Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-324-30041322

Wang Hua’s expression changed drastically. He raised the Mystical Wooden Shield to defend while using the Mystical Wooden Ruler to attack.

The Water Specter Sword appeared seemingly out of nowhere and knocked the Mystical Wooden Ruler away, but in doing so the sword also cracked. After all, the sword was just a top-grade mystic instrument whilst the ruler was a mystic treasure with three Mystical Inscriptions.

The Fire-Ice Dual Rings entered the battlefield and trapped Wang Hua in the middle, before then beginning to shrink rapidly. Wang Hua quickly used the Mystical Wood Shield to send out a green light barrier to try and resist the rings.

However, he had clearly underestimated the jade rings. Although they only had one Mystical Inscription each, when combined together, they were as strong as a mystic treasure with three Mystical Inscriptions. Furthermore, Lu Ping also used the Black Prison Poison Fire and Frozen Ice Essence Water to enhance their abilities.

Eventually, the Fire-Ice Dual Rings and Mystical Wooden Shield reached a stalemate, with neither side able to overpower the other. This shocked Wang Hua even more; he didn’t think that Lu Ping, someone that was three cultivation layers lower, could actually stand evenly against him. How was this even possible!

Wang Hua finally realized that it was actually possible for him to be killed here!

Immediately, Wang Hua could no longer remain calm. He bit his teeth and spat out a mouthful of blood. Then, he used his blood to cast a spell on the Mystical Wooden Shield, enhancing its strength and allowing it to push the Fire-Ice Dual Rings away.

In response, Lu Ping calmly cast two different spells. Immediately, black fire spread all over the Fire Ring and snowflakes emerged around the Ice Ring. The strength of the enhanced jade rings created a stalemate once again.

Wang Hua felt his true energy burning rapidly and a bone-chilling cold seeping into his body. He quickly circulated his true energy to repel the abnormalities in him, but to his astonishment, the cold had spread to his organs and slowed down his true energy.

The Frozen Ice Water Essence froze his body into a block of ice, while the Black Prison Poison Fire followed his true energy all the way into his heartspace. The Mystical Wooden Shield’s light barrier was shattered, and Wang Hua’s frozen body was sliced up by the jade rings into ice blocks.

Suddenly, a Golden Core engraved with four runes shot out from the ice blocks, but a hand of water rose from the sea and swiftly grabbed it before it could fly away. Lu Ping’s divine revelation surged into the Golden Core, destroying every last bit of Wang Hua’s remaining consciousness inside.

In nature, divine revelation was similar to an extension of an Enlightened Master’s consciousness. Hence, as cultivators fuse their divine revelation into their Golden Core, it essentially becomes a second vessel for their consciousness. As a result, Enlightened Masters could gain a second chance at life by using their Golden Core to possess a new body.

However, because a Golden Core was a work in progress, it wouldn’t contain all of the Enlightened Master’s divine revelation and consciousness. Consequently, possession was incredibly difficult, and even if it was successful, the Enlightened Master would suffer an irreparable loss of power or even intelligence.

The ultimate form of a Golden Core was the Avatar. In the Avatar Realm, the Golden Core which had been fully forged with a cultivator’s true energy and divine revelation, would transcend into an Avatar that was actually a cultivator’s incarnation. At that time, the Avatar could even live on its own, away from the Great Ancestor, like an actual being.

Lu Ping retrieved Wang Hua’s interspatial bracelet, the damaged Mystical Wooden Shield, and the Mystical Wooden Ruler. Then, he looked behind him and was met with Luan Yu and Qiao Wei-Ying’s astonished gazes.

He laughed, "It’s time to go. Wang Hua is dead, so the Wang Clan’s biggest card in the Fallen Rift is gone. I assume the others should have also secured Ashen Mountain Island by now. Gentlemen, we have successfully replaced the Wang Clan in Fallen Rift, but we still need to be wary of their revenge. There is a small spirit vein in Ashen Mountain Island, it’s perfect for us to recover our energy and injuries."

The four of them nodded and flew towards Ashen Mountain Island. Lu Ping stayed behind for a moment and clasped his hands towards the east, before then also leaving.

A moment later, two middle-aged cultivators suddenly walked out of thin air in the direction that Lu Ping had greeted. They were none other than Zhang Clan’s Zhang Feng and Li Clan’s Li Mao-Lin.

"He noticed us?" Zhang Feng asked incredulously.

"I’m afraid so." Li Mao-Lin smiled bitterly.

Zhang Feng thought for a second, and said, "Brother Li, you’ve also just advanced to the Mid Core Forging Realm, what do you think would happen if you were in Wang Hua’s situation?"

Li Mao-Lin was stunned and thought carefully for a while. Then, he shook his head, and said, "I’m afraid it would be the same result, unless I left immediately after seeing Lu Jiu."

Zhang Feng froze and looked at Li Mao-Lin, who had been so frank without any embarrassment. A moment later, Zhang Feng said, "Brother Li is true to your heart. By the way, have you noticed…"

"Noticed what?" Li Mao-Lin asked puzzlingly.

"The nascent weapon. Lu Jiu used many weapons today, but none of them were his nascent weapon. I don’t think a Second Layer Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master wouldn’t have a nascent weapon. Do you understand the implication behind this?"

Li Mao-Lin was surprised, he sucked in a deep breath of cold air, and said, "His true prowess… the Wang Clan is going to have a very hard time."

As Hong Ying and the others were injured and had to travel slower, Lu Ping returned alone first to check out the island’s situation.

The battle on Ashen Mountain Island was coming to a close. The sudden ambush, the loss of the island’s protection formation, and Enlightened Master Wang Hua’s absence, all caused the Wang Clan island disciples to stand no chance at all. In the end, only a dozen out of the roughly sixty disciples managed to escape from the island. Furthermore, they were all forced to escape towards the depths of the Fallen Rift, so it was hard to say if any of them would actually make it out alive.

When he walked into the island’s cave-dwelling, he saw several dead bodies of Late Blood Condensation Realm disciples on the ground. Clearly, these disciples were killed by the snake trio when they came to deactivate the island’s protection formation.

The snake trio’s strength was already outstanding amongst their peers, so with them all being in the Ninth Layer Blood Condensation Realm, armed with the element of surprise, the Wang Clan disciples were far from their match.

When the snake trio saw Lu Ping, they transformed into their half-human form and greeted Lu Ping. Then they happily recounted their actions and how many enemies they had killed. Naturally, Lu Ping praised them and rewarded them with a bottle of pellets.

The smell of pellets lured Dabao out of the stone wall. He ran towards Lu Ping with a dozen interspatial pouches around his neck, and quickly spoke of his meritorious deeds. Lu Ping laughed and gave him some Condensed Blood Beads that he had specifically bought from Qian Yuan City for Dabao’s breakthrough to the Late Blood Condensation Realm. He then took away the interspatial pouches from Dabao’s neck.

When Luan Yu and the others had arrived on the island, Lu Ping had already kept the snake trio away to conceal the fact that he had Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes by his side.

After he arranged for them to go and recover from their injuries, Ye Bu-Qi and Wu Yan also arrived to report the situation to him. Afterwards, Lu Ping rewarded everyone with 500 spirit stones, a bottle of medicinal pellets, and an additional bottle of medicinal pellets for the wounded. As for the dead, he instructed Ye Bu-Qi and Wu Yan to give 1000 spirit stones and two bottles of medicinal pellets to their family, and to inform them that they would now be under his care.

These actions caused the morale to be greatly boosted, leading the Wave Listening Island cultivators to all cheer happily. In return, Lu Ping’s spirit stones, and all the medicinal pellets concocted by Yue Jiang-Rui over the past year had shrunk greatly.

After that, Lu Ping assigned Hong Ying’s four subordinates and Ye Bu-Qi’s five brothers, who were all in the Eighth Layer Blood Condensation Realm, as the island masters of the other nine islands. They were also all given a Late Blood Condensation Realm subordinate and ten Early and Mid Blood Condensation Realm subordinates. From now on, they would also start to operate and raise their own forces.

The rest of the cultivators were stationed on Ashen Mountain Island. A dozen Late Blood Condensation Realm cultivators and forty Early and Mid Blood Condensation Realm cultivators were stationed around the perimeter of the entire territory and were in charge of patrolling the island.

The fight for power with the Wang Clan had just started; killing Wang Hua and securing their power in the Fallen Rift was just the beginning. Lu Ping had to be prepared for the upcoming actions by the Wang Clan.

Soon enough, the news about Wang Hua’s death and the Wang Clans eradication from the Fallen Rift had spread all over the Northern League. The cultivators were all shocked that Crimson Shadow Island had five Early Core Forging Realm Enlightened Masters, and that they managed to kill a Mid Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master!

All of a sudden, Crimson Shadow Island Master Hong Ying, Master Alchemist Lu Jiu, Black Mountain Gang Young Master Qiao Wei-Ying, a mysterious female Enlightened Master, and another mysterious male Enlightened Master, had become famous.

Weekly Chapters (4/5)

Editor: Immortal BloodRogue