When every rune lit up, a pillar of light speared into the sky, pierced the thick clouds, and shot straight toward the Upper Realm.
Ran Xi and her three companions released their divine sense almost at the same time, tracking the final destination of the teleportation channel. The suppression sigils on their robes flared one after another, clearly taking effect, so that each of them seemed gilded in a thin sheen of gold.
Yunxi had to withdraw her divine sense. If she chased farther, she would break the suppression on her soul and her cultivation would surge beyond restraint. This was not the time for them to leave.
Han Lian, Yun Chen, and Xun Kun made the same choice and pulled their senses back.
Beside them, Bai Feng felt the disturbance as well, but did not act rashly. He only needed to follow Han Lian's orders and pour power into the formation lines to activate the array. Though tense, he did not move without command.
The Snow Wolf King pair also felt the pressure. But after taking Tracing Life, Xue Ying's cultivation had returned to fifth rank. Working in perfect tandem with Xue Li, they should be able to hold their node.
After receiving Yun Chen's divine-sense scouting results, Master Yun Yi began calculating. Just as Yunxi sensed a foreign force plunging downward, Yun Yi tightened his grip on the prayer beads and said, "Activate the formation."
At his word, each guardian at a node sent power surging into the array beneath them. The seven stars of Yaoguang, Kaiyang, Yuheng, Tianquan, Tianji, Tianxuan, and Tianqu lit up one by one. Seven beams of different colors rose into the sky, echoing the Big Dipper overhead.
"What is happening? Why is the channel unstable?"
A faraway, airy voice drifted into the ears of Yunxi and the others. Master Yun Yi understood at once that the passage between Weiyu Realm and the Upper Realm had linked and that the other side was already transmitting cultivators downward. He shouted, "Reverse the formation."
Everyone formed seals, struck their palms onto the array beneath them, then twisted their wrists to run the formation in reverse.
As the array reversed, the power in Yunxi's dantian poured rapidly into the formation. No wonder Master Yun Yi had said the minimum requirement to drive this array was the Out-of-Body stage. An ordinary cultivator would never be able to withstand it.
Among the seven positions, only Master Yun Yi's node struggled, but fortunately the Buddhist cultivators of Yunmen Temple were many, and they barely held on.
With the reversal, the seven beams that had been thrusting straight up began to spiral, circling and ascending in alternation, always coiling around the thickest pillar of light, which was the channel itself.
The power of the Big Dipper that had been invoked slowly linked with the seven spiraling beams. Twisting together like a rope, they bored upward and began to grind the entire teleportation channel to pieces from below.
"Run, quickly. Ah!"
The screams were music to everyone's ears. Though their dantians felt squeezed dry, they gritted their teeth and held fast.
When the channel was fully shredded, the twisted sevenfold power began to wane, especially at the two weaker nodes guarded by Master Yun Yi and the Snow Wolf King pair. Not reaching the Out-of-Body stage in cultivation was, in the end, a shortcoming.
Master Yun Yi and the Divine Transformation monks behind him clutched spirit stones and refused to let their node fail.
Yun Chen called out, "Hold a little longer. The channel is about to collapse completely."
The four risked losing control of their suppressed cultivation and poured more power into the array beneath them, shoring up the weaker nodes. Borrowing the strength of the stars, they finally punched into the spatial node of the Upper Realm.
A burst of brilliant fireworks exploded in the night. The spatial node linking the two realms was annihilated.
The seven beams fell away. The Heavenly Gang Big Dipper Demon-Execution Grand Array had completed its task. The runes beneath Yunxi and the others dimmed, then faded from the air.
Only then did Yunxi take a long breath. She patted the Xianling Grass at her chest to urge it to replenish her spiritual power. With barely a tenth of her qi left in her dantian, she felt anything but secure.
Just as everyone relaxed, disaster struck. A ghostlike black figure appeared above Huaxian Gate. With a flick of the wrist, the figure hurled countless black spheres straight at the cultivators guarding the nodes.
Though their spiritual power was severely drained, their reactions were sharp. Except for the node where Master Yun Yi stood, the other six blinked away from their positions and countered, sweeping their sleeves to fling the spheres back.
Yunxi's eyes narrowed. The aura was unmistakably that of an evil cultivator. The pressure matched that of the four of them, clearly an Out-of-Body expert who had suppressed cultivation to remain in Weiyu Realm.
She had not expected a fish to slip the net. The fellow had hidden deep, waiting without a ripple until now. He had chosen their moment of greatest relief to strike, clearly intent on killing them all.
With that level of strength, even if he could not slay them outright, he could strike while the iron was hot and wound them grievously.
Yun Chen slammed a Buddhist Hand Seal, batting the black spheres back toward the assailant, then swept his sleeve to whisk Master Yun Yi and the monks of Yunmen Temple to safety. In the next breath, he appeared on the outer rim of the battle.
By then, Yunxi was already trading more than a hundred moves with the enemy, Seven Stars Soul-Shattering Staff in hand. She had already sent a transmission to Han Lian and Xun Kun, urging them to recover as quickly as possible. She would hold the line first. Once their spiritual power, demonic power, and Buddhist power were restored, they would rotate in and relieve her.
The black spheres that were batted back erupted, filling half of Huaxian Gate's mountain with a gray fog that shrouded the clash between Yunxi and the evil cultivator.
On the perimeter, the gathered cultivators sensed something wrong. Divine Transformation experts flashed into Huaxian Gate's territory. They frowned at the dense gray miasma that hid all silhouettes and blocked their divine sense.
Dressed in a purple-red robe, Xiang Sizi wore the most solemn expression. She spoke slowly, "There is poison in this fog."
Hao Yan turned at once. "Xiang Sizi, can you neutralize it?"
Xiang Sizi frowned. "I will study it. For now, do not approach. This poisonous fog can corrode a cultivator's soul."
Everyone drew a sharp breath. To prevent the fog from spreading, they joined forces to raise a barrier, temporarily halting its expansion.
The Divine Transformation cultivators kept their divine sense fixed on the barrier. Whenever they found it thinning under the corrosion, they immediately rebuilt it.
The instant the fog billowed out, Yunxi sensed the abnormality. She transmitted at once to the Snow Wolf King pair, "Xue Li, Xue Ying, construct a spatial isolation. Protect yourselves. Once I finish this evil cultivator, I will regroup with you."
"Yes, Zūnzhě."
Yunxi's golden armor now also clad her tiny Yuányīng. The small Yuányīng sat grimly on a seven-colored lotus seat.
Realizing her divine sense would be corroded by the fog, Yunxi pulled it back into her sea of consciousness and relied on her eyes. A heartbeat later, her ear twitched. She reversed her grip and brought the Seven Stars Soul-Shattering Staff up to catch a pitch-black tri-edged sword.
Blocking the strike, she slid her staff, then snapped a hooking thrust backwards. The evil cultivator reacted swiftly, meeting staff tip with sword point and stopping the counter.
But the violet thunder wrapped around Yunxi's staff weakened the blood-fiend aura coiling along the tri-edged blade.
"So it is you!"