162 The Iron Formation (1/2)
The entire passageway was shaking resounding with metallic echoes which was piercingly cold in the hearts of everyone!
Yi Ping smiled bitterly, ”There are so many passages to choose from that I have taken a random passage…”
Youxue was smiling weakly and comforting Yi Ping at the same time, ”We are practicing the Deific Divine Skill while on the move. None of us really pay any heed to where we are going.”
Yixian muttered weakly, ”It is my fault…”
Alice said weakly to her, ”Not really. The nearer we are to finding an entrance to the next floor, the more dangerous it is.”
Lingfeng nodded nervously, ”Whether it is life or death gate, we still have to face it eventually.”
The Universal Old Man immediately said, ”There is still time to turn back. There are several passages behind us. Combat trials are not rewarding at all and will only weaken us further.”
The hallway of this passage was large. Even if the seventeen of them were to stand shoulder to shoulder, the width of this passage would fit them comfortably. It was because it was meant to fit gargantuan creatures!
Yi Ping had already danced to the foremost front as he readied the Celestial Alice in a defensive position, ”I will delay the enemies ahead. If our enemies are too much…”
He stole a glance at Alice, Isa and Xiang, ”…please flee. I will buy everyone the time.”
The Heavenly Temptress Lie Qing and the Ascension Goddess Ye Yin leapt next to Yi Ping as they said together, ”Yi Ping, we will fight with you!”
Lele had unsheathed the Divine Echo while the Celestial Yixian had also unsheathed her Heavenly Tears Divine Sword!
Yunzi had raised her White Phoenix Divine Sword in a defensive stance while Youxue had stepped protectively in front of her.
Lingfeng, the Goddess Aiel, the Universal Old Man, Han Lin, Yu'Er and Mei'Er had formed a defensive line behind Yunzi but in front of the Goddess Isa, the Goddess Celestial Alice and the Goddess of Mercy!
The Goddess Isa, the Goddess Celestial Alice and the Goddess of Mercy were sighing softly that today that they actually need others to fight their battles for them. They were secretly moved in their hearts even though they were expressionless and emotionless…
All of a sudden dozens of Iron Golems which were a head taller than Yi Ping had suddenly appeared, wielding short swords and shields!
Lingfeng gasped, ”This is the deadly Iron Formation!”
The sight of so many Iron Golems marching together struck awe in the hearts of everyone!
The first thought that came into the minds of everyone was, ”Can we win?”
Youxue immediately said, ”There are exactly eighty-five of them!”
Yi Ping was startled that Youxue was able to count so fast!
Yunzi nodded and added, ”It seems that there are five Iron Golems for each of us here.”
Lingfeng smiled weakly, ”Right. If our group is bigger, more of these Iron Golems will be here. This is a fifth degree formation and the numbers of spawning mobs are a multiple of five.”
Shen Xingyue sighed softly, ”No wonder numbers in strength have no effect in the Stellar Sanctuary and will only be a hindrance.”
Lingfeng warned solemnly, ”Be careful. These Iron Golems are impervious to most attacks. We should flee while we can…”
But Yi Ping had already charged headlong into one of the Iron Golems and had slashed it apart with an exploding burst of his martial power!
Lingfeng was startled as she gasped to herself, ”He can cut this monster apart with his martial strength…”
Even Alice, Isa and Xiang were slightly taken aback as evidenced by their expressions but they were soon praying hard for Yi Ping. It was because they knew that there was a limit to the number of martial power burst that Yi Ping could muster. Moreover this Iron Golem was caught unaware by him and had accidentally exposed an opening…
Yi Ping was startled by his sudden increase of martial strength when he had exercised his martial power. He had expected his martial strength to suffer due to excessive use of his martial power earlier against the Esper Formation and the artefact manifest monster.
Yet now with a sudden burst of his martial power, he had ripped this Iron Golem apart!
That was not the only change that had happened to him!
When he had exercised his martial power, the sense of fatigue had temporary departed from him and he felt so lightweight!
But he had no time to think because three other Iron Golems had attacked him on all sides, startling him!
It was because he had suddenly realized that he was being fooled by these slow moving Iron Golems; their attacks were on him in a blink of an eye!
YI Ping immediately raised the Celestial Alice as he blocked two of the attackers and exercised the Ultrapowerful Force with his left hand as he struck the third attacker on the chest with a powerful impact, sending it slightly off-balanced!
He was startled that the Iron Golem was able to take the blunt of the powerful Ultrapowerful Force without any ill-effect!
This Iron Golem immediately punched Yi Ping with its shield in retaliation and sent him flying backward!
These Iron Golems had an impervious body therefore they did not even need to defend itself and could focus on attacking!
Yixian, Lele, Lie Qing, Ye Yin, Shen Xingyue, Yixian, Yu'Er and Mei'Er immediately gasped after Yi Ping as they flew hastily to aid him!
Shen Xingyue had raised her Blue Heavens as she flashed and attacked one of the Iron Golem, repeatedly slashing it and causing sparks to blaze from the Iron Golem!
She was confident of her martial strength and the piercing sharpness of her Blue Heavens until she realized that she was only scratching the surface of the Iron Golem!
In desperation she displayed the Big Dipper Hands, causing the air around her to explode thunderously with her martial force. This had the effect of causing the Iron Golem to stumble slightly backward!
An opening!
She mustered all her martial strength as she pierced through the Iron Golem with her Blue Heavens, sliding her divine sword past the heavy shield and the exposed armor of the Iron Golem!
Just as she had thought that victory was hers to claim, the same Iron Golem had slammed her aside with its heavy shield!
Shen Xingyue coughed out blood as she was swept aside, leaving her stunned!
If she was not protected by her Divine Rejuvenation Force, she would have been killed instantly!
These Iron Golems were all capable of one hit kill any of the practitioners using their shields or swords!
She broke into a cold sweat as she realized that these monsters were not alive at all and would not even feel any pain!
She looked up only to see that the sword wound that she had just given the Iron Golem did not even have any effect on its mobility at all!
She was stunned as she thought, ”Don't tell me that I have to use the Big Dipper Hands to weaken their defenses each time. If these freaking monsters did not die first, I would have died of exhaustion first…”
Her Divine Rejuvenate Force was a powerful divine skill that could protect her and weaken her opponent at the same time. The drawback for this skill was that it was also extremely draining to use but it compensated itself by having the ability to feed the surrounding life forces of her opponents by gathering their martial force to herself.
But these Iron Golems did not emanate any life force and were non-living entity!
If she wanted to use the Divine Rejuvenate Force, then she had to pay for its heavy cost herself!
She quickly picked herself up and took several steps back even as several attacks were made against her, ”Alas! Even a divine beast is easier for me than these Iron Golems…”
But she was not the only one having a hard time!
Lie Qing had sent several sword energy bursts at a group of Iron Golems and she was expecting for them to come apart but to her stunned surprise, these Iron Golems had absorbed her sword energies with nothing more than a few crack lines on them!
Lele had flown with lightning speed against one of the Iron Golem that Lie Qing had just struck with her Pandora Sword Energies. She immediately displayed half a dozen of fierce piercing and hacking attacks that were enhanced by her Celestial Force as she broke an Iron Golem apart!
They had taken down two Iron Golems!
But none of them could smile because there were still eighty-three more left!
Lele inhaled deeply as she broke through the encirclements of Iron Golems, ”Lucky! I was almost trapped by them! This is so tiring!”
She quickly turned to urge Lie Qing, ”Sister, hurry and assist me with your sword energy attacks!”
Lie Qing blinked her eyes at Lele's request as she muttered, ”Someone please kill me…”
Sword energy attacks were not only demanding but taxing on the practitioner!
The Celestial Fairy Yixian was faring a little better. She had just hacked off the sword arm of an Iron Golem by executing several displays of the Icicle Sword Energies at point blank and was blocking the advance of five Iron Golems with the Absolute Defense Stance of her Divine Emerald Skill!
There were several golden halos that beamed across the blade of her Heavenly Tear Divine Sword when she displayed the Heaven Forward Stance as she pierced through the Iron Golem whose arm that she had just hacked off!
In that single split second, she had exercised her Eternal Heavenly Tears to her fullness martial power and becoming one with her divine sword as she sent bursting chilling sword energies to explode outward!
Immediately splintering cracks started to appear in the body of the Iron Golem as it exploded in all directions with a thunderous cold piercing explosion!
Three Iron Golems down and eighty-two more to go!
The Celestial Fairy Yixian continued to display several defensive and offensive stances against more of the Iron Golems!
There was no hint of her current emotions even though this fight was demanding and extracted a lot from her. She was as emotionless as these Iron Golems and continued to fight her best!
”The Iron Golems are many but they are too big and not all can fight me at the same time. I just need to make sure that there is always a room for me to maneuver.” Those were her only thoughts!
Ye Yin was cursing softly.
It took her several attempts as she hacked an Iron Golem with her Heavenly Despairing Divine Sword before she kicked the Iron Golem apart with a thunderous implosion!
Four Iron Golems down and eighty-one to go!
At the same time she had evaded several Iron Golems by moving rapidly!
She did not stay in a single position. To stand her ground would mean suicide for anyone, including for her!
”This…this is getting nowhere. They are too many…to think that I can be reduced to such a pathetic state!”
Mei'Er and Yu'Er combined their swordplay together as they took out one Iron Golem finally. But like the Ascension Goddess Ye Yin, it had taken them considerable effort!
Five Iron Golems down and eighty more to go!
Youxue and Yunzi had come to Yi Ping's aid!
Youxue said warily, ””Ping'Er…these Iron Golems are impervious to exterior forces and even sword energies. We can't hold them much longer. Maybe fleeing is a better option now!”
Yi Ping nodded, ”Youxue, Yunzi, flee first. I hold them back!”
Leaning back to back against him, Yunzi said quietly as she raised her divine sword to slash an Iron Golem aside, ”Ping'Er, I have a technique that may be useful. Maybe I can try it.”
But Yi Ping said solemnly as he split the Celestial Alice into two divine swords protectively around her, ”No Yunzi. I know you are talking about the Inverting Eternal Occurrence.”
Yunzi gasped, ”You know?”
The Inverting Eternal Occurrence was the most powerful sword technique and formation of the Immortal Saint of Swords!
Yi Ping answered breathlessly, ”Since you are the chosen and you can even display the Ley Negative Sword Techniques, it is not hard to guess that the Immortal Saint of Swords has also imparted to you the Inverting Eternal Occurrence. Indeed, it may be the only sword technique that can injure these Iron Golems but I plead with you. Please don't use it! It is obvious that the Inverting Eternal Occurrence is a sword technique from the Immortal Realm. You will be consumed by it if you use it. I really don't want anything to happen to you…”
Yunzi kept quiet.
Indeed Yi Ping had been right!
But if she did not use it then it would only be a matter of time before their whole party would be wiped out!
At the same time the Universal Old Man, the Heaveness Lingfeng, the Goddess Aiel and Han Lin were fighting a dozen of the Iron Golems that had broken through the defense lines of the main defenders.
Lingfeng said panicky, ”We mustn't let them reach Alice, Isa and Xiang. We got to protect them!”
The Goddess Aiel raised her martial power as she struggled against five Iron Golems who were hacking at her with short swords while raising their shields to batter her at the same time!
She panicky stepped back as she broke into cold sweat, ”Help…”
Han Lin interrupted the nearest Iron Golem that was almost on the Goddess Aiel, ”Mistress, aren't you an immortal? Why are you so weak?”
The Goddess Aiel smiled weakly, ”Han Lin, now is not the time for this. Pay your full attention to our opponents first.”
But she could not resist adding, ”I am a peaceful immortal. That's why.”
The Universal Old Man had suddenly come to the aid of the Goddess Aiel, ”Watch out!”
The Goddess Aiel gasped softly as an imminent sword attack was knocked aside by the Universal Old Man's Ultrapowerful Force!
She had turned ashen, ”Thank you…”
All of a sudden on the frontline, Yi Ping had given a great martial shout and it was immediately followed by several martial shockwaves!
Everyone was startled and as they looked in the direction of where Yi Ping was.
Where Yi Ping was standing, two more Iron Golems had suddenly collapsed into a pile of iron pieces next to him!
Before they could see what was really happening, Yi Ping had sprang forward again as he slashed apart two more Iron Golems seemingly like slicing tofu!
In a blink of an eye, he had executed hit, evade, movement, jump, block, parry as he raised his two divine swords to slash through the columns of Iron Golems!
Twelve Iron Golems immediately exploded into iron fragments and fell apart, one after the other!
Yixian gasped, ”The Perfect Swordplay!”
But Yi Ping's Perfect Swordplay seemed to be even faster than usual and he had cut down the Iron Golem without being slowing down!
Even for immortals, taking down one of the Iron Golems would take considerable effort especially that all these Iron Golems were like solid armor and their shield guard technique caused them to be temporary impervious to even their divine swords.
In short, unless they could find an opening and had exercised their full martial strength, they could not even pierce through the body of these Iron Golems!
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And even if they could do it, they still had to expend considerable skill, mental willpower and martial strength to avoid the sharp exploding fragments when an Iron Golem finally 'died'!
Yi Ping gave another martial shout all of a sudden; he had suddenly slashed across a company of Iron Golems with the Heavens Encompassing Stroke with the Celestial Antonym Alice and destroying five of the Iron Golems with a single technique!
Now the Celestial Antonym Alice was the heavier of the Celestial Alice. The divine power of the Celestial Antonym Alice was its ability to enhance heavy martial power techniques and this caused the power of the Heavens Encompassing Stroke to be enhanced as though it was the Ultimate Heavens Encompassing Strike!
Everyone was astonished and did not know what was exactly happening right now!
It was because…
Just as Yi Ping was getting desperate and his martial strength was faltering, he had suddenly realized that these Iron Golems were not as simple as he had initial thought.
They were all in the super exponent class and if anyone thought that these Iron Golems were slow moving then they were surely making a great mistake!
It was because these Iron Golems were actually counterattacking with the principle of immobile against the mobile; the first to attack would have opening and instead of becoming the first to strike would become the first to be strike!
To explain it in greater detail, the first second of a strike was the strongest and it was also when the martial strength was the strongest. After extending it out, the strength and accuracy began to weaken!
Therefore these Iron Golems would immediately counterattack with its short swords with devastating effects when the opponent's ability to defend had also weakened as a result of an extended attack!
Now this was very similar to the quick draw techniques of the Virtuous Palace and the techniques that the Ascension Goddess Ye Yin was using!
Faced with such deadly and organized martial formation, everyone's offensives were not able to bring into full play!
Yi Ping broke into a cold sweat as he raised the Celestial Antonym Alice and the Celestial Synonym Alice as he attacked and fended in quick successive while desperately thinking of a solution!
Just as he muttered out to Youxue and Yunzi, ”Run! These Iron Golems are too overwhelming…” Alice had suddenly whispered to him via her Great Divine Whisper, ”Yi Ping, don't be afraid. Surely you can do better than this. If the Dark Chaos Lord is here, what will he do? If we are fighting with you, what will we do?”
Yi Ping was startled as he thought, ”What will Alice, Isa and Xiang do?”
”What will the Dark Chaos Lord do?”
What Alice meant to say to him was obvious. If they were not in their pathetic state, they would surely be able to overcome this Iron Formation!
But how?
Yi Ping immediately focused with his Absolute Spirits, fighting off the Iron Golems while thinking what Alice had just said to him…
He began to recall his first encounter with the Goddess Isa; he was in the midst of a battle with the Martial Deviant Clan and her allies that numbered into thousands. She had shown up without fear and had even destroyed the Eight Trigram Formless Formation of the Brilliant Access Clan effortlessly by going after a single target at a time!
Yi Ping furrowed his eyes thoughtfully when he had remembered that scene…
Alice whispered alluringly to him, ”Is that the best that you are do? Do you still remember how you have stopped the Black Kirin? These Iron Golems are far weaker than that Black Kirin. They may be many but they are after all just mere numbers. You have the divine strength of the Kirin's blood and the Essential Righteous Energy of the Great God Pangu. Are you even using them?”
She paused briefly before adding, ”And the martial strength of your Seventh Heaven Cosmos Positioning is not to be underestimated. Are you using them? Is this your limit already? Then I am really disappointed in you!”
Yi Ping began to tremble lightly at her words…
She continued, ”Why are you hesitating? Use all you can. Surely you can do better than that. The Esper Formation is much more difficult than this and you have persisted!”
Yi Ping smiled bitterly at the mention of the Esper Formation. Precisely because he had did his best against the Esper Formation that he was now drained…
Alice whispered gently, ”Remember your first strike!”
Her whispering soon became melancholy, ”I don't want to be a consort to a loser. The man of my heart has to be a hero!”
Yi Ping gritted his teeth!
In all his battles he had never hesitated before, doing his best until he had dropped dead. But after he had stepped into the Stellar Sanctuary, he had learnt caution and restraint!
If he had to fight then he had to fight as like before!
One tiny doubt or holding back was a big discount to the strength of the martial practitioner. In the past because Yi Ping had no hesitations, he was able to go beyond his limits many times and his progressions were rapid.
But it was easy said than done. Only an exceptional person like Yi Ping was able to fight his best under the most severe of conditions!
Fear, fatigue, mental stress, injuries, courage, endurance were just a few factors that affected the peak performance of a practitioner. To sum it up, there were hundreds of reasons and conditioning to be taken into factor!