Chapter 480: Chaos in the Lava Region
The Walkabout Sect disciples would naturally not stick around after launching an ambush. After all, even though they were gifted in using poison, they would still die without a doubt if the group managed to catch up and mob them. Even so, Jiang Chen remained on guard. He wasn’t afraid of not being able to detect hidden weapons, but there was no detriment to Yue Pan taking the lead.
That so-called first priority was just a verbal agreement. Who would follow that when push came to shove? Besides, would Yue Pan really make it to the end? No one knew that for sure either.
The boiling lava frothed like boiling pot of water, constantly bubbling and churning. Occasionally, enormous waves several meters long, would crash onto the shores of the lava lake.
Even though those present were of the origin realm, they could still feel the heat of the lava. If they were knocked about by the waves and caught by the lava current, they would most likely die in agony.
If they wished to cross, they had to pass over the enormous lava lake in front of them. It looked several hundred meters wide and wouldn’t be difficult to cross this distance with their skills of flight. However, continuous plumes and waves of lava rose fiercely from the center of the lake. If they couldn’t make use of another force when they flew and was hit by a rogue wave, then they would be in deep trouble. There were also lifeforms crouched within the lava and danger would be even more heightened if they revealed themselves and attacked.
The two from the Great Cathedral looked at each other, smirks playing about their lips. They simultaneously activated a yellow slip that appeared in their hands, covering each disciple in a strange light.
“Folks, we’ll be going on ahead first. Catch up with us at your leisure.” Yue Pan and Xu Gang flew swiftly ahead as if they’d sprouted wings, turning into streaks of light and making for the opposite shore. Their speed was so fast that they seemed to land instantly on the other side like meteors.
“Flight glyphs! The Great Cathedral was truly willing to spare some wealth on this!” Lin Feng grumbled, disgruntled, as he seemed to remember something. Mu Gaoqi’s scalp also grew numb when he looked at that raging lava and the heat waves coming off it.
Feng Wanjian cursed noisily, “Fecking assholes! They could’ve given us a ride with the flight glyphs too!”
“Brother Feng, we must hurry. Those two Great Cathedral scum will absolutely not wait for us if they arrive first.” Lin Feng offered.
The two looked at each other and Feng Wanjian nodded, “Brother Lin, follow me!” He murmured an incantation, suddenly spreading out his arms and radiating out approximately thirty beams of harsh light in front of him.
The thirty beams of light were his throwing swords. They hovered over the lava lake, forming a rainbow bridge in midair. There was only sixteen meters between each sword. This distance was akin to walking on flat ground for origin realm cultivators.
Feng Wanjian and Lin Feng blurred into streaks of light as well, using the floating swords as platforms as they charged towards the other side. Their speed, while not quite as meteoric as that of the Great Cathedral disciples, was also quite fast.
However, just as they were halfway across, an enormous air bubble suddenly exploded from the center of the lava lake, bursting open with a loud roar.
Bam!
More than ten gouts of lava shot up like a fountain spurting into the air. Like a lesser-dragon erupting from the seas, the lava was directly in Feng Wanjian and Lin Feng’s path.
When Lin Feng saw this, he knew that Feng Wanjian wouldn’t be able to spare any effort to defend against the lava when wholly focused on manipulating the swords. He was also all too aware that both of them were done for if either of them were injured. If Feng Wanjian fell, then he too was dead without a doubt!
He gritted his teeth and waved his large hand, triggering the “Tristar Incantation”.
“Three Stars Surround the Skies!”
Three beams of light shot out from his hand, whirling around them as air currents until they became a transparent barrier enclosing them. The two didn’t slow down their steps as they continued to shoot forward.
Bam bam bam!
Air bubbles continued to explode as the lava lake seemed to suddenly boil over. Enormous waves of lava reached for the cavern’s heights as the shadows of humanoid and monstrous forms capered within, seemingly intent on ripping Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian to pieces.
“Brother Lin, hold!” Feng Wanjian was deeply anxious. He was concentrating every iota of energy he had in maintaining his bridge of swords, and couldn’t spare anything to respond to the lava monsters.
Lin Feng understood the situation they were in without Feng Wanjian’s reminders. Had they faced so many monsters on the ground, he wouldn’t have been afraid at all. But right now, they were midair, and the only footholds they had were hovering swords that were sixteen meters apart. A single misstep would mean that they would plummet into the boundless depths of the lava.
Under these circumstances, Lin Feng couldn’t display more than thirty percent of his usual strength. But even so, he still did his best with the “Tristar Incantation”. The tristar air currents he formed broke off from them to intercept the lava monsters again and again, but there were simply too many. It was as if the two had stirred up a hornet’s nest as all of the lifeforms in the lava lake seemed to wake, rising up in irritation.
A distance of several hundred meters was nothing for an origin realm cultivator, but currently, it seemed like a chasm, with heaven on one side and hell on the other. Every step forward required a strategy to deal with the ever increasing number of monsters assaulting their position. Even their path back was obstucted as the lava monsters surrounded them, howling savagely.
The strength of the lava monsters were far below Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian’s third level origin realm, but what they didn’t have in cultivation, they made up in numbers and a peculiar body composition. Every single lava monster possessed a fire constitution, so normal attacks couldn’t kill them at all. In addition, their attacks were imbued with fiery lava, scorching to the touch. This kind of temperature was something that even the duo was unwilling to touch.
In this regard, Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian were forced to a standstill above the lava lake.
“Brother Lin, hurry up and break through! I can only control this many swords for a limited time!” Feng Wanjian was quite worried as manipulating flying swords was an activity that greatly drained origin energy. Moreover, he was controlling thirty at once! It wouldn’t have been as much pressure if they’d crossed in a few breaths, but now that he had to maintain them, the drain was getting larger and larger.
Xu Gang and Yue Pan were watching this scene from a dark corner on the other side, both of them chortling.
“Senior brother Yue, was this step a bit too vicious?” Xu Gang cackled.
“What a pity those two trash took the lead here. My goal wasn’t them!” Yue Pan looked at the other side from the shadows.
The two had used the flight glyphs to fly over the lava lake, and Yue Pan had very surreptitiously thrown a spirit glyph into the lake when they’d almost arrived. It didn’t explode until it’d reached the bottom of the lake.
When it exploded, it immediately enraged all of the lifeforms at the bottom of the lake. Yue Pan’s drastic measure had been quite vicious, and aimed at Jiang Chen.
From everything he’d seen so far, Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian weren’t threats at all. It was only the mysterious Regal Pill Palace disciple Jiang Chen that gave him an inscrutable feeling.
He’d wanted to ambush Jiang Chen before, but hadn’t succeeded. Yue Pan had wanted to commit murder with a borrowed knife, but two other unlucky bastards had charged into the trap first, with the two from the Regal Pill Palace safe on the side.
Xu Gang watched for a while. “Senior brother Yue, now that the beings in the lake are all awake, that’ll keep them busy for quite a while. It’ll be difficult for the two from the Regal Pill Palace to cross. I think we should be on our way. It’d be bad if the Walkabout Sect made their way there first.”
Regret flashed through Yue Pan’s eyes. “What a pity, a pity.” He’d wanted to stay and admire Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian’s grisly deaths, but when he remembered that those bastards from the Walkabout Sect were already ahead, he wasn’t in the mindset to stay and watch the fun.
“Let’s go. Bastards from the Walkabout Sect, I’ll make today your death anniversary when I catch up with you!” Yue Pan was full of resentment towards the Walkabout Sect. Even though he hadn’t been injured in the ambush, he had still been greatly frightened.
The two kept their previous formation of one in the front and one in the back, moving swiftly forward. The Dark North Sect had all died earlier, with Feng Wanjian and Lin Feng soon to follow in their footsteps. That meant that both the Tristar Sect and Sacred Sword Palace representatives would also be annihilated shortly. The two from the Regal Pill Palace wouldn’t be able to cross the lava lake and so wouldn’t be a threat either. Therefore, their only competition was the Walkabout Sect up ahead. When he thought of how their competition had beaten them to the draw and plotted against him, his anger grew deeper. He and Xu Gang had fancied themselves clever and kept scheming against others, but who would’ve thought that this sect was one step ahead of them! This was nothing more than humiliation.
Lin Feng was dripping with sweat. The enormous heat wave and ferocious lava monsters was fatiguing him immensely.
“Brother Lin, are you still not going to use your full strength? Don’t tell me you don’t have the Star and Moon Glyph of your Tristar Sect?!”
Lin Feng was very depressed. He did have the glyph, but that was his trump card! Was he going to use it just a fifth of the way through the lava region? He didn’t want to!
Feng Wanjian gave a shout as a lava monster churned away one of the swords beneath his feet. The frightening heat radiating off the lava monster burned into his soles. If any more swords suffered that fate, they wouldn’t be left with a foothold anymore!
Feng Wanjian kept redeploying the swords in other areas to come support them, so that they would have a place to push off from.
“Lin Feng, if you still don’t use the Star and Moon Glyph, I’ll just withdraw the swords and we can just die together!” Feng Wanjian yelled crazily.
Lin Feng also knew at this point that if he didn’t use the Glyph, the only path left was death. He grasped the air, and an exotic, heavenly glyph appeared in his hand. Light flashed as the glyph immediately emanated golden starlight for hundreds of meters. Radiance from countless stars instantly illuminated a radius of several hundred meters.
Wham!
Wherever the starlight shone, all of the lava monsters caught within suddenly froze as their bodies instantly turned frost-white, immediately frozen into ice sculptures. They plunged into the lava lake below, exploding from the heat difference on impact and releasing plumes of blue smoke.
“Let’s go!” Without the interference of the lava monsters, the swords turned into flowing streams of light as the two cultivators shot towards the opposite shore.
Just then…
WHAM!
Like a long suppressed volcano, a force that could level mountains and eradicate seas blasted out from within the lava lake. The enormous explosion instantly overturned the surface of the lake, and tidal waves of lava hundreds of meters tall surged outward. Unprepared for the magnitude of this backlash, Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian were engulfed by waves of lava several hundreds of meters tall!
