Chapter 274 - 261: [Four Seasons] Acquired
The Dark Silver Eye, condensed from the ninth evolution of Qi Yun’s [Omen Star Shining High], hung high in the Celestial Vault.
The entire Valley of No Life was shrouded beneath an invisible, oppressive pall of killing intent.
The [Evil Star] was without form or substance, projected upon the Celestial Vault—seeming both real and illusory, impossible to find.
Worse still, the descent of the Star Pillars followed no discernible pattern.
One moment, a Righteous Dao Master would be locked in a fierce battle with a Northwest Demon Cultivator, summoning the water veins in a fifty-mile radius to form myriad Ice Crystal Sword Dragons to shred his foe.
The very next instant, the gray fog overhead would suddenly part.
A dark silver Star Pillar, so condensed it seemed solid and hundreds of yards in diameter, would descend in silence, carrying a Dao Rhyme that could shatter the Ten Thousand Laws!
The balance of power was instantly shattered.
This completely unpredictable yet precisely lethal form of attack made all the Righteous Dao Masters feel as if they were wading through a briar patch of invisible spikes.
They had to take every step with the utmost caution, never daring to unleash their full power.
During Magical Combat, they always had to divert at least a third of their Heart and Spirit to watch the deathly still gray fog above.
"Damn it! Just where is this Demon hiding?!"
An Elder from the Vast Sect, clad in a Chi Yang Daoist Robe with nine scorching Fire Beads orbiting him, had just used the "Nine Yang Demon Refining True Flame" to force back two Northwest Masters.
Just as he was about to press his advantage, the sky above him darkened!
He looked up in horror, only to see a dark silver Star Pillar, thicker and more concentrated with Star Power than any he had seen before, descending right upon him!
Even before the Star Pillar arrived, a terrifying pressure bore down on him.
"Nine Yang Reincarnation, True Flame Body Protection!"
Elder Chi Yang roared, daring not to hold anything back. His nine Fire Beads merged as one, transforming into a scorching white sun a hundred yards in diameter that firmly shielded him.
Innumerable, intricate golden Dao Patterns flowed across the sun’s surface, emitting a Supreme Yang Dao Rhyme capable of incinerating all evil.
However, the moment the dark silver Star Pillar fell and collided with the scorching white sun, a cringe-inducing sound filled the air—the KREEEAK of glass being slowly ground to dust by a heavy hammer.
’Such immense Star Power?! It’s even stronger than the Secret Skills of the Celestial Star Sect!’ he thought, his mind reeling.
The stalemate lasted for less than three breaths before the protective sun shattered with a BOOM, scattering into a rain of fire.
Elder Chi Yang’s robes were scorched black and his aura was feeble. He instantly transformed into a crimson rainbow and fled for his life, no longer daring to fight on.
Similar scenes were constantly playing out all over the Valley of No Life.
"Fellow Daoists, guard your Heart and Spirit and form the ’Array of All Things Returning to the Origin’!
We can use this array to sense fluctuations in the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism, which might give us an early warning of those demonic Star Pillars!"
A Master from a Sect specializing in array deduction proposed loudly, his voice spreading in all directions via a Secret Skill.
Immediately, seven or eight Masters responded and quickly gathered. Each took their position and linked their Magical Power. A pale-green light barrier rapidly formed, covering several miles, its energy flowing in perfect harmony.
Innumerable tiny runes flowed across the light barrier’s surface like living things, constantly sensing and analyzing every fluctuation of the surrounding Spiritual Mechanism.
This method proved effective.
When the next dark silver Star Pillar descended from the Celestial Vault in the northeast,
The runes in the corresponding area on the pale-green light barrier suddenly brightened, emitting an urgent warning flash of Spiritual Light!
The Masters presiding over the array felt their Hearts and Spirits tense. They activated the array in unison, causing the light barrier to shift and condense a multi-layered, hundred-yard-thick bulwark of green light at the Star Pillar’s point of impact, forcibly halting its descent!
Though the barrier trembled violently and its Spiritual Light depleted rapidly, it had held!
"Excellent! It’s working!" The Masters in the array felt their spirits lift.
"Maintain the array, expand its range, and cover our fellow Daoists!" the leader shouted, hope rekindling in his eyes.
What they didn’t know, however, was that fifty miles away, hidden deep within an underground Array Domain, Qi Yun had witnessed the entire scene through the [Evil Star].
’Oh? Trying to use an array for early detection and concentrated defense?’
The corners of Qi Yun’s mouth lifted slightly, a glint of dark silver starlight in his eyes.
’Not a bad idea. A shame, really...’
His Heart Thought stirred. The next instant, deep within the [Evil Star] hanging high above, the trajectory of the flowing Star Power shifted with infinitesimal subtlety.
The third Star Pillar still descended from the Celestial Vault.
But its target was neither the heavily defended crown of the ’Array of All Things Returning to the Origin’ nor its weaker edges.
Instead, it was one of the most critical "anchor points" connecting the array’s light barrier to the Earth Veins below.
It was a subtle "choke point" in the flow of the array’s Spiritual Power—a seam of discord created where the array forcibly siphoned the Spiritual Mechanism from the Earth Veins, disrupting its natural circulation.
The Star Pillar fell in utter silence.
It didn’t attack the light barrier directly, but precisely poured into that tiny "seam."
Like molten iron injected into the most fragile joint of a glass vessel.
KRA-CHA—
A faint, almost inaudible crack exploded deep within the Divine Souls of the Masters maintaining the array!
Immediately after, the entire pale-green light barrier of the ’Array of All Things Returning to the Origin’ began to twist and ripple violently, like a canopy that had been stripped of its frame.
The flowing runes across its surface dimmed and crumbled away in great patches!
The array’s Spiritual Power backlashed. The seven or eight Masters inside grunted in unison, their auras thrown into chaos.
"Oh no! The array is broken!"
At the very instant the array collapsed,
the fourth, fifth, and sixth dark silver Star Pillars struck. Like vipers that had long been lying in wait, they descended from three different directions with near-perfect timing, their paths intersecting as they fell!
Their targets: the three Masters within the formation whose auras were weakest, their Magical Power already disrupted by the backlash!
"Demon, how dare you!"
The cries of alarm and roars of fury were cut short.