Bean-sized beads of sweat flowed down his face. He had underestimated the difficulty of controlling this [Great Li Fire Seal Formation]!

To pursue power, he had done his best to strengthen the formation from every aspect. The direct result was the difficulty in controlling the formation had also increased. Behind the spectacular display, the series of manipulations he had done were all highly difficult!

Even though Zuo Mo’s skill and control had increased, the unexpected difficulty of controlling the formation had created a great problem for him.

His body shook like dice. In a short moment, sweat suddenly started to appear on his body. In a moment he appeared to have been just dunked in water.

It was too hard!

Damn it!

Zuo Mo cautiously began using all of his consciousness to control every tiny change in the formation.

Formations were a kind of work that demanded meticulousness. Any kind of mistake could create an extremely large effect, and cause the effect of the formation to vary drastically. The complexity of a formation belt that was composed of many kinds of formations that were maximized for effect was even more so.

Zuo Mo did not notice that he had bitten through his lips, and blood was seeping out.

His consciousness was using the Five Colored Pagoda to carefully control the web of fire!

Having finally stopped Zong Ming Yan’s attack, Zuo Mo didn’t have the time to rejoice. He had reached his limits, the web of fire was almost out of control!

Zuo Mo’s eyes widened into circles, the tendons in his forehead pulsing. If he lost control of the fire web, for him, that meant failure. The temperature of the tranquil blue fire was the strongest flame that he had ever seen since he learned dan-making. The uncontrolled fire web would collapse in an instant, and the flowing tranquil blue fire would destroy all of the formations.

That was definitely not allowed!

But he had reached the last of his endurance. He could feel the ling power in his body quickly depleting. His weak cultivation once again became his Achilles’ heel! However, he had no time to think about this right now. He had to make a choice!

He didn’t even pause to think. Grunting, he gathered the last of his power!

———

The gigantic tranquil blue fire suddenly pushed downwards. The xiuzhe in the formation below instantly moved. Did Zuo Mo want to get them all at once?

He didn’t know his power!

A cold smile appeared on the corner of many of the xiuzhe’s mouths. From their perspective, a zhuji xiuzhe was sending them a challenge through this method. These people whose eyes were always looking upwards, how could they bear a zhuji looking down at them?

Many competitors were preparing eagerly to try to test the power of the web of fire!

Just at this time, a deep and raspy sound suddenly echoed through the formation.

“Bind!”

The web of fire that had covered the sky suddenly shrunk extremely, heading for Zong Ming Yan. This caused the xiuzhe that had prepared to fight to pause. They instantly revealed expressions of anticipation to see the result. No one would be dumb to block the web of fire for Zong Ming Yan.

Anger came onto Zong Ming Yan’s face. He gave a heavy snort. His expression serious, the Seven Plum Sword in his hand turned to a flash of dark light that headed for the web of fire.

As the Seven Plum Sword entered the air, it turned to a gigantic sword energy, forcefully piercing the net.

The tranquil blue fire web unexpectedly shrunk again, actually taking along the sword and person to the middle of the web.

When the sword energy sliced the web of fire, Zuo Mo spat out a handful of blood again, his face becoming even paler.

But did the situation allow him to retreat? He suddenly bit the tip of his tongue, the salty and fishy taste of blood making his mind alert. He suddenly pushed out his last bit of power. His spiritual and ling power was almost empty at this time. Zuo Mo was bleeding from his nose and mouth, but he did not detect it.

The last bit of consciousness burrowed into the Five Colored Pagoda. The Five Colored Pagoda suddenly burst in light. Under the crescent moon, it flashed with five colored light!

Zong Ming Yan’s expression finally changed!

The web of fire had not neared him, but the rising temperature was already enough for him to feel fear. He didn’t dare to hold anything back. He jumped into the air, closely following the flying sword. All his ling power was channeled into the flying sword. There was only one thought in his mind –––– break out of this web of fire!

Using all his power, the sword essence of the Seven Plum Sword suddenly was as sharp as the cold wind at the top of a cliff. Suddenly, it was like there was an old winter plum standing in the wind!

Hiss!

The flying sword broke through the fire web. Zong Ming Yan felt joy, but just at this time, a change occurred.

“Die!”

Zuo Mo’s muffled shout was like thunder, rolling and exploding inside the formation!

The web of fire suddenly retreated inwards to the center!

Zong Ming Yan felt that the tranquil blue flame was all around him, as though he was inside a large dan cauldron, and would turn to ash at any instant. Fear in his heart, he hurriedly activated the ling armor!

Countless tranquil blue flames landed on Zong Ming Yan’s body!

“Ah!’

Zong Ming Yan shrieked, the light of the flying sword suddenly becoming disordered. Just as everyone assumed at Zong Ming Yan would lose his life, the countless tranquil blue flame suddenly disappeared.

Yet there were still many flames that had landed on Zong Ming Yan’s ling armor. Dong Qi Sword Sect was not famous for its defence. The power of these tranquil blue flames were astounding. Even with the protection of the ling armor, Zong Ming Yan was in terrible straits.

His entire body was burnt black, ling armor completely damaged. He was like a piece of wood burnt black, dropping from the sky.

The other xiuzhe inside the formation all inhaled in shock!

Who was the person dropping down! It was Zong Ming Yan!

This formation was truly too strong, even Zong Ming Yan had been defeated. The xiuzhe that had wanted to try solving the formation instantly stopped in their tracks. When they saw the unconscious Zong Ming Yan and the terrible state of his body as he laid on the ground, they really didn’t bear to look at him.

Holy moly!

Even Zong Ming Yan wasn’t a match. Was this formation really just something a zhuji had made?

The same question flowed through every xiuzhe inside the formation. Zuo Mo hadn’t put all of his effort in at the end. If he hadn’t stopped, then all of the tranquil blue flames would have bombarded Zong Ming Yan. It would have been hard to say if Zong Ming Yan would have managed to survive.

In other words, the formation that Zuo Mo setup was able to kill a ningmai xiuzhe!

Everyone jumped in fright.

In one moment, all the xiuzhe that had been fighting in the formation completely stopped attacking each other. A serious expression came onto their faces. They were still inside the formation!

But what they didn’t realize was that Zuo Mo had no intentions of letting the Zong Ming Yan off. At the end, even his mind had been blurred. How would he know when to stop? All of his spiritual and ling power had been used up. He had fainted which was what had caused the flames to disappear.

———

When Zuo Mo slowly woke up from unconsciousness, the desire for battle and courage had long ago flew into the horizons.

As expected, the ignorant had no fear!

Just now, he had actually been locked in combat directly with Zong Ming Yan!

He suddenly tilted his head. He remembered now. Before he had fainted, he had actually defeated Zong Ming Yan! He grinned, but with his expressionless face, it looked extremely strange.

How long had he been unconscious? He struggled to get up, looking at the surroundings.

Hm, he was still inside the formation? The people still hadn’t solved the formation? Zuo Mo felt that this was extremely absurd. Even now, he still found it hard to accept that he had just defeated Zong Ming Yan.

Zuo Mo didn’t know that he had just been unconscious for the time of an incense stick. This was due to his extremely deep practice of [Vajra Profound Sutra]. If he didn’t practice that, it would have been many days until he would wake up.

And he would never have predicted that in the time that he had been unconscious, no one tried to break the formation.

It was the opposite. The xiuzhe in the formation started to attack other people, no matter if it was Su or Gui Feng. Even Chang Heng had entered the fight. The other people started to clean up the other xiuzhe inside the formation. Wu Ling Sanren and Wei Fei had started to get busy.

Chang Heng and the others were acting out of caution. They had just seen the power of the formation. No one dared to be careless. To solve the formation, they had to put in all their power. But if there were opponents beside them, who would dare to give their all?

If Zuo Mo thought of all this, he would definitely feel proud of himself. A cultivator just in zhuji that made so many ningmai wary and put them on the defensive, it was enough to be proud!

However, Zuo Mo had just woken up and his gaze had landed on the incomplete [Skyring Moon Chime Formation].

In reality, while it looked like he had won the battle against Zong Ming Yan, but in reality, he had accomplished it through self-harm. The wounds he had received when controlling the seal soldier to face Nan Men Yang had worsened and he completely lost the power to keep fighting.

So unprofitable!

The first thought that popped into Zuo Mo’s mind was this!

Looking at these Skyring Moon Chime child formations, the pain in his heart reached a peak, far more painful than the pain from his physical body.

So many jingshi were wasted! He had bought all of these materials from the Hundred Treasures Flying Pavilion in order to attend this competition. He felt like he had taken a large sum of jingshi, and made an extremely incorrect investment. It looked like he hadn’t gained anything at all, and lost everything.

No!

Definitely not!

Zuo Mo gritted his teeth and sat up. He had to finish the seventy-two child formation [Skyring Moon Chime Formation]!

He wasn’t thinking of the Kun Lun jade scroll. His actions were just to not waste all the materials he had already used. He had spent so many materials, he had to hear a “sound” from them.

As he endured the pain, Zuo Mo comforted himself so.

Right now, he completely did not have any energy to continue so he sat down and meditated. He needed to quickly recover his ling and spiritual power. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even get to hear a “sound”.

Consequently, an extremely strange scene appeared. Zuo Mo was safely meditating in the formation to recover ling and spiritual power while Chang Heng and the others were engaged in fierce combat inside the formation. The other xiuzhe might not be as good as the experts but the ones that dared to enter the formation were not ordinary in their power. These xiuzhe were not stupid. They instantly knew what Chang Heng and the others intended, and naturally would not wait to be eliminated.

If one person couldn’t win, then two of them would fight together.

Amidst the shouts, the howls of the flying swords, the bangs and crashes, Zuo Mo silently meditated.

Forty five minutes later, he finally open his eyes. In possession of the mo matrix and yao seed he recovered ling and spiritual power. With the exception of Pu Yao, he had never encountered a xiuzhe that could recover faster than himself.

Yet even in this little span of time, only five people were left remaining in the formation.

Su, Gui Feng, Chang Heng, the yellow-faced man, Luo Li.

Yu Bai and Nan Men Yang had fought too hard and expended too much energy. It could be said that both of them had lost. They had been tricked by Chang Heng and the yellow-faced man working together. As for the other people, they had been eliminated even earlier on. The pitiful Zong Ming Yan had been saved by Wu Ling Sanren a long time ago.

Zuo Mo did not attend to the five people. Pushing down his wounds, he kept on setting up the [Skyring Moon Chime Formation].

The target that he gave himself right now was extremely realistic

–––– Finish the seventy-two child formation [Skyring Moon Chime Formation], if he couldn’t get the jade scroll, he’d get experience!

Translator Ramblings: One down, five to go.