Chapter 0298: Fighting for Profound Core’s No. 1 In Advance
“I already wanted to come up and teach you some things, but since you voluntarily came up to court death, then let me please fulfil that wish for you……” The corners of Jin Lin’s mouth revealed a ferocious looking grin, as he raised his hand and shot out a blue coloured sword shadow towards Ning Cheng.
The sword-shadow that was just shot out also contained blue sword qi in it and in just a twinkling of an eye transformed into a surge of sword patterned waves, which then completely surrounded Ning Cheng.
Looking at this, Ning Cheng instantly became aware that this Jin Lin was a lot stronger than all the cultivators who he had fought on the ring until now. Moreover, this sword patterned wave was somewhat similar to his axe line. This wave was formed by the combination of true essence and killing intent. It was actually an extremely difficult thing to achieve, but since Ning Cheng had already gained significant insights into the axe intent, he was able to easily grasp this point.
At the same moment, Ning Cheng also gave a shake to the Profound Break Spear in his hand, causing 36 Profound Ice Spear Lights to blast out.
“Clang clang……” The dense killing intent contained in those attacks immediately exploded out causing the battle stage to be filled with a storm of noises. Once Ning Cheng’s 36 Profound Ice Spears transformed into a net, the sword light could no longer advance.
Ning Cheng’s spear network actually was able to block his sword; Jin Lin was simply unable to believe it. He immediately started crazily stimulating his true essence to send out wave after wave of sword lights to break through Ning Cheng’s spear network.
“Bang……” The sword waves finally were able to burst through, completely tearing apart Ning Cheng’s 36 Profound Ice Spear Light network. However, because of the powerful true essence backlash, it also caused Jin Lin to take a few steps back and halt his attacks.
However, although Ning Cheng did not even move an iota from his original position, he still somewhat admired the great strength of this Jin Lin in his heart. For a Profound Core Cultivator to cultivate to the level of Jin Lin; if they had to fight others from the same realm, then they would only have a few opponents who could match up to them; these words were not exaggeration but rather the truth.
However, seeing what happened just now, Jin Lin’s complexion completely changed. The sword trace wave that he had poured almost his entire being into a moment ago was not even able to shake Ning Cheng by even an iota. This Ning Cheng was simply too formidable, it was only at this moment did he realize that the words spoken by Jiang Jun and that Crucible Transformation Elder were definitely true, that Ning Cheng’s strength was definitely much more powerful than him.
“Take my sword again…”
Jin Lin roared, as he used both his hands to swing his blue sword down with all his might, causing the air to completely split apart as a huge ten feet wide sword light erupted from it. The might behind this huge sword light gave the feeling that it could not only split apart the battle stage, rather anything and everything would be reduced to dust the moment they dared to stray into the path of this sword light.
A trace of blood flowed out from Jin Lin’s mouth, seeing this even a fool would realize that Jin Lin was stimulating this sword at the cost of his future potential, to the point of even burning up his essence blood to power that strike. From this, it was obvious that he would go to any and all lengths to kill this Ning Cheng.
“Break for me……” The huge sword light was still rushing through the air, when Jin Lin’s imposing aura exploded out with even more intensity. He already had a profound impression on Ning Cheng’s strength, causing him to become aware that unless he went completely all out to kill him, he absolutely would not be a match against Ning Cheng.
“Kaka, boom…” The blue sword light finally collided with the spear lights that Ning Cheng had just condensed, sending out intermittent explosive sounds.
The 36 Profound Ice Spear Lights were once again torn through, causing the sword powered by the combustion of essence blood to rush towards Ning Cheng. Although he purposefully took a few steps back to abate the pressure, but the blue sword light did not dim at all, rather it once again widened and lengthened. The sword intent in it seemed to have been enraged as it swept towards Ning Cheng, and seemed as if it would not stop unless it diced him to pieces.
Ning Cheng was also somewhat angry, although he did not put Jin Lin in his eyes, but this person actually thought of killing him by burning his essence blood.
He shook the Profound Break Spear in his hand sending out bursts of chirping-like sounds mixed with some whines. Some of the cultivators with a high cultivations were very clear that the main reason why Ning Cheng’s Profound Break Spear was giving off chirping and whining like noises, apart from being stimulated by the spear intent, was because the spear head had some cracks on it. If the spear head were not cracked, then the strength of that spear would have at least been double of what it was now.
“Bang……” The Profound Ice Spear immediately shot out towards the beautiful looking sword light, causing the true essence inside to explode out, simultaneously forming into a huge raging vortex.
Jin Lin felt as if a mountain had crashed onto his chest, as the pressure from the true essence vortex fell onto him. He finally wasn’t able to bear it anymore as he directly spilled out a mouthful of the last bit of his essence blood. He could see that Ning Cheng was not even half a bit injured from his attack. Seeing the spear in his hand once again condense a spear light with a chilling killing glint, it caused his heart to immediately sink.
At this point, he finally understood with the utmost clarity that he was not just a little bit weaker than Ning Cheng, moreover the strength difference was not just that of a single level, but rather similar to the gap between the Profound Core Realm and the Soul Essence Realm. Although he was ranked at the 9th place, in his mind, even Leng Yu who was ranked 3rd, was not necessarily better than he was. However, looking at the current situation it was very clear that the gap between him and Ning Cheng was as wide as the heaven and earth.
Thinking about the disparity between the Profound Core Realm and the Soul Essence Realm, Jin Lin’s heart immediately turned cold, how was such a thing even possible? Was this person concealing his cultivation? Was he already a Soul Essence Cultivator, but was actually pretending to be in the Profound Core Realm?
Just as this thought had appeared, the spear had already arrived in front of Jin Lin’s glabella, the next instant it just passed through him like passing through a paper covering a window.
Despair, fear and most importantly regret welled up from the depths of Jin Lin’s heart; however, this kind of feelings were something that one felt at the brink of being swallowed into the darkness before it completely disappeared without even a trace of a shadow.
“Pata.” Jin Lin’s dead body finally fell onto the ground like a pile of rags.
The surroundings were completely silent, although the people here might be aware of the unsaid rules and regulations, but it was clear that no matter what level of competition, all of them only cared about a good show. Currently, the Profound Core Realm competition had only just begun, when it had already turned into something interesting to look at. One of the top ten academies, the Red Star Sword Faction’s cultivator ranked ninth in the preliminary round was killed with a single spear.
The surroundings were silent for a moment, before everyone erupted with a huge applause and roars of appreciations. The cultivators spectating did not care who the participants were, all of them just wanted to witness the flowing of blood and the excitement that accompanied it.
The Red Star Sword Faction’s Crucible Transformation Elder Tang Gongxi clenched his fists, as wished that he could immediately fly onto the stage and kill Ning Cheng in the most miserable manner. The Red Star Sword Faction had a total of two Profound Core Cultivators who had passed through the preliminary rounds, which was already the least among the top academies. However, now both of their Profound Core Cultivators ended up dying to Ning Cheng.
“Heavenly Dao Academy’s Leng Yu asks for guidance……” Leng Yu who had stepped down from battle ring around before, once again stepped onto the battle ring for the second time.
If it were any of the previous Great Meets then such a thing would have never happened. But now that Ning Cheng ignored the tacit understandings for the competition, the other academies also began to disregard this tacit understanding.
All the people finally became aware that the most powerful people of the Profound Core Realm have started to make their move ahead of time. Ning Cheng’s behaviour provoked the discontent of the Profound Core Experts who had not come out until now; as such, this kind of dissatisfaction can only be solved by battling out on the battle stage.
The one who had the biggest fist was the one who was allowed to speak.
“I had come up back then, but you ended up stepping down. I hope that this time you would not step down voluntarily, otherwise the next time you come up, I will definitely make sure to come up myself.” Leng Yu’s expression was cold, as his murderous aura overflowed from his body.
Ning Cheng just gave a smile, “You think too highly of yourself, the reason I stepped down at that time was because I was afraid that no one would challenge me again after I defeat you. Since no one is able to obtain 80 points anyway, then there is no point in me using the excuse to take a break, it would only prove to be troublesome for me.”
“Extremely arrogant……” Leng Yu sarcastically spoke, while he gave a slight flick with his hand.
Ning Cheng did not see any magical weapon, nor did he see any kind of preparations being made beforehand, but he still felt a kind of ice cold killing intent that enveloped him.
At this time, Ning Cheng’s strong spiritual consciousness started showing its effect, as he perceived a faintly discernible slender string that was like the thin blade of a knife, slicing towards Ning Cheng’s waist.
Such formidable killing intent, Ning Cheng already had the strength equivalent to a late stage Soul Essence Cultivator, but even he could feel that if he was caught by this thin string, it might actually split him into two halves.
However, this only made Ning Cheng to take heart a rule, that he should never underestimate any cultivators. Leng Yu was only a Profound Core Cultivator, but was still able to bring out a magical weapon that unexpectedly would not be detected by the spiritual consciousness of ordinary cultivators. This person was definitely comparable to early stage Soul Essence Cultivators in strength and would absolutely be capable of challenging other experts in the Rank Surpassing Challenges.
However, if Ning Cheng seriously dealt with Leng Yu, then even if there were a few more Leng Yu’s, it would still not be enough to deal with Ning Cheng.
Leng Yu’s slender string did have time to split him into two, when the Profound Beak Spear in Ning Cheng’s head immediately moved to entangle that thin string, causing that thin string to curl around the Profound Break Spear a few times.
That thin string that was unable to be perceived using ordinary spiritual consciousness was completely entangled by Ning Cheng’s Profound Break Spear, causing it to be swept away. Even when Leng Yu forcibly used his spiritual consciousness to call back his magical weapon, it was akin to clay falling into the sea, without causing any ripples.
Leng Yu suddenly felt an extremely horrifying killing intent in the space around him, causing his heart to turn cold almost instantly. Ning Cheng had not only used his broken medium grade spiritual artefact to entangle his best quality spiritual artefact, but had completely trapped him. At this moment, if Ning Cheng wanted to kill him, then it would simply be as easy as cutting a pie, while he would not be able to even show a shred of resistance towards it.
How could a Profound Core Cultivator be powerful to such a degree? Even if his weapon fell into the hands of a Soul Essence Cultivator, he would still be able to communicate with his Drifting Air Mist String. But now that his Drifting Air Mist String was captured by Ning Cheng, all his channels of communication were completely cut off, let alone recall it back. It was truly laughable as he thought back to what he said, especially about his thoughts about wanting to teach Ning Cheng a lesson. He could only hope that he would show his Senior Apprentice Brother Li Lingfan some face, as he thought I did not kill you, so you should not take it too seriously.
But at this time, he felt that things were quite the opposite, causing him to not dare move at the moment. He knew that, at this moment, if Ning Cheng truly wanted to kill him, then he absolutely did not have any means to resist. He can only resign himself to fate, and wait for Ning Cheng’s decision.
“For the sake of Li Lingfan, I will not kill you; however you will have to step down by yourself.” Ning Cheng plainly spoke the words that he wanted to say to Leng Yu. With that, he let go of Leng Yu, however Leng Yu’s magical weapon, the Drifting Air Mist String, he did not return it.
Leng Yu’s complexion was pale as he stepped down from the battle ring, at this moment he did not show even half a shred of pride that he had from before.
“How is it possible? Leng Yu actually lost?”
“Leng Yu was ranked 3rd in the preliminary round for the Profound Core Realm, how could he possibly lose? Moreover lose so easily?”
“Nothing is impossible, it can only be said that Ning Cheng is even fiercer than we imagined. What do you think, who would be coming up next, the second ranked Severing Emotions Dao Sect’s Disciple Deng Xiaoyue, or the first ranked Thousand Buddhist Hall’s Disciple Nei Xingxian?”
……
A delicate looking girl was pulled back by another female cultivator from the Severing Emotions Dao Sect, “Junior Apprentice Sister Xiaoyue, you are not an opponent for Ning Cheng, it would be better if you did not come up. Moreover, Ning Cheng also bestowed upon me a life-saving grace, perhaps he might also become a couple with Senior Apprentice Sister Yingdei in the future, so it would be better if you did not go up on stage.”
“Alright, Senior Apprentice Sister Bu.” The girl who was pulled back by Bu Mei replied, and took no further action.
“Thousand Buddhist Hall’s Disciple Nei Xingxian asks for guidance from Elder Brother Ning.” A monk with a few incense scars on his head spoke up as he landed on top of the battle stage.
Ning Cheng looked at Nei Xingxian in some doubt before speaking, “Are you a monk, or a Daoist?”
Nei Xingxian touched his bald head and spoke in an honest sounding voice, “Yes, I am a monk”
“Since you are a monk, then why are you so competitive?” Ning Cheng asked. If it were before, then he certainly would not talk such nonsensical things. But now Ning Cheng was aware that even if he defeated Nei Xingxian, he would still not be able to rake up 80 points. As such, whether he began fighting with Nei Xingxian immediately or not, it would not matter at all.
“Makes sense.” Nei Xingxian returned a simple and honest reply, but the next moment he already brought out a grey coloured monk’s staff. This grey coloured monk’s staff then transformed into tens of thousands of staff shadows in just a moment, as they rumbled towards Ning Cheng.
Ning Cheng had never expected that Nei Xingxian, who looked so simple and honest, would actually hide such shameless cunning within.