Sovereign to Immortality

Chapter 264 – Escape

The six groups of Heaven-Shaken Sect cultivators surrounded the strongholds at the borders of the three counties. In the end, they had paid the price of nearly twenty people dead and injured, compared to the Opening Spirit School cultivators guarding the strongholds, and had even paid the price of being the leader of the tenth group. The inner sect disciple of the Heaven-Shaken Sect, Elder Peng Yuan, had accidentally fell into the trap of the protection arrays at the strongholds, and died from being besieged and attacked by the Opening Spirit School cultivators.

Although his final goal had already been achieved, and the fall of the Opening Spirit School’s stronghold meant that the Heaven-Shaken Sect’s side had actually taken control of most of the region of the Sunset Ridge, such a battle record, when compared to the battle at the entrance of the Sunset Ridge, was obviously insignificant.

Although the protection array of the Opening Spirit School stronghold was also a spirit array, and was the same level as the magnetic light’s, the power the two of them displayed was obviously different.

The great array formation that Yang Junshan had set up at the entrance of the Sunset Ridge, although Liu Zhifei and the others had been trying to buy time for him, it had only allowed the array to take shape, and was simply too hasty and crude when compared to the complete spirit formation.

Moreover, the strength of the array would depend on the cultivation of the person who laid it out. The array’s arrangement seemed to be just the arrangement of some equipment and the drawing of the array patterns, but in reality, it was closely related to the cultivation of the person who laid the array. There were some key points regarding the strength of the array, and only cultivators at a certain level of cultivation would be able to handle them, so with Yang Junshan’s cultivation at the second level of martial arts realm, he would naturally be at a disadvantage.

The third point, however, was the cultivation level of the person in charge of the formation. From this, Yang Junshan had just set up the great magnetic light Formation, other than him, no one else would be able to direct it; and the formation at the Opening Spirit School stronghold definitely had its own formation diagrams, so the person in charge of the formation was definitely a cultivator at the late stage of the martial arts realm.

There was no doubt that the formations in the Opening Spirit School’s stronghold were different. They were definitely arrays similar to the Immovable Mountains Formation, which waure defense formation, but Yang Junshan’s magnetic light Formation was inclined towards killing cultivators who were trapped in the formation. After suffering a strong impact, the rate of collapse was even faster than the defense formation itself.

In a valley behind the Western Mountain, this place had already been transformed by Yang Tiangang intlace specially used for training sacred art. People who had just advanced into the late stage of Mortal Realm in the village would often be seen rushing here to practice sacred art.

She did not even have the slightest interest in playing, she only stared at Yang Junshan, who was practicing his sacred art nonstop over thirty meters away, yet had turned herself into a mess from head to toe.

No wonder people said that the Earth Escape Technique was ranked second in the Spirit Stage Escape Technique. However, in terms of difficulty, it had to be ranked first!

A while ago, Yang Junshan, as a Frontier Cultivator, stayed at the border. Normally, he would patrol and defend with the other members of the squad, and even though he did not dare to slack off in his cultivation, the Earth Escape Technique was after all, no small matter. Even though Yang Junshan had studied this half of the inheritance at all times, he had never actually started cultivating.

The reason why he asked Liu Zhifei for three months of leave, aside from wanting to avoid direct conflict between Liu Zhifei and the other inner sect disciples of the Heaven-Shaken Sect as much as possible, was because he wanted to train properly during this period of time.

Although this half of the spirit art inheritance was unable to allow him to escape underground, logically speaking, he should be able to go in and out of the ground. However, Yang Junshan had been cultivating in the valley every afternoon for the past month, but the progress was extremely slow.

Yang Junshan simply threw aside all thoughts he had in his head about the inheritance of the spirit technique, and sat on the ground, thinking of nothing else, his entire person disappearing into the void, and the rest of the afternoon passed by quickly.

Seeing that, Hu Niu felt even more bored, she opened her mouth and yawned, then stood up and wobbled to the west mountain. By this time, Bao Yuer should have brought back the latest news from the border, she wanted to first stop Bao Yuer, or else Bao Yuer would have directly found this place and disturbed Yang Junshan’s cultivation.

The butterfly was swept up by the air current spewed out by the tiger’s mouth, and while flapping its wings in panic, it landed in a furry location, but was unable to fly anymore. It could only stop flying above Hu Niu’s head, and its two huge wings occasionally opened and closed, as though it was carrying a lifelike butterfly hairpin.

Yang Junshan seemed to have returned to the very beginning of his life, as he wandered about in complete chaos. He seemed to have caught onto something in an instant, but it seemed as if he vaguely couldn’t grab onto anything at all.

At this time, within a thirty meter radius of the valley’s Yang Junshan, layers upon layers of soil had been extracted from the ground, and were converging towards Yang Junshan’s location as if they were alive. However, from the moment his body came into contact with the ground, they gradually extended up to his legs, dantian, and chest, all the way until his entire person was covered by mud, and formed a short mound.

But that was not the end of it. When Yang Junshan’s entire person was wrapped in a layer of soil and formed a small mound, the mound started to descend slowly, and the slope between the mound and the surrounding ground started to become even gentler, so much so that the height of the mound was no longer as high as when Yang Junshan was sitting on the ground earlier. However, Yang Junshan did not reveal himself the entire time, as if he had already disappeared within the mound.

The mound continued to descend, all the way until it disappeared, it was the same as the surrounding ground, but Yang Junshan was nowhere to be seen, the night had already started to fall, the night wind was blowing on the vegetation in the valley, making “shua shua” sounds, adding to the strangeness of the valley!

At this moment, Yang Junshan was still completely focused on grabbing onto something, and gradually, he felt that the reason he was unable to grab onto that thing, was because he was bound. Thus, he wanted to struggle free, as if he wanted to struggle free from a chaotic place, in order to truly understand what exactly it was that he wanted to grab onto.

Once, twice, many times Yang Junshan was stunned, as if he had finally grasped something that he had always wanted to grasp. His entire being suddenly became clear and bright, and everything in front of him and behind suddenly became clear, as his spiritual consciousness instantly expanded outwards.

Within these seven feet of him, however, was a feeling of heaviness, suffocation, and safety …

Yang Junshan instantly understood that the reason he was underground right now was because he was being carried away by the mud into the ground!

At the very least, it was as if he had unintentionally succeeded in cultivating the Earth Escape Technique when he was underground!

However, what should he do next? He couldn’t just stay in the underground world and not come out. If that happened, wouldn’t he be suffocated?

The contents of the half of the Earth Escape Technique he had previously learnt flickered in his mind. The part that was originally obscure had now been completely digested and mastered by him, and the other half was completely under his control.

With a slight thought, the soil around him started to squirm, causing Yang Junshan’s entire being to retreat upwards. In the middle, he did not feel any obstruction at all, and the suffocating feeling from before also disappeared in an instant.

On the ground, Yang Junshan’s head was the first to crawl out. But to him, it felt as if the surrounding soil was moving of its own volition, and gave him a space that was tight enough for his head to crawl out of. However, as his body rose up, the soil on the ground also continued to expand and shrink, as if he had grown out of the ground.

When Yang Junshan came out of the ground, the ground had also returned to normal. However, he was completely clean, and did not look like he did when he was training.

Even if she had succeeded in her cultivation, although it was only half a portion of the spirit art inheritance, allowing it to enter and exit the ground by itself, it was still impossible for her to escape from the ground. Furthermore, with Yang Junshan’s current cultivation level, he could only barely support her escaping twenty feet into the ground.

However, Yang Junshan had some thoughts, it seemed that the Earth Escape Technique was indeed the same as what Spiritual Master Chen Ji had mentioned before, and was extremely closely linked to the technique. Especially in the process of entering the ground, it was similar to the technique.

No matter what, being able to cultivate half of a spirit technique’s ability iappy thing, but Yang Junshan’s happiness did not last long, and after returning to the village, it was destroyed by the news that Bao Yuer brought back.

“What? Jiu Li is injured? How are his injuries?”

Amongst the three Martial Realm Cultivator s who had joined the border guards, was the weakest. However, Jiu Li was a member of the Shaman Tribe after all, so he had some strange divine abilities and secret techniques, and in the past half year, both Jiu Li and Jiu Li had participated in border conflicts several times. Not only were the two of them not injured, but they had also displayed strength that was far stronger than cultivators of the same cultivation level during the battle.

“Her injuries are not serious. I heard that she was injured while chasing after a bunch of mysterious cultivators that appeared at the border. Furthermore, Sister Jiu Li said that you know the person that injured her!”

In this period of time, even though Yang Junshan was recuperating and cultivating in seclusion in Xishan Village, the news of the border had not stopped. In less than two or three days, Bao Yuer had already reported what happened at the border to Yang Junshan.