Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 437: Miscalculation

Chang Baimei’s appearance was both a coincidence and inevitable.

After being pushed into the hidden realm by the ghost guard, he had found the incident very suspicious and firmly believed that Tang Jie would come. Thus, he was in no rush to head to the island, instead focusing on gathering up disciples.

As the pressure was lighter in the outer region than the inner, he really did manage to gather a few people.

Thus, he led these Beast Refining Gate disciples in a search for Tang Jie.

Stubbornness was sometimes the foundation of success. Today, he really did manage to find Tang Jie.

He pursued at full speed and swiftly closed the distance between him and Tang Jie.

With his speed, he could naturally instantly catch up. As he brushed past Shi Cangxuan and Gu Qiulai, he roared, “Tang Jie, you can’t escape!”

He thrust out a palm.

Tang Jie glanced back, his eyes brimming with contempt and derision.

His left hand hugged Shen Qingdan while his right hand reached out and snapped its fingers.

As Chang Baimei watched him snap his fingers, he felt a sliver of danger and instinctively moved to apply a barrier to himself.

But it was too late.

As Tang Jie snapped his fingers…

Boom!

The sea water exploded upward in a giant pillar.

A sharp blade energy shot out of the water at Chang Baimei.

At the same time, twenty Heavenly Cloud Blades dropped from the heavens.

There was also a huge hand, flying stars, a torrent of blades, and howling bolts of air, all of them instantly engulfing the area in a furious barrage.

Chang Baimei had basically walked into a spell storm trap. Even with his strength, it would be very difficult for his physical body to endure this terrifying spell art offensive.

It had to be understood that having a barrier made a huge difference for a cultivator. When a Celestial Heart True Person did not have a barrier, their body was about as strong as a Mortal Shedding Realm cultivator.

And the Beast Refining Gate’s True Persons were even worse in this aspect. After all, their expertise was in refined beasts, and their personal strength was far weaker than that of their peers. In terms of personal strength, he at his peak might not even be better than Chang Mingxin at his weakest. If they weren’t using refined beasts, a Spirit Ring True Person of the Beast Refining Gate might not even be able to beat a peak Mortal Shedding cultivator of the Basking Moon Sect.

Thus, even though Chang Baimei was a Spirit Ring True Person, there was a chance he could be instantly killed by this sort of attack.

But at this moment, Shi Cangxuan suddenly charged up and waved a hand at Chang Baimei.

A Black Yellow Divine Armor Talisman!

A yellow light flashed on Chang Baimei, and then that giant hand, the Heavenly Cloud Blades, and all the other spell arts made impact. Yellow light exploded from Chang Baimei as he grunted and was blown away.

Even the incredible defense of the Black Yellow Divine Armor Talisman was blasted apart by Tang Jie’s spell storm.

But this was enough of a buffer for Chang Baimei to catch his breath.

He slapped his right hand on his body, and as the Black Yellow Divine Talisman was destroyed, a white light erupted from his body, the two barriers leaving almost no gap between them. Only the blast of wind from the Heavenly King Mara Incantation’s giant palm managed to make its way through a crack and do some damage to him. The rest of the attacks were all stopped.

“Cangxuan, good job!” Chang Baimei shouted.

It had really been too dangerous just then. Chang Baimei was extremely grateful to Shi Cangxuan, and decided to support this child once they got back.

But when he turned around, he saw Shi Cangxuan’s body dropping from the sky.

“Cangxuan…” Chang Baimei was startled.

Only then did he realize that Shi Cangxuan had to throw himself into the trap in order to save him.

Although he also had a Black Yellow Divine Armor Talisman applied to him, that had already started to crumble in his battle with Shen Qingdan. He also lacked Chang Baimei’s barrier that was able to emerge the moment the talisman failed, so he had been killed on the spot by the spell storm.

Chang Baimei was both shocked and enraged. When he turned his head, he saw Tang Jie with a dumbfounded look on his face.

Yes.

Dumbfounded!

Just now, in order to guarantee that he got Chang Baimei, he had used the Dao of Karma.

Chang Baimei being hidden in the area and the spell storm erupting were the seed, and the fruit should have been Chang Baimei appearing at the place Tang Jie wanted when he needed him to.

The Dao of Karma and the Dao Will of Time had combined together into an unprecedented and perfect combo.

But Chang Baimei hadn’t died!

What was going on here?

He had planted the cause and reaped the effect, but the result was outside his calculations.

This was the first time Tang Jie’s Karma had failed.

Was it because Chang Baimei was a True Person, so he couldn’t be included in his calculations?

Or was it because there was no such thing as an inevitable fruit in the Dao of Karma?

Or was it something else?

Tang Jie gave Chang Baimei a deep look. Suddenly, he seemed to comprehend something.

But now was not the time for comprehension.

A moment later, Chang Baimei started chasing Tang Jie again.

“Go!” Tang Jie shouted. He let go of Shen Qingdan, and the two of them flew off into the distance, Chang Baimei doggedly pursuing them.

Chase!

He would chase this brat to the ends of the earth if he had to!

As Chang Baimei gave chase, his eyes burned with anger.

He roared, “My five War Beasts, go!”

As Chang Baimei roared, five dark streaks shot out from the beast token in his hand, landing on the rainbow cloud at his feet. These were a golden eagle, a black bear, a white snake, a pangolin, and a hyena.

As these five beasts appeared, the white snake and pangolin flew out. The white snake turned into a white-clothed woman while the pangolin turned into an armored muscular man.

Transformation great fiends!

Tang Jie’s heart tightened.

Transformation great fiends were rather rare, even among True Persons.

Mortal Shedding Realm disciples could hold various different fiends to deal with different situations, but the True Persons were the exact opposite. They could hold lower-class fiends, but they often couldn’t get enough high-class fiends to hit their maximum limit.

There were two reasons for this.

The first was that there was a limited number of high-class fiends. A single Beast Refining Gate disciple could be equipped with many different fiends of the same class, but the Rosecloud Domain had been dominated by humans for ages, and the fiends were only able to occupy a small corner. They were far less numerous than humans. Their proportions at each level were the exact opposite of what the Beast Refining Gate needed, so where would all the high-class fiends that could satisfy the Beast Refining Gate come from?

Secondly, high-class fiends were very difficult to tame. Only the cultivator themselves could capture each fiend, with no one else to help them. Otherwise, the pride of a fiend would make them die rather than submit. Low-class fiends had limited intelligence, so they were turned into refined beasts and could be ordered around. But high-class fiends normally didn’t have their intelligence wiped, as they had the potential to improve. This required the cultivator to work even harder.

But in the Beast Refining Gate, as a cultivator progressed, their personal strength comparatively weakened. And at the same time, the fiends became harder and harder to train.

At low cultivation realms, the Beast Refining Gate’s cultivators could still rely on their own strength to get by, but at higher realms, they no longer had the ability to challenge others to one-on-one fights. For this reason, subduing a high-class fiend beast was even more difficult for them.

To tame a high-class fiend beast, one had to defeat it while also cultivating the Myriad Beast Union Mantra. To defeat such a fiend, one had to be personally strong, but cultivating the Myriad Beast Union Mantra meant neglecting one’s personal strength.

In this way, they created an endless loop.

For the vast majority of Beast Refining Gate disciples, the solution was to raise the fiends themselves, but that required far too many resources. After all, they now had to provide for another creature as well as themselves, which meant double the resources.

Of course, if they could really reach their maximum limit just like that, they would have already conquered the world.

The Myriad Beast Union Mantra had thirteen levels in all. What would it mean for a Violet Palace True Lord to have thirteen Divine Division fiends?

Regardless, Chang Baimei, a Spirit Ring True Person, had two Transformation great fiends, though this was extremely rare even in the Beast Refining Gate.

The moment the two fiends transformed into humans, the white snake woman gasped, “Oh? Baimei, a puny Nine Revolutions has you summoning all of us?”

“Cut the chatter!” Chang Baimei shouted. “This kid is Tang Jie! Do everything you can to kill him!”

“The Tang Jie from the battle over the sea?” the black bear said. It appeared that, besides the two Transformation great fiends, this peak Mind Opening black bear had also been allowed to keep its intelligence.

In the Beast Refining Gate, those fiends that retained their intelligence all had the potential to develop and grow stronger. From this, one could conclude that this black bear, while not a Transformation great fiend, could not be underestimated.

The armored pangolin man lifted his spear and said, “Whoever he is, Master has given his order, so kill him!”

He jumped at Tang Jie, a beam of light shooting out from his spear.

Tang Jie activated the Formless Golden Body and swung his saber. He didn’t expect his attack to break that beam of light, only that he could use the collision to break away.

But as the attacks met, the spear beam melted through Tang Jie’s attack as the sun melted snow. Tang Jie’s saber energy evaporated, and the furious power of the shockwave brushed past Tang Jie and scraped off a large chunk of his flesh.

The Formless Golden Body basically didn’t exist in the face of this attack.

Tang Jie knew that he was in trouble. Putting aside everything else, this Transformation great fiend was more than enough to handle him.

Excluding oddballs like Chang Mingxin, the strength of Beast Refining Gate cultivators was normally linked to the fiend beasts they commanded. With his two Transformation great fiends, Chang Baimei was actually far stronger than Chang Mingxin overall.

His lower personal strength had been a weakness, but as the ambush had failed, killing him now was essentially impossible.

Realizing this, Tang Jie pushed Shen Qingdan and said, “Hurry and go! The one he’s chasing is me!”

“No!” Shen Qingdan screamed.

Chang Baimei strangely chuckled. “‘Go’? Is escaping from my sect that easy? Don’t forget who your opponent is!”

Although the Beast Refining Gate lacked explosive strength and personal power, it had its own strong points… like in pursuit!

Whether it was tracking through scent or having eyes in the sky, the Beast Refining Gate had unique advantages when it came to chasing someone down. And as they had numerous fiends, they weren’t worried about their enemies splitting up.

Even if Shen Qingdan and Tang Jie split up, Chang Baimei could just have the pangolin and white snake split up to chase after them.

Chang Baimei pointed. “Kill that adulterous couple!”

The white-clothed woman shot through the air, transforming into a giant snake that opened its mouth to swallow the two up.

It’s not that easy to kill a True Person. After all, if spending Karma could guarantee a kill on someone, the Dao of Karma would be way too overpowered!