Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 339: The Last Trump Card (2)

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The one who had saved Lan Yu was surprisingly the Beast Refining Gate’s Helian Hu.

Tang Jie was more composed, saying, “I knew that it was impossible to clean all of them up. Some remnants are inevitable. Hey, don’t tell me there’s only one of you! If there’s anyone else, come out too.”

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Another figure appeared nearby.

“Fang Shiye.” Tang Jie’s eyes flashed.

Fang Shiye was a member of Godhead Palace, ranked only behind Yun Wuji. He was definitely a troublesome opponent on par with Helian Hu.

He was no longer wearing the traditional golden clothes of Godhead Palace, but green robes. Lightly waving a feather fan, he chuckled and said, “Greetings, Senior Brothers. Shiye pays his respects. As expected, being the last yellow oriole isn’t easy. Senior Brother Tang still managed to see through it.”

Deng Xiaoyu asked in shock, “What’s going on? Why are the people from Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate still around?”

In the battle over the Taiyi Profound Clarity Cup, Tang Jie had formed an alliance against Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate, leading to their defeat first. The vast majority of them had been slain or retreated, and the four parties had also searched their respective areas in order to ensure that there was no one left.

Given that everyone had made assurances, there shouldn’t have been anyone left from these two sects.

Tang Jie pursed his lips and said, “You need to ask? Naturally, someone is leaving a final trump card as a play for victory.”

After two of the six major sects were eliminated, the Basking Moon Sect became dominant, with the highest chance of winning. The Thousand Passions Sect, as the ally of the Basking Moon Sect, would naturally benefit from this, but the other two sects would be left out. The Seven Absolutions Sect had come up with a way to deal with the Basking Moon Sect, so how could Horizon Ocean Pavilion have not?

The Seven Absolutions Sect had chosen a formation, but Horizon Ocean Pavilion had chosen to misreport and recruit defeated soldiers.

In the battle of four versus two, Horizon Ocean Pavilion had appeared happy to kill, but in secret, it had gotten in touch with Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate, fabricating reports and hiding some of their people. In any case, Horizon Ocean Pavilion had no grudge against these two sects, so there was no psychological burden from doing such a thing. Even the Seven Absolutions Sect could work with Godhead Palace, so there was no problem whatsoever with Horizon Ocean Pavilion doing it. Moreover, since the Seven Absolutions Sect had gotten away with working with Godhead Palace, such actions had essentially been given tacit approval.

Tang Jie hadn’t realized this at first, but after being fooled by the Seven Absolutions Sect, Tang Jie gradually began to realize that Horizon Ocean Pavilion wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for death. From then on, he began to think about what Horizon Ocean Pavilion might do, and this current plan was one of the ones with the highest possibility.

The only thing he hadn’t thought of was that Helian Hu would be one of those that remained.

While Helian Hu was number one in the Beast Refining Gate, that was before Cai Junyang had killed two of his beasts. Without his two tigers, his strength had plunged, and he was no longer on par with Ye Heizi.

If Tang Jie had to choose, he definitely would have chosen Ye Heizi to remain and not Helian Hu.

It seemed like Helian Hu had accumulated too much prestige within his sect, so even though he had been declawed, no one in the Beast Refining Gate dared to defy him, and the last opportunity had ultimately been given to him.

As Tang Jie spoke, Deng Xiaoyu and Mu Yu came to understand.

Deng Xiaoyu’s face darkened. “I see. But if that’s the case, why didn’t they come out earlier? If that had happened, Horizon Ocean Pavilion would have sustained fewer losses.”

Before Lan Yu could answer, Deng Xiaoyu answered his own question. “True, why would these two be willing to be used by others? They were probably anxious for us to kill each other so they could pick over the remains.”

Helian Hu and Fang Shiye wouldn’t just let other people use them. For them, this was also a chance for their two sects to stage a comeback. Thus, unless it was absolutely necessary, they wouldn’t act. Of course, Lan Yu knew this, which was why he didn’t recruit more of these defeated soldiers, rather taking only one from each of the two sects. Otherwise, he risked the guest turning into the master.

According to Lan Yu’s plan, after defeating the Thousand Passions Sect and taking two treasures, they would give two treasures to Helian Hu and Fang Shiye so that they would hold down the victorious Basking Moon Sect. The hatred between the Basking Moon Sect and the Beast Refining Gate ensured that the two wouldn’t be spared. While Helian Hu wasn’t willing to be used, he couldn’t change the situation. Meanwhile, Lan Yu would be able to run off using the Oceancrosser Step, dragging out the remaining twelve hours and coming away with five treasures.

Of course, as Horizon Ocean Pavilion lacked the numbers, they would never be able to claim five spots.

But what did that matter?

This would only further exemplify Lan Yu’s abilities. It would be best if he were the only one from Horizon Ocean Pavilion to come out with all five treasures. If the young palace lord wasn’t a fool, she would definitely pick him.

As a proud prodigy, Lan Yu didn’t feel satisfied by getting the spot or even winning the competition for his sect. What was most important for him was getting the young palace lord and the Wandering Palace.

But things hadn’t gone how he had expected. The fact that the Basking Moon Sect had only two people left made Lan Yu reconsider whether he could turn the tables, which gave him pause.

Now that Helian Hu and Fang Shiye had appeared, Helian Hu licked his lips and chuckled, “It’s three versus three, perfect.”

He stared at Tang Jie.

The grudge between the Beast Refining Gate and the Basking Moon Sect took first priority, and this bitter defeat was thanks to Tang Jie. Helian Hu naturally wouldn’t let him go, so he proclaimed, “Tang Jie is mine.”

Fang Shiye chuckled. “If that’s the case, I’ll take Young Master Wei. But, Brother Helian, don’t forget that Tang Jie is also an enemy of my Godhead Palace. If I leave this guy to you, Brother Helian will owe me a favor.”

Tang Jie sent a blade of wind slicing at Helian Hu while shouting to Wei Tianchong, “Don’t try and fight him head-on! Run and fight!”

He tilted his head at Wei Tianchong.

Wei Tianchong seemed to get it, shouting “Understood!” before turning and running.

Seeing Wei Tianchong run, Fang Shiye sneered, “How absurd! Trying to run in front of a Mortal Shedding cultivator? Isn’t that just giving me a chance to show my power?”

The ideal tactic for a Spirit Disciple when against a Spirit Master was always to attempt close combat, using swift and incessant attacks to rob the opponent of a chance to cast, limiting them to spells. In this way, one still had a small chance of winning. Tang Jie had done this to beat Mortal Shedding Realm cultivators while at the Spirit Platform Realm, relying on the toughness of his body to take the initiative and go on the offensive. The losers often had no time to use their ultimate moves before they were defeated.

But turning to run was really nothing more than giving the opponent a chance to flaunt their power.

Fang Shiye formed hand signs as he prepared to unleash a powerful art on Wei Tianchong.

But surprisingly, without turning his head, Wei Tianchong made a gesture.

Fang Shiye heard a rush of wind from behind him and instinctively lunged forward. The steely fist of the combat puppet just barely brushed past his head.

While Wei Tianchong had failed to hit Fang Shiye, he had interrupted his casting, and there was a flash of green on Fang Shiye’s face. He charged forward, waving his feather fan and sending green light shooting toward Wei Tianchong’s back.

Wei Tianchong yelped and applied a Windshroud to himself, enduring Fang Shiye’s attack as he continued to run. He clearly had no plans to fight Fang Shiye.

Suddenly, Wei Tianchong stopped and turned around.

Fang Shiye saw that he had stopped running, so he stopped and laughed. “Keep running! Why did you stop? I wanted to see how much spiritual energy you had left and how long you could keep going.”

“Not much,” Wei Tianchong truthfully replied. “I had already bottomed out from fighting the Seven Absolutions Sect. While running over, I took some medicine and recovered a little, but there’s not much left now.”

Fang Shiye hadn’t expected Wei Tianchong to be this honest, and was taken aback. When he looked at Wei Tianchong’s face, he found that there was no fear on it, despite his dire circumstances.

Fang Shiye instantly realized that something was wrong, and when he turned around, he saw a figure running at him from the distance. A familiar face quickly appeared before Fang Shiye’s eyes.

“Lin Wang!” Immense fear caused Fang Shiye’s voice to rise several octaves.

The jade ruler glowed as it slammed into Fang Shiye, striking so hard that his sternum caved in…

The roars of a tiger resounded as saber light flashed!

Helian Hu swung his Skinflayer Knife again and again, joining with his refined tiger in a fierce assault on Tang Jie.

Even though he had only one refined beast, Helian Hu was still able to put up a savage offensive.

This guy’s fighting style shared some similarities with Peng Yaolong’s, both with the boldness of a body refiner. Even though he wasn’t as tough as Peng Yaolong, he was still just as daring.

In comparison, Tang Jie seemed to be having a tough time of it.

Just like Wei Tianchong, Tang Jie had exhausted himself greatly in his battles until now. While he had recovered somewhat on the way here, he was still far from his peak. Meanwhile, Helian Hu was still brimming with energy, so he lashed out with all his power and pushed Tang Jie back.

Helian Hu heartily laughed, “Tang Jie, aren’t you good at giving instructions? You consider yourself a tactician, yes? So why is it that you’re so helpless now that it’s your turn? Come on; let me see how you’ll deal with me!”

Tang Jie snorted, “Since you like it so much, I’ll let you experience it.”

He struck the ground with his left hand, stirring up a large cloud of dust to obscure him. At the same time, he threw out a Mindseizer. He wanted to use the time bought by the Mindseizer to kill Helian Hu in one blow.

But the moment Tang Jie threw out the Mindseizer, Helian Hu took out a refined beast token. A bull fiend appeared, standing in front of Helian Hu. The Mindseizer entered the bull fiend, which bitterly shrieked.

Tang Jie was left dumbfounded by this sight. He hadn’t thought Helian Hu would be hiding another refined beast.

Yes, while Helian Hu’s refined beasts had been killed, who said he couldn’t get any more? And the Langya Blessed Land happened to be a place with fiend beasts, so Helian Hu was completely capable of catching one and refining it for use. He had intentionally not used it so it could serve as a back-up plan, and it had succeeded in getting in the way of Tang Jie’s Mindseizer.

The worst of all was that this bull fiend was a refined beast, so it didn’t have a mind.

The Mindseizer was not a soul attack, but an attempt at possession. It was just that it had the side effect of making the possessed temporarily lose control of their body. As Mindseizers had an extremely low chance of success, they were mostly used as a means of dazing someone.

But with refined beasts, things were different.

With no soul around, the Mindseizer could easily take control of the refined beast.

This should have been a good thing, except that it would expose the nature of Tang Jie’s Mindseizers.

In the middle of the dust, the bull fiend’s veins began to bulge outward, and it seemed to be in great pain, as if its body was being distorted. Tang Jie knew that this was a result of the bull fiend being possessed by the Mindseizer, and it was in the middle of turning into a devil. And as devils had unique appearances, he would be exposed the moment it transformed.

Helian Hu laughed. “I heard from Lan Yu that you had a method of dazing the mind, so I prepared a countermeasure. Flay the earth and weave the heavens into cloth! Heavenly Garment Knife!”

A savage wave of saber energy sliced toward Tang Jie.

Tang Jie knew that he didn’t have a choice. He threw the Heartbreak Saber into the air, and the eagle soul appeared, making the Heartbreak Saber circle in the air before chopping down on the head of the bull fiend.

He had to kill the bull fiend before it had a chance of turning into a devil.

But this meant that he gave up any chance of fighting against Helian Hu.

The band of saber energy swept up to Tang Jie with a radiant splendor.

“No!” Xie Fengtang and Xu Miaoran cried out in alarm.

At this moment, Tang Jie suddenly raised his head and thrust out his right hand.

Under the sunlight, a dazzling, golden splendor appeared on his palm, the light flowing like liquid across his hand and completely encasing it.

“What is that?” someone called out.

In the dust cloud, no one could get a clear view of it, but they were at least able to see that golden liquid-light.

The manifesting golden hand thrust toward Helian Hu and his knife!

Time seemed to stop as knife met palm.

A thin line of blood appeared on Tang Jie’s hand, but Helian Hu’s knife was sent flying into the air.

“How is this possible?” Helian Hu cried out.

His strongest move not only hadn’t been able to kill his opponent, it hadn’t even been able to cut through his hand.

A moment later, Tang Jie rushed up to Helian Hu, clenched his golden hand into a fist, and punched Helian Hu in the face.

“Aaagh!” Helian Hu held his nose as he was sent flying back.

At the same moment, a fireball came out of the forest and blasted him.

This worsened Helian Hu’s injuries.

Helian Hu shrieked, “Wei Tianchong? How could that be? How?”

He found it impossible to believe that Fang Shiye would be no match for Wei Tianchong, or that he would be taken care of so quickly. He felt the sudden chill of death casting its shadow over him.

Throwing aside everything else, he ordered his surviving refined tiger to hold down Tang Jie while he fled into the forest.

“Helian Hu, don’t even think about running!” Lan Yu said in alarm.

While he had been beating down Deng Xiaoyu, the situation had gotten far worse than he had expected.

He knew that this was bad and was about to give up on Deng Xiaoyu and run, but at this moment, Helian Hu suddenly shot a bolt of energy from his finger, striking Lan Yu in the leg.

It was so sudden that Lan Yu staggered, and Deng Xiaoyu was able to seize the moment to stab his spear at Lan Yu.

Blood gushed as Lan Yu threw his head back and roared, “Helian Hu!”

Helian Hu snorted, “Brother Lan, please hold them back for me. I will go first.”

He ran into the distance without turning his head, and once he was out of sight, he activated his teleportation token.

He had truly chosen his moment perfectly.

Lan Yu wasn’t dead yet, and so if they wanted to stop Helian Hu from teleporting, the others would have to let Lan Yu escape. Furthermore, letting Helian Hu teleport away openly in front of everyone meant that he could no longer come back and threaten them.

Weighing the pros and cons, everyone could only let him go.

Tang Jie couldn’t help but sigh in admiration. In truth, everyone here had some skill. It was just that some people had been unlucky and some people had been lucky.

And Lan Yu clearly belonged to the ranks of the unlucky.

He already had an injured leg, and to add insult to injury, Deng Xiaoyu even remembered to cast Stillair again.

Tang Jie grabbed his Heartbreak Saber and began to fight with Lan Yu. In the distance, Wei Tianchong ran over with his puppet, his Darkwind Warrior going ahead to join the fray.

Even then, Lan Yu didn’t give up. He shouted, “Tang Jie, there’s no grudge between us, so why do you press me so hard? I know that you like Xu Miaoran, so why fight with me? If I become the palace lord’s groom, wouldn’t you no longer have to fight me for Xu Miaoran?”

Tang Jie sneered, “Firstly, your words are bullshit. Even if you succeed, you wouldn’t let Miaoran go. Let me tell you what you would do. You would first use your advantages to marry the young palace lord, and then you would go to Miaoran and tell her that you only did this for Horizon Ocean Pavilion, for the sect, for the Wandering Palace. You would say that you didn’t have any interest in the young palace lord and that your true love was Miaoran, and other such things. Am I right?”

Lan Yu froze.

Tang Jie really had said his plans out loud.

The biggest reason he had for marrying the young palace lord was that the sect required it. But in Lan Yu’s mind, what could be better than taking two beauties for himself in the name of a virtuous cause?

But Tang Jie clearly wasn’t going to give him this chance. He went on, “Secondly, I don’t like you, just like how you’ve never liked me. In any case, since we’re enemies, we have to be enemies to the end. If you’re not happy, I’ll be happy. I won’t give you Xu Miaoran, and I won’t give you the young palace lord either. I haven’t fallen so far that I would give my romantic rival a woman just to pass.”

Lan Yu was both shocked and enraged.

At this moment, Wei Tianchong threw over another fireball. Lan Yu barely dodged it before the puppet and Tang Jie attacked him from his flanks.

Unable to use the Oceancrosser Step, Lan Yu couldn’t dodge, so he blocked Tang Jie’s saber, allowing the puppet to smash him to the ground.

Before he could get up, Tang Jie pointed his saber at his face.

In the face of death, Lan Yu finally felt fear. He shouted, “Don’t kill me! I can concede and leave!”

Deng Xiaoyu chuckled. “You’re dead for sure.”

To his surprise, Tang Jie said, “Senior Brother Deng, can you let me decide his fate?”

Deng Xiaoyu was taken aback, but he ultimately nodded. “It was Senior Brother Tang who saved our lives, so you can make this decision.”

Tang Jie smiled, and then he turned to Lan Yu. “‘Kill you’? No, I don’t want to kill you. You’re still a genius of Horizon Ocean Pavilion. Fighting with you here can be explained as each of us fighting for our own side, but if I kill you, Horizon Ocean Pavilion might not let me go so easily. I also wouldn’t kill you for Miaoran’s sake.”

Lan Yu breathed more easily at these words.

“But you almost made it so that Junyang wouldn’t be able to advance for the rest of his life. As his brother, I have to vent his anger in his place.” Tang Jie slapped Lan Yu’s face with the flat of his saber. “Your recovery speed is pretty good. Have your injuries from last time completely healed? It seems like surface wounds don’t affect you that much. Perhaps we should use this opportunity to test this out.”

He carved a cross on the left side of Lan Yu’s face, and then he took out a bottle of poison from his Mustard Seed Bag and dripped it into the wound.

This poison wouldn’t kill Lan Yu, but once it got into the marrow, it could create a scar on his face that could never be healed.

The scalding pain made Lan Yu scream. As white smoke rose from his face, Tang Jie casually said, “Just go and be a genius. No need for you to be handsome too.”