The First Immortal of Destiny

Chapter 455: Chapter 455 Yang Chengxiong_1

As Shen Mo emerged from the other side of the Teleportation Array, Destiny’s Danger Perception began to sound alarm bells frantically.

WHOOSH! Shen Mo held up the Green Cloud Umbrella, shielding himself from several terrifying, lethal forces. However, the magic altar behind him was suddenly blasted to dust.

Only then, relying on his five senses, did he notice the perilous situation he was in.

He was now in a valley formed by several peaks. Each surrounding peak had a towering flag planted on its summit, with a silhouette standing beneath each flag.

The silhouette standing on the central peak seemed familiar.

With a turn of his thoughts, Shen Mo remembered this person; it was Yang Chengxiong, a disciple of the Sword Alliance possessed by Horse Groom Lv.

However, his soul’s vigor was incredibly strong, far beyond that of the initial Gas Gathering Disciples, reaching at least the late-stage Spirit Sea Realm!

No! This is not his own Cultivation Realm, but the aura of Horse Groom Lv.

With narrowed eyes, Shen Mo gazed at the figure in front of him, unsure whether it was Yang Chengxiong or Horse Groom Lv, and spoke loudly, ”You painstakingly constructed the magic altar and lured me here, just to trap and kill me?”

The towering flags on the peaks were the array cores of the Formation, and this place had been meticulously set up as a massive killing array, encompassing both Shen Mo and the Teleportation Array.

The ones controlling the array flags seemed not to be cultivators of the Taiyi Sword Alliance, but each one was powerful, with the lowest cultivation reaching the late-stage Spirit Sea Realm.

The fact that Danger Perception was sounding alarms proved that this big array had significant Killing Power!

”HEH!” Yang Chengxiong sneered, greed and killing intent entwined in his eyes. ”That’s right. I am aware of your identity and consider you a great threat.”

”Unless... you hand over that exotic treasure, the Soul Refining Flag, to me, I will kill you here today!”

So, after Shen Mo had originally used the Demon Soul General, Horse Groom Lv, to possess Yang Chengxiong, everything initially went according to his plan.

Horse Groom Lv used his Possession Skill to secretly manipulate Yang Chengxiong, continuously collecting materials for Formations and trying to complete Shen Mo’s final order: to copy and construct an ancient Teleportation Array.

But as this Demon Soul General remained detached from the control of the Soul Refining Flag for an extended period, it gradually developed self-consciousness.

Moreover, after it used the Possession Skill, its soul developed an extremely close connection with Yang Chengxiong’s soul, eventually forming a bizarre symbiotic relationship.

One could say that Yang Chengxiong was no longer the original person... but a fusion body of the Sword Alliance disciple Yang Chengxiong and the mutated Demon Soul General, Horse Groom Lv. The two were now inseparable!

As a result, he became aware of Shen Mo’s existence.

Identifying Shen Mo, the Flag Master of the Soul Refining Flag, as the mastermind controlling his ”fate,” he began to meticulously plot, building this ancient array magic altar according to the commands in his memory.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the mutated Demon Soul’s ability to grow stronger by devouring Flesh and Blood, he secretly captured and consumed ”blood food,” lifting his own Cultivation Realm to the peak of Class III.

With the accumulation over these past two years, Yang Chengxiong contacted black market forces that accepted assassination and hijacking tasks. With their help, he laid this ambush.

Currently, he still owed most of the remuneration to these forces, which he needed to obtain from Shen Mo.

As for why he didn’t report this to the Taiyi Sword Alliance’s high levels... it’s not hard to understand. Given Yang Chengxiong’s current state, he didn’t dare truthfully solicit Supper from the sect; he feared the Sword Alliance even more than Shen Mo!

Perhaps, in Shen Mo’s view, Yang Chengxiong going to such great lengths to lure him here and create an ambush might seem like an overreaction.

But for Yang Chengxiong, who was an ordinary disciple of the Sword Alliance, it was only with the help of the Possession Ghost Horse Groom Lv that he had smoothly cultivated to this stage.

Unfortunately, this greatest opportunity of his, the soul mark, was still on the Soul Refining Flag, controlled by another.

He could never be at peace until he had disposed of Shen Mo and obtained the Soul Refining Flag...

In moments, Shen Mo gained a clear understanding of how events had developed.

To be honest, he didn’t harbor much killing intent towards Yang Chengxiong. After all, it was thanks to him that he had managed to traverse countless miles to this Foreign Zone.

If Yang Chengxiong had been willing to negotiate, Shen Mo might have even considered erasing Horse Groom Lv’s soul mark from the Soul Refining Flag and granting him a great opportunity. It wouldn’t have been impossible.

However, it was evident that Yang Chengxiong was geared for a fight from the outset, clearly not interested in a peaceful resolution.

Even if Shen Mo truly surrendered the Soul Refining Flag, this man would probably not stop there. Instead, he would continue to activate the deadly Formation to ensure Shen Mo’s demise.

After these thoughts flashed through his mind, Shen Mo smiled. He took out the Soul Refining Flag, infused it with mana and True Yuan, and gave it a gentle shake.

Horse Groom Lv’s soul mark on the flag suddenly lit up.

The next moment, Yang Chengxiong’s expression changed dramatically. The muddled Demonic Qi in his body—a mixture of Bloody Fiend Qi, Resentment Qi, ghostly Qi, and Demonic Qi—began to rage and flicker with strange colors!

Inside his Dao Body, a soul bearing some resemblance to both him and Horse Groom Lv could be seen distorting. It was slowly being pulled out from the Mind Sea within his brow, threatening to be swept away by the Soul Refining Flag in Shen Mo’s hands.

”Since I already knew your identity, how could I not have prepared a countermeasure or two?” Yang Chengxiong roared, his face twisted. He quickly reached into his Universe Bag and pulled out seven blood-stained Soul-binding Nails. He drove one directly into his crown, one into his heart, one into his Dantian, and the remaining four into each of his limbs!

As the seven Soul-binding Nails were driven into his Dao Body, Yang Chengxiong’s soul instantly recoiled back inside, becoming immobile as if firmly secured.

”Activate the big array and kill him!” Yang Chengxiong roared at the figures on the various mountain peaks.

Although their deeds were despicable, once they accepted a down payment and the assignment, they would commit fully to completing the task.

Immediately, they all channeled their mana and True Yuan into their array flags, fully activating the Killing Power of the Formation.

OM! OM! OM!

As the big array activated, accompanied by strange reverberations, a series of grey-black beams of light enveloped the valley.

Each beam carried horrifying destructive power. When one brushed past protruding rocks, it instantly vaporized them into a cloud of foul-smelling black smoke.

SWISH! Shen Mo opened the Green Cloud Umbrella, just in time to block the first wave of attacks.

However, under the assault of the destructive beams, the surface of the Green Cloud Umbrella showed extremely fine traces of damage.

This defensive magic treasure had cost Shen Mo a significant amount of cultivation resources. When infused with enough True Yuan, its protective power was immense, capable of resisting even a full-force attack from someone half a step into the Golden Core Realm without sustaining any damage.

But where did Yang Chengxiong find helpers capable of setting up such a formidable killing array?

However, Shen Mo possessed more than just the Green Cloud Umbrella as a magic treasure.

With a thought, the seven Dao swords wrapped around his wrist shot out with a hiss, forming a formidable Sword Array that fiercely collided with the killing array.

As brilliant Sword Lights intertwined with the destructive beams, the shockwaves pulverized large swathes of rock into dust and black smoke, gouging out the valley floor by more than ten feet!

”The Big Dipper Array—Star Shifting!”