Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-477

Rally Peak, in the southern foothills of the Zephyr Mountains, was the principal peak of the Selection Hall.

After becoming a True Lord, Ming Yekong had ceased to have any responsibility over the Selection Hall, and the one replacing him was the original first deputy hall master, Xiang Yan. But according to the tradition of the Basking Moon Sect, Xiang Yan needed to hold the throne for thirty years before he could be considered the real hall master and advance to becoming one of the 19 Celestial Chiefs.

It was late at night, and all was quiet.

Tang Jie lay in a bush, looking at the churning roseclouds in the sky. This was a unique vista of the Rosecloud Domain. At night, it was roseclouds that covered the sky, not stars.

Whenever he was bored, Tang Jie would look up at the sky and ponder the secrets of the roseclouds.

Alas, as a cultivator, he had very little time to be bored.

"Hey, Tang Jie, are you sure that the fiends are going to attack tonight?" Wei Tianchong's large face filled his world.

Tang Jie pushed aside Wei Tianchong's face and continued to look at the sky. "You've asked this question three times already."

Wei Tianchong chuckled. "I'm just getting a little anxious from waiting… Why aren't they here yet?"

"On big occasions like this, you need to be calm," Tang Jie indifferently replied, and then he fell silent.

"Good advice." Nearby, Bei Canghan was seated cross-legged. "Junior Brother, you've grown even more calm in these last few years of cultivation."

"Senior Brother flatters me. I dare not accept such praise."

"Being calm is one thing, but the mind still has questions that seek answers. There just so happens to be something I do not understand and would like Brother Tang to explain," Ye Tianshang said.

"What?"

"Why are the fiends attacking Rally Peak? I'm saying that since they chose a hall to focus their attacks on, they must have a reason for choosing that hall, right? While the Selection Hall has a prestigious status, deciding promotions and demotions within the sect, for the very same reason, it doesn't have too many disputes with factions outside of the sect. If the fiends were going to attack a place, they shouldn't have chosen Rally Peak."

Tang Jie shook his head. "I don't know the reason either. That black-robed person only gave the order, providing no explanation. Though the fiends have intelligence, it is very low intelligence, and they do not think very deeply about things. Thus, when the order was given, none of the fiends objected."

"Pah!" Peng Yaolong impatiently said. "Who needs all the questions? We'll just kill them all."

His knuckles cracked, his will to fight blazing. He was already ready for a big battle.

An end to the waiting would come eventually.

Finally, as they were chatting, a dark cloud drifted out of the distance.

It didn't seem large, but it silently engulfed the entirety of the Zephyr Mountains.

This was Illusory Fog, capable of obstructing Divine Will and cutting off communications. If a Divine Division Titan was using all their power, it could even deceive Earth Immortals for a while.

For the fiend army, this time was enough.

A moment later, as the dark cloud expanded, a rumbling came from the distance. Countless fiends were flooding out of the darkness.

"They really did come!" There was no fear on the faces of the disciples, only excitement from anticipation.

Tang Jie also stood up.

It was very dark, but he could clearly see how many fiends were attacking.

The dark night had obscured the intimidating power of this torrent, but it could not conceal the reality of their advance, the ground quaking under his feet.

Tang Jie smiled and said, "Release the fire beacon tokens!"

Shi Meng raised his hand, and three alarm talismans were set alight, turning into three howling arrows that shot through the air, leaving behind large trails of smoke.

The smoke was stopped by the Illusion Fog, none of it able to leak out, but the shrieks and light produced by the arrows alarmed the disciples on both Rally Peak and the nearby mountains.

"Enemy attack!"

Cries of alarm instantly rang out.

A moment later, emergency beacon talismans also began to rise from other mountains.

One after another, they shot into the sky.

"What's going on?" Qi Shaoming was taken aback. "Why are other mountains under attack?"

"Just diversionary forces," Tang Jie replied.

Although the fiend army had chosen Rally Peak as their main target, this didn't mean that they wouldn't send some other forces to delay the other mountains. The Illusion Fog would obstruct the senses of the Violet Palace Titans in the core area, but it wasn't very useful on the nearby peaks. This was why some fiends needed to be sent to hold those mountains down so that they couldn't send reinforcements.

This attack had come so suddenly that it was difficult for the cultivators on the various peaks to identify the primary target. They could only gather their forces and handle the problems in front of them, which gave the fiend army an opportunity to break Rally Peak.

Tang Jie's explanation opened everyone's minds.

A disciple responsible for being a lookout shouted, "They're coming!"

Tang Jie turned to glance at Rally Peak. The disciples on the mountain had only just received the alarm and had yet to react, so he shouted, "Stop them and buy time!"

The twenty-some cultivators all assented.

As they spoke, a plume of dust rose in the distance. Numerous leopards, wolves, tigers, and jackals were charging toward the mountain.

Their speed conferred upon them a powerful momentum, and they stared at the Basking Moon Sect with eyes that burned with loathing.

Tens of thousands of fiends, gathered together, represented such an immense force that even if a Violet Palace True Lord stood before them, the fiends would dare to tear them apart.

As for these twenty-some cultivators standing in front of them now, they were nothing at all.

They didn't bother to use any spell arts. Their powerful momentum alone would be enough to obliterate anything that stood in their path.

Thus, they charged with all the power of a tsunami.

In the dark night, the eyes of the twenty-some Basking Moon disciples flashed with confidence.

500 meters!

400 meters!

300 meters!

200 meters!

The beast wave drew closer and closer, the fiends radiating energy, various spell arts empowering them with a berserk strength.

Charge!

Ever forward!

The beast wave was right in front of them.

A golden-horned giant bull at the very front lowered its head to ram at Tang Jie's group.

Tang Jie's group didn't move. Suddenly, a disciple stepped forward and swept his hand at the space under his feet.

Tang Jie's palm flashed for a brief moment as he shouted, "Rise!"

A moment later, the earth quaked and rumbled as if the ground beneath the fiends was about to fall apart.

The earth cracked open in front of the fiends, revealing a seemingly bottomless chasm.

The golden-horned bull at the front couldn't stop in time, and it was pushed by the flood of fiends behind it into the fissure.

The bull roared and stomped a hoof on the air, flames blasting out of it as it attempted to fly. But it found that it couldn't fly at all!

A space-sealing formation!

It was stunned by this realization, and it bellowed and released flames from all parts of its body in an attempt to fight back against the formation's power. Although it failed to ascend, it at least managed to stop itself from falling farther.

The bull fiend exhaled in relief, but then it looked up with large eyes as countless fiends came crashing down from above.

"Oh… no!" The bull let out a heart-rending cry.

A moment later, countless falling fiends knocked it from the air.

This pitiful bull was an upper-grade Mind Opening fiend, possessing mighty fiend energy, but before it had the chance to use any of its prodigious might, it was sent to its death by its comrades.

The fiends descended into the abyss in swaths as one would drop dumplings into a pot, not even getting the chance to counterattack.

This twenty-some-meter-wide fissure was like a natural moat, halting the fiend attack and also killing many of them. Even a Transformation great fiend managed to die in the chaos.

Wei Tianchong, Shi Meng, and the others stood on the edge of the fissure in slack-jawed wonder. Even though they knew the plan, they still found it unbelievable how these fiends had simply charged to their deaths.

"A Fissure spell and a space-sealing formation managed to kill so many fiends…" Wei Tianchong almost couldn't believe his eyes.

When had fiends become this easy to deal with?

"The key to dealing with the enemy is using the proper method. If you know what they're going to do, you don't have to worry that you won't find a strategy to deal with them," Tang Jie indifferently said.

Tang Jie had meticulously planned and calculated for this fiend attack.

He had never thought about setting up some powerful formation that could kill tens of thousands of fiends, as that was simply unrealistic. Even formations had their limits. The costs to setting up a formation that could kill more than ten thousand fiends would run into the hundreds of millions of spirit coins.

He wasn't that rich, and even if he were, he certainly wouldn't use his wealth like this.

But so long as he knew the weakness of the fiends, he could target it.

The combination of a space-sealing formation with the Fissure spell was the simplest and most effective way of dealing with these fiends. Whether these fiends had flown here or charged across the ground, they would find it very difficult to survive this combo.

And the large numbers would slow down the reaction of the fiend horde. Even if a fatal trap had appeared in front of them, the ignorant fiends in the rear would keep charging, pushing the fiends at the front to their deaths.

One could say that they were strong because of their numbers, but they were also slow and clumsy because of their numbers, which resulted in their deaths.

But even the slowest of nerves would react eventually, and the fiends would not keep throwing themselves to their deaths. A few moments later, amidst the frenzied howling of numerous fiends, the fiends gradually stopped going over the cliff. Some of the fiends lucky enough to survive even began to use their fiend arts on Tang Jie's group.

They hadn't used spell arts before because these fiends almost all had powerful bodies, and in a mass charge, there was no spell art that could match the power of their momentum. Now that the fissure was in the way, they naturally had to use spell arts to deal with their enemy.

A moment later, large numbers of spell arts began to thunder toward the other side.

Spiritual light exploded through the sky, spiritual energy crashing down like waves.

When thousands of fiends attacked, even the weakest spells would be enough to blast twenty-some cultivators to death.

But as the wave of spell arts subsided, the twenty-some cultivators erupted with light and disappeared, leaving behind not even a trace of blood or flesh.

The fiends were dumbfounded. Finally, someone understood and shouted, "It was an illusion!"

Duplication!

Tang Jie's group naturally couldn't clash directly with the fiend army. No matter how strong they were, they couldn't possibly take the simultaneous attack of so many fiends. For this reason, Tang Jie had never planned to expose his group in front of the fiends.

As for Duplication, that was just for fooling the fiends and buying a little more time. Tang Jie had already gotten the time he needed the most, and he now began the second phase.

As the illusions dissipated, the fiends saw a dark fog rushing in from all sides.

"Watch out!" A Transformation-level golden eagle screeched as it flew in the air. It was one of the few able to maintain flight under the space-sealing formation. As the formation cared more about covering a large area, its restraining power wasn't too strong. This was why the eagle could see that black fog converging on them.

Though it was late at night, everyone had still been able to see. But now, the black fog robbed them of their vision. The golden eagle could tell that there was something odd about this fog, that it was most likely the product of some formation. Alas, as a fiend, it had too little experience and knew nothing about formations.

But it did understand how this fog was being used.

Bitter screams began to rise from the black fog.

"They're in the fog!" the golden eagle shouted.

First came the space-sealing formation, which was meant to limit everyone's movements. It was always harder to utilize an advantage in numbers on the ground than in the air. After all, one lost an entire dimension. This dropped the speed of the fiends and also bought more time.

The second was the black fog formation, which obscured vision and further suppressed the fiends' advantage in numbers. When everyone couldn't see, Tang Jie's group no longer had to worry about taking on combined attacks from the fiends, allowing them to avoid the greatest threat. As for Tang Jie's group, they had come prepared, so they could see each other and maintain contact while in the fog.

As the black fog rose, Tang Jie's group infiltrated the fog and began to kill the fiends.

The fiends could no longer see around them, and they had had no idea that the god of death would suddenly descend from the heavens.

The twenty-some cultivators pounced on the fiends like fierce tigers and started killing. They naturally didn't dare to take on tens of thousands of fiends, but they weren't scared of only three or five.

Peng Yaolong was the first to charge in. He was like a war elephant, not using any spell arts and simply thrusting his palms here and there. Red light occasionally gushed from his palms, and wherever they went, the bones and muscles of fiends shattered. It was clear he had grown only more proficient in the Energy-Blood Simulflow that had been taught to him all those years ago.

Ye Tianshang's sword unleashed howling gales. But unlike before, he was wielding two swords, and the swords were unleashing sword techniques of completely different natures, their intersection producing a frenzy of death.

Bei Canghan, one of the illustrious geniuses of the Basking Moon Sect, had a much simpler way of doing things. He simply strolled through the fiends, and the fiends simply started dropping dead.

Meanwhile, Qi Shaoming was like a sharp arrow, shooting through the horde. Speed was his strong point, and he was so fast that he almost charged out of the black fog.

Wei Tianchong and Su Xinyue were much more laid-back, one controlling her wolf and the other controlling his puppet. They talked as they killed, making them seem far more impressive than they actually were.

The attack from the twenty-some Basking Moon Sect disciples dealt the fiend horde grievous casualties, but worst of all was the chaos created through their slaughter!

A snow leopard looked around in confusion, the chaotic battle leaving it utterly baffled. It then felt a pain on its back, as if something had been stabbed into it.

Owooo! The snow leopard turned its head and spat out frost, but the attacker had predicted this and dodged ahead of time. The frost breath ended up striking a yellow goat fiend, causing it to shriek in pain.

The yellow goat instinctively lowered its head, stabbing its horns into the snow leopard's neck like knives. The snow leopard struck back with a paw, and the two fiends actually began to fight each other.

It had never been peaceful between fiends. While the Basking Moon Sect had killed fiends, fiends had also killed a lot of each other. From a certain perspective, they had even killed more of each other than the Basking Moon Sect. It was just that the power and prestige of the Basking Moon Sect would always draw the most hatred, allowing the fiends to put aside their differences and work together.

But in this chaotic moment, the first to show problems were those fiends of species that had never gotten along.

As the chaos spread, it became more likely that a slaughter based on hatred between species would occur.

At that point, then the fiends might end up killing each other before the Basking Moon Sect even did anything.

Fortunately, the fiends weren't all idiots.

A booming voice said, "All fiends, calm down and listen to me! Wind Snake fiends, disperse the black fog! Ice Cicada fiends, calm everyone's minds. Everyone proficient in Earth spell arts should use them to close the fissure. Bird fiends, take to the skies and break the spatial seal!"

A string of orders finally managed to calm the fiend army down.

There was no such thing as an invincible spell art. Everything had its advantages and disadvantages.

Tang Jie could seal space and split the earth, could use a fog to confuse the enemy, but the fiends could break the seal, close the fissure, disperse the fog, and calm their soldiers. The two sides could trade blow for blow. They just needed a leader to lead them.

The fiends were dumb, yes, but there had to be one or two smart ones among the tens of thousands of them. The one who had spoken just now was clearly one of them.

And this fiend was also using the black fog to hide themselves so that Tang Jie couldn't find them and make trouble for them.

Alas, while it was smart, its companions were dumb.

As these words rang out, someone shouted, "Is that Brother Bei? This plan is great! Many thanks!"

(TN: The Bei "狈" is a legendary wolf-like creature from Chinese mythology, said to have very short forelimbs.)

The one giving orders from the shadows truly was a Bei fiend. Beis were cunning creatures, the strategists of a wolf pack. In this fiend attack, it had been promoted to commander of the fiends. But it hadn't expected some dumb fiend to sell it out mere moments after it had given its orders.

The furious white Bei cursed the fact that there was no cure for idiocy.

Sure enough, Tang Jie raised his head and said, "So it was a Bei?"

The vertical eye on his forehead slightly opened. It penetrated through the fog, scanning the countless fiends before finally resting its gaze on a white dog-like fiend.

That was the one!

A great gale blew as the Wind Snakes and other fiends with Wind-type spells started to clear away the black fog.

Tang Jie shouted, "All of you, retreat and start phase three! I'll go and kill that Bei!"

He formed hand signs and pointed. Fog gathered into a black passage that linked Tang Jie and that white Bei.

The white Bei hadn't been in the black fog, as it had immediately fallen back when it had seen the fog converging.

But it was now locked onto by Tang Jie's Celestial Eye, and it could no longer hide. Besides, Tang Jie had laid down the black fog formation himself, so he could control it to follow the white Bei wherever it went. At the same time, Tang Jie was charging along the black fog passage.

He was traveling so quickly that he needed only a few jumps to get close to the white Bei.

The white Bei sensed danger approaching and howled as it retreated to the rear. Swiping its claws upward, it sent a white beam of light in the direction it had fled from while shouting, "Save me!"

Tang Jie used the Chaoswind Step to avoid the white beam and appeared right behind the white Bei.

At this moment, a screech came from the sky. "Rat, you dare!"

A Transformation great fiend lunged from the sky, answering the white Bei's plea for aid.

Tang Jie ignored it, swinging his saber at the white Bei's back.

Though the white Bei was cunning, its strength was average, only at the middle grade of Mind Opening. Even the Tang Jie from ten years ago could have easily slain it, let alone now. With one swing, the white Bei was chopped in half, the immense force of the blow traveling through the white Bei's body and instantly exterminating all life within it.

The Transformation great fiend's attack landed, a yellow light striking Tang Jie in the back. Tang Jie grunted and then disappeared, using the Chaoswind Step to return to his starting point and then hastily retreating.

Before the Transformation great fiend could give chase, the black fog moved to envelop Tang Jie. The black fog began to retreat, all the while countless fiends screamed as they were attacked. A few moments later, the black fog was gone.