The next day.
Zhen Dejun once again connected to the formation array within the tower.
The reflection image formation array of the state and county cities displayed scenes of Jun Changxiao and his disciples warming up in the second realm.
“Depart!”
After finishing their warm-up exercises, with a single command, everyone walked up the stairs ahead.
“Buzz!”
As per the old routine, upon entering the completely new realm, Shangguan Xinyao once again reestablished the image formation array and made contact with the outside world, transmitting the latest scenes.
“Which ancient Martial Emperor will this third realm belong to?”
Warriors across the entire continent were eagerly anticipating with bated breath.
“Buzz!”
The scenery began to change, gradually forming a battlefield beneath a dusky sky.
The ground appeared crimson red, as if stained with blood. Scattered all around were many weapons and battle armor, with waves of murderous aura permeating the air.
Jun Changxiao and his disciples faintly heard war drums and horns echoing in their ears.
“From their appearance, these weapons and equipment clearly belong to the ancient era’s style!”
“Could this be a certain battlefield from the War of Emperors?”
Warriors from all directions began discussing among themselves.
Suddenly, a resounding voice rang out: “I am the Spirit Absolute Martial Emperor. I have created this Slaughter Realm here. If later generations can pass through, they may obtain one opportunity to refine their spiritual energy, and those with fate may even obtain the Spiritual Meridian Body!”
“The Spiritual Meridian Body!” City Lord Han’s expression changed dramatically.
This type of physique was one of the most powerful constitutions during the ancient era. It could rapidly absorb and refine the properties of heaven and earth, thus achieving realm advancement several times, even dozens of times faster than others!
“Good stuff!”
Ye Xingchen’s eyes lit up.
He hadn’t cared about the previous Great Wilderness Body and Gale Body, but the Spiritual Meridian Body was very much to his liking. With this physique, in terms of cultivation speed, it would be equivalent to… constantly consuming high-multiplier Qi Gathering Pills and absorbing natural spirit stones throughout!
Most importantly.
As long as properties were absorbed into the dantian, the condensed spiritual energy would also be the most pure!
The Great Wilderness Body and Gale Body’s functions were nothing more than increasing defense and speed, while the Spiritual Meridian Body would genuinely and substantially accelerate realm advancement and spiritual energy intensity.
Ye Xingchen, who desperately wanted to return to his peak and become even stronger to find that woman for revenge, naturally hoped very much to obtain it.
Jun Changxiao didn’t care much about physiques, but was pondering: “After passing through, there’s one opportunity to refine spiritual energy? Isn’t this very similar to the third layer of the Training Tower?”
The system said: “It seems that each realm of the Ten Directions Fatal Tower corresponds to the layers of the Training Tower.”
“But…”
Jun Changxiao was puzzled: “The Training Tower only has nine layers total, yet here there are ten realms.”
“Crack crack crack!”
“Crack crack crack crack—”
Suddenly, on the dusky battlefield, the equipment fragments originally scattered around all flew up on their own, assembling into complete suits of armor!
Even more bizarre.
These suits of armor were completely hollow inside, yet seemed to have invisible bodies supporting them!
If ordinary people were placed in this situation, their first reaction would definitely be that they’d seen ghosts, but Jun Changxiao and his disciples could determine that some kind of force must be controlling the armor.
“These are three thousand suits of armor I have condensed. Endure for one hour, and only then will you be qualified to enter the fourth realm.” The voice of the Spirit Absolute Martial Emperor came.
“Buzz!”
“Buzz!”
As soon as the words fell, two red glows flashed in the helmets of the three thousand suits of armor, like the eyes of fierce beasts.
“Swish! Swish! Swish!”
Broken swords, sabers, and other weapons flew over, gripped in the gauntleted hands!
Crack crack crack crack!
The three thousand suits of armor charged forward wielding weapons!
Faintly, the drum sounds and horns in their ears grew louder, as if two opposing armies had launched a decisive battle!
“Kill!”
Jun Changxiao coldly commanded.
“Swish!”
“Swish!”
Li Qingyang and the others burst forth with their cultivation, either wielding weapons or engaging with bare fists and empty hands.
Because there was no barrier suppression from the second realm, their spiritual energy wasn’t being absorbed away.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
Xiao Zuiji rushed forward first, his thick dual fists like two great iron hammers, directly blasting two suits of armor flying, and exclaimed in shock: “Sect Master, my spiritual energy consumption is extremely fast!”
“Me too!”
Su Xiaomo felt her spiritual energy consumption while executing movement techniques trying to circle around to the side, several times faster than usual!
Jun Changxiao rushed up to a suit of armor and condensed spiritual energy in one fist to blast it away, immediately becoming aware as well, so he transmitted to the group: “This place is similar to the third layer of the Training Tower. When fighting, you must control your consumption well and cannot recklessly go all out, otherwise the result will be complete exhaustion!”
“Yes!”
The disciples received the command and immediately became cautious, not daring to explode too wantonly.
At this time, the effectiveness of My Slash became apparent.
This technique’s power increased with higher realms, while consumption decreased more and more. Even within the Slaughter Realm where consumption was increased several times, it wouldn’t have too much impact.
“Boom!”
Ye Xingchen blasted away an approaching suit of armor, and the expression on his face immediately became spectacular.
He hadn’t even executed any martial techniques, completely relying on the purest physical strength, yet the spiritual energy in his body had actually consumed one percent!
This meant that.
Even Emperor Ye’s simplest basic attacks one hundred times would lead to complete exhaustion!
“Detestable!”
Ye Xingchen’s eyes filled with fury.
Perhaps thinking that he was being specially targeted again, unable to control his emotions, he directly condensed Mountain Collapse Earth Shattering Fist and blasted toward the attacking armor. His internal spiritual energy drastically consumed, directly decreasing by ten percent!
“My Slash!”
“My Slash!”
Within the Slaughter Realm, Li Qingyang and Xiao Zuiji successively slashed out streams of flowing light, madly bombarding the armor while controlling for minimum consumption.
Shangguan Xinyao was protected by her senior brothers, allowing her to focus on comprehending the formation arrays.
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
Explosive sounds rang out wildly, and the murderous aura on the battlefield became increasingly intense.
Because they couldn’t explode recklessly, Li Qingyang and the others had insufficient killing power, only able to repel the armor but unable to inflict heavy damage.
“Sword Momentum, Startled Swan!”
Just then, Zhou Hong’s sword left its sheath!
A peerless magnificent sword energy tore forth, instantly sweeping across dozens of suits of armor, slashing them in half!
“Amazing!”
Li Qingyang and Xiao Zuiji exclaimed in shock.
“Swish! Swish! Swish!”
Zhou Hong continued executing sword forms, countless sword lights bursting forth, cutting through those clumsy suits of armor, making them fall to the ground one by one.
Sword cultivators used very little spiritual energy, relying entirely on their understanding of the sword dao, so even with continuous attacks, their consumption was far lower than Li Qingyang and the others.
Jun Changxiao’s approach was even simpler.
He charged into the midst of the armor, fighting with wide, sweeping movements.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
In an instant, dozens of suits of armor were shattered.
With his dual-core drive, his spiritual energy was already more abundant than others, so he didn’t care about exploding a little.
The rule of the third realm was to endure for one hour, but in merely half an hour, all three thousand suits of armor had been completely dismantled.
“Buzz!”
The stairs leading to the fourth realm appeared.
“Thud!”
Ye Xingchen was the first to collapse on the ground.
During the half hour, he hadn’t attacked many times, but because he received special attention, his consumption was several times that of others, and his spiritual energy had long been depleted to exhaustion.
“Huff huff!”
Li Qingyang, Xiao Zuiji and the others also sat down, beginning to circulate their mental cultivation methods to absorb internal properties and thereby replenish their consumed spiritual energy.
Jun Changxiao had also expended more than half his spiritual energy, so he obediently sat down.
“Sect Master!”
Shangguan Xinyao said joyfully: “This disciple has found another pattern!”
Elder Zhen said: “Sect Master, based on my calculations, if the pattern that Xinyao has discovered can be deciphered, we could completely control the entire formation array system within the Ten Directions Fatal Tower!”
“That would be amazing!” Jun Changxiao said happily.
The forbidden land that had existed for ten thousand years could continue operating, definitely due to the formation arrays. If they could achieve complete control, not to mention easily passing through the remaining realms, all the various inheritances existing within would also surely be within easy reach!
“However…” Zhen Dejun said: “We’ve only just begun to develop some ideas. Whether we can actually decipher it is still very difficult to say.”
If it were just him alone, he would definitely say there was no hope, but with Shangguan Xinyao present, perhaps she could find the most incredible solution from some subtle details he couldn’t think of.
—