Spirit Realm

“These eastern barbarians aren’t much!”

Luo Chen stood at the peak of the mountain. He radiated sword intent that felt like it could cut through anything. A harsh, seemingly tangible light shone from his eyes.

“Why don’t you come up here, Jiang Tianxing?” Du Xiangyang hollered in a mocking tone. “Weren’t you going to kill us all?”

The rest of the group was relaxed, smiles adorning their faces. They were thinking the same thing—

—The eastern barbarians weren’t much.

“Young master!”

Halfway up the mountain, all of the scarlet barbarian clansmen turned their red eyes to look at Di Fei.

Eight tribesmen had been killed by the shower of boulders and ten had been heavily injured. More importantly, the enemy was taunting them! They couldn’t endure such humiliation!

Xue Moyan frowned slightly. “Di Fei isn’t a pushover, everyone. Control yourselves.”

“What’s he gonna do, topple the mountain?” Du Xiangyang asked with a hearty laugh.

Qin Lie’s group currently stood at the peak of the mountain. If the scarlet barbarians tried to charge up to them, they would have to endure assaults from above.

After dealing significant damage to the eastern barbarians, Du Xiangyang and Luo Chen were brimming with confidence.

They thought they held the upper hand and looked down on the eastern barbarians below them. They relaxed.

“Everyone!” Di Fei suddenly bellowed, a vicious expression on his face. “Come down from the mountain!”

The moment Di Fei gave the order, the scarlet barbarians quickly retreated from the mountain.

“Hm? They’re retreating?” Pan Qianqian exclaimed in shock.

“Di Fei hasn’t moved!” Xue Moyan shouted, her expression grave.

“Something’s not right!” Qin Lie said.

When the scarlet barbarians retreated from the mountain and left Di Fei at the midpoint, Qin Lie started to feel earth energy radiate from him. The energy was so powerful that it made even him feel nervous.

Haloes of bright golden light emerged from Di Fei’s body.

These haloes, which seemed to carry an earth-shaking power that disrupted the gravity around it, suddenly charged deep into the ground.

“Boom boom boom—!”

The mountain and the glacier that covered it began to shake furiously. Di Fei continued to release haloes carrying the power of earth, warping the gravity in the area and making rocks tumble down the ice.

From their high vantage point, the faces of everyone in Qin Lie’s group went pale at the sight of other mountains moving back and forth.

Did Di Fei really possess the power to topple a mountain?

“You really guessed it, you blabbermouth!” Pan Qianqian glared at Du Xiangyang, her face riddled with shock and anxiety. “Is Di Fei really this strong? Can his control over the power of earth truly cause earthquakes and make mountains collapse? This is too terrifying!”

Xue Moyan sighed softly. “The eastern barbarians call Di Fei the Son of the Earth. He could apparently feel earth power not long after he was born, and is supposedly capable of connecting to it with his heartbeat.”

“Boom boom boom—!”

The earth continued to shake. At the peak of the mountain where Qin Lie’s group stood atop the ice of the thousand-meter-long glacier, enormous pieces of it broke away and fell with huge amounts of snow.

The intense earthquake shook the icy mountain on which they stood, and it seemed like it would collapse at any moment.

This development brought shock to the faces of Qin Lie and the others. Only now did they realize just how scary Di Fei was.

“No, that isn’t right!” Qin Lie yelled, examining the situation with his mind consciousness. The second he did, his expression went slack. “He didn’t cause the earthquake with his own power… the spirit of the Forbidden Land of Earth did! The earth spirit formed a bond with Di Fei. It should be in his body at this very moment!”

As soon as he said that, everyone felt even more anxious, their opinion of Di Fei skyrocketing.

“It’s just like how the wood spirit wanted to use Ye Yihao to free itself from the Forbidden Land of Wood, break out of the Graveyard of Gods, and escape into the outside world,” Qin Lie said, a serious expression on his face. “The spirit of the Forbidden Land of Earth has bound itself to Di Fei to do that very same thing. The earth spirit is inside of him. It’s causing the earthquake!”

“You’re right!” Di Fei turned to glare at the people on the mountain threatening to collapse. “The earth spirit is helping me!”

Two slits suddenly appeared above his eyes, and two gray-yellow eyes shot open.

It seemed as if these new eyes had replaced Di Fei’s eyebrows, making it look like he had four. It gave him a strange, frightening appearance.

Everyone instinctively looked at the pair of gray-yellow eyes.

“Whoosh!”

Dozens of gray and yellow rays of light shot from both eyes and smashed into the mountain peak.

“Boom boom boom!”

Enormous boulders cracked, and the glacier fell apart at its center.

The ice at the peak of the mountain could no longer hold up and began to collapse as well. After the explosions caused by the rays of light, the bulk of the mountain slowly started tilting.

Pan Qianqian screamed, her shrill voice echoing from the top of the mountain.

“Jump!” Qin Lie shouted.

Just as the glacier collapsed, and right before the mountain peak hurtled to the ground, Qin Lie, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, Du Xiangyang, Luo Chen, Xue Moyan, and Pan Qianqian… jumped.

Their figures, each of them surrounded by shields of light, fell toward a nearby valley. They crashed into the snow that had accumulated there, creating deep, person-shaped holes.

“Pfft!”

Pan Qianqian’s shield shattered upon impact, leaving her dazed and completely exposed to the cold winds. She spat out a mouthful of blood, and her face turned pale.

“It’s… s-so cold!” She stuttered, trembling as her eyes grew dim.

“Bang!”

Luo Chen smashed into a piece of ice that had fallen earlier on, shattering it. He groaned as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Everyone else suffered in similar ways, ending up dazed upon landing.

Qin Lie endured a similar crash landing. He fell like a human hammer, slamming straight into an enormous, three-meter-tall piece of ice. It crumbled to pieces as he leaped to his feet with a grunt.

Having a strong body finally showed its benefits.

Since Qin Lie was as tough as stone even without the protection of a shield of light, falling from such a height had no effect on him.

When the others landed, their shields of light either shattered or badly warped.

Every person’s shield of light required pure spirit energy to take shape. The destruction of such a shield meant a large expenditure of spirit energy.

When this happened to the rest of Qin Lie’s group, one-tenth of each person’s spirit energy was lost.

This didn’t even take their wounds into account.

“Incoming!” Qin Lie shouted. He took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his hands.

Blue bolts of lightning shot from his fingers like spirit snakes, each one to two meters long and filled with the pure, ferocious energy of thunder and lightning.

“There!” Jiang Tianxing pointed them out to other scarlet barbarians.

Just outside the valley, ten scarlet barbarians nocked their bows, preparing to shoot at Qin Lie’s group. An intense cold filled their eyes.

Lines of blue, dark green, scarlet, and translucent spirit energy coursed along the length of their arms, flooding into their enormous bows.

The arrows nocked into their bows ignited like torches and released bright, colorful lights.

“Fire!”

Arrows filled with pure spirit energy shot through the air like rain. The terrifying power they carried was capable of destroying the valley like the careless movement of a gargantuan being.

“Explode!”

Ten streaks of blue lightning twisted through the air like vicious snakes, shooting toward the arrows.

“Papapapa!”

The snakes clashed with the arrows in midair, filling the sky with bright flames and sparks of light. It resembled a beautiful fireworks show.

The moment the arrows collided with the blue lightning, the spirit energy they contained released a shockwave that struck Qin Lie.

The force flung Qin Lie to the mouth of the valley. He trembled uncontrollably, feeling as if he had taken a heavy punch.

He eventually got his body under control and stopped trembling. The lightning in his eyes looked slightly weaker, but he still wore his usual, relaxed expression.

Despite the fact that he blocked a majority of the arrows, three got past him. However, these three suddenly exploded when they approached Xue Moyan.

Xue Moyan’s Illusory Demon Orb was capable of releasing wondrous illusions. It emitted an ethereal light that gradually enveloped her figure, making her seem like an immortal goddess descending to the mortal realm.

She had been the one to block the last three arrows.

“Jiang Tianxing… haven’t you and your father spent many years trying to find an opportunity to kill me?” she asked, walking forward.

Her bright eyes swept across Qin Lie and settled Jiang Tianxing, who stood in the midst of the scarlet barbarians.

“After today, we’ll have one less target.” Jiang Tianxing’s eyes went a bloody crimson, like those of a savage ghost. In a low voice, he said, “Senior Sister Xue, you should not have lived. If it weren’t for you, your mother wouldn’t have been stuck with a fate worse than death...”

Upon hearing his words, Xue Moyan’s eyes slowly became tinged with blood.

The thick odor of blood gradually emanated from her body as she channeled the Blood Spirit Art.