An incredible sight played out before the fiends.
The rather short trees suddenly began to grow high into the sky. Their crowns rapidly expanded as numerous branches sprouted from their trunks, twining together and blotting out the sky.
Thousands of years seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, instantly transforming this mountain ridge into a primordial forest.
This was the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation!
When this formation was activated, the creatures within the formation would immediately be divided by large numbers of trees and would come under ceaseless attack. No one could leave unless the formation were destroyed. With the activation of the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation, the mountain range was divided into two different worlds.
The vast, primordial world within the formation had countless dangers that would devour the fiends, and outside the formation were twenty-some fiends that were mystified by what had happened.
The lion fiend’s vigilance and its astonishing strength had meant that Tang Jie couldn’t wait for all the fiends to enter. Thus, the formation had activated before all the fiends could go inside.
These twenty-some fiends were the greatest threat to the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation. As this green screen surged up, heaven-soaring trees appearing everywhere, the fiends began to run around like headless flies. Some of the more violent ones even began to ram into the screen.
All formations shared a common point: they focused on only one direction, whether it was inside or outside, either killing those inside or defending against those outside. Those that did both were either extremely expensive or terrible at both.
The same was true for the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation. It was mainly a formation that attacked those on the inside and was basically useless against those on the outside.
Fortunately, these fiends didn’t understand formations, and they didn’t know the method to break the formation, only brute force. But their continued battering and ramming was also a burden on the formation and would hasten its collapse.
Fortunately, Tang Jie had prepared for all of this.
The moment he activated the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation, two figures rushed out of the formation: Yiyi and the little tiger. Yiyi raised her hand, and a large number of flowers emerged, creating a new barrier between the formation and the outside world. The little tiger flew out, using the flower formation as cover to assail the fiends.
At the same time, in the world within the formation.
Just as the golden mace was about to smash into Tang Jie’s head, ten-some thick vines shot out of the ground and carried the lion into the air, causing that strike to miss.
Grass sprouted out of the ground and tangled around the fiends, creating a prison of thorns. Numerous fiends were bound by these thorns and held aloft, where they furiously roared.
Not only that, the dense thorned vines drew tighter and tighter, their thorns penetrating deeper into the bodies of the fiends and beginning to suck their blood.
As for Tang Jie, as the lion fiend, the bull fiend, the wolf fiend, and their followers were carried into the air, he blinked over to a lower-grade tiger fiend and swung his saber, chopping off its head. He then moved over to a monkey fiend and thrust the Heartbreak Saber into the monkey’s gut. As he pulled out its viscera, he also grabbed the monkey’s fiend pellet. He then moved to another fiend beast’s side, and with a chop of his saber, another fiend was slain.
His attacks were brutal and lethal, and he slaughtered the fiends as a butcher would lambs. The lion, bull, and wolf fiends all roared in fury and madness.
The wolf fiend screamed, “Bastard!”
It opened its mouth and fired an azure crescent wind blade at Tang Jie.
While the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation could bind and even kill fiends, it couldn’t stop fiends from casting spells. But fiends weren’t sprites; they mostly cultivated their physical bodies, so they had powerful bodies and average spell arts. Thus, once restrained, their strength was more than halved. This was precisely why Tang Jie could freely move through the forest and hunt down these fiends.
While this gray wolf was at the lower grade of Mind Opening, it was all about physical cultivation, and it emphasized speed and close combat. The power of its spells was rather average, and purely in terms of spell arts, it might not even be able to beat a Spirit Sea student. Thus, Tang Jie simply moved to the side to dodge the wind blade, and then he blinked up to a fiend snake. He swung his saber, sliced the snake open, and extracted a fiend pellet from its body, upon which he left. The fiend snake was not completely dead, still writhing in pain amidst the thorns. It was a Worm Snake, an extremely tenacious kind of fiend beast that could be reborn even if its head were cut off. But it hadn’t expected Tang Jie to dissect it and take out its fiend pellet rather than cutting off its head, thus seizing its life force and allowing the formation to extract the rest of its life, which was exactly the method to counter such a fiend.
In truth, while Tang Jie’s actions seemed simple, his every attack was aimed at the weaknesses of the fiends. Otherwise, the fiends, with their powerful bodies and tenacious life forces, would take many forceful swings of the saber to kill. Such were the benefits of the Dao of Insight. The Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation bound the fiends while the Dao of Insight found their weaknesses, the two of them allowing Tang Jie to instantly kill his foes.
He needed to kill these fiends in the shortest time possible for fear that some new development might occur!
Whether it was the attacks outside the formation or the binding going on within it, it was all a burden on the formation. As he lacked enough materials and was binding too many opponents, the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation was bound to be a short-lived formation. Tang Jie’s only solution was to squeeze it for all the value it was worth before it collapsed, and kill all the fiends.
Thus, he didn’t waste time talking, flying through the forest with saber in hand and killing all opposition like some formidable demon protecting its territory.
The three Mind Opening fiends madly roared, their eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets.
“Damn you!” the bull fiend bellowed. “Break!”
It shook its arms, sending a powerful ripple through its body. The black bull was a naturally strong fiend, and while it was of lower grade, when it came to strength, it was even a little stronger than the middle-grade lion fiend. As it flexed all of its muscles, even the vines created by the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation couldn’t bind it, and snapped with sharp bangs.
Just as all the vines were about to break, Tang Jie cut down a fiend and turned around, snorting at the black bull, “If it were that easy to get out, would this still be called a formation?”
Tang Jie slightly raised his left hand and pointed at the black bull, upon which more vines emerged and coiled around the black bull.
You can break them, but I can make more!
So long as the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation had power, it would continue to produce vines to bind his foes.
No matter how strong the bull fiend was, it could only fruitlessly struggle against the endless vines.
As he rebound the bull, Tang Jie rushed up to it and swung his saber.
He had not attacked these three fiends before because they were too strong and he wouldn’t be able to deal with them in a short time. Thus, it was better to let the formation grind away at them while he killed the smaller fiends and reduced the burden on the formation.
But this bull fiend had started fighting back, and while it couldn’t escape, every struggle placed an additional burden on the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation. Thus, Tang Jie had decided to kill the black bull first.
The Heartbreak Saber unleashed a dazzling flame as it struck the bull on the head, releasing a burst of sparks.
This bull’s head was as tough as iron.
Tang Jie wasn’t too surprised. In the earlier clash, Tang Jie had been able to tell that of the four great generals of Fragrant Store Cave, the lynx was the worst of all, not even matching up to a standard lower-grade Mind Opening fiend. If not for Old Crow Ridge having only these few Mind Opening fiends, the lynx probably wouldn’t have even been made a general. The wolf fiend was third, one of those who was average in all aspects. Among lower-grade Mind Opening fiends, it was probably the typical kind, and its expertise was in tracking through scent. The eagle fiend was second-strongest, relying on its speed and sharp attacks to dominate.
The strongest was the black bull fiend.
It was strong and tough, and its spell arts were also not lacking. Besides summoning soldiers, it also had that art relic bezoar that could cure all poisons. This was a powerful fiend that excelled in all aspects, though when it was removed from the ground, the bull fiend could no longer use many of its Earth spell arts.
In an actual duel, Tang Jie wasn’t guaranteed to win.
Killing above one’s level wasn’t just about strengthening oneself, but also weakening the foe. This bull fiend clearly wasn’t someone that could be so easily slain by those weaker than it. Even when it was bound up, it wouldn’t allow itself to be bullied.
With this attack failing to chop off the bull’s head, Tang Jie’s eyes flashed with a savage light. “Let’s see how hard you really are!”
Rather than using the golden thread, he used Windcleaver and hacked again.
While he appeared very impressive, killing with one swing, he actually hadn’t used much spiritual energy. In fact, it was exactly because he wasn’t using much spiritual energy that he was able to act so casually, thus leading to his impressive show of force.
A true hard and bloody battle wasn’t elegant at all. On the contrary, it would make one more savage, more ragged, more hard-pressed, and more bloody.
As he faced down the restrained black bull, his indifference disappeared, to be replaced by a sharper and more intimidating aura.
Activating the Grotto Metal Mantra and circulating its mantra, he raised the Heartbreak Saber, which let out a frightening light.
“Windcleaver!”
He swung down!
As the Heartbreak Saber empowered by the Windcleaver Saber swung at the bull’s head, there was a plush, and a thin line of blood appeared at the top of the bull fiend’s head.
Breaking through armor!
This was none other than the armor-piercing ability of the Lesser Sea Grotto Metal Mantra. Paired with the armor-breaking seal on the Heartbreak Saber, it could even break through the bull fiend’s fortress-like defense. The deep wound on its head caused the bull fiend to bellow in rage.
Tang Jie swung again, still at the same wound. No one could also make their organs as tough as steel, so once he was through the skin, the fatal weakness would be revealed.
If this were a proper match, it would be basically impossible to strike at the same wound. After all, no one was dumb enough to just sit there and take it. But with the binding power of the Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation, everything was possible.
The second swing came down along the same trajectory, and that wound on the scalp was swiftly widened. Tang Jie pushed a finger’s length deep and then gave it a third swing.
While the bull fiend was tough, Tang Jie hacked at it as he would a tree. If one swing wouldn’t suffice, then two, and if two wouldn’t suffice, three! With ten-some swings, even refined iron would give way.
“Old Bull!” the lion fiend and wolf fiend shouted in unison.
A swift crescent blade of wind shot at Tang Jie, but Tang Jie casually blocked it with a swing of his saber.
The lion fiend roared, its maw rapidly widening as an icy torrent surged out.
The lion fiend was the vice king of Fragrant Store Cave, a middle-grade Mind Opening fiend. While it was weaker than the bull fiend in terms of physical strength, and while its defenses were not as impressive, it had powerful spell arts, as one of the rare fiends that excelled at spells.
Tang Jie did not dare to take on this torrent of ice directly, and he dodged to the side.
Using this brief moment, the wind blade sliced at the vines covering the bull’s head, creating a crack. The old bull took the opportunity to twist its head and break the vines. With its head free, the bull lowered its head and jabbed its horns at Tang Jie’s belly.
This sudden development caught even Tang Jie off guard. He was gored on the horns, and yellow light flashed as Tang Jie flew up into the air.
“Good job!” the lion fiend excitedly roared. It suddenly raised its head to the sky and roared.
Lion Roar Valley!
With this lion king’s roar, a gray phantom emerged from the back of the lion, taking the form of a massive lion the size of a city gate.
This was the lion fiend’s ultimate move. Once activated, it would bite down on the target, and that mouthful of teeth served as the strongest art relics, with even bones of steel only delaying death for a while.
Let alone Tang Jie, even the bull fiend’s defenses wouldn’t be able to hold.
It had not used it all this time because Tang Jie had been too fast while the lion fiend couldn’t move. It feared that the target would run off before it could properly use it. But now that Tang Jie had been knocked into the air, it was the perfect chance to strike. That giant lion moved to bite down on Tang Jie, its giant maw slowly drawing shut. Tang Jie had nowhere to hide.
At this time, the gray wolf shot another crescent wind blade at Tang Jie.
The wind blade this time was particularly large and flashing with a red light. This wind blade had absorbed some of the power of its fiend pellet and was brimming with power.
Several of the smarter fiends also used this chance to cast spells at Tang Jie, and the sky was soon awash with various attacks.
Tang Jie coldly laughed and flourished a talisman.
The Fiend-Sealing Mountain Talisman!