Chronicles of Heaven's Chosen - Chapter 80

Li Ji was twenty-one years old.

She came from the Dual Poles Sect and was a disciple of its Grand Elder. In the previous Grand Sect Tournament, she had placed eleventh.

Zhai Qingye was briefly startled to see her. He immediately looked in Yuan Yao’s direction, only for the prison rooms floating in midair to block his view.

It had to be her.

Zhai Qingye was certain of it.

“Who were you referring to as ‘bait’ just now?!” Elder Yan had realized that fighting the black fog was pointless, since it could restore itself endlessly. Their only option was to locate the Nightmare Beast’s true body and end this once and for all.

Zhai Qingye hesitated.

Xiao Lingwei heard the question and challenged him. “Surely your esteemed order doesn’t intend to force innocent civilians to act as so-called ‘bait’ merely to find the Nightmare Beast?”

Elder Yan’s face darkened under her accusation. His eyes blazing, he rebuked her sternly, “Xiao Lingwei, do not spout such nonsense! There are plenty of righteous people in this world willing to forsake life to uphold righteousness, for their sects and the common folk! Not everyone is as selfish and shortsighted as you people from the Xiaoyao Sect!”

“Then why don’t you act as the bait?” Xiao Lingwei sneered.

Elder Yan choked on his words before replying coldly, “This old man will not argue with an ignorant junior like you!”

Xiao Lingwei found him utterly hypocritical.

Just then—

Another enormous crash sounded in the distance.

They turned toward it and saw one of the prison rooms gradually disappear, revealing the four people within.

Beyond those four, Xiao Lingwei and Ying Wuji caught sight of Yuan Yao. Her face was ghastly pale, and blood streamed from all seven of her orifices.

Their expressions changed at once.

“Yaoyao!”

They cried out almost simultaneously and immediately flew toward her. At that moment, however, the prison rooms suspended in midair began to move. Every last one converged on Yuan Yao.

Before they could reach her, the densely packed prison rooms stacked together and enclosed her at their center.

“Yaoyao—” Worry filled Ying Wuji’s handsome face. He swung his sword at the mass of prison rooms!

Boom!

A violent explosion rang out, but only powerful waves of mental power rolled through the air.

Xiao Lingwei lashed the prison rooms with her long whip.

The tremendous impact forced both of them back several steps.

Not far away, Zhai Qingye narrowed his eyes. “The bait has appeared.”

At his words, Elder Yan and the others immediately focused their attention on the center of the countless prison rooms.

Ying Wuji and Xiao Lingwei attacked them again and again, but they could not break through the sturdy prison of mental power.

At that moment, the black fog fighting Elder Yan’s group suddenly swelled and surged toward the nearest elder of the Dual Poles Sect.

The elder was startled and quickly gathered his spiritual power to defend himself, only for the unexpected to happen—

The black fog passed straight through his body.

“Elder Fang!” Li Ji cried anxiously.

Elder Fang went rigid. All light vanished from his eyes, his mouth fell slightly open, and his entire body froze.

Zhai Qingye’s gaze shifted. He immediately warned them, “It’s a second nightmare! Don’t let it seize your dream.”

The instant the words left his mouth, the black fog swept toward him.

In Zhai Qingye’s eyes, it transformed into a tsunami that shocked heaven and moved earth. Countless strands of mental power closed around him like a net cast by heaven and earth.

He instantly focused his will, raised one hand, and murmured an incantation.

“Defend!”

His mental power swiftly enveloped him, resisting the other side’s invasion!

Elder Yan did not specialize in mental power, but his cultivation had reached the late Soul Transformation Realm, so his mental power was naturally far from weak. He, too, could see the formidable mental power that had nearly taken on physical form.

Alarmed, he swiftly sent his own mental power to assist Zhai Qingye.

The others also realized that only mental power could truly resist the black fog’s assault.

One after another, they unleashed theirs and fought against it.

Meanwhile—

Xiao Lingwei and Ying Wuji’s hearts burned with urgency. They had meant to break open the prison rooms and rescue Yuan Yao as quickly as possible.

They had never expected the mental power within the rooms to link together and form an indestructible barrier!

Neither physical force nor mental power could shake the mental-power barrier.

“Why did Yaoyao come here?!” The memory of Yuan Yao’s blood-covered face made Xiao Lingwei’s heart sink. Worse still, Yaoyao was now trapped at the very center of the danger!

And at the worst possible time, Xiao Lingwei had no way to ask their Master for help.

“Second Senior Sister, don’t worry,” Ying Wuji said, his eyes darkening. “Yaoyao has the life-saving talismans Master gave her.”

“Life-saving talismans?” Xiao Lingwei froze, then asked urgently, “Truly?”

Ying Wuji nodded.

“She still has seven.”

The first life-saving talisman had already been used in the Wuduan Secret Realm.

Among the seven that remained, if the first six failed to block an enemy’s attack, the last talisman would summon their Master directly to her the moment it shattered, allowing him to cross space and appear at her side.

No matter how great the distance.

And…

Their Master’s life was Yaoyao’s ninth life-saving talisman.

Xiao Lingwei was still desperately worried. Her heart ached whenever she recalled the blood streaming from Yaoyao’s seven orifices.

She drew a deep breath and tightened her grip on her segmented bone whip. “When I find out who brought Yaoyao to such a dangerous place, I’ll skin him alive!”

After a pause, she fixed a sharp gaze on the clustered prison rooms and said coldly, “We can’t let it have an easy time.”

By “it,” she meant the Nightmare Beast.

Ying Wuji’s gaze deepened. He exchanged a look with Xiao Lingwei, and in perfect accord, the two attacked the mental-power barrier.

Clang—

Crack—

At the same time, terrifying mental power invaded Yuan Yao’s sea of consciousness. It felt as though she were suffering lingchi, death by a thousand cuts, and the pain was so great that she no longer wished to live.

She clenched her teeth as blood slowly trickled from the corner of her mouth.

It streamed from her ears, eyes, and nose as well.

“Aah—”

Just as the terrifying mental power impatiently moved to devour her soul, the seventh life-saving talisman activated.

Boom!

A mighty force struck back against the Nightmare Beast’s mental power, grievously injuring it!

The Nightmare Beast seemed to let out a piercing shriek and instinctively tried to flee Yuan Yao’s sea of consciousness.

But just as it scrambled desperately to escape—

Something unexpected happened!

Yuan Yao’s eyes snapped open. Her mental power surged after the Nightmare Beast’s and began devouring it with abandon.

Within her sea of consciousness, the mass of white mental power swallowed the Nightmare Beast’s black mental power.

The black mental power struggled and fought back.

The white mental power suppressed it, tore into it, and gradually consumed every last trace.

At that very moment, the Nightmare Beast concealed elsewhere suddenly blazed with bloody red light from the empty sockets of its skull. Its gaze was cold, viscous, dangerous, and furious.

And beneath it all lay a flicker of disbelief.

Never before had any human or living creature been able to “eat” its mental power and turn that power to their own use!

She was the first!