Blue Phoenix Chapter 91 – Battlefield

The fights which had previously been centered in the middle of Riluo City quickly spread throughout the larger streets and side roads. The central square had already been thoroughly trashed by the cultivators who were experts of the upper dantian’s wu wei.

Golden light flashed everywhere. With each attack, unfortunate guards would be killed by the sheer pressure which followed such an attack.

Both sides were evenly matched. Rong Liang’s side had Bu Huang, Rong Liang, and the Ma family leader all who were King ranked experts. The opposing side had Deng Tsang Ying, Wang Ju Long’s father, and an elder from the Deng family. They were currently battling against each other, showing no restraint in their usage of abilities.

As the primary fight between the six high-ranked experts intensified, none of them seemed to hold the advantage. Instead, they were only using average spiritual arts, trying to cause the opposing side to waste their energy. No injuries had been sustained yet, when it came to the experts, but sadly the ground was littered with corpses, none of which were complete.

Looking around, Hui Yue saw the three magical beasts in a triangular formation, working together with Hui Yue’s other friends to protect themselves. Rong Xing stood on the ground, swinging her Qi Fan and causing plenty of wind to blow the enemies back.

When they were blown back, Rong Ming would use Qi Slash to cut them on either their legs or arms, ensuring that they could no longer attack. The two twins seemed to avoid killing as much as possible.

Ma Kong and Gao Yan were not as considerate, as Ma Kong threw one Qi Bomb after another into the groups of approaching enemies, ensuring that each bomb caused a significant number of casualties.

Those who Ma Kong missed, Shui Wu, imprisoned within her water prisons where they slowly drowned.

Gao Yan was working together with Bing Niao, both of which were using their elemental affinities. Bing Niao’s affinity was for water, yet she specialized in ice. As long as there was water in the air, Bing Niao would be capable of producing her lethal attacks. One ice spear after another was thrust through the approaching guards. A merciless gleam could be seen within her beautiful eyes.

Gao Yan at first had been astonished as he saw the beast women arrive. He knew that they were acting on Hui Yue’s behalf. The fact that Hui Yue had refused to join the battle from the very start made Gao Yan think Hui Yue would stay away.

The commoner boy had long since pledged his allegiance to the Rong faction. He was also known as the one who could provide almost any type of information; this included the knowledge about today being the day for the battle to commence.

His servants were the ones who worked for Hui Yue. Although he had told them not to spy on Hui Yue, they still gave Gao Yan information from time to time when they thought they had found something important.

Usually, Gao Yan would scold them whenever they came to give him information, as he disliked the feeling of spying on his friends. In spite of that, his servants continued to give him information when significant things happened. Still, none of the information he had gotten had implied that Hui Yue would participate in the war, yet here he was with the magical beast sisters, defending the Rong Liang faction.

Seeing that Hui Yue had decided to join hands with the current City Lord, an unsightly expression spread across Deng Tsang Ying’s face. He stepped back for a moment, and his voice roared in the sky, “Wu! Go and deal with that troublesome friend of yours!” Moments after he yelled, Deng Tsang Ying once more paid his full attention to the battle he was fighting.

Deng Wu had a wry smile on his face, as he had stood passively up until now. As soon as the words sounded, a stern expression appeared on his face as his eyes gleamed with killing intent.

“I have always wanted to see just who of us is the strongest,” Deng Wu said with a cold voice as he smirked, stretching his hands and preparing to do battle.

Seeing this Rong Xing’s face paled and her anger rose to incredible heights, her eyes shining with disbelief and rage. She no longer held anything back and each of her attacks sought to kill the opponents she faced.

Rong Xing was not the only one filled with disbelief. Everyone who had considered Deng Wu, their friend was shocked beyond belief. They felt their hearts were ripped apart from the betrayal, their eyes turned bloodshot, and their attacks gained in strength, fuelled by their anger.

Hui Yue’s expression was calm but sorrowful as he landed his Qi Fan on the ground, facing Deng Wu. Mighty undulations arrived from within his spiritual energy sea. The red and yellow flames started to grow in size as they sucked up drop after drop of spiritual energy.

At the same time, these flames began to activate; an orange hue seemed to appear around Hui Yue. It slowly solidified into a solid energy shield which protected him. This shield was something which all cultivators of the middle dantian could use freely. It allowed for a deeper affinity with the element which was surrounding them. At the same time, it also provided some defense. The stronger the association was, the better defense the cultivator would receive.

One could tell, just by looking at Hui Yue’s orange shield that his affinity with the elements was far above the norm. A frown appeared on Deng Wu’s face.

Although Deng Wu had reached the Master Rank many years ago and was currently cultivating with the help of the Dragon cultivation method, he was still only within the Master rank, albeit a nine star Master.

Had this battle occurred half a year prior, then Hui Yue would have had trouble matching up against Deng Wu. But now this was no longer the case as Hui Yue had managed to sync with not only earth but also fire perfectly. This syncing was something which had only been possible due to his soul fusion with Lan Feng.

From one of Hui Yue’s palms, a small flame rose while the other contained swirling stones. Looking at these two different things within his hands, Hui Yue crushed the stones with one hand and a second after, big rocks seemed to appear out of nowhere in the sky, raining down upon Deng Wu.

Hui Yue and Deng Wu were on the outskirts of the center square, pressed away from the middle due to the severe energy which was wafting out each second.

The rain of massive stones caused Deng Wu to flinch slightly, as he understood that Hui Yue had no intention of being lenient. A sad smile appeared on his face as he evaded the stones, rushing for Hui Yue.

Reaching the white-haired boy, Deng Wu chanted an incantation, and his hands made an extensive array of hand seals before he bit his tongue and spat a few drops of blood onto an inscription that had been carved in a leather wrist guard.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a sad expression on his face. “The survival of my clan is the most important.”

Having said that, Deng Wu touched the inscription pattern and an acute sense of danger filled Hui Yue as the pattern lit up and multiple shadows started to waft out from within the center of the pattern. These shadows did not seem threatening at first, yet a wayward cultivator entered the battle area where Hui Yue and Deng Wu were testing out each other’s strength.

As soon as the poor cultivator came into contact with one of the shadows, a corroding effect seemed to appear, and agonizing screams were emitted from the man before the corrosion had finished him off.

Hui Yue’s eyes twitched, as he saw how the shadow had eaten up the entire cultivator only to take over the skeleton, suddenly turning it into a moving skeleton. Not an ounce of flesh or muscle was left on the now-moving skeleton which was under the command of Deng Wu.

Seeing this, Hui Yue was inwardly quite shocked. Deng Wu had long since told him that he was working on an explicit specialization within the metal affinity. Hui Yue had never bothered asking which kind of specialty this was, as he felt that the other would rather not explain it. Now Hui Yue understood that Deng Wu was aiming to become a necromancer.

The metal affinity did not have the power to create anything from nothing, such as the earth affinity cultivators, nor did it have the authority to heal or catalyze anything living. What it was capable of doing was creating inscription patterns that could alter the things which had already been set up by others. This creating included forcefully storing the souls and refining them into his servants.

These servants would be nothing more than souls. Souls themselves were not dangerous as they had nowhere to store their cultivation base. As soon as they came into contact with a living being, they would corrode them. Then by the help of the inscription pattern, they would take over the living being's body, after which the cultivation base would be merged with the soul and gather in a bone core, similar to that of magical beasts.

As a necromancer, Deng Wu was walking down a road, where the normal world would shun him but at the same time fear him. Necromancers could raise armies of shadows. All those benefits had considerable drawbacks, and Deng Wu was only able to create his necromancer’s inscriptions by sacrificing people and a part of his cultivation base.

If one used too much of their cultivation base, then they were likely even to drop down a rank. To sacrifice one's cultivation support meant that nature would not replenish it. Instead, it required the cultivator to once more cultivate the amount of lost qi or spiritual energy through painstaking efforts.

The sacrificed cultivation base was what determined how strong his shadows would be. Hui Yue guessed that each of these shadows could corrode any cultivator under the rank of a seven or eight star Master ranked expert.

Seeing that Deng Wu had taken out such a vicious method, Hui Yue gave a merciless grin. He removed the earthen flame within his hand and instead allowed two red flames to appear in its place. The dense energy shield around him instantly switched from being orange to a dark red color.

Hui Yue was currently relying on his affinity for fire, and the flames had both sprouted from his spiritual energy sea, nourished by the many drops of spiritual energy. Bathed in the red light from his red flame, no one noticed the red mist which appeared within the ice-blue eyes. Before Hui Yue made a move, a baleful killing aura erupted from him followed by five large orbs of fire which swirled, much like the Qi Lightning Bolts belonging to Wang Ju Long.

Unlike the Qi Lightning, these five giant balls of fire were purely based on Hui Yue’s next wish to turn all the surrounding shadows into dust. Utterly destroying the soul shadows was the only way for Hui Yue to get through this. With but thought, his fire orbs were raging, flying on the way towards the soul shadows which Deng Wu had released.

A large boom sounded out as the fire orbs collided with the shadows, followed by an excruciating howling which could be heard above all the fighting, causing the skirmishes close to the two youngsters to completely stop, as everyone was pushed back by the released waves of energy. Their hair stood on end due to the horrible sound that had erupted moments before.

Even the high-ranked cultivators felt slightly shocked in their heart as they saw the battle between Hui Yue and Deng Wu. Dust from the roads rose as a result of the massive explosion. Hui Yue had been pushed back slightly, out of the dust cloud which still held Deng Wu and his shadows hidden.

Blood was slowly trickling from the corner of Hui Yue’s lips as he swore inwardly. He had used all the fire orbs, yet he was sure that only one of the souls had perished during his previous attack. He quickly summoned the Qi Fan and flew into the air. A green light shone from his dantian cave, the light gushing out from within the green pearl, towards the ribcage with a few broken bones.

Narrowing his eyes, Hui Yue saw the dust cloud slowly drift down, revealing Deng Wu completely unharmed and surrounded by seven shadows, all looking rather damaged.