Countless cultivators desperately made up for their shortcomings in mechanism arts.
Transactions of all kinds of materials emerged one after another, even forming a kind of deformed prosperity.
Inside the painted grotto-heaven, Five-Light Mountain without any prior omen radiated brilliant golden light.
Under the clustering of that golden light, the Grief Valley City Lord finally revealed his form.
The injuries upon his body had already recovered by seven or eight tenths.
The scenes of Hen Xiu previously slaughtering cultivators and polluting the grotto-heaven world with blood mist had all fallen into his eyes, causing him to hate until he ground his teeth.
Yet at that time, constrained by the injuries upon his body, he could only choose to avoid battle and had not wasted precious grotto-heaven origin to suppress Hen Xiu.
The Grief Valley City Lord raised his eyes and gazed into the distance, staring tightly toward the due south.
His gaze seemed able to pierce a thousand li and directly lock onto Hen Xiu.
“Nearly sixty percent of the grotto-heaven world’s area has been eroded by blood mist. My control over the painting spirit is gradually weakening. There is simply no way to directly expel Hen Xiu.”
Battle with Hen Xiu had already become a foregone conclusion.
Rather than allow Hen Xiu to continue refining this world, it was better to strike first and gain the upper hand.
Thinking of this, the Grief Valley City Lord made up his mind.
“Fellow daoists, at present a Blood Path demonic cultivator is rampant to the extreme, wantonly slaughtering our relatives and friends with methods of the utmost cruelty.”
“In the present situation, if we still do not join hands, sooner or later we will be broken one by one and become cultivation resources for that demonic fiend.”
“A Blood Path demonic fiend is not worth pitying even in death. Today I, the Grief Valley City Lord, guarantee with my own reputation that all who render meritorious service shall receive heavy rewards!”
The Grief Valley City Lord’s voice was resonant and full of vital energy, spreading throughout Five-Light Mountain.
The tens of thousands of cultivators at the foot of the mountain heard every word with perfect clarity.
This speech immediately stirred the resonance of nearly all the cultivators.
The circumstances at this moment were already different from when they were still in Grief Valley Immortal City.
The crowd had no path of retreat.
Only by beheading Hen Xiu would there be a thread of life.
In the sky, countless dense black dots nearly blotted out the heavens.
Looking carefully, every black dot was actually a cultivator.
Tens of thousands of cultivators, encompassing the first layer of Qi Condensation all the way to the third layer of Nascent Soul, formed a great army of cultivators.
The army’s momentum was fierce.
Led by the Grief Valley City Lord, they confronted Hen Xiu across more than a thousand li.
“Everyone, form the battle formation and prepare to meet the enemy!”
With the Grief Valley City Lord’s single command, the same diagram of a battle formation floated up in everyone’s hearts.
The battle formation was named “Hard for Ordinary Men to Resist.”
Its function was extremely marvelous. It could temporarily unify the strength of all cultivators within the formation and gather it upon a small number of people, forming temporary powerful combat strength.
He Shu was wrapped within the vast black mass of the cultivator army.
Watching the thousands upon thousands of cultivators urgently assembling the battle formation, the sense of unease in her heart grew ever denser.
And so she secretly transmitted her voice to the other four.
“This battle formation has a major problem. The Grief Valley City Lord simply wishes to use us as cannon fodder sacrifices.”
“Concentrating strength upon a small number of people means that we will lose all combat power and become living targets to be kneaded at will.”
Shen Qingci, Bai Liuli, and He Qingyuan, reminded by He Shu in this manner, all realized the problem.
Yet Mu Xinlian, because her experience was very shallow, still had not reacted.
“Miss, what… do your words mean?”
Facing Mu Xinlian’s transmitted inquiry, He Shu explained the reason within to her.
“Once the battle formation takes shape, aside from a small number of people, everyone else will be unable to move even a fraction. The most direct method for Hen Xiu to weaken the Grief Valley City Lord is to eliminate us people.”
“The Grief Valley City Lord has truly calculated well. This is an open scheme. He wishes us to attract firepower for him. I estimate that of the cultivators forming the battle formation, those who can ultimately survive may not even reach one tenth.”
Mu Xinlian was greatly shocked upon hearing this. A pair of eyes widened into perfect circles.
“Then is that not… Miss, what should we do?”
Mu Xinlian’s fingers tightly pinched the corner of her clothes. She clenched her teeth and did not continue thinking further.
“The time left to us is not much. The battle formation is about to form. The best method for the present is to directly leave the battle formation.”
He Shu spoke thus and also acted thus.
She immediately set out toward Mu Xinlian’s direction, seized her hand in one grasp, and prepared to leave the battle formation.
In the instant just before the “Hard for Ordinary Men to Resist” battle formation was about to take shape, He Shu and the five of them escaped the battle formation in a hair-raising manner.
As the battle formation took shape, those cultivators who had the heart yet no time to flee the formation were all imprisoned within it and could no longer move!
After their hair-raising escape from the battle formation, He Shu and the five people each concealed their forms and hid among the pile of ordinary people at the foot of the mountain.
Aside from Mu Xinlian, the group were all Southwind undercover agents, extremely skilled in methods of concealing aura.
After disguising themselves as ordinary people, not a trace of aura leaked.
Although Mu Xinlian was a flaw, it did no great harm.
For before the battle formation assembled, there were also quite a number of cultivators who had detected the Grief Valley City Lord’s intent and fled the formation.
As the “Hard for Ordinary Men to Resist” battle formation took shape, a thin layer of golden light enveloped the bodies of the Grief Valley City Lord as well as several Golden Core cultivators.
Their auras were continuously climbing at a startling speed.
Within the battle formation the Grief Valley City Lord’s hair roots stood on end like a sea urchin.
His aura was unprecedentedly powerful, directly approaching the mid-stage of Soul Transformation!
Not only him—within the battle formation three more auras no weaker than the early stage of Nascent Soul rose as well.
“It must be said that although this formation’s side effects are not small, it is indeed quite exquisite.”
He Shu hid among the pile of ordinary people and, like many ordinary people, raised her head to the sky in amazement.
In reality her inner heart was far from as shocked as her surface appeared.
Methods like “Hard for Ordinary Men to Resist” that gathered the strength of large numbers of low-level cultivators to form powerful combat strength were extremely common in the cultivation world.
Many battle formations took this principle as their foundation.
Yet the “Hard for Ordinary Men to Resist” battle formation was uniquely inventive and somewhat more advanced, able to utilize these low-level cultivators more efficiently.
“Compared to a battle formation, the effect of Hard for Ordinary Men to Resist is actually more like a blood sacrifice.”