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The five sky supremes surrounded by Subterranean Beasts were in grave peril. Their allies fought their way inward, their eyes red with bloodlust.
Blood had long since stained the desert outside Barren Sands City bright red. Miasma filled the skies, enveloping Ye Zichen and his companions within.
Whack!
Li Hu, who fought at his team’s forefront, took a vicious blow to the back after a moment’s carelessness.
His massive body instant shot forth like a cannonball and slammed into the distant sands.
The instant he fell, the surrounding Subterranean Beasts raised their claws and swiped at his vitals.
“Get out of my way!” With a sharp flash of silver light, Luo Zi sliced right through the attacking beasts’ claws and appeared by Li Hu’s side. “Let’s go.”
He took Li Hu by the arm, then ignored those now-clawless Subterranean Beasts. He carried his friend and rejoined Xue Mo and Ye Zichen.
“Is he alright?” Ye Zichen and Xue Mo could tell Li Hu was injured, but they were too far away when it happened. Furthermore, there were Subterranean Beasts blocking their way, so there was no way for them to help him in time.
Li Hu’s back was torn right open. Nevertheless, he grinned broadly. “It’s nothing.”
Although he said that, just trying to raise his axe caused a rush of agony. He gnashed his teeth.
Luo Zi gave Li Hu some recovery medicine, then looked at the endless tide of beasts and frowned despite himself. “We can’t go on like this. It won’t help.”
Even without him saying it, the others understood this full well.
Although each individual Subterranean Beast wasn’t all that strong, and many were only earth supremes, their numbers more than made up for their individual weakness.
Even though Luo Zi and Li Hu were eighth-stage sky supremes and a single attack could scatter the beasts, body and soul, they were hugely outnumbered. If one Subterranean Beasts wasn’t enough, ten would attack in unison. If ten wasn’t enough, a hundred would charge in. Even a diviner would have a hard time holding steady in the face of such an onslaught.
There really had been instances of diviners falling at the hands of vast swarms of earth supremes.
“Retreat!” After a moment’s hesitation, Ye Zichen decided they needed to back down. After all this fighting, he could tell he was nearing the limits of his divine power. If they didn’t recover, they might all die here.
“We can’t retreat!” Xue Mo knit her brows and shouted, “Murong Xue and the others are still in there. If we retreat, what will happen to them?”
“I know you’re worried about them. We’re all worried about them. But surely you see it too? If we recklessly charge in, we’ll be useless in the face of such an endless tide of beasts.” Xue Mo was frantic, but wasn’t Ye Zichen agitated too?
“Listen to me,” he said. “You retreat first. If we wait any longer, we’ll get trapped here too.”
Xue Mo glanced at the tide of beasts, which had almost surrounded them too. She bit her lip, glanced into the middle of the swarm, and clenched her fists. “Retreat!”
Luo Zi supported Li Hu. The four of them formed a horn-formation and retreated away from the swarm.
“What’s happening in there?” shouted Cheng Guangfa from the flying ship. He was already waiting outside, and when he saw Ye Zichen and the others, he immediately asked about the situation.
No one spoke. No one had it in them.
After arriving somewhere safe, Xue Mo and the others collapsed on the ground and started treating their wounds and recovering their spent divine power. Ye Zichen, meanwhile, gazed solemnly into the beast tide.
He didn’t know why, but even after all that fighting, he was still brimming with divine power.
Based on the tense atmosphere, Chen Guangfa gleaned that the situation didn’t look good. He didn’t want to trouble Xue Mo and the others, so he simply did whatever he could to help out.
“Xue Mo, did you send the academy a message like I asked?”
“I did.” Xue Mo rose from the ground, her expression dark. “But I still haven’t received a reply.”
She clenched her fists, and the sand beneath her feet froze beneath a layer of ice. “What are those guys up to?”
For Xue Mo to call the leaders of Skyspan Academy “those guys,” it was clear her status was extraordinary. However, this was no time to worry about her identity. All that mattered now was finding a way to save their trapped comrades from the beast horde.
“Guangfa, can you drive the ship up to them and let them board?”
Chen Guangfa shook his head. “Although Subterranean Beasts tend to move underground, they can fly, too. Once they reach the supreme level, they become intelligent, too. If we fly over them, they’ll definitely attack en masse.”
“So that’s how it is.” Ye Zichen arched his brows. His fingers drummed against his spatial ring.
It seemed like there was absolutely no way out of their current situation. He wracked his brains but couldn’t think of a way to rescue Jiang Yong and the others from their predicament.
The only solution he could think of was to open the second floor of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda and unleash his army of sky supreme yao.
Rumble! Something boomed within the Subterranean Beast Horde.
Everyone looked toward the source of the commotion and saw five thousand-foot-tall giants standing amongst the swarm.
“A Supreme Warlord and a Fire Woman…. Jiang Yong and Murong Xue have activated their dharma bodies.” Luo Zi’s shouldered trembled, and he shouted, “Using their dharma bodies now is tantamount to suicide; it takes far too much power. They don’t have that much energy left! Once they run out, they…”
Luo Zi couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence. “What do we do now?”
“We have to rescue them!” said Xue Mo, her face a mask of determination. However, her gaze was locked onto Ye Zichen.
Despite her intense gaze, Ye Zichen remained silent.
What did he have to hide?
He couldn’t reveal the Yao-Sealing Pagoda’s existence!
If he inadvertently revealed his possession of the pagoda, well, he was nowhere near strong enough to hold onto it. But if he kept on hiding, Jiang Yong and the others really would perish here.
Should I bring the yao of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda out? Or shouldn’t I? Ye Zichen’s heart was in turmoil.
Before he could make up his mind, Luo Zi shouted, “The Dai Sisters’ dharma bodies disappeared. So did Pan Sheng’s…. Only the Supreme Warlord and Fire Woman are left. However, they’re so indistinct that they won’t last much longer either!”
“Ye Zichen, are you still going to hide even now?” Xue Mo screamed at him. She didn’t know about the Yao-Sealing Pagoda, but she knew he had sky supreme attendants. Back at the attendant, he’d used them to defeat her and Chen Guangfa.
Although she didn’t know their relationship with him, she was certain… that so long as Ye Zichen called for them, they’d appear immediately.
She didn’t know how many attendants he had, but a few were better than none. Even if it were only two or three, a group of seven had better chances than a group of four.
A long time passed, but Ye Zichen didn’t respond. Finally, Xue Mo nodded and smiled. “Fine. I guess I misjudged you. Just go on hiding it, then. I’m going to save Murong Xue and the others even if it kills me.” With that, Xue Mo raised her dagger and charged back into the fray.
Ye Zichen, who’d been hesitating this side, inexplicably gnashed his teeth and roared, “Kill them all!”
