Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-202

Suddenly, as if Lu Ping had discovered something terrifying, his face turned pale and he ignored the incoming attacks. He covered himself with the Umbra and the [Water Sky Curtain], turning around and charging towards the southwest direction, where the Fei Yu Sect and Ling Gu Sect cultivators were guarding.

The cultivators were caught off guard by his abrupt change, but they still managed to quickly intercept him with their mystic instruments. Whilst Umbra dispersed like a puff of cloud, the [Water Sky Curtain] aegis energy blocked the attacks.

However, Lu Ping was still injured by the attacks. His face turned even paler, with blood seeping out the corners of his mouth. Despite this, Lu Ping still didn’t dare to turn back or slow down. He quickly consumed a Spirit Regenerating Pellet and flew away even faster.

The five cultivators naturally wouldn't let him escape so easily, but at the same time, his behavior still startled them. Miao Wei-Dong and He Li-Xin looked at each other, as if they had thought of the same thing at the same time.

Suddenly, a deep and loud drum sound came up from the bottom of the sea.

"DONG!"

Everyone’s arcane energy undulated uncontrollably, and their speed slowed down.

However, Lu Ping was able to recover from the disruption faster than his pursuers, allowing him to pull the distance between them even further.

"DONG!"

Another drum sounded. Once again, their arcane energy once again surged out of control.

"This drum sound is odd, we have to get out of here first."

He Li-Xin forced herself to suppress the uneasiness she felt in her heart, and spoke in an urgent voice.

At higher cultivation levels, cultivators' senses and intuition would also become sharper. So, the remaining four cultivators also felt uneasy for no particular reason, leading them all to accelerate their pace without saying much.

"DONG!"

The third drum sound reached them. Miao Wei-Dong's expression suddenly became mortified as he thought of something. The prideful cultivator's voice was shaking, as he said, "True Spirit War Drum… it's the True Spirit War Drum! We have to leave now!"

When He Li-Xin heard Miao Wei-Dong's alarmed cry, she immediately understood and screamed in fear, "A monster tide? How is it… Why now?"

The True Spirit War Drum began to rhythmically drum nonstop.

"DONG, DONG, DONG!"

"DONG, DONG, DONG, DONG!"

Zhou Wei-Long inadvertently turned his head to look back, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

A black line was rising from the horizon in the east.

Zhou Wei-Long's face turned pale, his limbs turned cold, and his mouth opened wide crying out with terror.

The other four cultivators also turned around to look behind them.

The black line had risen above the horizon and was accompanied by countless chirping sounds that grew increasingly louder in their ears. There were countless flying monster birds behind them!

At this point, the cultivators didn’t care about not expressing their fear anymore. All they could think about was running as fast as they could for their very own survival!

A second later, the sea behind them turned darker and black in color, as if something was coming up from the bottom. The waves surged as if the whole sea was boiling.

With a loud splash, countless sea monsters surfaced from the bottom of the sea.

Amidst the drumming sounds, the monster beasts roared excitedly while marching towards the human race sea.

The monsters in the front were even more excited when they saw human cultivators fleeing, and immediately broke away from the rest to chase after them.

The cultivators didn’t dare turn their heads back, only thinking of ways of escaping with their lives intact!

At this time, Lu Ping was already a great distance ahead of them. But, listening to the roars of the monster beasts, Lu Ping also didn’t dare turn back and hastened his pace. The Auspicious Cloud was overpowered by his arcane energy, and turned blue in color, carrying him to fly away at an even faster speed.

"Oh?"

Suddenly, a curious and surprised exclamation could be heard amongst the monster roars.

"I didn't expect to find a few little ones who I know here. Oh? There is even someone who I am interested in amongst them."

The voice wasn’t loud but could be heard clearly. Furthermore, they also couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from, as if it was coming from everywhere.

"Young Master Jin!"

"Enlightened Master Jin Li!"

However, Miao Wei-Dong and He Li-Xin, who had both entered the Heaven of Seven Stars, immediately recognized the owner of the voice.

Naturally, they knew who the speaker was, and so they couldn’t help but exclaim in fear.

On the other hand, Lu Ping was driven into despair.

A suave gentleman with a folding fan casually walked on the sea surface. In just a few steps, the gentleman had already reached in front of Lu Ping.

This gentleman was none other than Enlightened Master Jin Li.

Seeing that Enlightened Master Jin Li had blocked his path, Lu Ping did not hesitate and directly changed his course to avoid Enlightened Master Jin Li.

The other five cultivators behind, who had already lost their clear judgement, followed heedlessly when they saw Lu Ping fleeing to the southwest.

The group of monster beasts chasing after them also followed closely behind, while more and more monster beasts joined them.

Enlightened Master Jin Li frowned when he looked at the somewhat out-of-control monster beasts. He was clearly not happy to see them breaking formation from the army of monsters to chase after the human cultivators.

However, the group of monsters were insignificant compared to the massive army of monsters, so their departure would not affect the overall situation. Furthermore, the monster beasts had grown incredibly aggressive under the stimulation of the True Spirit War Drum, so even Enlightened Master Jin Li could hardly restrain them.

Enlightened Master Jin snorted coldly. The group of monsters were only out of control because they were chasing after six petty human cultivators. Hence, the fastest way to return them back to order, was to kill the fleeing human cultivators.

Enlightened Master Jin stood still on the sea surface, he raised his right hand and a silver flying sword appeared out of nowhere.

The flying sword looked exactly the same as the top-grade flying sword he used in the Heaven of Seven Stars; however, this time, the flying sword was glimmering with lights and radiated an abstruse aura, giving it a sharp presence.

Clearly Enlightened Master Jin had cultivated it into his nascent weapon and upgraded it into the ranks of a mystic treasure!

As Enlightened Master Jin Li's true energy surged into the flying sword, it shot straight towards the six fleeing cultivators.

Lu Ping, who was fleeing with all his might, suddenly felt a chill at his back as the sword intent was directed at them.

He looked back and saw Enlightened Master Jin Li casually swing his hand, just like how he had when Lu Ping first encountered him in the Heaven of Seven Stars.

Except this time, Enlightened Master Jin Li had his full cultivation base of the Core Forging Realm.

The flying sword was covered inside a hundred-foot-long golden sword light. As Enlightened Master Jin waved his hand, the giant sword light split into more than 600 sword lights.

The sword lights then formed six sword arrays that looked like six golden carps from afar. The golden carps swam on the sea surface and chased after Lu Ping, Miao Wei-Dong, and the others.

When the cultivators saw this, they naturally knew this was a life or death moment. After all, there was no way they could outrun an Enlightened Master's attack.

Therefore, they all turned around and used everything they had trying stop the golden carps.

Amongst them, the Fei Yu Sect and Ling Gu Sect cultivators who were weaker, failed to stop the golden carps. They let out miserable cries and were seriously injured by the sword lights, falling into the sea and disappearing into the tide of monster beasts.

Miao Wei-Dong and He Li-Xin, who were both ranked in the North Ocean 18 Warriors, naturally managed to stop the golden carps. However, their faces were also pale as they had obviously exhausted most of their arcane energy.

Although Zhou Wei-Long also survived, he was wounded and spurted out a mouthful of blood, barely managing to catch back up with Miao Wei-Dong and He Li-Xin.

Lu Ping, who was further in front, looked back at the incoming golden carp that was visibly a size larger than the others, and cursed in his heart. Why would Enlightened Master Jin want to allocate the largest golden carp for him?

Lu Ping didn’t dare take it lightly. He unsealed his cultivation level back to the Eighth Later Blood Condensation Realm. Then, an abundance of arcane energy surged into the Verdant Dawn Sword as he raised the sword up.

More than a hundred sword lights were shot out from the Verdant Dawn Sword, forming a water Jiao of a similar size to the incoming golden carp. The water Jiao dived into the sea and lunged towards the golden carp.

"Oh?" Enlightened Master Jin exclaimed softly with a hint of surprise.

He never thought that Lu Ping's swordsmanship would have improved to the state of Sword Spirituality in such a short time. If given time, a Lu Ping in the Core Forging Realm would definitely be a good opponent.

When Enlightened Master Jin Li thought of this possibility, his interest in Lu Ping grew even stronger.

As the water Jiao clashed with the golden carp underwater, huge waves stirred up behind Lu Ping, obstructing the escape paths of the other three fleeing behind him.

The three remaining cultivators were also in disbelief seeing that Lu Ping was actually an Eighth Layer Blood Condensation Realm cultivator. Didn’t this mean they never pushed him close to his limits this whole time?

They were shocked, but this was not the right time to get affected. They quickly dodged the huge waves and continued to flee.

At this time, more and more monster beasts were attracted away from the monster tide to chase after them. It gradually got to the point where even the monster tide was becoming affected.