Chapter 655 - The Asura Field Descends
Before Li Qingshan, the three Foundation Establishment cultivators basically stood no chance at all. Their lives were ended with a single swing of Li Qingshan’s sword. Even Foundation Establishment cultivators were like that, so Qi Practitioners were obviously even worse off. They wandered through the maze, only to return to Li Qingshan in the end.
The last stroke slid past a Qi Practitioner’s throat with a scarlet splash of blood.
With that, all of the lackeys Si Qing had sent in had been massacred. Li Qingshan felt satisfied inside and began laughing out loud. His battle intent surged, and his murderousness soared, but it also merged with the Dragon Arena unbeknownst to him.
Suddenly, the entire Dragon Arena shuddered.
Li Qingshan’s laughter stopped. All he saw was the colour of blood in the sky grow even heavier, completely turning blood-red from the original azure-blue. It began to spin slowly, forming a blood-red swirl and constantly spreading out into the surroundings until it filled the entire sky.
Shouts inaudible to the ear rang out from the very depths of the swirl, which could only be heard with the heart.
It was like an army of millions engaging in a bloody battle in the wilderness. There were no allies, only enemies. No one feared. No one retreated. They only constantly swung their weapons and advanced, fighting until a single person remained, standing on the battlefield and enjoying the glorious victory alone, letting out a hysterical bellow at the sky.
Every single person who heard the shouts would tremble from the depths of their souls, both out of fear and desire.
In his sea of consciousness, the tiger demon suddenly let out a growl. The desire to fight and kill suddenly became extremely intense. He was willing to fight anyone and anything to experience the hot-bloodedness and vigour of life as if this were the meaning to all existence.
Li Qingshan raised an eyebrow. The spirit turtle released a calming and serene aura, comforting and diluting this desire to kill. At the same time, he used the Demon Suppression Statuary, making the demon heart devour all of the irrepressible demonic nature. This was basically the best nourishment the demon heart could receive. Only like that did he manage to forcefully suppress the tiger demon.
This is the power from the Asura realm! The Dragon Arena is currently being converted into an Asura Field! Originally, I thought ending the battles could stop Si Qing from refining the Asura Field, but I didn’t think he’d still end up succeeding.
Li Qingshan understood what was going on. He had once projected his soul sense into the Hungry Ghost realm, one of the six realms of sa?sāra. At the time, the absolute deathly stillness had shocked him. That was the urging of an entire world.
Little did he know that it was exactly his power in the end that facilitated this conversion. The quality of the battle intent and murderousness the tiger demon gave off completely exceeded what regular cultivators could provide, which were the exact resources that refining an Asura Field needed the most. They were like a key, opening the gates to the Asura realm and allowing the Asura Field to descend.
Oh no, I need to rush back!
Li Qingshan collected the corpses and hundred treasures pouches that belonged to the Qi Practitioners and rushed out of the maze, returning to the original battlefield. He immediately heard the deafening sounds of fighting and killing. The chanting and music had all been drowned out by the shouts, no longer audible.
Several thousand Qi Practitioners currently engaged in a frenzied slaughter, ten times more brutal than the battles before. Even the most basic desire for survival had vanished. They swung their weapons and charged at the people around them, but they ignored the weapons that swept towards them. Even if they died, they still wanted to kill!
This was the will from the Asura realm. Even a hint of it was not something the wills of Qi Practitioners could resist, and it was not only Qi Practitioners either. Seeing this, even a few Foundation Establishment cultivators became restless, becoming tempted to take part in it.
Murderousness rushed into the air, and the blood-red swirl spun faster and faster in the sky. The fighting and killing on the ground became even more crazy.
A Foundation Establishment cultivator widened his eyes that were completely bloodshot. He waved his sword around as he roared, “Stop! Stop! All of you, stop!” With a swing of his hand, a golden arc whistled out, severing several Qi Practitioners along the waist. Having started killing, he was unable to control himself anymore, rushing into the battlefield and engaging in mindless slaughter.
The situation was completely out of control, but Li Qingshan understood that no matter how loudly he bellowed, no matter how viciously he killed, he could not stop it anymore. Since he could not stop it, then he would not stop it. It was not like he was some hero. All he had to do was protect the people he was familiar with.
As the swirl rapidly turned, the boundaries between the battlefields were torn to pieces. The terrains all became connected together, turning into a colossal battlefield that stretched several hundred kilometers.
Li Qingshan flew over to the centre of the battlefield. He stood on the Demon Suppression tower and called to Liu Zhangqing and the others, “Come with me!” Afterwards, he took back the Demon Suppression Tower and flew off into the distance.
He glanced through the battlefield and spotted a familiar face. Although he was covered in blood, Li Qingshan could still tell he was Hao Pingyang from the school of Mohism, currently waving the Yellow Dragon’s Cannon of Devouring Light as he fought against someone. A Chain of Demon Suppression extended over and curled back, pulling him in. Then he spotted Li Long from the school of Agriculture and pulled him in too, just in case he died in this chaotic battle. He conveniently saved a few disciples from the school of Novels too.
When Liu Zhangqing and the others saw Li Qingshan, they seemed to have found their backbone. They guarded their minds as they followed behind him closely. As long as the other cultivators still had some rationality about them, they followed behind him in a hurry, charging out of this quagmire together. When they saw what Li Qingshan was doing, they rushed into the battlefield as well, picking up two Qi Practitioners and doing everything that they could to save their disciples.
However, being attacked was unavoidable as they tried to save others. Some cultivators could not help but fight back, and with that, their murderousness began to burn like fire, completely running out of control. They even forgot about the objective of saving their disciples, all entering the battlefield like an invisible force was drawing them into the “meat grinder”.
Foundation Establishment cultivators were powerful, but their spiritual qi was not endless. They could kill around a hundred Qi Practitioners at most before they fell to the combined attacks of the frenzied Qi Practitioners.
Only when they traveled over fifty kilometers from the battlefield and could no longer hear the sounds of fighting did Li Qingshan stop. Then he checked the cultivators behind him. Only around a hundred people remained.
The Qi Practitioners were all unconscious, having been knocked out, as they would fight as long as they were conscious. As a result, there were only around twenty people who remained conscious. Everyone’s faces were worried and badly frightened, and because they had to constantly repress the surging battle intent and killing intent inside them, their faces all seemed extremely twisted. Everyone understood one truth. The cultivation community of the Ruyi commandery was done for with this.
Li Qingshan had grown accustomed to these sights, and he could suppress his murderousness, so he seemed quite calm. He summoned the Demon Suppression Tower again and tossed the unconscious Qi Practitioners inside. It was a little cramped, but they probably would not mind.
Gazing out, the Dragon Arena was in full sight. There were glaciers, lakes, and deserts.
Li Qingshan thought of something. Since the spirit turtle could calculate and deduce the workings of such a large maze, then could he deduce the operation patterns of the Dragon Arena too and find a way out?
He had learned the most rudimentary basics for forging artifacts in the Academy of the Hundred Schools, so he knew forging spiritual artifacts required imprinting them with various inscriptions and glyphs. Meanwhile, forging arcane artifacts involved engraving even more complicated formations, so they had even more powerful functions.
Li Qingshan immediately used the spirit turtle to observe and calculate. An invisible ripple spread out into the surroundings. Specks of light appeared in his mind. In a daze, the glacier and lakes all vanished. All that remained were fluttering inscriptions and operating formations.
Any single one of the formations was countless times more complicated than the maze, and they were connected to one another, allowing them to influence one another, which only multiplied the complexity. It was like a finely-tuned machine, where each formation was a gear, locking onto one another and turning together.
Only the Great Xia empire possessed the ability to forge Dragon Arenas. The complexity well exceeded Li Qingshan’s imaginations. Probably even half a year would not be enough to calculate and deduce its operation patterns.
After his shock passed by, he immediately dismissed his thoughts and ventured to the very core of the Dragon Arena. Since he was unable to deduce how it worked, then could he completely destroy the core?
Suddenly, he saw two forces collide together in the very core of the Dragon Arena, fighting over the control of the Dragon Arena. One obviously belonged to Si Qing, while the other was a power filled with the smell of death. Li Qingshan was even more familiar with this force.
Mo Yu! What’s this guy doing here? No wonder Si Qing had no time to make trouble for me! Seeing his enemies going for each other’s throats was obviously a joyous matter. However, no matter which enemy’s hands the Asura Field ended up in, he would probably be the first target they would take out, so there was nothing joyous about this.
But, perhaps this is a good opportunity!
Li Qingshan’s eyes flashed. He did not alarm them, taking it patiently and waiting until they exhausted each other out.
Hua Chenglu noticed Li Qingshan staring off into the distance in a trance and asked, “Big brother Li, what should we do now?”
Li Qingshan could see that she was anxious, but she was still able to remain relatively calm. The effects of the Wisdom Imbuement truly were startling. Otherwise, with her original mentality, he would be forced to knock her out and toss her into the Demon Suppression Tower too. He smiled. “It’s not like there’s going to be any danger now. Let’s just wait and see!”
The influence of the Asura Field had basically reached a limit, unable to make Foundation Establishment cultivators kill each other madly. Of course, that was if they did not fight others. The best-case scenario would be if they could not even see or think about it. It was like how everyone possessed lust. If they saw two beautiful women “fighting” with one another with their eyes, it was very easy for this lust to be roused. However, it also made it relatively easy to control too.
Hua Chenglu saw how he smiled freely and also felt at ease.
“Once this place completely converts into an Asura Field, there’ll probably be asuras descending!”
Han Tieyi said suddenly. His armour was mostly damaged, but he was still as frosty as ever, standing there as straight as his own spear. However, flames roared away in the depths of his eyes. As a military disciple who pursued the path of slaughter, the influence from the Asura Field on him was not actually that great.
The cultivation of the school of the Military had always placed exceptional focus on training willpower. On the battlefield, it was obviously easier for experienced soldiers to remain calm than new soldiers. Moreover, he experienced a feeling of intimacy with the aura that permeated the place. The Asura realm had always been the final home that all disciples of the school of Military sought for.
Only the souls of true warriors could avoid the judgement of the Hell realm and begin an endless battle in the Asura realm after they died. Of course, to regular people, this was probably no different from the tortures of hell.
His father was currently in the Great General King’s Asura Field, while his uncle was probably fighting somewhere in the Asura realm! Following the footsteps of his elder generation, his heart burned with fighting spirit, but it also gave him a different form of peace.
“Asura!” Li Qingshan’s eyes lit up. Not only was he not worried or afraid, but he was even extremely curious instead.