They came…

One should say they finally came.

In the darkness, Li Changshou felt relieved.

It’s not the thief’s stealing that’s feared, but the thief’s coveting;

These enemies’ continued absence had put some pressure on Li Changshou.

Since receiving that ring bestowed by Elder Wan Linyun half a year ago, Li Changshou had begun the third phase of his battle preparations.

Now, it was time to test the results…

For the enemy to launch a sneak attack, they would necessarily approach the Crossing Immortals Sect quickly by ground and underground, then suddenly strike.

This gave Li Changshou plenty of room to operate.

The direction the enemy appeared from, this path…

He hadn’t guessed wrong!

Though to be safe, Li Changshou had also ambushed Earth-series paper dao people on the other five possible paths.

The enemy was quite cooperative, choosing an attack path that happened to be one of the three main paths he had primarily prepared.

The only thing Li Changshou found less than ideal was that the timing of the enemy’s sneak attack differed from his expectations by two to three months…

Earlier, Li Changshou had even speculated that because he and Elder Wan Linyun had together outmaneuvered the enemy once, that shadowy mastermind might have abandoned their plans to destroy the Crossing Immortals Sect…

However…

Though late, the enemy still came.

At this time, the seven [Heaven]-series paper dao people remained “in position,” hiding outside the mountain gate, quietly lurking.

Their role remained to outflank from behind after the great battle erupted;

This tactical approach hadn’t changed.

Meanwhile, the six [Earth]-series paper dao people were distributed along the six paths Li Changshou had identified in advance, and over two to three months, had set up many simple poison formations along these six routes.

What is a poison formation?

Formation methods plus poison pills naturally make a poison formation.

The difference was that these poison formations Li Changshou had arranged emphasized concealment over entrapment and confusion, pursuing the goal of being difficult to detect;

Once someone entered the formation, poison powder and miasma would instantly erupt, not wasting a single trace of toxicity!

This was what Li Changshou understood as the true essence of poison formations!

When making these poison formation arrangements, Li Changshou never hoped to directly eliminate the invading enemy with them.

The logic was simple—since the enemy dared to sneak attack a Crossing Immortals Sect with Golden Immortals presiding, they must also have Golden Immortal experts…

Li Changshou had even considered the extremely unlikely possibility that the enemy had Great Luo Golden Immortals and made corresponding arrangements.

These poison formations arranged by his “divine ability” paper dao people, even if the enemy’s Golden Immortals were incompetent, could still be dispersed with a wave of their hand.

Therefore, these poison formations could only be used as landmines, creating an instant burst effect.

Also because the enemy had at least two Golden Immortals, Li Changshou decided to only let paper dao people lay in ambush everywhere, without calling on Elder Wan Linyun.

—To avoid Old Master Wan Linyun holding up his bronze-skinned walking stick, shouting “For the Human School!” and going to fight the enemy Golden Immortals to death.

[Harass the enemy, entangle them, expose their whereabouts, give the sect timely warning, and to some degree weaken the enemy’s strength]

These were the true purposes of the six [Earth]-series paper dao people!

Hiding in the tree trunk, the Earth-series Number Three paper dao person swayed and quickly expanded, transforming into a handsome young immortal wearing long robes.

His aura and appearance were completely different from Li Changshou himself.

At this time, half of Li Changshou’s consciousness was invested in this paper dao person; relying on the “Three-Eyed Spider” webs arranged in various places beforehand, he monitored the group of dark shadows flying close to the ground two hundred miles away…

Li Changshou quickly discovered dozens more figures moving underground.

These figures followed behind several great beasts skilled at tunneling, and though they each concealed their aura fluctuations, their concealment was far inferior to earth escape technique.

True pangolin spirits?

But no matter, Li Changshou had considered this point beforehand.

Several formation bases of these poison formations he arranged were deliberately buried very deep, and the main formation bases were arranged at an angle…

“Hmm? Something’s not right.”

In the darkness, Li Changshou frowned, as overlapping images appeared in his mind, quickly being sorted out by him.

There was also a batch of attackers from the southwest!

The enemy had split into two routes!

However…

This was also manageable…

Li Changshou split his consciousness into two streams, multitasking to activate Earth-series Number Five paper dao person;

Using this paper dao person, he preemptively activated layer after layer of poison formations in the southwest direction, and found a pond for this paper dao person to hide in.

After careful observation for a moment, Li Changshou rarely let out two soft laughs.

The current situation, though truly beyond his expectations, had to be said to include some element of luck…

Of the three “sneak attack” paths where he had mainly arranged poison formations, two were being used!

—The enemy was truly warm and considerate, afraid his efforts would go to waste.

Soon, Li Changshou’s two paper dao people simultaneously felt pressure from Golden Immortals.

Two from the southwest, and one from the northwest.

Three Golden Immortals?

Although Li Changshou immediately noticed something strange about these three Golden Immortals’ Dao rhyme, the pressure of Golden Immortals was very real.

Three Golden Immortals…

The situation became somewhat unpredictable and truly difficult to handle.

In the darkness, Li Changshou closed his eyes again, silently reciting in his heart…

[Human]-series Number Three paper dao person, activate!

In the pill room of Little Jade Peak, the ‘Li Changshou’ sitting blankly before the pill furnace trembled, spiritual light gradually appearing in his eyes;

He immediately closed the formations around Little Jade Peak and transmitted his voice to Ling E.

Ling E, who was practicing switching between water escape and earth escape techniques on the lake surface, was stunned for a moment, then jumped two steps into the air, rushing toward the lakeside grass house…

“Master!

Senior Brother fainted while refining pills in the pill room!

Please come quickly to check!”

Hearing Ling E’s anxious calls, Li Changshou’s consciousness was drawn to the group of enemies three thousand miles away in the northwest direction.

This group of powerful enemies was beginning to enter the poison formations…

They had been flying close to the ground, concealing their forms, yet neglected to scout the path ahead;

Over ten figures at the front directly charged into the first poison formation in the northwest direction.

The poison mist erupted, immediately causing two people to collapse!

But the wooden expressions of the other dozen or so people showed no fluctuation, and their reaction was quite quick—immortal light and monster power bloomed around them as they took out poison-countering pills to put in their mouths, and immediately retreated backward…

Their forward-charging formation immediately fell into chaos.

“There are formations!”

“They’re simple traps made from poison pills, they were prepared, to use spiritual power to blow away the formations!”

“Breakthrough quickly!

Don’t miss the timing for joining forces!”

At once, several True Immortal realm great monsters came forward, invoking divine abilities to easily blow away this poison formation.

In just this brief moment, among those dozen or so people who had charged into the poison formation earlier, another four or five spat blood and wailed tragically as their primordial spirits directly scattered.

Wan-brand poison pills, of superior quality.

Current battle results: six True Immortals, one Heavenly Immortal.

Following closely, that group of ‘enemy troops’ in the southwest also charged into the dense forest where the first poison formation was located.

Li Changshou seized the opportunity to actively trigger the poison formation here, and amidst dancing green mist, the battle results increased by ‘five True Immortals.’

Another Heavenly Immortal had their primordial spirit poisoned, losing combat ability for a short time.

The poison-formation harassment tactics had a green opening!

Speaking of which, Elder Wan Linyun truly had too much fondness for green—poison pills, poison mist, poison powder, all emanating thick green meaning…

Li Changshou was different, he pursued the ultimate colorless and odorless.

These two paper dao people bearing heavy responsibilities were maintained by Li Changshou in escape techniques, merging with trees and ponds;

Li Changshou continued observing in the dark, controlling subsequent poison formations through these two paper dao people…

These sneak attackers still hadn’t realized what lay ahead of them, actually continuing forward without changing their path, still charging ahead close to the ground…

‘It seems after having their consciousness controlled, these fellows’ thinking has also become problematic.’

Li Changshou secretly sighed, taking the opportunity to observe the situation within the sect.

Hmm…

Still very peaceful.

The Crossing Immortals Sect had arranged their enemy-detecting secret scouts a thousand miles outside the mountain gate.

Because the Sect Master and various elders felt this distance was already sufficient to discover enemies and make timely responses.

But Li Changshou thought the Sect Master and various elders…

Were somewhat overconfident.

Of course, he wouldn’t step forward to say these things—he was just a ‘poor-quality immortal seedling’ from Little Jade Peak.

What he could do was only secretly expand the monitoring range to three thousand five hundred miles, focusing on several paths.

His consciousness continued monitoring southwest and northwest;

The two groups of dark shadows showed quite good coordination, almost simultaneously bypassing one of Li Changshou’s hidden poison formations, yet charging into another location with poison formations.

Green mist erupted again, sweeping up seven or eight figures in each of the two locations thousands of miles apart…

Li Changshou carefully searched using spider webs, and indeed captured traces of those blood mosquitoes again on these poisoned True Immortals’ bodies.

The blood mosquitoes that appeared this time quickly dissipated into blood energy.

This situation…

Very likely, that ‘Dao Lord Mosquito’ was no longer managing matters here, having withdrawn early to avoid being targeted by Human School experts…

If so, then the Crossing Immortals Sect’s chances of victory had increased somewhat more.

The two routes of sneak attackers combined totaled seventy-eight Heavenly Immortal realm demons, humans, and spirits, three Golden Immortal realm beings in strange conditions, and over a thousand True Immortals.

This force formed clear suppression against the Crossing Immortals Sect.

Moreover, Li Changshou wasn’t certain whether there were other sneak attackers in other directions he hadn’t been able to check…

These situations also had to be considered.

Looking at it this way, this truly counted as a great tribulation for the Crossing Immortals Sect.

Among the Golden Immortals he knew of in the sect, there was only the Sect Master, and the number of Heavenly Immortal elders was only over fifty. Though there were piles of True Immortals and Yuan Immortals, how much combat power they could display was unknown.

Usually, the Crossing Immortals Sect was accustomed to peace and inaction, rarely practicing large formations of hundreds or thousands of people.

If everyone had put half the effort they put into ‘Dao companion trends’ into practicing ‘immortal formations’…

Why would a small disciple like him need to rack his brains so much today?

The sneak attackers from both directions were also stubborn, pushing forward a hundred miles and taking losses three times in succession before finally slowing down and beginning to probe the path ahead with magical treasures.

It was completely…

What’s so great about your poison formations?

This Daoist will use fellow Daoists’ lives to counter them!

Letting out a light laugh, Li Changshou stopped thinking further, focusing on controlling the two paper dao people and managing the timing of poison formation activation…

Soon, the battle results increased to over forty True Immortals, three Heavenly Immortals, with four Heavenly Immortals seriously injured;

Though not yet causing bone-deep injury to the enemy, it had slowed their advance speed, giving Li Changshou more preparation opportunities.

The effect of the poison formations was quite good, and worth focusing research on in the future…

Sensing his master and junior sister approaching the pill room, Li Changshou divided a stream of consciousness to the paper dao person in the pill room.

Because he had arranged so many paper dao people at this time, Li Changshou had also made detailed divisions.

[Heaven-series paper dao people], responsible for counter-encirclement after the battle begins.

They each carried large quantities of original paper people and poison powder, with auras and appearances ensuring no similarity to Li Changshou.

Their appearance would be after the great battle erupted, and when the battle concluded, these paper dao people would quickly withdraw.

[Earth-series paper dao people], responsible for pre-battle warning and enemy injury matters, mainly used to control poison formations, each with auras and appearances also completely different from Li Changshou.

Two Earth-series paper dao people were currently in action.

[Human-series paper dao people], responsible for protecting junior sister and master, though few, but all arranged near the master and junior sister.

Just like Human-series Number Three now, responsible for later accompanying master and junior sister, pretending to be his true body, going with junior sister to the earth vein escape route…

The Little Jade Peak compound formation would subsequently be taken over by Heaven-series paper dao people, and this place would also count as a ‘trap’ that could bury powerful enemies.

Several splashing sounds came from outside the pill room, that was several Spirit-Cultivating Jade Frogs jumping into the pool…

Then came Ling E and Old Dao Master Qi Yuan’s calls:

“Senior Brother!”

“Changshou, what’s wrong!”

Two figures hurriedly rushed into the formations outside the pill room…