Chapter 4146 – Scapegoat
After the spirit formation appeared, many entrances appeared on it.
By passing through those entrances, people could enter the Endless Abyss.
However, the entrances themselves were guarded by protective formations.
One must breach the protective formation first in order to actually set foot inside.
However, breaching the protective formation was a very difficult task.
Practically all the world spiritists gathered realized this problem.
That was no ordinary spirit formation.
Breaching a protective formation needed more than outstanding world spirit techniques, it also required a special key. Without the key, no matter how overwhelmingly powerful one’s abilities might be, one still wouldn't be able to breach the spirit formation.
“Woosh, woosh, woosh~~~”
Suddenly, a stretch of objects sprinkled out from the Dragon Clan’s war chariots.
Those objects were actually sheets of copper that emitted the Ancient Era’s aura.
they seemed to have been allocated ahead of the trial, and they descended in different directions.
As the copper pieces descended from the sky, the old man’s voice sounded from within the Dragon Clan’s war chariot again. “Each clan leader is to take one. Fighting over them is not allowed.”
Long Daozhi and the others did not hesitate. They each caught a single copper piece.
They were already able to tell that those copper pieces were the keys to the spirit formations.
However, those keys were not complete. Five keys were needed in order to form a complete key.
At the beginning, Long Daozhi and the others were somewhat confused.
Since five pieces had to be combined to form a complete key, why didn’t the people from the Dragon Clan combine them into a complete key before giving them out? Why would they instead give them pieces of the key?
However, they soon understood the reason. However, upon realizing it, Long Daozhi and the others all started frowning.
Some people even turned green in the face, and looked very unwell.
Those keys had to be activated. Only after they were activated could they be combined into one. Without activating the keys they’d be nothing more than useless fragments.
However, certain things were needed to activate the keys.
They were not world spirit power or martial power. Instead, what was needed was the Dragon Clan’s bloodline power.
Furthermore, there was also a cultivation restriction. Only bloodline power from those with Utmost Exalted-level cultivations could activate the keys.
Bloodline power was extremely important. It was the root of all cultivation.
Activating the keys using one’s bloodline power was undoubtedly an act of ruining one’s future prospects.
Furthermore, even if someone managed to activate the keys and managed to combine the five keys, it did not guarantee that they would be able to breach the entrances’ surrounding formations. That would depend on the strength of the world spiritists the various powers had invited.
This deeply vexed many people, including Long Daozhi.
That said, apart from the leaders of the various powers, there were actually quite a few Utmost Exalted-level experts.
Because of that, many of the leaders decided to hand the task of activating the keys to their clansmen.
With that, they’d be able to activate the key and also not suffer damage to their bloodline power.
The ones to suffer would be their clan’s experts instead.
However, to their surprise, before any of those people could act on their decisions, the old man’s voice sounded from within the Dragon Clan’s war chariot again.
“As the leaders of your clans, are you all planning to give such an important task to your clansmen?”
“If you’re unable to shoulder such a small responsibility, then you are not qualified to return to our Dragon Clan and should scram immediately.”
The voice was filled with anger.
Evidently, the old man from the dragon clan deeply disliked the behavior of those leaders.
Hearing his words, the leaders of the various powers found themselves in a very difficult situation.
Since they couldn't their clansmen offer their bloodline power on their behalf, it would mean that they would have to shoulder the task personally.
If using their bloodline power could guarantee their entry into the Endless Abyss, they would be able to tolerate it.
However, that wasn't the case. Even if they were to offer their bloodline power, they still might not be able to enter the Endless Abyss.
If they were unable to enter the Endless Abyss, obtaining a Dragon Vein Source Stone would be completely out of the question too.
With such circumstances, using their bloodline power would truly be an enormous price to pay.
At the same time that they were feeling vexed, Long Daozhi and the others finally realized why the Dragon Clan had demanded that five powers each enter an alliance.
Never would they have imagined that the key to activating the spirit formations would require them to make such a difficult of a decision.
“Buzz~~~”
Soon, light spread out from within the crowd.
Someone had actually activated a key.
Then, more and more people chose to activate their keys.
Faced with the chance to return to the Dragon Clan, those people were more than willing to pay an immense price rather than to miss out on the opportunity.
“Do you all dare or not? If not, then forfeit so I can go and enter an alliance with others,” said the middle-aged man with the black beard.
After he finished saying those words, he began to imbue the key in his hand with his bloodline power.
Soon, the key he held in his hand was also activated. However, after he activated the key, his head of black hair turned snow white; even his beard had turned snow white. His face had also withered considerably. The change was truly appalling.
He had not only exhausted his bloodline power, but also his life span.
However, his decision made Long Daozhi and the others stop hesitating.
They all wished to return to the Dragon Clan. Even if they needed to sacrifice themselves, the majority of them were willing to do so.
“City Master Long, please wait a moment.”
However, when Long Daozhi was preparing to imbue his bloodline power to activate his key, Grandmaster Liangqiu suddenly stopped him.
He said, “I can sense that this Endless Abyss is extremely dangerous. Furthermore, the competitors here are all rather strong. The chance to activate the Dragon Vein Source Stone is extremely small. Perhaps you should reconsider.”
Grandmaster Liangqiu was feeling sorry for Long Daozhi, and didn’t want him to sacrifice his lifespan and future prospects to take such a risk.
“Long Daozhi, if you do not dare, then scram. Do not waste our time,” said the other four leaders of the alliance.
They had all activated their keys.
“Rest assured. I, Long Daozhi, am not someone who gives up halfway.”
“I will also not delay everyone.”
After saying those words, Long Daozhi also activated his key using his bloodline power.
As expected, after he used his bloodline power to activate the key, he became extremely weak, and incomparably old. It seemed as if half of his entire bloodline had been removed from his body.
Seeing that, Grandmaster Liangqiu had no choice either.
He accepted Long Daozhi’s activated key and combined the five keys with the other four world spiritists. Then, they placed the key into one of the spirit formation entrances.
“Buzz~~~”
Sure enough, once the key entered the protective formation, the protective formation surrounding the spirit formation entrance immediately weakened.
However, the spirit formation was still there. The five world spiritists would have to act together if they wanted to enter.
The five world world spiritists did not dare hesitate. They immediately seized this decisive moment and joined hands to breach the protective formation.
However, as they had anticipated, even with a complete key, opening the spirit formation entrance was still an extremely difficult task.
Furthermore, they soon discovered another extremely thorny issue.
That is, they would only have five chances to open the spirit formation entrance.
If they exhausted all five chances, then they would have depleted the power of the key.
The people from the Dragon Clan had said that those were all the keys available. Thus, if they ended up exhausting the keys, they would no longer be able to enter the Endless Abyss, and would have to leave in defeat.
In the blink of an eye, Grandmaster Liangqiu and the other four world spiritists had failed four times in a row.
They only had one final chance left. If they were to fail again, then they would no longer be able to enter the Endless Abyss.
This caused Long Daozhi and the others to panic. After all, they’d already exhausted their bloodline power and lifespans. If they failed to even obtain the chance to enter the Endless Abyss, they would’ve truly suffered enormously.
What brought them even more panic was the fact that there were already people that had managed to successfully breach the spirit formation and enter the Endless Abyss.
One thing worthy of mentioning was that even if the spirit formation entrance was successfully breached, only a limited number of people could enter through it.
Those included the people who had used their bloodline power to activate the keys.
Apart from them, only five other individuals could enter. For those five individuals, there was no restriction placed on who they could be.
However, for the majority of the people that successfully opened the spirit formation entrances, they would choose to bring the world spiritist they’d invited.
After all, at a time like this the strength of world spiritists was indispensable.
Long Daozhi and the others were extremely anxious as they watched other people enter the Endless Abyss.
But there was nothing they could do. In fact, they did not even dare to urge their world spiritists.
After all, their world spiritists were the final hope for them to enter the Endless Abyss.
“It’s time to change people,” said a world spiritist with long yellow hair.
Long Daozhi and the others immediately stepped forward and asked, “Grandmaster, what do you mean by that?”
“This person is too weak. Exchange him for another world spiritist. With him here, it’s impossible to open that spirit formation entrance,” said the yellow-haired world spiritist as he pointed at Grandmaster Liangqiu.
“City Master Long, were you unable to invite a more powerful world spiritist for such an important task?”
The other three world spiritists also spoke up. Not only did they all attack grandmaster Liangqiu, they also attacked Long Daozhi.
“You all…”
Grandmaster Liangiqu’s face turned red with anger upon hearing those words.
He knew very well that the difference between his strength and that of the other four world spiritists was not much.
In fact, he was even slightly better than them.
The current situation was that none of the five of them had any certainty in being able to open the spirit formation entrance, and those four world spiritists seemed to know one another.
because they had no certainty of opening the spirit formation entrance, the four of them had decided to pass the blame to Grandmaster Liangqiu.
After all, they all knew that whilst the five powers were not urging them or reprimanding them at the moment, the leaders of the five powers would definitely not let them off easily should they end up wasting their final chance.
Because of that, they wanted to shift the blame. It was obvious that Grandmaster Liangqiu would become their target to shift the blame to.
“Long Daozhi you useless trash. Sure enough you ended up holding us back!”
“We told you when we formed this alliance that the Endless Abyss is extremely difficult to deal with. We told you that you needed to not only invite a Dragon Mark Saint-cloak World Spiritist, you’ll also have to invite a very powerful one.”
“At that time, you guaranteed that you’d definitely be able to invite a powerful world spiritist. But now what? Look at you! Look at the trash you've invited!”
“If I’d known you’d be this useless I wouldn’t have entered an alliance with you to begin with!”
Soon, the leaders of the four other powers all began to criticize Long Daozhi.
At that moment, not only did Grandmaster Liangqiu become a scapegoat, even Long Daozhi had become a scapegoat.