Chapter 115

Chapter 115: Goal – Foundation Establishment Pagoda

Juying Island wasn’t very big. Aside from the numerous small villages, there were only three cities. Xu Qing’s goal was Juying City, the largest of the three.

He had deliberately chosen the direction to approach the island from so that the first city he saw, this giant fish skeleton, was Juying City.

"Juying City..." Xu Qing’s eyes flashed. He ran toward the city at high speed.

As he ran, he looked around to see the whole of Juying Island in utter chaos. Destruction and devastation could be seen everywhere after Seven Blood Pupils’ earlier bombardment. In the distance, black smoke billowed into the sky, and sounds of battle rang out from all directions.

Xu Qing retracted his gaze and ran straight to the giant fish skeleton. It didn’t seem far away, but it still took him an hour to approach.

As he closed in, he could better see just how enormous the fish skeleton really was.

Xu Qing couldn’t imagine how monstrous this fish must have been when it was alive. Even its long-dead skeleton exuded a mighty pressure that made him narrow his eyes.

However, this pressure clearly had no effect on merfolk. This might have something to do with their innate racial characteristics.

But for other races, this pressure would batter their minds, and their cultivation base would be suppressed. Unfortunately, with the sea of purple light sealing off heaven and earth, the fish skeleton’s pressure was itself suppressed almost completely.

Although the remnant pressure was still powerful, it didn’t affect the cultivation base much.

As he approached, Xu Qing could hear explosions ringing out constantly from the city and felt the fluctuations of spells. He knew that many disciples had already rushed in, so he didn’t hesitate any longer and directly leaped into the city.

Juying City, built on top of the fish skeleton, had a peculiar architectural style. Some buildings were shaped like the houses of the human race, some were strange and shaped like beehives, and some residences were made from plants like mushrooms or seaweed.

There were also some that were just wrecked ships or giant shells.

The human-style buildings were clearly reminiscent of those in the Seven Blood Pupils main city, built from brick and tile. Apparently, Seven Blood Pupils had come here to build houses for the merfolk race before.

Xu Qing swept his gaze all around, but he didn’t stop at all as he ran to the center of the city.

His destination was the Foundation Establishment Pagoda in the center of the city.

According to Huang Yan’s jade slip, the Spiritual Breath Lamp, the merfolk race’s holy relic used for establishing foundations, was placed in the Foundation Establishment Pagoda. Normally, it would be heavily guarded by merfolk experts.

“I have to grab it. If I can’t… I’ll go to the city’s pill treasury and look for Foundation Establishment Pills.” Xu Qing knew that time was running out, so he charged forward at full speed, causing the wind to whistle around him.

However, he didn’t use any flight talismans. After all, there was a huge difference between running in the city streets and moving through the air. Although the merfolk race cultivators had their cultivation suppressed and Xu Qing’s own battle prowess was astonishing, it was still better not to catch too much attention.

As Xu Qing closed in on the pagoda, he also saw some Seven Blood Pupils disciples along the way. Most of them were hiding in the shadows, looking to plunder treasures. Even if they occasionally killed, it was mostly over benefits.

Few people really focused on killing.

Even if there was occasional friction between disciples over a treasure, it would often be resolves at the drop of a hat. After all, the city was so big and full of treasure that there was no need to kill each other over pennies.

Xu Qing also noticed some monuments in the city that seemed to stand witness to the alliance of Seven Blood Pupils and the merfolk race. For example, just then, he caught sight of a stone stele.

This stone stele was tall and well-preserved, and a large number of names was engraved upon it.

Apparently, when the Seven Blood Pupils came to avert a crisis of the merfolk race many years ago, they had left behind this tombstone as the grave of the sacrificed disciples.

The stele was clear of dust. It seemed that it was cleaned frequently.

But with the sky-sealing array, the stele seemed to have lost some concealing power. It could be seen that there were no more bones in the grave beneath the stele, and there were even clear signs of excavation…

Xu Qing looked at the stele, then at the Seventh Peak cultivators up in the sky. He understood the reason for the higher-ups’ anger.

However, Xu Qing had only entered Seven Blood Pupils not long ago. Furthermore, everything he had seen was driven purely by profit, so he didn’t have too much empathy. Nevertheless, he had an instinctive disgust for this kind of thankless behavior.

Retracting his gaze, he suddenly lifted his right hand, causing countless water droplets to converge in the surroundings. They formed a curtain of water around him that blocked a dozen air bubbles which had suddenly shot over from behind the stone stele.

The bubbles instantly collapsed after touching the water droplets, exploding violently. As ripples spread out, five merfolk cultivators suddenly rushed out from the surroundings, charging toward Xu Qing with fierce killing intent.

Xu Qing glanced at them coldly and waved his hand. The curtain of water around him immediately dispersed, turning into sharp water arrows that pierced the merfolk cultivators in an instant.

Xu Qing’s body flickered and he left the area. After he was gone, the five merfolk cultivators who had been riddled with holes fell to the ground, dead. Water droplets gathered around their leather bags, carrying them into the air and chasing after Xu Qing. After retrieving the leather bags, Xu Qing sped up, approaching the Foundation Establishment Pagoda with speed no slower than if he was flying.

Along the way, Xu Qing didn’t go out of his way to kill anyone, only running wholeheartedly toward his destination. Of course, if someone took the initiative to provoke him, he didn’t mind adding another leather bag to his collection.

Finally, after an hour had passed, Xu Qing reached the heart of the city and saw the Foundation Establishment Pagoda in front of him.

This pagoda had a strange shape. According to Huang Yan’s jade slip, it had been constructed in the image of the merfolk race’s god Juying.

From a distance, the pagoda looked like an old woman in a long robe. However, there were countless tentacles protruding from her body. Each of these tentacles was covered with eyes, stretching toward all directions. If viewed from a different direction, it could be seen that there seemed to be a ghostly face protruding from the old woman’s back.

The face’s long tongue lolled to the side, sinking toward the ground and seemingly turning into Juying’s shadow.

On top of the tower was Juying’s head, which had been hollowed out and had a lamp inside.

It was too far away to see clearly, but Xu Qing could vaguely see that there were some figures sitting cross-legged under the lamp, most likely in the process of breaking through. There were also many guards outside the tower looking around anxiously.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. These people had been unlucky and just so happened to be undergoing the Hundred Days of Establishing Foundation when Seven Blood Pupils attacked. For them to successfully break through in these circumstances… was almost impossible.

But as soon as Xu Qing looked at the Foundation Establishment Pagoda, killing intent suddenly erupted from behind him. A green palm wielding a sharp shell silently appeared, slashing toward Xu Qing’s neck.

Xu Qing furrowed his brow and his cultivation base exploded outward. The Droughtdemon manifested behind him and let loose a silent roar, causing astonishing waves of heat to rumble into the surroundings.

The shell swinging toward his neck collapsed immediately, and the palm holding the shell drew back an instant later. The air distorted, and a translucent figure suddenly appeared, backing away rapidly.

Killing intent flashed through Xu Qing’s eyes. Although the figure tried to hide itself, it couldn’t help but reveal a vague outline in the distortions caused by the heat wave.

A moment later, Xu Qing appeared beside the figure and punched out with his right hand.

A boom echoed out. When Xu Qing’s punch combined with the Droughtdemon shadow, even an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator who hadn’t entered the Profound Brilliance state would be injured. That translucent figure was clearly astonished, but it was already too late to dodge.

But at the critical moment, blue light flashed, and a talisman treasure appeared in front of the translucent cultivator, turning into a light curtain to block the blow.

Unfortunately, the talisman treasure couldn’t bear it and collapsed in an instant. Nevertheless, it did manage to hold Xu Qing back for a moment, and when he closed in again, his opponent’s figure had completely disappeared.

“They can turn invisible?” Xu Qing narrowed his eyes. He turned around and walked toward the Foundation Establishment Pagoda, as if he had given up on pursuing. But when he took his seventh step, he suddenly slammed his body backward.

A dagger appeared in his right hand, and he slashed rapidly behind him as he slammed backward.

The transparent figure behind him struggled and attacked in retaliation. However, thanks to Xu Qing’s powerful physique, he could continue to attack without caring about his opponent’s retaliation.

In the next instant, he turned around and reached out with his left hand, grabbing the transparent figure and slamming him to the ground. As cracks appeared from the impact, Xu Qing finally saw the appearance of his attacker, who had been stabbed dozens of times, poisoned, and seemed to have had their cultivation base suppressed.

This person had green eyes, scales on their body, and gills on their face. It was a merfolk.

He seemed to be middle-aged, and although his cultivation was only at the peak of Qi Condensation, he was so strong that a different Seven Blood Pupils disciple at the peak of Qi Condensation might not have survived a fight.

He had survived Xu Qing’s poison for a long time without fainting, and his attacks were powerful and strange. All of this showed that this person’s true cultivation wasn’t Qi Condensation.

This was a Foundation Establishment cultivator of the merfolk race!

With the suppression of the array formation, his cultivation base had dropped to the peak of Qi Condensation.

At that moment, his expression was filled with disbelief. He bit the tip of his tongue and planned to fight back despite being severely injured, but in the next moment, a black light flashed, and the black skewer pierced his forehead with astonishing force.

After piercing through the merfolk cultivator’s forehead, the black skewer emitted fluctuations of Foundation Establishment-level power, spreading through the merfolk’s whole body and completely destroying all his organs.

Now that his opponent was completely dead, Xu Qing finally approached, pulling out the black skewer and rifling through the cultivator’s pockets before pulling out a leather bag.

But this wasn’t an ordinary leather bag. This was a storage bag!

Xu Qing’s heart pounded, but he didn’t open it immediately. After putting it away, he rushed toward the Foundation Establishment Pagoda up ahead.

At the same time, up in the sky, Seventh Master looked into the distance with his hands behind his back. Behind him were the thirteen elders and hundred-over Foundation Establishment cultivators, all standing in the air silently.

On either side of Seventh Master, there was a huge ball of water. That corpse-like cultivator as well as the merfolk race ancestor were sealed inside.

As the merfolk ancestor looked down at the islands below, he suddenly smiled.

“Zheng Kaiyi, do you really think that the winning card is in your hands?”

As soon as those words exited his mouth, the merfolk race’s four islands suddenly trembled violently. Waves of black light burst out from the sea in the surroundings, enveloping the islands in an instant and turning into a black shroud that concealed everything inside.

The black shroud warped and distorted constantly, as if trying to negate the power of Seven Blood Pupils’ sky-sealing array. Once the sky-sealing array was neutralized, the merfolk race’s Foundation Establishment cultivators would recover their cultivation.

By then, the great competition would turn into a massacre, and it would be the merfolk race massacring the Seven Blood Pupils disciples!

“Zheng Kaiyi, the sea corpse race’s army will be here soon. Once your sect’s array formation is destroyed, your disciples will all become sacrifices for my great race!”

As the merfolk race ancestor sneered triumphantly, black light suddenly broke out in the distance, and a huge vortex appeared in the sky. From within the vortex came an overpowering aura of death, so cold that even the sea seemed about to freeze.

A half-rotted corpse of a giant crocodile let out a low roar as it crawled out of the vortex.

Its yellow eyes were completely emotionless, and countless vengeful souls filled its body, adding to its fierce and wicked demeanor. As it crawled out, several figures could be seen standing on top of it, each with a terrifying aura. Behind them was a huge army!

This was the sea corpse race!

“Finally here.” As Seventh Master watched this scene, the faint smile never left his face.

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