Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-157

Even for Lu Ping, it was also his first time witnessing the Verdant Luan use her fire-element arcane energy.

Although he knew that Lu Qin was a monster bird with dual elements of wind and fire, he had never seen her use any fire-element spells after taming her.

At this moment, Lu Qin's whole body was wrapped in green flames, and the Scarlet Ibis' rain of fire could no longer harm her.

However, Lu Ping also knew that Lu Qin had reached the brink of exhaustion. Even her own feathers were falling off, burning into ashes from her flames.

With the loss of each plume, the Verdant Luan would let out a harsh cry. It was apparent that although her green flame contained great power, she had yet to fully master this native spell that she was inherently born with.

The Scarlet Ibis who had fought Lu Qin before obviously knew of her methods. He laughed mockingly and said, "Little girl, now that you’ve used your Verdant Luan Fire, how much longer can you last? Once your arcane energy is depleted, the Verdant Luan Fire will backfire on your cultivation base. You’ll burn to ashes from your own fire, and that will be the end of you.

"I’ve always had my eye on your Verdant Luan Fire, and I’ll have it after your death. Once I fuse it with my own fire, there’s nothing to stop me from advancing to a Core Forging Enlightened Master!"

The Scarlet Ibis spoke smugly, letting out a peal of gratingly eerie laughter. Lu Ping’s brows furrowed deeply—it really wasn’t pleasant to the ears.

However, he didn’t move from his position at all, and calmly took out an ordinary-looking sword from his interspatial ring. His furrowed brows made him look as if he wanted to help his spirit pet but was hesitant because of the Scarlet Ibis’s overwhelming strength.

The Scarlet Ibis already noticed the moment Lu Ping took out the flying sword, but he continued to blatantly ignore the other.

He only glanced at Lu Ping out of a monsters' intuition, and when he saw him holding an ordinary flying sword that looked like an ornament, he no longer bothered with him.

At this time, Lu Qin was already in danger. The Scarlet Ibis' fire rain couldn’t defeat her Verdant Luan Fire, but her arcane energy was rapidly exhausting itself as a result.

Eventually, Lu Qin used up all of her arcane energy and the Verdant Luan Fire was fast extinguishing. The first part of her body to lose the green flames was her back.

The Scarlet Ibis's eyes lit up and he immediately swooped down with his wings outstretched. His iron talons went straight for Lu Qin's back, and the huge gale from flapping his wings even blew out the fire rain.

The Scarlet Ibis' greedy eyes revealed a cocky look right as his talons were about to pierce the Verdant Luan's back. Even if he couldn’t kill her with this talon attack, he could tear her wings apart to stop her from flying.

It was at that moment, a magnificent blue sword light flashed in front of the Scarlet Ibis’s greedy eyes, followed by a murderous aura that spurred his feathers to stand up.

The Scarlet Ibis’s loud shriek of pain and terror cracked the sky but was quickly put to an abrupt end. A huge wound marred its chest, and his massive body lost all vitality, tumbling in the air and falling towards the sea.

The three monsters attacking Ji Zi-Xuan and Yin Zi-Chu were also stunned by the murderous sword light. When they turned to look, the Scarlet Ibis was already falling. His body was soon caught in mid-air by the Verdant Luan, who landed on a reef not far away.

Lu Ping, who had been overlooked by the crowd, was holding a flying sword in his hand. A green light streaked out of the tip of the sword, like a beast ready to devour its prey.

This time, when they looked again, a large volume of Smoke of Essence was surging out of Lu Ping’s body all the way up to the sky. He wasn’t a lowly Third Layer Blood Condensation Realm cultivator anymore, but a cultivator who was about to step into the Late Blood Condensation Realm.

At this time, Yin and Ji who were besieged by the monster cultivators, suddenly attacked with full force. The three monsters didn’t expect these human cultivators to still have the strength to fight back, and they panicked to defend themselves.

These three were monster generals under Enlightened Master Jin Li’s command, so they were naturally astute.

They knew that they couldn’t defeat these two human cultivators anytime soon. Not to mention that the other human cultivator—who had just killed their strongest, the Scarlet Ibis—was watching their battle from the side.

These monster generals had served under Enlightened Master Jin Li for many years, and they naturally developed a tacit understanding with each other. Once they realized they had no chance of winning, they quickly decided to take their leave.

They planned to return and report the matter to Enlightened Master Jin Li. These puny human cultivators were naturally no match for him.

The three monsters exchanged glances with each other and immediately broke away from the battlefield, flying towards the eastern sea.

Despite their plans to leave, the human cultivators weren’t willing to let them go just like that.

Yin Zi-Chu disappeared from the spot, and instantly caught up with the monster wolf that was casting wind spells to fly away.

Yin Zi-Chu moved like a ghost—he would appear at one side of the monster wolf, lash out a barrage of attacks, then disappear again only to reappear on the other side. His attacks were so rapid that the monster wolf was forced to stop to defend himself and had no time to escape.

On the other side, the back-armor of Ji Zi-Xuan's puppet suddenly flipped and turned into a pair of wings. Spiritual energy began spurting out of the puppet’s feet, propelling the puppet like a rocket.

The puppet’s trajectory drew a perfect arc and it stopped right in front of the monster eagle, who couldn’t evade in time and collided with the puppet. The puppet was knocked into the sea, while the monster eagle felt dizzy and stopped.

But quickly, a sharp pain from its wing cleared its mind. Ji Zi-Xuan had shot out a silver light that had cut away half of the monster eagle’s wing.

A few moments ago when Lu Ping took off his mask, Ji Zi-Xuan and Yin Zi-Chu immediately understood Lu Ping's intention.

After all, both of them recognized Lu Ping and knew that his cultivation base couldn’t only be at the Third Layer.

Hence, Lu Ping taking off his mask was a signal to them, telling them to prepare for a counterattack!

Meanwhile, as Ji and Yin had each stopped a monster’s escape, the third fleeing monster, who was a monster sea snake, suddenly felt two bone-chilling currents penetrating its body.

The monster sea snake swam fast under the water like a nocked arrow let loose, but when the currents hit, its body was stunned for a split second, before blood gushed out from the two wounds pierced through its body.

The monster sea snake gathered its remaining strength and rolled its huge body continuously. The seawater was whipped into a frenzy and splashed countless waves to the side, obscuring the monster sea snake's figure.

The monster sea snake took this opportunity to escape, only to find that the seawater around its body had suddenly become viscous. There were hidden currents that emerged around the monster sea snake, wrapping around it like tentacles.

After that, a sword light split the seawater apart, aiming directly for the monster sea snake's weak point. Its huge body frantically struggled, but the hidden currents had bound it tightly on the spot—it couldn’t move any further.

Eventually, it expended the last drop of its energy and floated up to the sea surface. Then, Lu Ping stored away the huge carcass into an interspatial pouch.

Lu Ping's Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes's cultivation base had also reached the Third Layer. Their breakthroughs to the Mid Blood Condensation Realm were imminent, so Lu Ping wondered if this monster sea snake would be nutritional enough to help them ascend.

After that, he retrieved the two high-grade flying needle mystic instruments. Through the battle, he’d realized that the [Water Manipulation Art] was twice as effective when used together with the Water Crystal Bowl.

While Lu Ping handled the monster sea snake, the other two monsters were also hit hard by Ji and Yin's attacks, and it was only a matter of time before they fell.

However, when Ji and Yin saw Lu Ping kill the monster sea snake, their attacks suddenly intensified. They were obviously stimulated by Lu Ping's thunderous and swift attacks.

Lu Ping wasn’t foolish, so he didn’t interrupt their battle to help. Instead, he turned to see what Lu Qin was doing with Scarlet Ibis' body on the reef.

The Scarlet Ibis' heartspace wasn’t destroyed.

This was because Lu Ping had hidden his cultivation base and let Lu Qin battle the Scarlet Ibis. They could then mislead the Scarlet Ibis into taking him lightly.

Lu Ping would then be able make use of the element of surprise to kill the Scarlet Ibis with a single blow.

If the plan worked well, the Scarlet Ibis would most likely not be able to react in time. By then, it would be too late for him to self-destruct his heartspace, and his Condensed Blood Beads would be intact after his death.

Fortunately, Lu Ping's plan had gone well and his luck was good!