Chapter 306 - Break Even
Even though Ai Hui had put in so many years of his savings, he did not show the slightest bit of heartache or reluctance. With a cold and indifferent look on his face, he did not retreat and continued attacking. With a swing of the Dragonspine in his hand, a crescent moon-shaped sword glint shot out and hit the chest of a swaying Sha Guard.
That Sha Guard was spliced in half and he collapsed onto the ground. After he twitched for a few seconds, the Sha Guard became a pile of sand.
Ai Hui understood the physiology of sand puppets very well. The main weakness of a sand puppet lay in its sand core. Once the sand core was broken, the sand puppet would die. If one could not destroy a sand puppet’s sand core, the sand puppet would have an abnormally tenacious survivability.
The next instant, Ai Hui appeared on the other end of the training hall like a ghost. Following which, he executed the [Heavenly Thrust] and shot out a star-like energy beam at another Sha Guard’s chest.
Plop!
A spurt of blood shot out from that Sha Guard’s chest.
This time around, the Sha Guard who was attacked was an earth elementalist. The glow in his eyes disappeared and every last bit of vitality in his body was gone. Then, he collapsed onto the ground, facing upward.
Why would Ai Hui waste the opportunities created by using so many artifact remnants? He knew the arrangement of the courtyard by heart. In the midst of the chaotic streaks of radiance, he nimbly darted to and fro across the courtyard, striking down the Sha Guards one by one.
One moment he was in front of the battalion of the Sha Guards, the next moment he was at the back of the battalion, appearing everywhere at almost the same time.
His swordsmanship was extremely ruthless. Every strike he executed would definitely slay one Sha Guard. In a blink of an eye, Ai Hui had killed six Sha Guards and two of them were earth elementalists.
The intensity of the battle had caused all the observers to raise their eyebrows in shock.
Wang Han’s successive attacks were unwavering and ruthless, which sent a cold shiver down everyone’s spine. No one had expected the battle that they previously thought was one-sided to reach such extremity.
Without much effort, the initial 132-man battalion of Sha Guards had been reduced to eighteen Sha Guards. More than half of these eighteen Sha Guards were severely injured.
Luckily, I never made an enemy of Wang Han. This was what a lot of people were thinking at this moment.
If they were the ones who attacked the Swordsman Training Hall, they would not do any better than the Sha Guards. Even if the Sha Family could take down the Swordsman Training Hall at the end of the day, they would have suffered a huge loss by then. Right now, the Sha Family had already lost. This was a battle whereboth sides had suffered greatly.
Wang Han should be proud of himself for pushing the Sha Family to the brink.
However, everyone could tell that the artifact remnants was Wang Han’s last trump card. Wang Han had used more than ten artifact remnants in one go. Such lavishness had stupefied everyone, including the Fu family.
When everyone thought of Wang Han’s nickname, King of Anglers, they then realized that the gains he made for the past few years had far exceeded their expectations. Furthermore, with the addition of the numerous See You Laters, Wang Han’s expenditure in this battle was indeed outrageous.
Upon seeing amount of resources he had invested in this battle, even the members of those prestigious families were trembling in fear, feeling heartache for Wang Han.
However, Wang Han’s performance had ended.
When Sha Wuduan saw the remaining sparse Sha Guards, he felt devastated. From this battle, he knew that the Sha Family had fallen. Even if he could kill Wang Han, he still could not save the Sha Family from its imminent fate.
He felt grieved and despair. Before he came here, he was brimming with confidence that he could save the Sha Family from its imminent crisis, help it to establish a foothold in Peace City and pave the path for its restoration.
However, right now, the last hope for Sha Family had withered in his hands.
Despair, self-blame, and guilt had completely destroyed his rationality. In his heart, there were only anger, hatred, insanity, and mindlessness. His bloodshot eyes were staring firmly at the deft figure.
He must kill this bastard!
Sha Wuduan gave a secret command and the remaining eighteen Sha Guards suddenly spread their arms and held each other’s hands.
Dazzling yellow light lit up beneath their feet. The ground began to fissure and countless cobweb-like cracks started to spread outward.
"Sir!"
"No…."
The few earth elementalists’ faces turned deathly pale and they cried out in alarm. However, no matter how much they cursed or begged, they could not move as the yellow sand from the ground slowly crept up their bodies.
The scattered sand in the training hall started to flow towards the Sha Guards like water. The sand within the sand pits, which were prepared for Su Qingye to train in, flowed out and flew towards the Sha Guards in an endless stream.
Not a speckle of sand was left in the huge sand pits.
In a bizarre fashion, the yellow sand wiggled up the Sha Guards’ bodies and began to pile up.
Within seconds, the eighteen Sha Guards had been drowned by the yellow sand, forming a twenty meters tall sand mountain in courtyard. The weird thing was the sand mountain was wiggling non-stop, looking as if there was something rolling within it, making one’s blood ran cold.
"Devouring the soldiers to build a Sand Sentinel, Sha Wuduan is insane!" the Fu family’s eldest daughter’s face turned pale.
Not only her, but everyone that was witnessing this scene had their faces turned deathly pale.
"Devouring the soldiers to build a Sand Sentinel" was a technique that was commonly used on sand puppets. It involved making the sand puppets devour each other to form a more powerful Sand Sentinel. A Sand Sentinel was more than ten times stronger than a Sha Guard. It was extremely huge in size and was considered a large-scale combat sand puppet. And because of its terrifying destructive power, the Elders Guild banned the use of Sand Sentinels. Without permission from the Elder Guilds, no one was allowed to build a Sand Sentinel under any circumstances.
As such, wasn’t Sha Wuduan insane for building a Sand Sentinel in the glare of the public?
Even though the Elders Guild was not as powerful as it was in the past, the Sha Family was still finished for violating the Elders Guild’s ban.
Furthermore, there were a few Sha Guards who were not sand puppets but earth elementalists being devoured as well. A monster like this had never existed before. A lot of people widened their eyes to take a clearer look as they were afraid of missing out on any details. Especially for those earth elementalists, this unprecedented scene had provided them a lot of information on Sand Sentinels.
Every time the sand mountain wiggled, a terrifying aura would be released and it spread throughout the area.
The onlookers’ facial expression changed drastically as if they themselves were in a perilous situation. The energy undulations from the sand mountain were becoming increasingly stronger and its imposingness was rising continuously. An endless stream of elemental energy was drained from the ground by the sand mountain.
Every time the sand mountain wiggled, its outline would become a bit more distinct.
The quicksand on the surface of the sand mountain was swiveling at ease. It was as if there was a pair of invisible hands sculpting the sand mountain’s body.
Ai Hui’s face turned white. He was trying very hard to suppress his urge to escape.
If not for the fact that Lou Lan was upgrading his body now, AI Hui would have already escaped with Lou Lan without a trace.
Since he was the nearest to the sand mountain, the energy waves emitted from the sand mountain were pounding his mind continuously like torrential tidal waves. He felt that his body was becoming heavier and heavier and he knew this was caused by the waves of elemental energy pounding against his mind. All he could do now was to clench his teeth and endure it.
He grasped his sword with both his hands and guarded his mind tightly. The elemental energy in his body was carrying out a series of Circulatory Cycle Revolutions.
Suddenly, his sky palace was erupted with a brilliant burst of light. A wisp of flame stood imposingly and motionlessly in his sky palace.
[Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp]. This was an absolute art that he exchanged for a huge amount of Heaven Merit Points from the Elders Guild.
[Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp] was an extremely rare sky palace-based absolute art. Since it only developed the sky palace, its uses were rather one-dimensional. Some of these uses included breaking illusion, protecting one’s mind, refining inner demons and etc.
The purpose of Ai Hui obtaining the [Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp] was to deal with One Thousand Yuan. One Thousand Yuan specialized in mental attacks. If he was slightly careless, he would fall into her traps, making it impossible for him to defend against her.
Ai Hui was extremely worried about this.
After spending such a huge price on this precious absolute art, Ai Hui naturally practised it diligently and relentlessly. Very soon, he experienced the benefits of practising [Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp]. His mind became clearer and calmer, completely free of disturbances.
The most surprising thing was [Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp] actually improved his body constitution. All along, his body constitution did not match well with elemental energy. As such, there was a time where he was being told that he could not become an elementalist.
Eventually, even though his strength had increased sharply due to various opportunities and lucky encounters, his body constitution did not improve and remained the same. With a bad body constitution, he would absorb a smaller amount of elemental energy at a slower rate than the others from drinking the same bowl of elemental soup.
However, body constitution was innate and there was nothing much he could do about it. When he knew that [Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp] could improve body constitution, he naturally put in more effort into practicing it. The process of improving body constitution was very slow but he was still very content with it.
He had read from ancient records that [Skyheart Flaming Lotus Lamp] was inspired by [Skyheart Flaming Lotus], a spell that originated from the famous sacred shrine in the world of Dhyana, the Suspending Temple.
Cultivation Era’s Dhyana disregarded natural endowments and took pity on all living things. It also emphasized on sharpening and training one’s mind and nature.
However, this absolute art was not very popular in the Avalon of Five Elements. Since the day it was created, only elementalists practiced it. There was no elemental master that had practised it previously. The fact that it only developed the sky palace made many elementalists refrained from practicing it. Furthermore, this absolute art did not possess any offensive capabilities, making it unpopular in the practicality-focused Elemental Era.
Out of the three elementalists that had practiced this absolute art, two of them had left behind their memoirs of the absolute art. When Ai Hui was exchanging his Heavenly Merit Points for the absolute art, he exchanged for the memoirs as well. These memoirs were extremely helpful to him.
As the elemental energy waves from the Sand Sentinel continued to collide against Ai Hui, his body began to emit a faint red glow, solemn and serene.
Elementalists were extremely sensitive towards the stability of the elemental energy in the surroundings. When the elemental energy in the surroundings was too unstable, the elemental energy in one’s body would be affected too. He or she might even lose control of the elemental energy in his or her body. As such, even those powerful elementalists did not dare to step into areas that elemental energy field was unstable.
A gigantic humanoid sand puppet was formed.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Accompanied by a burst of surging elemental energy, an unclear hysterical roar resounded through the air, resembling thunderclaps. Immediately, it felt as if the elemental energy field of Peace City had been stirred by a huge invisible hand. Black clouds started to form in the sky and the earth began to shake. The magma deep within the ground was becoming restless and unstable. Sand and stones were flying up into the air, while metal wind was blowing violently. It was as if the Judgement Day had arrived.
Jiang Wei felt startled and angry when he saw the gigantic monstrous sand puppet as he was flying through the air at a high speed.
How dare you devour soldiers to build a Sand Sentinel!
You must be tired of living!
This Sand Sentinel was extremely enormous. On its gigantic head, its eyes that were bigger than a door frame were flickering with a demonic yellow glow. Intense earth elemental energy was flowing frantically through its body. An armor was forming on its body with a visible speed.
Jiang Wei’s facial expression changed drastically. This monster’s aura and strength had caused him to tremble involuntarily.
However, he did not stop and continued to fly towards the Sand Sentinel.
He had the responsibility to take care of this city and he could not possibly ignore what was going on now.
His soldiers clenched their teeth and followed tightly behind him. No one was deserting him.
As they flew nearer to it, they could see the terror of this enormous monster. The elemental energy waves it was releasing were like violent gales, smashing trees and stones.
Jiang Wei flew towards it with great difficulty.
So unlucky of him to encounter such incident the moment he arrived at Peace City...
Suddenly, at this moment, Jiang Wei heard someone talking. Jiang Wei was shocked. How could there be someone so near to the Sand Sentinel! He resisted against the terrifying energy waves and pushed a few meters forward. The voice became much clearer. However, this voice seemed… somewhat familiar.
"...they should be starting to sprout now. Don’t tell me that bastard sold me fake seeds? I spent two hundred thousand elemental energy points on them. If he really did scam me, I will destroy his store!"
"Hahaha, they are sprouting, they are finally sprouting! Have a taste of my drought fire lotuses!"
"I have not nourished you and dug a sand pit for four hours in vain."
"I have to remind Lou Lan not to eat strangers’ sand when he goes out."
Numerous fresh and verdant lotus leaves grew throughout the enormous body of the Sand Sentinel, making it looked extremely comical. The lotus leaves were frantically sapping the earth elemental energy in the Earth Sentinel and began to grow at a terrifying speed. In the blink of an eye, the lotus leaves had grown as big as a bath tub. The color of the lotus leaves turned red and lotus flowers started to bloom, resembling a sea of flames on the Earth Sentinel’s body.
The glow on the Sand Sentinel’s body began to dim. Its body of sand started to dry up and was filled with cracks and crevices. The flaming lotus flowers started to withdraw and transform into bright red lotus seed heads. The bright red color of the lotus seed heads deepened and became dark-red.
"Phew, I finally break even!"
Jiang Wei stared blankly at the familiar figure, who was standing in front of the elemental energy-deprived Sand Sentinel, as he wiped off the beads of sweat from his forehead and heaved a sigh of relief.