Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

by Srtyi

Lin Wu was a university student that died after having one too many energy drinks and then reincarnated into the body of a worm. He awakens to find out that he now has a system, but even it doesn't have a clear idea of where they are. He comes out of the ground and discoverers that he’s no longer in his previous world but rather in a cultivation world. Witness Lin Wu’s journey as

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'So they are not too ignorant and know to think further, huh…' Lin Wu thought to himself upon seeing that old man Tiandi had actually chosen a competent person.

"I shall do my best, Elder Tiandi." The owner of the Mystic Treasure pavilion said before heading towards the temple.

Everyone watched on as he reached the entrance of the temple, which was on the top. It was a rather strange set up which made them feel weird but they didn't mind it for now and just thought that the creator must have been eccentric or had some other thought in mind while building the temple.

The trapdoor had over ten different formations, all of which blocked it from being opened. The owner checked the door with his spirit sense as he closed his eyes. No one made any noise during this time so as to not disturb the man.

About five minutes later the owner, brows furrowed and ten more minutes later, sweat appeared on his forehead.

"Is everything okay with him?" One of the cultivators on old Man Tiandi's side whispered to his companion.

"I don't know, but seems like he is having a hard time. Formations on old ruins such as these are usually quite strong and complex." The companion replied.

"Hmm… yeah you are right." The other man agreed.

Fifteen more minutes passed before a change was finally observed.

~DENG~

~thud~

The trapdoor finally opened up as the owner of the mystic treasure pavilion collapsed on the ground.

"It… is… done…" The man said in-between breaths.

All that he had done right now was very exhausting for him and he didn't expect the formations to be this complex. He would say that he had barely managed to even open the door and did not know if he would be able to do it again.

"Are you okay?" Old Man Tiandi questioned.

"I'm fine but opening this door took up nearly all of my spirit Qi. I don't think I can continue further." The owner replied.

"Mmm, wait here then. You'll have a part in the reward too, don't worry." Tiandi assured.

"Thank you, Elder." The owner of the Mystic pavilion said before retreating to his other companions that were still waiting in the crowd.

"We can head in now!" Old Man Tiandi announced.

"Praise to the owner!" Some of the people exclaimed.

"Who shall be the next to enter it, then? Since the owner is no longer capable to do that now." Someone asked.

"There are bound to be dangers in there, so I want you all to be sure of it." Old Man Tiandi spoke.

Lin Wu, who was watching this all, thought of something before speaking.

"I think you've had your turn and can pass it to the other guy now." Lin Wu spoke.

As soon as Jiao Fan heard this, his eyes lit up.

"YES! YES! We only decided who will enter the temple first. Since your member has decided to retreat, we should be able to enter it rightfully." Jiao Fan said out loud.

"You!…" Old Man Tiandi wanted to protest but could feel the gaze of Lin Wu on his back.

He then looked at the other side's cultivators and they seemed to be ready to fight as well. Tiandi understood that this was not a time to argue and since Lin Wu the overseeing party, had spoken, they may as well go according to his wishes.

Unknowingly, this group of humans had become subservient to Lin Wu in a way that even Lin Wu did not understand fully.

'Seems like some respite offered in the face of overwhelming danger can be a good way to tame people.' Lin Wu noted in his mind as his eyes glowed slightly.

The people felt chills on their necks for a moment, but they ignored it as they focused back on the matter at hand.

"Alright, Elder Qian shall go in then." Jiao Fan decided right away.

"As you command, Mayor Jiao." An old man who was at the Infant soul stage of the Nascent Soul realm spoke.

Lin Wu slightly nodded his head and knew that this was the better choice. Even if the owner of the mystic treasure pavilion was an expert in formations, that would not have helped him much after coming across the formation array in the temple.

Unlike the other temples Lin Wu had come across, this one was in the best condition with most of its formations intact. Even the complex formation array made out of hundreds of Vermillion bird statues was functioning relatively well, though there were a few statues that were inactive and broken.

Lin Wu had gotten all of this information with the help of the system and had already made a virtual interface for the formation array as well.

~Ding~

——

VIRTUAL INTERFACE: Thousand Fire Plume Formation array.

FUNCTIONS: 1. Defensive mode

2. Offensive mode

3. Inactive mode

4. Self destruct

——

Lin Wu secretly smiled upon seeing the function of the array and let it be in the Defensive mode for now. He wanted to see what kind of effect it could exert on the people who would try to enter it.

If need be, he could modify the responses as needed anyway. He watched on as Elder Qian walked in through the trapdoor and descended down the stairs. A few others like Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi were now at the top of the temple as well, using their spirit sense to observe the interior of the temple.

Everyone else could only wait and see the response of Elder Qian. For about two minutes, they could hear nothing as the temple stairs went quite deep. Jiao Fan estimated that they may even go about half the height of the temple, which was right as Lin Wu knew the exact depth.

Their spirit sense was still able to freely keep up and thus they observed Elder Qian and the interior as well. They could see the carvings on the walls and finally the statues that just appeared.

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About two more minutes later, Elder Qian finally reached the end of the stairs and saw the hundreds of statues that were built in the hall.

~shua~shua~shua~

With his appearance, all the others along the walls of the hall also lit up with red flames. The torches were the same as Lin Wu had seen before, being that of a bird claw holding up the flames.

The torches being lit up made the entire hall illuminated, making it easy for Elder Qian to see.

"Heavens…" Elder Qian exclaimed under his breath.

He could see the elegant and beautiful statues of the vermilion bird carved in detail now. Looking at the statues he could tell that they were carved by except sculptures and probably would cost a lot if they were sold.

Just one of these statues would be enough to obtain a small fortune. But when he looked at what was basically hundreds of statues, his eyes lit up with excitement.

"AHAHAHA! WE'RE RICH! WE'RE GONNA BE FILTHY RICH!" Elder Qian shouted out loud, his voice traveling all the way up the stairs and out into the crowd.

"What could have elder Qian found?" someone questioned.

"Who knows, but it must be something really valuable otherwise he would not have reacted like this." Another person replied.

"I know, right? Seems like luck was on our side. Look at those traitors, they are regretting going first now." Another man said while pointing to the cultivators who were on the side of Old Man Tiandi.

Sneers and smirks were visible on the faces of Jiao Fan's subordinates as they rejoiced in the misery of the others. But a second later, those smirks were wiped off their faces.

"AAAAHHHHH! SAVE ME! SAVE MEEEEEEE!" A blood curdling cry for help came from the temple.

The terror in the voice was apparent and sent chills down the spines of everyone here. Even the cultivator show was on the side of Old Man Tiandi were not excluded and could understand that Elder Qian might have come across something terrifying.

"What's happing to Elder Qian?" Jiao Fan's other Nascent Soul realm subordinate asked with concern.

His spirit sense range was not long enough to sense the insides of the temple and thus he could only ask Jiao Fan.

~gulp~

Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi both swallowed their saliva as they witnessed the scene inside the temple.

"Fire… endless fire…" Old Man Tiandi muttered.

"Elders Qian… he's gone…" Jiao Fan spoke in disbelief.

"WHAT! HOW?" The Nascent Soul realm subordinate could not help by say.

The wave of depression spread quite fast among the crowd as they understood the implication behind this. If an Infant Soul Stage of the Nascent Soul realm cultivator like Elder Qian could die in mere moments like this, then they were not likely to be able to do much either.

Perhaps here, the only humans that would be able to do something were none other than Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi, both of whom were at the Adult Soul Stage of the Nascent Soul realm. But they were too shocked by this to speak anymore.

Jiao Fan kept on observing with his spirit sense and hard to keep it maintained there.

In the hall with the hundreds of Vermillion bird statues, red flames burned endlessly. The statues were all lit up as countless runes surrounded them. The runes arranged themselves into fomentations around each vermilion bird statue.

Then each of these formations, linked up with each other, turning into a massive formation array that released flames that could easily melt metal and evaporate blood. Elder Qian, who had just entered this place a mere moment ago, could no longer be seen.

The only traces of him that were left here were now a few pieces of metal jewelry which had also started to melt and a spirit sword that laid in a pile of ash. The spirit sword was also glowing as runes appeared on it.

These were evidently defensive runes that increased the durability of the spirit sword. But one could see that the runes were having a hard time maintaining themselves as the red flames continually assaulted them.

~SHATTER~

After five more seconds, the runes were unable to hold up against the red flames and were destroyed.

~SIZZLE~

~DRIP~

With the runes protecting the spirit sword gone, it became red hot before melting into a puddle of molten steel. Its wooden handle was reduced to ash while the gem stone on it cracked and shattered into dust.

The power of these red flames was on a different level and was mind boggling to the two experts watching it.

"What kind of a formation array is this even?" Jing Luo couldn't help but wonder.

"How many statues are there in there? Each of them is an individuality formation… how can one even set up such a complex array?" Old Man Tiandi was also lost.

Jiao Fan furrowed his brows and felt like he would be on the losing end if he did not do anything right now. He had already lost two Nascent Soul realm subordinates till now, one in the battle before and Elder Qian in the formation array now.

He was only left with two more of them now, and they were not people he could afford to lose anymore. After all, unlike Old Man Tiandi who had become an impromptu leader of a group of different parties, Jiao Fan had nurtured each of his subordinates on his own and had personally spent resources for them.

His losses were far greater than that of Old Man Tiandi, who was actually not losing anyone close to him. Even if these people were united currently, they did not care for each other deeply and were only in it for their benefit.

Jiao Fan thus gritted his teeth and took out a pale yellow stone from his spatial storage treasure. Old Man Tiandi looked at it and showed a surprised look on his face.

"The Mind Expanding Lardite?"

Old Man Tiandi did not expect Jiao Fan to have something like this with me and it was rather unexpected to him. Even Lin Wu was stringed by this and took a look at the pale yellow stone that was in Jiao Fan's hand.

Of course, looking was not really an accurate word for this as Lin Wu was on top of the platform and could not directly see with his two eyes. Rather, he was using his spirit sense to observe it.

He tried probing with his spirit sense and found it to be impermeable to his spirit sense. This surprised him even more, as he knew that the material that could block one's spirit sense was usually quite valuable.

So far there were very few things that Lin Wu had encountered that were like this. For example, the door of the inner hall of the temple, the tomb of the Taiji Celestial and the interference field of the Dread Coil Marsh itself.

"System scan this thing and check the data banks." Lin Wu ordered.

~DING~

——

SCANNER: Activated

SCAN COMPLETED: Target Identified

TARGET: Mind Expanding Lardite

INFO: The Mind Expanding Lardite is a special mineral that can help increase the mental faculties of a person using it. For normal humans who keep this on their person, they would be able to think faster and have better memories.

As for the cultivators that use it, they will be able to expand the range of their spirit sense greatly. It can also help in the tempering of spirit sense and is considered a very valuable resource in the world.

Mind Expanding Lardite is largely sought after by cultivators who greatly use spirit sense such as those in the occupation of being a Pill Alchemist and Formation masters. They need better command over their spirit sense for these occupations and as such the Mind Expanding Lardite can be very helpful for them.

The Mind Expanding Lardite is also quite rate and has a value that reached in thousands of High Grade spirit stones. Even if it has a demand, there is no supply and as such anyone who finds one, would rarely ever sell it.

The Mind Expanding Lardite also has a limited usage period depending on who is using it. For commoners or mortal humans, the Mind Expanding Lardite can last thousands of years without much wear and tear. But for cultivators, the more they use it the smaller the Mind Expanding Lardite would get.

——

Lin Wu had not thought that there would be something like this here. But now that he had seen it, he knew he had to obtain it. Perhaps if Jiao Fan knew this, he may have never revealed it but now that he had, his fate was sealed.

Jing Luo looked at the pale yellow stone in his hand and closed his eyes. In the next moment, a strong pressure was exuded from his body as waves of spirit Qi spread all around. Tendrils of spirit sense rose from his body as they weaved together to become thicker.

Soon a spirit sense tendril that was as thick as a tree was formed.

"GO!" Jiao Fan said with bloodshot eyes.

The pressure being exerted on him was quite a lot as he was overdrawing on the Mind Expanding Lardite. Usually one was supposed to use it lightly, letting it slowly temper their spirit sense. But Jiao Fan did not have that luxury.

'Hopefully, it is worth using an heirloom…' Jiao Fan thought to himself.

Old Man Tiandi and the others were shocked by this and did not know what Jiao Fan was exactly doing. To them it looked quite powerful and Jiao Fan also seemed to be angry along with it. Though they thought it was due to the loss of his subordinate.

Lin Wu also kept a close eye on Jiao Fan's newly enhanced spirit sense and saw how it passed through the formation array of the statues. The red flames made by the statues tried to burn his spirit sense but could not do so easily.

Previously Jiao Fan had only stopped because the fire was actually able to harm his spirit sense as well. Thus, even if he wanted to find a way to proceed or doable the formation array, he could not do so.

But with the reinforcement from the Mind Expanding Lardite, Jiao Fan was basically brute forcing his way in. Of course this did not come without any disadvantages, and Jiao Fan was under constant pain due to his spirit sense being continually burned by the red flames.

Normal flames would have been unable to do anything to a cultivator's spirit sense, maybe just disturb them by causing spirit Qi fluctuations. But these red flames were extremely different from those common flames.

Unlike Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi, Lin Wu knew that these flames were actually similar to that of the Vermilion bird's flames. Lin Wu had seen the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle purging all of the Marsh Ghosts using the vermilion bird's flames, and if it could work on them, then the spirit sense was nothing in front of it.

Of course, these flames were not fully the same as vermilion bird's flames and were mere imitations. If it were the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle using them right now, not only would Jiao Fan's spirit sense be completely destroyed, even the walls of the temple would start to melt after a certain point.

Such was the incredible power of the vermilion bird's flames and that was also the reason why Lin Wu had chosen to go the cooperative route with the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle rather than antagonizing her right away.

"oh? He actually managed to find this?" Lin Wu suddenly said.

In the hall where the flames were raging, Jiao Fan's spirit sense had become as thin as a finger now. But he had a smile on his face as he found the way to overcome the formation array.

"FOUND IT! That's the defective node."

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Jiao Fan's voice rang out in the crowd and they all became excited.

Old Man Tiandi was the same and did not know what Jiao Fan had done, but he knew that it was probably something to do with the large formation array inside of it. Even he could feel the complexity of it and did not think he could do anything to it on his own.

"What do we do now, Mayor Jiao?" The subordinate of Jiao Fan questioned.

~huu~

Jiao Fan took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off his brow. He had already withdrawn his spirit sense, as it would have been completely burned up if he let it stay in there. Not only that, but he also had a rather bad headache due to forcibly using the Mind Expanding Lardite.

"I was able to find a flaw in the Formation array and also have an idea of how it works. The entire array is made out of multiple smaller formations that are contained within the statues of the bird inside the hall.

While there are hundreds of statues there, a few of them are damaged and thus are not active. But these are rare and few in number. We will need to exploit them and then use them to our advantage." Jiao Fan spoke.

Lin Wu was listening to it as well and wanted to know what kind of a method did Jiao Fan figure out. If it was good enough, perhaps it may even trigger the system to update its data banks.

Jiao Fan was now freely speaking, not minding that Old Man Tiandi and the other cultivators were hearing his words. He knew that this was something that would be impossible for him to do on his own, even with the help of his subordinates.

This left him with the only option which was to take the help and cooperation of Old Man Tiandi. It took him fifteen minutes before he finished his explanation. During this time he took the opinion of several formation masters that were here and improved upon his plan.

While Jiao Fan knew a bit about formations, he was not an expert in it, similar to Old Man Tiandi.

'They flipped their stances once again. Now that it is hard for them to go further on their own, they chose to cooperate with others even if they were just enemies a while ago.' Lin Wu observed.

And just as he was thinking this, Lin Wu was interrupted by Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi.

"We now want to enter it together, can we do that?" Jiao Fan questioned.

Lin Wu raised his brows at this, finding it to be rather interesting. They were still thinking of him as an authority figure despite having no assurance whether Lin Wu would be killing them later or not.

Lin Wu didn't know whether to think humans were foolish, or brave for being able to act like this.

"Why are you asking me? I don't care. Do what you want." Lin Wu spoke curtly.

The eyes of Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi lit up, and it was evident that they were actually happy with this response. They then turned around and discussed a bit more with their people. Half an hour later they were finally ready to enact their plan.

Lin Wu looked at the sky and saw it turning orange. It was soon going to be the time for sunset and Lin Wu had already spent quite some time here in the Jiao Dian City like this. The system had gathered all of the information from the city and even managed to get a few data nodes from the people that had died.

Since Lin Wu had not directly consumed these people, the data nodes were less than incomplete but it was still fine for him. As long as the system could improve the data banks using it, Lin Wu was fine.

He looked around and saw that most of the people of the city had also retreated to the edge of the city. The rescue operations were also mostly complete, and there were multiple tents and makeshift hospitals set up in the outskirts of the city.

The injured people were being treated and a place was being cleared out for them to live in for the time being. The weaker subordinates of the mayor such as those in the Qi refining realm were helping in building some shelter for the people now.

Since the cultivators themselves were helping, the construction was going rather fast and surprised Lin Wu.

"Having cultivators doing construction seems both absurd and novel at the same time." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

"Alright then! We shall start the first phase now!" Jiao Fan suddenly spoke, bringing back Lin Wu's attention to him.

The cultivators split into six teams and each of them had different distributions of cultivators. Some had higher numbers of them, while the smallest team only had four. This smallest team was composed of none other than Jiao Fan, Old Man Tiandi, and two other Nascent Soul realm cultivators.

"The Nascent Soul realm cultivators will forcibly create an opening and we will expand it. Then teams two and three will stabilize a barrier to separate the flames, which will create a path to the closest broken statue.

Once that is done, the team of Owner of Mystic Treasure Pavilion and a few other formation masters will tweak the formation on the statue to deactivate it." Jiao Fan explained.

Lin Wu heard it and thought it to be reasonable, but the question still stood whether they would actually be able to do something like this or not. Lin Wu knew that the flames were reactive and were only at a low setting now.

Once they faced a higher resistance, they will increase their output, which will put them all in trouble and many will probably die. Still, it did not matter to Lin Wu as much and he was looking forward to watching it.

"This will be interesting…"

The first team lined up at the entrance of the temple and started to go down the stairs. Since the stairs were relatively wide, two files of them were able to move rather smoothly and did not face any problems.

But half way through, they could feel the increase in temperature as the air got hot. By the time they actually reached the bottom of the stairs, they were already sweating like an Eskimo in the Sahara.

"This is way too strong." Someone among the team said as they wiped the sweat from their face.

A few of the cultivators who could use the water attitude Qi techniques used them to cool down themselves and their companions, but it was mostly fruitless. Against the power and heat of the Vermillion flames, no common water would be enough.

"Let's just do our jobs quickly so this stops." The leader of the team said.

"YES!" they all replied in unison.

"On my mark, 1… 2… 3… NOW!" The Nascent Soul realm leader shouted as he created a flat barrier in front of him.

The others did the same and poured their spirit Qi into the technique that the leader was using.

~shua~

The barrier started to expand and soon covered the entire front part of the stairs.

"MOLD IT!" The leader shouted.

The two files flipped tier hands in the opposite direction and the flat barrier bent backward. It now looked like a snowplow and had a triangular shape.

"TEAMS TWO AND THREE GET READY!" The leader shouted before pushing the triangular barrier with all his force.

~Whoosh~

The Barrier started to separate the flames and created a temporary path in between. But it would not be long before the flames would gather back again.

"Erect the corridor!" The next command came, this time from Jiao Fan.

He, old Man Tiandi and the other two Nascent Soul realm cultivators came to the front and created two barriers, one on the left and one on the right. The area in between was now safe from flames as the barriers prevented them from progressing.

"ACT NOW TEAMS TWO AND THREE!" Jiao Fan shouted.

"Yes, mayor Jiao!" They said before pouring their spirit Qi into the barriers, stabilizing them. Soon the barriers started to spread apart and a wider area was now available to them. Before, the space between barriers was only that of half a foot. But now it was a meter wide.

"Stabilize it now!" Jiao Fan gave the next order.

Everyone started to rush forward and took their places against the barriers. The Nascent Soul realm cultivators were on the two ends of the corridor that was erected, while the weaker cultivators were in the middle.

They were now individually reinforcing the corridor walls that were just barriers. With them pouring their spirit Qi into them, the barriers started to stabilize. Before they were being constantly damaged by the Vermillion flames, but now they were somewhat able to maintain their integrity.

After about a minute, they had reached an equilibrium and the rate of repair and damage had reached a plateau. Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi looked around and saw that they were relativity fine now.

"To the next step now," Jiao Fan said before turning to the right.

This was one of the main problems that had come up during the formation of the plan. The damaged and broken statues of the Vermillion bird were not in a location that could be accessed by them by going in a straight line.

Rather the closest broken statue was to their right and they would need to change their direction mid way if they wanted to access it. But this was where the technical problem came. If they tried to change the shape of the barrier, there was a great chance it would lose the equilibrium and end up collapsing.

This was the same as if someone built a tunnel in the middle of the sea and tried to make a branch on it without creating defensive scaffolding around it. The water would simply rush in and destroy the entire tunnel.

Because of the complexity of this task, this ended up falling upon the heads of Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi. They were the only two people who had the power to forcibly do something like this.

"Ready, 1… 2… Attack!" Jiao Fan uttered as he punched forward.

~BOOM~

Old Man Tiandi did the same, and the force of the attack was enough to push the flames back. But this also allowed them to test the defense of the statues themselves. This kind of an attack should have easily shattered steel, but if one looked at the statues, one would see that they were completely unaffected.

There were defensive runes surrounding them, and they had dampened the power of the attack as if it was nothing. Still, since the flames were not solid, they were pushed back by the force of the attack, which ended up creating an empty area in between.

This was similar to when someone jumped into a puddle of water. The force of the impact would push all the water aside and create an empty dry area temporarily. But once the impact was dissipated, the water would rush back would force.

And that was exactly what was happening now. In fact, the force was far greater than it should have been.

~Huala~

Red runes suddenly appeared around all of the statues and spirit Qi fluctuations arose from them.

"What's happening?" The cultivators who were reinforcing the barriers asked, feeling anxious.

"Oh no… it can't be… ACTIVATE YOUR DEFENSES!" Jiao Fan yelled urgently.

The cultivators all activated their defensive skills and techniques, along with various spirit tools they had. Some of them directly pulled out spirit stones so that they could maintain the barrier at the same time.

But even with all this… it was not enough.

~boom~

~Crack~

As soon as the flames hit back at the barrier, it cracked. Lin Wu who was watching all this, smirked.

"Tch~ And here I thought they would last longer…"

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Lin Wu witnessed the barriers made by the cultivators cracking due to the opposition of the formation array. The force of the flames was far too much for the weaker cultivators to bear it on their own.

Even if they were equally spread to distribute their spirit Qi evenly, it was simply not enough.

"ARGH!!!" The Qi refining realms cultivators were the first to get killed.

The flames easily devoured them and once one of the links was gone, it easily spread into the rest of the corridor made by the barriers.

~shua~

The flames moved like a tide during a storm and ate everything in its way. No matter which cultivator came in front of it, they were burnt alive. Even the Core condensation realm cultivators did not last longer than a couple of seconds before their defensive techniques and skills failed.

"NOOO!!!!" they couldn't help but wail in pain.

Their blood boiled, hair melted, and bones turned to ash. In the span of a few seconds, over a hundred cultivators were killed and their souls lost forever.

"QUICK PUSH THROUGH TO THE STATUE!" Jiao Fan urged, as he put all his power into the barrier and rushed ahead.

Old Man Tiandi and the other Nascent Soul realm cultivators did the same and followed behind Jiao Fan. It was getting difficult for even them, but they were still able to maintain their defensive skills for a bit longer.

Unlike Elder Qian, who had been caught unaware by the vermilion flames, they already knew about it and knew the effects. Thus, they were already using their defensive skills and the defensive tools that they had.

Due to this, they were able to stay alive longer and finally managed to reach the statue. But now came the tough part… Jiao Fan and the others did not know how to deal with this formation array. The fourth team that was composed of the formation masters had already perished in the flames.

"What do we do now?" The subordinate of Jiao Fan couldn't help but ask.

Jiao Fan gritted his teeth as he saw the flames licking at the barrier. He knew that if he took too long the barrier would eventually collapse and they would be reduced to nothing. Finally, a crazy idea appeared in his mind as his eyes lit up.

"I have a method, but it is risky!" Jiao Fan stated.

"Say what it is! We don't have much time here. We will take whatever it is now!" Old Man Tiandi replied.

He did not want to die and would be fine with whatever Jiao Fan proposed. In terms of formations, his understanding was even below that of Jiao Fan. If he could not do anything, then they all would be dying anyway.

"We'll use the Mind Expanding Lardite to the full extent by combining our spirit sense. Then we overwhelm the formation array with it. While it would probably not shut down completely, it should temporarily be stopped." Jiao Fan said.

The four Nascent Soul realm cultivators looked at each other faces, analyzing this option. The risks in it were truly quite high. Not only was this a blind try to they did not know for sure if it would work or not, but them using the Mind Expanding Lardite in this manner would damage their spirit sense.

"We'll do it! We have no choice!" Old Man Tiandi said with gritted teeth.

The other two also nodded in response and Jiao Fan took out the Mind Expanding Lardite. They all placed their hands on the Mind Expanding Lardite and extended their spirit sense. The spirit sense tendrils entered the Mind Expanding Lardite and started to merge.

"GAH!" All of them grunted in pain as their spirit sense was being forcefully being merged.

This was a rather dangerous method of using the Mind Expanding Lardite and was thought by Jiao Fan as a fluke. He knew that his own spirit sense would not be enough to overwhelm the formation array, but the combination of four Nascent Soul realm experts, two of which who were at the Adult stage should be enough, he thought.

Normally their spirit sense would not be able to merge like this, but under the unique effects of the Mind Expanding Lardite, they collided and warped together before being wound like a braid.

The Mind Expanding Lardite then started to reinforce it and they felt a drain on their spirit Qi. Since spirit sense was just spirit Qi itself, just organized and oriented in a certain manner, it obviously needed more spirit Qi to increase in size.

Usually, this took multiple efforts by the cultivator and the spirit Qi lost in failed attempts would not be returned. But with the Mind Expanding Lardite, one did not have this problem. It could allow one to skip the trial and error, allowing them to directly reinforce and extend their spirit sense.

"Oh my, didn't expect there to be a use like this too. Now, this just makes me even more interested in the Mind Expanding Lardite." Lin Wu said upon seeing Jiao Fan and the others doing this.

To Lin Wu, the Mind Expanding Lardite was proving to be a more valuable treasure than anything in this town. He kept on observing the changes in their spirit sense and saw that it was now reaching a thickness of half a meter.

Lin Wu could not even tell the length of the spirit sense but knew that if it truly extended it would likely go beyond ten kilometers at this moment, or perhaps even double that. But the cost of this was also high.

"HAA! BREAK FOR MEEEEEEE!" Jiao Fan uttered with rage as blood dripped from his nose, ears and eyes.

The other Nascent Soul realm cultivators were in the same condition as the two Infant Stage Nascent Soul realm cultivators in an even worse condition. The spirit sense moved with the urging of the four cultivators and struck the broken statue of the Vermillion bird, or mores accurately, the formation hidden within it.

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~BOOM~

Within the temple of the vermilion bird, the sound of an explosion could be heard. The people who were all watching it from the start were startled. At first they had heard the screams of agony coming from inside and now this explosion.

"What is happening in there?" A commoner asked.

"Will the city mayor be alright?" A cultivator, who was a subordinate of the mayor questioned.

All of the people currently watching had the same, if not similar questions. Their survival depended on Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi as of now. This was because the temple was not the only problem in front of them, Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle were equal if not bigger problems.

The two were beasts and nothing could be said surely about them. If they felt like it, they may eat them all in the blink of an eye. And that was the reason why Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi might be the only ones being able to protect themselves from it.

Behind a collapsed building, a woman was standing. She was wearing the robes of a cultivator and had a good bearing. Her looks were many times better than any average woman and so were her body proportions.

She was currently hiding behind the collapsed building and gazing at the scene in front of her. Since the start of the quake, she had seen one unbelievable scene after the other and they only kept on getting more absurd.

The temple rising up from the ground, the destruction of the city, the battle of the cultivators and then finally the arrival of the platform with the two beasts.

"What fools they are! Listening to the words of a beast! Do they really think they are trustful?" The woman scoffed.

She continued watching and heard the painful screams coming from inside. This time she could recognize the voices to belong to the Mayor, Jiao Fan and Old Man Tandi along with the two other Nascent Soul realm cultivators.

"I knew it! They were only walking to their deaths. Did they really think the beast was letting them walk in there without a reason? The beast should have definitely known about it. A beast that can speak… there is no way it's weak…" The Woman said to herself.

While she was looking at the temple, she was also holding a square bangle in her hand. She kept on rubbing it as if trying to do something, but it was not working.

'Why is this not working? How do I contact the mistress like this?' The woman thought.

She wanted to escape the city but knew that this kind of information was best reported first hand.

'Thankfully the mistress gave me the Teleportation talisman… or I may have had to escape at the first sight of danger. At least now the mistress will be able to get some information beforehand.' She thought.

But while she was doing this, she did not know a certain someone was listening.

"Interesting… very interesting… so we have a third party wanting to fish in the troubled waters…" Lin Wu muttered to himself after listing to the woman.

While the woman thought that she had been hidden from the start and that no one had noticed her, in reality Lin Wu had spotted her before he had even landed here on the platform. Or rather, it was the system that had detected her in the scan.

Lin Wu had not spent as much attention on her at the start as there were simply more important matters to deal with. But after seeing the movement on the map, he noticed that one of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators was still hidden in the city and had not revealed itself.

When Lin Wu had scanned the area with his spirit sense, he had still not seen anything which intrigued him. If something could hide from his spirit sense but was still visible to the system, it meant that they were using some kind of a special concealment technique.

While Lin Wu may have been able to figure out that she was hidden in a certain area after doing a detailed check with his spirit sense, his attention was occupied by the people in the temple currently.

The only reason why Lin Wu looked at the cultivator was that the system notified him of a communication signal arising from a communication jade. Someone had been trying to contact someone outside the city.

The appearance of the temple had come with the Interference field that was far weaker than that of the Dread Coil Marsh. This had allowed Lin Wu to confirm that it was truly the temples that created the interference fields and not the Dread Coil Marsh itself.

'The number of temples should probably determine the strength of the interference field. Right now there is only one temple, so it is only able to interrupt the communications from the jade slips, but if there is more it can even affect the system.

Hmm… I'll need to let the system analyze this temple in detail once I'm done here. There are bound to be a lot of hidden gains in this that I don't know of.' Lin Wu thought.

But seeing that the woman had tried to use a communication jade slip, Lin Wu became curious and wanted to know what was it that she was exactly doing. And when he finally eavesdropped on her mutterings, he heard all these interesting things.

"The only question that now stands is… who is this mistress this woman is talking about? She should definitely be her superior, seeing the respectful tone she uses to talk about her.

Her leader, perhaps? Or a sect elder?" Lin Wu wondered.

While the woman was in the robes of a cultivator, she did not have any specifics that could point out the sect that she belonged to. Thus, it was left to Lin Wu to guess it or hear it.

"I'll just keep on watching for now…"

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Lin Wu saw the woman trying to contract her mistress but no matter what she tried, nothing worked.

"Do I need to leave the city? Why is this still not working?" The woman wondered to herself.

She hesitated and looked at the temple in the stance.

"If I run away without getting concrete results, the mistress will not be happy with me. I need to at least see what comes out of this." The woman said to herself in a determined tone.

"I guess I don't need to chase her down later then… she'll be here to be taken." Lin Wu stated as he looked back at the inside of the temple using his spirit sense.

"Oh yeah system, track that woman and record all that she says, just in case." Lin Wu ordered.

"Affirmative." The system replied shortly.

Inside the temple, Jiao Fan and the others were doing their best to stop the formation array of the statues. Their combined spirit sense drilled into the statue and struck the formation inscribed in it.

~WEENG~

A humming sound could be heard as their spirit sense directly spread to the formation array through the dangered formation of the broken state. The damaged formation was like a hole in the wall, allowing water to reach the circuitry, and short circuiting it.

~shua~

Then, in the next moment, all of the formations died down and the flames disappeared as well. The only flames that were still burning were those that were on the corpses. These were burning with the corpse as a fuel and were not dependant on the formation array and thus stayed lit.

~huu~

"QUICK!" Jiao Fan uttered as blood dripped down his mouth. "The Door! Get to the door!"

The four Nascent Soul realm cultivators managed to reach the door just when another humming sound was heard.

~SHUA~

The formations came back alive and the flames started to burn once again.

"PUSH!" They all shouted and moved the doors.

~CREAK~

The doors were hard to open, but under the combined strength of the four Nascent Soul realm cultivators, it finally budged.

~Whoosh~

The formation array had seemingly discovered them and the flames rushed toward them as if they were alive. But just as they were about to touch them, they were blocked by the doors.

~DENG~

The doors of the hall closed at the last moment, preventing the flames from coming towards them.

~phew~

"That was close… that formation array is far too terrifying." One of the Nascent Soul realm cultivators that were Jing Luo's subordinate spoke.

Jing Luo couldn't help but look back at the door as he was reminded of the hundreds that had died back there.

"This was definitely not worth it… we should have never come here!" Jiao Fan uttered with regret.

He had lost not only a lot of his subordinates, but friends as well. Some among them were also his clan members and he did not like the regret that he was feeling now.

'It would have been better if I just let them take it all. They might not have even survived the formation array and one of the problems would have been directly solved.' Jing Luo thought as he looked at Old Man Tiandi.

But no matter how much Jiao Fan regretted this, the dead would not come back. Just as there was no medicine for regret, Yama would not return the souls of the dead just because someone was sad.

Lin Wu observed this all and nodded his head. He was a bit impressed by the method that Jiao Fan had used and even the system had notified him that its data banks had been updated. The system had evidently learned a new method to 'hack' formation arrays.

"Though them dying means I get less spirit Qi later… ~Sigh~ I can get more later anyways…" Lin Wu muttered to himself.

"Let's get what we came for," old Man Tiandi said while wiping the blood from his face.

Evidently, all of them had been affected by the backlash and felt weak right now. Even using spirit Qi was painful as their meridians shouted out in agony. They knew this was something that was bound to happen, but now they could not do anything.

"You're fine with all this!? Jiao Fan yelled at Tiandi.

"What? They died, and that's all. Do you just want to give up on this opportunity and waste their sacrifice?" Old Man Tiandi Counteracted.

"That's right, we should get what we came here for or we would just be wasting it all." The Nascent Soul realm cultivator, who was on the side of Old Man Tiandi spoke.

The subordinate of Jiao Fan did not know what to speak and just stayed silent. He was pained by their loss too and regretted that he did not stop the mayor beforehand. Perhaps if they did not have the greed, they would have been able to prevent all of this death.

Jiao Fan's eyes were bloodshot and anger spread across his face. But then he gritted his teeth and forcefully suppressed it all. He knew that it would do him no good to act out now and the better option would be to take advantage of this situation.

'I won't let your sacrifices be in vain!' Jiao Fan Swore to himself.

"Let's go then!" Jiao Fan said in a hoarse voice.

Old Man Tiandi Did not speak another world and simply followed alongside the man.

~shua~

~shua~

~shua~

But just after stepping a meter ahead, the torches that were hung along the walls started to light up. The four men got startled and gathered up, back to back.

"Dammit! Is this another formation array!?" Jiao Fan cursed.

But even after five seconds, they did not feel any danger. They then looked at the torches and realized that they were only burning there without moving.

~phew~

"At least it's not another formation array." Old Man Tiandi took a breath of relief.

"Look! W-what's that!" The Nascent Soul realm cultivator that was on old Man Tiandi's side exclaimed.

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Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi looked at the end of the large hall and saw a large statue. Previously it was hidden in the darkness, but now the torches that had lit up illuminated the entire area brightly.

Normally they should have been able to see it all using their spirit sense and would not have been shocked like this. They should have been able to tell that there was no formation array in the hall as well.

Alas! Them using the Mind Expanding Lardite forcefully like that had temporarily crippled their spirit sense. Even normal spirit Qi usage was painful for them and they were only bearing it because of years of experience.

If it were a normal person they would have long since passed out due to the constant burning pain. It was not a good condition to be in honestly and could even be compared to Qi deviation in a way.

"The statue… it's of the same kind of bird showed in the statues in the outer hall." The subordinate of Jiao Fan spoke.

They looked at the statue of the Vermillion bird, which they didn't really know was the legendary Vermillion bird. To them, it was just some mysterious bird beast that they did not know of.

~step~

~step~

~step~

The four men stepped ahead as they saw the majestic statue of the Vermillion bird. Lin Wu was watching along them as his spirit sense could now enter the door with ease. Them opening the door had left an opening for Lin Wu's spirit sense to drill through.

"This statue is bigger than the others and in the best condition too." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

The statue of the vermilion bird was in the pose of soaring in the sky. Its wings were spread wide apart and only the tip of its left talon was touching the base of the statue. But even then the statue was solid and stable.

If it were any other sculpture making this kind of a statue, it would not be sure if that statue would be able to stay balanced or not. The most likely chance was that it would just fall due to the base being too narrow.

The statue was easily over ten meters wide, while the base was just six inches wide. This showed the wide difference in the two spans. They could see each and every small feather that had been carved on the statue in detail.

Its crown feathers were spread in a splendor while its tail feathers fluttered with elegance. Overall, it was easily the best statue that they had ever seen in their lives.

"Marvelous!" Old Man Tiandi Couldn't help but exclaim.

The four men gazed at the statue intently for about five minutes before they realized something.

"What do we do now?" The Nascent Soul realm cultivator, who was on the side of Old Man Tiandi asked.

"There should be something here, right? Or perhaps this statue is the reward?" The Subordinate of Jiao Fan said.

Jiao Fan too narrowed his eyes and looked around.

"Sss! Using spirit sense is impossible," Jiao Fan hissed in pain. "Spread up and look for anything that looks valuable. There must be something here. There is no way something like this would be built for nothing. There must be something that is being guarded here."

Old Man Tiandi and the other two nodded their heads in acknowledgment and spread up. They searched every nook and cranny of the hall, from the door all the way to the statue.

The hall was quite wide and it took them over an hour before they finished searching it all. They now felt quite exhausted as this was the first time in a long time that they were being forced to do something like this.

As Nascent Soul realm cultivators, they were not used to being unable to use spirit Qi. But now that their meridians were protesting in pain, they could not do much either than go to the ways of the mortals and search it manually.

"Hahaha! It's kinda fun seeing them struggle like this. Look at that Tiandi, he's actually acting like an old man now, with his hand on his lower back!" Lin Wu couldn't help but laugh.

But while he was laughing, the others around him did not think the same. For the cultivators, Lin Wu was simply letting out beastly noises that they did not know the meaning of. But they didn't think much about it either and just thought that it was something a beast did.

To them, beasts didn't really have to make complete sense. After all, if the beasts had decorum and manners, would they still be beasts?

~huu~huu~huu~

"I didn't get even this tired in the battle before and now I can't move anymore," The nascent Soul realm cultivator who was on the Old Man Tiandi's side said in an exhausted voice.

He then slumped to the ground with his back to one of the pillars.

"You didn't find anything either?" Jiao Fan couldn't help but ask.

"No… nothing… this place is empty." Old Man Tiandi said, feeling frustrated. "Absolutely empty!"

Jiao Fan rubbed his forehead as a headache spread through it. He feared that they may have really made a huge mistake in coming here and that they may need to go back empty handed.

'No… that is IF we can go back. With those flames in the outer hall, there is no way we can survive that.' Jiao Fan thought.

He then looked at the others and thought for a bit.

"We will rest for the time being and recover our strength. Perhaps what we seek is hidden and we cannot find it without our spirit sense and spirit Qi. Once we feel better, we will search once more. There will be no use in flailing around blindly." Jiao Fan stated.

"Hmm, that seems right. I need to rest my back too…" Old Man Tiandi said as he sat down as well.

The four men took out their respective resources to recover their bodies and waited. Unaware that a certain someone had just finished her rest.

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Lin Wu had been observing the four survivors in the inner hall of the temple and chuckling at their actions.

"Just by being unable to use spirit Qi they fall to this level, haha~" Lin Wu couldn't help but laugh.

He saw that they got tired after a point and just decided to rest. This was probably one of the better choices they had made in the past few hours. Though Lin Wu felt that it was a bit of a pity, as he wanted to see them struggle a bit more.

But the one thing he failed to realize was that a certain someone had woken up.

"What are you doing?" The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle Questioned.

Lin Wu who had been laughing suddenly stopped and turned his head.

"Oh! You woke up." Lin Wu spoke.

"Yes, but what are you doing? Where is the stone feather?" The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle asked as she narrowed her eyes.

"Umm… it's still inside the temple." Lin Wu replied.

"In the temple? Why have you not gotten it yet?" The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle questioned, her voice getting a bit colder.

"Well, we know that there are traps in this temple, so I let the humans deal with them. Once they get the stone feather, I'll just take it from them and make our work easy." Lin Wu explained.

"Humph! What traps, why do we even need to wait this long?! Leave it, I'll just do it myself!" The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle said before spreading her wings.

~PIIIIIII~

She let out a loud cry that echoed across the skies. The people who had been watching everything were shocked and some of them directly fell due to the sudden sound. They saw that the beast who had been asleep since the start had suddenly woken up.

"The bird beast! It's gonna attack RUN!!!" The people soon broke into hysteria.

Lin Wu ignored them and instead pitied the four Nascent Soul realm cultivators who were inside the temple. They had not heard the cry of the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle due to the door being closed, but they would soon be getting surprised.

The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle flapped her wings and got down from the platform, since the temple was below it. Her Vermillion feathers started to glow as flames appeared around her body.

~Piiii~

She let out another cry before shooting out flames at the temple.

~BOOM~

A loud explosion occurred as everything turned blinding white for a second and when that finally faded away, smoke had filled the area. The people who were still watching were stunned and some of them were directly knocked back because of the shock wave made from the explosion.

The spirit Qi pressure exuding from the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle was also too much for most cultivators here to bear. Those in the Qi refining realm directly fell to the ground, coughing out blood while those in the core condensation realm were knocked back.

The woman who Lin Mu had noticed to be spying showed a shocked look. She was the only other nascent Soul realm cultivator currently left in the ruins city except for a few independent nascent soul realm cultivators that had chosen to stay out of the fight.

They all felt the spirit Qi fluctuations coming from the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle and also felt the oppressive aura.

"D-Dao Shell Realm… it truly is a Dao Shel realm beast and not just that it is definitely not just in the Shell Initiation stage and is probably higher." The Woman spoke in disbelief.

Alarm bells rang in her mind and her heart urged her to escape at that very moment. But then the orders of her mistress reappeared in her mind and she forcibly stopped her body from running away.

"I can't run now, after spending so much time here. I need to see what happens!" The woman said to herself.

The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had a fierce look in her eyes as she gazed at the temple. To her, the temple was nothing, but a construct made by humans to stop her. Thus, she picked the easiest method of entering it, which was nothing but to directly destroy it.

What formations? what traps? What danger? In front of absolute strength, they were all nothing.

The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle flapped her wing and the wind blew away all the smoke that was there. Finally, the view of the temple became clear and one could see that the front of the temple was now gone, completely obliterated.

The staircase that went down to the outer hall was fully visible to everyone and had been expanded wide enough that the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle could enter it now. The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle thus strutted forward and jumped to enter the temple.

"The-the beast is incredibly strong! It destroyed the formations that the Nascent Soul realm cultivators were unable to do." The Woman who had been observing it exclaimed.

The fear in her heart only deepened upon seeing all this. It was actually not her first time seeing someone in the Dao Shell realm. She had seen a couple of Cultivators who were at the Dao Shell realm and had seen their might.

But this beast… it was different. Its aura was far more suppressive than anything she had seen and a certain level of majesty also exuded from it.

Lin Wu who had been watching it all, simply sighed in response.

~Sigh~

"And I thought I would get to see a bit more entertainment…" He muttered to himself before getting down there himself.

Lin Wu knew that his time for slacking was over and if he did not join the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle she might just get really displeased with him. But while the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had done this, the four men inside had a rude awakening.

"What the hell is happening?! What was that explosion?" Old Man Tiandi said.

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