Chapter 278


    <h4>The Lion’s Den</h4>


    It was one thing to go up against an army of greedy Cultivators, but another thing altogether to go up against an entire legion of indestructible arhats . And to make matters worse, he was running out of time . ording to thema, the ritual had been going on for quite some time now .


    Chan’er would die if he didn’t hurry .


    Li Yundong soared higher above the ground, moving his hands at the same time .


    Aim for the pagoda .


    He didn’t really have to fight the arhats; he just had tond a hit on the pagoda to disrupt the ritual .


    "Om mani padme hum!"


    The Intelligent Fist Mudra flew out from his hands .


    Come on,e on, hit!


    The arhats’ shifted into a new formation; those guarding the pagoda’s lower floors suddenly moved upwards while the one floating near the top floors moved aside to make space for the iing arhats .


    The arhats were closing ranks around the sixth floor .


    The mudra rammed into the arhats’ new formation, sending dazzling rays everywhere . Li Yundong himself was thrown away slightly by the impact . By the time he regained his bnce and opened his eyes, he saw the arhats pushing back against the mudra . A few arhats in the frontline eventually disintegrated, but those behind them quickly moved forward to fill in the gap .


    The arhats were literally throwing themselves in front of the mudra .


    The mudra waned before it could reach the sixth floor .


    The arhats suddenly went into offensive mode, their snarling faces flying towards him at full speed .


    Shit!


    Li Yundong slipped sideways and narrowly avoided being head-butted by an angry arhat . Another group of arhats flocked above his head, but instead of attacking, they were just hovering above him . He realized then what these arhats were trying to do: forcing him to the ground where the giant arhat awaited him .


    Inference: the giant arhat couldn’t fly .


    Li Yundong avoided another flurry of attacks, dodging from side to side . The Fan of Seven Treasures remained close to him, covering his six, tearing to shreds any arhat who got too close . A small group of arhats were guarding the pagoda while the rest of them attacked him, trying to force him to the ground .


    At one point, it was all he could do to just defend himself; he couldn’t even fight back against the arhats .


    There were just too many of them .


    Every time he tried to form a mudra, the attacking arhats would crowd him from all sides, forcing him to defend himself . If he sacrificed defense in favor of chanting the mantra (required to use the mudras), he would either get punched in the face or have his hands forced apart by those arhats . The Fan of Seven Treasures was there to defend him, of course, but they were still severely outnumbered .


    An arhat rammed into his shoulder from behind . He spiraled around a few times before he managed to regain his bnce . Two more wereing at him from both sides . He avoided the one on the left, but the other one got him in the leg . The blow sent him tumbling to God knows where .


    Even the small guys pack a punch, he thought as he righted himself with Qi control .


    More arhats flocked towards him from above .


    Oh shit...


    A dozen of palm-shaped auras rained down upon him, forcing him to zip around to avoid them . At one point he slipped up and actually got hit by one of those auras . The blow nearly made him drop out of the sky .


    Great . These arhats could use mudras as well .


    The talismans .


    He had to take out those talismans . When he was dodging around earlier, he saw a number of arhats absorbing golden strings from those talismans to regenerate the parts on their body that had been hacked off by the Fan of Seven Treasures .


    "Come on!"


    Li Yundong made a series of maneuvers from left to right, feinting and dodging . Eventually, he saw an opening and broke free from the throng of arhats crowding him .


    Yes!


    He reoriented himself so that he was facing the metal wires .


    No dice .


    Another squadron of arhats had cut off his path . The arhats were now swooping down at him from above . Li Yundong was forced to double back .


    Damn... So many of them...


    He grunted when an arhat (or maybe two, he couldn’t even tell) struck him on the back . He swerved to his right, bending at his waist to avoid several mudras aimed at his face . There was a loud crack, like a heavy object being smashed into the ground . Something was obviously happening on the ground, but he honestly didn’t have enough mental resources to figure out what it was . At one point he did steal a nce at the ground, but all he saw were arhats flying around .


    Something crashed into his left hip . He cartwheeled in the air . The surrounding arhats used his momentary distraction andnded more blows on him . Out of sheer desperation, he raised his arms to guard his face while using Qi Kinesis to defend against any rear attacks .


    A gust of wind blew in from his left . He lowered his arms and saw the Fan of Seven Treasures fighting off arge group of arhats on his left . More arhats were flying in, but the fan’s arrival had disrupted the arhat’s formation enough for him to form a mudra without being attacked .


    "Namah samanta vajranam ham!"


    The repulsive force blew the surrounding arhats away . Without the arhats blocking his view, he realized that he’d been forced away from the pagoda . Now he would have to fight through a sea of arhats to get close to the pagoda again .


    No . He needed something long-range, preferably something big . That way he could attack the pagoda even from afar .


    The arhats had regrouped and were now charging at him again . The Fan of Seven Treasures snapped open, ready for the next bout .


    "Namah samanta vajranam ham!"


    The arhats were blown away .


    Li Yundong switched to another mudra .


    Amoghasiddhi’s Mudra: The Heavenly Drum!


    "Namah samanta buddhanam ham hah svaha!"


    Ripples formed in the air . The arhats closest to Li Yundong suddenly closed ranks, nting their bodies in the path of the shockwaves .


    The shockwaves tore through the arhats’ defense and crashed into the pagoda .


    "What...?"


    Li Yundong stared at the pagoda in shock . The shockwaves were gone; the pagoda had just absorbed them like they were nothing .


    But how? He was certain that the pagoda was constructed of wood . So how could it withstand shockwaves of such magnitude?


    Was it another spell?


    Was the pagoda immune to physical attacks?


    The arhats were closing in again .


    Li Yundong growled . "Namah samanta vajranam ham!" The repulsive force blew away arge group of arhat, giving him a good view of the ground . He scanned the ground for signs of thema .


    Take out the spell caster, and the spell ends . Makes sense .


    Hey buddy, he told the Fan of Seven Treasures telepathically while his eyes continued to scan the ground . Help me look for thema .


    Arhats, arhats, arhats . These things were everywhere .


    "Namah samanta vajranam ham!"


    Another batch of arhats were flung away .


    The Fan of Seven Treasures suddenly shot down in a particr direction .


    You found him? he asked the fan . The fan didn’t respond, so he took off after it .


    There you are...


    He saw thema spinning his prayer beads near the edge of the forest .


    The Fan of Seven Treasures swatted away a bunch of arhats who were trying to get in its way . As they began to close in on thema, Li Yundong thought he saw a smirk on thema’s lips .


    Take him out, buddy .


    The Fan of Seven Treasures swooped down .


    ZING!


    More arhats rose from the ground . A few of them flew upwards to cut off the fan’s path; the remaining ones formed a circle around thema .


    No you don’t!


    Li Yundong quickly formed a mudra . "Om mani—" The rest of the mantra turned into a scream when he felt a hard object ram into his stomach . His body spun around in the air until he eventually lost control of his Zhenqi and crashed into the ground .


    He rolled to his side and groaned . What the heck was that? That felt totally different from the arhats’ usual attacks .


    He blinked his eyes opened and felt his stomach drop .


    Man... Seriously?


    The big arhat looked even bigger now, so much bigger than he remembered . And it was wielding some kind of long, metal pole . No . It wasn’t a pole . It was a staff . A long, golden staff, which may or may not be capable of spells .


    Crap .


    The arhats from the pagoda swooped down from the sky, dozens and dozens of them . The golden staff suddenly extended and struck him in the chest . The blow sent him flying . When his back crashed into a tree secondster, he realized that he’d just been forced back into the forest . Li Yundong flew out of the forest to rejoin the battle, but a mob of smaller arhats were waiting for him near the edge of the forest .


    "Namah—"


    Something struck him in the head, and he fell . The pain from the blow was so great that he didn’t even feel the impact when his body crashed into the ground . He coughed and forced his eyes open . He realized then that he was lying on his stomach, and the ground directly under his face was covered in blood . His blood .


    Suddenly, his hands were yanked to the sides and then pinned to the ground .


    He looked up and saw therge, staff-wielding arhat walking towards him . Behind it stood a legion of smaller arhats with menacing scowls . The Fan of Seven Treasures was putting up a good fight against arge squadron somewhere near thema, but its efforts appeared as fruitless as his own—the arhats’ bodies kept regenerating after the fan tore them to shreds .


    He shut his eyes and tried to search his mind for atha’s voice .


    Nothing .


    Was atha watching him right now? He must be . He himself had told him so .


    atha was watching, but he wasn’t speaking .


    Li Yundong opened his eyes, resigned to the fact that he was on his own this time .