As the dark clouds spread, the beast tide finally began to be effectively held back.

Although their numbers seemed infinite, the Weather Control spell was extremely efficient against crowds. If it were not for the environment there, full of impurities, which was counterproductive for that spell, the participants would not be having as much difficulty as they were, especially with the dragon blocking the powerful beasts.

But now, the Dragon Peak disciples were already exhausted, while Aotian and his companions had become true cheaters with the perfect-grade stones to sustain them.

In that gloomy world, young master Chun’s face, constantly illuminated by the glow of thunder that continuously struck the beast tide, twisted with rage.

He could not understand how he, a genius at the peak of the Soul Formation realm, was already out of energy, while those four people, with realms lower than his, were simply spending energy as if it had no end.

Gritting his teeth, refusing to accept it, he continued to pour his energy into the cloud he controlled, making it bigger while killing beasts nonstop, quickly surpassing the number of beasts Aotian killed per second, creating a river of blood.

But his stubbornness came at a price. Black stains began to appear in different parts of his body. He had drained too much energy, leaving himself vulnerable to the frenzied invasion of those fierce impurities.

The other Dragon Peak disciples, at that point, had also run out of energy and stopped fighting, and wore dark expressions as they looked at Aotian’s group of four. But when they saw young master Chun’s actions and his body being corrupted, they paled in fright.

“Senior brother Chun!! Stop, you will kill yourself!”

Shouts of panic erupted from the sixty Dragon Peak members, and several rushed forward to stop him from harming himself. Only then did the crazed young master come to his senses, breaking into a cold sweat as he realized he had been only a few steps away from death.

But when he cut off the energy to his cloud and saw it shrink until it completely disappeared, leaving only those four hateful clouds in the sky created by the enemy, together with the fact that his companions rescued him from killing himself because he wanted to compete with those weak cultivators, he did not feel grateful.

On the contrary, he felt humiliated, and boundless rage took his heart.

“Get away! Get out of my sight!” he roared with red eyes, pulling a sword from his storage ring and swinging it violently at his companions, making them retreat in fear.

The one who was closest could not escape the strike in time, having his entire chest torn open by the cut while unprepared, in a straight bloody line.

With wide, disbelieving eyes, he reached out toward young master Chun.

“S-Senior… brother!”

With those last words, he fell backward, his body collapsing to the ground, split into two parts. His eyes remained open, as if he could not believe he had really died like that.

Young master Chun, on the other hand, panted violently, with his face, stained by the blood that splashed onto it, distorted by madness, without a trace of regret. His once blue eyes even seemed to take on a frenzied crimson aspect.

His sword, still dripping the liquid life of his companion, only added another layer of insanity to the young man, who seemed unable to even differentiate friend from foe, becoming worse than the Shadow Beasts attacking them.

The Dragon Peak disciples moved away from that disheveled man, fearing the madman might suddenly start attacking them.

But young master Chun’s eyes did not remain on his disbelieving companions, turning instead to face the one who led him to this state. The little ant who mocked him repeatedly and only brought him trouble, without knowing his place.

Aotian, feeling the gaze, shifted his attention from the beast tide as if it were something insignificant and looked calmly at young master Chun with a raised eyebrow. It was not the first time he had seen a rabid dog since arriving in the cultivation world, and he would not be intimidated so easily.

Such a calm reaction almost killed young master Chun with rage. Not even his companions dared look at him at that moment, but that little ant was there, once again treating him the same way he himself normally treated the weak and irrelevant.

The knuckles of his fingers turned white with rage as he almost crushed the hilt of his sword, which at some point began to show black cracks, which, under his firm grip, ended up breaking completely and fragmenting.

The ring on his finger also exploded at the same moment, scattering items in all directions, which soon showed black cracks and broke as well.

This happened because young master Chun’s energy was at rock bottom, leaving only enough to protect his own body, unable to prevent corruption from destroying his things.

The other Dragon Peak disciples had not gone as crazy as he did, leaving energy to protect their belongings, which was why they were not in that situation.

Unfortunately, Chun, at that moment, did not seem to care about any of that anymore.

He only wanted Aotian to die and, when he was about to act, he suddenly froze. An extremely heavy and oppressive gaze had fallen upon him, waking him from his madness.

Turning his head so fast he almost broke his neck, his eyes went toward where he felt the threat and, when he saw it, his pupils shrank.

The enormous blue dragon, easily tearing in half a shadow beast the size of a mountain and making black blood rain down, stared at him coldly, as if it had seen what he intended to do. The beast split in half seemed to decree the fate he would suffer if he continued with such thoughts.

Quickly lowering his gaze, young master Chun shrank humbly in place, trembling, not daring to look anymore.

A cold snort, more like the rumble of thunder, came from the dragon, which soon ignored him.

Upon feeling the oppressive gaze disappear, the boy’s eyes toward the ground were no longer as humble as his body appeared. They were red with hatred.

He could feel Aotian looking at him mockingly, as if he were nothing but trash and a coward. The veins in his clenched fists bulged, and his nails dug into his palms until they began to bleed.

‘Good! Good! That little ant not only wants to pass the trial and seize control of the Mahayana Mansion — which should undoubtedly be mine — using some underhanded trick, but also relies on the Dragon King’s protection to step on my head. Does he really think I’ll let him live?’

‘No! I will kill him, kill his companions, his family, and even their cats and dogs! And the Dragon King? When I gather all the authority of this world, I will also crush him like a dog under my feet and turn him into a humble slave mount.’

Madness resurfaced in his eyes with renewed intensity. In fact, Aotian was not even looking at him, it was all in his head.

Young master Chun then discreetly raised his head, looked at the beast tide, then at Aotian and his companions, who continued fighting, as a venomous idea arose in his mind, along with a crooked smile on his lips.

[“Come! Follow me if you don’t want to die like that trash.”]

He suddenly ordered, extremely coldly to his companions, and kicked the man he had killed earlier, whose corpse had already been corrupted and blackened by impurities, as if it had been burned. With the kick, the body turned into ashes and fragments.

Chun then walked to a specific position, leaving Aotian, Rihai, Cang Song, and Hui Lang in the middle, the beast tide in front, and him behind with his companions.

The Dragon Peak disciples had resentful looks toward him, but, gritting their teeth, decided not to go against that madman and followed him.

Aotian, of course, saw all of this, but apparently did not even bother paying attention to them. Rihai, Hui Lang, and Cang Song, on the other hand, became serious and cautious, attentive to any movement from them, sensing their clear malicious intent.

Thus, the battle continued.

With no more energy problems, Aotian continued killing nonstop. With the excess energy and that Taboo-Tier magic, Aotian did not have many problems with the stupid Shadow Beasts in the Soul Formation realm, which had no tactics, only running forward, completely containing them.

His thousands of minds worked at full speed, analyzing every inch of the battlefield — where to attack, how to strike, and how much energy to commit. He was like a perfectly calibrated machine, laying waste to the entire field.

The dragon’s eyes in his direction seemed to shine more and more with admiration, astonishment, and joy, along with an apparent touch of regret.

Rihai, Cang Song, and Hui Lang were also extraordinary. With only ten days to learn a Taboo-Tier technique, they managed to master it to a point where it was fully usable in combat, and the dragon also valued them, although not as much as Aotian.

This was very different from the Dragon Peak disciples, who were uncertain whether they could master the technique enough to make it usable in such a short time, if it were not for them having already learned it from their sect’s inheritance, left by cultivators of the past who had passed this test and survived to return.

And during this battle, Rihai and the other two, with no more energy problems, in a high-pressure environment full of impurities and beasts, only kept increasing their proficiency in the Weather Control technique.

This favorable condition would continue, since the spiritual stone each of them held in their hand contained condensed energy from hundreds of thousands of spiritual stones, which would not run out anytime soon with their current usage. Not to mention the elemental stone, which was actually even more terrifying, requiring the expenditure of 10 million low-grade spiritual stones to produce a single one.

More precisely, those 10 million produced one perfect-grade elemental stone of each of the five elements, so dividing by five, it would be an expenditure of two million per stone.

With the confidence of such an energy source, they continued the massacre.

Aotian was the main source of defense, preventing beasts from getting too close by taking advantage of his companions’ momentary inattention, in addition to eliminating, with his individual dragon rain attack, the strongest fifth-level ones, which was still not something Rihai and the others could handle.

But the more stable their situation became, the more the light in young master Chun’s eyes faded.

At that point, he was like an erupting volcano that was suddenly blocked with a giant cork, preventing it from exploding.

His plan was simple: without him and the Dragon Peak disciples joining the fight, Aotian and the other three would eventually exhaust themselves or fail to stop the fifth-level beasts. When that happened, the four of them would be forced into a chaotic and deadly predicament — the perfect opportunity for him to deliver a subtle, cruel blow.

That way, he could eliminate them without acting too openly and risking the Dragon King’s wrath. Moreover, he would not be hindered by the formations that protected weaker cultivators from his attacks, as he knew the array held no power on that battlefield — allowing him to kill them with his own hands.

Unfortunately, he was destined not to have a chance this time.

Almost an hour of battle had passed, but Aotian and the others maintained their positions without retreating. And, despite seeming quite worn out, they did not seem to be at the end of their strength.

Unfortunately, when young master Chun saw that his plan would not work and was thinking whether he should be more extreme, something happened.

The Dragon King, who already had a pile of enormous corpses at his feet, suddenly felt a sinister premonition and looked toward the depths of the fallen battlefield with a heavy gaze.

‘They woke up. We can’t stay any longer.’

[“The test is over. Let’s leave.”]

Turning to the humans, the dragon warned with his thunderous voice full of authority.

Then, with a swing of his tail, he, the cultivators, and the beast corpses disappeared from there in a whirlwind, leaving only the beast tide, which slowly stopped advancing, confused without a target.

Sniffing the air, they searched for what to attack, and their gazes slowly moved toward the luminous barrier, which separated the small world from the battlefield.

When the beasts’ eyes shone, about to attack that large cluster of spiritual energy, the barrier suddenly expelled a black curtain of impurities, which slowly darkened and prevented the Shadow Beasts’ vision from spotting the small world, causing them to lose the target again and look around foolishly, with nothing to attack.

And it was at that moment that, above the beast tide, gigantic shadows swam through the dark skies, coming from the depths of the shadow world.

Occasionally it was possible to see parts of enormous serpentine bodies emerging from the black clouds, with gigantic obsidian scales exposed.

Those oppressive beasts made the beast tide below instinctively shrink and tremble.

They were the reason the Dragon King had conducted the test at the edge of the battlefield, and had not gone too deep, because otherwise he would not have had time to escape like now.

Fortunately, those beasts that frightened even the fearsome Dragon King did not stay long, before, without a target, returning back to the depths of the shadow world.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep