Watch out! Something's wrong with this guard.

“It’s useless!” Zhang Tieshan waved his hand. “That thing can be used to repair the formation, but the repair was done before he made this move. Now, you have no choice but to kill him.”

"Furthermore, even if the formation can be repaired, are you not planning to leave? Once the formation is repaired, you will truly have no way out."

"As for escaping after the formation breaks, that's even more impossible. Once the formation breaks, they will be unrestrained, and your aura will not escape their notice."

Hearing this, Lin Min took a deep breath, feeling distressed. She remained silent for a while before asking again.

"Senior, who exactly is being suppressed within that formation? How could it possibly become a Calamity-level alien spirit?"

A calamity-level alien spirit with the strength to move mountains—it doesn't sound like much to the academy.

But what exactly is an academy? Putting aside its unique characteristics, the academy itself is already comparable in size to a top-tier sect or family on the continent.

In most places outside, a powerful mountain-moving expert can be a local tyrant as long as they don't try to stand out.

As for the Calamity-level alien spirits, Lin Min was unaware of them in the other three great empires, but they were extremely rare in the Eastern Xia Kingdom where they were located. The alien spirits that usually appeared were of inferior or superior level, and even if they did appear, they would usually be warned in advance, and then the capital would send cultivators to deal with them.

So Lin Min was genuinely curious: how did such a small sect like Iron Mountain Sect manage to produce a Calamity-level alien spirit?

Lin Min's question seemed to have stumped Zhang Tieshan. He sat motionless in the chair, his figure unsteady, as if his mind was in turmoil.

After several seconds, Zhang Tieshan let out a long sigh. "The one suppressed down there is my disciple, who is also the chief disciple of my Tieshan Sect."

"It's all my fault. I never expected that the strange spiritual energy within that child would be so powerful and develop so rapidly."

"But the real culprit is me. I couldn't bring myself to do it in the end. I watched helplessly as he completed the transformation, allowing him to gain immense power, which led to the destruction of the Iron Mountain Sect. I am the sinner of the Iron Mountain Sect."

When he said these words, Zhang Tieshan became much more somber.

"I thought I could do it, but when the crucial moment came, I still couldn't bring myself to do it. He's like my own son, he inherited everything from me—my thoughts, my strength. And I... I also have his weaknesses. My sense of justice wasn't as firm and absolute as I imagined, which ultimately led to disaster."

"Over the past few years, I have used the power of the spiritual artifact to leave behind a part of my remnant soul, watching the Iron Mountain Sect gradually fall into ruin day and night. I guess that can be considered my punishment."

After speaking, Zhang Tieshan looked at the crowd again. "Children, my weakness has already caused a disaster, but I will not allow the disaster to continue. It is up to you now, and for your own sake, give it a try."

"You don't have much time to make a decision. If that child escapes, his strength will definitely increase even further."

"Why is that?" Lin Min asked, frowning.

Zhang Tieshan smiled slightly and replied.

"I hesitated for a moment and failed to strike, which allowed him to seize the opportunity and seriously injure me. As my life was slipping away, I calmed down and realized that I couldn't let him leave like this. In the end, I sacrificed my life to combine the formation with him, using the power of the formation to draw energy from his flesh and blood to keep the formation that was suppressing him running."

"By now, he probably harbors immense resentment, and this resentment will drive him to even greater heights."

Zhang Tieshan suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly. "I couldn't bear to kill him, but in the end I suppressed him using a method more painful than death. What kind of master am I?"

"Senior, are you creating a major villain here?" Li Hu was speechless upon hearing Zhang Tieshan's actions. Wasn't this full of resentment?

"So, what's your conclusion? To wait for death, or to fight for your lives?" Zhang Tieshan didn't give a direct answer, but instead asked everyone for their decision.

Lin Min and the others looked at each other, feeling very hesitant.

They may know what the right thing to do is, but they are relatively safe now and do not have the same sense of crisis as before when they were surrounded by evil spirits, so they cannot be as decisive as they were then.

Seeing their reaction, Zhang Tieshan sighed and said, "So, it seems you don't want your comrades to live well."

"What?" Lu Yunxi, who had been silent until now, finally spoke, a bad feeling creeping into her heart.

"Didn't you notice that there's someone who hasn't woken up since I appeared? Does that make sense?" Zhang Tieshan asked.

Upon hearing this, everyone finally realized what was happening and turned to look at Lu Yunshi.

Yes, Zhang Tieshan made such a big commotion after he came out, so why hasn't Lu Yunshi woken up yet?

"Junior Brother Lu's complexion is not right." Zhao Han exclaimed when she noticed that Lu Yunshi's face was deathly pale and had no color in it. Lu Yunxi, who was the first to react, quickly stepped forward.

"Lu Yunshi! Lu Yunshi!" Looking at Lu Yunshi, who seemed to be seriously ill and about to die, Lu Yunxi finally showed a look of panic in her eyes and shouted twice. Lu Yunshi's eyelids twitched, as if they were glued together, and he finally managed to open them a crack.

"what happened?"

Hearing these three words, Lu Yunxi breathed a slight sigh of relief, but she knew that this did not mean that Lu Yunshi was in good condition.

At this moment, Lin Min placed her hand on Lu Yunshi's body, closed her eyes, and began to examine him. After a while, Lin Min opened her eyes, her expression complicated.

“He has a lot of strange spiritual energy in his body, and his internal injuries are quite serious.”

"Injured? When? I didn't..." Tang Busan's breath hitched, and his words stopped abruptly. He wanted to say that he hadn't seen Lu Yunshi injured.

But in the previous chaotic battles, everyone was fighting for their lives. Who could keep an eye on whom?

They wouldn't know if Lu Yunshi had actually been injured but was just pretending to be strong.

"Why aren't you taking your medicine?" Lu Yunxi asked with a complicated expression.

“He took it, but his internal injuries were too severe at the time, and the pills were very slow to take effect. In order to get you out of here, he endured it. Now that his injuries have healed a bit, the erosion he suffered has become even more severe, so it doesn’t have much effect anymore.” Zhang Tieshan suddenly spoke up, giving an answer for Lu Yunshi.

"If we don't leave now and go to a place free from the influence of supernatural energy for treatment, I'm afraid we won't last more than a day and a half."

Lu Yunshi frowned. The people in front of him were talking strangely, especially the suddenly appearing soul. When he woke up, it seemed like he had skipped a lot of the plot and suddenly couldn't understand the current situation.

"What exactly happened?" Lu Yunshi asked weakly.

Lin Min pursed her lips and quickly recounted what had just happened. After listening, Lu Yunshi frowned even more deeply. He looked at Zhang Tieshan and then addressed Lu Yunxi and the others.

"This isn't a good decision. Let's wait and see... there might be other ways."

Lu Yunxi stared at Lu Yunshi for two seconds, her expression returning to its previous calm, and said something indifferently.

"Don't forget, you have no right to order me around."

After saying that, Lu Yunxi walked straight outside. Lin Min and the other three were helpless, but still made the same choice.

Now that someone is about to die, there's no time for them to hesitate and think things through; they can only act recklessly.

Lu Yunshi was stunned for a moment, watching the backs of the group who had already walked out the door. He wanted to make them stop and think about it again, but he couldn't make a sound.

The next second, he turned to look at Zhang Tieshan with a suspicious expression.