Martial Peak

Chapter 1757, Breaking Free

Blossoming Lotus Secret Technique! Yang Kai’s most powerful Soul attack method.

In the face of such a weird shadow, he did not dare experiment anymore and immediately used his trump card.

The lotus pattern was fleeting, and in the next moment, it appeared around the black shadow’s body. The lotus bud began to bloom slowly, using the black shadows’ own power as a source of energy!

The black shadow suddenly stopped in place less than a meter from Yang Kai and collapsed to the ground, howling constantly.

By the time the lotus flower fully bloomed, the black shadow had already disappeared, leaving behind only a black lotus in its place which immediately collapsed and scattered to the wind.

Only now did Yang Kai have the time to investigate the situation of the others in his group.

Luo Lan was the closest to him, and when Yang Kai turned his head and looked towards her, he saw another human-shaped black shadow standing behind this First-Order Origin King. This black shadow was the same as the one he had eliminated just now and also strangely had no face.

At this moment, the black shadow was standing right behind Luo Lan and from its head, a tendril was protruding and had attached itself to the back of Luo Lan’s head.

A malevolent aura radiated from the black shadow’s body which was clearly affecting Luo Lan’s mind and pulling her Soul into an illusion.

Yang Kai didn’t know what kind of illusion Luo Lan was seeing, but her tender body was constantly trembling, and her complexion was fluctuating rapidly. Beads of sweat were dripping down her forehead and her breathing had become somewhat erratic.

“There’s more than one of these things?!” Yang Kai was startled.

He thought that the enemy that attacked him and Luo Lan was the same entity, but now that he had a chance to observe the situation, he realized there were more than one of these strange creatures.

Glancing over towards Xue Yue and Ni Guang in the distance, Yang Kai discovered that their situation was the same as Luo Lan’s, black, faceless, human-like shadows lurking behind them, manipulating them through some kind of illusion.

Clearly, no one had noticed when these shadows attacked, because even Ni Guang had been affected.

Looking at them like this, Yang Kai was certain they were in similar situations to the one he was in earlier.

The whipping winds at the bottom of the ravine suddenly carried over several howling voices at that moment.

Yang Kai felt a chill hearing these voices and upon turning his head around, his complexion could not help paling.

Stunned, Yang Kai discovered that, in all directions, countless humanoid shadows were appearing from the cracks in the earth. As soon as these shadows manifested, they turned their faceless faces towards Yang Kai, and even though they lacked eyes, he could not help feeling as he was being stared at menacingly.

“There are so many of them!” Yang Kai’s expression truly changed now.

Without hesitating, he rushed towards Luo Lan, gathered his Spiritual Energy into a spike, and struck the black shadow behind her back.

Yang Kai’s Spiritual Energy was incredibly powerful, not inferior to that of a master like Ni Guang’s, so just this attack was enough to damage the black shadow which was attacking Luo Lan. Shaking violently, the shadow dimmed greatly, as if it had suffered a serious injury.

With one more strike from his Divine Sense, Yang Kai was able to completely dislodge the black shadow which let out a miserable cry before dissipating.

Yang Kai calmed down after seeing this, realizing that these black shadows were not powerful and could easily be destroyed.

The problem, however, was there were too many of them.

Once the black shadow was extinguished, Luo Lan let out a cough as she finally broke free of the illusion, opened her eyes, and saw Yang Kai close at hand. Her eyes still showed some confusion though, indicating she was still suffering some aftereffects of the illusion.

Yang Kai quickly shouted at her, “Senior Luo, wake up quickly if you don’t want to die. Use your Spiritual Energy to deal with them.”

“Them?” Luo Lan frowned slightly, “Who?”

There was no need for Yang Kai to answer as, at that moment, many howling shadows rushed towards Luo Lan and Yang Kai.

Luo Lan let out a strange cry seeing this and finally reacted, stretching out her hand and summoning a hiltless dagger which released a radiating light from its blade. Under her control, the dagger flickered back and forth, cutting down any black shadow it impacted and scattering it to the wind.

When all was said and done, she was still an Origin King and this dazzling dagger was obviously a powerful Soul type artifact. Driven by her Spiritual Energy, it was the nemesis of these dark shadows.

Upon seeing this, Yang Kai composed himself and shouted, “Hold them back while I wake up Senior Ni and Xue Yue!”

“Hurry!” Cold sweat dripped from Luo Lan’s forehead as she urged. Even though she had only fought against these dark shadows for a short while, she already sensed how difficult it would be to withstand an attack from such a dense horde of them!

Luo Lan fought as she retreated towards the location where Ni Guang and Xue Yue were together with Yang Kai. As for the black shadows blocking the way, they were all defeated by Yang Kai’s Spiritual Energy.

Although he didn’t have a Soul type artifact like Luo Lan, his Soul cultivation was extremely strong, so he didn’t have trouble clearing out a few of the black shadows.

Soon, Yang Kai arrived by Ni Guang’s side and sent a spike of his Spiritual Energy into the black humanoid figure attacking the latter.

After two strikes, Ni Guang was freed!

The moment the black shadow was defeated, Ni Guang opened his eyes suddenly and a terrible pressure burst from his body.

Standing up sharply, he shouted, “Evil creature, you dare try to disturb this old master’s mind? Damn, it almost succeeded too!”

Looking at his momentum, Yang Kai realized he was in much better condition than Luo Lan. At the very least, even if Ni Guang had been caught off guard, he realized the true nature of his situation. The reason he had not been able to wake himself up must have been because he didn’t have a way to break the illusion he was trapped inside of.

After receiving Yang Kai’s help, he immediately regained control of himself.

With a flick of his sleeve, Ni Guang sent out a powerful shockwave in all directions.

“Senior Ni, these things aren’t affected by Saint Qi or artifacts, they can only be damaged by Spiritual Energy attacks!” Yang Kai quickly informed him.

“So that’s how it is!” Ni Guang quickly understood and immediately opened his mouth to spit out a small round bead. As soon as this bead appeared, it released a burst of light that, while bright, was also extremely gentle, bathing the surrounding area in a warm glow like sunlight.

With the round bead as the centre, a ten-meter radius became a pure region.

All the black shadows that rushed into the light barrier distorted and while screaming, quickly faded into nothingness.

It was like watching snowflakes falling into a hot fire, evaporating without a trace in the blink of an eye!

Seeing this, Yang Kai felt relieved and hurried over to Xue Yue’s side and repeated the same process as before, killing the black shadow attacking her.

Xue Yue’s situation was undoubtedly the worst of the four. Although she was the Young Master of Heng Luo Chamber of Commerce and possessed Heaven defying aptitude, reaching the Third-Order Origin Returning Realm at a very young age, her foundation and life experiences were incomparable to the other three present.

When Luo Lan was rescued by Yang Kai, although she was somewhat confused for a moment, she quickly composed herself and realized what her situation was.

On the contrary, Xue Yue remained in an unconscious state after being rescued by Yang Kai.

However, the expression on her face was extremely strange. There was a smile at the corner of her lips, and her whole body seemed to be extremely relaxed, as if she was experiencing something incredibly pleasant in whatever fantasy world she was trapped.

“Xue Yue!” Yang Kai put his hands on her shoulders and shook her while shouting.

After calling her name two or three times, Xue Yue frowned and opened her eyes, showing a somewhat displeased expression, but the moment she saw Yang Kai standing in front of her, she suddenly smiled and lifted her hand to brush her hair back behind her ear. This was a common gesture for a woman but performing the act when she had the outward appearance of a man was really a bit disturbing. Fortunately, only Yang Kai saw this as Ni Guang and Luo Lan were both busy dealing with the black shadows.

Xue Yue suddenly asked softly, “Did you wake?”

“Huh, why would I be the one waking up?” Yang Kai was confused but quickly shouted sharply, “You’re the one who should wake up quickly!”

“Me?” Xue Yue looked at Yang Kai blankly, her beautiful eyes filled with happiness and sweetness gradually becoming sober. After taking a moment to recover her wits, she began to look around.

At a glance, Xue Yue understood everything, and an obvious look of disappointment filled her face, as if she wished she had not woken up from the illusion just now.

“There are too many of these things. We can’t kill them all, so it’s best if we escape!” When Ni Guang saw Yang Kai successfully awaken Xue Yue, he hurriedly yelled and while speaking, he threw the round bead that was emitting soft light into the sky while chasing after it and shouting, “Follow me!”

“You go first, this Mistress will bring up the rear!” Luo Lan declared valiantly as she took the initiative to defend their retreat.

Yang Kai nodded, stretched out his hand to grab Xue Yue’s arm, and flew upwards together with her as Luo Lan followed behind.

The group of four people flew at an extremely fast speed trying to escape from this strange place.

But, the black shadows below chased after them, and from the many ravines nearby, more and more of them constantly poured out, each of them howling madly as they sent out a disturbing energy fluctuation similar to a Spiritual Energy attack. These attacks were invisible and intangible, and although one or two of them were not very powerful, with so many black shadows gathered together, the Soul Fluctuations they gave off shook the Knowledge Seas of the escaping four, threatening to drag them down in the bottomless abyss again.

However, under the power of Ni Guang and Luo Lan’s artifacts, the black shadows were unable to approach too close and were killed one after another.

Suddenly, Luo Lan, who was responsible for bringing up the rear, called out in alarm, “What is…”

In the next moment, she screamed out loudly, “Run!”

There was clear panic in her voice, as if she had just witnessed something terrifying.

Yang Kai stole a quick glance back across his shoulder and was shocked by what he saw.

The countless black shadows below had begun to fuse together while pursuing them. Like black raindrops all falling towards a single spot, in the blink of an eye, they merged together to form a single massive black shadow that continued to grow at a rapid pace as more and more of the smaller black shadows melted with it.

It was as if a pitch-black night sky had formed below them, giving off an incredibly strong sense of oppression.

After only three breaths, an enormous black shadow had taken shape.