had landed clean on the Jiangshi's bare body, yet not a single scratch had appeared on its skin. On top of that, sinister Qi began seeping insidiously through the Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal's ancient sword and Beggar King's twin palms that were clashing against the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's fist.
Fortunately, both Beggar King and Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal were exceptional masters with deeply cultivated internal energy, so pushing back that foul Qi wasn't too difficult.
"Allow to join you!"
"Wicked demon. Return to death."
Right on cue, the Fist King and the Buddha Venerable arrived on the scene and imdiately threw their respective heavy punches straight into the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi's exposed flanks.
BANG!!
A massive explosion imdiately rocked the air, but just as before, the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi didn't seem to have suffered even a sliver of damage from the combined strikes of the two supre masters.
"KRAAAAAHHH!!!"
As the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi let out a savage roar, a wave of foul Qi exploded outward from its body like a lion's roar, forcing every expert who had been pressing up against it to stagger back one or two steps.
After steeling his mind and stabilizing his internal energy with pure willpower, Il-mok pushed through the shockwave and charged at the Jiangshi again and swung his Ascension Sword.
BANG!
A deafening crash exploded outward as Il-mok's blade clashed directly against the Jiangshi's fist, prompting Yangmuja, the Supre Ultimate Sword Immortal, the Beggar King, the Buddha Venerable, and the Fist King to surround the monster from all sides and launch a synchronized assault.
While they kept the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi occupied, shouts, explosions, and screams began erupting nonstop from the other side of the battlefield.
Led by Jin Hayeon and Ouyang Mun, the warriors who were unqualified to participate in the raid against the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi charged headlong into the Blood Cult sorcerers.
"By the power of the laws!”
In response, the Blood Cult sorcerers unleashed a barrage of spells that swallowed the battlefield.
Bolts of black lightning rained down from the sky, while grotesque demonic hands bursting from the depths of hell erupted from the soil, latching onto the warriors' ankles in an attempt to drag them straight down into the abyss.
Spearheading the vanguard, Jin Hayeon casually deflected a bolt of black lightning with her White Hand Demonic Art and then launched herself forward straight at the nearest sorcerer with her twin palms full of Yin Qi.
In response, several nearby sorcerers hurriedly began chanting in unison while thrusting out dark-red iron plates.
"O’ Six Elents of the Heaven and Earth! tal. Wood. Water. Fire. Earth. Blood. O’ Six Elents of Mortal! Take Form Upon This Land As Is the Law!”
As they chanted together, a viscous barrier of Qi tinged with red ford in front of them.
BANG!!
Jin Hayeon clicked her tongue as she was stopped cold by the barrier. She gathered her Yin Qi and was about to strike again when an arrogant voice cut in from behind her.
"Out of the way, Demonic Cult wench!"
It was Namgung Jin.
Rather than throwing himself at the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi, he had pivoted to target the sorcerer battalion instead.
Since six supre masters were already locked in a ssy brawl against the Jiangshi, he had correctly judged that forcefully squeezing into that fray would only get in their way and tangle up their attacks.
"Ha!!"
With a fierce shout, Namgung Jin raised his sword high and brought it down like he was splitting firewood. Imdiately, the thick barrier that t his sword shattered into pieces upon impact.
The instant Namgung Jin shattered the barrier, Jin Hayeon didn't waste the opening and dove straight at the Blood Cult sorcerers.
Thud!
Her left palm struck the foremost sorcerer square in the chest, and the man instantly froze and dropped dead.
Schwick!
Imdiately after, a chilling sound of flesh being severed echoed from the flank.
It was Taoist Master Cheongmok, who had quickly moved up while Namgung Jin was breaking through the barrier.
But the mont Jin Hayeon and Taoist Master Cheongmok each took out a sorcerer, new curses erupted all around them again.
Because the Blood Cult had literally gone all-in on this campaign, they had brought along every single magical artifact they possessed. Thanks to that, the sorcerers were wielding power far beyond what they were normally capable of.
"Fine. Let's see how long you can keep this filthy circus going."
Namgung Jin kept swinging his sword with the air of soone watching insects putting on a show and bulldozed his way through curse after curse like it was nothing while cutting every sorcerer that stood in his way.
And then a shout rang out from behind.
"Sword Venerable!! Aim for that man!!"
It was Zhuge Mun.
Before anyone had realized, the tactician had drawn his own sword and was actively fending off the sorcerers using the Zhuge Family signature art, the Great Heaven Astral Sword Art (大天星劍法).
Namgung Jin glanced back and shot a withering look at Zhuge Mun for daring to give him an order. But as if he had been waiting for exactly that, Zhuge Mun used the Heaven’s Secret Mirage Steps to flawlessly weave through an incoming spell and then pointed his sword at a specific spot in the distance.
"That bastard over there is the leader of the Blood Cult! You have to stop him from controlling the Jiangshi!!"
At the very rear of the Blood Cult sorcerers, an old man was chanting nonstop and shaking a ritual implent back and forth in his hands.
‘This is getting dangerous if we don't move fast.’
Zhuge Mun had a habit of coolly assessing the situation no matter the circumstances, and what he saw wasn't good at all.
Six absolute masters were tangled up against the Jiangshi and they were nowhere near destroying the horrifying Jiangshi controlled by that old man. In fact, they were barely managing to pin it down.
Namgung Jin followed Zhuge Mun's pointing sword and suddenly rembered how the Heavenly Blood Jiangshi had violently charged forward at that man's vocal command, and gave a slow nod of agreent.
"The price for giving this seat orders without permission will be settled at a later ti."
Even with things as urgent as they were, his nature wasn't going anywhere.
With that imperious warning to Zhuge Mun out of the way, Namgung Jin unleashed the full might of his Sword Form of the Emperor and began carving a bloody path straight toward the Blood Cult Leader.
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