Chapter 665: Hellhound
Having said that, Hui Yue steered the shuttle towards a world that was shrouded in a black mist. This world was one of the last worlds to arrive in the tidal waves, and it seemed rather steady and showed no signs of collapse.
The world had been picked by quite a few experts, but the reason that Hui Yue chose it was simply because it was the closest to them.
Reaching it took a few hours, and as they arrived, they pocketed the shuttle and descended through the black mist. Everyone gathered close together to ensure that no one got lost or went missing during their descent into the world.
As soon as they arrived, Hui Yue could instantly tell that this was not the world they were looking for. In front of them was a barren land with black rocks and mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see, and in the sky was a red moon shrouded by black clouds.
A harsh gale swept through the barren land, and no other experts or beasts could be seen. There was not even any plant life present; no life was within their reach.
“It’s not here, let's leave.” Hui Yue knew that they would have to visit a vast amount of worlds before they found the one they were looking for and thus he did not want to waste any time within wrong worlds.
“Ouch!” someone yelled out, and when Hui Yue looked over, he saw that Hu Yong, the Rhinoceros, had been knocked back. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and it took him a full twenty steps to stabilize himself.
“There is a formation that is preventing us from leaving!” he exclaimed shocked, and everyone’s expressions turned foul. Especially Hui Yue’s was ugly to behold.
“There are only two ways to break a formation,” he said calmly. “The first way is to simply shatter it with force. With enough force, it will eventually collapse. Unfortunately, this formation covers the sky, and I assume it covers the entire sky. That makes it one of the biggest and also one of the strongest formations I have ever seen. We would need immense amounts of power to break through it.”
“The other way to break it is to destroy the seals used as a foundation for the formation. These seals will be within the formation, but so are we. If I use my soulforce, I should be able to seek out these seals and slowly I can corrode them with my soulforce. I will destroy them one after another, and eventually, there will be holes in the formation that will let us flee.”
“This will, however, take quite some time. This is a grand formation. The one who laid it down is without a doubt a grandmaster, and he must have used more than a thousand seals. To think anyone is this extravagant with their seals is quite astonishing. I guess the Archaic Era truly was quite different from now.”
The others nodded their heads and started looking around. Hu Yong consumed a few medicinal pills in an attempt to heal the injuries he had sustained, and everyone got ready to move out.
“I will need you all to protect me,” Hui Yue said as he looked around. “It is not easy to search for the seals, and I will need to give it my full attention. I cannot help everyone guard against ancient beasts or petty thieves, but if a fight does erupt, I will, of course, help out. It is just scouting that I cannot do.”
The others nodded their heads. It made sense that all his focus had to be on finding the seals.
This world was rather big and to find a thousand seals within this world was in no way an easy task. The group started to gather up in a square formation with Hui Yue in the center, and all the friends and family started to look around on high alert while Hui Yue closed his eyes and spread out his soul force, trying to resonate with the formation above them.
The further they moved, the more alert everyone became, and some of them were getting worried as well. They had not encountered even one single living being yet, but the mountains were filled with strange caves that looked like immortal caves. But there was nothing in these caves except a stone bed and signs of where a fire had been a very long time ago.
Many experts had entered this world previously, but so far none of them had been seen. Were they also trapped somewhere in the formation or what was going on?
“I sense a seal!” Hui Yue exclaimed as opened his eyes which shone brilliantly due to his discovery. He increased the group's speed while still making sure they could stay alert.
The closer they came to the seal the more astonished Hui Yue became. This seal was not like the seals that he could compress. They were at least ten times more powerful than his seals, and as for how they could be so powerful, Hui Yue had no idea. Seeing this seal, he was completely baffled. Could the change of time cause such a major change in the seals formed from soulforce? Had soulforce been so much more powerful in the past?
If this was the case, did that not mean that those monsters that had survived from the early ages were some of the most dangerous entities in the galaxy?
The closer they came to this seal, the more pressure all of them felt. Hui Yue started fearing that there was a smaller formation laid down protecting this seal, but as they got closer, he found that there were no formations, but still some protection.
Chained to the seal was a ferocious beast. As for which kind of beast this was, none of them had any idea. It looked like a gigantic dog. It was at least three meters tall and four meters long.
It had brown fur which was longer than a normal dog, and its eyes were red and bloodshot. The dog's body was lean, so lean that one would call it skinny. Its ribs were protruding showing that it had not eaten for a very long time.
Around the neck was a spiked collar where the spikes were turned inward biting into its neck. The collar was connected to a long chain of unknown metal keeping the dog in place.
The moment the dog saw Hui Yue and his friends it started roaring so loud that it shook the heavens and caused Hui Yue and the others to stop in their tracks.
“This is our first meeting with a beast with an ancient bloodline,” Wan Qiao said in a low voice as her body started shining with light as she prepared for battle.
Not only her, everyone was activating their daos, and the surrounding air started to tremble as hundreds of daos erupted at once.
Sunshine descended through the dim red light of the barren land and together with the light came shadows and darkness. Water appeared in various shapes, as raindrops and even a sea which rolled in from the distance. Fire rode on top of the water, and a sea of flames arrived as the temperature rose.
The earth trembled as golems appeared, and the gravity around the hellhound suddenly increased tenfold while the wind picked up. The gale which was already present suddenly contained thousands of wind blades which were ready to slash down on the fierce beast.
Hui Yue picked up his Sword of Icy Tempest and charged at the fierce beast while he was supported by a sea of flames, increased of gravity, golems, and wind blades swirling around a hurricane.
Seeing Hui Yue launch such an attack, everyone else also attacked. No one held anything back, and no one dared underestimate this beast.
Although it was chained, it was able to protect itself. The dao of death alongside the entire dao of darkness surged outwards from its body, and it moved from shadow to shadow, agilely escaping every single attack that came its way.
A black round ball of energy appeared at the mouth of the hellhound, and as it blasted outwards, Hui Yue agilely escaped it only to see it disintegrate a whole side of a mountain behind them. If it had been a clear hit, then Hui Yue’s body would have collapsed, even if it was a body forged by Yanluo himself.
Everyone darted around, and no one dared to stand still in the same place for more than a moment. Everyone understood how dreadful this black orb of compressed Ancestral Worldpower was, but at the same time, they could not retreat. They had to gain access to this seal and to do so they had to kill this fierce beast.
The daos rained down upon the beast, wounding it time and time again, but although it was wounded, it kept fighting with vigor. It was as if every wound merely motivating it to try harder because the beast was just becoming increasingly bloodthirsty.
More and more attacks were launched from the hellhound, and these attacks sometimes hit the beast Gods. Jo also had to retreat due to being injured.
Jo’s battle style was direct and straightforward. She fought almost entirely in close range combat, and she had been the first to be seriously wounded causing Hui Yue to drag her to the back and ordering her to replenish her energy and keep an eye out for ambushes.
Slowly but surely the group managed to whittle down the hellhound strength and stamina, and although it was bursting with energy, it had a limit. Blood kept falling from its body, and eventually the energy faded, and it let out a resounding roar of desperation before it staggered and collapsed on the ground.
“The entire body of this fierce beast is a treasure, someone take it, and we will sell it when we reach the Blissful Realm again,” Hui Yue ordered, and the ones who had sustained no injuries all rushed forward to store it in their storage treasures.
The ones who were injured were all seated on the ground; their bodies were being nourished by medicinal pills that healed them and restored their energy.
Hui Yue left the guarding to the others and focused all his attention on the seal in front of him. This seal was not a simple seal like the one he was used to. This seal was ten times as big as the seals that Hui Yue could create, and the whole seal was pulsating with soulforce. Although it had been a very long time since this formation was created, none of the soulforce had leaked out. It was simply outstanding.
Hui Yue reached out his hand and touched the seal. He felt a foreign energy entered his body, probing him as if it was looking for something.
It entered his body and ruminated through his core a few times before it left as easily as it had arrived. It had done nothing, and Hui Yue had not tried to obstruct it either.
The soulforce left Hui Yue’s body and entered into the seal which started buzzing. It did not fight against the soulforce that entered, making Hui Yue frowning again. What was the reason for this seal to easily accept that someone was trying to take over? Was it made to accept it or had it just faded throughout the years?
Hui Yue did not know, but he understood that corroding this seal was not as difficult as he had thought, and suddenly a thought appeared in his mind. Was it perhaps possible to take this soul force for himself?