Chapter 672: Chunjiang City, a Place of Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons

The commoners living near the dungeon were frightened out of their wits when they saw the assassins pouring out in full force.

These assassins possessed cultivation bases; killing them would be as easy as turning over a hand!

Yet what they did not know was that as terrified as they were, the assassins were even more consumed by dread.

Though the assassins of the Dark Night Pavilion were numerous, none could withstand a single blow from Lu Yang and his two companions; even the Nascent Soul stage assassins could not hold out for one strike, let alone those of the Core Formation, Foundation Establishment, and Qi Condensation stages below them, who perished by the handful with every move.

"Scatter and run!"

The assassins were paralyzed with horror; they delighted in murder, but they had no desire for self-destruction, and these three were simply far beyond their power to contend with.

Anyone with eyes could see that after this battle, as long as one survived, they could cling to the thighs of a half-immortal, rising rapidly in the world to summon winds and rain, possessing a boundless future.

Under no circumstances could they fall at the hands of these three!

"Trying to flee?" Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou exchanged a glance and moved simultaneously, circling around the assassins.

"Draw the Dungeon!"

"Drawing a Prison on the Ground!"

Before most of the assassins could even react, they found themselves trapped in cages—either confined to the ground or entombed beneath it!

"What kind of technique is this!"

Panic seized the assassins; the subterranean prisons were indestructible, snapping daggers instantly upon contact, while those above ground were not cages but halos of light, within whose boundaries not a single soul could step outside!

A few clever assassins, seeing they were no match for Lu Yang and the others, fled ahead of time.

"Pursue them separately!"

Shi Chan withdrew his Six-Zhang Golden Body, and wind stirred beneath his feet as if he had grown wings, treading upon the void and covering a hundred Zhang in a single step, akin to spatial teleportation.

One of the Six Divine Transmutation Abilities of the Buddhist sect: the Divine Foot.

As a body cultivator, Meng Jingzhou did not excel in flying speed, yet the explosive velocity relied upon his legs surpassed flight by several margins.

It was merely that he could not match Shi Chan's speed.

"No, this is still too slow."

Meng Jingzhou hesitated for a moment; he originally had no desire to deploy this technique, but with human lives on the line, now was not the time to care about appearances.

"Very well, let the world witness the might of the Heavy Infant stage!"

He retracted his three heads and six arms, re-fused his dual Nascent Souls, and six legs sprouted from his lower body!

He did not possess the Six Divine Transmutation Abilities, but he could grow six legs!

"Halt! Do not run!"

Meng Jingzhou locked his gaze onto an assassin, exerted power through all six legs simultaneously, and lunged forward.

The assassin turned his head to look, his soul nearly departing from his body in terror.

A six-legged monstrosity rapidly closed the distance, and then a fist as large as a sandbag smashed down, dealing a fatal blow.

Reeking of slaughter, Meng Jingzhou vowed that every single assassin who witnessed his form today would not leave alive!

Lu Yang commanded his avatar to intercept the fugitives while he himself flew upon the pool, the twin swords Qingfeng and Mingyue acting like guardian deities on either side, accompanying his movement.

The moment an assassin was spotted, the twin swords would instantly fly forth to claim a head, or he would directly ram into them with the Sword-Washing Pool, reducing them to a bloody blur.

Some assassins realized they could not escape if things continued this way and that they had to use hostages as leverage.

One flew into the estate of a wealthy family; those living in such places were either rich or noble, making them the perfect hostages.

"Do not move! If any of you moves, I will kill them!"

He burst into the room, glaring fixedly at the male master of the house, issuing a harsh threat.

Four pairs of eyes, dripping with intent to kill, gazed back at him eerily.

"You dare threaten my husband?"

Four figures surrounded the assassin, causing cold sweat to pour down his back.

He could sense that the cultivation of every single figure surpassed his own.

Before he could even react, a massive serpent tail swept across, shattering every bone in his body and instantly extinguishing his breath.

"What on earth has happened?" Liu Xiangyu's brow furrowed deeply; the upheaval had occurred too suddenly, and they knew nothing of the specific events in Chunjiang City, only aware of the massive energy fluctuations overhead that far exceeded their own cultivation—a battle they could not possibly interfere with, where a single stray ripple could crush them countless times over.

"Xiao Qiu, you possess defensive capabilities; stay here to protect my husband while the three of us go out to assess the situation and see if we can be of any help."

"Understood, Mistress."

Some assassins were cleverer, choosing shops instead.

"Nobody move!"

The assassin released the spiritual pressure of the early Core Formation stage, which was a catastrophic disaster for mortals; based on experience, the moment he unleashed this pressure, mortals would tremble and find themselves unable to even stand.

Yet reality proved to be completely the opposite.

The shop assistants looked as though they felt no threat from the pressure at all, raising their heads in unison to regard the assassin with bizarre expressions.

"Oh, quite bold, aren't you, daring to threaten even us!"

"Close the door, do not let him escape!"

"Damn it, even doing honest business brings assassins to the door; it is truly hard to be an honest person these days."

The assassin thudded back two steps, a sudden premonition of disaster gripping him.

He turned to flee, but the shop door slammed shut with a resounding bang without anyone touching it, sealing perfectly so that no one could peer inside through any crack.

"Help..."

"Gag his mouth!"

Bang!

The shop door was crashed open by the assassin, who collapsed onto the ground, crawling out with great difficulty.

The interior of the shop was pitch black, and from the darkness extended countless hands, grabbing the assassin's ankles and dragging him back inside.

The assassin's fingernails scraped desperately against the ground, managing only to leave white scratches upon the surface.

The door slammed shut once more, and thereafter, all was silent.

Perhaps because the door had been shut with too much force, the plaque reading 'Come Again Barbecue Shop, Chunjiang City Branch' swayed slightly twice.

Elsewhere, beggars suddenly rose up to attack, wrestling violently with the assassins.

Seeing this, Lu Yang recalled what his Eldest Senior Sister had once said: true beggars were rarely seen nowadays; the beggars observed now were all cultivators practicing their Dao within the mortal realm.

Although these cultivators were not as powerful as Lu Yang and his companions, they were more than capable of handling the assassins.

Venerable Yi Qi laughed heartily upon seeing Lu Yang and the other two routing the assassins so utterly.

"Is this the assassin organization you wished to protect?"

The Void Supreme was a grand figure who had survived the hegemonies of the late Great Yu era; his state of mind would not be easily perturbed by such matters.

Without uttering a single word, he manifested countless dharma treasures out of thin air: sabers, spears, swords, halberds, precious cauldrons, divine pagodas, jade vials, and cattail-leaf fans—all of them Tribulation Transmutation-grade artifacts.

The Void Realm was his home ground, and he could forge anything beneath the level of an immortal.

If one were to attain the fruit of the Immortal Dao, they could transmute the illusory into the absolute, rendering the Void Realm into a brand-new world—not a mere pocket realm like a grotto-heaven, but a grand macrocosm of the universe.

By then, he would become the master of the world in the truest sense.

Tribulation-grade magic treasures rained down in torrents, only to be intercepted by thirty thousand miles of purple mist, though the primordial violet aura was battered into a tattered sieve under this relentless onslaught.

"I shall see just how many strikes this purple mist of yours can withstand."

The Void Supreme manifested countless Tribulation treasures once more, suspended blindingly in midair before hurling them toward City Master Liu and his companions, forcing the Venerable of the One Qi to bear the brunt of the assault.

He had trapped City Master Liu's group instead of killing them for the sole purpose of constraining the Venerable of the One Qi!

"Void Supreme!" the Venerable of the One Qi roared in fury.

"What, do you wish to beg for mercy..."

The Void Supreme sneered coldly, but before his words could finish, an infinite, inexorable force sucked him into the gourd.

The Venerable of the One Qi hurriedly capped the mouth of the precious gourd.

The treasure gourd was set against a purple base, adorned with golden veins; if one answered to their name, they would be drawn into its depths.

The Purple-Gold Gourd.

(End of Chapter)