Chapter 1054 – To Play Both Sides

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“Attack together! This is the most important battle we will ever experience in our lives! We can only win, we cannot be defeated here!” Dragon One bellowed, his blood boiling over. Behind him, the 35 other Dragon Clan disciples were the same. They would either emerge victorious from this ashen land or perish within the encirclement of 100,000 mystic realm demons. No matter what they did, there was no escape path left for them!

At this time, the Asura King also attacked. Its entire body was twined with countless arcs of tribulation thunder, but it was still able to lift its hands to attack. One could see from this alone just how terrifying it was!

Roar!

A resounding dragon cry filled the skies. An Azure Dragon rushed out from the body of the Asura King. This was a phantom formed from the dragon bone essence that the Asura King had absorbed.

“You all take me and my supreme dragon bone as your rightful treasures, but I also take all of your blood vitality and Dragon Clan bloodline as my food! Although your bloodline density isn’t too high, it will still be enough to allow me to completely form my flesh and blood body! I have swallowed countless martial artists and obtained an incalculable number of cultivation methods from their memories. All I need is a human body to finally cultivate these abilities! When that happens, I will enter into the greater world of the Divine Realm! I will become a World King, an Empyrean, living carefree through the universe, hahahaha!”

“World King? Empyrean? Your pompous words are far too shameless!” Dragon One roared, his entire body emitting explosive crackling sounds. His eyes began to turn amber brown and his pupils widened to cover the sclera. They became deeper, more profound, as if they were tunnels connecting to the endless deep space. At the same time, dragon scales covered Dragon One. And with him in the lead, the other 35 Dragon Clan disciples behind him began to go all out. All of them burnt 10% of their life’s blood essence!

At this point, they had burnt 20% of their blood essence. If they burnt all of their blood essence, the fires of their lives would immediately extinguish. As for burning 20% of their blood essence, although they wouldn’t die, this would still greatly reduce their lifespan. This would have tremendous effects on all their future accomplishments. It could already be said that the Ancient Dragon Clan’s 36 disciples had cut off all their roads of retreat. At this point it was fight until they won, or fight until they died!

When driven by such great benefits, everyone had gone mad!

Bang!

The spinning blue wheel smashed against the Azure Dragon phantom formed by the Asura King. Both phenomena exploded, and a violent surge of energy flooded outwards, turning hundreds of nearby mystic realm demons into smoke!

The Asura King’s body shook and its blood tumbled. It nearly vomited blood. In that strike just now, it had been injured!

“Damn!” The Asura King frowned, wiping blood from the corners of its lips. While it was crossing tribulation, it had expended over 80% of his energy to resist the demonic tribulation. And in this situation, the 36 disciples of the Ancient Dragon Clan had formed a great array formation to contend with it; the pressure of this could be imagined.

“I’ve really underestimated this bunch of outside mousies. Although these mousies are small and weak, when dozens of them join together they can actually threaten me! Humanity’s array formations and cultivation methods are truly bizarre. But, this is my stage, this is my home. Since you lot dare to fight me here, all of you are doomed to perish!”

The Asura King gave a loud shout and a massive vortex swirled around it. Heaven and earth origin energy spun around it and the numerous mystic realm demons nearby were twisted up into this vortex, turning into pure energy that was devoured by the Asura King!

The Asura King’s body emitted explosive crackling sounds. Its entire form began to grow. Its muscles bulged, becoming harder and tougher. Its appearance also became increasingly gruesome. The Asura King was actually able to absorb the power of ordinary mystic realm demons.

This battle was destined to become increasingly intense and frantic until it turned into a crazy melee. Whether it was the Asura King or the 36 disciples of the Ancient Dragon Clan, all of them were desperately attacking, paying any cost to kill their enemies. It was do or die!

And at the same time, the disciples of the other three clans fell into a rancorous battle.

Demon One, Demon Two, and Demon Three were all mystic realm demons with a 30,000 year cultivation. Each of them was cruel and vicious. Their cultivation certainly couldn’t compare to the Asura King’s, and they definitely hadn’t absorbed the strength of the supreme dragon bone. However, they were all in their peak conditions. They weren’t undergoing demonic tribulation like the Asura King.

This let them fight without any scruples!

And because of the Asura King’s mind control, only one thought percolated within them. That was… to kill all enemies!

Kill all enemies no matter the price!

The three clans didn’t have many disciples to begin with, and their array formations weren’t complete. Underneath the assault of the massive number of mystic realm demons, they were constantly dancing on the verge of the abyss. And now, facing the additional pressure of these three demons, they finally began to crumble!

At this time, let alone continuing forwards to the center region where the Asura King was, even saving their own lives was a problem.

“Ah!”

With a miserable cry, a Kirin Clan disciple had his arm bitten off by Demon Two. In the next moment, seven or eight mystic realm demons dove into his body, completely dismantling him!

Peng!

A bloody fog burst into the air like beautiful fireworks. But, as this image fell into the other disciples’ eyes, all of them felt their hands and feet turn cold, as if they had fallen into the nine nether abyss.

After such a long and frigid period of combat, the first person of the three clans’ core disciples had finally died!

It had to be known that these disciples were forming array formations. Once the first one died, the power of the array formation would greatly reduce. That meant that the second person would die much faster. The more people died, the weaker their combat strength would be!

Thus, the death of that person meant that the three great clans were now in a precarious situation!

“What do we do!?” Jiang Bai urgently said. He was normally confident in his own strength. In normal dangerous circumstances, he could still calmly analyze the situation. But now, in such imminent danger, even he began to panic! He had thought that the Asura King would be in an extremely weak state as it crossed its demonic tribulation and that obtaining that supreme dragon bone would be easy. The only problem there should have been was how to deal with the Ancient Dragon Clan.

But now, Jiang Bai finally realized that everything he thought was wrong! He had made a grave mistake! Even though the Ancient Dragon Clan’s 36 disciples had burnt their blood essence, they still hadn’t been able to defeat the Asura King.

And, there were far more than 100,000 mystic realm demons in this area! As they killed their way through, their group and even the Ancient Dragon Clan were able to kill a hundred mystic realm demons with every breath of time. Up until now, they had been engaged in fierce combat for half an hour. They should have killed 60,000-70,000 of the mystic realm demons, but looking around, the amount of them hadn’t diminished at all. That meant that there was a massive number of mystic realm demons continuously arriving!

“Do we retreat? Do we continue forwards?” Jiang Bai asked Xiao Ping. In truth, he had already given birth to the idea of escaping in his heart.

But Xiao Ping was also having difficulty making a decision in this situation. It had to be known that whatever decision he made would involve the lives of all the disciples near him.

If they chose to continue, even taking a single step forwards would be difficult. Also, their chances of obtaining the dragon bone weren’t too great. Their only hope was if the Ancient Dragon Clan finished the battle as soon as possible.

But, retreating was also extremely difficult. They were besieged on all sides and there were also the three 30,000 year old mystic realm demons attacking them. Wasn’t wanting to withdraw easier said than done?

Without a doubt, this was the greatest danger of their lives! This was a true life or death trial!

“Ahh!”

A miserable cry sounded out. A second disciple had died!

The one who died this time was a disciple of the Ancient Phoenix Clan. Huang Tidemark had been standing by the dead disciple and had watched helplessly as the disciple’s entire body blew up before being cleanly eaten away by the mystic realm demons. Seeing this, his face paled until it was paper white!

Only when truly facing death would one understand how terrifying death was. There were indeed people in this world that did not fear death, but most of those people had lived hard and rough lives. If they died then they died. None of them were like him, someone that was destined to reach the late Divine Lord realm and have 100,000 years of life to freely live as he pleased. There were countless beautiful women and pleasures waiting for him to enjoy, so how could Huang Tidemark be willing to die here?

“Big Brother Xiao, let’s retreat! Forget that dragon bone!” Huang Tidemark said, his voice shaking.

Xiao Ping was grim and silent. He deeply looked over at Jiang Bai and Argent Gale and could see from their faces that they already wished to retreat. But, if they drew back now, that would truly be losing one’s wife and soldier to the enemy. Not only would they not obtain any benefits, but they had lost so many disciples. This would prove just how incompetent the one in command had been.

But there was nothing else that could be done. In the history of the four God Beast Clans, there had only been a few other times when the disciples had encountered an Asura King in the God Beast Mystic Realm. And every time, there had been grievous losses!

“All disciples heed my order. Combust part of your blood essence; we’re killing our way out of here!” Jiang Bai, Xiao Ping, and Argent Gale simultaneously issued this order.

To them, combusting their blood essence to escape was the smartest choice.

In the skies, a fierce battle raged on in full swing. Every breath of time there would be dozens or hundreds of mystic realm demons that died. But, in the surrounding hundreds of thousands of miles, there were constantly mystic realm demons that were catching up from distant lands. As long as the Asura King didn’t die, everyone here would eventually be killed!

Of course, none of this was related to Lin Ming. He had already quietly arrived below the dragon bone!

The supreme dragon bone was a thousand feet high. It stabbed into the swamp like a divine sword. However, the majority of its mass was submerged into the black mud – this was also where Lin Ming was!

Lin Ming didn’t believe he could quietly steal the supreme dragon bone and also quietly sneak away.

The reason he was able to make it here without anyone noticing him was that he had the grandmist space concealing his aura. In addition, he moved in the ground underneath the swamp. In the chaotic battle happening up above, no one was able to detect Lin Ming’s existence beneath them.

But, the supreme dragon bone was different. If such a large dragon bone suddenly vanished, everyone would notice. The Ancient Dragon Clan disciples and the Asura King weren’t idiots after all.

At that time, in a situation where someone like Lin Ming snuck in and benefited as both parties battled, they would definitely be enraged and then he would become their main focus.

Lin Ming didn’t think that with his current strength he could defend against the attacks of any party. There was no need to mention the Asura King. Just the array formation that the Dragon Clan’s 36 disciples had formed was abnormally terrifying. Moreover, they had even burned their blood essence.

Lin Ming’s low cultivation had always been a weakness of his that he couldn’t ignore.

Then… what to do?

Thousands of potential scenarios flashed through Lin Ming’s mind. The most ideal result would be the Asura King and the Ancient Dragon Clan disciples fighting each other to the bitter end until both sides were heavily wounded. The Asura King would die and the Ancient Dragon Clan would only have a few dying disciples left over. As for the other three clans, they were surrounded by the 100,000 mystic realm demons.

Then, at that time, Lin Ming would have the confidence to take the supreme dragon bone and immediately escape. With the grandmist battle armor, Lin Ming simply didn’t fear any mystic realm demons. Once he barreled into them, all of them would be reduced to smoke.

However, this was only an ideal situation. Once the balance of the battle shifted and one side was able to obtain complete victory, Lin Ming would no longer be able to implement his plan to steal the dragon bone. The winning side might even discover him hiding in the swamp and turn to kill him.