Realms In The Firmament

Ye Xiao was lost in his shameless imagination…

At the same time, he was a bit worried. After all, on the foot of the Foggy Miasma Mountain, the Poison King was cultivating… He didn’t want the Poison King to show up at this critical moment… After all, even though the Poison King had improved a lot now, he was still too weak to join this battle. He might get killed by the random sword lights or palm hits… The toad could kill him easily with a touch!

Ye Xiao thought for a while. The last time when the Poison King was cultivating in the fog to absorb the energy in the air and the poison in the mountain, he stayed there for eight days. He had only stayed in the mountain for one day this time. Maybe the disappearance of the dense fog wouldn’t influence the Poison King’s cultivation. Anyway, there should be seven days for him… Ye Xiao hoped that the North Sky King’s Army was powerful enough to defeat the toad within seven days!

As Ye Xiao could see, there were quite many top-level cultivators in the army.

The old man in the purple robe was unimaginably powerful. The pressure Ye Xiao felt from the old man was even stronger than the pressure from Chihuo. He was very possibly a superior cultivator in Undead Stage.

Ye Xiao reckoned the old man in purple robe must be an important man for the North Sky King.

The men who stayed around the old man were definitely top-level Immortality Stage cultivators. Ye Xiao couldn’t see any of their cultivation levels…

‘With all these powerful men and ten thousand good men, can’t they even defeat a toad? If I were the North Sky King, I would hang myself because of the shame if they lose this fight…’

Ye Xiao was looking forward to the result. The old man in purple robe started to make arrangements.

“Set up the dragon slayer formation!” The old man gave an order.

Nobody in the North Sky King’s Army hesitated. They all dashed ahead and stood in a strange formation.

The formation besieged the toad with the cultivators standing in three circles. The inner circle attacked, and the outer circles awaited. There were obvious advantages to this battle tactic. First of all, even though the toad was huge, if thousands of men attacked it at the same time, many of them would miss the hit. It was better to let a part of the men attack while the others waited behind. Everybody had the chance to make a firm hit. Second, people who waited outside could always get away when things went wrong. Third…

After fighting against the Destined Toad in this formation for two hours, the first group of people had already lost dozens of men. The second group of men rushed forward to take over the fight, and the first group could retreat and get some rest.

Over seven thousand men in the North Sky King’s Army took turns to attack the toad… The three groups of men kept attacking one after another…

The attacks kept going and going without stopping for even a second. It had lasted for two whole days!

The battle was drastic. The Foggy Miasma Mountain was partly destroyed. The top of the mountain got cut, and it was about fifty thousand feet shorter now. The Destined Toad was trapped in a huge pit on the top of the mountain. It was wounded badly, and it kept howling angrily.

The Destined Toad had extremely strong protection, but it also had limits. Under the continual and dense attacks, the toad was turning weaker and weaker. As the old man in purple robe said, the toad’s attacks were too simple!

It either spat poison liquids or reached out its tongue. There was nothing else it could do.

That was reasonable. These were the only two things a toad could do to attack. The Destined Toad was still a toad, so there was nothing else it could do!

The fight continued.

“Erhuo, can you defeat this monster? Can you easily take it down like you did to the other beasts before?” Ye Xiao asked.

Erhuo secretly showed up on his shoulder, looked at the battle, and shook its cute little head. “This thing isn’t one of the twelve spirits. If I can rise up two more levels, I can easily defeat this thing. Hmm… In fact, I can defeat it if I am one level stronger!”

No matter how the cat bragged, all Ye Xiao heard was no.

“Just tell me you cannot do it. That is all. You don’t have to talk about rising two levels up and all the things that can’t happen right now.” Ye Xiao pouted and said, “Eating and bragging are your expertise. There is nothing else you are good at.”

Erhuo was so angry, and it thought, ‘I am almost invincible in this universe! I can link the sky to the earth! I like to talk, and that is all! Do you have to humiliate me like this? What do you mean there is nothing else I am good at? If you are not this weak, I can be at least capable of defeating this little Destined Toad easily! How can you blame me? How dare you? How could you?’

“Forget it. Just tell me why this thing is called the Destined Toad, will you?” Ye Xiao asked, “I think the word Destined must mean something. All I am asking is to talk, which you are certainly good at!”

Erhuo shouted at Ye Xiao angrily to deprecate the accusation. After that, it started to answer the question by talking and making gestures,

“Destined Toad is a stupid name. The beast has nothing to do with destiny. It should be the Divine Poison Toad, which is known as the king of poisonous creatures… Well, there is something special about the toad though. It is the inner core. The Divine Poison Toad has a long life. Compared to other beasts, it is harder for the toad to have an inner core. However, if a Divine Poison Toad has an inner core, that must be an extraordinary treasure! If somebody ate the inner core of it, no matter how weak the man is or how severely injured he is, he will double the ultimate length of his life!”

“Double the ultimate length of his life?” Ye Xiao shook his head and said, “That doesn’t sound extraordinary, does it?”

Erhuo disdainfully looked at Ye Xiao and meowed. “I mean… Come on, master. Are you truly that ignorant? Or did you really pay attention to me when I was talking? Forget it. Let me give you an example. I am afraid it is not so easy to make a fool understand my wise thought! Let’s talk about the ultimate length of one’s life first. If the ultimate length of your life is one hundred years, you will live not even one second longer than one hundred years. You can die before that, but one hundred years are all you have. If you double the ultimate length of your life, you can live two hundred years. It doesn’t mean anything if your ultimate length of life is one hundred years, but what if it is one million years?

“Think about Chihuo. He has reached the last bit of his life, but if he ate the inner core of the toad, he will get a new life! It will be a whole life of an Immortality Stage cultivator!

“As a matter of fact, the Immortality Stage, the Undead Stage, and the Infinity Stage were just the names of these superior stages. People all had limited lives. Nobody could escape death. Otherwise, there must be incredibly much more super-powerful people in the world. There are some people who can collapse a universe and create new worlds. Those men are at ultimate stages. They can live as long as the firmament. However, in this world, we don’t have any of those men!

“The powerful men in this world are those who can only live longer than average. People think they are immortal, but that is just their thoughts. We are far away from the real immortality!

“Let’s say… If the North Sky King, the owner of this army, is at the end of his life just like Chihuo, he will be able to live a few hundred years longer if he eats the inner core of the Destined Toad now… Is it still not extraordinary to you?” Erhuo truly had made a speech of it.

It brightened Ye Xiao’s eyes up, and they shined like light bulbs.

“Is it really that powerful? It could be unimaginably valuable if used correctly, couldn’t it?” Ye Xiao was touched.

Erhuo shook its tail and rolled up its eyes. ‘What a shameless man, my master! What did you say? It doesn’t sound extraordinary! What? Now you are interested! Shameless! And you actually dared to criticize me earlier! Humph… What the hell are you…’

‘Why do you think people call it the Destined Toad? Destined Toad!’

…

After a while, Ye Xiao was still watching the battle. Suddenly, a long shout cracked the sky.

The army who besieged the Destined Toad started to retreat hastily.

Erhuo’s whiskers were shaking. It looked over and got shocked! Its eyes turned wide and big, and it meowed hastily.

“What is it?”

“What do you mean what is it? We should hide now! Quickly!” Erhuo was nervous. That was rare.

Ye Xiao was surprised. “Really? Do we have to? The Destined Toad is going to be killed soon… What is so dangerous anyway?”

Erhuo shook its tail and meowed urgently.

“You are a horribly ignorant fool! I underestimated this Destined Toad a little bit. It turns out there are ninety-eight poison beads inside this thing. If it finished ninety-nine poison beads, it will become a superior divine beast of the Infinity Stage!

“Well, it was quite unfortunate. Your sword attack cut its tongue off… The poison that it had collected which should be enough to make the last poison bead was mostly lost. Well, that couldn’t stop it, because it can absorb the poison back in a few years so it will finish the last poison bead in the end. Unluckily, the Poison King drew away a little of the poison in the fog with his Worldly Poison Art. The toad has to spend a longer time to finish the last core… Now, the North Sky King’s Army is hunting it… They blew the poisonous fog to the sky… The toad was not going to make the last core now…

“It has been pushed to the end of its way now. If it fights back with its life, this place, within thousands of miles from the toad, will be ruined! Those men are actually still pushing it… It has to fight with its life now…

“It can’t win this fight, and it can’t escape the hunt… Well, there is only one choice left for the poor thing…”

Erhuo’s words made Ye Xiao know that things weren’t going to be good for him. He didn’t hesitate, he just grabbed Xuan Bing and the two sisters, and ran into the cave. With one fist blast, he hit the floor of the cave. The pure Yin energy quietly hit into the ground and made a big pit which was dozens of feet deep.

Ye Xiao jumped down to the pit and kept making fist blasts. He was at the Immortality Stage now. Digging pits in the mountain was a piece of cake.

He kept digging down into the ground, and within a short time, they were already thousands of feet under the floor.

Ye Xiao had led the three ladies to this place, but he still didn’t feel secure. With a dense and strong spiritual power, he kept hitting the soil around and made the pit become as strong as steels. He still didn’t feel safe, so he used the pure purple qi to reinforce it further… In the end, he sealed the entrance over his head…

Even if the entire mountain broke down, they could be safe inside the hole under the floor.

After that…

Ye Xiao suddenly clapped his own head and said, “Oh crap! I forgot about the Poison King… He is still out there…”

He hurriedly got out.

Yue Shuang was in a hurry, following Ye Xiao out. Xuan Bing immediately stopped the lady and said, “Don’t be reckless. Your brother is at a powerful stage now. As long as he doesn’t go directly against the blast, he will be fine… If we go out there, there is nothing we can do but to distract him…”

Ye Xiao had returned to the ground, but he didn’t go out and search for the Poison King as soon as possible. He just looked out from the entrance of the cave and checked the situation outside.

He saw the cultivators were retreating.

Apparently, the North Sky King’s Army changed their plan again… They were still attacking, but each group spent much less time on attacking.

The old man in the purple robe was staying high in the sky with dozens of others and watching the fight.

The toad was dying… The army was going to win, no matter how the toad struggled…

“We are this far now. I don’t want anybody to die anymore. It is unnecessary.” The old man in purple robe rose his profound eyes and said, “Set up the Triple Dragon Traps Formation now! Let’s do it together and finish this mess now!”

As the order was given, the besieging formation was changing again… The three groups of people suddenly approached the toad at the same time in three different directions.

The old man in the purple robe and the other superior cultivators slowly moved over. They were over the top of the mountain, looking down at the deep pit there.

The Triple Dragon Traps Formation was set!

There were many powerful cultivators waiting in the sky over the battle. These men were blocking every possible direction the toad would escape.

All of a sudden, countless streams of glittering lights shot to the bottom of the huge pit.

The old man in the purple robe finally showed a smile. He turned his hand over and a long sword appeared in his hand.

The others who stood with him all took out their weapons! The fierce lights shined up!

If they could take the inner core back this time, they would all be rewarded!

The man who eventually killed the toad would be rewarded the most!

Although nobody earned the credit alone, everybody wanted to be marked as a contributor!

This was the last moment, and it was perfect for them to beat the toad easily. They must do it now! And they would do it without mercy!

The power waves of them were oppressing down like something solid.

The Destined Toad was lying in the pit on its front. It was wounded badly. Every wound on its body was bleeding, and the blood was white. As it raised up its head, he stared at those men with anger and despair in the eyes.

“Let’s do it together!” The old man in purple robe shouted!

Everyone moved at the same time.

However, at the same moment, the Destined Toad suddenly jumped up fiercely. It seemed it was going to make its last attack! With a shout, it jumped into the sky!

When the shout sounded, the wounds on the Destined Toad actually burst. Even its eyes, nose, and ears started to bleed! Blood rushed out fiercely!

It opened its mouth to the extreme.

– Puff, puff, puff… –

One after another, a round bead was shooting out of its mouth, shooting to the sky.

Ninety-eight round beads continually shot out.

“The poison beads!”