Chapter 470: An Earth-shuddering Punch

Shi Mu, standing at the very last of the line, gazed into the serene hills stretched before his eyes and found his mind completely filled with doubt.

The hills weren't anywhere close to being massive, but they were concentrated with natural Spiritual Energy, which made them stand out among all of the terrains Shi Mu and the team had traveled so far.

Speaking of terrains—there were a few of what looked like entry points into the valleys, which may lead to several small valleys.

Time passed. A dozen minutes had raced, but Ji Jiang never re-emerged.

"What now? Don't tell me Ji Jiang had decided to just leave us here like that!"

"What is this Ji Jiang's game, really?!"

Just when the crowd was starting to vex as their murmurs climbed into a commotion, those at the very front of the team suddenly let out an exclamation, "Is that... a Blightfreed that has grown for over three hundred years?"

"No way—there's the Divine King's Mushroom!"

"I spied Yang Blossom!"

"Looks like Ji Jiang ain't lying when he said there would be a handful of rare herbs around the area!"

It turned out that those in the frontmost of the band had found an intriguing abundance of rare herbs on one of the valley entry points, which raised the team's spirits enough to compel them to rush forward.

"Big Brother Shi, aren't you going?" Noticing Shi Mu remaining in his spot prompted Zi Ling to ask.

"Zi Ling, don't you think this doesn't add up to what we supposedly know about Ji Jiang?" Shi Mu asked. "If he knew such a place would be filled with such rare herbs—which is what everyone wanted—then why did he hide the fact from us?"

Zi Ling blinked hard and echoed in agreement, "Now that you mention it, yea... It's really weird."

"—Not good!" Shi Mu suddenly let out a low growl and he hurled himself backward.

Thumpppp!

He hadn't even crossed much distance when his body slammed into something hard, causing his body to rebound off its surface. Taking the momentum, Shi Mu turned a somersault and landed, his Black Meteorite Iron Blade already in his hand.

He injected Real Qi into the blade and swung it.

There was a sharp gasp from the blade as its black, lustrous layer flared which then ejected a ten-yard-long black sword of light towards the space before it.

The target merely rippled for a while before faint traces of concentrated, purple runes tumbled—and then they vanished as if they were never there.

But Zi Ling summoned her own technicolor sash, which shot out arcs and arcs of multicolored lightning to the space ahead of her.

There was a loud racket of "Pritt-pratt!" as multicolor sparks exploded and bounced off from the space where the attacks landed, but it returned to normal almost immediately.

"Hey, what's going on?"

The two's clamorous efforts had easily attracted the rest of the group's attention, prompting them to stop on their way into the valleys, with several them returning from their previous journey.

While more of the members returned to them slowly, Shi Mu and Zi Ling had already launched similar hits at a few more directions with similar results; It was as if there was an invisible dome walled around the area Shi Mu and the rest were in, which stretched far into the hills beyond them.

"Crap, this is a trapping spell!"

A few more from them had immediately summoned their own Spirit Tools as they started to pound on their surrounding. In an instance, a variety of cacophony erupted as sparks and bursts of light of different colors dotted the air into a dizzying display of ripples rocking from every part of the space around them. Every time the ripples appeared, concentrated purple runes would emerge, but after a while, they would fade again, never once showing any sign of being broken through.

The crowd was not pleased at all.

"Well, not even a Late Earth-rank powerhouse can possibly break through my Dark Door Formation without quite a grueling effort, so what more can you gentlemen do other than ceasing your futile resistance?"

A voice spread from deep within the hills as a single strike of purple light flew out from it. It shone and halted before the crowd, revealing itself to be a purple Flying Carriage. On it, four figures could be found; The most recognizable was none other than Ji Jiang himself, who was accompanied by three others who spotted the same black scales on their cheeks—a sign that they were his compatriots.

"What are you even doing, Ji Jiang?!"

"Let us out, you scum!"

The crowd exploded into a clamor.

One member of the group—a man who had a face that resembled a falcon—cried in fury as soon as the realization hit him, "Ji Jiang, you wretch! You'd planned this from the very beginning, luring us here!"

"Hahaha! No, no. What I did plan was to keep all of you by my side for a while longer so that I have a lot of extra hands to nab more Demon Nucleuses for me. What I didn't expect was that you aren't just morons, you're also freaking cowards who get scared just by facing a few Windstrider Hou... enough to make all of you plan to stop venturing! Well, if all of you had decided to ditch your only use, then I don't want to waste my time with any of you any longer," Ji Jiang leered at the man and guffawed between his explanation. "Enough chit-chat. Leave your Qing Shan Order here and scram."

"Fat chance of getting my Qing Shan Order, scumbag!" The pointy-eared alien girl finally understood Ji Jiang's full scheme after hearing that last word. With an infuriated growl, her body radiated a blinding aura of green light as a green sword rose and placed before her horizontally.

"Ignoramus. I'll make an example out of you."

Ji Jiang's voice barely left the air when one of his kin started flashing in green light as he jumped off from the flying carriage, turning into an enormous hybrid of a dragon and bat with black scales diving down towards her. What's more, the aura he emitted had reached Mid Earth-rank!

The pointy-eared alien girl let out a piercing scream as she swung her long sword, projecting a ten-yards long, chilling green light blade in a rending fashion towards the Wyvern Bat!

Boom! The Wyvern Bat's wings flapped and a waterfall of green inferno rained down from it and towards the green light blade along with the pointy-eared alien girl, emitting such intense heat to the surrounding that the rest of the crowd backed away.

The Wyvern Bat let out a strange cackling before retracting its wings, which summoned the green flames to pour back into its wings like receding tide. By that point, all that remained of the pointy-eared alien girl was a pool of ashes.

Ji Jiang waved and a single Qing Shan Order along with Storage Ring flew out from the ashy pile and into his hands. Behind him, the Wyvern Bat had re-assumed its humanoid form.

The moment that man had leaped out of his Flying Carriage till returning back to where he lasted only a few seconds, yet it was within these few seconds that an Early Earth-rank fighter died.

"All of these people are Mid Earth-rank fighters!" Shi Mu's pupils constricted a little. Zi Ling, however, were studying these newcomers curiously.

"Okay, so who's eager to be a martyr?" Ji Jiang smirked, scanning the crowd below him.

"Hey, hey, calm down. I give you my Qing Shan Order, alright?" A tiger-headed Demon Race individual cried out in panic as soon as Ji Jiang's eyes landed on him as he quickly tossed his own Qing Shan Order to him.

"At least you can read your situation pretty well. Now scram," Ji Jiang said, taking up the Order and his Storage Ring with a wave of his hand.

The same man instantly crushed his own Watery Vault Heaven Jade in his hand and disappeared.

Others, including the falcon-faced man, were apoplectic if not fearful; But it was starting to become apparent that there were very few they could do when being ensnared by their trapping spell while being stared down by a few Earth-rank powerhouses. Hence, most of them could only crush their own Watery Vault Heaven Jade and transformed into misty lights and disappearing completely.

As they did, tokens of Qing Shan Orders fell out from the air and flew into Ji Jiang's satchel.

In the end, there were only Shi Mu and Zi Ling left behind.

"Well, well. If you're still here, then I'm sure you're here to resist me, isn't it? If that's the case... Then please, allow me!" Ji Jiang sneered as his eyes lingered all over the two.

"Tell me," Shi Mu, who hadn't been talking since Ji Jiang and his friends had appeared, said slowly with indifference, "Is being a Mid Earth-rank really as powerful as you think?"

Unlike the rest of the group, Shi Mu was completely devoted to joining the Qing Lan Holy Sect—there was no way words of some punks would stop him from forfeiting this test; More importantly, though, Shi Mu had fought Heaven-rank powerhouses before, so a few Earth-rank aliens were pretty much a slide back in threat scale.

"If you managed to remain calm even by now, then I supposed you must be someone with quite an impressive backstory...unlike most of the other idiots." Ji Jiang's pupils constricted, showing a somber expression before it once again twisted into a mad, maniacal look as he raised his voice, "However, do you really think I did not expect a difficult resistance in my plan? ...Boys!"

The three men behind him instantly shimmered in green light as they dove from their Flying Carriage, transforming into three Wyvern Bats in midair. With a flap of their wings, green flames poured out of their wings and rained downwards.

Shi Mu let out a humorless laugh. With a clank, he already had his rod and sword in his hands while red lights blazed from his body.

Pheewhhh! Behind him, a pair of crimson wings spread. With a flap, he took off into the air while he directed his Real Qi into his arms and swung horizontally.

The space before him was suddenly packed with mirages of rods and blades like mountains hurling towards his opponents.

Boom thump! The mountain-like attacks slammed into the incoming green flames, causing an eruption of sounds.

The unyielding green inferno roaring in midair stopped its descent due to Shi Mu's tight attacks, yet at the same time, Shi Mu's attacks couldn't really pierce through the veil of green flames either.

It seemed that the two of them had locked into a standoff of some kind.

Ji Jiang was surprised that a lone human managed to block attacks from all three of his people, but once his eyes landed on Zi Ling, he turned to Shi Mu very briefly, the edge of his lips quivered into a sly smile.

Whoosh! Ji Jiang's body blurred as he dashed into the air—turned into a Wyvern Bat—and flashed through Shi Mu's battle, diving towards Zi Ling.

"You stay right here!"

Shi Mu took a deep breath and slammed his right fist into the air at Ji Jiang's direction. By this point, Shi Mu's physical strength had become so impeccable—owning to the nature of his body as well as the fortification techniques he had been practicing—even a single punch from him was close to smashing the fabric of space.

With a loud hum, his punch radiated a dazzling white glow.

At the same time, Ji Jiang—who had been straining himself towards Zi Ling—suddenly felt his hair standing on their back as if a calamity was coming his way...

Appalled, Ji Jiang intuitively flapped his wings and his body suddenly made a perfect ninety degrees turn to the side horizontally.

It was then when an indescribable force crashed into where he was a millisecond before, ripping a white tear in the fabric of space that refused to dissipate, causing a crack in the ground.

Boom!

There came an ear-deafening rumble. The previously-flat terrain shook violently as its middle sank instantly into a fist-shaped black crater about half an acre large. Its perimeter was even cleanly cut as if it was chiseled with a sharp blade, while its bottom could not even be seen from the edge!

Realizing how fortunate he was to have dodged the attack, Ji Jiang's head blurred and returned to his humanoid form. As he looked down at the newly-created abyss he couldn't help but took in a sharp intake of breath, the colors on his face already drained from this single encounter.