Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 832: Grand Five Ox Merciless Dao

“This makes me think of an old saying. What is it?” The Captain licked his lips and grinned as he looked at the figure fleeing toward the horizon. “Oh right, it’s souls born leagues apart will inevitably connect. Am I right, little Junior Brother? Well, this won’t do. He made a big splash on his arrival, but there’s no way he’ll escape now.”

Xu Qing nodded and waved his hand, causing black fire to flow out. The black spear that he had just put away appeared again. The tip of the spear burned with fire that could consume everything around it, all while little black holes popped into being around it. It stirred the aura of blood, causing it to rise into the air. What was more, countless resentful souls appeared around the spear, screaming in defiance and rage. They had not entered the cycle of reincarnation, and it would be no easy task to escape. The horrifying sounds echoing out made the scene even more terrifying.

The spear in Xu Qing’s hand was like a mountain peak from the netherworld, surrounded by ghostfire and black flame. It was so powerful it seemed about to turn the canopy of heaven into a sea of flames. At the same time, the ripples flowing out caused heaven and earth to turn gloomy.

When the fleeing Firemoon Darkheaven saw all of that, his scalp went numb, and his heart raced as his entire person was filled with sensations of deadly crisis and regret. Now he finally realized why his clone ended up dying.

He definitely died because of that spear! I was being too impulsive! I shouldn’t even have come here!

Face ashen, he took a few deep breaths and then tried to flee even faster. He also activated some teleportation techniques, except that they needed time.

Meanwhile, Xu Qing’s eyes glittered with cold light as he hurled the spear out in front of him. It was like a roaring dragon, flying with heaven-rending, earth-crushing force. Thunderous rumblings echoed out as it pierced through the air toward the fleeing Firemoon Darkheaven.

The air shattered. The sky blurred. Only the spear was clearly visible, creating a vibrant streak as it closed in on its target. It was locked onto him and about to pierce him through.

Meanwhile, D-132 suddenly appeared again, and the sight of all the inmates caused the fleeing cultivator’s mind to tremble. As the cell block materialized, it was clearly about to seal him within it.

He could well imagine what would happen when the process was complete. Just like the old saying went, if you’re doomed, you’re doomed. He would be killed beyond the shadow of a doubt. And thus, in that moment of deadly crisis, the Firemoon Darkheaven cultivator did something audaciously daring. Without any hesitation, he struck himself hard on the top of his head. A boom rang out as a second version of himself appeared atop the original. He was attempting to flee in god soul form.

He left behind his fleshly body, for use as a tool to absorb the blow of the black spear.

The spear slammed into his body, ripping flesh to shreds along the way. However, the spear didn’t totally destroy his fleshly body. In contrast, the body clamped down onto the spear, unleashing gruish power to lock it in place. Though the spear was already destroying the flesh around it, its momentum had been halted.

Next, the Firemoon cultivator made a second decision. He decisively abandoned his eight forbidden mountains. His god soul exhaled forcefully, and the resulting wind hit the mountains and sent them shooting toward the descending D-132. The eight mountains rapidly grew larger, pulsing with forbidden might as they flew forth. On the one hand, the cultivator was taking the initiative to hand over his mountains. But at the same time, he was hoping to use them to buy time when they slammed into D-132.

Rumbling booms rang out as D-132 slowed down briefly. However, after only a moment, it sped back up.

That moment was the only thing that turned things around for the Firemoon Darkheaven. The teleportation he had initiated moments ago completed, and he vanished into thin air. The flesh attached to the black spear lost any power to fight back and collapsed.

The eight forbidden mountains were swept into the pressure of D-132, and were taken into the cell block.

Xu Qing looked at the spot where the cultivator had vanished. The cultivator had reacted with lightning speed. If had been even a bit slower, he would have been trapped in D-132, whereupon his teleportation ability would have been rendered meaningless. That said, Xu Qing wasn’t too worried. As the Captain had just said, there was no way that he would actually escape. Based on what Xu Qing knew of the Captain, those words hadn’t been spoken blithely.

Sure enough, after seeing the enemy teleport away, the Captain smiled proudly and looked at Xu Qing.

“I devoured some of these cultivators’ flesh just now, right? After studying it just now, I figured a few things out. It made me think about an amazing divine ability I learned in a past life that was designed to target Firemoon cultivators. It’s a very formidable divine ability that restricts teleportations. The general principle is about tracing essence back to its origin. It doesn’t matter where he went, I can bring him back.”

The Captain reached out and made a grasping gesture. Instantly, five bloody chunks of the enemy’s flesh rose up from the ground and flew toward the Captain. The Captain flicked his sleeve, sending the chunks into a roughly pentagonal shape.

“The prerequisite is to have five chunks of something equivalent to essence from the target. Flesh and bones are the best option.”

The Captain performed a double-handed incantation gesture and muttered some things. Ripples began to flow out from one of the chunks of flesh. Then from the second and third.... Then the ripples from all five grew more intense, connected with each other, and rose up into the air in the form of a black vortex.

The Captain looked at the vortex and shouted something in a voice that seemed incredibly ancient.

“Souls in heaven and earth shall return to their origin!”

The vortex spun more rapidly, and then the god soul of the Firemoon cultivator was drawn back and appeared in the vortex. At first, he looked blurry and distorted, but with every moment that passed, he became clearer. His expression was one of confusion, terror, and disbelief.

The Captain laughed viciously as he made a grasping motion in the direction of the vortex to extract the soul of the Firemoon cultivator.

“You—”

His god soul’s eyes were full of despair. He was about to say something in the hopes of staying alive, but the Captain ignored him and viciously clenched his right hand into a fist. A pop rang out as the god soul collapsed into an apple that fell to the ground.

Master Gravesparrow was quick to react to the development, and hurried over to grab the apple and respectfully present it to the Captain.

The Captain stuck his chin up and looked at Xu Qing. Noticing the surprise in Xu Qing’s eyes left him feeling very pleased with himself.

“What do you think, little Ah Qing? Is your Eldest Brother’s magical technique awesome, or is it awesome?”

Xu Qing nodded. Looking at the five chunks of flesh, he suddenly realized that they were pulsing with a somewhat familiar aura. “That technique—”

“I know what you’re going to ask, little Ah Qing,” the Captain interrupted with a wave of his hand. “You want to know the name of the divine ability. It’s actually got a great name. It’s called the Grand Five Ox Essence-Tracing Grand Merciless Dao.”

The Captain looked closely at Xu Qing to see how he would react.

Xu Qing plastered a look on his face that indicated the name was very awe-inspiring.

The Captain was very pleased. “Want to learn it? As your Eldest Brother, I can teach you. Once you master it, then you’ll have a way to deal with fleeing opponents.”

The Captain casually took out a jade slip and tossed it to Xu Qing.

Xu Qing accepted it. He figured it could possibly come in useful someday, so he nodded. “Many thanks, Eldest Brother.”

“Hahaha! You’re too polite. It was nothing!”

This was exactly the reaction the Captain had been hoping for. Seeing Xu Qing act in this way was incomparably pleasing to him.

Meanwhile, the eight masterless forbidden mountains floated over to orbit above Xu Qing.

Xu Qing looked up at them, all while analyzing the situation.

Based on what that Firemoon Senior in the golden palace said, if I want to take first place in this round, I probably need something like a thousand mountains. I really do have to keep working hard.

He looked at the Captain.

The Captain grinned. He could guess what Xu Qing was thinking, and thus, the two of them turned into two beams of light that shot off into the distance.

Master Gravesparrow struggled to control his breathing. From what he could tell, having encountered these two was some sort of destined opportunity, and he didn’t want to lose out. Therefore, he flew into the air and followed them.

And thus, three figures flew out of the forbidden region and continued on their way to the interior of Firemoon territory. After they left, the forbidden region calmed down. The mutant beasts gradually came back out into the open. The spots which had previously been occupied by the 27 forbidden mountains were already filling in with blood-red grass.

A few hours later, cultivators appeared in the air. They were the cultivators who had escaped earlier, and had now returned to check on the situation. There were some who had regretted being scared so easily and running away. But after returning and seeing the changes to the area, their expressions turned grave.

And when they saw that the spots previously occupied by the 27 mountains were filling in with crimson grass, and smelled strongly of blood, many of them inhaled sharply.

“This place....”

“How many people died to make this place smell so strongly of blood?”

“I didn’t notice anyone else escaping. Don’t tell me... that all the other cultivators here were killed?”

“That’s impossible!”

Gasps filled the forbidden region. Some people didn’t believe it could be true, and tried to use communication jade slips to send messages to cultivators they knew had been here earlier. None got any responses. Gradually, they left looking astonished.

Time passed. The survivors went their own way, taking with them the story about how a human cultivator had killed hundreds of Great Hunt participants. The story spread, from one cultivator to ten, and from ten to a hundred....

The news spread like wildfire among the Firemoon Darkheaven people.

Many people were now paying close attention. Many people didn’t believe the news at first. However, as people checked into the details, that changed.

The Whitemarshes were incensed. After all, more of their people died than any others, including one of their top chosen. That said, the Whitemarsh experts couldn’t do anything about it. Most of their forces were on the battlefield with the Nightshades, with only a small number left behind.

That was less relevant, however, than the general rules of the Great Hunt, which none of them dared to defy. Only participants could attack each other.

That said, it was virtually impossible to stop people from hatching devious plots. Therefore, storm clouds began to gather in the territory of the Firemoon Darkheaven people. A tempest was coming....