Lu Yang's life's work — the formation perfected over twenty years in his past life — unfurled in an instant.
The Blood Washing Heavenly River Sword Formation Diagram, inscribed upon the Blood Sun Sword Pill, was a masterpiece of three realms and nine palaces. It used the sword-qi river conjured by the pill as its foundation, augmented by the Heavenly Demon Blood Transformation Divine Light. He had designed three hundred and sixty array eyes; with a full complement of cultivators manning them, its power would be supreme.
His plan was simple: once he reclaimed his Innate Qi Myriad Spirit Banner from Liu Xin, its spirit would occupy the primary array eye, making the formation portable and effortless.
But for now, he had to direct it himself.
"Activate!"
With a hand seal, the Blood Sun Sword Pill hummed. Inside the formation, a celestial river of sword light materialized, flowing from south to north, vast and boundless, enveloping everything.
Lu Yuanchun, Zhao Xuhe, and their comrades from the Saint Sect were swept into the current. The surging waters were countless sword energies striking every second. Several weaker disciples screamed only once before blossoming into crimson flowers within the river.
Lu Yuanchun's face paled.
"Impossible! Master warned he knew formations, but I gave him no time to set one up! How are we trapped?!"
He couldn't comprehend it. A formation treasure — an artifact that was the formation — required no setup. A thought was enough.
To be caught in a formation was a death sentence for most. Formations harnessed the wonders of heaven and earth; they were said to be invincible within the same realm. Lu Yuanchun's confidence shattered.
"Senior Brother… this formation…" Zhao Xuhe's voice trembled.
"Stay close!" Lu Yuanchun whispered harshly, urging his Golden Light Mirror to shed protective radiance. He clung to a sliver of hope. He's just a lucky upstart. How profound can his formation knowledge be? This must be a legacy formation — powerful but rigid.
Lu Yang shattered that hope with a single thought.
His expression icy, he pointed. The clear sword-qi river turned a sinister, bloody crimson.
Heavenly Demon Blood Transformation Divine Light.
This divine power was devastating — a graze wounded, a direct hit killed — but it had one flaw: if it missed, it was useless. Within his formation, that flaw vanished. Every inch of the formation space was the divine light.
To be inside was to be hit.
Instantly, the remaining Saint Sect disciples shrieked as their bodies desiccated, leaving behind only empty husks.
"NO!"
In sheer panic, Lu Yuanchun bit his tongue, his hand seals shifting wildly. The Golden Light Mirror above him swelled with unstable, violent light.
"He's trying to detonate the artifact!" Lu Yang's eyes narrowed. "Naïve."
A superior magic weapon's self-destruction could indeed tear a hole in a static formation. But Lu Yang was no ordinary array user; he was the formation's master. A living array, directed in real time, was a completely different beast.
As the mirror's energy peaked, Lu Yang's fingers danced. He dispersed the concentrated explosive force, scattering it across the entire formation. The blast that should have broken the array merely shook it.
Seizing the moment of the mirror's destruction, the bloody river swallowed Lu Yuanchun and Zhao Xuhe whole.
Zhao Xuhe didn't even have time to cry out before becoming another withered shell.
"IMPOSSIBLE! He's a true Formation Master?!" Lu Yuanchun's face was ashen. He felt his life force being suctioned away like a tidal pull.
Is this how I die?
"KABOOM!"
At the final moment, the jade pendant at Lu Yuanchun's waist shattered.
A light, boundless and majestic, erupted, ripping through the Blood Washing Heavenly River formation like paper.
Lu Yang looked up, pupils contracting.
High in the sky, the radiance coalesced into a face — calm, solemn, and emanating overwhelming pressure. Its eyes shone like sun and moon, unbearably bright.
A mere glance made Lu Yang's eyes sting and tear. His spiritual energy churned violently, weakening by eighty percent. His escape light faltered, nearly sending him plummeting from the sky.
The face looked down. Its voice was not loud, yet it echoed like heavenly thunder, causing the world itself to reject Lu Yang. The surrounding spiritual energy fled from him.
"INSOLENT."
A single word carried the weight of divine decree. An invisible pressure crushed down on Lu Yang like a mountain. The ground around him cracked, fracturing inch by inch.
The commotion alarmed the entire Heaven-Mending Peak.
Disciples emerged from secluded meditation, their faces filled with terror as they looked upon the colossal visage in the sky.
"Greetings, Peak Master!"
"Peak Master!"
Senior disciples recognized that face. Their scalps went numb, and they dropped to their knees, kowtowing repeatedly.
The Master of Heaven-Mending Peak.
Now Lu Yang understood. The mysterious master behind Zhao Xuhe was none other than the lord of one of the Chu Sheng Sect's four great inner peaks — a Foundation Establishment True Person!
CRACK — BOOM!
As the Peak Master's rebuke faded, Lu Yang's meticulously crafted formation diagram — the work of twenty years — began to disintegrate. Large sections of the array patterns shattered and exploded.
A trace of bitter helplessness surfaced in Lu Yang's heart.
The gap between Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment… is this vast?
Twenty years of relentless study and refinement, undone by two words.