Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 440: The Power of Duplication

The sharp fangs flashed with an intimidating and murderous energy in the lightning.

As they bit into the back of Tang Jie’s neck, there was a soft squelch.

The white snake trembled and froze.

She released Tang Jie and looked at her chest. A golden blade had been stabbed into her heart.

Raising her head, she looked at Tang Jie and squeezed out, “How… did… you…”

Tang Jie coldly said, “My Basking Moon Sect is famous for being of the proper orthodox tradition, with sturdy Origin Hearts that can easily overcome Heart Demons… I can even resist Heart Demons, so your little seduction spell is nothing. Besides… I also have a Mindsoothe Bracelet!”

In order to scam him, the Seven Absolutions Sect had forced Tang Jie to purchase the Mindsoothe Bracelet for five hundred thousand spirit coins while he was purchasing the Mountain River State Diagram.

But whether or not the Mindsoothe Bracelet was worth that much, its ability to soothe the mind was authentic.

Given that he had the sturdy Origin Heart of the Basking Moon Sect combined with the mind-soothing powers of the bracelet, it would have been bizarre if the white snake’s seduction had worked.

As Tang Jie replied, he pushed the golden blade down.

The white snake was dissected, blood and organs gushing out. The white snake shuddered, helpless to resist.

There were seven jade nails flashing from her forehead, arms, and chest. Meanwhile, Tang Jie’s left hand had firmly grasped her Life Gate Point.

The Seven Demon Soul-Sealing Nails!

“No!” The pangolin furiously bellowed as it charged over.

Tang Jie shouted, “Tutu!”

The rabbit fiend appeared and thrust out its two forelimbs. “Turn!”

It was substituting for Tang Jie in using the formation’s shifting function.

A centipede wouldn’t fall over even in death. The white snake was a Transformation great fiend, so even though the Seven Demon Soul-Sealing Nails had been hammered into it, Tang Jie still needed all his strength to restrain her.

But just as Tutu was activating the formation, Chang Baimei roared and thrust out his palms. “Shake!”

The rumbling Five Lightning Formation suddenly weakened and froze for a brief moment, as if someone had stuck a piece of cloth into the gears.

Even if Chang Baimei couldn’t control it, he could at least interfere with the formation’s operation.

At the same time, the pangolin charged into the fray.

An attack from a Transformation great fiend was not to be taken lightly, but Tang Jie ignored it, continuing to focus on the white snake.

Seeing that he couldn’t stop it, Tang Jie grabbed the white snake and held it aloft, using it as a shield.

The pangolin couldn’t thrust the spear at its ally.

Tang Jie pushed the white snake toward the pangolin’s spear, and the pangolin had no choice but to put away his spear and grab the white snake.

Thud!

A golden blade penetrated through the white snake into the pangolin.

“Ugh!” The pangolin grunted, enduring this strike as it hugged tightly to the white snake.

Tang Jie extended his left hand, a white jade finger thrusting at the snake’s forehead.

The white snake would not survive this strike.

At this moment, the pangolin hugged the white snake and turned around, allowing the Jade Shattering Finger to strike his back, creating a fountain of blood.

“Old Jin!” the white snake shouted. “You… This wasn’t necessary…”

She knew that even if she were rescued, there was no way she could survive her injuries.

The pangolin smiled.

It looked into the eyes of the snake, gentleness and sorrow within its own.

At that moment, Tang Jie seemed like the cruelest and most callous villain, caring not for the deep affection and camaraderie they shared, cruelly swinging his butcher’s blade once more.

The golden blade turned into a wire and moved to coil around the pangolin’s neck.

“No!” The white snake was looking at Tang Jie and saw what he was doing, and its eyes widened.

She grabbed the pangolin and used her last strength to toss him away, managing to get the pangolin out before the golden wire came around.

The golden wire swept out, wrapped around the white snake’s neck, and sliced.

The white snake froze, and then a faint smile appeared on her lips.

She turned to look at the pangolin, and then her head fell off her body.

“NOOO!” The pangolin and Chang Baimei shouted in unison.

Tang Jie grabbed the white snake’s corpse and put it into his Mustard Seed Bag—a Transformation great fiend’s corpse was extremely valuable!

“You bastard!” the pangolin cried out in grief. “I’ll fight you to the death!”

“But I have no interest in that,” Tang Jie grunted as he fell back, sowing some beans.

Several dozen bean soldiers appeared, flailing their limbs and lunging at the pangolin.

At the same time, Tang Jie swung his saber at Chang Baimei’s hyena.

The Basking Moon Sect and Beast Refining Gate were long-time enemies, and they had both developed tactics to use against each other. Every member of the Basking Moon Sect knew that there were always two ways of dealing with the Beast Refining Gate.

Strike at the master or cut off the wings.

Tang Jie had chosen the latter.

He did this because he had basically learned most of what Chang Baimei was capable of from Tutu. He knew that this person specialized in the typical Beast Refining Gate fighting style, using himself as bait and his beasts to attack. His defensive methods were numerous and his offensive methods few.

For this reason, killing Chang Baimei wasn’t easy, whereas killing his Transformation fiends was much simpler.

Although the white snake and pangolin were both Transformation fiends, the fact that the Beast Refining Gate’s people had limited personal strength meant that the fiends they could subdue were also of limited strength. The white snake and pangolin were near the bottom of the barrel compared to their peers.

In the end, the Beast Refining Gate relied on quantity over quality.

His first target was the white snake. This was because the first wave of five Yin Lightning bolts was the most unexpected and most likely to hit its target. Thus, it naturally needed to be used on the most worthwhile target.

He had chosen the hyena for the second wave. This was because he was actually still fighting with the mindset of running if he couldn’t win. Besides, the hyena was also the easiest of the war beasts to kill.

With this slash, the hyena howled and rushed at Tang Jie, ignoring the lightning coming from above.

Unlike the white snake, the hyena was a refined beast. Its intelligence had been stripped away long ago, leaving only instinct.

As it furiously charged, it spat out black gas from its mouth.

Tang Jie thrust out his palm several times to disperse the black gas, at which point the hyena suddenly pounced and made to bite Tang Jie.

Tang Jie grunted and kicked the hyena in the belly, at the same time turning his saber to chop at the hyena’s head.

The hyena was at the upper grade of Mind Opening, one tier above Tang Jie, though in actual strength, it was a little weaker. Tang Jie could take it one-on-one and defeat it even without using any of his trump cards.

But his enemy wasn’t willing to give him a one-on-one.

Chang Baimei thrust his palms at the air and bellowed, “Stop right there!”

The endless lightning was stopped by something and was unable to come down.

If he couldn’t control it, he could still stop it by force.

Chang Baimei’s Spirit Ring expanded, enveloping the entire area of the formation.

This was the special ability of Spirit Ring cultivators. By expanding the Spirit Ring, they could protect everyone within it.

To put it simply, Chang Baimei had expanded his barrier from applying to only himself to the entire area covered by the Spirit Ring. In this way, his war beasts were isolated from the lightning.

The removal of the lightning essentially nullified the formation. Because he was within the barrier, Tang Jie had even lost the ability to operate the formation.

But this method wasn’t without flaw. It was extremely taxing on the user, and it also meant that the user was essentially defenseless against enemies inside the barrier. This was because his defensive barrier had already expanded outward.

But at least Chang Baimei’s four war beasts were now freed.

Without the interference of the formation, the war beasts became much stronger. The golden eagle and black bear were able to push back Shen Qingdan, forcing her to retreat outward. But if she got too far away, Chang Baimei would order the two fiends to stop attacking and turn to deal with Tang Jie.

In order to take some of the pressure off Tang Jie, Shen Qingdan had to grit her teeth and hold on. But these two beasts were truly powerful. The golden eagle was fast while the black bear was savage, and she was only just barely able to hold out.

Meanwhile, the pangolin pushed through the bean soldiers to thrust its spear at Tang Jie.

He loathed Tang Jie to the utmost, and at this moment, the air was filled with images of his spear. It seemed like he would only rest when Tang Jie was a beehive.

Tang Jie suddenly vanished from his position.

The Chaoswind Step.

As a foot technique made for localized battle, the Chaoswind Step was perfect for this situation.

In his previous battles against the Beast Refining Gate, Tang Jie was always running and fighting, which wasn’t a good fit for the Chaoswind Step. Now that he was in a head-on clash, it finally had the space to show its power.

But Tang Jie wasn’t only relying on the Chaoswind Step.

Dodging the spear, Tang Jie appeared next to the fake mountain. He thrust out his hand, and the fake mountain collapsed, turning into two Tang Jies.

The pangolin and Chang Baimei were both shocked. What spell art was this?

Tang Jie then went over to a nearby tree.

He had prepared this tree before the battle, and with the strike of his palm, it turned into countless pieces of wood, all of them turning into Tang Jies that shot out from the water.

Tang Jie waved his hand, and another tree turned into countless Shen Qingdans.

Even the hyena was powerless here. Although it could search by scent, this was only useful for tracking the target. With countless Tang Jies here and the odor of Tang Jie everywhere around here, trying to find the real Tang Jie would not be easy.

Importantly, even if it could identify Tang Jie, Tang Jie was using the Chaoswind Step to constantly move around amongst the crowd of people.

Back then, the original Tang Jie had used the same method to evade He Chong again and again. As for using Duplication in a direct battle, this was actually the first time.

All the Tang Jie shouted in unison, “Let’s see how you fight me now!”

He raised his golden blade and charged at the four war beasts.

Although Chang Baimei knew that these were all illusions, all of these clones rushing at him still left him deeply stunned.

It wasn’t just illusions of Tang Jie, but of the bean soldiers too. The force of several dozen bean soldiers had become an army of thousands, all of them yelling and charging.

Countless saber waves descended on the four war beasts.

Although they knew that most of the attacks were illusions, Chang Baimei and the four war beasts had no choice but to avoid or defend against them. After all, who could say that the real attack wasn’t among them?

The four war beasts unleashed their power at the same time, loosing a torrent of spiritual energy against the crowd that obliterated all the illusions in its path.

At this moment, a figure suddenly appeared behind Chang Baimei and swung a blade at his head.

As the blade was about to fall, Chang Baimei’s body erupted with white light, the explosion of spiritual energy sending that person flying and throwing up blood.

“This is the real one!” Chang Baimei shouted.

The pangolin thrust out his spear at that person, who exploded into spiritual light.

“How?” Chang Baimei and the pangolin were both shocked.

This Tang Jie had clearly thrown up blood while being pushed away.

A moment later, the hyena let out a bitter wail as a blade chopped into its back.

Another Tang Jie stood behind the hyena, his golden blade almost chopping the hyena in half.

“Tang Jie!” Chang Baimei looked at him in disbelief.

Tang Jie smiled. “This spell’s name is Duplication. Its most unique attribute is that it can adjust to the situation. Thus, don’t think that one of them is me just because they throw up blood.”

Chang Baimei sucked in a cold breath of air. These duplicate Tang Jies could change according to the situation? This was an indicator of an extremely high-level illusion spell.

What sort of spell art could be this incredible?

A moment later, Chang Baimei saw the countless Tang Jies all begin to do different things. Some of them were holding sabers, others swinging swords, others laughing hard, others weeping, and some of them even making faces. Several hundred Tang Jies were doing several hundred different things.

It was impossible to determine which was real and which was fake.

“So, you have to keep an eye on me,” Tang Jie chuckled. He blinked away once more.

“Ba…stard!” Chang Baimei had to force this word out from between his clenched teeth.

He was a mighty Spirit Ring True Person, yet he had been forced against the wall by a mere Nine Revolutions junior! It was utterly humiliating!

It had to be understood that this wasn’t an ambush like with Chang Mingxin, but a proper battle!

Although his foe was using a formation, Chang Baimei and his fiend beasts still shouldn’t have been pushed this far. And this wasn’t even considering that the white snake had been slain and the hyena heavily injured.

The pangolin suddenly threw his head back and roared, “Tang Jie, you think that this is enough to deal with us? No!”

His scales all suddenly stood up, and immense waves of spiritual energy began to radiate from him.

Chang Baimei paled at this sight, crying out, “No!”

Raaaa!

A vast wave of energy engulfed the area.

In the middle of it all, countless scales left the pangolin’s body and shot in every direction…

Tang Jie using everything he can to take down Chang Baimei and his lackeys, but those fiends have their own cards to play!