One Down

Once Chen Jing was within range to strike the core formation cultivator.

Zhongming rapidly slid his foot forward, moving diagonally at a forty-five-degree angle. This step brought him forward and slightly off to the side. Then with a quick twist of his wrist, his blade was now pointing downwards also at a forty-five-degree angle. With a spin, Zhongming was able to parry the incoming thrust perfectly.

As Chen Jing's thin blade slid across Zhongming's slightly sturdier sword, Zhongming almost hissed in pain.

That was the difference between a Core Formation cultivator and a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Even just slightly redirecting Chen Jing's quick thrust had caused an immense amount of pressure on his wrist.

If he were foolish enough to try and block the attack head-on, Chen Jing's attack would have cleaved right through his defense, shattering all of the bones in his arm in the process.

As Zhongming had barely deflected the first attack, he could not afford to be idle if he wished to remain in the match.

With the grace of a dancer, he advanced, his toes pointed inward with each step; this gave him the ability to spin and parry any follow-up attacks.

Sparks flew as Zhongming parried yet another attack, this time from Hao Ruolan. And again, he deflected another attack from Xiao Zihao.

Alas, Zhongming was not able to keep up with the barrage of attacks. The next thrust by Xiong Yongnian caught him right as he warded off the previous blade.

The impeccable timing of the thrust allowed Yongnian's attack to bypass Zhongming's defense; with little to no resistance, Yongnian's blade slid underneath his rib cage, piercing several internal organs as it made its exit through the nape of his neck.

The protective array cast earlier by Xianliang should have taken the damage for Zhongming and blocked all pain and injury; the talisman above his head should have faded, and he should have been ejected from the match via teleportation.

Yet to the dismay of the Deng Sect cultivators, that was not what had occurred.

When Zhongming was pierced by the attack that should have, by all rights, been fatal, he dropped his sword and used both hands to clamp down hard on Yongnian's sword arm; as he did so, Zhongming's body rapidly transmuted into mud.

An innumerable amount of razor-thin threads erupted from the faux body, seeking to entangle all the cultivators of the Deng Sect.

Unfortunately, Chen Jing, Zihao, and Ruolan reacted quickly and were able to escape the trap.

However, for Yongnian, who had dealt the final blow, he was one, too close, and two, immobilized by the construct of mud.

Try as he might, escape was simply not possible; the razor-thin thread fastened themselves viciously around his body, squeezing tightly, preventing him from moving even a single inch.

Desperately each of the four Deng Sect members had tried to use their Dao of Principles to free Yongnian from the trap.

However, Gao Liang and Lihua combined their abilities making any resistance futile.

Gao Liang used his Dao of Karma to swap the karma between Yongnian and a random object; thus, no defensive principles protected him; the exception, of course, was Xianliang's protective array. This allowed Lihua used her Dao of Change to reject any changes to Yongnian's current situation.

The sound of someone snapping reverberated throughout the area, and simultaneously, two separate things happened.

One, Zhongming revealed his true body to everyone. And two, the numerous threads that had bound Yongnian tightened brutally, and within mere moments, he was rendered into bloody chunks.

Or he would have been if not for Xianliang's protective array.

This counter had caused the Deng Sect's strategy to backfire completely. Initially, they attempted to eliminate the weakest link as quickly as possible; the purpose was to turn this match into a four versus three.

The match did indeed become a four versus three. However, the advantage belonged not to the Deng Sect but rather to the Mo Sect.

After losing a member, the remaining Deng Sect cultivators rapidly retreated and regrouped.

Chen Jing was calmly analyzing and trying to figure out how the Mo Sect was countering their Dao of principles.

He theorized that there was someone in the opposing group who could remove any principles they had set. And not only could they remove the principles, but they were also able to alter them as well.

When the four were targeting the Core Formation cultivator. Each of them was spamming variations of the principle 'Interaction is only valid between me and a specific object or person.'

They had explicitly targeted this principle at Zhongming himself. Yet somehow, Zhongming was able to block their attacks with his sword; this could be explained if Zhongming was an aspiring sword cultivator who would embody the concept of one with the sword. Since in that case, the cultivator and the sword would be considered one and the same.

What wasn't so easily explained was how Zhongming was able to trap them in an array.

The Mo Sect cultivators were indeed a tricky bunch for them to deal with.

For most cultivator sects, you could be relatively sure of the Dao their members would use, especially for the more famous sects, eventually through competitions, battles, or turncoat cultivators. Many separate pieces of information would subsequently paint an accurate picture of the nature and capabilities of each sect's Dao.

For most sects, having many different Dao was quite rare. If you were to wage a battle against a sect, you would usually be dealing with one or two different types. In rare cases, you would be dealing with three.

Anything more than three was very, very rare. And yet, against the Mo Sect, there had to at least been several dozen different types of Dao has to deal with.

Chen Jing could only guess as to how they were countering the Dao of Principles; perhaps they had a Dao of Alteration or something similar.

While Chen Jing's thoughts were quite reasonable, it was not the truth of the matter.

Actually, the reason why Zhongming was able to trap Yongnian was because Gao Liang had utilized his Dao of Karma and swapped the karma of Zhongming and the karma of his array.

So when the Deng Sect had used their Dao of Principles to target Zhongming. They ended up targeting Zhongming's array and not his person.