Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-94

It was true that Lu Ping was in a disadvantageous position, but the four cultivators from Hai Yan Sect and Shui Yan Pavilion also didn’t dare to press forward with their full prowess. The leading Hai Yan cultivator had seen Lu Ping killing the Fei Yu cultivator before and knew that he still had tricks up his sleeve. So, he reminded his companions to play it safe and gradually wear him down.

Lu Ping had several ways to change the battle in his favor. For example, he had two talisman treasures, and either one could immediately break the stalemate. However, those were life-saving trump cards—Lu Ping wasn’t willing to use them aside from times of crisis.

Besides, they were not a real manifestation of his prowess. Right now, Lu Ping wanted to fight with his own abilities against these four.

However, Fei Ling Island was full of dangers, and he also needed to save time to harvest more spirit herbs. If the battle dragged on for too long, the resources on the island would be completely harvested by others. Therefore, Lu Ping hesitated on how to end the battle in a swift and clean manner.

At this moment, the only female cultivator amongst the four, Wang Hui-Min from Shui Yan Pavilion, suddenly threw out a dozen spirit stones and several spirit materials in different directions. Lu Ping noticed her action and knew that they were materials used to set up the array formations.

Is she trying to set up an array formation in the middle of the fight?

Lu Ping was feeling a little surprised as he’d never encountered this kind of fighting style before.

Wang Hui-Min threw another dozen spirit stones twenty feet in front of Lu Ping. He quickly realized that she was trying to move her initial array formation to the battlefield.

Now that he’d seen through her plan, Lu Ping naturally wouldn’t let her do as she wished. With his Flying Swallow Sword, he cast a move from the [Disarrayed Rocks Puncturing Sword Art]—the [Waves Curbing Flying Boat]. It stopped the mystic instruments attacking him for just a second, allowing him to recall his sword back to his side.

In the midst of the cultivators’ confusion, two sword lights flashed forward; like a torrential flood breaking through a dam, they surged fiercely towards the four cultivators.

In the midst of the water waves were a pair of swords—the Soaring Wing Swords Lu Ping brought out from Zhen Ling Sect’s Blood Condensation Treasure Vault. The swords flew out in a straight line, the secondary sword in the front followed by the primary sword on the back. The swords were cast in a move known as the [Rear Waves Pushing Front Waves] from the [Stormy Waves Crashing Shore Sword Art].

The Shui Yan Pavilion cultivator wielding the flying spear was caught off guard. He felt a giant wave ramming his face and sent him flying backwards—a second giant wave followed and shattered his defensive mystic instrument.

Shortly after hitting the ground, he hurriedly turned to retreat. But before he could, the third giant wave had swept in already, and it slammed fiercely against his body. The cultivator felt lightheaded, his vision blurred and spun, and the last thing he saw before falling into the deep abyss of unconsciousness was the scenery behind him, though he hadn’t turned his body around.

When the other three saw Lu Ping casually killing one of their companions, their hearts quickly sank to the bottom. The leading Hai Yan cultivator shouted loudly, “He’s a powerful one! Now’s the time to use everything we’ve got!”

The faces of the other two changed drastically at his words. The other Hai Yan cultivator gritted his teeth and spurted a mouthful of blood at his flying sword. The blade suddenly glimmered with a bright red light and parried one of the Soaring Wing Swords.

He quickly patted the spirit pet pouch on his waist and a giant Blood Condensation crocodile appeared in front of him, which quickly crawled towards Lu Ping. This spiritual beast was the very reason this cultivator stood out amongst his peers in Hai Yan Sect.

The giant crocodile was one foot long, and in contrast to its massive body, it was actually quick and agile. In the blink of an eye, it crawled more than a dozen feet and was soon in front of Lu Ping.

The giant crocodile’s head rammed on Lu Ping’s crystal ball, leaving it shaking from the impact. It then swung its body sideways, launching its tail at the crystal ball, causing the crystal ball to shake even harder. The constant attacks from the other cultivators only worsened the crystal ball’s condition.

The leading cultivator was overjoyed and he shouted, “Just a little more before his turtle shell breaks! We’ll be rich!”

Lu Ping’s face darkened, he really wanted to cut off the leading cultivator’s tongue. The other two cultivators were stirred up from his words and their attacks intensified with more ferocity.

The array formation previously set up by Shui Yan Pavilion’s Wang Hui-Min began to give off smoke, which coiled towards Lu Ping. Clearly, she was pulling the array formation from its initial position to the battlefield.

Lu Ping looked at the smoke blowing towards him and a plan came up in his mind. The Primary Soaring Wing Sword suddenly slashed to the side and parried the red silk back, then it quickly lunged towards Wang Hui-Min.

Shocked, Wang Hui-Min hurriedly recalled the red silk and tossed out a charm with her left hand. The charm turned into an earth wall and worked together with the defensive mystic instrument above her to block the incoming Primary Soaring Wing Sword.

On the side, the other Hai Yan cultivator quickly cast his flying sword to help defend Wang Hui-Min.

Before his blade could clash with the Primary Soaring Wing Sword, the latter made a peculiar half-arc around his weapon. A strange force abruptly overwhelmed the flying sword and snatched away its control, like a man caught in a whirlpool.

The flying sword followed Lu Ping’s Primary Soaring Wing Sword and both blades headed straight for Wang Hui-Min’s defensive mystic instrument.

In that moment, a memory resurfaced in the Hai Yan cultivator’s mind and he could vaguely hear the voice of his sect’s Master Immortal in his ears.

“Force Borrowing!”

Right when the Hai Yan cultivator lost control of his mystic instrument, the Primary Soaring Wing Sword had returned and joined the Secondary Soaring Wing Sword to attack him.

The Hai Yan cultivator was shocked and he patted on his spirit pet pouch again. This time, out came a huge sea turtle. The sea turtle appeared in front of him, its impenetrable shell facing towards the incoming attacks.

The turtle shell blocked the swords’ attacks, giving the cultivator a moment’s reprieve. He quickly retreated backwards when suddenly, he felt a coldness on his chest and then his heart—a flying needle had pierced his heart.

While the Hai Yan cultivator was feeling incredulous at his sudden defeat, a loud shattering noise echoed over the battlefield. Lu Ping’s defensive crystal mirror had broken under the constant attacks of the leading cultivator and the giant crocodile.

The leading cultivator was overjoyed, and bright crimson lights suddenly shone on his clenched fists as a burst of fire darted upwards above his head. The fire turned into a blazing Luan that gave out a loud cry before it lunged towards Lu Ping.

It was a talisman treasure!

Lu Ping’s face turned serious and a white jade talisman appeared in his hands. With the injection of his arcane energy, a faint and ordinary-looking sword light rose from the talisman treasure. The sword slashed to the front, cutting through the blazing Luan and continued slashing towards the leading cultivator without slowing down.

When the leading cultivator saw Lu Ping also had a talisman treasure that was clearly of better quality, his relaxed face swiftly contorted. He had no choice but to use his talisman treasure again, and the second blazing Luan diminished together with the incoming sword light.

It was at that moment, another flash of yellow light shone on Lu Ping’s hands. Three huge boulders appeared on top of the leading cultivator’s head.

Amidst the horrified expression of the leading cultivator, the first boulder rammed down and crushed his defensive mystic instrument, the second boulder killed him, and the third boulder smashed him into a mush of meat. The last thought he had before he died was, He has two talisman treasures!

The second talisman treasure was Lu Ping’s reward given to him by the sect for his contributions in the Xuan Ling Sect–Zhen Ling Sect war.

After using the talisman treasures, Lu Ping tossed out five Water Shield Charms to defend himself from the aftermath from the clash between the blazing Luan and sword light.

At the same time, a thick smoke was blown towards him and shrouded Lu Ping inside. At the moment he was included in the array formation, Lu Ping saw Shui Yan Pavilion’s Wang Hui-Min turned her head and hurriedly fled.

The array formation was only an auxiliary illusionary array formation she had set up. Its only ability was to obstruct the cultivator’s vision and divine sense, and slow them down, giving the cultivators outside of the array formation an opportunity to take advantage of it.

However, Wang Hui-Min knew with Lu Ping’s prowess, the array formation wouldn’t be as effective anymore. It could only stall him for a moment, and she alone would never be able to kill him before he broke free from the array formation. Hence, the only option she had was to flee!

For a hundred feet, she had fled from the battlefield when suddenly, an iron piece flew out from the illusionary array formation. The iron piece hovered above the array formation and enlarged into a perfect cube with each side exactly three feet and three inches long.

On the bottom of the iron stamp seal carved a word, “Landslide”. The iron stamp seal rammed down heftily and an explosive sound rumbled in the surroundings, even the earth quaked slightly. Then, the smokes from the illusionary array formation dispersed.

Lu Ping’s vision was cleared and he could clearly see Wang Hui-Min on the run. She was already more than a hundred feet away from him. Lu Ping was ambushed by the four of them and forced to use all of his cards in the battle. There was no way he would let her walk away alive.

He slapped a Blood Escape Charm on his body and suddenly appeared ten feet behind Wang Hui-Min. The panic-stricken Wang Hui-Min opened her mouth but before she could say anything, Lu Ping’s sword had already taken her head off from her neck.

He looked at the wrecked battlefield and carefully spread his divine sense outwards. After clearing his surroundings for danger and anything suspicious, he finally relaxed by a little and consumed a high-grade Spirit Regenerating Pellet to recover his lost arcane energy.

At the same time, he also turned back and collected the fallen cultivators’ interspatial pouches and their broken mystic instruments.

The giant monster crocodile also died when the Hai Yan Sect cultivator died. It was apparent that the monster crocodile was a monster beast enslaved by the cultivator with his divine sense. On the contrary, the Ninth Layer Blood Refining Realm sea turtle was only severely wounded from the Soaring Wing Swords’ attacks. It was on the brim of dying but still hadn’t die yet.

When the sea turtle saw Lu Ping returning to the battlefield, it lowered its body and took a posture of worship. It was a sign for the monster beasts to beg for mercy and acknowledgement to their masters.

Lu Ping was quite surprised to see the sea turtle’s reaction. It seemed like this sea turtle’s cognitive ability wasn’t low. The general monsters had to wait until the Blood Condensation Realm before they could awaken their cognitive abilities. But the sea turtle’s reaction clearly suggested that it also had some slight cognitive ability like Dabao.

Lu Ping fed a Blood Refining Realm wound-recovery medicinal pellets he concocted himself to the sea turtle, and kept it in his spirit pet pouch.

Then, he tucked the cultivators’ mid-grade mystic instruments into a random interspatial pouch he had. In their interspatial pouches, he found a total of 180 500-years spirit herbs. Among them, the leading Hai Yan Sect cultivator had 120 himself. It seemed like he had a big harvest in the third spirit herb garden on Cang Mountain.

Besides that, there were also 10,000 spirit stones. This made Lu Ping a little excited as he finally had another batch of spirit stones for him to use. There were also five bottles of Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets, so he didn’t have to worry about the supply of his cultivation medicinal pellets for a period of time anymore.

Sadly, these medicinal pellets were ordinary cultivation medicinal pellets. If he could get his hands on some top-quality Blood Condensation Realm cultivation medicinal pellets, he might be able to reach the peak of Second Layer Blood Condensation Realm sooner than expected.

Other than that, he found a talisman treasure from the leading cultivator, and a Blood Condensation Pellet. He had never seen a Blood Condensation Pellet anymore ever since he entered the Blood Condensation Realm, which was an unexpected pleasure to see it again.

The talisman treasure was forged by a Second Layer Core Forging Realm, and it was only left with one use. However, the talisman treasure looked brand new, which suggested that this leading Hai Yan Sect cultivator might’ve a prominent identity in the sect.

Lu Ping couldn’t help but wonder, why were the ones that he killed always someone with prominent or complicated identities? He couldn’t help but smile wryly, then he quickly put it behind him.

There was a jade scroll in Wang Hui-Min’s interspatial pouch that talked about the array formations. Lu Ping had no interest in the array formations and thought the jade scroll would be perfect to be given to Hu Lili.

Lu Ping skimmed through the jade scroll and found the illusionary array formation Wang Hui-Min had set up, which was known as the Phantom Mist Illusionary Smoke Array. Lu Ping read about it and found the formation chassis on the place it was initially set up by Wang Hui-Min.

The array formation on the formation chassis was still intact and in good condition, just that the spirit stones and spirit materials used to power the array formation were shattered into bits and dust by Lu Ping.

Hence, there was no way Lu Ping could use the formation chassis anymore. This was because the spirit stones and spirit materials were destroyed, so he had no idea where to place them on the formation chassis to power the array formation.