Gantang heard this and immediately focused her mind, holding her breath as her sharp gaze scanned the distant Zaohua Peak team.
At the same time, Lu Qiancha had already moved quietly. He used the cover of the Stealth Potion, merging like a shadow into the dunes, silently approaching the area where the Zaohua Peak team was resting.
With a slight movement of his fingertips, a bottle of colorless and odorless Inducement Potion was accurately poured into the deep layers of the sand beneath their feet.
Below the distant dunes, the three members of the Zaohua Peak team were counting their gains from the previous beast tide.
“Yun Zhu Junior Sister,” Lu Renjia smiled at Shangguan Yunzhu with a hint of self-satisfaction, “this wave of the beast tide yielded eighty-nine points, quite a good start!”
“Mhm.” Shangguan Yunzhu’s expression was indifferent as she gave a lukewarm response. With a movement of her hand seal, she recalled the floating Flying Sword into the ancient sword box on her back.
“Oh, Yun Zhu Junior Sister naturally wouldn’t care for such a small amount of points,” Lu Renyi chimed in with a cheeky grin, “Our goal this time is that Integration Stage Dayao in the core area.”
“No, no, with Shimei’s reputation as the number one genius of the Tianyuan Sect, let alone the Integration Stage, even if a Crossing Tribulation Stage Dayao came, it would likely suffer a bitter defeat under Shimei’s sword.” Lu Renjia also hurriedly joined in with the flattery.
As Shangguan Yunzhu listened to this meaningless adulation, her brows furrowed, and her internal impatience grew even stronger. If not for the restrictions of the rules, she would have long since acted alone to hunt monsters nearby.
Just then, an intense and eerie buzzing vibration suddenly came from the soft sand beneath her feet without any warning!
“Be careful, there is something underground.” Shangguan Yunzhu issued a sharp warning, instantly unsealing her sword box as her piercing gaze swept over the surrounding sand.
“Heh, Yun Zhu Junior Sister, you are being too tense,” Lu Renjia waved his hand dismissively, “What kind of powerful creatures could be in this outer area? They are all just ants that can be easily extinguished, we –“
Before he could finish his sentence, a cold sword light suddenly slashed down, accurately striking the sand at Lu Renjia’s feet.
“Puchi!” A dark red sand worm, shaped like a centipede with a hideous mouthpart, was instantly cut in two just as it emerged from the sand.
Lu Renjia stared at the sand worm corpse at his feet, cold sweat pouring down. He quickly pulled out his weapon and looked around vigilantly.
The next moment —
Sha! Sha! Sha!
It was as if the entire sea of sand was boiling. Thousands of small, dark red sand worms emitting a foul stench surged frantically from beneath the sand like a black tide breaking through a dam.
Most of their individual strengths were only at the Golden Core Stage, but their overwhelming numbers and the terrifying sight of them rubbing and squirming against each other were enough to make anyone’s scalp tingle and their skin crawl with cold goosebumps.
“Ah –! Get away! Get away!” Lu Renyi’s miserable screams rang out shrilly.
Shangguan Yunzhu followed the sound and saw dozens of sand worms acting like a well-trained army, instantly concentrating their biting on a single point of Lu Renyi’s spiritual power shield.
The shield’s light flickered violently before making a crisp “pop” sound as a hole was torn open.
Immediately after, hundreds of sand worms swarmed in through the opening like piranhas smelling blood. They ignored Lu Renyi’s terrified struggles and instantly covered his entire body.
In just a single breath, the Ji Fen Pai on Lu Renyi’s body erupted with a piercing light of teleportation — he was judged to have lost his combat capability and was instantly teleported out of the secret realm.
On the other side, Lu Renjia was also caught in a bitter struggle. He roared, dancing a black iron staff so fast that not even wind could pass through. The shadows of the staff flew, constantly smashing and crushing the sand worms that lunged at him.
He suddenly stomped his foot, and lightning exploded across the staff. With a move that swept across a thousand armies, the violent power of thunder erupted, forcefully clearing a charred vacuum in the sea of insects.
However, this moment of respite was fleeting. More sand worms lunged forward without fear of death, like an endless black wave surging from all directions once again, seemingly about to submerge him completely.
Just as despair appeared in Lu Renjia’s eyes —
“Hrah –!”
A majestic and sacred phoenix cry that could pierce gold and crack stone echoed through the clouds.
A Crimson Gold Phoenix with a wingspan that covered the sky and a body burning with World-Burning Flame crashed down from the high heavens.
Everywhere the phoenix passed, the air distorted and the sand melted. Any sand worm touched even slightly by its Huoyan was instantly turned into a wisp of Soul-Locking Smoke and charcoal.
The phoenix’s massive body smashed heavily into the center of the insect sea.
Boom —
A brilliant white light accompanied by a destructive shockwave suddenly spread out. The sand worms in the core area were instantly vaporized.
Those slightly further away were directly roasted into charcoal by the terrifying heat. Insects further out that had emerged from the sand were also accurately sniped by thousands of small fire phoenixes that exploded outward after the phoenix’s impact.
The entire battlefield was instantly transformed into a purgatory of flames. The sand worms on the surface were incinerated into ashes, while those hidden beneath the sand were cooked alive by the terrifyingly high temperatures.
“…Th… thank you, Yun Zhu Junior Sister, for saving me.”
Lu Renjia, having survived the disaster, had a pale face. He hurriedly swallowed a Great Restoration Pill to suppress his tumbling blood and qi, then gave a bitter smile and bowed to Shangguan Yunzhu.
With lingering fear, he glanced at the place where his brother had disappeared and quickly picked up the Ji Fen Pai that had fallen on the ground.
Shangguan Yunzhu did not respond. She remained as cold as frost, her powerful Ling Shi acting like an invisible tide as it instantly swept across every inch of sand and every wisp of air for miles around.
Something was wrong. This insect tide had come too abruptly and was too concentrated, as if it had been deliberately lured by something.
Doubt grew in her heart.
However, after her Ling Shi probed repeatedly several times, she found nothing except the scorched sand and the lingering heat in the air.
Shangguan Yunzhu’s elegant brows knitted together; in the end, she could only attribute this strange insect tide to a low-probability riot of the sand sea.
She looked down at the Ji Fen Pai at her waist — the numbers had jumped to 4963.
This score had almost equaled the total score of the champions in previous Nine Peaks Competitions.
The next strategy seemed clear: she only needed to maintain a strict defense, watch out for sneak attacks from other teams, and wait at the secret realm’s exit before it opened to secure victory.
But Shangguan Yunzhu knew deeply that the most reliable method was always to hold the initiative.
As long as she killed the Integration Stage Dayao in the core area, she could trigger the early opening of the exit.
She remembered the competition a hundred years ago that had caused a sensation in the sect — a team from Tianyan Peak had spent two days at the secret realm’s exit setting up a Heaven-Shaking Killing Array, ambushing and plundering the points of three strong teams in one fell swoop.
They ultimately pulled off a shocking reversal to claim the crown. Since then, waiting at the exit had become a tacitly understood low-risk, high-reward tactic in every competition.
Shangguan Yunzhu did not want to become the fish on someone else’s chopping block.
She had to find the entrance to the core area as quickly as possible and kill that Integration Stage Dayao with lightning speed, disrupting the plans of all other teams and seizing the initiative.
“Yun Zhu Junior Sister,” Lu Renjia had recovered some of his energy.
Looking at the mess on the ground, he suggested with lingering fear, “This place is not suitable for a long stay. The commotion from the battle just now was too great and the Huoyan reached the sky. I fear it has already alerted nearby teams. It is better if we leave quickly.”
“Mhm, let’s go.” Shangguan Yunzhu nodded decisively; she hadn’t intended to stay here any longer. The two figures flashed and turned into two streaks of light, quickly disappearing into the depths of the vast sea of sand.