Chapter 750: Ninth Stratum!
This would be no tranquil night for Arch-Emperor City!
That was especially true of Borough 89, which was currently shining with the light of fire, and filled with hoarse shouts. Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were crimson as he looked around. The first wave of several dozen chosen were either dead or completely drained of life force to the point where they were seriously injured. As Bai Xiaochun stood there within the flickering firelight, he looked particularly terrifying!
He hadn’t set out to kill anyone, but they had forced his hand and given him no other choice!
He didn’t want to cause any trouble, but the trouble came to find him. And not just a single time!
He hadn’t been interested in fighting, either. However, they had him surrounded, and there were more enemies approaching every moment, making flight impossible. Besides, he wasn't very familiar with Arch-Emperor City, so even if he did manage to break free from the fighting, it would be impossible for him to escape.
“Bullying me… and pushing me into a corner!!” he murmured, shivering partly with rage and partly with fear. However, there was nothing he could do at the moment other than hope that the Giant Ghost King would be able to save him…. Things were just developing too quickly.
In fact, there were already countless divine abilities and magical techniques closing in on him, as well as the glow of magical items. The second wave of chosen was closing in, with the Core Formation cultivators in the back, and the Nascent Soul experts up front. Although they could already see that Bai Xiaochun was a brutal fighter, the event had reached a critical mass, and none of them were willing to retreat.
More than a hundred soul cultivators were closing in from all directions, and many of them were people familiar to Bai Xiaochun, including Zhao Dongshan, Li Tiansheng, and others.
It was too urgent of a situation for Bai Xiaochun to ponder what to do. Eyes burning with killing intent, he dashed forward, unleashing shocking energy as he charged forth in attack!
RRRUUUUMBLE!
Booms could be heard as fierce fighting broke out. Bai Xiaochun was unstoppable, and it didn’t matter who ended up in front of him, they all were thrown backward, blood spraying out of their mouths, completely shocked by Bai Xiaochun’s strength and ferocity.
“He’s even stronger than he was back in the Necromancer Kettle!”
“So this is Bai Hao, the legendary figure who defeated a hundred chosen!”
“He's strong, but we outnumber him. Besides, we’re in Arch-Emperor City!”
Everyone anxiously pressed the attack, and soon, the scene was one of utter chaos. Li Tiansheng was in the crowd, performing an incantation gesture that summoned clouds of toxic gas. He knew how incredible Bai Xiaochun was, and therefore hung toward the back, ready to flee if he had to.
However, before he even realized what was happening, Bai Xiaochun… was looking through the crowd directly into his eyes!
Scalp tingling, he suddenly thought back to how Bai Xiaochun had looked at him in exactly the same way back in the Necromancer Kettle. Bai Xiaochun blurred into motion, sidestepping a random cultivator to suddenly appear just up ahead of Li Tiansheng, looking like something from a nightmare.
Li Tiansheng’s heart leapt into his throat, and he immediately turned and fled. However, Bai Xiaochun laughed madly and used his Mountain Shaking Bash, unleashing extreme levels of fleshly body power to blast through the crowd. Using the Eternal Parasol to defend himself against the divine abilities and magical techniques, he… shot in pursuit of Li Tiansheng!
Bai Xiaochun was like a nightmare in living form to Li Tiansheng, who quickly slapped his bag of holding to produce an actual human heart, dripping with blood. Face twisting with a vicious snarl, he crushed the heart, causing a fragrant odor that resembled a woman’s perfume to explode out. Then, the image of a woman appeared, face twisted in agony as she shot toward Bai Xiaochun.
Bai Xiaochun’s expression flickered; he could tell that Li Tiansheng was not relying on some ordinary technique. The heart he had just crushed seemed shocking in every way; furthermore, the shadowy woman who was racing toward him seemed to have a hole in her chest where her heart should be.
Bai Xiaochun leaped backward to avoid the woman, but at the same time, threw the Eternal Parasol out in front of him, causing it to become a streak of light that shot toward Li Tiansheng.
Before Li Tiansheng could react, the Eternal Parasol had stabbed directly into his chest!
Life force spilled out, and as the pain filled him, Bai Xiaochun waved his finger, causing the Eternal Parasol to fly back toward him. Then he slammed his hand down into the ground, causing a barrier of sharp spikes to spring up from the ground to defend himself from the incoming divine abilities.
Considering how much life force power was pouring into Bai Xiaochun, his Tempered Bones were rapidly approaching the ninth stratum.
“Just a bit more… and I’ll break through!” Even as he reached this point in his train of thought, the spikes around him shattered, and dozens of cultivators shot toward him. Everything was a blur, but that didn't matter too much to Bai Xiaochun; he knew that everyone in the area was his enemy.
Rumbling sounds could be heard as he relied on incredible speed that bordered on teleportation. By not using his cultivation base, he conserved spiritual power, and could thus keep fighting longer. Besides, there were plenty of people in the area who could help keep his fleshly body power bolstered.
Fierce fighting could be heard, and at the same time, more soul cultivators appeared on the scene. It was getting difficult for Bai Xiaochun to block all of the incoming divine abilities and magical items with his Eternal Parasol, and some began to make contact with him.
However, the attacks landing on him didn’t cause him to pause for even a moment. He really was like an immortal devil incarnate; magical techniques from the Core Formation cultivators were like nothing to him, a fact which led quite a few people to gasp in shock.
Even the magical techniques and items of the Nascent Soul experts didn't affect him very much. At most, they caused him to frown slightly.
Considering that he was only dealing with dozens of incoming attacks, his Eternal Parasol could defend him well enough that he was also able to fight back. With each fist strike he used, he sent someone flying, and would then suck away their life force.
Clearly, none of these chosen had ever considered that a Nascent Soul cultivator could possibly be this powerful. It was unbelievable to an absurd level.
His fleshly body power was beyond imagination, and left them utterly shaken.
“Who is this guy? Doesn’t he have any weaknesses?!?!”
“Where are we supposed to hit him? His speed, his fleshly body, his endurance, his defenses… they’re all at the highest level! How do we fight this?!”
Considering that fewer and fewer people were left standing near Bai Xiaochun, wooden expressions could be seen on the faces of many of the Wildlanders. None of them dared to unleash any more attacks, and most of them even began to back up. Zhao Dongshan was there on the ground, his heart filled with regret as he fled, terrified that Bai Xiaochun would notice him.
“What was I thinking to come cause trouble for this fiendish killer? Please, please don't notice me!” Even as Zhao Dongshan prayed for a way to get out of the situation, another group of over a hundred chosen was closing in, with Zhou Hong in their midst.
When they got close enough, they could see the carnage in the area, the bodies of numerous chosen strewn on the ground around Bai Xiaochun, whose veins of steel were pumping, and who radiated an air of brutal madness.
Zhou Hong was shocked, but at the same time, delighted. “He finally killed some people!! Nobody can save you this time, Bai Hao!!”
Even as Zhou Hong arrived, Bai Xiaochun pulled the Eternal Parasol out of the body of one of the soul cultivators. With the life force he had just acquired, he could tell that his Tempered Bones were no longer in the eighth stratum, but rather… in the ninth!
With that, he looked up slowly at Zhou Hong.
“Zhou Hong!” he said, his eyes burning with killing intent as he blurred into motion!
Meanwhile, outside of Arch-Emperor City in the Giant Ghost Legion, Mistress Red-Dust was sitting in her red command tent, her brow furrowed grimly. In her hand was a transmission jade slip that sent the Giant Ghost King’s voice echoing into her mind.
“This Bai Hao is a complete disaster!” she murmured through gritted teeth. As far as she was concerned, she had already helped him once. Without her intervention, the heavenly duke from the Chen Clan would definitely have looked into the matter. Although she had been touched by the way she benefited from the situation, that feeling didn’t go very deep, and quickly faded. Now here her father was, yet again asking for her to go protect Bai Hao. Without even thinking about it, she refused.
“If he has a death wish, then just let him die!” Snorting coldly, she was just about to put the jade slip down when another message came from the Giant Ghost King. Only she could hear the furious words he spoke, and whatever they were, they caused her to sit there in grim silence for a moment before rising to her feet.
“I’ll just help him this one last time!” With that, she walked out of the command tent, called a few dozen Giant Ghost Legion soldiers over, and then headed toward Borough 89 in Arch-Emperor City!
By this point, the powerful experts from the noble and aristocratic clans were getting messages from their various princes, princesses, and other young cultivators.
“What incredible gall!”
That was especially true when word of the deaths began to filter through. The clans involved immediately sent people over, and some of the top powerful experts even went personally.