Mysterious mirror hanging high

"My fellow Daoists, the ship can only stop here. If we go any further, we will enter Houtu Sect's restricted airspace."

A leader who had reached the late stage of foundation building said, "Rest here for a while, and the cultivators from Houtu Sect will come to pick us up."

Jing Yu and other monks got off the deck and stepped on an area glowing with an ochre-colored light. It felt a bit strange, as if they were stepping on a piece of squirming flesh.

Some monks who didn't believe in evil tried to fly up to the sky, but they only managed to hold on for a few breaths before falling down.

Jing Yu also tried to fly upwards for a short distance. As long as he flew within the coverage of the Houtu Sect's formation, there would be a strong suction force forcing him to land. The higher he flew, the stronger the suction force.

"It seems that the no-fly restriction is combined with the force of magnetic field..." Jing Yu thought to himself.

It has to be said that the Houtu Sect's mountain protection formation that is connected to the earth veins is really quite mysterious. Not to mention the restrictions on Jindan Zhenren, at least the foundation-building cultivators cannot fly over it, which undoubtedly greatly reduces the difficulty of defense.

Not long after, a flash of light appeared in the mud at the edge of the formation where they were, and more than ten cultivators dressed in Houtu Sect uniforms emerged from underneath. The leader was a middle-aged male cultivator with a square face. A powerful spiritual pressure emanated from his body. He was actually a Jindan Zhenren.

"Master Stubborn Stone!"

The leader of the Xiaoyao League obviously recognized this person and said respectfully:

"The first batch of monks from the Xiaoyao League have arrived. There are 135 foundation-building monks and 2,728 Qi-training monks. They are all here."

Mana surged around Master Wanshi, as if he had just been through a fierce battle. His expression was not good. He nodded wearily, "Hou Tu Sect disciples, listen to my orders. Use the [Earth-moving Boat] to transport the Qi cultivator back to the mountain gate."

Then he picked up a storage bag that was originally hanging around his waist, shook his wrist, and one hundred and thirty-five ochre-colored rays of light flew out of it, landing right in front of the one hundred and thirty-five foundation-building cultivators. When the light dissipated, it turned out to be a formation flag only the size of a palm.

"This is the [Ji Tu Earth Escape Array Flag]. If you drop a drop of your blood essence on this flag, it will be refined. Using this flag, you can escape into the Earth Mountain Range from the outer areas of the [Ji Tu One Qi Locking Sky Array] and traverse freely. This flag can also bless you with a [Ji Tu Spiritual Light] to protect you while in the formation."

"If one of you unfortunately dies, this formation flag will sink directly into the earth veins. There is no need to worry about it being snatched away by demonic cultivators."

Jing Yu secretly complained in his heart: "There's no need to say this to us. If I'm dead, why would I care whether this flag is snatched away by the demons..."

Master Wanshi paused, then continued, "Our Houtu Sect's mountain-protecting formation is extremely profound and complex. It's not only formed by connecting the earth veins, but also by refining the entire nearby mountain range into one. Every peak you see today could be a key point in the formation, or a deceptive tactic used to deceive the eye."

"Although the Demonic Path also has experts who can find dragons and explore veins, they are ultimately outsiders and do not know the ins and outs of our sect. The entire Houtu Sect is located in a mountain range with a total of 360 peaks, of which only ten are the true core of the formation. The Demonic Path cannot tell the truth from the false, so they can only use the crude method of testing them one by one."

"A probability of one in thirty-six? Three hundred and sixty peaks! No wonder the high-ranking officials of the Yunchuan Region would place their bets on the Houtu Sect for the final battlefield. I'm afraid they are planning a war of attrition, relying on their formation to consume most of the manpower of the Tiannan Demon Cultivators here." Jing Yu pondered.

"The demonic offensive is fierce right now. In just a few months, they've already captured and destroyed over forty immortal mountains. I can't say how many of those are the true formation centers. I can only say that the situation isn't good."

"Every time a true core of the formation is broken, the power of this [Jitu Yiqi Locking Sky Formation] will weaken a little. If all the cores of the formation are broken, the formation will also be broken. At that time, the Yunchuan Region will truly have no barrier left. The families and friends of all Taoist friends will be at the mercy of the demonic cultivators!"

Master Wanshi said in a deep voice, "Please follow me back to the mountain gate. I will then assign you to different immortal mountains to guard. To prevent information from leaking out, I will not tell you whether the immortal mountain you are guarding is the true center of the formation. However, this is wartime, so wartime rules must apply. Unless the Righteous Alliance issues the order to retreat, no one is allowed to flee without a fight!"

"Otherwise... your relatives, friends, and families behind you might be implicated."

What Master Wanshi said was almost a naked threat, and the expressions of all the foundation-building cultivators present changed.

Fortunately, this Immortal also knew that he shouldn't be stubborn, so he softened his tone. "Don't worry, fellow Daoists. In terms of cultivator numbers, the two great demonic forces can't even begin to match the elites of our Yunchuan Region. Over the past few months, in their quest to storm the Immortal Mountain and destroy the formation's core, the Tiannan demonic forces have also suffered heavy losses... We, relying on our formation to defend, have a significant advantage."

"Once the Tiannan demon cultivators are killed and injured to the point where even a True Lord feels broken, these demon cultivators will naturally retreat!"

Jing Yu found this absurd. Not to mention that demonic cultivators were inherently cold and indifferent to human feelings, even among the righteous Penglai sect, how many Nascent Soul True Lords had ever cared about the lives of low-ranking cultivators? In the eyes of a Demonic True Lord, were demonic cultivators cultivating Qi and building foundations really any more valuable than combat puppets?

If the True Lord really cared about low-level cultivators, the demon cultivators from the Tiannan Region would never be able to break into the Yunchuan Region!

However, Jing Yu's idea was somewhat like the pot calling the kettle black. Even he could foresee that if one day he formed a Nascent Soul and was promoted to a True Lord, he would probably not care about the life and death of unfamiliar cultivators except for his younger friends whom he had high hopes for.

Shaking off such distracting thoughts, Jing Yu dripped a drop of blood into the formation flag, and indeed, he instantly felt a blood connection.

Then he shook the flag in his hand, and a yellowish-brown light wrapped around him, and the next moment he sank into the ground.

"The effect of Earth Escape is so-so, far inferior to [Bitter Crossing Mysterious Light]..."

Jing Yu shook his head and came out, only to see their squad leader, Gu Dacheng, with a grim expression on his face. He whispered to several of his teammates:

"Oh no! The Five Elements interact with each other. The water element's magic power is transferred into the formation flag, and the earth escape effect is far worse than that of the gold and earth element cultivators. It seems that even the protective effect of [Ji Tu Ling Guang] is three points weaker... The water element cultivators are really at a great disadvantage in this formation!"

The two teammates, Wang Qiu Shui, the Jindan concubine, and Guan Zhen, the direct descendant of the aristocratic family, also looked a little gloomy. This matter concerns their own future and lives. Now that they have lost some advantages before the battle even starts, they are naturally worried.

On the other hand, the oldest, Li Ci, was playing with the battle flag in his hand and said indifferently:

"I'm afraid I won't have the chance to die of old age..."