Chapter 419: Ninety-Nine Steps

The burial mound of an immortal had been broken into, giving rise to powerful natural phenomena and drawing the attention of thousands of cultivators within five hundred kilometers of the mound.

Upon arrival at the land of darkness, many had discovered the wreckage of burial mounds. Not knowing who was buried where, nor what dangers lay within, had given the cultivators pause. Immortals should be buried in tombs upon death; it was hardly fitting that they’d been stuck in burial mounds.

However, someone had broken into a burial mound that belonged to an immortal, releasing a surge of immortal energy. Lu Yun naturally wasn’t going to miss out on this opportunity. There was no telling how far the beam of light would reach. It was bound to attract many eyes, perhaps including Qing Han’s.

Many in and outside of Destiny City reacted as well.

“It’s a legacy of the ancient immortal dao!” exclaimed an arcane dao immortal. “Just like the ones found in ancient tombs!”

Realization rippled out. Such legacies were exactly what contemporary immortals excavated ancient tombs for!

They were often embedded in items, treasures, or books. The Sword Pagoda erected in Dusk Province, for example, was the legacy of the ancient Sugato Lord. Anyone who reached its top would receive the ancient lord’s heritage.

Who would’ve thought that such legacies were to be found in the Sovereign Meet as well!

No wonder origin dao immortals who’d been laying low and recovering from their injuries had emerged and sent their proteges to the Sovereign Meet. There were great opportunities to be had!

Cultivators who’d been eliminated bemoaned their luck, beating their chests in frustration and regret, but there was nothing they could do. Among the thirty million cultivators who’d acquired a Life Glyph, only five hundred thousand had reached the land of darkness. They were the cream of the crop among the cultivators of the world.

……

The beam of light continued to persist, thickening the presence of immortal dao in the area.

Cultivators who’d exhausted much of their energy in battle felt a wave of replenishment and refreshment when they approached its area of effect.

Given the lack of natural or immortal energy here in the central world, spirit stones and immortal crystals were the only source of energy replenishment, and the crystals couldn’t even help the cultivators since their cultivation was suppressed to the core realm. They had to rely on spirit stones instead.

The great majority of them were core members of their factions and normally cultivated with crystals, so they didn’t have a reason to bring something as lowly as spirit stones with them.

The precise circumstances of the Sovereign Meet had caught everyone off guard.

Core realm cultivators couldn’t use immortal treasures or crystals. Once they exhausted too much of their inner energy, they could only remain in place and slowly recover with their own cultivation methods.

Thus, the energy-replenishing radiance leaking from the burial mound prompted a swarm of cultivators to head toward its source, creating quite a stir in the local vicinity that’d been flooded by the light.

……

“It was too easy to lure those fools here.” Under the rays of ethereal light, two figures stood shoulder-to-shoulder, smiling at the cultivators seated in the area to recover their energy.

They looked roughly eighteen, and there was an exceedingly high degree of resemblance between them, marking them to be most likely brothers. Behind them was a short foothill with a broken tablet erected before it, faint characters still visible on it.

It was the burial mound of an ancient immortal, but it’d been broken into. A jadeite-colored dao book hovered in the air, the source of the immortal light that’d been soaring into the sky.

“Let’s eliminate them all. Our cultivation level will reach transformed spirit realm then, brother, and we’ll be able to fight for the greatest heritage in the central region.”

“Formation!” the other brother exclaimed.

Rumble!

A great explosion sounded as a large formation rumbled to life, isolating an area of ten kilometers across.

“Dammit. Someone set up a formation here… It’s a trap!” Cultivators who’d been recovering energy in preparation for the fight ahead panicked.

“Let’s go, let’s go now! There’s a formation here!” They picked themselves up to make a run for it, but the formation had already taken shape and trapped them all where they were.

The two brothers hovered in the air, sending a series of green glyphs into the formation with hand seals. Great power swiftly converged from all directions, transforming into terrifying might that slammed into the cultivators trapped within.

It was a pure killing formation.

Formations drew upon the power of heaven and earth. Although there was no natural energy here, its strength was everywhere and available for the formation to tap into.

Color draining from their faces, cultivators in the formation despaired for their future. They’d been drawing upon the energy of the light to recover, but now, they were slowly suffocating to death. A murderous rain of light showered from above, attacking them relentlessly.

“You stay here,” said Lu Yun. He left the little nun somewhere safe before making his way to the center of the formation.

Anything went in the Sovereign Meet, including making use of the supplemental paths. He could tell the formation had been set up in the central world, rather than having been taken here from the outside.

Through previous experimentation, he’d discovered that formations brought in from the outside were rendered useless in the central world, unable to draw upon the power of heaven and earth. Anyone who could etch formation runes in this zone wouldn’t be a regular formation master.

It took no time for more than half of the thousand cultivators to be eliminated, and those that were left struggled for breath.

“Oh?” The brothers tensed when they saw Lu Yun making his way through the layers of formations, heading in their direction.

“Impossible!” one of them blurted out. It was clear as day that this unassuming young man was setting down his every step on the formation’s weak points, making it impossible for it to attack him.

More importantly, there was a unique rhythm to the way he walked. With every step, he dismantled part of the formation. If he took ninety-nine steps, the formation they’d worked so hard to establish would be shattered.

“Stop, stop!” they quickly called out.

Lu Yun had already taken ninety-eight steps, and his foot was lifted to take the final step.

The brothers turned green in the face. They’d broken into the burial mound to set out bait for their prey, but along came an even worse predator!