Splitting the Heave

In the essence qi stone mine several miles away from the Coral Forest, a figure emerged from a cultivation cave in one of the walls and the sound of a gushing river could be heard getting closer and closer. 

As the sound got louder, the ground below started to shake.

All of a sudden, a massive geyser broke through from the ground below, quickly filling up the essence qi stone mine. 

Very quickly, it flooded more than a third of it.

Sun Haiwei stared at the sudden change with her pale face. From the looks of it, she had yet to recover to her peak state.

Staring at the water pouring out from the ground below, a deep frown formed on her face. She felt that it definitely had something to do with Shang Xia, but she just emerged from her cultivation cave and had no idea what was going on. She didn’t know where Shang Xia went either.

All of a sudden, a familiar chirp came from the entrance of the mine.

Staring up into the sky, she saw the figure of a bird circling slowly. Raising an eyebrow in surprise, she realized that even the Lightning Bird had no idea where Shang Xia went.

Pausing for a moment, she felt that she had to notify the Shang Clan about what happened. Retrieving a jade green talisman in her hand, she sent her inner qi into it before ripping it. The talisman turned into a streak of light and shot into the horizon.

…

After Murong Yuntian was severely injured on the Tongyou Peak, he was saved by the elder of the Yuntian Clan and he entered seclusion in the Coral Forest. He managed to regain a bit of his fighting strength.

Despite that, it was as easy as pie if he wished to kill Shang Xia! However, he was facing the martial intent of Shang Ke! Someone who was stronger than him even if he was at his peak! 

If Shang Xia pulled out any other rank three talisman, Murong Yuntian would have scoffed in his face. He might have faced a little difficulty in getting rid of it, but this was Shang Ke’s martial intent they were talking about! It contained a full-powered strike from the man himself!

Stuck in the underwater tunnel, there was nowhere for him to run!

The moment the giant spear appeared, Murong Yuntian’s first reaction wasn’t to run. It wasn’t to retreat either! Instead, he wanted to smash the wall beside him to create a small hole to hide! He wanted to avoid the spear by hiding in the crevice he made! 

His thoughts were apparently too simple. Along with the crisp pop that rang when he smacked the wall beside him, a soft buzz filled his ear. A shallow dent was all he could make and the underwater path remained completely intact.

It was too late for him to do anything as the spear came crashing down!

The water had long since been forced away by the aura of the spear, and Murong Yuntian desperately tried to raise his defenses! He was too late!

Roaring with all his might, he halberd shot out. It managed to scrape away a little bit of power contained in the Suspended Spear, but the heaven and earth qi it shaved off returned to the body of the spear, making it sturdier than before.

As the spear arrived before him, he screamed manically and raised his hand to stop it. Releasing his inner qi without holding anything back, he managed to weaken the blow. However, his hands were turned to dust from the backlash.

In his last-ditch attempt to survive, he forced out all his inner qi to form a bloodied shield in front of his chest.

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As the spear collided with the shield, he was forced into the wall behind from the impact. Vomiting mouthfuls of blood, he stared at the spear that ate away at his inner qi shield. The tip of the spear stabbed deep into his chest.

“Ah!” Murong Yuntian stared at Shang Xia with his bloodshot eyes, unresigned to his fate.

He was an expert at the peak of the Martial Intent Realm! He had a frighteningly strong life force, and even though he was stabbed straight through the chest, he wouldn’t die right away!

Even if he had to die, he wanted to drag the little bastard with him!

However, he noticed Shang Xia staring at him cautiously as his life force drained from him. 

As his consciousness slowly left his body, Shang Xia finally approached. 

Shang Xia didn’t hesitate to stab his sword straight through Murong Yuntian’s open mouth. It emerged from the back of his brain, pinning his head on the wall. He shattered all of Murong Yuntian’s hopes of dragging him into the afterlife!

With an unresigned expression on his face, Murong Yuntian finally died!

Shang Xia heaved a sigh of relief. After ensuring his opponent was dead, he slowly retrieved his sword. A line of blood flowed down the wall where Shang Xia’s sword pierced his brain.

The death of a cultivator at the Martial Intent Realm would definitely cause the heaven and earth qi in the surrounding to fluctuate. That was because a huge amount of inner qi would be released from the body all at once. Their dantian would be destroyed too, forming the weird phenomenon around them.

Dense heaven and earth qi gathered around him. Along with his death, a huge amount of inner qi emerged from his body.

It was too bad the water returned at just the right moment. Washing away the heaven and earth qi in the surroundings, the phenomenon that was supposed to occur when a Martial Intent Realm expert died failed to appear!

Something caught Shang Xia’s attention and he turned to look at the imprint on the wall made by Murong Yuntian when he tried to avoid the Suspended Spear. Faint runes appeared in the tiny dent on the wall.

That wasn’t all. Faint lines appeared along the stone walls of the hidden chamber.

Shang Xia finally realized what was going on. The rock formation and the chamber he was in were absorbing all the inner qi released during Murong Yuntian’s death!

Retrieving Murong Yuntian’s body, Shang Xia brought it back up to the hidden stone chamber. He could see faint runes starting to light up along the walls.

With no idea what was going on, he opened the Mountain and Sea Fantasy Diagram once again. He discovered that the four red dots were starting to glow brighter. At the same time, Shang Xia realized that there seemed to be some sort of faint connection between the four chambers. 

The area surrounded by the four chambers looked to be the core of the formation! Could the formation be awakening?!

The Fantasy Spiritual Pearl appeared again, and it looked a lot more solid than before. Shang Xia was quickly attracted to the seven-colored mist swirling inside the pearl. The mist seemed to grow a lot stronger and it seemed to gain some spirituality of its own. Swirling faster and faster in the pearl, it looked as though it was excited about something.

All of a sudden, Shang Xia heard some weird noise coming from outside the hidden chamber.

Lightly blowing on the pearl, the diagram changed once again to show the exact scene outside the hidden chamber at that moment.

“Hehe, this guy is really smart. He even found the way to open the hidden chamber in such a short amount of time!”

…

Outside the hidden chamber, Murong Danran carefully inspected the area around him. He muttered to himself, “This doesn’t make sense. There has to be a hidden chamber somewhere! However, there’s nothing I can use to open it up from the outside!” 

As he circled the rock formation Shang Xia ambushed them three times, he felt some heaven and earth qi fluctuations coming from under the water and he sighed, “Looks like something big is going down!” 

Murong Danran never thought that Murong Yuntian would run into any mishap when chasing a cultivator at the Martial Extremity Realm, and he continued to inspect the area around him.

His instincts told him that there was something off about the place. It should be extremely important, and it might be the key to the Mountain and Sea Fantasy Grand Formation!

A huge change occurred suddenly. Heaven and earth qi started to leak out from the huge rock formation that contained the hidden chamber as runes started to appear on its surface.

“So that’s it! It’s here!” Murong Danran quickly traced the runes back to the mechanism used to open the hidden entrance to the chamber. Since it was extremely well hidden, he didn’t discover it previously.

Tapping lightly on the walls, he eventually discovered where the hidden chamber was.

“Looks like I’ll have to move the two rocks to open the entrance. I wonder if I have to push them or pull them… Maybe I’ll have to do both!” Murong Danran started to test his guess. When he pressed down on the two rocks, a soft rumble could be heard as the entrance to the hidden chamber. started to open.

“Hah! I was right!” Murong Danran roared with laughter. However, it stopped abruptly when he discovered the figure at the entrance staring back at him.

“You…” 

A ray of light flashed past his eyes, and Murong Danran’s expression froze.

“Dumbass…” A soft grunt could be heard leaving Shang Xia’s lips as he followed up with another palm strike. When it landed on Murong Danran’s chest, a soft pop could be heard. Grabbing the corpse, Shang Xia dragged it back into the hidden chamber.

When the entrance closed behind him, it was as though nothing ever happened in the Mountain and Sea Fantasy Spiritual World!