Chapter 303: Fighting Lin Mu
For the Profound Stream Sect to attack with their spell formations twice in a row was quite an insult to the prime elders, blood rippers, and legacy echelon cultivators of the Blood Stream Sect and Spirit Stream Sect!
That was especially true for the Blood Stream Sect. Bai Xiaochun’s importance to them had become even more evident as the war went on. The entire sect had experienced an increase in battle prowess and cultivation base. If Bai Xiaochun died, the Blood Stream Sect would be returned to their original state, which was something they couldn’t possibly agree to. Therefore, the prime elders and blood rippers all began resorting to their trump cards to try to take out the sword formations belonging to the other powerful Profound Stream Sect cultivators.
The Core Formation cultivators from the Spirit Stream Sect were doing the same thing, including Li Qinghou, who was already feeling very anxious due to the two deadly situations Bai Xiaochun had just faced. The killing intent in his eyes flickered, and magical images of plants and vegetation appeared around him as he attacked one of the spell formations.
Because of the intense efforts of the Core Formation cultivators from the Spirit and Blood Stream Sects, their contemporaries from the Profound Stream Sect were incapable of using their sword formations to try to pin Bai Xiaochun down, and were slowly being pushed back across the battlefield.
Bai Xiaochun was under less pressure, but he hadn’t forgotten the danger he had just been in, and it caused his anger to burn. He knew that in war, there was no right or wrong, just life or death. But that knowledge didn’t help him shake his fear of dying.
“You people tried to kill me first…. Bunch of bullies. Even your patriarchs attacked me? And your grand spell formation?!” Roaring, he advanced across the battlefield, surrounded by tens of thousands of other cultivators. They crushed anything in their path, making it impossible for the Profound Stream Sect to stand against them. Slowly but surely, the Profound Stream Sect was being pushed back toward the mountains.
Other front-line areas of the battle weren’t experiencing such dramatic turns of events, but the Profound Stream Sect was still being pushed back everywhere, and there didn’t seem to be any hope for them to reverse the situation.
Many of the Profound Stream Sect cultivators were even starting to hesitate about whether to keep fighting. As could be imagined, the only reason they hadn’t surrendered already was that their sect headquarters still stood. Were that not the case, the resolve of most such cultivators would have long since crumbled.
In a situation like that, they would have been faced with two options: surrender, or be wiped out!
The fact that people were hesitating to fight back was extremely telling. In fact, many of them were hoping that the war would simply end as soon as possible, and that the Spirit and Blood Stream Sects would just take the sect headquarters….
There were even some who, in the face of such certain defeat, chose to intentionally die in the fighting!
As booms shook the battlefield, Bai Xiaochun looked up into the mountains at the enormous city to which the Profound Stream Sect cultivators were retreating. Just when he was about to start fighting his way toward the city itself, rumbling sounds echoed out from within the city’s glowing shield of light. Moments later, a large number of Profound Stream Sect cultivators charged out.
These were backup forces that the Profound Stream Sect had prepared. The war was reaching a deadly, critical level, so there was no reason to keep such cultivators out of the fighting any longer. There were only a few tens of thousands of them, and yet they blotted out the sky as they flew toward Bai Xiaochun. Interspersed among the cultivators was a sizeable force of black puppets.
When the new force slammed into the battle lines, the boom of magical techniques could be heard, and the glow of magical items rose into the air.
Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were bloodshot as he called upon the power of his Heavenly Demon Body to fight back against two black puppets. He used the Mountain Shaking Bash and the Throat Crushing Grasp, along with enormous violet cauldrons and deadly blood swords. He then grabbed one of the black puppet and smashed it headlong into the opposing forces.
RUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!
The black puppet trembled, and the Profound Stream Sect cultivators inside of it screamed miserably. Cracking sounds rang out loud and clear.
Bai Xiaochun completely ignored the other puppet as it peppered him with attacks. After seven or eight breaths’ worth of time passed, the black puppet he held collapsed into pieces, and he spun in place to face the other puppet. As for the heavenly demon, its eyes shone with bloodthirsty light.
The puppet behind him shivered as the heavenly demon’s gaze locked onto it. Then it began to fall back. Bai Xiaochun snorted coldly as he gave chase, opening his Heavenspan Dharma Eye and sending control power shooting out. However, instead of trying to control the entire black puppet, he focused on one of its legs!
The leg suddenly jerked to a stop, and although the effect only lasted for a moment, that was all the time Bai Xiaochun needed. Flashing through the air, he used the Mountain Shaking Bash to shoot like lighting toward the puppet.
When he bashed into it, countless agonized shrieks rang out from inside, and nearly half of the thing was destroyed. Bai Xiaochun also suffered some superficial wounds, but his right hand shot up nonetheless, to viciously grasp the puppet’s neck.
It was in that exact moment that a cold laugh reached Bai Xiaochun’s ears.
“Remember me, Bai Xiaochun? I’m Lin Mu!”
As the words echoed out, a violet puppet flew out from the city. It was clearly different from the black puppets; countless faces were inlaid into the surface of the puppet, vivid and lifelike. Although their eyes were closed, their expressions were those of pain and suffering.
The puppet wasn’t very large, only about 150 meters tall. It was being operated by nine people, and the person who had just spoken was a young man with black hair!
He was handsome, but a bizarre birthmark on his face left it looking like a yin-yang symbol. At the moment, he was staring at Bai Xiaochun with an icy look!
Bai Xiaochun’s eyes flickered as he looked at the young man. He recognized him almost immediately; it was the same young man who had appeared in a vortex after Fang Lin from the Pill Stream Sect had been killed, back in the Fallen Sword Abyss! 1
Back then, Bai Xiaochun had wondered who he was. It was only after going to the Blood Stream Sect that news about the fighting between the Profound Stream Sect and Pill Stream Sect spread, and that person rose to prominence.
He was none other than the consummate Chosen of the Pill Stream Sect, Lin Mu. He had betrayed the Pill Stream Sect and joined the Profound Stream Sect, becoming an apprentice to one of the patriarchs there. As such, he had a complicated status in the sect. Some people even said that he had always been a disciple of the Profound Stream Sect, and that he’d been sent to the Pill Stream Sect as a spy.
Whether or not that was true didn’t matter. What mattered was that at the moment, he fought for the Profound Stream Sect!
Even as Lin Mu’s eyes locked with Bai Xiaochun’s, the violet puppet shot through the air at top speed.
As it closed in on Bai Xiaochun, his eyes glittered, and his right hand snapped out in a grasping motion toward the black puppet’s neck. He poured cultivation base power into the puppet, exterminating everyone who was inside of it, and then ripped its head off and hurled it toward the incoming violet puppet.
The black puppet’s head whistled through the air toward Lin Mu’s violet puppet. As it neared, a brilliant light shone off of the violet puppet, instantly turning the flying head into nothing more than ash.
Bai Xiaochun was shocked. Lin Mu actually seemed to be a bit more powerful than Nine-Isles. However, there was no time to think about the matter at the moment. Without any hesitation, he opened his Heavenspan Dharma Eye.
Instantly, he could see nine shields surrounding the puppet, each one a different color!
Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Cyan. Blue. Violet. Black. White!
The shields were already beginning to fall apart, and yet, they insured that his Heavenspan Dharma Eye couldn’t affect the violet puppet at all. In fact, the collapse of the shield sent pain stabbing back into Bai Xiaochun’s third eye.
“I was waiting for you to do that!” Lin Mu said from within the shield. As the puppet closed in, it performed a double-handed incantation gesture, causing a bright crimson light to appear between its hands that resembled a sun. Scorching heat rippled out as the puppet lifted the sun above its hand and then threw it toward Bai Xiaochun.
“Yang-Sun Art!” Lin Mu howled. The sun grew larger as it flew through the air, until it was fully 300 meters in diameter, and radiated matchless power.
Bai Xiaochun’s eyes widened. Lin Mu seemed very, very strong, and Bai Xiaochun could already tell that if he made the slightest mistake, he would end up dead!
It felt as if he were truly fighting an equal, something he hadn’t experienced fighting anybody since he reached Heaven-Dao Foundation Establishment, not even any of the other Chosen!
As he faced this powerful adversary, his left hand flashed in an incantation gesture, and his right hand slapped his bag of holding, causing a large number of medicinal plants to fly out. As the plants swirled through the air, his incantation gesture sped up, and his eyes shone with a strange light.
“Magic Plant… Arsenal!” In coordination with his words, the plants began to grow larger, and transform into various types of weapons. Soon, they had created something like a net, hundreds of meters wide, which shot toward the incoming crimson sun.
“Destroy that thing!” Bai Xiaochun howled. Instantly, the enormous weapon-filled net made of plants and vegetation wrapped around the sun, simultaneously emanating incredible destructive power!
Lin Mu’s expression flickered. Snorting coldly, he performed another incantation gesture.
“Yin-Moon Tribulation!”
Behind him on the left, a moon appeared, which rapidly grew until it was several hundred meters tall, and radiated such intense coldness that it made it seem as if winter were coming! Then, the moon shot toward Bai Xiaochun!
The intense fight between Bai Xiaochun and Lin Mu was already causing widespread shock, especially among Chosen such as Song Que and Ghostfang.
Never could they have imagined that someone in their own generation could actually stand toe to toe with Bai Xiaochun!
Shangguan Tianyou’s eyes were especially bloodshot, and his heart surged with defiance!
1. The scene in the Fallen Sword World where Bai Xiaochun first saw Lin Mu was in chapter 160