Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-217

Lu Ping was quietly criticizing Enlightened Master Bi, who seemed generous but was actually a cunning old fox, when suddenly, the Shocking Thunderclap Whip not only caught Enlightened Master Bi off guard, but also everyone in the crypt.

The participants raised their guard, vigilantly aware of their surroundings.

Enlightened Master Bi never thought someone would take advantage of his greed!

The Shocking Thunderclap Whip was clearly set up for him, and he willingly took the bait!

By now, several participants had already realized the brewing storm, with a few of them shouting, "Who are you? Who dares to disrupt the underground trade fair? Are you not afraid of the Northern League?"

They rushed towards Enlightened Master Bi while casting their mystic instruments, trying to free him from the chair.

Lu Ping shook his head as he watched their eager attempts to show their goodwill to the Northern League.

But whoever behind this was definitely well prepared, to the point that even Enlightened Master Bi had fallen for their scheme. How could a few Blood Condensation Realm participants foil their plans?

Sure enough, Participant 72 on stage suddenly instructed coldly, "Kill them all!"

Immediately, several participants below the stage suddenly lashed out with their attacks and attacked those around them.

"How dare you!"

"What are you doing?"

"Stop it, argh—"

"Watch out! Who did that?"

The participants who were trying to rescue Enlightened Master Bi were stopped by the sudden onslaught and forced to defend themselves instead.

"What the hell!"

Enlightened Master Bi's face turned red from being tied up by the Shocking Thunderclap Whip, and he roared at Participant 72, "How dare you challenge the Northern League? Who are you!?"

Instead of replying, Participant 72 took out a jade talisman from his interspatial pouch.

Enlightened Master Bi immediately recognized the talisman and shouted, "Do you really think this whip can stop me? Let me teach you how a mystic treasure should be used!"

A silvery-white light glowed from Enlightened Master Bi's body, and the Shocking Thunderclap Whip stretched outwards like a rubber that was about to snap.

The glow on Participant 72's jade talisman dimmed down a little. He quietly recited some incantations, then raised his left hand to point at Enlightened Master Bi.

A torrent of lightning bolts burst out from his fingertips—they went right through Enlightened Master Bi's silvery-white protective light barrier and struck him directly.

The Enlightened Master was stunned stiff, his muscles cramped uncontrollably, while the light barrier started to shrink.

By this time, Participant 72 had finally finished his preparations, and he threw the jade talisman at Enlightened Master Bi's feet.

The jade talisman exploded, and dozens of silver lines filled the floor underneath Enlightened Master Bi and his chair.

The silver lines formed a teleportation formation, and in the midst of Enlightened Master Bi's angry shouts, a dazzling light flashed—him and his chair were teleported away, leaving behind the Shocking Thunderclap Whip on the stage.

Participant 72 sighed heavily, as if a heavy burden had just been lifted off his shoulders.

At present, the crypt had already plunged into an abyss of chaos.

The black cloaks made it impossible for anyone to distinguish each other, so the participants didn't know if those around them were friends or foes.

Anyone could be a threat—they could only look after their own selves.

As a result, the situation quickly turned into a massive tangled fight involving a hundred participants.

Lu Ping was one of the unlucky few who were ambushed by the assaulters.

However, he was a seasoned combatant after all. His vigilance had been raised since the beginning and he had almost instantly noticed the attacks.

Immediately, Lu Ping raised his aegis energy but then discovered that the assaulter's weapon was a flying needle, which was most effective against aegis energy.

The flying needle quickly poked a hole through his aegis energy and hit his inner vest.

Lu Ping was shocked, beads of cold sweat rolled down his forehead, and he hurriedly cast up Umbra.

Luckily, the arcane energy powering the flying needle had been heavily corroded away by the Million Poisons Ominous Essence in his aegis energy. On top of that, he had on pthe inner vest as the last line of defense.

Otherwise, he was sure that he would end up either seriously injured or worse, dead on the spot.

After the shock, came the fury.

The angry Lu Ping certainly didn’t plan to just let it go. Before he had even turned around, the Verdant Dawn Sword had already slashed out in the direction where the flying needle had appeared.

Argh!

A scream of pain could be heard and when Lu Ping looked back, he saw a tall and slender participant looking at him resentfully. The participant's cloak and left arm had been cut off by the Verdant Dawn Sword.

But because of the black cloak, Lu Ping couldn’t tell if this participant was the assailant who attacked him with the flying needle. He only assumed so because the participant was in that direction.

However, despite his doubts, he didn't have time to think about it now. What was done was done; he had already severed the participant's limb, so they were now enemies.

Lu Ping's divine sense fluctuated again, and the Verdant Dawn Sword turned around to stab the participant's back.

The participant panicked—he quickly put up a high-grade defensive mystic instrument despite the pain from his wounded arm. However, even that couldn't stop the Verdant Dawn Sword. It shattered the defensive mystic instrument and took his head off from his shoulder.

As Lu Ping's cultivation in the North Ocean Wave Listening Scripture deepened, his cultivation base became increasingly domineering and overpowered during his fights with the other participants.

Lu Ping's thunderous attacks scared away the participants who made sure to avoid him, which was exactly what he wanted.

In a chaotic situation like this, the continuous battles could definitely wear out any participant to exhaustion and eventually death. Hence, Lu Ping decisively displayed his dominating strength so the others wouldn't bother him, which would give him time to think and escape.

However, after Lu Ping put away the tall and slender participant's interspatial pouch, a giant three-legged cauldron suddenly rose up from the center of the crypt.

The cauldron's lid opened, and a pillar of fire shot out and swept across the field. Two participants were hit and immediately burned to ashes. Several others were quick to react and dodge in time, but their mystic instruments and aegis energy were damaged.

This fire was definitely a heaven-and-earth spirit fire!

Lu Ping thought as he looked at the bright-yellow fire and Participant 72 who was standing beneath the giant cauldron.

And it was as if Participant 72 had discovered Lu Ping's location—he cast the bright yellow stream of fire towards Lu Ping!

Lu Ping didn't want to reveal too much about his power, so he raised his left hand with a fiery red fire in his palm. Then, he cast the fire with his arcane energy into a fire umbrella in front of him which blocked the yellow fire.

Lu Ping sighed. The North Ocean Wave Listening Scripture was, after all, a water-element cultivation method. Although it could control the fire, it required much more arcane energy due to the elemental opposition, and the fire's power would be significantly reduced.

Participant 72 was clearly interested in Lu Ping's fire, but just before he could take further action, he suddenly stopped as if he’d heard something.

Then, Participant 72 made a loud whistle, and several participants in the field immediately flew towards him and gathered around.j

He took out a shuttle mystic instrument which quickly expanded to fit the participants inside. The shuttle then rammed against the wall and disappeared inside it.

The remaining participants looked at each other, wondering at their abrupt departure when suddenly, the teleportation formation that they used to come here shattered.

Lu Ping immediately realized what was going on and he hurriedly brought Dabao out from the spirit pet pouch.

The participants quickly reacted and used their own means to escape from the crypt.

Krong… krong… krong!!!

The underground crypt started to collapse—Lu Ping rode on Dabao and together they disappeared into the wall.