Chapter 272 - 269: Trap
"What’s going on?"
Xiaofeng stirred up a gale as it descended from the sky, landing beside the corpse of the Horned Ox Demon.
Shen Changchuan leaped down from Xiaofeng’s back.
His gaze fell upon Shen Shiyin and his group a short distance away. Their faces were stricken with panic, as if they had yet to recover from the earlier threat.
"You are... Nephew Changchuan?!"
Shen Shiyin snapped back to his senses, acting as if he had only just recognized Shen Changchuan.
He exclaimed with feigned surprise.
"Thank you for your help, Nephew!"
"We don’t know what happened either. We were just resting during our journey when this Horned Ox Demon suddenly burst out and attacked us. Fortunately, we had set up a perimeter, and with this simple Array’s help, we just barely survived."
"Thank goodness you intervened, Nephew. If that Horned Ox Demon had broken through the Array, I’m afraid today would have become our death anniversary..."
Shen Shiyin looked extremely emotional,
as if moved to tears of gratitude.
But for some reason,
Shen Changchuan felt that something was not quite right.
"It’s nothing. I just happened to receive a distress call from one of the Communication Talismans I handed out, so I came to take a look. I didn’t expect to run into this. Since we’re all of the Shen Family, it’s only natural to help out."
"You could say it was your good luck, Uncle. The Low Tier Communication Talismans I gave out back then only have a range of a hundred-li... It’s a good thing I was just passing by, otherwise this could have been a real disaster..."
Shen Changchuan said, his expression unreadable.
"Uh... this, was this the Communication Talisman you gave me? Ah, look at me, I must be getting old and muddled. To think I’d get flustered and make a mistake in a crisis, grabbing the wrong distress talisman. It must be a blessing from the heavens that you happened to be passing by, Nephew..."
Hearing this, Shen Shiyin froze for a moment, then slapped his forehead, his face a mask of regret.
He seemed vexed with himself for making such a Low Level mistake.
But before he could finish his sentence,
Shen Changchuan’s gaze suddenly sharpened,
and he abruptly raised his hand.
ZZNNG!
A cyan sword gleam suddenly erupted from his fingertips.
It tore through the vacuum, wrapped in an indomitable, sharp energy. In an instant, it swept across a dozen zhang and chopped down mightily toward Shen Shiyin’s head!
In that single instant,
the sky and earth seemed to be illuminated by that cyan light.
The sword gleam was so fast,
it seemed to make Time and space themselves freeze!
No one had expected Shen Changchuan to attack so suddenly, and they were all too stunned to react.
No,
even if they had anticipated it,
it would have made little difference.
No Cultivator below the Soul Emergence Realm could possibly dodge such a blow!
This was true for other Cultivators,
and even more so for Shen Shiyin and his group!
However,
BOOM!!!
The Cyan Wood Sword Light slammed into the Array’s light curtain.
It instantly triggered a terrifying explosive impact. A visible shockwave swept out in all directions,
and the ground cracked apart, a dense web of dark, visible fissures spreading out.
At the same time,
under the violent collision,
the Magic Array Light Curtain shook violently from the powerful attack. After holding for a breath or two, a dense network of cracks appeared, and then it shattered with a bang under the immense force!
However, using the precious moments bought by the Array,
Shen Shiyin and the others inside the Array reacted quickly.
They flew away to either side in terror,
dodging the direct edge of that terrifying cyan sword gleam!
But even so,
the gale created by the impact still sent them flying like ragdolls for over a dozen zhang, and the dispersing sharp Sword Momentum left bloody gashes on their bodies.
However,
Shen Changchuan, who had launched the sudden attack,
paid no attention whatsoever to Shen Shiyin and the others who had been sent flying.
He shot into the sky like a cannonball,
and with a single thought, commanded Xiaofeng to spread its wings and fly high.
He intended to use the chaos to soar into the sky!
But at that very moment,
WHOOSH!!!
A Magic Sword glowing with a brilliant white light appeared as if from beyond the heavens. It tore through the sky, carrying a majestic aura of power as it hurtled precisely toward Shen Changchuan!
The terrifying power of the aura it emanated
enveloped the entire sky in an instant!
Without a doubt,
this was the power of the Soul Emergence Level!
’So it wouldn’t be that easy...’
An intense sense of crisis washed over him, and Shen Changchuan sighed in his heart.
He had, of course, noticed that something was wrong.
It was a very simple line of reasoning.
’Who sends a distress call that only covers a hundred-li radius? And they used one of the Communication Talismans I left behind years ago. How did he know that I would be passing through this exact area and could come to help? And that excuse about getting flustered and making a mistake? What a joke. How could a Cultivator make such a simple error!’
That was why,
the very instant he realized it,
he had attacked!
And he had decisively ordered Xiaofeng to carry him away first.
But in the end, he was a step too late.
Or rather,
the moment he had Xiaofeng bring him down into the clearing, he had already fallen into the trap.
He was already too late!
Countless thoughts flashed through Shen Changchuan’s mind in a fraction of a second.
But despite facing a grave crisis,
he showed no signs of panic.
’There’s no need to panic over something I already expected.’
DONG!
With a deep, muffled sound,
the sky trembled.
A Bronze Bell rose from Shen Changchuan’s hand. Green runes lit up around its body as it rapidly expanded, sending out visible ripples, layer after layer, to meet the incoming sword light head-on!
RUMBLE!!!
As a dazzling light flared, a tremendous roar swept across heaven and earth. Visible white shockwaves rolled through the air, blasting out in every direction!
Shen Changchuan felt a powerful rebounding force.
His clothes were whipped into the air,
and Xiaofeng beneath him was tossed back a dozen zhang like a kite with a snapped string, tumbling in the shockwave!
’As expected of Soul Emergence Level power.’
This single strike
was astonishingly powerful, possessing a monumental force capable of toppling mountains and overturning seas.
It was almost impossible to resist.
Without the power of a Treasure Artifact,
Shen Changchuan feared he would have been severely injured, if not killed!
But thankfully,
there are no ’what ifs’ in this world.
Under the force of that terrifying collision,
the Magic Sword was also knocked away, sent spinning and flying back into the sky.
Its body was now incredibly dim, its surface having lost that terrifyingly sharp aura it had before.
At the same time, however,
as Shen Changchuan retracted the Bronze Bell,
he too was forced back down to the ground by the incomparably powerful rebound.
HUMMM!
Almost at the same instant,
light curtains rose up from all directions.
The Arrays intertwined,
at that moment sealing off every path of escape, to the sky above and the earth below.
Shen Changchuan was now completely trapped.
"As expected of the number one expert of the younger generation. You react so quickly. If we hadn’t prepared in advance, you really might have escaped..."