Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-422-30041322

A hurricane was coming.

Violent winds and pounding rain ravaged the surface, and the waves were as large as mountains.

And below the surface, a lethal undercurrent was surging.

Tang Jie was like a giant sea turtle, crawling on the sea floor. He was even carrying a large turtle shell.

The turtle shell wasn't used for concealment, but for transformation.

Duplication required a medium to transform, and it had to be an inanimate object, not a living creature. Even when his original body had attacked Lan Yu that one time, he had transformed a few small and unremarkable objects to change his appearance rather than applying any effects to himself.

For this reason, Duplication had always been used for cover rather than to change Tang Jie himself.

For example, that turtle shell had been turned into a piece of coral to obscure Tang Jie below.

But if someone were to take a closer look, they would find several problems with this coral. For example, it wasn't rooted into the sea floor but was floating above it.

Ding Ye was this sort of meticulous young man.

When he arrived at this region, he quickly noticed something strange about that coral.

For one thing, it was too isolated, the only piece of coral in this area, which made no sense. For another, there were no other creatures around it, the fish simply ignoring it. Finally, on the way here, he had seen a piece of coral that looked extremely similar to this one. Even the way it undulated was the same!

Ding Ye's eyes started to glow.

He cautiously took out a Water Parting Spike and summoned the shark fiend he had recently tamed, and then he slowly approached the coral.

As he was carefully moving aside that coral, there was a golden flash.

His head silently slid off.

In the dim light of the clam pearl, Tang Jie appeared.

Looking at the corpse of that young man, Tang Jie slightly shook his head and sighed. "You're very smart, but alas, you lack the strength."

If he had been given time, he might have become quite the outstanding individual.

But now, it had all come to an end with a single strike.

Tang Jie didn't know how he had ended up all alone, nor did he want to know.

In the deep sea, anything was possible.

He just needed to quietly lie in wait, and the opportunities would present themselves.

Putting away the clam pearl, Tang Jie switched locations.

In the deep sea, Tang Jie was like a cunning and savage man-eating shark, hunting down his prey.

The Beast Refining Gate quickly realized that they were dealing with a big problem.

In the first two hours of this area's encirclement, the Beast Refining Gate had lost four disciples.

They had all died silently, and only three corpses had been found so far. There was still one person whose remains had yet to be found, and only that massive whale shark swimming around the area gave a possible indication of where they might be.

In the next two hours, another two disciples "lost contact".

At this time, out of the eight search teams, six of them had been affected, and the remaining two unharmed teams now knew what was going on.

The disciples responsible for the search had no choice but to return to the surface and discuss countermeasures before heading back in.

They were in no rush to find Tang Jie, choosing to establish a firm foundation first. Each Beast Refining Gate disciple had sea beasts around them to keep watch, and those who specialized in mind transmission arts made talismans to distribute to everyone so that the disciples could mentally maintain contact.

Tang Jie quickly realized that the Beast Refining Gate disciples who had dived back into the ocean were not as easy to deal with.

But even if they were difficult to deal with, Tang Jie still needed to kill them.

With the Duplication spell, Tang Jie actually had the best method of escape.

The only problem was that Duplication used numbers to fool the enemy, but the Beast Refining Gate had quite a few people. If it took ten fake Tang Jies to fool one disciple, it meant that Tang Jie would need one thousand illusions to deal with one hundred Beast Refining Gate disciples.

And this wasn't even considering that Celestial Heart True Person. He alone would require several hundred illusions to cover for Tang Jie.

When his original body had fought with He Chong, he had to create hundreds of illusions each time that fled in every direction. He Chong having to kill so many at once gave the original body a chance to escape.

Even then, He Chong was sometimes lucky enough to catch the original body, forcing Tang Jie to make more duplicates. At times, when he didn't have enough spiritual energy, he would have to rely on his tough body to buy time. Fortunately, he was a hardy sort, and the concentration of spiritual energy within the formation was several times higher than it was in the outside world, and He Chong had no intention of killing him. In this way, he had been able to escape multiple times from He Chong.

While Chang Mingxin wasn't as powerful as He Chong, he had many allies, which meant that more illusions were needed to fool them. And this wasn't even considering that he was at the sea floor, where spiritual energy recovery was difficult.

This was why Tang Jie needed to execute this battle under the sea.

The death of every enemy raised his chances of escaping using illusions.

Killing meant survival!

Of course, it wasn't like this was Tang Jie's only choice, but it was definitely the best and his favorite choice.

Tang Jie had presently taken care of twelve Beast Refining Gate disciples, but this was only the beginning for him. There were hundreds of Beast Refining Gate disciples involved in encircling the region and hunting him down. Tang Jie was still very far from his goal of throwing off his pursuers and heading off for Joymount Island.

Tang Jie had no plans to summon his original body. There were simply too many people, and no matter how strong his original body was, it couldn't overcome these numbers. This battle simply wasn't meant to be a head-on battle. This was a battle whose primary goal was escape, a purpose which did not fit the original body. After all, the original body had to return through the teleportation formation once the fighting was done. If the avatar ran, what could be done about the Mountain River State Diagram?

When Tang Jie thought about having to fight against so many people alone, he felt the will to fight stir up within him.

As those dark silhouettes began to approach him, Tang Jie eerily smiled.

He turned and swam away.

He once more approached the perimeter line. Looking in the direction of that invisible border, he suddenly threw that giant turtle shell.

A sword beam descended from the heavens.

As that sword beam came down, Tang Jie suddenly accelerated, swimming through the border like an arrow through the water.

One sword beam after another followed him, but Tang Jie continued to speedily swim. He did not use the Duplication spell, simply relying on his agility to dodge those attacks from above.

Although his swimming speed was slow, Chang Mingxin's sword beams were also affected by the water and were not able to reach the target location immediately. This gave Tang Jie enough time to dodge.

He swam around in the water, constantly changing his position. He would curl up and then straighten out, and he would use the environment to hide, even hiding under a whale shark at one point.

The seaworms that were used to monitor the perimeter had been left behind long ago, and the position marker had now become Chang Mingxin's sword beams. The light from each sword beam would inform Chang Mingxin of Tang Jie's position, and then Chang Mingxin would use his former position and his own judgment to fire off the next sword beam.

Most of the time, his judgment was extremely accurate. The Heaven Sword True Person was famous for the lethality of his extremely long-range attacks, but alas, as these were attacks made into the water, and as Tang Jie was his opponent, he was not able to hit his target every time.

Even so, the sword beams were never far from Tang Jie. Occasionally, one would hit Tang Jie, and while the water weakened their power, it still made Tang Jie grit his teeth in pain.

But he didn't care and continued to swim. Chang Mingxin also did not care, continuing to send off sword beam after sword beam. Although he couldn't kill Tang Jie, confirming Tang Jie's position was the same thing for him.

So long as he could lock on to Tang Jie, he had him by the tail, and the disciples would handle the actual work of capturing him.

Countless Beast Refining Gate disciples received the news and rushed out of the water. They chased after the sword beams that Chang Mingxin fired, diving back into the sea where the sword beams had fallen.

The sword beams were their guide, pointing out to them where they might find that cunning bastard, Tang Jie.

Tang Jie was still swimming like a shark, the sword beams causing the sand to explode around him and churning the ocean waters into a turbid mess.

In the turbid waters, Tang Jie looked up, and the Celestial Eye on his forehead flashed, piercing through the darkness and taking in all of the Beast Refining Gate disciples entering the water.

With an excited light in his eyes, Tang Jie mouthed a few words, bubbles issuing from his mouth: "Still not enough…"

He then turned and swam in an arc, changing direction while avoiding the sword beams. As he circled back, the gathered disciples lunged at Tang Jie like wolves.

Tang Jie didn't seem to care, continuing to swim forward.

The constant sword beams eventually forced Tang Jie to slow down, and the Beast Refining Gate disciples drew closer and closer.

Tang Jie turned to look behind him. By now, he didn't need to use the Celestial Eye to see those disciples.

The ones at the very front already had smug looks of success on their faces.

And then Tang Jie smiled.

He took out the clam pearl, parting the ocean waters, and then he said, "Goodbye!"

He tossed out three black pearls from his right hand. The spiritual light covering them pushed away the turbid ocean waters, and those three pearls flew through the sea toward the approaching Beast Refining Gate disciples.

"Those are…" In the sky, Chang Mingxin saw these pearls and froze for a moment, and then he paled. "Oh no! Heavenbane Lightning Pearls! Run!"

But as he was in the sky, even with his abilities, he couldn't save anybody.

The three Heavenbane Lightning Pearls left three trails in the water as they moved into the center of the crowd, and then they exploded.

The explosion instantly pushed the water outward, forming a vacuum, the flames erupting like the Southern Divine Fire of that firebird, instantly obliterating all life in the area!

Even though the ocean waters limited the power and range of the Heavenbane Lightning Pearls, three of them exploding at once canceled out this effect. In that moment, at least twenty Beast Refining Gate disciples were swept up in that vacuum of death and instantly obliterated.

A massive wave suddenly rose out of the ocean.

As the power of the explosion faded, the waters filled back in that vacuum.

"No!" Chang Mingxin almost fainted.

Thirty Beast Refining Gate disciples had lost their lives in pursuit of Tang Jie!

This was thirty cultivators, not mortals!

They were all hand-picked elites who had been through countless tests and trials. All of them had bright futures, but because of a few pearls from Tang Jie, it had all come to nothing!

Bastard!

He finally understood.

Tang Jie had planned it all out.

He had intentionally shown himself to draw the Beast Refining Gate disciples into chasing him. He had dived into the sea so that everyone's speed and reactions would be slowed, giving them less of a chance to escape. And he had picked off stragglers so that everyone would stick together.

All of it was for this heaven-shaking explosion!

No!

It wasn't just one explosion! There were still more explosions!

Even though Tang Jie had done his best to make the Beast Refining Gate disciples gather together, they weren't fools, and they wouldn't squeeze together just because he wanted them to. Thus, the three Heavenbane Lightning Pearls had ultimately managed to only get twenty-some people, and this was only because they had exploded at the greatest concentration of disciples.

There were still many more disciples around this area.

They had escaped this disaster, but before they could wake from their shock, Tang Jie threw out six more Heavenbane Lightning Pearls, distributing them to the left and right of that region of death.

If he was going to do something, he was going to do a thorough job of it!

He would blow things up to his heart's content!

A moment later, the six Heavenbane Lightning Pearls exploded in those two regions, instantly annihilating another twenty-some people.

The three regions were in the form of the "品" character, encompassing a very large area.

In this area, such things as fish and coral had ceased to exist.

Tang Jie still wasn't done, throwing out another three Heavenbane Lightning Pearls.

This time, rather than concentrating them in one area, he threw them in three different directions where people were concentrated, producing three small explosions.

These small explosions finally forced the Beast Refining Gate disciples to run, and the three pearls still managed to take seven lives with them.

If these Heavenbane Lightning Pearls had been used in the sky, the strength of the Beast Refining Gate disciples and Chang Mingxin's countermeasures would mean that even killing five or six people would be a decent result, and that was only if they were used in a surprise attack.

But here, twelve Heavenbane Lightning Pearls had taken the lives of 57 Beast Refining Gate disciples, including 14 Cognitive Creation cultivators. Any one of them had taken an immense amount of resources to raise to this stage, far in excess of twelve Heavenbane Lightning Pearls.

No one except Tang Jie could extract so much value from these Heavenbane Lightning Pearls. Even the Heavenly Extinction Sect would never have imagined that 12 Heavenbane Lightning Pearls could be used to kill 57 people from a major sect.

If the Heavenbane Lightning Pearls were always this formidable, then the Heavenly Extinction Sect could have been one of the six major sects.

Chang Mingxin's heart was bleeding!

Tang Jie softly sighed. "Unfortunately, I miss out on their Mustard Seed Bags and their bounties."

While Heavenbane Lightning Pearls were nice, their attribute of destroying everything meant that there were no spoils to collect. On the contribution ranking of the Basking Moon Sect, killing a Beast Refining Gate disciple was a mission with no limit, and would award contribution points corresponding to that disciple's level. Of course, all the other sects had the same policy when it came to their mortal foe.

The bounty contribution points required the identity token of the person killed, and it would need to be confirmed by the spies.

The Heavenbane Lightning Pearl had even destroyed Mustard Seed Bags, so there was no chance of the identity tokens surviving. He had essentially killed 57 people for the Basking Moon Sect for free.

"A huge loss, but forget it. Consider it a show of loyalty to the sect," Tang Jie muttered.

If Feng Hongluan had heard this, he would have stomped his feet in rage and cursed, This is what you consider a show of loyalty!?

With 57 people dead all at once, the surviving disciples of the Beast Refining Gate began to panic.

No one had expected Tang Jie to have such lethal weapons as the Heavenbane Lightning Pearls. Even worse was that they didn't know how many more he had.

They no longer stuck together and started to spread out.

This was the best way to deal with the Heavenbane Lightning Pearls, but Tang Jie didn't care.

Tang Jie chuckled and said, "It seems like you forgot how I was dealing with you guys earlier."

Putting away the clam pearl, Tang Jie swam back out of sight.

Chang Mingxin had been so shocked that he had forgotten to fire his sword beams, though to tell the truth, it would have been pointless. At worst, Tang Jie could have used the Duplication spell to escape. In any case, Tang Jie had once more disappeared into the darkness.

Without those sea creatures to look around, Chang Mingxin once more lost sight of Tang Jie.

But this didn't mean that he didn't know where Tang Jie was.

The throat of a Beast Refining Gate disciple was cut, his blood rising to the surface.

Tang Jie had once more started his hunt!

This bastard!

Chang Mingxin now realized that Tang Jie had put the Beast Refining Gate in a dilemma.

If they came together, the pearls would blast them to bits.

If they scattered, they would be hunted down.

In this situation, the only option was for him to go in himself.

But without him holding the center, what if Tang Jie escaped?

Chang Mingxin hesitated.