The Six Immortals

Bi Fan had no idea that so many other, extremely powerful, martial artists had joined him inside the zone and were strong on his trail. His body was being controlled by the Yin Yang Lotus as he continued to walk deeper into the region, step by step.

He had no idea how long this would take, but he knew that the Lotus meant him no harm, so he resigned himself to the Lotus’s will.

He, however, was very optimistic and curious about the core of the spirit eruption.

Subjected to such kind of boredom, all Bi Fan could do was watch the Lotus change in shape and size as it continued to absorb the aura and the spirits. But now, suddenly, he could see two grain sized seeds inside the Lotus’s stamen, one black, and the other, white.

“Amazing, the Lotus is actually bearing seeds, could it be using the spirits as food?” Bi Fan couldn’t help but wish.

The Lotus had managed to assimilate a huge amount of aura and spirits before it had expedited the birth of the seeds and was still growing bigger.

The Lotus was absorbing the Aura and the spirits much faster now, but Bi Fan’s forward pace had gone down considerably.

The Spirits formed a storm, sweeping all the dried leaves off the ground which appeared to be dancing in the storm, as they surrounded Bi Fan.

Every now and then, a leaf would hit Bi Fan in the face and cause him a bit of pain.

Bi Fan welcomed this pain, to him, it was relief. It meant that his body was still his own.

“Look, there’s someone ahead of us, and it looks like he’s still alive!”

The sound came from a good distance away, behind Bi Fan, but he could hear it very clearly.

“Yes, I see him too, but it doesn’t seem like he’s moving. What if he’s possessed?”

Bi Fan had been taken by surprise, and felt very uneasy now.

The obviously reason being, that he couldn’t control his own body at the moment.

Several, very strong martial artists had decided to follow in Bi Fan’s stead and some of them had managed to catch up with him to some extent. At the moment, they were only about two hundred meters away from him, and were finally able to see his silhouette figure.

At this moment, only thirteen of them were still actively involved in the excavation, as a vast majority of the ones who had started strong, had eventually given up and turned back while some had lost their lives to the spirits that lingered in the zone.

All of these thirteen people were in the ’emerging from the womb’ layer and they had finally gotten close enough to at least spot Bi Fan.

“That kid is standing very still, he simply isn’t moving forward. Does anyone know what we should expect?”

“He has been still for a while now. Could he be dead? I heard that he was only in the ‘brave’ layer, so how did he manage to get this far? If what they say is true, then this is truly an exceptional circumstance.”

“’Brave layer!’ Impossible. There was definitely an error in the judgement of the people who stated this; it’s almost like a tiger managed to disguise himself as a pig. We are all in the ’emerging from the womb’ category, and even we haven’t been able to get that far yet. There is no way a ‘brave’ layer boy did it.” One of the men snorted coldly.

Indeed, these people were all masters of the art, and though they had managed to penetrate this deep in the zone, even they were having a very difficult time moving forward at present.

The man who stood ahead of them was at least two hundred meters further into the zone, so there is no way that he was only as strong as the ‘brave’ layer.

The situation was such, that several ’emerging from the womb’ layer practitioners had succumbed to the spirits and died, whereas lower layer martial artists had quit early. Only these thirteen had been able to persist this far in this forsaken zone.

“The pressure will only become stronger up ahead, I’m afraid that we may not be able to go that far.” A man sighed.

“I think that only the ‘magical powers’ layer experts are capable of exploring the core of this zone.”

“If we withdraw and return now, then those ‘magical powers’ layer experts will come to explore this region later, and whatever rewards that await us, will be lost.”

All thirteen of them were considering quitting and returning as none of them wanted to die.

“Crap! Quick, look, he’s not dead yet! He just moved a step.” One man exclaimed.

The twelve others quickly shifted their gaze and managed to get a glimpse of Bi Fan’s movement. They stood there, speechlessly, with their mouths hanging open, out of shock.

After, what seemed like a long pause, one of them spoke up: “Is it possible that he’s in the ‘magical powers’ layer?”

“That must be the case, or else, how did he manage to go that far.”

“You say that he’s in the ‘magical powers’ layer, but what’s such a strong guy doing in this part of the devil’s territory?”

They all stood there in silence, as no one had an answer to that.

“Whatever the case is, I will have to go out and report this to my senior. I have tried, but now it’s time for me to turn back, what about you guys?”

“Since you’re leaving, we should all withdraw as well. Anyway, the man seems to be having a difficult time moving forward, so, he should soon withdraw too. Plus, we are still a very long way from the center of this activity; it won’t be possible for him to reach that far.”

These people withdrew and began to return; as they reached the outer rim, they were already soaking wet with exhaustion.

“Finally, they have returned! We were so worried that they won’t be coming out.” Someone shouted in a single breath.

“How’s the situation on the inside?” Many people had surrounded them, and were inquiring to gain some sort of clarity.

The thirteen people, who had just returned, remained tight-lipped as they didn’t have much news to share.

They quickly made a dash, and it appeared as if they were making their way towards the exit.

Many smart people had already started leaving the area, as they had realized that since they can’t breach the zone, then, there is no point wasting time standing outside.

Within moments, most people had already started to leave, leaving behind only a few hundreds in number, all of whom were from different schools. The main purpose that these people were left behind was that, so they could represent and observe on behalf of their respective schools.

The arrival of such strong people had made Bi Fan very anxious, but he now was a little puzzled, for he hadn’t expected them to leave.

Bi Fan couldn’t waste much time thinking about them, as his suffering was getting unbearable now.

Even with the Lotus protecting him, the shock from the attacks of the spirits was enough to cause him a great deal of pain.

“Holy Lotus, please spare me, I’m just a boy, I don’t want to die.” Bi Fan prayed with all his heart.

The Lotus, however, hadn’t absorbed enough of the aura or the spirits and had no desire to leave just yet.

Bi Fan was left with no other choice so he clenched his teeth and geared up to endure the pain, the limitless, unbearable pain. His soul was being tortured, his spirit was being tormented and he felt as if he was going to go crazy and lose his mind.

If he did lose his mind, he at least wouldn’t have to suffer any more.

 

If he did lose his mind, he at least wouldn’t have to suffer any more.

Suddenly, he regained control over his mind, and he felt the pain in its most raw state, with all its force.

Bi Fan wanted to scream, vent it out, but the pain was so extreme that nothing came out of his mouth.

“Endure it!” Bi Fan had always been good at tolerating pain, for he had suffered so much of it in the past.

The pain was so intense that Bi Fan thought that he would soon faint. From past experiences, he knew that fainting would at least relieve him of this suffering temporarily.

The Yin Yang Lotus continued to manipulate Bi Fan’s body and he continued to move forward.

It wasn’t just his mind that was suffering; his body too was feeling the pain.

So much aura and so many spirits had been entering his body, maybe it was too much to handle or maybe some of them had managed to escape the Lotus. Bi Fan felt as if they were going to split his body open, from the inside.

Bi Fan was suffering on both ends, ceaselessly.

Suddenly, a method that he had learnt from that battered jade book, started working on its own. The technique started refining the Spirits and the aura to enhance his physical strength.

Bi Fan was so shocked, that he even forgot about the pain and started inspecting the method, which was in action.

The method must be a very powerful one; for a second, even the spirits that were attacking his body crumpled under its influence, before resuming attacking his body again, while the technique continued to use them to enhance his physical strength.

Obviously Bi Fan could feel the improvement in his physical strength consistently. Even the pain had subsided to a great extent and he felt very relaxed all of a sudden, relatively.

Since the situation had changed, Bi Fan was now, in no hurry to leave. If he stayed here, then his strength would continue to improve, so at present, he was willfully volunteering to subject himself to the pain he was suffering.

His body was drenched in his sweat and his head was exploding with pain.

He was happy to continue, as long as it didn’t kill him.

It’s such a pity that Longevity burst is a very low level technique, which meant that it wasn’t capable of functioning on its own, otherwise Bi Fan would have loved to use it as well to enhance his powers further.

Obviously, at present, since Bi Fan had no control over his body, he couldn’t practice it, as much as he would have liked to.

The Yin Yang Lotus was absorbing the spirits and the aura at a much faster rate now; the seeds were growing in size at a good rate and so was the rest of the Lotus.

As time elapsed, things continued to progress at their slow and steady pace; Bi Fan had, by now lost track of how long he’d been here, and had no idea as to how much longer it was going to take.

Bi Fan was roused by the hiss of a tiger from out of nowhere, and he instantaneously halted inspecting the Lotus that was inside his body.

A giant black tiger had somehow managed to appear in front of Bi Fan; the tiger was quite close to Bi Fan, and judging by his glaring red eyes, Bi Fan could tell that the tiger’s intentions weren’t very much in his favor.

The tiger looked at Bi Fan, roared a few times, and then charged in Bi Fan’s direction.

Bi Fan could tell that this black tiger was awfully strong as his pace was even faster than the Chimera’s.

Bi Fan exerted his body with all his strength, desiring for it to move so he could dodge this incoming attack, but his body didn’t budge, having refused to obey his command.

“It’s over now.” Bi Fan closed his eyes, he had done everything he could have; he had tried really hard; but now, it was time to go.

As the black tiger’s bloody mouth was almost upon Bi Fan head, ready to tear it off the rest of his body, he was suddenly stopped. Suddenly, the tiger found himself struggling, as his body hung there, in midair.

Bi Fan opened his eyes, only to be surprised. The black tiger was being encompassed in a net of silky black threads, which were beginning to restrict his movements.

Suddenly, the black tiger started howling in pain, and his body started to dissipate.

Watching the tiger stripped down to his bones made Bi Fan a little nauseous.

Soon, even the bones had faded away, and the net broke down into strands of silky black threads which returned to their place inside Bi Fan’s body.

Bi Fan felt a bit numb as he tried to fathom the power of these black silk threads. He vaguely guessed that these odd black threads might have something to do with the Lotus that resided inside his body.

Instead of being scared, Bi Fan was pleasantly surprised and even reassured. There was a force inside his body that was capable of protecting him in critical moments, and seemed to be showing up whenever he was in grave danger.

Bi Fan quickly peeped inside his body, hoping to enquire the occurrence of these threads.

The Yin Yang Lotus seemed to be busy absorbing the aura and spirits as normal, and nothing seemed to have changed with that.

In such a short span of time, Bi Fan could sense that his physical strength had reached almost six Yun Shi, which was almost at par with his inner energy.

“Amazing! Now, I can even fight with the ‘enormous strength’ layer.” Bi Fan was overjoyed.

Not only that, Bi Fan could see that the two seeds were now mellow and ripe.

Apart from this, two other holes in the Lotus’s stamen seemed to have sprouted a seed, each.

Consecutive surprises had diverted Bi Fan’s mind from the pain he was in. Had he been in control of his body, he would have celebrated this out loud.

Bi Fan was standing at a very advanced position inside the zone and he could sense that spirits were getting even more powerful and aggressive, which was being testified by the force of the whirlwind that was surrounding him at this moment.

The wind that was hitting him in the face, felt like the edge of a knife, sharp.

The Yin Yang Lotus resembled a bottomless pit. Bi Fan had no idea how many ‘magical powers’ layer spirits, this Lotus had already absorbed and even then, the lotus still continued to carry on, without experiencing any massive transformations.

Apart from the two seeds that had formed a proper shape inside the Lotus’s stamen, the lotus hadn’t changed an awful lot.

“Keep at it! Keep at it! ….. Just don’t get me killed.” Bi Fan didn’t care about the pain, at the moment.

The pain hadn’t stopped, but Bi Fan was willing to endure all of it, his desire to grow strong was providing him with the strength to endure the suffering.

Bi Fan, however, was beginning to lose interest in exploring the core of this anomalous activity. The force of the spirits was already unbearable on the outside of the central region; he couldn’t even imagine what it would be like, to be at the center of this activity.

Judging by the torrential cyclone that the spirits formed around him at present, Bi Fan estimated that he must be fairly close to the center of the zone by now. The benefits that he could get from the entire aura that was stored inside the Lotus, was nothing less than a dream to him.

Bi Fan was just waiting for the Yin Yang Lotus to reach its saturation point, and then he would quickly exit the zone. His strength had already improved a lot, so he was more than happy at the moment.

A man who is never satisfied with what he has, is like a snake that is trying to swallow an elephant. Too much greed is often met with misfortunes, and can split one open thunderously.

His mind was just pondering over this notion when he heard the voice of another human. This one was extremely strong, and Bi Fan was a little scared, so he wanted to get out of there immediately.

The strength he was sensing this time was stronger than the ones he had felt earlier. The people that he had sensed earlier were at least in the ‘emerging from the womb’ layer, and even then, they hadn’t dared to venture this deep into this forsaken zone. These new comers on the other hand, were coming in strong.

“Yin Yang Lotus, don’t be so greedy. Your greed is going to get me killed.” Bi Fan started to lose heart, fearing the worst.