Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-152

An Eighth Layer Blood Condensation Realm Great White Shark, that was 10-feet long, suddenly jumped out of the water with its huge mouth wide open, revealing a row of huge sharp teeth.

It lunged towards Lu Ping in an attempt to swallow him whole.

…

After the Huang Li Island crowd reached the monster race sea and fought off the huge wave of monsters, the six sea patrol teams went their separate ways.

It had already been seven days since Patrol Team One, which Lu Ping was in, had headed east.

Under Liu Zi-Yuan’s lead, the patrol team didn’t actively hunt for monsters, but on the contrary, intentionally stayed away from large groups of monsters.

That was, until they bumped into this school of monster sharks.

Hey, I only killed a Sixth Layer Blood Condensation monster shark, why are you coming after me!?

Lu Ping was feeling indignant, Those three ruthless ones over there have killed more than I have. They have already killed three Seventh Layer Blood Condensation Realm Great White Sharks. Why don’t you go to fight them? Damn these monsters, they are all the same, being scaredy-cats in front of the strong, but bullying the weak!

Lu Ping threw away his own thoughts when he saw that the Great White Shark's bloody mouth was about to swallow him whole. Left with no choice, he helplessly cast a dark cloud on top of his head.

The Great White Shark didn’t know what the dark cloud was and decided to just ram through with brute force. However, as soon as it crashed into the dark cloud, its vision was covered and it lost track of the human cultivator who had killed its son.

Crashing into the dark cloud felt like falling into a bale of cotton. The Great White Shark suddenly realized that the strength it applied to the surrounding had no reaction force yet there was another inexplicable force that pressed onto it from every direction.

After the Great White Shark’s forward momentum was affected by the dark cloud, its huge body started crashing down into the sea.

A sword light struck out of the dark cloud like a flash of lightning, creating a huge wound on the shark’s body.

Puff--

The Great White Shark crashed into the sea, causing a huge splash of water mixed with its blood.

The dark cloud hovered above Lu Ping's head as he looked at it with great satisfaction.

This was Umbra, Lu Ping's top-grade defensive mystic instrument from the Blood Condensation Treasure Vault!

After a short dive into the water, the wounded shark launched another attack at Lu Ping. The smell of blood from the wound Lu Ping had inflicted on it only increased its ferocity.

Initially, Lu Ping thought of using Landslide to smash this annoying shark to pieces. At the same time, it would also test Landslide’s prowess after it had been upgraded to a top-grade mystic instrument.

However, Lu Ping's performance was already very eye-catching during this expedition. Lu Ping couldn't bear to destroy Yao Yong and the others' fragile confidence anymore by taking out another top-grade mystic instrument.

Without using Landslide, the monster shark’s tenacity made it impossible for Lu Ping to kill it in a short time.

It was at this moment, a jade disk was suddenly thrown onto the sea and slid under Lu Ping's feet, and six mid-grade spirit stones appeared around him.

Then, the spirit stones exploded one after another, releasing waves of spiritual energy into the surroundings. With that, a connection was formed between Lu Ping and the jade disk, making his divine sense go into a trance.

When the shark lunged at Lu Ping again, the direction of its lunge was slightly deviated, and the spells it released also missed Lu Ping. It was as if the Great White Shark was befuddled.

It’s an array formation!

A sudden realisation flashed in Lu Ping’s mind, while he easily dodged the Great White Shark’s lunge. At the same time, Lu Ping swung the Soaring Wing Swords and created twelve consecutive wounds on the monster shark’s body.

Lu Ping turned around only to see that Hu Lili was concentrating on a formation chassis in her hand, which was resonating with the jade disk underneath his feet.

Hu Lili was already drenched in sweat. Clearly, it was extremely exhausting for her to affect a Late Blood Condensation Realm monster with a simple array formation that was hastily set up.

Fortunately, the array formation was only to assist Lu Ping in battle.

Even though the Great White Shark missed its attacks, it still hasn’t noticed the external influence affecting it.

Instead, the intense pain from the wounds pushed the monster shark into a violent fury, where it attacked indiscriminately in all directions, splashing water everywhere.

Each drop of water that splashed out contained a trace of the monster shark’s spiritual energy, as they splashed towards Lu Ping and Hu Lili's direction.

Lu Ping waved his hands and guided Umbra into a stream of clouds, stacking layers upon layers in front of Hu Lili. When the water droplets shot into the thick layer of dark cloud, they disappeared without a sound as if they had never existed before.

Lu Ping cast the Soaring Wing Swords into spinning wheels deflecting the incoming water droplets.

Before he could recall the Soaring Wing Swords, a loud explosion came from behind him; the monster shark was already lunging at him again.

Luckily, Hu Lili gave her all and activated the array formation in time. The Great White Shark's trajectory was changed again, while Lu Ping also cast the [Treading Waves Art] to increase his evasion and recalled the Soaring Wing Swords back to his side.

But unexpectedly, after the Great White Shark missed its lunge, it suddenly twisted its huge body mid-air and faced Lu Ping with its back. Then, its shark fin suddenly extended more than a foot.

The monster's spiritual energy could be clearly seen flowing on the shark fin, glimmering with a bitter cold aura under the sunlight, as it cut towards Lu Ping.

It all happened so quickly that Lu Ping had no time to recall Umbra and defend himself. He could only cast the Soaring Wing Swords with his full power using the [Great River Eastward Sword Art].

64 sword rays were shot out, following the trajectory of the Soaring Wing Swords, instantaneously hitting the same spot on the shark fin.

"Clang!"

Although the 64 sword rays were sequential, the time between each ray striking was extremely short and so only one sound could be heard altogether.

The three-feet long shark fin was chopped off, but Lu Ping was also knocked out of the sky from the Great White Shark’s hefty slam.

The Soaring Wing Swords quivered as if they were wailing. There was a chip on the edge of each sword.

Lu Ping struggled for a while before he was finally able to stabilize his vitals. He could still feel pain in his chest. However, he was lucky to not be seriously hurt thanks to the protection given by his high-grade inner vest.

On the other hand, the Great White Shark was severely wounded. It could no longer keep its huge body in the air. It fell back into the water with another huge splash.

Lu Ping quickly seized the opportunity, casting the [North Ocean Wave Listening Scripture], a steady stream of arcane energy was replenishing Lu Ping's body.

The Great White Shark, which had been badly hurt by Lu Ping's successive attacks, had gone berserk. It opened its mouth and revealed two layers of teeth. It spat out the outer layer of 108 serrated teeth towards Lu Ping's direction.

This was the same trick that was used by the Primal Giant Crocodile before!

It seemed that monster cultivators really liked to refine their sharp teeth into mystic instruments!

These teeth that were refined into mystic instruments were small and numerous, making them hard to dodge and defend. Hence, they often were highly effective against protection spells and array formations.

As a result, Hu Lili's array formation lost its effectiveness.

Furthermore, not only could the teeth be cast individually, they could also be combined to form a higher-level mystic instrument, making them even more annoying to deal with.

When he saw the cluster of teeth, Lu Ping quickly recalled Umbra and shielded himself inside the dark cloud.

At the same time, his Soaring Wing Swords lashed out wave after wave of sword attacks around Umbra, parrying as many of the flying teeth mystic instruments as possible. He also intentionally knocked the teeth mystic instruments further out, so he could prevent them from combining into the higher-level mystic instrument.

Just after Lu Ping had deflected the wave of flying teeth, the Great White Shark had already sneaked to his side and slammed its huge tail towards him.

Lu Ping quickly jumped forward to dodge, while the Soaring Wing Swords left another two, three-foot wounds, on the monster shark's body.

Just when it seemed that the shark's tail attack was another failed attempt, hitting nothing but blank air, a glittering water sword suddenly shot out from the end of its tail. However, the water sword wasn’t heading for Lu Ping, it was shot in the other direction.

Not good, I’ve been fooled!

Lu Ping was shocked as a realization struck him - the water sword was not aimed at him, its real target was Hu Lili!

What a cunning monster! Even in situations such as this, it still hadn't lost its sense of judgement.

Sure enough, the monster shark was finally able to realize that something wasn’t right after consecutively missing its attack on the male human cultivator several times.

Since it only happened after the female human cultivator came to assist the male human cultivator, she was naturally the biggest suspect!

But Lu Ping had been forced to the other side as he had just evaded the Great White Shark’s tail attack. It was now already too late for him to turn around and rescue Hu Lili.

In critical times like this, Lu Ping had no other options left. A green sword light was shot out from his hand, directly hitting the Great White Shark. The Great White Shark was still mid-air and had just made a move, so it couldn’t do anything to defend itself and had to accept the attack with its body.

Initially, the Great White shark had thought that although this male cultivator was powerful, its body could still take another few hits under the protection of its arcane energy. The most this male cultivator could do was to inflict a couple more wounds on its body.

However, it would all be worth it. As long as the female cultivator was killed and couldn’t meddle with its attacks anymore, then it could still have a chance to fight with this male cultivator.

But the monster shark quickly let out a wail of fear as a green sword light cut into its body. Its protective arcane energy shook feebly, as it desperately dived towards the sea.

However, Lu Ping definitely wouldn’t give it the opportunity to escape.

The green sword light flashed out again. This time, it cut right through the Great White Shark’s body protective astral energy like a piece of paper. Its strong body became unusually soft, and the huge Great White Shark was chopped into two halves by Lu Ping.

On the other hand, Hu Lili, who has been hiding behind Lu Ping, was now facing her biggest ever crisis since coming to the monster race sea.

The Great White Shark tried every possible means to lure Lu Ping away from her side, just so it could kill her.

Hu Lili’s face turned pale-white as she noticed the incoming water sword and the strong arcane energy contained in it.

Luckily, she hadn’t lost her sense and raised a mid-grade wooden shield in front of her. She also cast two mid-grade Water Crystal Charms which were given to her by Lu Ping.

The water sword was shot out by the Great White Shark with all its might, so it was naturally very powerful.

The two Water Crystal Shields from the Water Crystal Charms were instantly shattered by the water sword. The mid-grade wooden shield was also crushed and splintered into pieces.

Hu Lili only had time to cast out a Wooden Vine Spell before the water sword collided with her body.

Lu Ping's eyes turned red.He quickly flew out and caught Hu Lili, who had been knocked away by the water sword, and landed on the Auspicious Cloud.

Lu Ping saw that Hu Lili's face was pale and blood was coming out from the corners of her mouth. He hurriedly checked her injuries, only to find that her internal organs were just slightly injured. Her injuries were not as serious as he thought they were.

Lu Ping couldn’t think clearly as to why this was the case. He only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Hu Lili was not seriously hurt, and said, "You are fine, you are fine!"

Hu Lili chortled, "You forgot the high-grade inner vest!"

Her words dawned on Lu Ping.

It was then that he saw the golden inner vest through Hu Lili’s tattered clothes. Even though the golden inner vest’s brightness was dimmer, after defending its owner from the water sword attack, sufficient spiritual energy still flowed in it.

On the sea surface, cultivators from Patrol Team One gradually seized the upper hand in the battle with the Great White Sharks. However, it was still too early to claim victory, as a lot of time was needed to completely annihilate the school of sharks.

After what happened a moment ago, Lu Ping refused to let Hu Lili enter the heart of the battle any more. He left the best healing pellets with her and instructed her to recuperate on the Auspicious Cloud.

Even so, after Lu Ping came down from the Auspicious Cloud, he still didn't feel comfortable. So, he cast Umbra and shielded the Auspicious Cloud within a dome of clouds.

The school of Great White Sharks consisted of twelve Great White Sharks and was led by a Ninth Layer Blood Condensation Realm, and two Eighth Layer Blood Condensation Realms.

Now that one of their leaders had been killed by Lu Ping, the monsters’ prowess was greatly reduced; not to mention that Lu Ping’s addition to the battle increased the humans’ power.

In the end, Patrol Team One was eventually able to slay every last one of the Great White Sharks.