The Avalon Of Five Elements

Autumn Water channeled elemental energy into the bronze lantern she was holding and a wispy, bean sized flame lit up. The flame shot out a green light ray that shone onto the ground.

The green ray was very weak, but the illuminated spot on the ground quickly became transparent and the maze-like sewerage system appeared before their eyes.

The rest were startled as it was the first time they’d seen something like this.

Autumn Water’s lantern, "element-chasing lantern", was a weapon used to track enemies. Elemental energy would be needed to track sand puppets who’d fled this way since there would be traces left behind, unconcealable before the element-chasing lantern.

The green light followed the elemental energy traces and moved rapidly.

Where the light passed the ground, it returned to normal. When the light shone on the thick, solid ground it became crystal clear and so did the underground structure.

Suddenly,the shadow of a pool of sand appeared on the ground before everybody’s eyes.

"There!"

Everyone reacted instantly. As Autumn Water held onto her lantern, the rest went forward and fusion elemental energy’s unique, brightly-colored light rays shot toward the ground like raindrops.

Moving stealthily underground, Lou Lan had sensed the light ray. He was extremely sensitive to changes in elemental energy, even more so than Ai Hui.

In the moment the light shone onto the ground Lou Lan immediately moved further down. Passing through the complicated sewer, he continued moving downward, closer to the city stabilizer blocks.

Benefitting from his previous network scouting and monitoring, Lou Lan was very familiar with every corner of Clearwater City.

Feeling the danger overhead, Lou Lan immediately activated the city stabilizer blocks’ seals.

The deep black city stabilizers lit up.

Each city would lay city stabilizer blocks underneath to prevent underground dire beasts from entering into the city.

During the blood catastrophe in Induction Ground, many cities had been invaded by blood fiends from underground. Having learnt a painful lesson from that, cities fortified their underground defense system by adding a large amount of elemental trace seals, which combined with elemental energy to strengthen it.

And Clearwater City’s city stabilizers were even more well-configured.

Qiao Meiqi was rich and powerful, and spared no effort in ensuring that Clearwater City was uncollapsible. The city’s defense was made up by two sections, one above ground and one under. Above, the cloud defense layer blended well with the sprinkling water screen. They were like an overturned bowl, covering the city completely and tightly.

Underground, the city relied mainly on city stabilizers. In order to strengthen their resistance, each block was engraved with the most updated elemental traces. Some versions of the traces had been used on God-subduing Peak as well. The Gong Residence had exerted themselves in this aspect.

Other than that, Qiao Meiqi had especially set aside a large sum of money to build an elemental energy pool to supply the city stabilizers with elemental energy, which significantly strengthened their power.

Lou Lan was extremely familiar with elemental traces, since Ai Hui often asked him to analyze the composition of elemental traces. Triggering the elemental traces on the city stabilizers couldn’t be easier for Lou Lan.

However, those above ground still had no idea what kind of sand puppet they were dealing with.

They were oblivious to what was about to come.

The light rays, released by the few elites of the Assembly of Patriarchs, shot toward the pool of sand beneath the ground like sharp knives cutting into tofu.

They did not want to alarm the city guards so they avoided making a commotion. It wasn’t the time to attack yet. While they had the enterprise’s shielding, they’d traveled a long way after all and weren’t in the right state to battle. They needed time to recover from their exhaustion.

Although there wasn’t a huge commotion, they did not relent. They could not believe that a sand puppet could actually dodge their attacks.

Fusion elemental energy’s power and might was highly destructive. Any pure elemental energy was like tofu in front of fusion elemental energy.

The green light locked onto that pool of sand despite its constant downward movement.

The brightly-colored light rays followed right behind and were rapidly closing in.

As they were about to overtake, the sand figure vanished suddenly.

Autumn Water was shocked. What happened?

The element-chasing lantern had never slipped, so why did the opponent disappear all of a sudden?

As she was lost in thought the transparent ground warped like a surging water’s surface. The flame in the element-chasing lamp trembled and swayed violently like a candle flame in a storm.

Pop. The candle flame exploded with sparks.

The sudden change of events caught Autumn Water off guard.

The element-chasing lantern was a high-grade item made by the Assembly of Patriarchs’s craftsman. If it weren’t for the fact that she had performed outstandingly in a crucial mission, she wouldn’t have gotten the chance to use it. Ever since the lantern fell into her possession it had never slipped. This was the first time ever that she’d been in a situation like this.

But Autumn Water was a Master, after all, so she reacted quickly. The lantern tracked elemental energy waves. Even the smallest ripple couldn’t escape its senses so there was only one possibility to explain this situation – the elemental energy waves were overly-intense.

Overly intense...

Autumn Water’s face changed. Before she could issue a warning a big piece of the solid ground rose up, as if a monster was about to drill its way out.

"Quick…"

The raised ground was like a crispy biscuit, breaking into many pieces as a faint blue light shot out from the cracks.

The surging water elemental energy broke through the ground effortlessly. A water pillar soared and exploded in mid air, causing hundreds of thousands of raindrops to sprinkle down.

Standing too close to the pillar, two Assembly of Patriarchs’s elites weren’t able to dodge the rain in time and their bodies were soon filled with dense, honeycomb-like holes. The weirder part was that their honeycomb-like corpses had no bloodstains on them. Not only did these water droplets, that were made from water elemental energy, take away their lives, they took away all the moisture from their bodies.

Mister Dou, Jiu Gui and the rest of the gang were all searching for earth elementalists. Generally speaking, once sand puppets moved too far from their owners, their movements became clumsy and their reactions slow. This sand puppet acted nimbly so there must be an earth elementalist controlling it. Upon seeing the sand figure, Autumn Water locked onto it once again, they were relieved. They needed to get rid of the hidden earth elementalist.

But at that point in time the sudden surge of water elemental energy frightened everybody.

Mister Dou burst out in anger, "Are you guys crazy? Why did you activate the city stabilizers?"

The elites wanted to cry but no tears came out. They weren’t the ones activating the city stabilizer blocks. The blocks were buried deep down, so it just was impossible for them to do it.

No one was in the mood to listen to their explanation however. Everyone knew they were in trouble.

Indeed, a mournful alarm rang and echoed throughout the whole city.

Autumn Water turned pale. She trilled, "What now?"

Mister Dou spoke up with an ominous glint in his eyes, "It’s do or die, move it! Attack the mayor’s residence!"

A few of them made eye contact . Their plan had already fallen through so they had no other choices. The further they delayed, the more passive they would become. While it wasn’t the best time to attack, since they weren’t sufficiently prepared, their targets were even more unprepared. Plus, with four Masters by their side, they did have the upper hand.

"Mayor’s residence!"

The few of them flew toward the residence without hesitating.

They had no time to waste on a tiny sand puppet. Time was of the essence.

The victors gained everything whereas the losers were left with nothing.

The alarm sounded and the guards in the cloud defense layer tensed up instantly.

One of them cried out loud, "Master Yang, intruder alert!"

Yang Xiaodong went over and asked in a low voice, "Where?"

The guard answered hurriedly, "Wei River Street."

Master Yang’s voice followed. "I see it."

Crack.

The guard saw black as he lost consciousness.

Without even looking at the broken-necked guard, Master Yang turned around and disappeared.

The other guards were stunned as a chill rose up their spines. Master Yang was a traitor! They turned around in hopes of escape, but they too saw black and fell to the ground one after another.

Yang Xiaodong’s silhouette resurfaced as a tinge of worry flashed across his eyes. He knew they must have met with an unexpected situation, or else they wouldn’t have chosen to act at this point in time.

And it was just an impudent attack.

He could tell with a glance that they were advancing towards the mayor’s residence.

Head on?

At this point he, too, threw all concerns aside. His eyes were filled with hatred. Head on then!

He conveniently shattered the cloud that was controlling the cloud defense layer, and everything shattered into bits and pieces like glass.

The ever-present cloud layer that enveloped the city started to melt like snow and disappeared rapidly. Blue sky appeared over the city and the water screen outside weakened and vanished eventually.

Citizens who found it strange raised their heads to look. They did not understand what had happened.

Were dire beasts invading the city?

Qiao Meiqi was alarmed as well. He went up to the balcony and looked at the cloudless sky, his face turning strange.

He had a premonition that something bad had happened.

Fear enveloped him.

Just then, Yang Xiaodong came flying over with a panicked look on his face. Qiao Meiqi’s heart sank. Master Yang’s anxious state gave him an idea of how grave things were. Nevertheless, he was feeling somewhat calm, just as how victims grabbed onto their last straw of hope when drowning.

QIao Meiqi asked in an unstable voice, "What happened, Master Yang?"

Yang Xiaodong yelled as he flew in, "Intruders have entered the city with errant intentions! They’re extremely powerful, so quick, find somewhere to hide, Mayor!"

Qiao Meiqi’s pupils shrank as he looked toward the faraway sky.

In an instant, right after he activated the city stabilizer blocks, Lou Lan dodged to the side, knowing exactly which spots were safe. He listened to the conversation overhead and until he could no longer sense the presence of those people, he returned to the surface.

He looked up in the sky and understood that the opponents had already launched their attack.

Ai Hui and the rest were still unaware of the situation!

Being unprepared, they would easily get struck, especially since Yang Xiaodong was a traitor.

But Lou Lan did not know how to fly and his speed was much slower than his enemies.

How should he inform Ai Hui?

He cocked his head and racked his brains. The red light in his eyes flashed. He’d thought of an idea. While he wasn’t certain of its effectiveness, he could only try.

A pool of yellow sand rose into the sky like a cannonball.

Boom!

An unusual, resounding explosion sounded throughout the city. The yellow sand exploded and formed a row of words in the air.

"Yang Xiaodong is a traitor. There are three other Masters!"

The words were exceptionally eye-catching. After the row of words was a vivid and lifelike image of a mini Lou Lan. He was wearing a chef’s apron, raising a pot with one hand and holding a spatula in another.

On the balcony with his pupils shrunk, the mayor looked at the faraway sky and ordered in a stern voice, "Stop him!"

The other guards saw the words in the sky. With an angry howl they immediately went to seek out Yang Xiaodong. "Leave quick, Mayor!"

A few other guards escorted the mayor away in a panic.