Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 1186: Conspiracy (3)
Tang Jie and Shen Qingdan silently walked through the forest.
After a prolonged silence, they suddenly both asked in unison, “Have you been doing well all this time?”
And then they looked at each other.
Shen Qingdan broke out in laughter. “As expected, neither of us knows what to say and wanted to use this sort of question with a meaningless answer to break the ice.”
Tang Jie smiled. “In the end, we were so worried about what to say that we ended up not saying anything at all. In truth, as cultivators, we should be masters of our emotions, not bogged down by such childish things. Look there. In the distance, the demons eye us like ravenous tigers, while behind us, thousands of cultivators are ready and waiting to fight. In this war where the entire cultivator world is at stake, is there really any sort of concern that we can’t let go of?”
While Tang Jie didn’t know how to start the conversation at first, once he started, he entered the right state and just kept going.
“Right, how did the Wandering Palace fare in today’s battle?” Tang Jie asked.
Shen Qingdan replied, “Thanks to you, the people of my Wandering Palace were all stationed in the rear and didn’t have to directly confront the demon army. But we didn’t slack off either, expending all of our energy before resting.”
There was plenty to talk about when it came to the war, so the two quickly returned to normal.
They talked as friends, but also as superior and subordinate, as generals discussing tactics but also with an unusual intimacy.Most of the time, Tang Jie was asking and Shen Qingdan was answering. At times, Shen Qingdan would ask about something that confused her, and Tang Jie would dispel her confusion.
“Right, there’s something that I’ve failed to understand this whole time,” Shen Qingdan said.
“What?”
“Although our army is currently facing off against the demons, the enemies are stronger, so we can’t encircle the demons. That being the case, why aren’t the demons seeking opportunities to infiltrate our territory to gather resources, after which they can seek another decisive battle?”
Tang Jie calmly replied, “Because they’re arrogant. In the Primordial Fog Calamity, it has always been the demons seeking battle while the humans avoid it. When have the humans ever sought battle while the demons backed away?”
The humans could not besiege the demons, so the demons could go around the human army and invade the more prosperous areas.
But this was essentially admitting that they were afraid of the humans and feared a direct confrontation. This was something the ever-conceited demons could not accept.
Slaughtering these arrogant human cultivators and then invading en masse was their usual style.
“Of course, demons are savage but also cunning. If the battle goes poorly and they aren’t strong enough to meet the moment, they truly could split up and invade our territory. But alas, the Eight Ocean Mountains I laid down can survey the entire world. Splitting up in this situation would just be committing suicide. I would concentrate our troops and devour their split-up forces one by one. Thus, while they regarded splitting up with contempt before, they now don’t dare to.”
“I see! Then the Shadowheir Trees and mirrors used for camp defense…”
“They are one of the formation nodes of the Eight Ocean Mountains,” Tang Jie replied.
Like Yang Yipan, Shen Qingdan didn’t know the actual functions of the Eight Ocean Mountains. The formation nodes they used in their duties were regarded as superb surveillance formations. After all, they weren’t in charge of the core node and could only survey the surrounding area. It was impossible for them to see the rest of human territory.
Shen Qingdan praised, “No wonder this surveillance formation is so amazing, even able to observe Violet Palace and Immortal Platform cultivators.”
Tang Jie was taken back. “‘Immortal Platform’? You observed an Immortal Platform expert?”
“Yes.” Shen Qingdan nodded.
“Who is it?”
“Who else would be leaving the camp at this time?” Shen Qingdan said with a bitter smile.
“Miaoran?”
Shen Qingdan lightly nodded.
Tang Jie was frozen, and after a while, he finally asked, “Did you see where she went?”
“A mountain like a straight sword, and then she disappeared.”
“Around when did you see that?”
Shen Qingdan considered this and answered, “Around an hour ago.”
“Did you see anyone after that?” Tang Jie asked.
Shen Qingdan shook her head.
She saw the weird look on Tang Jie’s face and felt a little guilty. “I didn’t observe Fairy Xu on purpose. She just so happened to appear on a mirror, so I got curious…”
Tang Jie shook his head. “I’m not saying that’s wrong. I just thought of something.”
“What is it?”
“The Eight Ocean Mountains is flawed!”
“‘Flawed’?” Shen Qingdan was confused.
Tang Jie fell silent, putting his hands behind his back as he began to think.
Not daring to disturb him, Shen Qingdan stood to the side.
After a while, Tang Jie finally raised his head.
His eyes were shining, the momentary confusion and surprise dispelled.
He said, “Qingdan, I need your help with something.”
Being called “Qingdan” made Shen Qingdan feel weak all over.
She gazed at Tang Jie and gently said, “Just give me the order.”
“I would like you to continue in your sentry post, observing the comings and goings.”
Perhaps because they had a conspiracy brewing in the background, the demons had refrained from any major movements after the battle. Of course, they continued to furtively sneak around, attempting small-scale infiltrations and theft of resources every day, so small-scale battles were constantly occurring. But in reality, this was bait thrown out by the demons to provide cover for their human spies.
Yang Yipan, having taken Primal Dark Heaven’s mission, became much more active.
Every day, he went around with the Mother–Child Chaos Star Pearl. Though he was no expert in formations, the pearl could sense the formation nodes on its own. It would notify him whenever he was close. The more troublesome task was getting into the formation nodes so as to interfere with the detection abilities of the formation. After all, each formation node he disrupted would affect the formation a little more.
The effects were not significant and could be regarded as simple errors, but if one looked closely, one would start to get suspicious. It all depended on the main controller of the formation. But the controller of the formation was letting it happen on purpose, so Yang Yipan wasn’t in the slightest danger, easily finding 108 formation nodes and sending child pearls into them.
These child pearls didn’t immediately get to work, remaining silent. Presumably, they would only activate and interfere at the key moment so as to avoid being discovered too early to be useful.
Tang Jie was even planning to let Yang Yipan discover the main control node, preparing a special opportunity for it.
Alas, Yang Yipan refused to step into Tang Jie’s area, clearly not being so stupid as to risk his life and understanding that a shrimp like him couldn’t dare to hope to intrude upon an area controlled by a True Immortal.
Twelve days quickly went by.
According to the demons’ plan, today was the day the passage to the Nether Domain would be opened, allowing the ghosts to invade.
That morning, Tang Jie got up and went to the floating mountain.
This mountain was the Eight Ocean Mountains’ main control node for the region. Although Tang Jie could link to the formation without the control node, using the formation’s full power still required its assistance. And the control node would also reduce the burden on Tang Jie.
Tang Jie waved his hand, summoning numerous lights.
These lights wove together into many picture scrolls that reflected the scenery of Skybrink Ridge, on a scale much grander than the thousand-some mirrors that Shen Qingdan had used. The entirety of Skybrink Ridge had been compressed into this small area.
In this place, one would feel like they had shrunk to a tiny size. The scenery was so dense that it was difficult to see anything.
But one just needed to lightly tap at a certain area to magnify it until it was displayed in full size before the user. This was far superior to the methods used by the four formation nodes.
Tang Jie stood there and waited.
Around two hours later, his surroundings became covered by a white fog.
This thick white fog obscured all the scenery, making it difficult for Tang Jie to grasp his surroundings.
Tang Jie knew that the child pearls in the formation nodes had activated.
The white fog greatly reduced the detection abilities of the Eight Ocean Mountains, both in the control node and in the four subsidiary nodes. The bronze mirrors were now clouded with white fog as well.
It even extended into his Sea of Cognition, the white fog severing his connection with all the living beings in Skybrink Ridge.
The Mother–Child Chaos Star Pearl was truly powerful. Obscuring the detection ability of the Eight Ocean Mountains was incredibly difficult, even in just one region.
At the same time, the fabric of space at Tang Jie’s location softly rippled, like a mosquito had run into a spider web.
Tang Jie knew that the demons were starting to establish the spatial passage to the Nether Domain, these ripples resulting from their drilling into the fabric of space. It was so light that one would not notice if one wasn’t paying close attention, and the white fog made the task even more difficult. Moreover, the human cultivators could be expected to try to find the source of the fog first and defend against a possible demon attack second. No one would give a second thought to the small tremors at the surveillance nodes.
Of course, Tang Jie, who knew the entire plan, naturally couldn’t be deceived. He simply smiled and said, “It’s started.”
He lightly blew, and then the white fog was blown away as if a tornado had come through.
But a moment later, the white fog returned, and no matter how the winds howled, it continued to stubbornly block his senses.
Tang Jie wasn’t surprised. If this white fog were so easily dispelled, the demons wouldn’t have gone to such great lengths to plant the pearls.
But since Tang Jie knew their plan, he had made plans long ago. The simplest method was to destroy the pearls that had been inserted into the formation nodes, which would get rid of their interference altogether.
But this would expose the fact that Tang Jie knew of their plan.
So Tang Jie intended to use another method.
An even more direct and more violent method.
