Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Heaven and Earth Four Images

The ranged group struck first.

Arrows. Throwing knives. Darts. Steel shots.

A storm of attacks cut through the night and slammed into the Moon Plant.

Wang Jie stood among them, because he had no business anywhere else. With his public strength, charging in would mean dying before he took three steps.

So he threw stones.

Useless or not, he threw them.

The Moon Plant reacted instantly. Steam burst from the ground around its roots, and a massive leaf swept out from its left side like a guillotine.

The ranged group watched the leaf descend, terror cracking through their formation. If it hit them, they would die.

“Kill!” Da Hu shouted.

He charged, sixth seal power erupting, and more than twenty cultivators surged behind him. They slammed into the leaf together.

The impact was thunder.

Da Hu was launched backward, crashing into the ground and spitting blood. Cultivators dropped one after another. It was only a leaf, but it was thick, tough, and brutally strong.

Group One took heavy losses.

Group Two moved. Feng Yu flicked her wrist, darts flashing. The cultivators behind her forced themselves forward, fear trembling in their limbs.

The ranged group kept firing.

Yan Si stared at the Moon Plant with an almost feverish hunger.

Yes.

This was it.

When the ten-year metamorphosis arrived, a few creatures would absorb the most lockforce. Those creatures would produce the most precious calamity materials.

If he took it, he could break through to the eighth seal.

Hong Jian stepped forward, blade in hand, and struck. A vicious slash carved deep into the Moon Plant’s stalk.

The Moon Plant shuddered—and immediately swept that same left-side leaf toward Hong Jian.

Yan Si raised a hand.

Flames shot out with an arrow’s speed, lighting the moonlit night. His seventh seal power came in relentless succession, damage stacking faster than Hong Jian’s.

It shook people.

It shook Lian Fei most of all.

She was sixth seal and close enough to see clearly. She’d heard the rumors about this trialist.

Now she watched him burn holes through the Moon Plant’s defenses.

She and a woman at her side attacked together.

Wu Fei led several from Shou Qing Group into the fray.

For a moment, the Moon Plant was driven back.

It was still seventh seal and hadn’t broken through yet. It was strong—strong enough to survive multiple hunts—but this time the encirclement was on a different scale.

Jin Ling Base. Shou Qing Group. Trialists. South Base.

So many experts gathered in one place that even in the apocalypse it felt rare.

The Moon Plant shook violently. Wounds opened along its trunk. Flames crawled across its body.

Underground, pale currents boiled.

The Moon Plant’s crown opened, two tattered leaves propping it up like arms, shaping a vast mouth lined with sharp teeth. It snapped downward.

Hong Jian’s eyes flashed. “Now!”

Yan Si’s pupils flared red, heat rolling off him. “Blazing Flame Body.”

Fire erupted around their feet—beneath Yan Si, beneath Hong Jian—forming burning platforms that hurled them forward.

Hong Jian lifted his blade and slashed in midair. “Wind-Rending Eight Blades!”

Yan Si became fire behind the blade light.

One blade, one flame.

In an instant, their combined strike tore open the Moon Plant’s crown and punched through. Flames exploded like fireworks, scattering burning fragments into the night.

Wang Jie watched, breath caught.

Wind fed the fire. Fire rode the wind.

A killing move meant to end things.

Hong Jian landed, twisting and driving forward again. “Keep attacking! Kill it!”

Confidence surged through the squad. Attacks grew fiercer.

Even Wang Jie threw harder.

Then the ground cracked.

The Moon Plant—already half-consumed by flames—ripped up the earth with its roots. It dragged tangled masses of other mutated plants from underground, plants linked to it across an unknown distance, and flung them like weapons.

A plant tide.

A beast tide made of vines and teeth and spines.

People died screaming before they understood what was happening.

Hong Jian’s face darkened as mutated plants surged toward him. He was in midair, movement restricted.

Yan Si grabbed him and threw him aside. “Kill the Moon Plant!”

Yan Si slammed his palms together. Flames burst out again—Blazing Flame Body—so easily it looked like it cost him nothing.

The ranged group was hit hard as well. Mutated plants crashed into their line—some weak, some strong, some even at the sixth seal.

There was no time to focus the Moon Plant anymore.

Wang Jie found himself targeted by a mutated plant that looked like a pea vine. It spat hard pellets—peas moving like bullets, strong enough to punch through stone.

He dodged, threw stones, and kept watching the Moon Plant.

No matter what, it had to die.

Then someone appeared behind him.

Wang Jie turned—and saw a sneer.

The young man from South Base.

“Die, bastard,” the young man hissed.

He shoved Wang Jie toward a falling leaf—burning, heavy, deceptively slow.

Wang Jie’s eyes went cold.

In the same breath he was pushed, he caught the young man’s wrist and flung him forward instead.

The young man had fourth seal strength. He never imagined Wang Jie could overpower him.

He flew straight into the line of fire. The pea pellets tore through him, punching holes through his body until he collapsed like a sack.

He died staring in disbelief.

Wang Jie felt nothing.

In this era, compassion was the most expensive luxury. Right or wrong, you survived first.

That young man had been watching for a chance to kill him.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Wang Jie swept his gaze across the battlefield, searching for the older man from Madam Zhao—the one who had dragged him here as a sacrifice.

He found him at the back of Group One, uninjured, hiding behind others.

Wang Jie picked up a small stone and flicked it.

The pebble cut through the air, struck the man’s skull, and punched clean through.

The man dropped without a sound.

Wang Jie didn’t spare him a second glance.

Clouds swallowed the moon. Darkness rushed over the land.

Only the flames burning on the Moon Plant lit the battlefield.

In the dark, the Moon Plant tried to escape. Its body sank, roots dragging down as it attempted to burrow back underground.

Hong Jian roared, “All out! Don’t let it escape!”

Most of the squad was tangled in close-quarters chaos, fighting off mutated plants. Their attacks couldn’t reach the Moon Plant.

Only the sixth seal fighters struck, and their blows barely slowed it.

Yan Si landed beside Hong Jian. They exchanged a glance.

And moved.

Hong Jian lifted his blade high. White light surged upward like a pillar. “Wind-Rending Eight Blades!”

Yan Si thrust both palms forward. A flame figure identical to him blasted toward the Moon Plant.

From another direction, a woman’s eyes shone like stars. She drew her sword, and starlight scattered into a rain of blades that swept down.

Wang Jie inhaled, steadied himself, and pointed.

Spiral Qi Force struck from a distance—quiet, nearly invisible in the chaos.

Four attacks hit the Moon Plant at the same time.

The Moon Plant shattered.

Roots twisted violently—then exploded. A white shockwave surged outward, steaming and corrosive.

People fled.

Those who couldn’t move fast enough were swallowed by the wave. Flesh melted. Screams tore the night.

Yan Si waved a hand and split the shockwave, his eyes snapping toward the woman’s position. What had that attack been?

Hong Jian hacked through the wave with brute force, trying to see if the Moon Plant was truly dead.

Then a figure burst from the shockwave and sprinted away at terrifying speed, clothes half-melted.

Yan Si and the others barely reacted. They assumed it was a cultivator who had misjudged the blast.

Wang Jie’s stomach dropped.

Old Five.

It was Old Five.

Wang Jie ran after him.

Old Five was fast—but Wang Jie was faster.

“Stop,” Wang Jie barked. “Old Five!”

The figure skidded to a halt and looked back with a grin. “Old Boss. Didn’t expect me, huh?”

Wang Jie grabbed him and looked him over. Old Five wasn’t hurt—just stripped by the shockwave, his clothes ruined and melted away. “When did you get here?”

“Early,” Old Five said smugly. “I hid underground beneath the Moon Plant.”

He reached into the remains of his chest pocket and tossed a green bead to Wang Jie. “Here. This should be worth a lot.”

Wang Jie caught it, eyes narrowing with surprise. “Is this… Heaven and Earth Four Images?”

Old Five grinned wider. “Of course. I’m not about to drag you down, Old Boss.”

Wang Jie tossed it back. “Hold it for now. I’m not leaving yet.”

Old Five caught it, then sobered slightly. “Fine. But be careful. That woman is strong.”

Wang Jie’s gaze hardened. “I know.”

He turned back toward the crater.

The shockwave faded.

Yan Si immediately dove into the crater, searching for calamity materials.

The woman was faster.

Right in front of Yan Si, she seized an emerald-green segment of root.

Yan Si’s fury detonated. “You—”

He stared at her. Her face was hidden behind a purple veil. “You’re a trialist too.”

The woman laughed softly and held up the root like a trophy. “Thanks.”

Then she turned to leave.

Yan Si roared, “Stop her!”

Feng Yu attacked first, a dart whipping through the air.

The woman shifted like flowing water and avoided it without effort.

Then she vanished.

Yan Si took one step after her—and stopped, a bitter heaviness settling into his bones.

Jia Eight Steps.

She knew Jia Eight Steps.

He couldn’t catch her.

No one else moved.

She had stolen from Yan Si, and she was a trialist—almost certainly seventh seal, maybe more. Besides Hong Jian and Yan Si, no one here was qualified to stop her.