Fifty meters from the Sea of Monsters, Li Ban and Priest Hao Yang simultaneously took off from Dila's back. Grabbing one person each, they continued flying toward the monstrous tide.
Dila quickly turned back, afraid the monsters would lock onto him and give chase.
Under the distant gaze of the crowd, Li Ban's group of four plunged headlong into the black-and-red Sea of Monsters.
When they were thirty meters away, a section of the massive black-and-red barrier that seemed frozen between heaven and earth began to stir restlessly.
As Li Ban and the others pressed forward to within ten meters, several monsters that had been pinned motionless in the air let out furious roars and flew toward them.
"The space here really is abnormal," Li Ban said, letting go of Chao Lu. Despite not knowing how to fly, Chao Lu didn't fall.
Since their mission was to swiftly penetrate the center of the Sea of Monsters and establish a teleportation portal as close to the three-hundred-meter mark as possible, Li Ban and Priest Hao Yang decisively unleashed their spells.
Especially with the massive supply of White Seeds provided by the Director, all the priests involved in the operation felt as though they had returned to the Wizard World, where they never had to worry about running out of spiritual rhinoceros.
This was the very foundation that allowed so many priests to participate in this operation.
The monster was cleaved in two, but one half was still thrashing.
Its brain was housed in that still-moving half of the body.
With less than five meters between them, the monster raised a massive palm toward Li Ban.
Li Ban narrowed his eyes. He immediately used the Spirit Eye Technique to rapidly locate the densest cluster of muscle on the monster's body, then used the technique a second time.
At this, the monster shuddered violently. Its raised arm lost all strength and was directly swept aside by Li Ban's sword.
Even unable to channel spiritual rhinoceros, the Iron-Eating Sword in his hand remained a peerless weapon.
To Li Ban's side, Priest Hao Yang moved with blistering speed. He was even more familiar with the monsters here; almost every creature with a known weak point took an arrow straight to the brain.
The priest held a crude bow fashioned from a withered wooden branch.
Yet whenever he drew the string, an arrow condensed entirely from spiritual rhinoceros would manifest upon it.
The arrow would fly out, strike a monster, and then detonate inside its body.
Even if the shot missed the vital point, the subsequent explosion was enough to pulverize the monster's brain to mush.
This combat style was incredibly powerful, but it also consumed a massive amount of spiritual rhinoceros. Priest Hao Yang hadn't fought like this in a very, very long time. As the battle continued, the heavy aura clinging to him gradually dissipated, revealing glimpses of his former sharp and unbridled self.
It was as if he had returned to his days of fighting in the Mist Realm.
After slaying five monsters, they completely entered the bounds of the Sea of Monsters.
Priest Hao Yang glanced sideways at Li Ban. Seeing that Li Ban was handling himself with ease and required no support, he threw himself back into the exhilarating slaughter.
Li Ban also noticed the shift in Priest Hao Yang's demeanor during the fight. For their current battle, this was a good thing.
Even if the priest overexerted his spiritual rhinoceros, it wouldn't matter.
He had more than enough White Seeds to go around.
Because his teammate was so reliable, Li Ban even had time to observe the state of the two bottle people.
Just as Priest Lang Jiao had explained, the two bottle people were almost never actively targeted by the monsters.
They hid behind Li Ban and Priest Hao Yang. Octopus used his long tentacles to intercept any monsters approaching the two priests from the sides and rear.
Since the monsters weren't being attacked—only blocked—their first reaction wasn't to strike at the tentacles, but to try and force their way past.
However, this brief delay gave the two priests enough time to react and directly eliminate the threatening targets.
Meanwhile, Chao Lu acted like an assassin in the shadows. Finding the right moment, she would shoot out her long tongue to drag a small monster close, then quickly open her cloak to swallow it into her abdomen. She would wait for it to digest before ambushing her next prey.
Because Chao Lu's tongue lashed out with such incredible speed, a small monster would simply vanish in the blink of an eye.
A few breaths later, another would disappear.
Both Chao Lu and Octopus fought in concealment.
Because if they brazenly launched attacks on the horde, the monsters would undoubtedly fight back without hesitation.
Seeing how engrossed everyone was in the battle, Li Ban hurriedly used a telepathy spell to call out, "Don't drag out the fight! Push forward quickly!"
Even for a simple shout, he extravagantly used a spell.
He was worried that these monsters might alter their combat strategies based on their reactions.
During their combat preparations, the Director had warned him, "Although most of the monsters lack reason, a small fraction still possess the combat instincts they had as humans. If the smarter monsters figure out your mission is to break through, they might try to rally their companions to block you. Even when facing a horde of creatures that no longer look remotely human, you must remain vigilant and not expose your combat strategy."
Upon receiving Li Ban's message, Priest Hao Yang immediately shifted his bow. Abandoning a powerful monster in the distance, he began gathering his strength, aiming toward the center of the Sea of Monsters.
A pale blue-and-white light coiled like lightning around the arrow that materialized out of thin air.
He was preparing an ultimate move.
Li Ban instantly cast the Protection Spell to Priest Hao Yang's side and rear, ensuring he wouldn't be interrupted.
He himself swiftly tore apart three large nearby monsters, drawing all the enemy fire onto himself.
Sure enough, the majority of the low-intelligence monsters howled and charged at Li Ban, completely ignoring Hao Yang on his left.
Li Ban shifted three meters to the right, widening the distance between himself and Priest Hao Yang.
By now, seven or eight monsters had surrounded Li Ban. Neither Octopus nor Chao Lu could quickly kill these large creatures, which were nearly three meters tall. Thus, following their previous plan, they held back and disguised themselves as members of the monster horde unless Li Ban explicitly requested their help.
With a swing of his sword, Li Ban blocked a headbutt from a two-headed snake while simultaneously shredding its other head.
The small half of the body connected to the ruined head instantly slumped, but the remaining intact head was still able to control the tail and the rest of the body.
"If the monsters here could all evolve multiple heads, we'd be in real trouble. Fortunately, the Director's statistics showed that these multi-headed monsters often end up killing themselves by fighting for control over the body and unevenly splitting their spoils, so there aren't too many of them."
A whistling sound approached from behind. With no room to dodge, Li Ban directly cast a Protection Spell and braced for the impact.
"Clang!"
The monster failed to break through the Protection Spell, but Li Ban still felt the jarring force.
Casting Protection Spells in two separate locations for two different targets was starting to take a toll on him.
"As expected, real combat is the best way to temper one's spells. I'm getting much more proficient with the new ones I've learned."
Gritting his teeth, Li Ban shoved the giant snake away and quickly unleashed another spell he had learned from Zhu Yao: the Flash Freeze Technique.
The giant snake before him had a massive head, but its actual brain was very small and hidden away somewhere unknown.
Instead of using the Rending Technique for a precision kill, it was better to switch to the Flash Freeze Technique to freeze it over a wide area.
Sure enough, the moment Li Ban quickly froze the two-headed snake's final head, the massive creature froze solid, completely incapable of launching another attack.
"The monsters' bodies are extremely resilient, so the Flash Freeze Technique can't instantly kill them. However, my goal isn't to slaughter every monster here anyway."
Li Ban used the Flash Freeze Technique again, freezing another creature that looked like a hybrid between a spider and a scorpion.
He directly froze the body around its eyes, causing the creature to instantly stiffen in place.
Just as Li Ban was struggling to hold back the large monsters, Priest Hao Yang's exceedingly long spell-casting finally finished accumulating power.
The bow and arrow in his hands were entirely wreathed in glowing white lightning. The spiritual rhinoceros arrow that had materialized from the void was now half a meter thick and two meters long.
It was completely disproportionate to the size of his actual bow.
However, the bow was merely a prerequisite for releasing the spell; it had no bearing on whether he could fire this massive Silver Lightning Arrow.
Priest Hao Yang's eyes were sharp. Aiming toward the densest cluster of monsters in their path, he lightly released his fingers.
"Boom!" Unlike the sharp twang of a normal arrow in flight, the bow released a colossal roar like a raging thunderstorm.
Even the several monsters currently attacking Li Ban shuddered at the noise.
Li Ban felt a wave of numbness wash over his body, though fortunately, it faded quickly.
Immediately after, he stopped drawing the monsters' attacks and broke out of the encirclement.
"Whoa! What kind of spell is this?"
The densely packed Sea of Monsters before them had been nearly hollowed out by the massive arrow, leaving behind a colossal, cylindrical channel three meters in diameter and a hundred meters long.
Because the monsters in the air were so tightly packed, this empty tunnel of air stood out vividly.
"Go, quickly!"
The wooden bow in Priest Hao Yang's hands shattered. Reaching into his Cubic Space, he directly pulled out a second, equally crude wooden bow.
The two priests immediately charged into the massive tunnel, advancing a full hundred meters straight into the depths of the Sea of Monsters.
Octopus and Chao Lu followed a step behind, seamlessly blending into the horde of monsters pursuing Li Ban and Hao Yang without drawing any attention.
After traversing those hundred meters, the channel carved out by the Silver Lightning Arrow vanished.
A fresh wave of monsters from all sides was already closing in on them.
Priest Hao Yang looked at Li Ban, his eyes seemingly asking, "Can you still keep up?"
Li Ban directly pulled out a handful of White Seeds, holding them in his palm before gripping his Iron-Eating Sword tightly.
"Haha, let's do this again!"
Before his voice had even faded, he repeated his previous tactic, once again drawing all the enemy fire for Priest Hao Yang.
Watching Li Ban quickly dash past him to attract the attention of the surrounding monsters, Priest Hao Yang didn't hesitate for a second. He raised his bow and began charging his power once more.
A minute later, another streak of roaring silver lightning tore through the Sea of Monsters.
In the distance, the priests watching Li Ban's strike team plunge into the Sea of Monsters couldn't help but feel tense.
Fortunately, those occasional flashes of silver-white light acted like flare signals, periodically conveying to the spectators that Li Ban and Hao Yang were still successfully advancing deeper into the Sea of Monsters.
"Once they get a little further in, I'm afraid we won't be able to see Priest Hao Yang's Silver Lightning Arrows anymore," said Priest Yu Hai, the leader of the Azure Luan Camp, crossing his arms.
Standing beside him, Priest Dong Yi, the leader of the Mist Camp, reminisced for a moment. "The Silver Lightning Arrow is a spell created by Priest Hao Yang himself, and its lethal power is immense. It just consumes an extraordinary amount of spiritual rhinoceros and requires time to compress all that spiritual rhinoceros. I haven't seen him cast it in a very long time."
Like Priest Hao Yang, Priest Dong Yi was also a priest of the Mist Realm Faction, so he understood him much better.
Back when they first arrived at the Recycling Station and established their respective camps, Dong Yi had tried to recruit the fiercely powerful Priest Hao Yang.
Unfortunately, Hao Yang had followed his younger brother, Priest Hao Ze, into the Yongge Camp established by Priest Li He.
With the Eighth-Tier Priest Li He at the helm, coupled with the combat-savvy Hao Yang and Hao Ze brothers, the Yongge Camp had instantly become the strongest camp in the Continental Center.
"Indeed," Priest Yu Hai said, uncrossing his arms and clenching his fists in front of his chest. "Today, we'll also be able to fight to our hearts' content."
Standing behind the crowd, Priest Lang Jiao laughed. "Then they'd better not die before finishing that teleportation portal."