The spiritual formation roared as the Li family father and son attacked Qilin Mountain's thousand-layer array.
Lin Wudao sat upright in the main hall. Outside, the brilliant light from the spiritual power bombardment was dazzling, sending ripples across the formation, yet within Qilin Mountain, everything was dim and dark.
All the Tian Xing avatars believed that Lin Wudao had a trump card.
He had also told all the avatars that this Eternal Sun Prefecture was their territory, and that no matter what preparations the Li family had made over the past hundred years, they would never be able to breach Qilin Mountain.
But Lin Wudao could hardly express his current state of unease.
A full two months had passed, and the Li family father and son were still outside, unhurriedly breaking his spiritual formation, yet not a single one of his avatars had come to his aid.
Furthermore, clearly, when his avatars died, he was supposed to become stronger.
He had been waiting for the Heaven and Earth Spirit Qi from his fallen avatars to allow him to, bit by bit, break through to the Void Refining realm, yet there had been few instances of such energy actually entering his body.
This meant two possibilities. One was that his avatars were successfully slaying those geniuses one by one. The other possibility was...
That his avatars were being captured alive!
The connection to his avatars was severed. For a long time, none had come to his aid, and the power from other avatars no longer flowed into his body.
These events, one after another, made Lin Wudao truly understand the meaning of fear.
The roaring from outside the formation was also striking, again and again, at the most fragile string in his heart.
"You should not be afraid. You are my finest choice."
The voice of Tian Xing resounded in his mind, and the Mark of Tian Xing between his brows began to flash. Lin Wudao's gaze was vacant for a long time.
"I should not be afraid..."
He muttered repeatedly.
The Tian Xing avatars have existed for over ten thousand years.
Two thousand years ago, he became a Tian Xing avatar for the first time.
Tian Xing's main consciousness remained in his body for a full twenty years, because a heaven-sent phenomenon revealed that Tian Xing had never before encountered a physical body with such extraordinary talent: the Body of a Qilin.
He also inherited most of Tian Xing's memories.
Tian Xing did not possess his level of natural talent, yet he fought against men, fought against the heavens, and fought against the earth.
The very meaning of 'Tian Xing' is to walk as an equal with the heavens, to never yield to fate. They should never yield, never stagnate.
They had encountered the thresholds of lifespan, aptitude, and comprehension.
They used the 'Essence Harvesting Death Formation' to break through those barriers and used the lives of the disciples of Azure Mist Mountain to achieve Divinity Transformation.
They broke free from the Grand Tutor's cage and were no longer coveted by those eyes connected to the Human Emperor's Blood. And now...
"It's merely one more Li family, that's all. By what right do they become a stumbling block in my path?!!"
Lin Wudao abruptly rose to his feet, letting out a low roar.
Then, with a calm expression, he straightened his clothes. A cleansing art tidied his appearance, and a golden light shone in his eyes.
"They," he declared, "are not even worthy of being a stumbling block in my path."
A phantom image of a Qilin appeared behind him.
As his voice faded, he slowly gazed into the distance.
A Tian Xing avatar came running. Seeing that Lin Wudao had returned to his normal state, unlike the past few days when he had been sitting dejectedly within the main hall, the anxiety that filled the avatar's face finally gave way to a trace of joy.
Pointing outside the great formation, he cried, "Lin Wudao, Qu Yang has been captured alive!"
"I am aware."
Lin Wudao nodded calmly, letting out a cold snort. "So that's how it is, so that's how it is! The Li family schemed for a hundred years, just to capture our avatars and make it so we cannot advance even an inch? Laughable, truly laughable!"
Following that, Lin Wudao spoke words that horrified the avatar.
"They think that by doing this, I will be unable to break through to the Void Refining realm. I will let them know what true futility is!"
....
Outside Qilin Mountain's spiritual formation.
Li Dalong and Li Yaozu had long since ceased their bombardment of the spiritual formation.
The sky, because of their earlier assault, was now blanketed with dark clouds.
A 50 miles away.
The Twelfth Prince, Feiheng, who had come from the Imperial Capital, was gazing at all of this from afar with five companions.
The young man beside him, who bore a striking resemblance to him, was dressed in magnificent attire, his status clearly anything but ordinary.
He watched the figures on Qilin Mountain with a grave expression and said in a deep voice, "Twelfth Brother, Azure Cloud region is too audacious; an army of three hundred thousand has stormed into Eternal Sun Prefecture."
"They truly disregard the laws of our Imperial Dynasty. The Azure Cloud Army pressed into Eternal Sun Prefecture, their killing intent truly immense, intimidating the entire prefecture until none dared to move an inch."
"These Azure Cloud factions conceal themselves deeply; they are even stronger than our intelligence reports indicated. The Black Tortoise Sect, Longevity Mountain, the Feng family, the Mi family—I suspect these four factions have been secretly hiding masters over these past hundred years, and furthermore, they carry the aura of demonic Qi."
"And then there are the Li family members..."
Listening to his younger brother, Xingyu's, account, Prince Feiheng merely gave a slight nod, his gaze still fixed on everything happening on Qilin Mountain.
He had witnessed with his own eyes how the Li family, this aristocratic house that had been in exile for over a hundred years, had displayed such powerful might within Eternal Sun Prefecture.
"Just what kind of family is this..."
Hearing Feiheng's murmur, Prince Xingyu was stunned for a moment.
"Twelfth Brother, what did you say?"
Prince Feiheng took a deep breath.
"I said, we have gravely underestimated this family. They have already become a formidable power. They left Azure Cloud over a hundred years ago, yet they are still Azure Cloud's uncrowned kings. Azure Cloud region's surname is Li."
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