It was true that those void runes had given Yuan Zijing a fair amount of trouble.
However, after he had painstakingly cleaved through all those void runes, he made a disheartening discovery — something far worse was waiting for him.
He realized he was lost.
Yes, beneath his feet stretched what seemed like an endless labyrinth, a vast grid of nine-palace patterns that extended in every direction, forming a spatial world of countless dimensions.
Yuan Zijing was a Divine Path cultivator after all, a man of considerable experience. He knew at once that he had been trapped within a formation.
Just as he was scratching his head in bewilderment, he noticed a golden bell appear above him. The moment the bell descended, he was struck by a tremendous pressure that pinned him within a cage of golden light, his strength seeming to drain from his body all at once.
Then, a barrage of attacks came raining down on him like a torrential storm.
Yu Gong watched the scene unfold with his jaw on the floor. He hadn't even warmed up yet, hadn't even unleashed a single real technique — and Yuan Zijing was already lying limp as a dead dog inside the Nine-Palace Spirit-Bewildering Diagram's spatial maze, utterly stripped of any will to resist.
Seeing Yuan Zijing dragged out like a lifeless carcass, Yu Gong was suddenly hit by a surge of profound relief. That's right — when Elder Guangdu had dispatched his team, they had been the very first wave sent to attack the Eternal Sacred Land.
The sallow-faced cultivator who had come alongside him had already been captured and handed over to Lord Jia Ye.
The two great guardians had been straight-up killed and refined into life essence, their bodies destroyed and their Dao obliterated.
He, Yu Gong alone, had not only survived but had barely suffered any hardship at all.
He had to admit — it had been a wise decision.
Yuan Zijing and that tumor-faced cultivator had both become prisoners at Jiang Chen's feet.
With that, the two Divine Path helpers Elder Guangdu had brought along had fallen yet again. Meanwhile, the old man himself had been reduced to a lone commander with no left arm and no right leg.
"Old Guangdu." Jiang Chen's voice drifted through the void. "Your two pawns have already become my captors. How much longer do you intend to resist?"
That voice proved more devastating than any attack. It struck Elder Guangdu's heart like a stone, making it sink.
Yuan Zijing and the others had failed?
How was that possible? All of the Eternal Sacred Land's Divine Path combatants had been pinned down by him. The rest were, at most, half-god level cultivators. Even with the Eternal Sacred Land's defensive formation, all they could do was hold out a little longer. How could Yuan Zijing's group have been the ones to fall?
Did the Eternal Sacred Land have additional combat power he hadn't accounted for?
But at this critical juncture, would the enemy really bother lying? Such a bluff could be exposed with a single word of rebuttal.
"Could it be..." A dark premonition flashed through Elder Guangdu's spiritual sea.
If Jiang Chen was simply spouting nonsense, then Yuan Zijing and the others would have immediately spoken up to deny it. Yet after a moment of waiting, no response came from Yuan Zijing's group at all.
That unsettling feeling only deepened Elder Guangdu's unease.
Just how deep was the Eternal Sacred Land? Just how powerful was its fighting force?
He had already tied down three Divine Path combatants. Could the Eternal Sacred Land really possess even more Divine Path power? Or had the ten great sacred land patriarchs all gathered here, lying in wait like hunters by a rabbit hole, expecting him to walk right into the trap?
Impossible!
After careful deliberation, Elder Guangdu dismissed that bold conjecture.