Chapter 245

Yang Lingrui’s solution was simple – he summoned black wind using his vast spiritual power, overwhelming the Wind Stabilizing Pill’s resistance through sheer force.

"Stay calm! Hold positions! Keep the formation!"

The lead cultivator yelled desperately as their divine projection flickered.

But neither his voice nor any light could pierce the swirling black wind. He couldn’t see his four companions anymore.

"It’s fine… The Wind Stabilizing Pill will protect us…"

He kept repeating this mantra, though panic gnawed at his gut. Soon even this false calm crumbled.

The black wind kept tearing through the pill’s defenses, inching closer to his flesh. Worse, he felt the medicine’s effects fading fast.

CRACK!

The shared projection shattered abruptly.

"No… Impossible…"

His eyes glazed over. When cultivators withdraw properly, projections fade gently. This violent collapse meant one of them had died instantly.

The breaking projection shattered his last resolve. Only primal instinct remained.

"RUN!"

He bolted eastward blindly, abandoning comrades and duty. All that mattered was escaping before the pill failed completely.

After endless stumbling, two glowing orbs appeared ahead.

"Exit! The exit!"

He lunged toward the lights… then froze.

Those weren’t escape lights. They were the glowing eyes of the Black Wind Giant Python.

The serpent coiled around him. Jaws snapped shut. He ceased to exist.

After slaying the five, Yang Lingrui dismissed his projections.

The Eastern Wilderness forces halted their advance. Mortal troops turned back, knowing Yang Lingrui’s presence meant certain death.

His wind formations could annihilate entire armies – tens of thousands of soldiers and their accompanying cultivators erased within minutes. No commander would throw troops against such slaughter.

Without Condensing Essence experts intervening, the Eastern Wilderness could only retreat and fortify defenses against this unstoppable storm.

However, this demonstrated the importance of the Eastern Wilderness troop deployment.

The reinforcements from the eastern region included not just Gathering Qi cultivators, but also many Condensing Essence and Spirit Communication Realm experts.

Yang Lingrui initially intended to keep defending the pass, but sensing a piercing gaze from above, he immediately turned and fled.

"Clever brat!"

The Eastern Wilderness Condensing Essence cultivator who’d stealthily approached emerged from swirling dust upon seeing Yang Lingrui escape.

He laughed uproariously while hovering above Yang Lingrui, roaring: "Wind-wielding runt! Look up! Remember this old man?"

Yang Lingrui kept running without glancing back, recognizing the voice instantly – this was the man he’d stabbed in the kidney with a wind spear two days prior.

"Don’t bother looking! When I promise to flay someone alive, I deliver!"

"Perish!"

Whoosh—

Darkness suddenly enveloped Yang Lingrui. He glanced upward to see an enormous earthen layer blotting out the sky.

The massive scale meant even his illusionary body couldn’t escape the crushing zone.

"Winds arise!"

Yang Lingrui urgently summoned twin wind technique Spirit Projections, wrapping himself in swirling gusts.

BOOM!

The earthen layer slammed down, flattening everything beneath.

"Talent without proper cultivation is worthless," the Condensing Essence cultivator sneered while descending. "Just a sturdier ant."

He froze mid-air, sensing irregularities.

"Alive?!"

A small bulge protruded from the compressed earth where Yang Lingrui had been. Before the cultivator could react—

CRACK!

Azure and ivory hands erupted through the dirt layer. Yang Lingrui burst out sideways, instantly activating his illusionary body to flee.

"Impossible!"

The Eastern Wilderness cultivator’s eyes bulged at the spectral hands.

"That aura… Spirit Communication avatars! Since when does Tiger-Chasing gift such treasures to Gathering Qi brats?" His voice rose in excitement. "Unrefined! They’re still unrefined!"

He Shenglai’s earlier advice echoed – these avatars showed maximum effect when refined during Condensing Essence stage. Yang Lingrui had merely been wielding them as crude spiritual treasures.

"MY fortune!" Greed blazed in the cultivator’s eyes as he dissolved into wind currents. "No escape now, boy!"

Within two breaths, he reappeared before the fleeing youth.

"Earth-Shackle Prison!"

CRUNCH!

Earthen walls erupted like those of the ice cultivator who’d ambushed He Shenglai previously, trapping Yang Lingrui completely.

Cornered, Yang Lingrui poured spiritual power into the avatar hands, initiating emergency refinement. Surviving to Condensing Essence stage mattered little if he died here.

"STOP!" The cultivator dove claw-first at Yang Lingrui. "Those are MINE!"

WHAM!

The clashing avatars blocked the strike but sent Yang Lingrui smashing into an earthen wall.

*Cough!* Blood sprayed as Yang Lingrui snarled: "Burst!"

"AGAIN?!" The earth technique cultivator recoiled, clutching his suddenly bleeding abdomen. During their clash, Yang Lingrui had embedded another wind spear – now detonating violently in his flank.

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