Chapter 278 - 202: "Heroic Spirits" Inside the Tower (Part 5)

Chapter 278: Chapter 202: "Heroic Spirits" Inside the Tower (Part 5)

"Amitabha. Benefactor, heaven has the virtue of cherishing life. I am a monk; how could I see death and not offer aid?"

Qin Zhenyang’s eyelid twitched as he watched from the side. He couldn’t tell if Huie Jue was being intentional or careless. He only felt that this young, eminent monk from the Bodhi Institute was difficult to fathom—not nearly as pure as he appeared.

However, seeing the bandits’ plight, he was suddenly overwhelmed with worry.

"Monk Huie Jue, have... have you seen my junior sect members?"

"Senior Brother Qin, I have not."

Huie Jue said quietly, his palms pressed together.

"This won’t do. I have to find them!"

Qin Zhenyang’s expression was grim. He glanced back at the distant Roto, who was watching them like a tiger eyeing its prey, and he hesitated.

’If I leave, what if Roto makes a move against our side...’

As if reading his mind, Huie Jue lowered his gaze and said,

"Senior Brother Qin, you may go. Leave Roto to me."

"You? Monk Huie Jue... are you sure you can handle him?"

Qin Zhenyang hesitated.

Huie Jue’s expression was placid.

"I might not be confident against other Third Transformation Realm masters, but this practitioner’s Buddhist arts are unorthodox. It won’t be difficult for me to delay him."

Huie Jue’s expression remained humble and polite, but his tone was utterly certain, without a hint of hesitation.

’A Second Transformation who doesn’t fear a Third Transformation...’

Considering his master, and the fact that he had entered the Bodhi Institute at such a young age, Qin Zhenyang figured Huie Jue wasn’t just posturing. He gave the monk a long, deep look.

"Monk Huie Jue, I’ll leave him to you, then."

"Understood, Senior Brother Qin."

Huie Jue pressed his palms together and lowered his gaze, then returned to the bandits to perform his "salvation on the living." His attention, however, was now completely fixed on Roto.

Roto seemed to sense it. He looked toward Huie Jue from across the hall, his brow furrowing as if facing a formidable enemy.

Seeing this, Qin Zhenyang felt reassured and began to move swiftly through the hall. His worried gaze swept over one "bandit mushroom" after another. With each one he passed that wasn’t Huang Zifeng or his other sect members, he felt a mix of relief and growing anxiety.

But after navigating the stone pillars for a while, Qin Zhenyang gradually sensed that something was wrong.

Though the hall was vast, one could still see the far end. With his Tunneling Speed, why hadn’t he made it out of this forest of stone pillars after all this time?

He stopped short, staring at a bandit who had just appeared before him. He was sure he had already passed this one.

’An array...’

Qin Zhenyang scanned his surroundings and realized the stone pillars did indeed form an array. An unwary person could walk in circles indefinitely.

But now that he had seen through it, the array here hardly seemed sophisticated. Although the Cloud Mountain Sword Sect didn’t specialize in arrays, their Sword Arrays still involved similar principles. Moreover, as a Sword Cultivator with a clear Sword Heart, he was not easily swayed by such things.

Xie Yuan, watching from a distance, saw Qin Zhenyang quickly decipher the gimmick and felt relieved.

’For Senior Brother Qin, this level shouldn’t pose much of a problem.’

The same couldn’t be said for the other masters from Great Li. Many were trapped in the bewildering stone pillar array, mesmerized by the murals on them. They wandered in a daze, walked in circles, or even had their minds completely absorbed by the world within the paintings, standing motionless as people from the Western Regions crept up behind them.

’How do all these experts from the Western Regions know the way through? Is it Lu the Third?’

Xie Yuan understood in an instant, and his expression darkened.

He had a clear view from outside the array. Many of the Great Li masters had been put on the back foot by the stone pillar formation and were in grave danger.

The number of people who had entered was unexpected, but the two factions were clearly divided. Even though Xie Yuan didn’t know most of the masters here, that didn’t stop him from picking a side.

As a fellow countryman of Great Li, Xie Yuan couldn’t claim to be deeply patriotic, but he couldn’t just stand by and watch his people be slaughtered by outsiders.

’Oh, what the hell. No one’s made it to the 2nd Layer yet, anyway.’

Xie Yuan stood up inside the stone room, walked to the entrance, opened the door, and in a flash, vanished.

Not far away, an expert from the Western Regions watched the door swing open abruptly. His scalp tingled, and his heart leaped into his throat.

He was only at the Qi Blood First Transformation. His Sect was simply located nearby, and the Ming King had figured that one more person couldn’t hurt, so he’d been allowed in to fill out the ranks.

The man was sharp enough to know he couldn’t get involved in the main fray, so he had bolted for the periphery right from the start. Following Lu the Third’s directions, he made it through the stone pillar array and was hoping to do some scavenging on the sidelines.

It had been smooth sailing so far; none of the Central Plains masters had noticed him. He was just starting to think his luck was in when he saw the door open so strangely.

But the door had swung open on its own, with no one emerging from within. For a long moment, there was no other sound or movement.

The man hesitated, took two steps forward, and then froze. Slowly, he lowered his head.

Staring at the blade tip protruding from his chest, he couldn’t understand, even in death, where his attacker had come from.

’These ruins... are haunted!’

After casually dispatching the unlucky Western Regions man who had stumbled into his path, Xie Yuan withdrew his blade. There was no time to loot the corpse; he rushed toward the nearest stone pillar.

A master from the Central Plains was staring blankly at a mural on a stone pillar, completely oblivious to a bare-chested Western Regions expert who was stealthily closing in.

The Western Regions expert, seeing that he hadn’t been noticed, was just breaking into a triumphant smirk. Suddenly, the Central Plains master stumbled forward as if he’d been kicked, snapping out of his trance. His eyes immediately locked onto his ambusher.

"You Western Regions barbarian! How dare you ambush me! Die!"

’Fuck, who ambushed you?!’

The Western Regions expert’s eyes bulged. He had no choice but to raise his weapon and prepare to fight. But just as he was about to engage, a sudden sense of dread washed over him. He instinctively swung his Wolf Fang Club to the side, deflecting a long blade.

’Fuck, who’s ambushing me?!’

The Great Li master was baffled to see his opponent inexplicably swing his club at empty air. But when the club and blade clashed, he thought he saw a faint shadow, and a chill ran down his spine.