Having reached this point in his train of thought, Bai Xiaochun decided that he truly was a rare genius.

“That’s right. If they’re really unlucky, then I’ll fail every single time! Fudge! I’ll blow them all to bits!” Excitement surging, he continued on with more conjuring attempts. Everyone else in the River-Defying Sect was enlivened by what they had just seen, and poured all of the power they could into the spell formation, causing the cracks to rapidly repair themselves.

Patriarch Dao River and Patriarch Starry River both hesitated, fearful of the sea of fire they had just encountered.

“Damn that Bai Xiaochun!” Chen Hetian gritted his teeth and thought back to the exploding pill furnaces back at the Great Wall. Frowning, he took a step forward, appearing in front of the spell formation shield. Eyes flashing with cold light, he shoved his hand out toward the shield.

Bai Zhentian and Li Xiandao joined him, both of them stepping forward to attack the spell formation as well.

Patriarch Dao River and Patriarch Starry River immediately felt less nervous, and joined in. It only took the briefest of moments for five devas to be simultaneously unleashing attacks onto the spell formation shield.

Patriarch Spirit Stream’s face fell, and the anxiety of the River-Defying Sect disciples grew. The Blood Ancestor and Bruiser both flew toward the shield and bolstered it with all the power they could.

Booms rang out. Chen Hetian, Li Xiandao and Bai Zhentian were all in the mid Deva Realm, far beyond compare to the other two patriarchs. All three of them unleashed attacks that became enormous hands which pressed down onto the shield.

The spell formation shuddered, and distorted ripples spread out across it. More cracks opened up, causing numerous River-Defying Sect disciples to cough up mouthfuls of blood. It was all the spell formation could do to stand up to the attack of five devas, and obviously, it would only be able to hold out for a few moments longer before collapsing.

In his private chamber, Bai Xiaochun was virtually going mad. He currently had five tongues of sixteen-colored flame and three tongues of seventeen-colored flame, which he unhesitatingly threw out beyond the shield.

By careful use of his divine sense, he destabilized all of them, instantly causing them to explode.

Massive booms filled the air as a huge sea of flames spread out. Although it couldn’t compare to the previous one, it was still shocking. Of course, Chen Hetian and the other devas had been prepared, and were able to evade the attack.

“Hmph!” Chen Hetian snorted. “Just trying to buy time, huh? Well... let’s see how much of that fire you have!” He was just about to press another attack when the Blood Ancestor pushed his hands down onto the Dire Skybanyan. Bruiser did the same.

In fact, all of the spirit beasts in the sect rushed over, using all of their energy to assist in the defense of the sect!

Even as the sea of fire faded away, the spell formation shield once again knitted back together.

Chen Hetian and the other devas blurred back into motion, yet again attacking the spell formation. However, the spell formation had stabilized greatly, and Bai Xiaochun continued to toss out fireballs.

Chen Hetian’s rage was mounting, and it was the same with Bai Zhentian and Li Xiandao. That was especially true of Li Xiandao, who was shocked to realize that he was actually seeing multi-colored flame.

For Bai Xiaochun to have accumulated so many types of multi-colored flame in his time in the wildlands was shocking to the extreme, and was proving to be a big headache.

“Dammit, even one of those tongues of multi-colored flame could be considered priceless. I can’t believe he’s being so extravagant!!”

“How did this Bai Xiaochun get so much multi-colored flame in the Wildlands!?!?”

Not only were the devas shocked, they were being kept away from the spell formation because of the constant explosions. As a result, the River-Defying Sect’s shield continued to grow stronger by the moment.

The fact that five devas were incapable of blasting through the spell formation shield of a single Middle Reaches sect caused their fury to burn.

In his private chamber, Bai Xiaochun was both worried and filled with anticipation. At the moment, he was splitting his concentration between his efforts to conjure twenty-one-colored flame, and his attempts to pay attention to the battle outside, and toss out multi-colored flame.

Although he had built up stockpiles of multi-colored flame, they didn’t run too deep. However, he had no other ways to buy time. He was doing everything possible to conjure his twenty-one-colored flame, and although he was somewhat distracted, he was already working on compressing the flame he was working with.

As it shrank down, the numerous colors in the flame flickered madly. Even as Bai Xiaochun held his breath and looked for the additional color, Chen Hetian and the other devas unleashed another round of attacks on the spell formation.

Blood sprayed out of the mouths of the River-Defying Sect cultivators, and many began to list in weakness. The spell formation clearly wouldn’t last for much longer. Shouting, Bai Xiaochun threw out three tongues of eighteen-colored flame, and a tongue of nineteen-colored flame!

Eighteen-colored flame was shocking enough to begin with, so when it exploded, the intense heat it generated forced Chen Hetian and the others to back up.

“Dammit,” Bai Zhentian shouted. “How can this guy have so much multi-colored flame!?!?”

“Get this spell formation down!” Chen Hetian bellowed. “Even if he has more multi-colored flame, he won’t dare to use it inside of his own sect.”

“Break this formation!” Li Xiandao yelled.

Without any hesitation, all three of the devas blasted the spell formation shield, joined by Patriarch Starry River and Patriarch Dao River.

Braving the intense heat, they closed in and launched powerful divine abilities into the shield.

Booms rang out as, at long last, the shield couldn’t hold any longer, and collapsed!

Blood sprayed out of the mouths of all the River-Defying Sect forces, from the low-level disciples all the way up to Patriarch Spirit Stream and Bruiser.

As despair filled the hearts of the River-Defying Sect cultivators, Patriarch Dao River and Patriarch Starry River excitedly advanced into the sect.

However, it was in that very moment that Bai Xiaochun found the new color in the sea of fire. He quickly sent his divine sense inside, and successfully completed... the twenty-first color!!

An air of ultimate supremacy erupted out from the sea of fire, causing the heavens to dim and a wild wind to kick up. The will of the five devas, which had taken over from the will of the heavens, was suddenly driven back as if by a massive hand.

Multicolored light erupted out into the night, causing the faces of the devas to fall as they sensed a sudden, intense feeling of deadly crisis!

The origin of that crisis was one of the River-Defying Sect’s secluded meditation facilities, which was none other than the location where Bai Xiaochun was conjuring the flame. Although the devas didn’t want to fall back, the bright light shining out from the area filled them with such a sense of danger that they had no other choice.

Patriarch Starry River and Patriarch Dao River were deeply shaken, and immediately began to retreat. It was in that moment that the most profound and maddening energy possible erupted out.

RUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!

“What is that?!?!”

“What is this Bai Xiaochun doing!?!?”

“This feeling... heavens! It feels like heaven and earth are about to be destroyed!!”

Even as the devas were completely and utterly shaken, something like an enormous net appeared high in the sky. It was impossible to determine what existed on the other side of that net, but Bai Xiaochun could tell that this was the very same world seal that he had seen during the spectacular battle in the Wildlands!

In his private chamber, Bai Xiaochun panted, and the sweat which popped out on his head instantly transformed into white steam. He was now fully concentrating, completely focused on the sea of fire.

“Form together, twenty-one-colored flame!!”

RRRRUUUUUUUUMBLE!

As the sea of fire shrank down into his hand, the intense energy caused deafening rumbling sounds to fill the air. Strangely, though, there was no sign of any form of tribulation.

The process lasted for the space of a few breaths of time. When the surging energy reached its peak, Bai Xiaochun closed his hand around the sea of fire.

Heart pounding, he took several deep breaths, then slowly opened his fingers. Brilliant light erupted out, causing the sky to vibrate and the lands to quake. There in the middle of his hand... was a twenty-one-colored flame!!

Heavenly fire!