Chapter 456: Changes of the Lotus! (1/2)

Chapter 456: Changes of the Lotus!

The golden lion roared as it neared. Suddenly, Meng Hao’s eyes snapped open. They had been closed the entire time in his efforts to not waste even a scrap of energy. It was in this manner that he could use the power of the Everburning Flame to fight back against the bitter coldness of the void, and prevent his life force from being exterminated. After all, he had not come prepared with any cold-resisting magical items.

When he saw the middle-aged man and felt his killing intent, Meng Hao had maintained his motionlessness.

He was waiting; waiting for the man to near him. That way, he could conserve the most amount of energy when killing him. The man wanted to rob Meng Hao of his life; how could Meng Hao not prepare to take the man’s cold-resisting treasure after that?

Almost the same moment that Meng Hao opened his eyes, he sprang into motion. His body immediately disappeared, then reappeared next to the man. The man’s face filled with surprise as he realized that his previous assessment of the situation was incorrect; Meng Hao’s sudden movement proved this.

“His soul hasn’t been frozen by the cold!” the man thought, his scalp growing numb. “The ice on his body isn't fake. Neither is the cold emanating off of him; that’s impossible to fake. In that case… he really doesn’t have a cold-resisting magical item. But, without that, how could he possibly stay alive?!” The man instantly shot backward, trying to put some distance between himself and Meng Hao.

Meng Hao gave a cold snort. He suddenly shook his body, causing layer after layer of ice to crumble off of him. The Everburning Flame exploded with power, expelling massive amounts of coldness out of his body. It merged with the chunks of ice around him to transform into a frigid ice tempest that shot toward his opponent.

The man’s face flickered as the tempest slammed into his golden lion. A boom could be heard, and blood began to ooze out of the corners of the man’s mouth. His face turned green as coldness entered his body.

He continued to fall back with urgency, using minor teleportation to return to his own rock. However, even as he reappeared, Meng Hao also popped into being on the same rock. He lifted his right hand, causing the Lotus Sword Formation to appear.

The power of Time rotated out explosively. As it neared the man, his face fell and he slapped his bag of holding. A black statue of a closed-eyed monkey appeared. It immediately began to emanate a black glow; at the same time, the man began to mutter an incantation. Suddenly, the statue opened its eyes to reveal a bloodthirsty gleam.

The man’s expression became savage and he said, “Statue, kill this… huh?”

Suddenly, his expression changed and his body began to tremble. His hair immediately turned white, and his skin began to dry up and whither. It was as if countless years had passed by in an instant.

“This….” The man was panting as he once again retreated. Without hesitation, he spit out some heart blood and used its power to try to get out of range of the power of the Lotus Sword Formation. Unfortunately, he failed, and his body continued to wither. During this critical moment, his eyes filled with despair. He suddenly lifted his hand up and levelled a blow against his own head. A boom could be heard as his Nascent Soul suddenly emerged. It used a minor teleportation to attempt to get out of range of the Lotus Sword Formation.

“What magical item is this!?!?” he said, his voice shrill and filled with an unprecedented level of terror. His Nascent Soul began to shake violently; it wouldn’t be able to survive very long in the bitter cold.

As for his physical body, it died in the blink of an eye, transformed into nothing more than ash, obliterated by Time itself.

All of this takes some time to describe, but actually happened faster than the spark flying off of a piece of flint. The power of the Lotus Sword Formation was vastly increased in this place. Not even Meng Hao had been aware that something like this would happen. He stared in shock.

It took him only a moment to come to his senses, though. With a cold snort, he moved forward and grabbed the man’s bag of holding, including the monkey statue, which the man had only half activated. He also collected up the five small, white rocks. Then he flashed an incantation gesture with his left hand, causing the Lotus Sword Formation to return.

After that, his body flickered as he returned to his two thousand meter wide rock. He looked back at the middle-aged man’s Nascent Soul, and the killing intent in his eyes faded.

“Fellow Daoist, save me…” he said, his voice shrill with fear. “I’m from a sub-Tribe of the Western Desert’s great Goldenroar Tribe. What happened just now was a misunderstanding, you….” The man’s Nascent Soul trembled; cracking sounds could be heard as ice began to form on its surface.

The two rocks were only temporarily near each other. As of this moment, they were now moving apart, each one heading off in a different direction. Meng Hao realized that taking the time to kill the man completely would be a waste, and as such, had returned to his own large rock.

The man now only had his Nascent Soul left, and no cold-resisting treasure. He would die for certain.

Therefore, Meng Hao did nothing. He sat down cross-legged on his large rock. He then took out the five small rocks and studied them for a moment. He was about to erase the branding seal on them, when it suddenly began to fade away on its own. Meng Hao looked thoughtfully back toward the smaller rock which was disappearing into the void. The middle-aged man’s Nascent Soul was now completely frozen solid.

“The cold in this void is shocking,” thought Meng Hao, quickly branding the small stones to himself. Immediately, a glow appeared, surrounding Meng Hao and reducing the cold by more than half. Meng Hao let out a sigh of relief. Now, his confidence in being able to proceed through the void on this large rock was even greater.

Sitting there cross-legged, he produced the man’s bag of holding, opened it, and glanced over the contents. There were quite a bit of Spirit Stones and a random collection of odds and ends. There were quite a few magical items, but Meng Hao ignored them, searching instead for jade slips.

He found a total of eight. After glancing them over, he selected one, which he began to study closely. After a moment, he lifted his head up, and a bright glow appeared in his eyes.

“So, the great Tribes really are well-equipped to come to this place. They even have maps!” The jade slip he held in his hand contained a simple map. The map depicted four locations in which the fragments of the bridge formed large land masses. One of them was the place that Meng Hao had just come from.

“It seems this guy was heading toward Harmony City. However, I explored the place thoroughly and didn’t find anything unusual.” Meng Hao frowned. He continued to look through the bag of holding, eventually pulling out a jade box.