Chapter 110 - 72: Exposed

Chapter 110: Chapter 72: Exposed

At noon, on Bamboo Forest Peak, within the Shouyi Temple station.

All Shouyi Temple disciples had been sent out on patrol, leaving only Vice Temple Master Zhao and two stewards at the station.

"Senior Brother, it’s about time. All the disciples have scattered across the mountain by now," Steward Xu said.

"We can notify that senior," Chen Rui said softly.

Even though the room was enveloped by a magical artifact that isolated Divine Sense, they still lowered their voices subconsciously.

"Mhm."

Vice Temple Master Zhao wore a solemn expression as he took out an insect amber from his Qiankun Bag. As he infused it with magical power, the insect amber immediately lit up and then shattered on its own. The light flashed and vanished, turning into specks of fragmented light before completely dissipating.

Meanwhile, inside a gloomy, pitch-black cave.

Chongyun, who was sitting cross-legged, suddenly opened his eyes, undisguised excitement lighting up his gaze.

"Hehehe, it’s finally time!"

His hands rapidly formed several seal techniques in front of him, and he let out a sinister cackle. "My darlings! Break out of your cocoons!

"Hurry up and feast, grow quickly, and then sacrifice yourselves to your mother to help my cultivation advance a step further! Hahahaha..."

He formed a few more techniques, but his loud laughter abruptly ceased as he furrowed his brows fiercely.

"Break the cocoons! I ordered you to break them! Why aren’t you breaking out?!"

The seal techniques in his hands changed continuously, the expression on his face growing increasingly ugly.

"Damn it, why aren’t you breaking out!"

Halfway through his cursing, Chongyun suddenly realized something, his expression changing drastically. "This is bad. If the subordinate insects have a problem, then wouldn’t the mother insect also..."

He switched to another seal technique, attempting to control the mother insect, but to no avail. The connection between him and the mother insect seemed to have been blocked by something.

"How could this be..." His face turned grave. He stopped executing techniques and simply closed his eyes, directly communicating with the magical treasure he had left beside the mother insect.

Although the Shadowless Banner was quite far away and wasn’t a lifebound treasure, a magical treasure and its master were connected by mind; their link couldn’t be isolated by ordinary obstacles. Sure enough, with a single thought, he immediately established a connection with the Shadowless Banner, wanting to manipulate it to sweep up the mother insect and return at once.

But then he sensed that the Shadowless Banner was trapped.

It was stuck in that ten-foot-wide hollow he had left behind, restricted by some unknown power and unable to break through.

"Damn it, they were discovered as expected..." Chongyun gritted his teeth.

He couldn’t figure it out. His plan was so meticulous and concealed, how on earth was it discovered? Could it be that that old geezer from Huang Bamboo Temple had secretly come here himself?

Chongyun suddenly stood up. His entire person turned into a buzzing dark cloud that drilled out of the cave, heading straight for Bamboo Forest Peak.

He accepted his defeat today. After confirming that the subordinate insects had lost control, he abandoned the idea of siphoning the Cloud Bamboo. However, while he could afford to lose the subordinate insects and the Cloud Bamboo, he couldn’t just abandon the mother insect he had spent a fortune cultivating, let alone his magical treasure that was also there.

He had to at least retrieve the mother insect and his magical treasure before leaving!

Across the mountain, Li Yinsheng had been reading.

In the dead of night, he was reading. When the sky turned pale and the Jade Altar Temple shifted guards to restart their arrays, he was also reading. When the morning bell rang halfway up the mountain, urging the patrol disciples to wake up and patrol, he was still reading.

It wasn’t until the sun had almost risen to the middle of the sky that Li Yinsheng put down the array book in his hand and slightly raised his brow.

Within the perception of his Divine Sense, the three people in the Shouyi Temple station had suddenly deployed a magical artifact that isolated Divine Sense.

He hadn’t been paying attention to those three at all, nor had he actively extended his Divine Sense; it had simply spread out naturally. The Shouyi Temple station was at the very edge of his Divine Sense’s range, so unless they made a huge commotion, he wouldn’t have noticed them while engrossed in his reading.

But now, this group of people had inexplicably deployed a magical artifact to isolate Divine Sense, which obviously meant there was a problem. Although for ordinary cultivators, this magical artifact didn’t roughly repel Divine Sense but rather concealed and disguised things within its range, this little trick couldn’t fool Li Yinsheng’s Divine Sense.

The moment those three deployed the magical artifact, he sensed it.

What decent person would isolate Divine Sense to chat in broad daylight?

Li Yinsheng immediately probed over with his Divine Sense. The magical artifact those three used actually had some merit. When he had first become a Daoist, his Divine Sense likely wouldn’t have been able to easily penetrate that barrier; he might have even overlooked it entirely, genuinely believing everything was normal there. But for his current Divine Sense, this isolation method was completely useless.

His Divine Sense probed in, hearing their conversation clearly, including the scene where Vice Temple Master Zhao activated the insect amber.

"Notify that senior... what are these people from Shouyi Temple trying to do?" Li Yinsheng wondered.

This question had barely surfaced in his mind before it was answered.

A few breaths after Vice Temple Master Zhao activated the insect amber, an extremely obscure fluctuation emanated from all the Shouyi Temple disciples.

Now Li Yinsheng knew what they were trying to do.

Beneath Bamboo Forest Peak, all those arrays had been personally set up by him. Naturally, he could clearly perceive their every movement. Right after that obscure fluctuation dispersed from the Shouyi Temple disciples, the exotic insects he had locked down with the Shuangfeiyan awakened collectively at almost the exact same time.

All the awakened exotic insects instinctively tried to tear apart their cocoons and break out. If they were really allowed to emerge, the Cloud Bamboo beside them would inevitably suffer.

Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t get out.

Li Yinsheng now realized that "that senior" the people of Shouyi Temple had mentioned must be the Daoist who planted these insects.

"It’s only the third day, and the mastermind already can’t hold back?" Li Yinsheng said, unable to hide his slight surprise.

Following that, he noticed that the banner trapped within the Tight Qi Tribulation Array had directly rolled up the large fleshy insect beside it, attempting to break out of the array and flee into the distance.

But that banner seemed to focus on concealment and lacked much offensive power. Under the encirclement and suppression of the Tight Qi Tribulation, the banner dashed left and right, yet it remained useless.

It seemed the mastermind had also realized they had been outsmarted by someone lurking in the shadows.

Since that person already knew their methods had been seen through, Li Yinsheng didn’t need to hold back anymore.

He successively formed several seal techniques. The Tight Qi Tribulation that locked down the magical treasure banner and the fleshy insect, along with the surrounding God-Suppressing Head and Rising Bull arrays, surged up from underground together.

This was one of the advantages of the arrays within the Array of Profound Mystery. Normal arrays were difficult to move at will, and the more they relied on external objects, the more immobile they were. However, the arrays of the Array of Profound Mystery were entirely constructed by Li Yinsheng using magical power. They weren’t purely arrays; they possessed somewhat the nature of magic, allowing them to be moved under his control.

He then stepped out the door and mounted the Cold Bright Sword, a sword light soaring into the sky.

When he landed again, he was already in a forest next to the peak.

He waited for a moment. Suddenly, the ground in front of him shook violently, splitting open a crack several dozen feet long. Three streams of light, all entangled in black and white, flew out from the fissure.

The left and right streams shot straight up into the air and vanished from sight.

The middle stream of light landed in Li Yinsheng’s hand and dissipated, revealing the pitch-black triangular banner and the large fleshy insect inside. By now, the originally three-foot-tall triangular banner had shrunk to three inches tall, smaller than a palm.

As the trapping array of the Tight Qi Tribulation dissipated, the pitch-black triangular banner instantly tried to roll up the insect and fly away.

A hazy cyan light enveloped Li Yinsheng’s palm. The pitch-black triangular banner trembled violently and instantly drooped, remaining motionless.

He first picked up that large fleshy insect between his fingers and put it into his Qiankun Bag, then carefully observed the triangular banner currently being suppressed by the magical power of the Qingxuan Scripture.

As a Daoist’s magical treasure, this banner seemed to have been refined for a very long time. Even though it was now subdued by him, erasing the connection between the magical treasure and its master to claim it for his own use wasn’t something that could be achieved in a short time. If he put it directly into his Qiankun Bag, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t fly out on its own and return to its master’s side.

However...

Li Yinsheng flicked his ten fingers. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of black and white chess pieces firmly locked onto the triangular banner, rendering it completely immobile. Its treasure light entirely converged, making it look like an ordinary banner.

He nodded in satisfaction and put it away into his Qiankun Bag. Although he didn’t know sealing magic, arrays could barely serve as a substitute to some extent. He would just store this thing away and deal with it slowly later on.

Having done all this, Li Yinsheng raised his head and looked at the northern sky, narrowing his eyes slightly.

The most powerful aura he had ever encountered thus far was rapidly approaching.

The mastermind had finally arrived.

A sense of excitement surged in Li Yinsheng’s heart. This was his first time clashing with a Daoist-level opponent. He couldn’t be overconfident; he had to go all out.