"How do we strike at the root?" Xu Yunhe asked urgently.
"I'd long had a doubt," Song Changsheng replied. "There are no spirit veins here, nor any large spirit spring. How could the enemy possibly power such a massive formation?
Only after hearing Daoist Zhuang's account did I realize the energy source of this Heaven-and-Earth Locking Formation is none other than the great demon Golden Armor.
So, all we need to do is slay Golden Armor or destroy the formation that binds him. Once that's done, the formation will collapse on its own." His voice carried absolute confidence.
"But this black mist is strange. I… I'm not sure I can find the space where Golden Armor is imprisoned," Zhuang Yuechan admitted, guilt welling up in her chest.
"No matter. As long as Daoist Yinshang and the others are still there, I have confidence I can find them."
Zhuang Yuechan lifted her head in surprise, only for doubt to cloud her gaze a moment later.
Seeing this, Xu Yunhe burst out laughing. "Daoist Zhuang, you worry too much. If Brother Song could find us, then naturally, he could find Daoist Yinshang as well."
Hearing that, Zhuang Yuechan was momentarily stunned. How had she overlooked something so obvious?
"Daoist Zhuang, you're wounded. It's not suitable for you to continue further. I'll lay down a concealment array here so you can heal."
Her eyes dimmed at his words, though in her heart she knew it was true. In her current state, following Song Changsheng would only slow him down.
Song then turned to Xu Yunhe, resting a firm hand on his shoulder. "Brother Xu, I can't leave Daoist Zhuang here alone. Stay behind and look after her."
Xu Yunhe stiffened. "Then you mean to go on alone?" he blurted anxiously.
"Yes, Song Daoist. I can handle myself. You and Brother Xu should go together; you can watch each other's backs. I may not be of help, but I don't want to drag you both down," Zhuang Yuechan said firmly, shaking her head.
Song Changsheng only grinned. "Don't worry. Even in direct combat, that man couldn't do anything to me. This is only a matter of breaking a formation, what's there to fear?
Just wait here for my good news. Trust me, I value my life more than anyone else."
Before either of them could object further, he produced formation flags and bases, setting up a Fog Concealment Array of second-grade high quality.
This array was usually deployed in misty weather, its purpose being to obscure the user's presence. Normally, it was far from top-tier concealment.
But here, within this cavern filled with an eerie black fog, its effect multiplied several times over, becoming a stroke of brilliance.
"Brother Song, take care," Xu Yunhe said, eyes heavy with both worry and admiration. To knowingly step into danger was a kind of courage few possessed.
"Relax. As long as you keep quiet, even a Purple Mansion cultivator passing nearby will find it hard to detect you."
With a few final instructions, Song Changsheng turned and strode deeper into the cavern…
In a vast underground chamber, a massive golden tortoise lay sprawled, barely clinging to life. Its once-impenetrable shell was riddled with deep craters.
The exposed flesh was covered in hideous wounds, its blood long since dried to black, reeking of foul decay.
It was hard to believe that this broken creature was once a third-rank great demon, carrying the bloodline of a future Demon King.
As a descendant of the ancient divine beast, the Golden Land Tortoise, Golden Armor had been hailed since hatching as the future hope of the Xuanjia Tortoise clan.
And Golden Armor had never disappointed. His growth had been astonishingly fast. He was the greatest prodigy the clan had seen in a thousand years.
But fate had been cruel. The Golden Crow Sect had joined forces to slaughter the clan's strongest, the Xuanjia Demon King. The rest of the clan had nearly been wiped out.
Driven into exile, Golden Armor had fled to Thundercry Mountain, forced to bow his head and serve as a vassal to the Thundercry Demon King, leading the remnants of his people in desperate survival.
Yet his rapid growth soon made even Thundercry uneasy.
So, under Thundercry's deliberate scheming, the adult tortoises of his clan were all sent to the Luoxia City frontlines.
That day became the second darkest in Golden Armor's life. His kin were all slain, and he was left gravely wounded.
By fortune, Thundercry was focused on the siege and hadn't finished him off at once. That gave him the chance to escape the battlefield through secret arts.
But misfortune pursued him. When he returned to Thundercry Mountain to gather what remained of his clan, he discovered they had been massacred by Thundercry's minions.
Consumed by grief and rage, Golden Armor fled again, swearing to one day grow strong enough to challenge the Thundercry Demon King in a final battle.
Yet, while fleeing into the Griffon Mountains, he stumbled into a formation and encountered a Purple Mansion human cultivator.
Even with his great strength, his injuries had not healed. After a brutal fight, he was captured.
The cultivator did not kill him. Instead, he used Golden Armor as the core of a formation, draining his demon power continuously to fuel it.
Over time, Golden Armor's power had been sucked dry. Now, the formation fed on his very life force.
He could feel his life slipping away, his flesh shriveling, his vitality rotting.
It was a bitter fate. A descendant of the Golden Land Tortoise, reduced to nothing more than a husk drained alive.
Rage burned in his heart, but he could do nothing. All he could do was watch coldly as, not far away, human cultivators who had suffered the same fate struggled helplessly within the formation…
Song Changsheng followed the faint "scent," relying on the secret art Ten-Thousand-Mile Tracking as he cautiously made his way forward.
Along the path, he discovered many traces of battle but not a single corpse. He guessed the old man must have collected them.
That only confirmed his suspicions: the enemy was certainly conducting some kind of blood sacrifice or other sinister ritual.
The purpose of such rituals was usually one of two things: either to gain strength or to forge a demonic artifact.
But whatever the goal, Song Changsheng could not allow it to succeed. He knew full well that the old man would never let him go alive. The two of them were already locked in a fight to the death.
Yet, for some reason, Song kept feeling an odd sense of familiarity, as if he had crossed paths with this person before.
He had met more than a few Purple Mansion cultivators, but with the black mist clouding everything, he hadn't seen the man's face. For now, he couldn't be sure who it was.
Suddenly, his vision opened wide. The oppressive black fog that had been everywhere abruptly vanished, and his line of sight stretched out unimpeded.
He turned back and saw the path behind still engulfed in heavy mist, contrasting with the clear space before him, all the more eerie.
Not advancing recklessly, Song activated the Eye of True Sight to scan his surroundings.
Sure enough, glowing formation lines appeared across the cave walls. With his keen eye, he quickly recognized that these were completely different from the Heaven-and-Earth Locking Formation.
Which meant this was an entirely separate array.
His eyes lit up. He knew he was close to the underground chamber Zhuang Yuechan had described, the place where Yin Shang and the others were trapped after the old man suddenly activated a hidden formation.
Gripping his final Wutu Divine Thunder talisman, with the Taiji Diagram floating before him, Song suppressed his aura and moved forward. After two winding detours, a vast underground cavern opened up before him.
And there he saw the massive, awe-inspiring form of Golden Armor.
With the Eye of True Sight, he could see black chains coiled tightly around the golden tortoise, while beneath its body a strange sigil was etched, drawing out its power in a constant flow.
"So this is the last great demon of the Xuanjia Tortoise clan, famed as the strongest defense in the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains… To think it would fall to such a fate."
Song shook his head. In this world, whether human or demon, survival was a bitter struggle.
His gaze shifted, and not far away, he saw several human figures, also bound in midair by those same black chains.
It was Yin Shang, Niu Dazhuang, and the others.
Their condition was dire. The chains pierced through their shoulders, siphoning away their spiritual power, leaving them to dangle helplessly in the air.
Song's heart tightened. He knew Yin Shang and Niu Dazhuang well; their strength far surpassed that of ordinary cultivators of the same realm. To dare hunt a great demon, they must have carried many powerful treasures.
And yet here they were, unable to resist in the slightest. What kind of formation was this, to be so overpowering?
Remaining hidden, Song carefully examined the cavern. Sensing no other presences, he finally revealed himself and called softly:
"Daoist Yin, Brother Niu?"
Hearing the voice, the pale-faced Yin Shang slowly opened his eyes. At the sight of Song Changsheng, his eyes briefly lit up, but quickly dimmed again.
Song's strength was commendable, but breaking this array was far beyond him.
In a hoarse voice, Yin Shang warned: "Daoist Song, this formation is strange, don't come closer."
Just then, Niu Dazhuang rasped weakly: "Hey, brat Song… did you come here just to laugh at me?"
That man's mouth was as obnoxious as ever.
Song ignored him completely, speaking instead to Yin Shang: "Daoist Yin, hold on. I'll find a way to get you out."
Hearing this, Yin Shang was moved, ready to dissuade him. But before he could speak, Niu Dazhuang sneered, his tone dripping with scorn:
"Boy, this is the Soul-Locking Yin Fiend Formation, a third-rank lower-grade array. Even I can't break it, what makes you think you can? Stop kidding yourself. Before that old monster comes back, run while you still can."
"Junior Brother, don't be rude," Yin Shang scolded weakly.
After scolding Niu Dazhuang, Yin Shang turned to Song Changsheng and said,
"Daoist Song, this formation is far too dangerous. You must not take the risk.
Yuechan escaped earlier. I don't know whether she managed to get away, but please, help find her and bring her safely back to Luoxia City. Tell our master that Dong Tianxie is in the Griffon Mountains, using a blood-refining method to forge a demonic weapon. He must be stopped at all costs!"
Song Changsheng's heart jolted violently at these words. Dong Tianxie! So he was the mastermind behind all of this!
Sealed memories burst open in his mind.
Back when he had first arrived in Luoxia City, he'd attended the auction, only to be ambushed by a blood demon and an evil cultivator. The blood demon had come for the young monster king, while the evil cultivator had targeted the auctioneer, Xia Wanyun.
That evil cultivator… was Dong Tianxie!
Back then, he and Xu Yunhe had trailed him and discovered him trapped by a series of interlocking formations laid by the Lieyang Sect.
To ruin the Lieyang Sect's plans, Song had secretly unleashed his God-Slaying Flying Dagger, killing one of the array masters and breaking the formation, which allowed Dong Tianxie to escape.
Afterward, he and Xu Yunhe leaked Dong Tianxie's whereabouts, hoping others would kill him. But the man still managed to flee deep into the Ten-Thousand Mountains, disappearing without a trace.
Song had assumed Dong Tianxie had either fled far away or perished within the mountains.
He never imagined that not only had he survived, but he had also laid such an elaborate trap within the Griffon Mountains!
"So the seed I planted back then bears fruit today…" Song smiled bitterly to himself. Strictly speaking, this calamity was partly his fault.
If he hadn't secretly aided Dong Tianxie's escape, none of this would be happening now.
He felt a deep guilt for Yin Shang and the others.
And yet even if time could turn back, Song Changsheng would not change his decision. Why? Because family interests outweighed everything else.
If, on that day, he hadn't disrupted the Lieyang Sect, letting them gain Luoxia City's reward and cultivate a second Purple Mansion cultivator, then the Song clan might not even exist today.
Better a fellow Daoist perish than oneself…
Still, mistakes once made had to be remedied, no matter how perilous or twisted the path of redemption might be.
Resolute, Song looked at Yin Shang and said,
"I've already taken care of Daoist Zhuang. She's safe for now.
But the formations here are more than one. Outside, there's a Heaven-and-Earth Locking Array sealing everything within a ten-li radius. Unless we break it, none of us is getting out."
At these words, Yin Shang and the others felt their hearts sink.
They had been trapped as soon as they entered, so they had no idea what was happening outside and had clung to a faint hope of rescue.
Now, hearing Song Changsheng's explanation, they finally realized they were already in a death trap.
Of the three Purple Mansion cultivators who had entered, not one was a third-rank array master. Under such conditions, who could break the formation?
A wave of despair and helplessness washed over Yin Shang.
Even Niu Dazhuang fell silent. He had lingered at the level of a second-rank peak array master for years, but had never managed to cross the final step. Faced with a third-rank formation, he too was powerless.
It was then that Song Changsheng spoke:
"Brother Niu, have you noticed where this Soul-Locking Yin Fiend Formation draws its power from?"
Niu Dazhuang snorted impatiently.
"Are you blind? Can't you see that giant tortoise over there?
That's the power source. I know what you're thinking, but forget it. Golden Armor is part of the formation. Killing him to break the array is impossible.
If you've got time to waste, you'd be better off studying the outside formation. Maybe you'll keep your life that way. The Heaven-and-Earth Locking Array has forty-nine nodes; destroy more than half, and you might stand a chance."
Though his tone was sharp, he hadn't forgotten to give Song Changsheng a hint.
Song's opinion of him shifted a little, and he smiled.
"That's exactly why I came to break the formation.
Under normal circumstances, I'm not skilled enough to handle a third-rank array. But right now… I think I have a chance to try."
With that, his gaze swept toward Golden Armor in the distance.
"Patriarch Golden Armor, how about we strike a deal?"
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