The old man said with a solemn expression, “Be careful! A far harsher current of cold erupts in the instant that the Heavenvoid Cauldron is raised. It is unknown just how many treasure seeking cultivators have pitifully succumbed to the unexpected occurrence.”
After saying this to Han Li, Qing Yi’s gaze rigidly focused on the hole once more. He appeared nervous.
When Han Li heard this, his heart was shaken. Just how many had previously attempted to move the cauldron? How was it that they all failed?
Although his heart held doubts, Han Li knew that now was not the time to ask these questions. He could only recollect himself and look at how things were developing at the center of the altar.
It was obvious by now that the Heavenvoid Cauldron was extremely heavy. The full strength of these spirit beasts could only move it a sliver at a time. But even so, the blue light at the center of the altar grew brighter by the second.
Let alone Zenith Yin and the others, even Wu Chou and the Bone Sage down below were staring at the scene without blinking. But while Wu Chou had his hands tightened and wore an expression of excitement and greed, the Bone Sage’s eyes revealed a complicated expression containing both anticipation and hesitation.
There was only silence at the altar apart from the sound produced by the slow and gradual rise of the Heavenvoid Cauldron. Everyone was raptly gazing at the hole with held breath.
Han Li was the exception. He was worriedly staring at his Bloodjade Spider. In the end, he wouldn’t have any claim to the Heavenvoid Cauldon. What mattered more was the Bloodjade Spider he had painstakingly raised.
He had made a startling discovery. The original milky-white color of the spider thread was now enveloped in a layer of faint blue radiance. Although this change was so faint it could be dismissed as a trick of the eyes, it was undoubtedly a change of its original color.
Just as Han Li was mulling over this change, he heard a sudden buzz from behind him. Despite being rather soft, it was particularly noticeable among the silence on the platform.
Han Li was initially shocked before he turned his head over with concealed delight.
It was the sound of the barrier being torn open at the entrance of the stone steps. Zenith Yin and the others had also clearly heard this sound.
With an unsightly expression, Man Huzi let out a rain of curses before patting the Beast storage pouch at his waist. A streak of yellow light shot out, revealing a yellow spotted panther.
Not only was its body several times larger than an ordinary panther, but there was also a third eye emerging from the top of its head. A flickering yellow glow could be faintly seen from its third eye.
A cold glint flickered from Qing Yi’s eyes. He icily said, “Wan Tianming and the others have arrived. My Azure Thorn Bird and Fellow Daoist Wu’s two demon corpses have already perished. They obviously aren’t willing to allow us to seize the treasure and are coming back to attack us.”
“We must delay them for as long as possible. The Heavenvoid Cauldron is already over halfway out. However, the attractive force on the cauldron will only grow heavier the closer it comes to the surface. It isn’t something that can be pulled out in a short amount of time.” Zenith Yin’s face was icy, but he displayed no sign of panic. It seemed the return of the Righteous Dao cultivators was something he had long since anticipated.
“It is as Brother Wu says!” Qing Yi knew they were on the verge of a great battle and swiftly responded. With a flutter of his sleeves, a large flock of azure spheres rushed out. They were over a hundred Azure Thorn Birds.
Although these birds were only fist-sized, they had feathers and beaks of razor-sharp steel. They all silently floated above the old man, making for an impressive display.
As for Zenith Yin, he had his hands clutched in an incantation gesture. A pitch-black mist began to slowly exude from his body. As this devilish mist drifted through the air, fifteen dark-green armored demon corpses appeared around him.
Man Huzi cooly glanced at the two other Core Formation cultivators in silence. Wu Chou hastily took a few steps towards the altar with a restless expression. As for the Bone Sage, his eyes swiveled several times, but he stood completely still. It was unknown what he intended.
Seeing that the Bone Sage hadn’t moved, Han Li frowned for a moment before immediately relaxing his face. Several streaks of light had arrived before them at an amazing speed, appearing in front of the altar in only a fraction of a second.
The light disappeared to reveal the group of three Righteous Dao cultivators.
After Wan Tianming swept his gaze past the Bloodjade spider that was pulling up the Heavenvoid Cauldron along with the blue light wildly bursting out of the hole, he calmly said, “Good, very good!” The Devil Dao cultivators looked at each other, not knowing what he had meant by his words.
Man Huzi glared at him and retorted, “Good? I am obviously feeling quite good. But I’d feel even better if you hadn’t come.”
Wan Tianming indifferently said, “I also didn’t want to come, but who would’ve thought that shortly after I left, this young fellow would take out a long extinct Bloodjade Spider. As such, how could I possibly just walk away?” After he said this, he moved his lips, releasing an odd low-pitched whistle.
Man Huzi and the others were startled. As they pondered what sinister plot their opponent was up to, Wan Tianming stood in place when there was a sudden flash of white light. Like a bolt of lightning, a blue mouse-like creature scuttled into his hand with amazing speed.
At that moment, the Sect Master of the Myriad Gates of Enlightenment silently glanced at the Devil Dao cultivators with a sneer.
“A Stoneshift Beast!” Upon seeing the beast, Qing Yi couldn’t help but shout out its name.
“Hehe! Had I not left this creature behind to monitor you, how could I have known the right time to come back? This Stoneshift Beast has no particularly remarkable abilities aside from it’s stealthy stone transformation. Even with your profound abilities, you couldn’t have possibly detected this creature. Its seems I was correct to leave this contingency measure behind.”
Wan Tianming gently caressed the Stoneshift Beast in his hand and glanced at the Bloodjade Spider a moment more. He leisurely said, “Now, I will give you two choices. One is that I will kill the Bloodjade Spider and have the Heavenvoid Cauldron remain buried. The other is for our two sides to evenly split the treasure. This sect master can’t possibly allow you Devil Dao cultivators to monopolize the cauldron’s treasures.”
It seemed that Wan Tianming had made plans in advance and didn’t fear their refusal.
Chapter 482: The Battle Begins
“Split it evenly with you?” Zenith Yin frowned as if he were tempted by the thought. In Zenith Yin’s eyes, so long as he was able to take the portion from his in-name disciple, he wouldn’t be given too small a share, regardless of how the treasure was split.
But before Zenith Yin could further consider the matter, Man Huzi insolently laughed as he stood at the very front. “Evenly split the Heavenvoid Cauldron?! Wan Tianming, you sure can dream! You want to take food out of this lord’s mouth? First, let’s see just how sharp your claws are!”
Man Huzi then shouted and the huge panther that was crouching in front of him suddenly stood and roared. The beast’s third eye opened, shooting out a yellow beam of light towards Wan Tianming.
“Animal, you’re seeking death!” Wan Tianming furiously shouted.
He hadn’t anticipated that Man Huzi would launch an attack without giving his proposal even the slightest consideration. Regardless of how it could be seen, his side currently had the advantage due to the assistance of the Glacial Flood Dragon and the Phantom Tortoise.
Wan Tianming flusteredly responded by shooting out a beam of violet light from his hand to meet the yellow beam. In the instant the beams of light met, a burst of yellow radiance erupted.
With a bang, the violet light disappeared without a trace. Instead, a smoking white object fell from the air. B
efore anyone could clearly see what it was, it had already shattered to pieces. After carefully staring at the pieces, it was apparent that there were pieces of common stone. A majority of the people who saw this were stunned and filled with doubt.
When Wan Tianming saw this, his expression changed several times and the spirited look in his eyes disappeared. He shouted with disbelief, “An aberrant technique! Your Three Eyed Panther is a spirit beast variant!”
Upon hearing the words “spirit beast variant”, everyone on both sides appeared shocked.
Spirit beast variants and antiquity variants sounded somewhat the same, but the difference was actually as large as heaven and earth. “Antiquity variants” were remnants of a few uncommon spirit beasts that were left behind from ages long past. Due to changes of appearance and characteristics over the long passage of time, they became an entirely new species that only possessed a few of the characteristics of their predecessors.
However, these spirit beasts were extremely rare and difficult to find.
As for spirit beast variants, each one is an entirely unique existence. They were spirit beasts that have underwent unpredictable mutations for some unknown reason, resulting in their capabilities being greatly changed. The quality of these variations all differed from one another, but each of these variants all had amazing abilities that exceeded what was capable of common magic techniques.
The ability to petrify a majority of magic tools or magic treasures was among the better known abilities.
This ability was quite incisive. If a Core Formation cultivator were to make use such an ability of their own spirit beast variant, they would be able to cleanly deal with four cultivators of their rank in a single breath. As the abilities of these spirit beast variants often caused tremors amidst the Scattered Star Seas, they became collectively known as “aberrant techniques”, distinguishing them from common magic techniques.
Originally, a Three Eyed Panther was only capable of shooting fire attribute attacks out of its third eye. But now, it was capable of shooting out a beam of light that was able to turn magic tools and treasures into stone. This was an ability that only a spirit beast could perform after a mutation.
Spirit beast variants were a rare existence that hardly ever occured. In addition, the variations only appeared in spirit beasts at grade four and above. Ever since the existence of spirit beast variants became widely known in the Scattered Star Seas, no more than a dozen had appeared. And among those dozen, less than half of them possessed any particularly destructive abilities.
Even worse, spirit beast variants had come increasingly rare. It had been over a thousand years since the last spirit beast variation had been seen. As such, spirit beast breeders no longer held any hopes that one of their beasts would become a variant. The thought had become nothing more than a fleeting daydream.
At that moment, Wan Tianming realized the reason Man Huzi had so bluntly refused the offer to split the treasure was because he had this to rely on. His Three Eyed Panther variant was fearsome enough to even the odds against both their Glacial Flood Dragon and Phantom Tortoise.
Having understood this, Wan Tianming’s expression grew solemn, and he turned his gaze towards Zenith Yin and Layman Qing Yi. The two revealed both surprise and delight. It was clear that they had already decided to refuse his offer to split the Heavenvoid Cauldron.
Wan Tianming guessed correctly. Now that Zenith Yin knew that Man Huzi’s Three Eyed Panther was a spirit beast variant, the thought of sharing had been thrown to the back of his head. As for Qing Yi, this towering figure of the Devil Dao was by no means a true layman of Buddhism. He would naturally be unwilling to split the treasure with the Righteous Dao cultivators if he could monopolize it.
Zenith Yin meaningfully exchanged a glance with Qing Yi before he started to spin in a circle. Countless strands of profound black Qi spread out around him. The many Heavenwide Corpses around him began to distort and then disappeared without a trace in a flash of black light.
Layman Qing Yi sent a voice transmission into Han Li’s ear, “Stand a bit farther back, and protect your life as best you can. We won’t be able to protect you in the coming fight.”
After this was said, the Azure Thorn Birds above his head received their orders. They released a chilling cry and shot towards the Righteous Dao cultivators as a swarm of azure arrows. The old man also threw out another the swarm of birds.
Seeing the Devil Dao cultivators rush to act, Wan Tianming responded without restraint. Even if Man Huzi’s Spirit Beast Variant was somewhat troublesome, he had nothing to fear from it. In the end a vicious spirit beast variant is no more than a mere beast.
Besides, he clearly understood that while this aberrant technique could petrify objects, it didn’t have much effect on a cultivator’s body. So long as he was somewhat careful and prevented his magic treasures from being struck by the yellow light, the spirit beast could be dealt with.
With that thought, Wan Tianming snorted and quickly shouted, “Move!”
With that said, he released his white Glacial Flood Dragon and struck his palms against his chest, causing a purple flame to wildly erupt from his body. In the next instant, he was enveloped in purple flames and was charging down towards Man Huzi from the sky.
When Tian Wuzi saw this, he quickly called out to the Phantom Tortoise and struck the its shell without any hesitation. An ominous glint suddenly flickered from the huge tortoise’s small eyes. It slowly opened its mouth, spouting out a white icy mist in overwhelming quantity, sending a raging snowstorm in the direction of the incoming Azure Thorn Birds.
Unwilling to be outmatched, the Azure Thorn Birds opened their sharp beaks in response. Slim streaks of azure flame successively shot out, rapidly merging into a huge beam of azure flame. Both the azure flame and the icy mist scattered upon impact as if they were evenly matched at the moment.
The old, dark and thin farmer’s actions were particularly strange. He suddenly flipped his hand in a stiff manner, summoning a glistening emerald willow branch to appear between his fingers. With a slight wave of his branch, circles of countless green phantasms of itself flew off, densely filling up an area of over forty meters turning into a sea of verdant green.
But with two flickers of black light, two armored demon corpses suddenly appeared among the green light phantasms. The green threads around them tightly bound the several Heavenwide Corpses as if the threads were alive.
These demon corpses possessed monstrous strength, but in the bindings of the green thread, they were powerless. Unable to break free form their bindings, the two corpses howled as they struggled in vain.
When Zenith Yin saw this, his face grew icy. In a mere second, he had turned his body into a large black cloud, rapidly shooting towards the sky. As each individual Heavenwide Corpse was quite difficult to refine, he was unwilling to abandon them lightly. And since his opponent was obviously using a wood attribute technique, his Heavenwide Corpsefire would be doubly effective at half the effort!
Seeing that the battle between the Nascent Soul cultivators was unfolding, Han Li didn’t need any further instructions before deciding to take over ten steps back.
Although he clearly understood that even taking a hundred steps back wouldn’t make a difference, Han Li subconsciously wished to be further away. If the Righteous Dao cultivators changed their minds and didn’t wish to acquire the Heavenvoid Cauldron, they might aim to exterminate the master of the Bloodjade Spider. In that case, his death would be certain! He couldn’t possibly trust that Man Huzi and the others would arrive in time to save him. After all, to a Nascent Soul cultivator, travelling any distance on the stone platform would only take an instant.
At this moment, his mind suddenly wandered to the Bone Sage. Zenith Yin was currently tangled up in a fight against the other Nascent Soul cultivators, providing a good opportunity for the Bone Sage to ambush him. Would he prioritize settling his own score and taking revenge, or would he decide to be patient and refuse to provide
aid to the Righteous Dao?
With that thought, Han Li couldn’t help but look in the direction of the Bone Sage who stood below the altar.
At that moment, the Bone Sage was expressionlessly watching the battle unfold. His face was completely devoid of any emotion, preventing Han Li from reading him in the slightest.
‘Old fox!’ Han Li couldn’t help but gloomily curse at him in his mind.
Chapter 483: Transformed Treasure
Still unsure of the Bone Sage’s intentions, Han Li’s gaze moved towards his nearby Bloodjade Spider.
The red light in the spider’s body began to shine even more brilliantly and, trembling ever so slightly, it pulled its thread back.
In that moment, the milky white spider web sparkled with a faint, yet chilling blue light . The light traveled up the web until it collided with the Bloodjade Spider’s own red light and immediately dissipated into specks of white light. It couldn’t make even the slightest contact with the Bloodjade Spider’s body.
Han Li frowned. There was no doubt this strange light had something to do with the Celestial Ice Flame. Nor was it any no wonder why those eccentrics wouldn’t dare assist the spirit beast in acquiring the treasure. They were fearful of this blue light.
But just as Han Li finished this thought, he heard the sound of Man Huzi laughing as an explosion went off in the sky. The spectacle brought Han Li’s attention back to the battle at hand.
He watched as Man Huzi’s body grew thirteen meters in size. The clothes on the upper half of his body disappeared to reveal the densely packed golden scales that lined his body. They radiated brightly to the point where they can’t be directly seen. But what was even more strange were the several silver rings of light rotating around his huge body.
The silver rings seemed illusionary and fluttered erratically, but they were very much capable of preventing Wan Tianming’s purple flame dragons from approaching Man Huzi, always blocking their every advance. Although Man Huzi proclaimed that his Heavenbearing Devil Arts was ranked first in the Scattered Star Seas, even he was unwilling to foolishly take on Wan Tianming’s true flames with this technique alone.
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 261