Martial Peak

Chapter 1294, Nested Array

In an instant, the thick Corpse Qi shrouded the golden silk thread, but what surprised the Corpse Soldier was that his normally formidable Corpse Qi simply had no effect on this thin golden thread. The golden silk thread also seemed to have spirituality and contained an astonishing amount of vitality. With a quick flick, it shook off the Corpse Qi and then proceeded to pierce straight through the Corpse Soldier’s abnormally sturdy body as if it was tofu.

The golden thread then coiled around the Corpse Solider a few times and bound him tightly.

This Corpse Soldier instantly became terrified, but before he could take any kind of defensive action, Yang Kai released a pitch-black blade-like attack towards him. This blade did not give off any kind of energy fluctuation but upon seeing it, the green flame like eyes of the Corpse Soldier bulged as he sensed great danger from it.

In a flurry, he twisted his figure and managed to avoid a hit to his vitals, allowing the black blade-like attack to instead land on one of his arms.

An incredibly strange scene appeared next though, as his arm silently fell from his body. There was also a small portion of his arm missing where the cut had taken place, so the wound on his body and the fallen arm did not match exactly.

Naturally, it was Yang Kai’s Space Blade.

Although the Corpse Soldier’s physical body was unusually strong, Yang Kai’s Space Blade was also incredibly powerful as it could swallow anything it cut into The Void. The small missing section of the Corpse Soldier’s arm had been forever exiled to The Void.

When Yang Kai observed this cut though, there was only a light green liquid that was leaking out and no trace of blood at all, appearing quite strange.

Even so, the Corpse Soldier seemed to have suffered serious harm and a mournful wail escaped from its mouth, Corpse Qi erupting from its body and quickly engulfing it.

Yang Kai was just about to finish it off, but a look of horror suddenly came over his face and with a hurried wave of his hand, the golden thread which was binding the Corpse Soldier flew back to him.

The Corpse Soldier had regained his freedom and from within his shroud of Corpse Qi, he glared at Yang Kai fiercely before grabbing the fallen segment of his arm and transformed into a yellow streak of light, escaping at a surprisingly fast speed.

Yang Kai stood somberly in place as he stared down at his Golden Blood Thread and noticed that it had been horribly contaminated with Black Qi.

Because he had only been cultivating his Golden Thread technique for a short time, Yang Kai was unable to display its full power; if he had been skillfully use it, this kind of contamination would never have occurred. Having been bound by the Golden Blood Thread, despite having incredible strength, the Corpse Soldier should have been easily killed by Yang Kai.

Flicking his wrist, Yang Kai withdrew the Golden Thread into his body and condensed his Saint Qi around it to purge the residual Corpse Qi. At the same time, he grabbed Yang Yan by her shoulder and chased after the Corpse Soldier as quick as lightning.

The confrontation between Yang Kai and Corpse Soldier was over in the blink of an eye, so Yang Yan had yet to even react before this enemy she regarded as quite dangerous escaped in a panic. Only after they were already pursing it did she come to her sense and begin explaining the origins of this Corpse Soldier to Yang Kai.

Through her remarks, Yang Kai realized that this Corpse Soldier was just a classification in a hierarchy of similar creatures.

Just like Yin Souls, Corpse Soldiers could only be born in environments rich in Yin Qi. When a living cultivator or creature died here, under a combination of chance and opportunity, its Soul and flesh would not just wither away but instead transform into a different kind of existence. This is what a Corpse Soldier was.

Of course, some Corpse Soldiers were not formed this way but were instead the result of a Yin Soul reaching a certain degree of strength and sentience and then seizing the body of a living creature. This would result in a Corpse Soldier-like existence.

Corpse Soldiers could also artificially be created through evil Secret Arts. On Shadowed Star, there were many Sects that possessed these kinds of evil arts.

However, in general, the formation of a Corpse Soldier was far more difficult than that of a Yin Soul. If the conditions were right, any disembodied Soul that didn’t disperse could transform into a Yin Soul. On the other hand, Corpse Soldiers required both the Soul and flesh body to endure after death and re-integrate with one another. This significantly increased the difficulty of a Corpse Soldier forming.

These creatures could roughly be divided into three levels, Hundred-Year Corpse Soldiers, Thousand-Year Corpse Generals, and Ten-Thousand-Year Corpse Kings!

Needless to say, Hundred-Year Corpse Soldiers had an extremely difficult time cultivating because they were essentially undead and could not easily absorb World Qi. As such, they cultivated many times slower than living creatures on average. It was not unusual for a Corpse Soldier that cultivated for a few hundred years to be inferior to an ordinary Saint King Realm cultivator.

However, the strength of a Corpse Soldier was far superior to others in the same equivalent realm. This was true all the way from the Initial Element Stage all the way to the Saint King Realm.

The Corpse Soldier Yang Kai encountered just now was an existence equivalent to the peak of the Saint King Realm. It had probably taken seven or eight hundred years of cultivation for it to reach this kind of level.

Once a Corpse Soldier was promoted to a Thousand-Year Corpse General, it would have power on par with an Origin Returning Realm master. As for a legendary Ten-Thousand-Year Corpse King, it would be comparable to an Origin King Realm master. It could even be said that a Ten Thousand Year Corpse King was far more powerful than an ordinary Origin King because the flesh body of a ten-thousand-year-old Corpse King was almost indestructible.

As Yang Yan explained all of this in detail, Yang Kai was secretly shocked.

He had never contacted such strange creatures before and had never even heard about them from anyone. He had honestly never expected that there would be such a weird form a life in this world.

However, Yang Kai was not an ordinary person and had seen many types of strange creatures before, so although he was a little interested in the indestructible body of a Ten Thousand Year Corpse King, after calming down, he didn’t show much surprise.

Along the way, Yang Kai did not know what strange means the Corpse Soldier used, but in a place some fifty kilometres ahead of them, it suddenly disappeared.

Yang Kai released his Divine Sense but could not find any clues besides a faint trace of Corpse Qi that had been leaking from the damaged body of the Corpse Soldier.

Following this trail of Corpse Qi, Yang Kai and Yang Yan arrived in front of a collapsed ruin and upon looking around, they discovered that within a range of a dozen kilometres or so, there were many crumbled buildings. Obviously, this place had been a core region of this Sect, otherwise there wouldn’t have been so many buildings.

“There are traces of Spirit Arrays here,” Yang Yan’s eyes stared at what appeared to be an open square nearby with bright eyes, a smile soon creeping onto her face, “But it’s just a simple Illusion Array, nothing difficult to crack.”

Yang Kai gently nodded and motioned for her to do her thing.

Yang Yan once again took out her strange tools, filled them with her Saint Qi, and threw them out, causing them to disappear in the next moment.

After a stick of incense worth of time, the scene in front of Yang Yan distorted and soon transformed from an open square to a completely different set of ruins.

Before Yang Yan could even put down her hands though, a strange blast of energy rushed towards her and Yang Kai from all directions, blocking all paths of retreat.

“A Nested Array!” Yang Yan called out in alarm. Yang Kai responded very quickly, pulling Yang Yan behind him and summoning his Purple Shield, madly pouring his Saint Qi into it and immediately creating a wall of yellow sand and wind around them.

It was the sandstorm ability of the Purple Shield.

The waves of energy attacks hit the sandstorm and were blocked by the wind and sand. Although these attacks did not completely disappear, their power was greatly reduced, making them far less ferocious than before.

Yang Kai constantly waved his hands, releasing multiple black fireballs to resist the remnants of these energy attacks.

Seeing this, Yang Yan calm down and hurriedly began surveying their surroundings. She had not expected that there would be a Nested Array here; after all, arranging such a series of concentric Spirit Arrays was quite difficult and also consumed a massive amount of materials. Even great Sects would not easily arrange this type of Spirit Array.

However, there was indeed such a Nested Array here, something which surprised Yang Yan and caused her vigilance to increase.

The attacks from the second Spirit Array were endless, and although they were not Heaven Destroying or Earth Shattering in power, they were enough to put Yang Kai completely on the defensive and even showed signs of overwhelming him in short order.

After a moment though, Yang Yan suddenly pointed to a small bronze gate in the ground smirked, “Hit that!”

Hearing this, Yang Kai did not hesitate to release his Space Blade.

In an instant, the Space Blade cut this bronze gate in half. A buzzing sound resounded all around and the attacks all quickly ceased.

After waiting for a while to confirm that no more attacks were coming, Yang Kai withdrew his Purple Shield and looked around.

He thought that the Corpse Soldier that had fled before would be hiding somewhere nearby, but there was nothing in sight, causing him a great deal of doubt.

“This doesn’t make sense. This Spirit Array would be very troublesome even for me to crack, but the Corpse Soldier disappeared as soon as it entered here. It’s impossible for him to be the master of this Spirit Array,” Yang Yan frowned deeply, obviously unable to understand what had just happened.

Yang Kai’s wore an uncertain expression as well as he hypothesized, “Could he have simply known a safe route through this Spirit Array?”

“Impossible,” Yang Yan shook her head decisively, “Unless he was an Array Grandmaster before his death, he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that even if he was far stronger. Of course, if he was a disciple of this Sect before he died, he might be able to control the Spirit Array here, but he is just a Corpse Soldier that cultivated for a few hundred years while the Ancient Yang Sect was destroyed over two thousand years ago, so it’s impossible for him to be one of their disciples.”

“Whatever the case, he must still be here,” Yang Kai grinned, “Not to mention, with this place being so well hidden, don’t you think it might be the place we’ve been looking for?”

“You mean, as long as we can find where he’s hiding, we’ll also complete our original objective?” Yang Yan suddenly remembered their purpose in coming here and asked excitedly.

“Maybe,” Yang Kai replied.

The two exchanged a glance before immediately beginning to search their surroundings.

After half an hour, the pair stood in front of a certain ruin. This place appeared unremarkable at first glance, but if one looked carefully, they would notice that unlike everywhere else, there were some slight distortions in space here.

There was another barrier here, but this one only had some concealment ability and no offensive power. Fortunately, Yang Yan had profound attainments in Spirit Arrays, otherwise, they might not have discovered it.