Chương 73: Battle Lines

At this moment, Blood Lion Mountain had become a true battlefield. And the cultivators fighting here, no matter their usual grudges, had to swallow their differences and endure. No one was expected to stand shoulder to shoulder with your rivals, but at the very least, you shouldn't kick someone when they're down.

"Fellow Cultivator Tian, this is shameless!" Zhang Huaijin's voice rang out across the blood soaked slopes. His expression remained calm, the Sword dancing like an illusion in his palm as it deflected the savage onslaught of the Green Eyed Tiger. But his words flayed Tian Jianwei alive.

"You lure a spirit beast straight to my position, and now you're trying to slip away? The fellow cultivators around us are watching. What are they supposed to think of your actions?" The commotion drew the attention of the surrounding cultivators. Gao Zhengxin and the others from the Gao and Yan families exchanged glances, their eyes glinting with mockery. The Tian family had just lost face all across Qingtai's nine counties.

There were only a few dozen Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators on Blood Lion Mountain. Most of them had crossed paths before. Zhang Huaijin's voice carried far, and soon, several of those cultivators pieced together exactly what had happened. They looked at Tian Jianwei with undisguised disgust. It was one thing to protect your own skin, but to divert a deadly threat onto someone else?

If a weaker Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator had been standing in Zhang Huaijin's place, they would have been dead. Tian Jianwei's face turned dark as a thunderhead. Zhang Huaijin had just roasted him over an open fire. The dozen or so cultivators from the Tian family also wore ugly expressions.

"Fellow Cultivator Zhang, what are you saying?" Tian Jianwei shot back, his voice dripping with false innocence.

"You're only at the first level of Foundation Establishment Realm, yet you killed that second level Purple Lightning Demon Rabbit with ease. I simply gave you some space, I was afraid of getting in the way of your attacks!" Faced with such a brazen retort, what could Zhang Huaijin even say? He simply shook his head in silence. In his heart, he had already sentenced Tian Jianwei to death. But now wasn't the time. There were too many eyes watching.

So Zhang Huaijin remained calm and refocussed on the Green Eyed Tiger. Though he was only at the first level of Foundation Establishment Realm, facing a third level spirit beast was well within his capabilities. He wasn't even using his full strength, only the power of his Qi cultivation. Yet the combat prowess he displayed still made the surrounding Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators sit up and take notice. A first level cultivator, trading blow's with a third level spirit beast on equal footing?

His strength was nothing short of astonishing. Right now, thanks to Tian Jianwei's stunt, Zhang Huaijin had become the focal point of the entire battlefield. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. His expression unchanged, Zhang Huaijin began to turn the tide against the Green Eyed Tiger. The sword light radiating from the Blue Bamboo Serenity Sword blazed even brighter, scorching flames swirling continuously around its edge.

He was as reliable as ever, steadily shrinking the Green Eyed Tiger's room to maneuver. Step by step, he locked the beast down. The tiger roared in fury, its massive claws tearing through the air in a frenzy. They clashed violently against the Blue Bamboo Serenity Sword. sparks exploded, shockwaves rippled outward, and blood sprayed from fresh wounds. Zhang Huaijin possessed a Supreme Grade Dao Foundation, which allowed him to exert several times his normal battle power.

Suppressing a Green Eyed Tiger was effortless. Soon, the tiger's enormous body was crisscrossed with wounds. Blood flowed freely. It grew weaker with every passing breath. Tian Jianwei, meanwhile, wasn't faring well either. The moment the Green Eyed Tiger became Zhang Huaijin's problem, a new spirit beast had taken its place. Another third level beast, it was now pushing Tian Jianwei back just as hard as he had tried to push his burden onto someone else. Zhang Huaijin wasn't in a hurry.

Of the hundred plus Foundation Establishment Realm spirit beasts, nearly half were at the early stage. The mid stage beasts were occupied by the human side's own mid stage cultivators. For now, the two sides were fairly evenly matched. Zhang Huaijin just needed to focus on his own fight. Half an hour later, the third level Green Eyed Tiger was slowly ground down and killed by Zhang Huaijin's relentless assault. The day's great battle began to wind down.

The human cultivators started retreating back behind the safety of their formation. The spirit beasts did not pursue. They had fought a bloody battle for an entire day. Even beasts, as frenzied as they were, needed rest. The main purpose of the Beast Tide was to temper the spirit beasts and consume human cultivators. Once enough beasts had died, the tide would recede on its own. —— A month passed in the blink of an eye.

The fighting on the Blood Lion Mountain continued without pause, but the Nine Star Black Glass Array stood firm as Mount Tai. The spirit vein could no longer recover its spiritual energy, so the defenders had started burning through their stockpiles of spirit stones. Over that month, Zhang Huaijin had personally killed eight Foundation Establishment Realm spirit beasts. The spiritual energy within his own meridians had reached a boiling point.

He had a feeling that within days, he would break through to the second level of Foundation Establishment Realm. Continuous combat was a form of tempering for a cultivator's cultivation base. He had been holding back all this time, but over such a long period, it couldn't be helped. Each of those eight beasts had been slowly ground down and killed by him, worn to death, blow by blow. His spiritual energy reserves seemed as vast as an ocean, its depths unknowable.

All eight were early stage Foundation Establishment Realm spirit beasts, and Zhang Huaijin had slain every single one. He had become one of the most dazzling figures among the cultivators. Even Fang Tao of the Fang family had begun to view Zhang Huaijin with genuine respect. The man's strength was simply astonishing. True, all eight beasts were only at the early stage, but Zhang Huaijin was only at the first level himself!

With battle prowess like this, even cultivators with an Upper Grade Dao Foundation seemed lackluster in comparison. His current opponent was a fourth level Sun Crystal Jackal. Its body was silver white, with yellow spots running along its spine. Wisps of yang energy swirled around it, scorching the very air. Its eyes were filled with killing intent. Zhang Huaijin's name had been marked by the spirit beast side, not just the humans. He wanted a low profile, but these beasts kept throwing themselves at him to die.

The Sun Crystal Jackal was the ninth Foundation Establishment Realm beast he had faced. And it was at the fourth level, the mid stage. For the first time, Zhang Huaijin felt real pressure. They had been fighting for five days now. Neither could gain the upper hand. A flicker of killing intent, long absent from his eyes, finally surfaced again. As for Tian Jianwei, he was now like a quail, shrinking his head, scurrying as far from Zhang Huaijin as possible, trying to become invisible.

The combat prowess the man had displayed was simply terrifying. It sent chills down the spine. Zhang Huaijin, dressed in white robes, wielded the Blue Bamboo Serenity Sword in his right hand and the Green Ape Seal in his left. Both were Tier 2, low grade spirit artifacts, pushed to their limits as he furiously clashed with the Sun Crystal Jackal. The Green Ape Seal, in particular, unleashed devastating force.

The great green seal manifested multiple ape phantoms, their deafening roars assaulting the Crystal Jackal's eardrums from all sides. The Blue Bamboo Serenity Sword, meanwhile, blurred into countless sword shadows. A vast sword aura surged skyward like a tidal wave. In an instant, it condensed into three scorching, azure sword beams that warped the air around them. Each beam possessed battle power comparable to a mid stage Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator's full strength strike.

The surrounding cultivators gasped. Gao Zhengxin from the Gao family, widened his eyes in shock.

"That's the second layer of sword cultivation, Sword Shadows!"