Immortality begins with meditation puppets

Demons are not good at management. Except for a few high-ranking demons, most mid- to low-ranking demons are limited by their chaotic demonic origins. They act without thinking and only care about the immediate pleasure. It is impossible to integrate them together and force them to do any planned, long-term projects.

Demons are chaotic and free. Chaos is uncontrollable and freedom is unrestrained. They completely unleash themselves and bring their own value to the extreme. Such extreme freedom and chaos cannot form a collective force that can only be formed at the cost of sacrificing a certain part of oneself.

It is precisely because the evil forces are mostly disorganized and unable to unite, that living beings had the space and time to breathe in ancient times and survive in the present world.

However, there are exceptions among the demons. For example, the Demon Buddha can use the Buddhist merit he stole to brainwash the demons, thus achieving the ability to integrate them into a powerful force. Although they cannot yet achieve the same level of cooperation and tacit understanding that living beings have cultivated over countless years, it is still better than the previous situation where each group acted independently and would rush into battle together.

The Evil Sword Demon is certainly not as powerful as the Demon Buddha, otherwise the demons of the heavens would not follow the Demon Buddha's lead. Although it does not have the Demon Buddha's ability to brainwash people with his merits and virtues, it does have the ability to use the demons.

That was the sword body of the Trapping Immortal Sword that he possessed. This Trapping Immortal Sword was one of the four most powerful killing treasures in the heavens, the Four Immortal Slaughtering Swords. Even if it had no sword spirit within it and its power was only 30-50% of its peak, it would still be considered a seventh-order sword treasure.

For a seventh-level swordsman like Zhuo Peiyu to wield this sword is like adding wings to a tiger, allowing him to compete with the Demon Buddha.

The Evil Sword Demon is a demon formed from the origin of the sword path. His sword skills are only slightly weaker than those of the founder of the Lingbao Sect, who opened up the sword path and condensed the origin of the sword path. He is a step stronger than seventh-level sword cultivators like Zhuo Peiyu. Since he has been corrupted by the Trapped Immortal Sword Body, he can also unleash most of the power of the Trapped Immortal Sword Body.

The most powerful ability of the Immortal Trapping Sword Body is that it can create countless sword lights, which can then form a sword array to trap the opponent in the sword light and trap them in endless killing without being able to escape.

In the past, when the three sects of the Dao lineage were fighting amongst themselves, the eldest and second eldest brothers joined forces and even called on outside monks to attack their third brother. The founding patriarch of the Lingbao Sect was furious and brought out the Zhuxian Sword Diagram, took out the Four Zhuxian Swords, and set up the Zhuxian Sword Formation. The Xianxian Realm was responsible for the Xianxian Formation of the Zhuxian Sword Formation. At that time, it trapped a Dao Ancestor for a moment, but it was later broken by the Dao Ancestor. However, the fact that it could trap a Dao Ancestor already demonstrated the power of this sword.

The Evil Sword Demon possesses the Immortal Slaughtering Formation Diagram, but lacks the other three swords. With its average intelligence and poor comprehension, it has not been able to fully understand the Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation over the years. However, it has at least been able to figure out some of the tricks of the Immortal Trapping Formation.

Now, when Su Qing and the others followed the Lingxiao Palace puppets into this Evil Sword Realm, they immediately sensed that something was wrong with this place.

The sky wasn't dark and gloomy with a demonic style, and the earth wasn't gloomy and demonic.

The sky was clear, dotted with countless stars that looked like streaks of sword light, and in fact, they were streaks of sword light.

The land is irregular. The irregularity here does not refer to the irregularity of mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, and undulating terrain, but rather to its lack of Yin-Yang and Five Elements rules. The land is unstable, and wind, water, and fire emerge from it from time to time, causing fragments of spacetime to break apart.

This sky and this land are like a grand array, a diagram, designed to wipe out any living being that enters it.

This is how the Evil Sword Demon built its lair.

The Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation serves as the world of the Evil Sword Realm; the entire world is essentially a single, massive formation.

Using the divine power of the Immortal-Trapping Sword Body, it splits into countless sword lights to form countless small, medium, or large sword formations. Each of these sword lights is strung with a demon. It cannot control the free and chaotic demons, but it can control these strands of sword light, allowing these sword lights to strung with demons, adding bricks and tiles to the omnipresent sword formations in this world, increasing their power.

Among Su Qing's team, the first to face the threat of these sword formations and witness their techniques was none other than Lingxiao Palace Puppet, who took the lead and fired the first shot.

Crackling and clanging!
Like a black rainstorm crashing down on the Lingxiao Palace, it was the sound of the Demon Sword Light being unleashed, attacking this uninvited guest.

Previously, when the Lingxiao Palace Puppet displayed its power outside, the Evil Sword Demon of the Evil Sword Realm had witnessed its strength and methods.

Knowing the power of this seventh-tier puppet, he immediately dealt it a severe blow upon arrival.

The sword formation it deployed to attack the puppet of the Lingxiao Palace included:

Sixth-tier large-scale sword formation: Nine Heavens Thunder Strike Sword Formation!
This formation consists of 3,600 Thunder Demon Swords, each imbued with the power of lightning, suspended in mid-air. The sword tips draw upon the demonic lightning of the heavens. Once the formation is complete, a series of thunderstorms descend from within, with each sword transforming into a demonic dragon of lightning that bites its target. Even a sixth-level body cultivator would find it difficult to withstand this sword formation for long. A Void Refinement cultivator with a powerful protective magic weapon could hold out for a moment, but a mere Void Refinement cultivator would not last even three to five breaths.

Rank 6 Large-Scale Sword Formation: Five Mountains Sea-Suppressing Sword Formation!
The Five Demon Sword Light, strung together by five superior demons—Golden Edge Demon, Green Wood Demon, Profound Water Demon, Crimson Flame Demon, and Thick Earth Demon—is arranged according to the Five Elements Mountain Formation. Drawing upon the power of heaven and earth of the realm as its source, it transforms into the illusory images of the Five Sacred Mountains to suppress the enemy. The sword energy is like a tsunami superimposed on a mountain collapse, severing life force and locking spiritual energy. Its main purpose is to put immense pressure on the opponent, leaving them no chance to breathe. This sword formation is mainly used by the Trapped Sword Demon to deal with some troublesome opponents of the sixth rank and above with strong individual power. Even some seventh-rank Dao Lords, if their methods are not very skillful and they are just weak seventh-rank individuals, will have to put in some effort to deal with this formation!
Rank 6 Large-Scale Sword Formation: Blood River Immortal Slaughtering Sword Prison

Ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine sword lights strung together ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine lower-level demons who had taken lives and seen human blood, forming ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine blood-drinking sword lights inserted into the blood pool at the center of the sword formation. Once activated, each sword light transforms into a river of blood, binding the opponent like a blood python or blood rope, and emitting a shrill sword cry like the wails of ten thousand souls to disturb the Dao heart of living beings. This sword formation is extremely effective against mortal soldiers or low-level cultivators. One sword formation can destroy a fifth-level immortal kingdom with ease.

Rank 6 Large-Scale Sword Formation: Myriad Spirits Transforming into Demon Sword Tomb

This formation doesn't need to summon demons; instead, it summons the souls of the demonic beasts controlled by the Evil Sword Realm over the years. By combining their souls with the sword light, it forms the Myriad Demonic Sword Light. When the formation is activated, the remnants of the myriad demonic souls materialize, and the sword energy carries demonic poison. Those struck by it undergo mutated flesh and blood, turning into sword puppets and turning against their own side within three breaths. This formation is extremely effective against large groups of beings, especially demonic beast armies. Over the years, the demonic races of the heavens have suffered many losses under this sword formation!
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The Evil Sword Demon clearly held the Lingxiao Palace Puppet in extremely high regard, and also sensed the threat this puppet posed to its Evil Sword Realm. It knew that if this puppet remained on the battlefield and continued to recklessly cover the Evil Sword Realm with firepower like it did on the outer perimeter, no matter how many Demon Sword Lights its Evil Sword Realm possessed, it wouldn't be enough to stop its rampage. It had to fight fire with fire, and before the main force of living beings entered the realm, it had to use the most intense offensive to shoot down and destroy this puppet!
The Lingxiao Palace Puppet, due to its massive size, was perfectly suited for these large sword formations to launch attacks independently from various parts of its hull. To the Evil Sword Demon, it couldn't discern any flaws in the puppet. However, it was certain of one thing: no living being is perfect, and imperfect beings cannot create perfect creations. Even ancient creations like the Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang Exquisite Pagoda and the Four Swords of Zhuxian had their flaws. This puppet crafted by humans also had its weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It didn't matter that it couldn't see these weaknesses. Just as it had dealt with the traps set by the Lingxiao Palace Puppet on the perimeter, it would simply use its demonic sword light to form various sword formations, providing a full-scale attack on the puppet. It would attack the entire ship, but if any point was breached, all the sword formations would focus their attacks on that single point, and eventually, the puppet would be defeated!
Its idea itself is not wrong. The Lingxiao Palace Puppet does have its shortcomings. After all, even an eighth-order puppet can have some weaknesses if you really nitpick.

However, the weaknesses of the Lingxiao Palace puppet cannot be exploited by sword formations of the sixth rank or below!

Seeing the cold gaze of the Great Emperor of the North Pole Ziwei on the Lingxiao Palace puppet as the countless sword lights and the indistinguishable sword formations crashing down, the puppet immediately responded like a responsive and precisely operated instrument.

One after another, beams of light flashed, forming arrays set up by the ancestor of array formations, the masters, apprentices, elders, and disciples of the Lingbao Sect's Array Hall.

To allow them to complete setting up these formations, Su Qing endured another hundred years after crafting the Lingxiao Palace puppet, giving them ample time to fully deploy them.

At this moment, he also saw some reward.

"The detection array has detected the intensity of the attack, currently at level three. Please activate the level three protective array group immediately!"

"The core formation of the Level 3 Guardian Formation Group, the Five Elements Revolving Formation, has been activated; the auxiliary formation of the Level 3 Guardian Formation Group, the Four Symbols Protecting Formation, has been activated; the Level 3 Guardian Formation, the Golden Light Subduing Demon Formation, has been activated..."

As per Su Qing's instructions, the Lingxiao Palace Puppet, while possessing sufficient offensive capabilities, primarily focuses on protecting the puppet itself through its array system. Its main objective is to withstand attacks from a seventh-tier Dao Lord for three days and three nights, to withstand a combined attack from all the disciples of a major sect for ten days and ten nights, and to protect the ship's facilities and personnel from attacks by demons below the seventh tier...

To this end, Wu Gongyi, the head of the Lingbao Sect's Array Hall and the person in charge of the project, personally designed this array system according to the client Su Qing's needs. In order to avoid wasting the puppet's energy and to defend against different types and intensities of attacks in a targeted manner, he constructed a total of twelve sets of protective array groups for this array system, so that the most suitable protective array group could be selected to deal with the situation in war.

The current deployment is a level-three protective formation group, with one peak sixth-order formation as the core, two other sixth-order formations as auxiliary formations, and dozens of fifth-order formations and over a hundred fourth-order formations mixed in. This is enough to withstand the full-force attack of a celestial kingdom sect-level force with sixth-order cultivators.

These three levels of protective formations passed the strength test during the puppet trial at the Lingxiao Palace, and indeed achieved the goals set in the project design.

And now, in actual combat, they did not falter as expected, successfully repelling the Demon Sword Formation sent by the Evil Sword Demon to break through the Lingxiao Palace Puppet.

The Evil Sword Demon showed a slight change in expression upon hearing this, but he was not in a hurry.

Knowing that the Lingxiao Palace Puppet was a seventh-tier puppet, and possessing seventh-tier power, it still only deployed these sixth-tier sword formations to attack the puppet, indicating that these sixth-tier sword formations could not immediately break through the puppet.

However, the inability to conquer it immediately does not mean that it will remain unconquered after a while or some time has passed.

Within this realm of evil swords, the greatest and most unsolvable ability of all the formations it sets up—the Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation and the Immortal Trapping Sword Body—is not the number of sword formations or sword lights, nor their instantaneous attacks, but rather the fact that the sword light of the Immortal Trapping Sword Body vanishes and reappears in an instant, and the sword light is never extinguished. The demonic essence it embodies is also never extinguished or killed, allowing this string of demonic sword light and all the sword formations set up based on the sword light to continuously and relentlessly attack.

The protective formation can hold out for a while, but not for a long time.

This is the confidence of the Evil Sword Demon, but the Lingxiao Palace Puppet also has the confidence to not take its sword formations seriously!

What sword light never dies? What demons never perish?
When the firepower is strong enough and there are enough cannons, all sword light will be extinguished and all evil spirits will die!

At the command of the Great Emperor of the North Pole, countless magical cannon puppets were suddenly erected on the Lingxiao Palace.

These exorcising spirit-exploding cannons were dozens of times more numerous than those used by the Lingxiao Palace puppets when they were deployed on the outer perimeter.

In addition to these cannons, there were also hundreds of army-sized Minions tasked with exorcising evil spirits.

The cannons roared, firing exorcising spirit-exploding shells that counterattacked the demonic sword lights that were attacking the puppets of the Lingxiao Palace.

The Minions laughed and joked as they raised their guns and cannons, unleashing a hail of bullets that, with firepower even more intense than the Demon Sword Demon's demonic sword light, pushed back the sharpness of these sword formations and lights.

The sword light will eventually fade, because each wisp of sword light consumes the energy of the Immortal Trapping Sword Body. When they recover and then dissipate again under the relentless hail of bullets, and are powerless to fight back, the Evil Sword Demon will take back their immortality to avoid needlessly consuming the energy of the Immortal Trapping Sword Body.

Demons can die too. Every shell, every bullet, is imprinted with exorcism runes. Combined with the explosive damage of the spirit explosion runes, it's enough to kill those demons impaled on the sword light a hundred or a thousand times over. Even the moment the sword light disappears, these demons forced to be impaled by it have no intention of continuing to attack the Lingxiao Palace Puppet, and the Lingxiao Palace Puppet has no intention of letting them go! (End of Chapter)