Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-433

With just one strike, Lu Ping cleared the area ahead and opened a path straight to the central palace. In front of the central palace was a pool that spanned a wide area. When Lu Ping hacked the seals apart, his divine revelation detected something for a split second, but he couldn’t sense any danger. The snake trio and Verdant Luan standing behind Lu Ping had goosebumps all over. They sensed a lurking danger, causing them to enter a wary state. However, a second later, their wariness subsided because the source of the threat could no longer be detected.

Lu Ping’s eyes glowed brightly with emerald light as he caught something, but he did nothing.

The flow of spiritual energy in the air moved vigorously from the other two directions before Qiao Wei-Jie’s angry roar and Yang San-Yang’s painful shriek were heard.

“Oh no! We’re not alone!” Lu Ping’s heart skipped a beat, and he shouted immediately, “Be careful!”

As soon as he warned the others, Lu Hai had already stepped forward, shielding Lu Ling behind him and forming an energy barrier around him. A powerful force destroyed the barrier immediately, causing blood to gush out from a wound that opened up on Lu Hai’s shoulder. Lu Ling gasped nervously and immediately breathed out a jet-black frozen mist, revealing a tiny figure in front of Lu Ping that was beginning to freeze.

Although Lu Ling had only immobilized it briefly, this was enough time for Lu Qing to launch a wind-elemental attack.

An ear-piercing shriek sounded out, but the attacker managed to break free from the immobilization and gradually vanished into thin air. Just as it was about to flee, a blue halberd pierced right through the attacker’s abdomen.

The attacker opened his mouth to let out a painful cry, but it was unable to do so as it had already been decapitated. Standing beside the headless corpse was a ferocious Lu Ling, holding a glowing dagger. “Hmph! He injured Lu Hai and let out such an ugly cry! So noisy!”

During this ordeal, Lu Ping had done nothing apart from giving the snake trio an initial warning. He had stood with his back facing them as if he didn’t care and was absolutely confident in the snake trio’s capabilities.

The Verdant Luan circled the air above the snake trio, scanning the area alertly. She did not support the snake trio beneath her and was trying to locate something near them.

Da Bao was nowhere in sight. The sensitive Da Bao had already burrowed into the ground and disappeared after Lu Ping’s attack with the Golden Scale Sword had breached the seals around the ground.

The commotion caused by the violent fight far away had intensified. In addition to Qiao Wei-Jie’s battle cries, they could hear Shui Xiu’s shouts.

Lu Ping remained unfazed. His eyes continued glowing green as he swept the area with his divine revelation while the snake trio and the Verdant Luan watched. Unbeknownst to them, a tiny gourd started taking form above his head.

All of a sudden, Lu Ping’s eyes ceased glowing as the light retracted into his eyes. The gourd floating above his head rotated rapidly, creating sparks on the gourd’s surface. Suddenly, monstrous lightning that had been charged inside the gourd was unleashed around Lu Ping and the snake trio, forming a lighting ocean.

Together, the six lightning-elemental mini-divine abilities — Geng Jin Ying Lightning, Yi Mu Ying Lightning, Kui Shui Ying Lightning, Wu Tu Ying Lightning, Han Bing Ying Lightning, and Feng Ying Lightning were launched from the gourd. The Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd revealed its deadly fangs in the cultivation world once again. The gourd, once crowned as the strongest item in the cultivation world, was no longer as powerful as during Prime Peng’s era but was still very strong.

Despite the lack of fire-elemental wonder items, the gourd’s power was more than enough for the current situation. Bathed in a rampaging ocean of lightning, Lu Ping watched as many figures similar to the attacker cried out in pain, falling to the ground.

With the attackers defeated, the gourd bounced around like a child asking for praise before happily returning to Lu Ping’s heartspace.

With the gourd gone, the rampaging lightning disappeared. Twelve figures were left on the ground, twitching unconsciously. Eight of the attackers had been killed, while the rest survived, albeit not without a scratch.

Fear set in on the four survivors. While they mustered their remaining strength, the Verdant Luan released a clear screech and flapped her wings, unleashing a fiery tornado. As the tornado descended, the four survivors burned away within seconds alongside the eight corpses.

Lu Ping glanced at the proud-looking Lu Qin’er and massaged his head. “What a ruthless method. She burned all the trophies!”

Lu Qin’er continued circling in the air, but when she turned around, another figure appeared beside her. Looking ferocious, the attacker formed a whip made out of water and hurled it straight toward Lu Qin’er’s neck.

“A mid-Core Forging Realm cultivator?” Lu Ping murmured.

Lu Ping frowned and locked his eyes on the rugged figure who had escaped the lightning strike and fiery tornado.

“These things really are persistent! They’re relentless despite knowing death awaits them!”

Right as the water whip was about to twine around Lu Qin’er’s neck, a ruined banner suddenly appeared above her head. The banner waved around, creating a water wave and intercepting the whip.

The attacker was caught off guard but it didn’t stop him from reacting quickly. Turning the water whip into a spear, the cultivator continued his attack by lunging the spear toward Lu Qin’er. The attack was stopped by another water wave created by the banner.

The attacker looked around and concluded that Lu Ping was the one foiling his attacks when he saw how Lu Ping’s lips curled up. The anger it felt caused the attacker to pounce on Lu Ping after letting out a battle cry. Morphing the water spear in his hands into a massive sword, the attacker quickly swung his weapon at Lu Ping.

However, when he leaped into the air, the ferocious expression on his face froze before an expression of disbelief replaced it. When he lowered his head, the attacker realized that a long sword had impaled his chest, with blood gushing out from the wound.

Whoosh.

The sword was pulled out of the attacker’s chest before it vanished into thin air as the attacker collapsed on the ground. This time, the Verdant Luan learned her lesson. She spat a fireball at the attacker on the ground, torching him into ashes but leaving the ball of flowing water that could morph into various forms untouched.

Bending down, Lu Ping picked up the ball of water and examined it carefully. In his hands, the ball of flowing water turned into different shapes. Lu Ping concluded that despite only being an item with three Mystical Inscriptions, the ball of flowing water could serve a purpose in several scenarios.

Lu Ping discreetly stole a glance at Lu Hai, and after seeing the interest Lu Hai showed, he couldn’t help but chuckle. The item was decent, but it wouldn’t be of much help to Lu Ping. Hence, he handed the item to Lu Hai and bitterly smiled after seeing Lu Hai turn the flowing water into a halberd twice his height.

“A kid will always be a kid. Lu Hai sees this ball of flowing water as a toy instead of a powerful item. So, Ice Shuras appear on the Ice Frozen Island, and Water Shuras appear in this cave… Hmmm… This is getting a little messy.”

Lu Ping remembered that Liu Tian-Ling’s expression was awful when Ice Shuras was discovered on the Ice Frozen Island. None of the disciples knew anything about these Shuras. The Core Forging Realm cultivators like Lu Ping only managed to learn a little bit about them later on, but they were warned not to spread this information.

In total, there were fourteen Water Shuras that had attacked them. Eight of them had been killed by the gourd’s lightning, the snake trio killed one, and the rest were killed by Lu Qin’er, with the last one being struck down by Lu Ping.

The fights happening in the distance were still going on. Like the Ice Shuras, Lu Ping deduced that these Water Shuras possessed an innate talent that allowed them to go invisible. This talent allowed them to remain undetected by cultivators’ divine revelation. After learning that it was difficult to take down these cultivators, the Water Shuras resorted to guerilla warfare. These Shuras were all persistent beings, so their behavior gave the other cultivators a huge problem.

Lu Ping couldn’t help but celebrate inwardly, “It’s not that I want to take everything for myself. If you’re incapable, you can’t blame me for what’s about to happen.”

Lu Ping’s eyes glowed with emerald light again as he looked toward the direction of the pool in front of him. Catching onto something, Lu Ping paused his tracks for a second before continuing onward to the central palace.