SFS Chapter 115 Battle to build foundation 2
Chapter 115 Battle to build foundation 2
Zhang Lin squatted down, first taking away Li Xiao's storage bag, and then removing the bone ring from his finger.
The moment he touched the White Bone Ring, he felt a chilling aura creeping up his arm.
Even if only a trace of true essence remains, the true essence of a Foundation Establishment cultivator is still a hundred times more solid than that of a Qi Refining cultivator.
If this true essence were controlled by a master, Zhang Lin's meridians would be instantly corroded and destroyed.
But now it is just in a state of being unclaimed and scattered, and is not fundamentally different from the deathly aura of the living corpses in White Stone Town.
Having obtained the White Bone Ring, Zhang Lin dared not linger and immediately fled underground.
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The wind blades poured down like a torrential rain, plowing the ground within a radius of a hundred feet again and again.
Each gust of wind that cut into the ground sent up several feet of soil debris.
Fragments of bluestone mixed in with the soil were pulverized by the wind blades, raising a gray-white dust cloud in the deathly night sky.
Zhang Lin lay motionless in the mud, which was several meters deep.
The aftershocks of the wind blades swept past his head several times, the closest one being no more than three feet away. The wind blades slowed down sharply after cutting into the ground, but still had enough power to sever a section of tree root buried underground.
The cut was as smooth as a mirror, and the sap in the tree roots evaporated from the residual force of the wind blade, making a hissing sound.
Do not move.
Zhang Lin constricted his breath-concealing technique and spiritual sense to the extreme, using only the faintest trace to perceive the movement on the ground.
Although the spiritual sense of a Foundation Establishment cultivator is weakened by both death energy and soil, greatly reducing the depth of their perception, its range is still extremely wide.
If he moves rashly, the fluctuations in his spiritual energy will be immediately detected.
He lay there quietly, the key being not to rush, as Zhou Huaili's true energy was not inexhaustible.
On the ground, Zhou Huaili's wind blade attack lasted for a full twenty breaths.
The ground within a radius of a hundred feet was overturned, and a thick layer of gravel, wood chips, and bone fragments were mixed in with the soil, forming a mess of scorched earth.
The wooden buildings surrounding the town hall have long since been reduced to fragments, with only the brick and stone dyehouse still standing, its walls covered with crisscrossing cuts, seemingly on the verge of collapse.
Zhou Huaili stopped.
The true essence in the dantian is less than 15%.
The indiscriminate wind blade attack that just now seemed powerful, but in reality, it consumed an astonishing amount of energy. It drew upon the power of heaven and earth to cover an area of a hundred feet in radius, burning true essence with every breath.
He took out a Rejuvenation Pill and swallowed it. The pill transformed into a warm current in his stomach, but his true essence was restored by less than 30%.
What made him even more uneasy was that he could not sense any presence from Zhang Lin.
That junior seemed to have truly vanished from the world.
Zhou Huaili narrowed his eyes, his spiritual sense sweeping across the ruins inch by inch like a comb.
Zhang Lin slowly moved underground, bypassing the area beneath Zhou Huaili's feet, and crept towards the town hall.
Above his head, Zhou Huaili's spiritual sense swept across the ground like a tidal wave.
Li Xiao's corpse had been shredded by his wind blades, his flesh and blood mixed with the dirt, a gruesome sight.
Zhou Huaili stood in front of the ruins of the town hall, looking at the gray light spots still drifting on Li Xiao's corpse, his killing intent intensifying.
He didn't stop; instead, he spread his spiritual sense out again.
Zhou Huaili's spiritual sense swept over the ruins of the dye house, over the collapsed pavilion, and over the withered tree roots that had been flattened by the wind blades, but there was no trace of any living person.
But that kid definitely hasn't left yet; the trapping formation he set up is still in operation.
The faint fluctuations of spiritual energy still appeared intermittently around them, indicating that the array flags were still there and that he was still alive.
Zhou Huaili's gaze darkened.
Little brat, since you're still here, let's just wait it out.
He sat cross-legged, his hands forming a mudra on his knees, and the Rejuvenation Pill he had taken began to circulate more rapidly.
His true essence slowly recovered in his meridians, but his spiritual consciousness was like an invisible net, tightly locking down the area within a hundred feet.
Let's drag this out.
Once he recovers to 40% of his true essence, we can use a large-scale manipulation of the power of heaven and earth to force him to reveal himself.
He didn't believe that a technique that could evade the detection of a Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual sense would have low energy consumption, allowing a junior in the Qi Refining stage to hide for a lifetime.
Just then, he suddenly felt a very faint fluctuation of blood-fiend spiritual energy.
The fluctuation came from the ground beside Li Xiao.
Zhou Huaili suddenly stood up.
He realized that the junior hadn't run far at all, but had used earth-遁术 (earth-遁术, a technique that allows one to escape from the earth) to hide beneath the location of the demonic cultivator's body.
Zhou Huaili sneered.
Well hidden.
He spread his five fingers wide with his right hand, and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was once again drawn in.
This time, he held back, drawing in spiritual energy that coalesced into dozens of earthen-yellow spikes, each about ten feet long, which pierced into the ground.
Earth is the power of heaven and earth, capable of splitting the earth and piercing it.
Spikes pierced the ground, like the fangs of a giant beast biting into the soil.
The first, second, and third strikes each precisely targeted the source of the true energy fluctuations detected by the spiritual sense.
The entire town hall ruins collapsed completely during the earthquake.
However, Zhou Huaili's face stiffened; no one was there.
This is the moment Zhang Lin has been waiting for.
In the instant Zhou Huaili lost his composure, a sliver of a crack appeared in his spiritual consciousness.
Zhang Lin burst forth from the ground, not from the location Zhou Huaili had anticipated, but from the ruins of a collapsed pavilion thirty feet to his side.
His figure drew an arc in the air as he summoned the Blood Fiend Banner, which unfurled in the air, its blood-red light surging like waves.
Zhou Huaili reacted extremely quickly, spreading his five fingers wide, and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth condensed in front of him into three pale golden arrows, which shot towards Zhang Lin in a triangular shape.
The golden arrow pierced the air with a sharp, piercing whistle.
But Zhang Lin neither dodged nor avoided it.
With a flick of his left hand, he summoned the Soul-Suppressing Bell once more.
Ding~
The second chime resounded in the night sky above White Stone Town.
This time, the bell rang even more sharply than the first time, as it was infused with the true essence that Lu Yuanshan had injected into it.
The runes on the bell were all lit up, and the dark blue bronze bell trembled violently. The sound waves were so real that they spread outwards from Zhang Lin as the center.
The three golden arrows trembled in the sound waves, gradually twisting and shattering, turning into dissipated golden spiritual energy that vanished into the air.
Although Zhou Huaili was not directly hit by the Soul-Suppressing Bell, the aftershocks of the bell still caused a sharp pain in his mind.
Even more deadly was the aftershock of the bell's toll, which was mixed with the light of the Blood Fiend Banner.
Zhou Huaili suppressed the shock to his soul, patted his storage bag with his right hand, and a silver light flew out. It was a high-grade magic weapon-level flying sword, with a slender blade like a willow leaf, silver-white all over, and fine gold runes engraved on the blade.
The flying sword drew a silver arc across the night sky, aiming straight for Zhang Lin's face.
Even if a Foundation Establishment cultivator's magical artifact is only of superior quality, its speed and power are far superior to those of a Qi Refining cultivator.
The Tianlan Taoist Robe has a unique feature: a water curtain rises automatically.
The silver-white flying sword flew silently through the air, its tip piercing through the water curtain and carrying a chilling aura straight towards Zhang Lin's brow.
Before the sword even arrived, its pressure had already blown his hair up.
But halfway through its flight, the flying sword began to wobble and stagger like a headless fly.
Zhou Huaili's expression changed, and his mind went blank; it was the Blood Fiend Banner's Profound Yin Soul-Seizing Technique.
Under the cover of the bell's toll, the blood-red threads shooting out from the Blood Fiend Banner once again invaded Zhou Huaili's sea of consciousness.
Although he was prepared this time and his spiritual sense was firmly guarding his mind, the blood-red thread was like a bone-deep ailment, constantly eroding his spiritual sense.
With his spiritual senses disturbed, the flying sword lost its aim, glancing diagonally past Zhang Lin three feet away and piercing into a pile of ruins.
(Thanks to Baozi and Sunset Mist for the monthly pass.)