Something seemed to halt, and the man’s half-recovered body began to disintegrate into ash. The plane’s will, which had been attacking the transcendent constantly, had done its job. The lightning let up, and Cha Ming looked up at the men around him. He activated his combat formation, unleashing a storm of blades as he slashed out with one last staff strike. They couldn’t avoid it. Dozens of peak blood masters were instantly reduced to ashes.
Cha Ming collapsed to one knee. He took out a vial from the Clear Sky World and popped three pills into his mouth. The one meant to replenish his vitality stores rushed into the voids in his bones, refilling the void network that had been purged of excess energy. His damaged body healed, while the second and third pills worked to replenish his qi stores. He filled his qi stores up to two-thirds capacity, after which the effects of the pills ended. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t possible to instantly restore everything he’d expended. He would need to cultivate to recover any further.
That was too close, Cha Ming thought. His vitality stores had dipped down to ten percent, a razor-thin margin between life and death. The half-transcendent vitality-replenishing pill he’d crafted on his spare time only managed to refill that margin to a third of his full capacity.
Ignoring the pain that came with healing, Cha Ming made his way to an unscorched section on the monastery training grounds. He took out his Clear Sky Brush, willing it to transform into a carving knife, then cut a message into the stone. Satisfied with a job well done, he walked off the platform toward the exit, leaving only blood and ruin behind him. When he left the shield of gray, a loud explosion greeted him, a familiar roar he’d heard months ago.
Feng Ming coughed and gagged as acrid smoke filled the air. He shivered as he pondered what might have happened if he hadn’t decided to run just prior to the device’s activation. Wasn’t it meant to shoot toward Bastion Wall? Fortunately, his instincts had warned him just in time. The device hadn’t operated as expected; in fact, he suspected it had been sabotaged. The resulting explosion of fire and magical shrapnel had laid waste to his surroundings.
The entire east wing of the palace he’d taken refuge in was completely demolished. Only a small stub remained of the grand building. The servants and guests that hadn’t been disintegrated by the explosion lay dead or dying, most of their corpses missing limbs. The destruction was unlike anything Feng Ming had ever seen in his life. His karma, he’d noticed, had taken a substantial hit from triggering the explosion. Even though they were on the other side, the evil side, killing innocents was not acceptable.
His heart hurt as he realized just how many non-cultivators had worked in the palace. They weren’t servants—no, cultivators were better suited for such roles in the palace. But those in the palace had families, and not every family member was a cultivator. Wives, children, and even husbands of powerful women had all been obliterated in a fraction of a second.
The place where the weapon had exploded was now an empty crater. It wasn’t a perfect circle, but an ellipse that traveled north toward the wall. There, a deep gouge had been torn in the seemingly impenetrable bastion against the Shattered Lands. With the tear came a draining sensation, a miasma that tugged at Feng Ming’s vitality. He was no slouch; he’d dabbled in body cultivation when convenient, but lesser mortals wouldn’t last very long under the strain. Maybe a day at most, and this was only the beginning. It was no wonder the South had built a massive wall to contain it.
“Who dares trespass in this royal palace!” a voice reverberated all around him.
Not wanting to be caught, Feng Ming ducked behind some rubble and suppressed his strength, shielding himself with powerful resplendent force.
A man flew up from the central palace. Dressed in regal yellow robes and wearing a golden crown that matched them, it was easy to deduce who this man was: the king of the Ji Kingdom, Ji Lingtian. He wore a dreadful gold-and-red sword at his waist, and every garment he wore bore a thick treasure aura. Feng Ming itched to grab just one of them and run off, but his brain wrested control away from his heart before he could act on the impulse.
“You must be out there, little rat,” the king said, looking around. He flicked his sleeve, and the sword at his waist disappeared, reappearing just in time to crash into a segment of unbroken wall. “You’re close. I can feel it.” Another flick, another segment broken.
It’s only a matter of time before he finds me, Feng Ming thought. He had to escape, but rushing out of the palace through the entrance was far too obvious. So was escaping into the city, where he’d just learned many powerful individuals were staying. To the north, then? Another wall segment shattered, and he took a gamble. Masking his presence, he flew through the crack, leaving an enraged king to pick through the rest of the rubble.
The wall, it turned out, was surprisingly thick. A full hundred feet thick, it should have been impossible to destroy in a single strike. Even a peak demon monarch would have trouble piercing it. Yet the explosion Feng Ming had unwittingly triggered had unleashed devastation on the structure. It seemed, upon initial observation, that the device
