Chapter 656 - 651: Beg Me

Chapter 656: Chapter 651: Beg Me

Cheng Ming stood inside the Teleportation Array, surrounded by tens of thousands of runes that flickered and shimmered in the void. It was a dazzlingly beautiful sight.

But Cheng Ming was in no mood to appreciate its beauty.

His face was grave as he focused all his attention on repairing the first rune, which was about a tenth of the way incomplete.

He didn’t know what the rune originally looked like, but with his knowledge of Arrays, he could deduce its form.

He held his fingers together like a sword, using his hand as a brush. His fingers slid slowly through the void, each stroke executed with extreme caution. With something like a Teleportation Array, the slightest deviation could cause it to fail. He couldn’t afford a single mistake.

Lin Yuankun and the others watched anxiously. An entire stick of incense had burned away before Cheng Ming finally repaired the first rune.

In total, the Teleportation Array was missing eight runes. Cheng Ming had just repaired the simplest of them.

The second rune was considerably more complex, with an even larger portion missing. It took Cheng Ming much longer—nearly a full hour—to complete the repairs.

...

"Master Cheng is truly worthy of his title. To think he even understands an Array as complex as this Teleportation Array. At this rate, it’ll be repaired in no time."

The surrounding crowd murmured amongst themselves.

Night had fallen. Cheng Ming had spent a full ten hours repairing seven of the runes and was now starting on the eighth.

This rune was the most severely damaged; less than a third of it remained.

Fine beads of sweat covered Cheng Ming’s forehead. Repairing the Teleportation Array was a massive drain on his mental energy, and he felt incredibly fatigued.

But now that he had reached the final, critical stage, he certainly wasn’t going to give up.

’The seven runes I just repaired were all peripheral,’ Cheng Ming thought. ’They’re not critical to the Teleportation Array’s function. This one, however... this must be one of its core runes! It’s incredibly complex, with over a thousand strokes, and this is just a fragment. A complete one must have exactly three thousand.’

He took a short break to rest his weary mind before starting work on the final rune.

One hour, two hours, four hours passed...

Before everyone’s eyes, Cheng Ming’s face grew increasingly pale, and sweat streamed down his face without end.

"There’s less than a third left to go. Master Cheng should be able to fix the Teleportation Array."

As a Celestial Martial Realm expert, Lin Yuankun was usually unflappable, but now he watched with his heart in his throat as the final rune was restored bit by bit under Master Cheng’s hands.

"He’s wrong."

Just then, Ning Jiang shook his head.

"Hmm?"

Lin Yuankun heard him. His sharp gaze shot over as he snarled, "Boy, if you dare spout any more nonsense, I’ll slap you to death..."

He was only halfway through his sentence when disaster struck within the Teleportation Array.

BOOM!

A tyrannical wave of Spatial Power erupted. Countless runes began to vibrate violently, releasing a destructive aura. Cheng Ming, still inside, abruptly coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"Master Cheng, what’s happened?" Lin Yuankun exclaimed in shock.

Cheng Ming didn’t answer. The space inside the Teleportation Array was twisting violently, trapping him inside with his life hanging by a thread.

"Boy, what is going on?" Lin Yuankun demanded, his mind racing back to what Ning Jiang had just said as he turned to face him.

Ning Jiang’s expression was calm. "A Teleportation Array is a delicate structure; one wrong move and the whole thing comes crashing down," he said lightly. "He repaired the core rune incorrectly, triggering a chain reaction that is causing the entire Array to collapse."

"What?!"

Lin Yuankun’s expression changed drastically. If the Teleportation Array collapsed, would the Lin Family lose it forever? Worse, with the space inside twisting and distorting, Master Cheng would almost certainly die.

Master Cheng held a prestigious position. Even a Celestial Martial Realm King like himself had to travel to the Western Province personally to request his services. If Master Cheng died here, the Lin Family would face serious repercussions.

"Boy, since you could see that Master Cheng made a mistake, you must truly understand Teleportation Arrays," Lin Yuankun said. "If you can stabilize it, my Lin Family will reward you handsomely."

"So now you want my help?" Ning Jiang sneered. "If you had let me handle this from the start, the Teleportation Array would have been repaired in less than the time it takes for Half a Stick of Incense to burn, and I wouldn’t have asked the Lin Family for any payment. But you insulted me and threatened me. Now you’re asking for my help? Don’t you think it’s a little late?"

"Then what do you want?" Lin Yuankun’s brow furrowed.

"Beg me!" Ning Jiang spat out the two words.

"What? Boy, don’t push your luck!" Lin Yuankun flew into a rage. For a Celestial Martial Realm King like him to beg a junior from the Earth Martial Realm was the ultimate humiliation.

"Then by all means, watch it collapse," Ning Jiang said, his expression utterly indifferent and nonchalant.

RUMBLE!

The fluctuations erupting from the Teleportation Array grew even more chaotic. Even the space surrounding the Array began to twist. The sheer Spatial Power was terrifying, even for a Celestial Martial Realm King like him.

’Damn it, what do I do? Do I really have to beg this kid?’ Lin Yuankun’s mind raced with anxiety.

If he had more time, he would have seized Ning Jiang and tortured him into submission. But time was running out. It wouldn’t be long before the Teleportation Array collapsed completely.

"Fine. Fine! Boy, you win."

Lin Yuankun gritted his teeth and said in a low voice, "I beg you!"

"What was that? You’re too quiet. I can’t hear you," Ning Jiang said faintly.

A flash of killing intent appeared in Lin Yuankun’s eyes. He took a deep breath and shouted, "I beg you!"

"With a little more sincerity," Ning Jiang added.

Lin Yuankun nearly shattered his teeth from clenching them so hard. Suppressing his fury, he spoke for a third time. "I beg you to intervene."

Only then did Ning Jiang step forward and walk toward the Teleportation Array.

The space within the Teleportation Array was twisting, and destructive waves of energy pulsed from it. To enter under such conditions was to walk directly into peril.

Ning Jiang, however, remained perfectly composed.

In truth, he wasn’t intervening because Lin Yuankun had begged him. It was because Master Cheng had spoken up for him earlier, which had earned him a bit of goodwill. He was only acting now for Master Cheng’s sake.

Otherwise, even if Lin Yuankun had gotten on his knees, he wouldn’t have given him the time of day.

’I’d like to see what tricks this kid has up his sleeve.’ Lin Yuankun stared intently, not holding out much hope that Ning Jiang could actually fix the Teleportation Array. It was a desperate, last-ditch effort.

They watched as Ning Jiang stood within the Teleportation Array and made a few light strokes in the air with his finger.

Instantly, to everyone’s utter disbelief, the Teleportation Array, which had been on the verge of collapse, suddenly grew calm!