Bao’er’s fiend power had awakened, putting Tang Jie in an awkward spot.
If this had been before the tiger had been exposed, Tang Jie still could have hidden him.
But by now, Bao’er had shown himself to quite a few people.
Cai Junyang was the first to know of Bao’er’s existence, but over the last few days, Tang Jie had met several other students who had also seen Bao’er.
As Tang Jie had been intending to reveal Bao’er to the world, he hadn’t made any attempts to hide him. On the contrary, he had encouraged the misconception that he had acquired the little tiger in the valley.
But Bao’er’s natural spell arts made all the lies blatant and created a clear problem.
This was particularly because Bao’er’s bloodline had yet to awaken, and he had yet to achieve intelligence, so he still didn’t understand many things. Thus, having him hide his abilities was basically impossible—he would even use all his abilities for the sake of a chunk of meat.
Once he got back to the Basking Moon Sect, being discovered was only a matter of time.
Even if he were left in the valley, at his current level of strength, he wouldn’t be able to keep up and would most likely die.
Moreover, Wang Poguan had not had him take the little tiger out just so his son could be put in another cage.
What was he going to do?
Tang Jie racked his brain for ideas.
The little tiger had no idea of Tang Jie’s troubles, and continued to excitedly devour the Thunderbird meat.
As he watched the cub chomp away, Tang Jie muttered, “Three natural spell arts. Even one would make the Basking Moon Sect very suspicious, and it’s impossible for him to not use them, unless… unless the spell arts mutated. Since what’s natural can’t be changed, I can only artificially alter them… Yes, there might still be a chance.”
Tang Jie’s eyes brightened.
But fiend beasts were different from sprites. As they were not born with intelligence, they couldn’t learn spell arts. Only by hunting and absorbing fiend power could they obtain spell arts.
However, this also meant that their learning process was extremely simple.
By constantly attempting to use their powers while hunting, they gradually mastered them.
Until they were able to transform, almost all fiend beasts used this method to strengthen themselves.
This little guy was able to so quickly awaken his fiend power precisely because he had consumed too much fiend beast flesh over the last few days.
But as this meat came from various sources, it didn’t grant him any new spell arts, only increased his fiend power.
But if he ate enough of the same kind of fiend beast essence, he might obtain a new spell or mutate one of his current spells from the essence he derived from this fiend beast.
This was similar in principle to the refinement that Tang Jie went through in his baths.
And before him was precisely such an opportunity…
Upon thinking this, Tang Jie cast his gaze over at the distant Thunderbird Cliff.
If he only wanted to harvest this region, victory or defeat wasn’t important. But now, he had no choice but to complete this campaign.
“Shit…” Tang Jie viciously said, “Little thing, I’m hunting for your sake, so you had better step up! If you don’t go from a wind tiger to a wind and lightning tiger, I won’t serve you any more.”
The little tiger growled, but it was hard to say for sure that he actually understood what Tang Jie had said.
Thus, the protracted siege battle of Thunderbird Cliff continued.
Unlike before, Tang Jie’s intrusions were much more savage, audacious, and brash.
In the past, he would rest between his raids, at times clearing the surroundings, adjusting his body and mental state, and changing things up. But now, he spent all twenty-four hours in a tireless assault, stealing from and provoking the Thunderbird flock.
He seemed to have become addicted to Thunderbird flesh and had lost interest in anything else.
In one day, he attacked the Thunderbird flock seven to eight times, and this pace only picked up, essentially fighting once every two hours.
Yes, fighting!
Tang Jie had stopped running for his life, instead countering as he fled, seeking out opportunities to kill the Thunderbirds and giving all of the slain Thunderbirds to the little tiger to eat.
This insane method caused the number of Thunderbirds to rapidly plunge.
On the sixteenth day in the Valley of No Return, Tang Jie attacked seven times and killed six Thunderbirds.
On the seventeenth day, he attacked eight times and killed eight.
On the nineteenth day, he attacked nine times and killed eleven, obtaining one fiend pellet.
On the nineteenth day, he attacked eleven times and killed sixteen.
With each passing day, Tang Jie’s attacks and the number of Thunderbirds he killed rose in number. In just a few days, he had wiped out a third of the Thunderbird flock.
As the balance in strength slowly tipped and Tang Jie’s resistance rose, the pace of the slaughter accelerated.
On the twentieth day, Tang Jie attacked thirteen times and killed twenty-four Thunderbirds.
The Thunderbird flock that had once dominated the western end of the Valley of No Return was no longer as brash. In the face of the unkillable Tang Jie, they began to back away in fear, like a turtle drawing its head into its shell.
But by shrinking away, they gave Tang Jie even more opportunities to bathe himself in thunderspirit grass, and with more baths, he was able to pick up the frequency of his attacks even more.
Tang Jie could no longer even remember how many baths he had taken with thunderspirit grass, how many times he had thrown those blue flowers into the water so that they could turn into medicinal fluid and seep into his body, enhancing his resistance as he basked in the steam.
Now, the lightning bolt of the upper-grade Spirit Sensing Thunderbird King could only slightly scorch his skin, not heavily injure him like before. As for paralyzing, that was simply impossible.
The only thing that Tang Jie was still somewhat afraid of was the concentrated salvo of countless Thunderbirds, but as Tang Jie grew more and more proficient in the Violet Lightning Lunge, this sort of salvo also grew less effective. Besides his lightning resistance, Tang Jie was experiencing the greatest growth in the Violet Lightning Lunge which he used to run for his life.
Ten-some days of constant use had led Tang Jie to experience a breakthrough in the Violet Lightning Lunge, and he was finally able to feel the threshold of truly moving his body like lightning. And the special attributes of a spell of the Divine Firmament Sword Classic finally began to make themselves manifest.
Hunting down several dozen Thunderbirds had given the little tiger an ample source of meat, such that the tiger was filled to the bursting every day with their flesh. Later on, he couldn’t even eat anymore and Tang Jie had to force him to eat. For the first time in his life, the little tiger learned that even eating meat was a sort of suffering.
Even so, the little tiger showed no abnormalities. Tang Jie had even given the tiger the fiend pellet, but all that did was make him larger and stronger.
Of course, this might have been because Tang Jie had only killed lower-grade Thunderbirds.
The twenty-first day.
Tang Jie once more arrived at Thunderbird Cliff.
He had picked all the thunderspirit grass beneath the cliff, so he had finally turned his target to the Thunderbirds atop the cliff.
Standing at the bottom of the cliff, he pointed his finger at the sky.
Several dozen Thunderbirds circled in the sky, and their leader, the Thunderbird King, screeched in anger.
It understood this human’s intent. He planned to kill them all.
The flock screeched as it circled in the air to higher altitudes in order to avoid this terrifying human.
Tang Jie simply chuckled and pointed at the nests on the cliff.
A few newborn chicks were cheeping in the nest. They extended their necks and cried out, like invisible ropes that pulled on the wings of every Thunderbird.
A moment later, Tang Jie drew back his hand.
The copy of the Divine Firmament Sword Classic appeared before him.
Tang Jie began to open and close his hands, holding his middle fingers opposite to each other, and he began to chant, “I impose infinite dharmas, and my body is one with the heart of the world. The unrestrained heart of the Great Mara is without blame. This is the incantation of Heavenly King Mara…”
Heavenly King Mara’s Incantation!
This was an extremely powerful spell art recorded in the Divine Firmament Sword Classic. It was a spell art that originated from the Buddhist school of another domain. Just like the Thunder Lightsear Sword Lin Lang had used, it was at the apex of spells and already embodied some of the power of an art.
While Heavenly King Mara’s Incantation was more powerful, it also consumed more spiritual energy. Tang Jie only had the spiritual energy of the Spirit Lake Tier, so he could barely use this spell a single time.
This spell was extremely difficult to cast, and it was only because the last few days had scared the Thunderbird flock into not attacking Tang Jie that he had the time to cast it.
Thus, as the incantation was chanted, clouds began to gather over Thunderbird Cliff.
A massive human figure appeared in the sky. It had Tang Jie’s face, but it was so handsome and dignified that it appeared like a god descending. This was the Heavenly King manifestation formed from the Heavenly King Mara Incantation.
This was his first time using this incantation, so the manifestation was only a hundred meters tall. A true Heavenly King manifestation at the peak could reach a height of ten thousand meters and obliterate all with one strike. Even so, this was enough to deal with the Thunderbird flock.
The phantom in the air slowly extended a hand and slammed it down at the Thunderbird flock.
The flock instantly scattered in panic, but the Thunderbird King swooped down straight at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie simply grunted. His left hand continued to maintain the Heavenly King manifestation while his right hand swung. The giant hand in the air suddenly changed directions like someone swatting at flies. Whoosh! Numerous Thunderbirds were struck, their bones snapping.
Tang Jie pressed his right hand down, and the giant hand hurtled down toward the nests on the cliff.
The Thunderbird King could no longer attack Tang Jie. It flew toward the giant hand and rammed against it. As it let out a sharp shriek, a thick lightning bolt descended from the heavens and struck the manifestation.
The manifestation flickered and gradually began to show signs of collapse.
This was a sign that Tang Jie was running out of spiritual energy to maintain such a powerful spell, and Tang Jie didn’t try to force it. He simply bent his finger and flicked, sending out a bolt of wind.
Energy Needle!
It was a simple spell, but when unleashed through the Heavenly King Mara Incantation, it became a spear of lightning that could penetrate the firmament.
There was a blinding explosion of light as ten-some Thunderbirds were pierced through by the Energy Needle, and even one of the steely wings of the Thunderbird King had a hole punched through it.
At the same time, the Heavenly King manifestation finally dissipated.
Creee! The Thunderbird King angrily screeched as it swooped at Tang Jie.
Though it had yet to reach Mind Opening, it knew that this cultivator had undoubtedly consumed a lot of energy to cast such a powerful spell and was certain to be unable to escape in the short term. This was precisely the moment for the Thunderbirds to attack with everything they had.
All of the surviving Thunderbirds attacked in unison, the sky once more flashing with electricity.
Tang Jie truly didn’t have much spiritual energy left.
But what did that matter?
His real strength wasn’t in his spells. If one didn’t consider his powerful body, his strength was that of a third-year student at best, but with his powerful body, he could sweep through the vast majority of the students at the Spirit Platform Realm.
As the flock swooped down at him, Tang Jie took a spirit recovery pill before slowly pulling out the Heartbreak Saber.
After the bombardment, it was time for blades to clash. Saber light exploded and blood splashed as a gruesome battle began!
