Staying Alive Cautiously in the Celestial Realm and Becoming the Strongest

Ao hou~

Accompanied by a series of deep roars, massive stones tore through the air.

These stones were irregularly rounded, each two to three feet in dimension, hurled with great force, enough to smash a large tree directly in two and create a deep pit upon impact with the ground.

What was terrifying was the continuous onslaught of stones raining down!

Three hundred cultivators rode atop three hundred Guardian Mountain Rhinoceroses, assuming a defensive formation.

And every saddle on the rhinoceroses shimmered with a faint golden glow, as beams of light shot into the sky, forming a layer of mana defense shields, blocking the incoming boulders.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The boulders collided fiercely with the shield, and although each was repelled, the outermost mana barrier showed violent fluctuations, its light fading visibly to the naked eye.

If this situation were to persist, collapse was a matter of time.

The cultivators, of course, were not going to sit by and wait for death; they each executed spells or summoned magic artifacts, launching a counterattack against their attackers.

This was the eleventh day since the team had entered the Jade Dragon Mountain Range.

According to the plan, they were to spend twenty to twenty-five days traversing this natural moat that spanned thousands of miles.

In the ten days leading to this point, although the team had encountered some troubles, they had all been resolved by the Ferryman from the Overmountain Association.

Things had been going relatively smoothly.

The cultivators had no opportunity to make a move themselves.

However, this morning, they ran into a migrating group from the Monster Race.

Most of the Monster Race have their own territories, especially Great Monsters and Demon Kings, who seldom leave their domains.

Because the Monster Race has a very strong concept of territory, a Great Monster entering another Great Monster's land often means a war to the death.

But there are also many Monster Races that for various reasons, willingly or forcibly migrate, searching for a new homeland.

The Mountain-Breaking Team encountered such a group of Three-eyed Stone Monkeys.

Since the encounter was extremely sudden, battle erupted the moment they met, and when the scout among the monkeys was forcedly killed and driven back by the leading Ferryman, there was no longer any possibility for negotiation.

Enraged Stone Monkeys came from all directions, surrounding the team completely.

These Stone Monkeys were tall and muscular, covered in dense and hard yellow-brown fur, with their most notable feature being the "stone eye" on their foreheads.

The attack method of the Three-eyed Stone Monkeys was quite unique; they dug up large clumps of earth with their claws, gave them a quick knead, and then with a focused gaze from their stone eye, instantly solidified the mud into stone.

Subsequently, they swung their long arms to toss the stones at the cultivators.

Although most of the Three-eyed Stone Monkeys were first-tier Monster Transformations, they were immensely strong, possessed Innate Divine Abilities, and were quite cunning, making them exceedingly difficult to deal with.

Most importantly, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of them, including many even more formidable Three-Eyed Spirit Apes. Given the home-field advantage, they caught the cultivators off guard.

Fortunately, the Ferryman was experienced, and seeing the dire situation, he immediately gathered the Guardian Mountain Rhinoceroses to assume a defensive stance.

Barely holding off the frenzied attack of the Three-eyed Stone Monkeys.

The cultivators, of course, were no pushovers, and with over a hundred Purple Mansion, they formed a formation strong enough to contend with Golden Core.

In the moment of crisis, everyone spared no expense of mana, unleashing fireballs, wind blades, ice spikes, giant palms, and divine lights with the ferocity of a tempest at the approaching Three-eyed Stone Monkeys.

The spells cast by the Purple Mansion cultivators were ten times more powerful than those of Qi Cultivation, with each strike devastating, dominating and unstoppable.

The closest Three-eyed Stone Monkeys were immediately in great trouble, suffering heavy casualties under the bombardment of their spells.

Some were reduced to dust, others burned to ash.

And yet others were sliced into sections.

Their deaths were too gruesome to behold!

Even if only half of the Purple Mansion cultivators in the team took action, they cleared the surrounding area of several hundred steps, creating an entirely barren land in an instant.

Not to mention the Three-eyed Stone Monkeys, there wasn't even a blade of grass left!

The first wave of counterattack killed at least a hundred Three-eyed Stone Monkeys, including several that were equivalent to second-tier Purple Mansion cultivators.

This significantly struck at the arrogance of the monkey horde.

Roar! Roar!

Hurried cries suddenly rose, and those Three-eyed Stone Monkeys lucky enough to have escaped the spellstorm hurriedly retreated.

They were huge in size but extremely agile, vanishing into the vast forest in the blink of an eye.

"Pah!"

A cultivator spat disdainfully.

Although the Mountain-Breaking Team was a temporary combination, the combined power that could be unleashed by the hundred-plus Purple Mansion cultivators and nearly two hundred high-tier Qi Cultivation cultivators was extremely terrifying.

It was utterly futile for these monkeys, despite having three eyes, to make a move against them as if they were looking for a toilet with a lantern!

However, the team leader, the Ferryman, had a solemn expression at this moment and raised his hand to indicate that everyone should keep calm.

The next moment, a chilling sensation arose in everyone's heart.

There was a slight tremor in the ground.

The leader, the Ferryman, immediately turned pale with shock and shouted loudly, "Protect!"

The cultivators' reactions varied, with the quickest ones infusing mana into their saddles the instant the other's words fell.

The Guardian Mountain Rhinoceros's saddles were in fact special Magic Artifacts that could be activated individually or combined with other saddles to form Defensive Arrays, essentially acting as array points.

The more array points there were, the stronger the defensive power of the array that was formed.

But it required the mana of the cultivators to maintain it!

This type of Array, because it was facilitated by one Guardian Mountain Rhinoceros after another, was also known as the Mountain Rhinoceros Formation.

Just now, when facing the attacking horde of monkeys, everyone had reserved strength; hearing the Ferryman's heartrending reminder, the cultivators naturally made the correct response.

Beams of light rose once again, several times brighter than before.

The defensive shield, which had appeared to be in great peril just moments earlier, was suddenly greatly reinforced.

Boom!

Just as the defense array was re-deployed, the ground trembled fiercely once again.

Long cracks appeared on the flattened woodland; trees in the distance fell in large numbers, and the soil churned and surged as if an enraged earth dragon were racing at high speed towards the cultivators' location.

And this earth dragon was swelling continuously!

When it was close to a hundred steps away, it had swelled to dozens of feet wide, like a dragon riding waves in the sea, bringing with it billowing dust clouds as it swept forward.

All the cultivators who witnessed this scene changed complexion—this was no longer a power on the level of the Purple Mansion!

But reality left no room for them to think; all they could do was to stimulate the Array with all their might to withstand the force.

Not a single cultivator capable of reaching high-tier Qi Cultivation or the Purple Mansion level was lacking in intelligence; everyone was fully aware that if they didn't unite at this moment, they might not be able to make it through what lay ahead!

Boom!

The distance of a hundred steps was closed in an instant, and the enormous earth dragon smashed heavily upon the Mountain Rhinoceros Formation.

An earth-shattering impact!

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Here's the first update.