Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 214: Who Shall Be the Oriole?

“This is the Aquaglory Incarnation spell! Watch out!” Meng Shixue shouted in shock.

She primarily cultivated ice and snow, so she had a deep understanding of the Aquaglory Incarnation spell. Water had no fixed form and was famed for being soft and pliable, able to take on any shape. The Aquaglory Incarnation was a way to use magic power to convert what was as soft as silk into well-tempered steel, harnessing the power of ice and snow to reforge the body and greatly boost one’s close-combat ability.

The Frost Fairy had lost the ice palace, and the students would not give her a chance to cast any spells, so she had opted for a more forceful approach.

As her body expanded in size, her speed also increased, and she began to flit around like a ghost. She drew back her sword and howled as she rushed at another student. “I’ll kill you first!”

The student raised his sword to block, and ice rapidly spread along the sword and froze him solid. The Frost Fairy thrust out a palm and obliterated the ice statue.

Numerous weapons hacked at the Frost Fairy, and she rapidly backed away. Two giant ice wolves emerged from behind her. She had summoned these and hidden them before using the Aquaglory Incarnation.

As the ice wolves rushed out, the Frost Fairy turned attention to another person. “And now I’ll kill you!”

In a flash of icy brilliance, another person was slain.

Her arrogance and savagery buoyed by her success, she pointed her sword at none other than Peng Yaolong.

Peng Yaolong roared and punched, producing gusts so strong that the ice sword couldn’t get near his body.

He was proficient in both spells and the body, and possessed incredible strength. If it weren’t for Tang Jie, there would be no one else in Basking Moon Academy that cultivated the body to such a level. While the sharpness of the ice sword could do nothing to him, as the sword slashed, a sliver of its icy and sharp energy flicked across Peng Yaolong’s skin. With a shift of his blood energy, its traces were instantly wiped away.

Even so, Peng Yaolong still felt his entire body go stiff, and he inwardly marveled at the power of the ice sword. He rapidly backed away, and two black gauntlets appeared on his hands.

With these gauntlets, Peng Yaolong had finally revealed all of his strength. As he punched, two powerful gusts of wind shot at the Frost Fairy like pillars.

The Frost Fairy paled at the impact. “Drawing on energy to achieve substantialization! So you’re already capable of entering Mortal Shedding!”

“Of course! I was waiting for exactly this day!” Peng Yaolong crazily laughed.

It turned out that Peng Yaolong was already capable of substantializing energy. All he needed was to erect his Heaven-Earth Bridge to enter Mortal Shedding. At this stage, he was essentially one step away.

He naturally couldn’t have attained this level just today. Peng Yaolong must have reached this level long ago but had been suppressing himself the entire time.

For Peng Yaolong, while the Spirit Platform Realm and Mortal Shedding Realm were two different realms, entering Mortal Shedding meant ascending to a new level, and Peng Yaolong was far too weak to dominate that level.

Suppressing one’s power level temporarily to ensure one’s advantage wasn’t rare at all.

Li Huanian had done it before, as had many other students.

Until they reached a certain level of strength, many people were willing to be a chicken’s head rather than a phoenix’s tail, and only those who lacked strength would desperately pursue higher realms. As for people like Peng Yaolong, they always pursued what was to their greatest advantage.

It was precisely because he hadn’t entered Mortal Shedding that he could vie for the True Inheritor position and become the strongest of the contenders.

Even so, he had still called Meng Shixue over to help him, showing just how cautious and composed he was.

He now attacked with all his power, drawing energy into seething spiritual storms. While he couldn’t link with the heavens and earth, he was already capable of moving the spiritual flows and wielding them like extensions of his limbs. Moreover, he was a close-combat expert, and with these storms he stirred up, he managed to block the Frost Fairy’s attack.

Meng Shixue and the others assisted from the side, and for a moment, the Frost Fairy was unable to counterattack.

While the Frost Fairy was strengthened by the Aquaglory Incarnation, she was still not innately skilled in close combat. In a fight against Peng Yaolong, she was still at a disadvantage, even with the ice sword.

Peng Yaolong grew stronger and stronger, but at this moment, Ye Tianshang flew out, thrusting his sword at Peng Yaolong’s back.

Meng Shixue paled, “Yaolong, watch out!”

Peng Yaolong immediately turned around and punched, striking the tip of Ye Tianshang’s sword. His sword bent, and the enormous blow sent Ye Tianshang flying.

But this distraction gave the Frost Fairy a chance, and her ice sword sent out a white ray that struck Peng Yaolong.

Not even Peng Yaolong’s Apex Combat True Astral was able to stop the intrusion of icy power. He was sent flying, and as ice began to form on his body, he was rendered incapable of standing.

“Bastard!” Peng Yaolong yelled in fury.

He had never imagined that Ye Tianshang would still have the strength to ambush him. A single mistake had caused a complete loss.

Icy winds stirred, and with another slash, another student was slain.

By now, almost all the students had been slain, and there was almost no one left who could stand. Only Meng Shixue had not been seriously wounded, and it was impossible for her to fight the Frost Fairy alone.

Seeing that everyone had been felled, the ice sprite madly laughed. “You humans are so strong and intelligent, but you have one problem: you can’t work together. I’m still the winner of this battle!”

After defeating all these elites, she didn’t fear any more students, no matter how many came.

At this moment, a voice said, “Is that so? I wouldn’t be so certain.”

A person slowly stood up.

“Tang Jie?” Peng Yaolong and Meng Shixue cried out in alarm.

The speaker was none other than Tang Jie.

He was covered in blood, but he was standing up like he was perfectly fine and coldly staring at the ice sprite.

“With just you? After being so badly injured, can you still even move?” The ice sprite hysterically laughed.

Tang Jie looked at his body and shook his head. “If you had these injuries, you might already be dead. But… I’m different.”

He had truly been rather badly injured, but after faking death for a while, he was much better. Although he was still injured, if he went all-out, he could still fight.

The Heartbreak Saber whistled as it was swung, proving that he still had the strength to fight.

Meng Shixue was delighted, yelling, “Junior Brother Tang, let’s work together and kill this ice sprite first.”

Just like the ice sprite, while she had powerful ice spells, she wasn’t good at close combat. Her usual fighting style was to have Peng Yaolong cover her while she attacked with spell arts.

But now that Peng Yaolong was injured, she immediately tried to get Tang Jie’s help, showing her quick wits.

Moreover, Peng Yaolong was also a body refiner, like Tang Jie to a certain extent. So long as he was given time, he could rapidly recover, and by then, it was hard to say who would win.

“Alright!” Tang Jie shouted. He fired an Energy Needle at the Frost Fairy while rushing up in front of Meng Shixue.

Meng Shixue was ecstatic to see that he had agreed to cooperate and hurried to move behind Tang Jie.

But the moment she got behind Tang Jie, Peng Yaolong shouted, “Shixue, watch out!”

“What?” Meng Shixue was startled as she saw Tang Jie turned around and thrust a palm at her chest.

Bang!

This palm shocked her organs, and Meng Shixue vomited blood as she flew backward. She crashed to the ground and was unable to get back up. “Tang Jie, you…”

Meng Shixue’s eyes were almost bursting out of their sockets. She truly couldn’t understand why Tang Jie had attacked her.

“My apologies, Senior Sister Meng, but I won’t be needing you for this battle,” Tang Jie coldly said as he slowly drew back his hand.

“Hahaha!” the ice sprite laughed as she charged up. Tang Jie had his back to her, and all she needed to do was stab him. With her freezing power, it wouldn’t matter how formidable he was.

Tang Jie didn’t turn around, only coldly laughed.

As this cold laughter rang out in the Frost Fairy’s ears, she felt an intense sense of danger welling up within her.

She knew that this was bad, but she no longer had time to dodge.

Thud!

A pitch-black hand suddenly reached out and grabbed her by the chest, holding her aloft.

“Aaah!” the Frost Fairy screamed.

She tried to turn around and strike with her sword, but she couldn’t no matter how hard she tried.

Turning her head, she saw a particularly large being wrapped all over in black cloth that concealed its face.

“This… how… could it be…” the Frost Fairy muttered.

She had only seen students coming in.

Why?

Why was there something like this in the Frigid Pond?

And how had it been hiding in the Frigid Pond for so long?

As the questions flitted through her mind, Tang Jie swiftly turned around and swung the Heartbreak Saber down, lopping off her arm.

“I won’t die here!” the sprite screamed. Heavily injured, she used the strongest power she had. A moment later, an icy light exploded from her body, sweeping through the area and throwing back both Tang Jie and the mysterious being behind her.

The winds tore away the black cloth, allowing the sprite to see what was underneath. “So it was a ghost…”

“RAAA!” Tang Jie furiously roared, drowning out the ice sprite’s words. At the same time, he sent out two bursts of wind with his palms, knocking out Peng Yaolong and Meng Shixue.

The being covered in black cloth was none other than the Ghost Guard that Tang Jie had created. Long before this, when Long Dao had ambushed him, he had summoned this ghost and ordered it to hide underwater and look for a chance to make a sneak attack. When An Rumeng had pursued him into the water, it was the ghost that had forced her back out.

Now, the Ghost Guard charged up and clawed at the sprite.

The ice sword slashed down, striking the Ghost Guard in the arm, but a moment later, the other claw stabbed into her body.

The Ghost Guard had been refined from an ape fiend, and as a Ghost Guard, its attacks were so sharp and vicious that even Tang Jie’s Formless Golden Body found it difficult to block them. The sprite was simply helpless.

One strike was enough to pulp all her organs.

The sprite screamed as she stabbed the ice sword again into the ghost’s body. Click! Crack! The ghost was completely frozen.

But as she thrust out the sword, an arm thrust into her body.

This time, the hand belonged to Tang Jie.

“Ugh!” The sprite threw up blood as Tang Jie’s arm pierced through her body. This hand had seized at the greatest weak point in her body: the sprite core.

“No…” The Frost Fairy moaned in despair.

With a pull, he extracted the sprite core from her body.

Tang Jie threw the ice sprite aside, and the light in her eyes rapidly dimmed. Before she could even hit the ground, she had dissolved into ice and snow, leaving only that ice sword clattering on the ground.

The Frost Fairy was dead!

Once this was done, Tang Jie exhaled.

The Frost Fairy had truly been difficult to deal with. Even in these circumstances, she had made one last counterattack, her ice sword severely damaging the Ghost Guard.

If Tang Jie had the time, he could have repaired the Ghost Guard.

But after thinking about it, he decided to give it up.

He walked up and lightly pressed a palm on the ghost’s ice statue. Bang! The ghost exploded into little bits that disappeared into the Frigid Pond.

The ghost had completed its mission.

Seeing that there was no one conscious around, Tang Jie threw out the golden thread and collected the Icecloud Flowers and Chillshade Grass, after which he got back his Mustard Seed Bag and softly said, “It’s over.”

He turned and left through another passage.