Chapter 37: Abyss (2)

This time, a flower appeared from the water’s surface.

This flower was as large as a mountain as it slowly lifted itself from the water. Its petals unfurled layer after layer. As the soldiers watched the flower inexorably bloom, the soldiers felt their vision blur as they uncontrollably began to fly towards it.

“Don’t look at the flower!” Su Chen barked.

His consciousness power was far greater than most people’s, so he was able to immediately discern that this strange flower was using a bewitching technique. However, the extent and scope on which its bewitching technique operated was truly astonishing.

His roar was able to temporarily break the flower’s bewitching grip on the soldiers, but they only paused for a brief moment before continuing to advance. Obviously, he was incapable of completely breaking the soldiers from their reverie.

When Su Chen saw this, he harrumphed and said, “Fine. If that’s the case, then why don’t you let me know how this feels.”

He gestured, and a lightning bolt appeared in his hand. It was his Lightning Execution Theurgy Art.

Large quantities of lightning energy began to gather in Su Chen’s hand, gradually condensing into a blustering wave of energy. Su Chen compressed it to its absolute limit before he allowed the lightning to form into a dragon’s shape.

He unleashed the lightning dragon with a simple gesture. “Go!”

The lightning dragon seemed to roar as it crackled through the sky, aiming right for the center of that massive flower.

By now, the entranced soldiers had drawn quite close to the “flower.” The flower opened its giant mouth, making it obvious that its “petals” were not petals but rather sharp blades that were constantly revolving, creating the illusion that it was perpetually blooming.

And these revolving blades were just waiting for the soldiers to get a bit closer so that they could slice the soldiers into shreds.

At that moment, the lightning dragon slammed into the flower’s petal blades.

Boom!

A violent explosion rang out, and the powerful shockwaves sent the soldiers flying backwards.

At the same time, the demonic flower howled piercingly.

When the blinding light faded, most of the flower had been charred to a crisp. At the center of the flower, there was a spider’s head, from which was flowing a purplish-black liquid. The spider howled at Su Chen angrily.

However, this howl had lost its bewitching properties due to its injuries.

“That’s more like it,” Su Chen chuckled.

Su Chen’s Lightning Execution Theurgy Art was extremely powerful. Earlier, it had managed to incapacitate a Demonic Emperor in one blow, and even though it wasn’t as effective against a Sovereign, it would still do damage. Now, it appeared that the effect was even greater than he had predicted.

The Sovereign had been wounded quite significantly.

This Beast was a Sovereign! The fact that Su Chen could wound a Sovereign to that degree in one attack was impressive in its own right.

When the soldiers realized that they too were qualified to learn the Sect Master’s cultivation techniques, and that they might be able to reach this level in the future as well, their hearts were filled with anticipation.

This was the ultimate goal of the Boundless Sect. All of Su Chen’s knowledge would eventually be passed down to his disciples, allowing the Boundless Sect’s strength to significantly increase.

"Hiss!" The spider screeched as it began to furiously charge in Su Chen's direction.

However, without its bewitching abilities, none of the soldiers were afraid of it.

In a frontal confrontation, Su Chen’s strength was obviously somewhat lacking. Even though his Lightning Execution Theurgy Art was incredibly powerful, it expended too much energy, and it took simply too long to cast.

However, there was no way that a single person’s firepower could compare to that of tens of thousands of soldiers.

Su Chen’s main responsibility was to handle exceptionally disruptive and strange situations, like when the Mayfly had altered the direction of gravity or when this strange spider-flower had bewitched the soldiers. The soldiers, naturally, were then responsible for following up after Su Chen with their unrivaled firepower.

This was the best way for the fleet to apply its strength.

As thousands of Origin Skills slammed into the demonic flower, it screeched in pain and turned to run.

But just as it started moving, another voice spoke out. “You’re not going anywhere.”

A massive hand descended from the sky, smashing into the demonic flower and swatting it backwards. Zhong Zhenjun had finally made his move.

Of course, Zhong Zhenjun was not capable of taking on a Sovereign on his own. However, he knew exactly when to strike while conserving still most of his energy. The demonic flower’s retreat was stopped before it even began.

It wailed and howled bitterly under the continued barrage of attacks.

At that moment, three more columns of water suddenly appeared off on the horizon.

Clearly, three more Sovereigns had sensed the disturbance and were quickly homing onto their location.

The Abyss was the territory of the Sovereigns. It was possible to run into a Sovereign at any time and place here.

The Abyss was, in some sense, their home. It was only natural that noisy intruders would attract their attention.

And soon after that, even more columns of water appeared, until it felt like seawater was perpetually hanging in the air.

The terrifying amount of pressure caused everyone’s hearts to involuntarily tremble.

Su Chen knew that there was no time to waste. He created a clone and then called out, “Qingluo, to me!”

Qingluo flew into the air.

The two of them gripped each other’s hand tightly as they smiled lovingly at each other. Then, they flew off towards the oncoming Sovereigns.

The demonic flower-spider was still shrieking and writhing in pain as it bore the brunt of the fleet’s attack.

Su Chen and Gu Qingluo flew by it without even a second glance.

Their goal was not to kill these Sovereigns, but rather to gather information about the Deep Sea Sorrow. If they couldn’t accomplish this goal, then their expedition would be a failure regardless of how many Sovereigns they killed.

As such, after ensuring that the soldiers had established a stable formation, the two of them began to fly towards the purported location of the Deep Sea Sorrow. This location was easy to confirm, as it was naturally where the Sovereigns were the most concentrated.

As they did so, however, large numbers of Sovereigns began to surge in their direction.

The pair drew closer and closer. Just as they were about to collide, Gu Qingluo spread her arms out and unleashed the full aura of her Shining Dragon Bloodline.

This time, she immediately started at sixty percent bloodline purity. The image of the Shining Dragon behind her back was, at this point, so tangible that it was all but physically present. It charged through the clouds, raking the ground beneath it asunder with its claws and killing countless smaller Sea Beasts that had happened to be in the area.

A sixty percent bloodline purity was enough to instill fear into even the hearts of Sovereigns. None of them dared to get any closer to the Shining Dragon hovering in the air.

This was the might and majesty of a Shining Dragon. Its appearance immediately subdued the Sovereigns and their wild, unrestrained pressure.

At the same time, Su Chen also sprang into action. He pulled out a round disk and briefly fiddled with it before it began to emit a warm light.

Su Chen tossed the disk into the water, where it slowly sank down before very quickly fading from view.

This Origin Formation Disk was designed to probe its surroundings for the Deep Sea Sorrow. It could detect, record, and then send the fluctuations in the area to Su Chen, giving him access to this critical data.

After taking care of this matter, the mission’s primary objective would be complete.

This was why Su Chen had said that he only needed them to buy him three seconds’ time once he got close to the Deep Sea Sorrow.

Yes, this matter would really only take him three seconds.

But after taking care of this matter, Su Chen glanced at Gu Qingluo and found that she was more than capable of holding on for some more time. He asked, “Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine!” Gu Qingluo replied loudly.

“Then I’ll do a bit more.” Su Chen pulled out another item, a sealed crystal this time, and formed some hand seals over it. He then glanced at the Sovereigns off in the distance, who were currently still locked in a standoff with Gu Qingluo. They didn’t dare to advance any further, but they were also unwilling to completely retreat.

The staggering strength of all these Sovereigns put a great deal of pressure on Gu Qingluo. All she could do was endure as best as she could.

Su Chen knew that he didn’t have much time.

He cast his gaze across the gathered Sovereigns in a circle before finally choosing a suitable target.

“Hold on for just a bit longer!” he called out as he suddenly leapt towards his target.

He had chosen a giant shark Sovereign. Its body was covered in razor-sharp spikes, giving it an incredibly fierce look. Obviously, its could demolish fortifications with a shake of its body.

Su Chen charged towards his chosen target, drawing a blade as he did so.

The Lightless Blade.

Golden light began to flow over the surface of the Lightless Blade, forming a giant sword ⁠— the Flowing Gold Blade.

This weapon, which had been fed and tempered by an incredible amount of precious metals, was incredibly threatening because it combined the strength of an Origin Tool and an Arcana Technique.

As soon as it appeared, Su Chen unleashed a shockingly powerful attack.

The sword cleaved through the air!

When the Flowing Gold Blade touched the shark’s head, it cut through it like a knife through tofu.

“ROAR!” the shark howled in pain.

Even though it was still somewhat cowed by the might of the Shining Dragon, the Sovereign was still infuriated at suffering an injury. The spikes on its back suddenly shot out like long spears, aimed at Su Chen.

“Stay!” Su Chen barked at the giant shark.

Even though Su Chen was merely a Spirit Burning Realm cultivator, his comprehension of Arcana Techniques had already reached the Tenth Ring level. When he attacked the giant shark with a Tenth Ring consciousness Arcana Technique, even the giant shark reeled for just a moment.

An instant later, Su Chen used Whitetower Teleportation to appear on the giant shark’s back.

He stuffed the crystal in his hand into the shark’s wound, cast a recovery Origin Skill so that the wound would quickly close up, and then flew off.

The shark had managed to shake itself free from its daze at that moment, and it continued to shoot its long bone spikes at Su Chen.

Su Chen twisted the Flowing Gold Blade, using the flat side of its blade to block the oncoming spears.

However, the Sovereign’s attack was incredibly ferocious and fearsome, and the force of the impacts sent Su Chen flying into the air.

Even so, that was exactly what Su Chen wanted.

As he hurtled through the air, Su Chen flipped over a few times to stabilize his positioning before reappearing precisely at Gu Qingluo’s side.

“How did it go?” Gu Qingluo asked loudly.

“Success!” Su Chen replied with a laugh.

“Then let’s return,” Gu Qingluo said, her expression pale as she spat out a mouthful of blood.

She had obviously reached her limit. There were nearly a hundred Sovereigns gathered in this area, and even though they weren’t competing in terms of direct strength, the immense pressure was impossible for Gu Qingluo to fully resist.

Now that her mission was completed, Gu Qingluo could relax her consciousness, which caused the wave of pressure emanating from the Sovereigns to finally roll over her, immediately wounding her.

Su Chen grabbed Gu Qingluo before she even began to fall.

Boom!

Without Gu Qingluo suppressing them, the Sovereigns immediately began to churn up massive waves that bore down upon Su Chen.

The destructive potential of these waves was staggering. If any human city were their way, it would have been obliterated.

However, just as these waves were about to crash into Su Chen, he and Gu Qingluo disappeared into thin air.

They almost immediately reappeared in the location that they had been in before they set out.

The fleet had just exterminated the demonic flower and were reaping the spoils.

Su Chen appeared out of thin air and immediately began to fall. Thankfully, Li Chongshan was there to catch him. “Sect Master!”

“The mission has been accomplished. Let’s get out of here!” Su Chen said as he spat out a mouthful of blood.

At this point, his Light Shaking Phantom allowed him to take someone with him, but the physical toll that took on him was quite severe as well.

“Retreat immediately!” Li Chongshan roared.

From the moment they first stepped foot in the Abyss, they hadn’t even been here for more than ten minutes, but they were going to leave now.

Just as Su Chen had predicted, their expedition was simple and had been executed without a hitch.