Riding on Bai Feng's back, Han Lian reached Huaxian Gate's main peak. With a light flick of her sword, she cut down the evil cultivators flooding out of the grand hall, then headed straight for the rear hall's teleportation array.
Bai Feng's ears twitched as he sent a transmission to Han Lian, "Zūnzhě, there is an ambush."
"I know."
Calm and cold, Han Lian answered. A place this critical was certain to have a high rank guard. She and Bai Feng moved at the same instant.
Han Lian's ice blade and Bai Feng's hooked claws struck together at the pillar of light. The stacked force of twin extreme cold attributes ground the evil cultivators stepping out of the channel into slag, their life snuffed in a breath.
Two blows landed in quick succession on the teleportation path. Bai Feng's massive strike met a green barrier, but Han Lian's attack slipped through. With a crack, the array's foundation could not bear the destructive force and split open.
"Courting death."
A vicious voice slid into their ears. A baby arm thick coil of green smoke spiraled down the channel and wrapped Bai Feng's claws like maggots on a bone. Bai Feng roared, blasted his own claws with a breath of frost to strip the poison, then attacked with greater fury.
Han Lian cast the natal ice lotus as a guard and stepped in with her sword to fight in tandem.
In three breaths they had traded over a dozen rounds, then both sides broke and sized each other up with hostile eyes.
Their foe wore green robes, even his brows were green. Pale green pupils watched them like a serpent. He stroked the snake-shaped earring at his ear and muttered, "Interesting. You have suppressed your cultivation too. Who sent you down to the lower realm?"
Frost could have hung from Han Lian's bold features. "You came, so why cannot we? I came to keep you in the Weiyu Realm forever."
She poured ice spiritual power into her sword. "Ice Shard Sword Rain" fell in a blink, a storm of icy blue sword light stabbing for the Out-of-Body evil cultivator.
He swept his sleeve. A wall of green qi blocked most of the storm. As he raised a second wall, a colossal bear paw raked straight for his dantian. He dodged fast, but the swipe still tore his waist and belly.
His green eyebrows shot up. "You deserve to die."
In the next instant he became a cloud of green mist and rushed Han Lian and Bai Feng.
Han Lian pinched a seal and raised an ice wall around herself and Bai Feng, then controlled her sword with divine sense. One sword became ten thousand, drilling into the green fog. A muffled grunt answered from within.
Whether he was wounded she could not be sure, but she seized the opening, hurled the guarding ice lotus, and smashed it into the flickering teleportation array.
A thunderous bang. The array foundation shattered completely. The lotus flew back into Han Lian's body. She spat a mouthful of blood that gleamed faintly green. Poison.
Han Lian snapped orders. "Bai Feng, destroy this main peak. Let us see how they plan to send more down."
Seeing her poisoned, Bai Feng bellowed and swelled larger. Two massive strikes toppled the entire main peak of Huaxian Gate.
"Beast, how dare you." The Out-of-Body evil cultivator's rage spiked. He was about to strike Han Lian again when Yun Chen Fózǐ arrived.
In a flash he flung the thirty two Vajra bodhi beads from his wrist. They intercepted the attack, their golden glow driving back the green vapors.
Yun Chen came to Han Lian's side. "You are hurt?"
He smelled blood.
Han Lian shook her head. "That despicable wretch used poison. I am poisoned, but I have frozen it for now."
"I will send word to Ran Xi and have her come purge it."
"No. I can hold. The toxin inside me is already frozen. I only need to force it out. Do not pull Ran Xi away from controlling the battlefield.
This Out-of-Body is here to guard the passage. We must keep him."
"I understand."
Yun Chen nodded and unfolded his Domain, the Buddha Kingdom in the Palm Domain, dragging the Out-of-Body foe within.
"This is impossible. How can you all be in the lower realm at once" What else he said drowned instantly.
Han Lian sat cross-legged on Bai Feng's back and worked her art, forcing the frozen green poison outward.
Inside Yun Chen Fózǐ's Domain, the Out-of-Body evil cultivator endured a downpour of Vajra Palms, teeth bared as he dodged again and again.
He dared not open his own poison Domain. If he did, the Heavenly Dao of this world would reject him from the Weiyu Realm. His task unfinished, punishment awaited. He could only grit his teeth, venting poison to taint his opponent's Domain.
When Han Lian had driven the toxin out, she flashed to Yun Chen's side. "I will lend you a hand. We fuse our Domain. Let us see if he can survive."
"Have you forced the poison out?"
"Rest easy. It is out. This evil cultivator was very cunning. He even planted a wisp of poison in my protective ice lotus. If my divine sense were not at Void Refinement, I would not have noticed."
She spread the "Ice Blade Domain" and merged it to Yun Chen's. Assaults intensified at once. The poison the enemy released froze solid. From a hundred insidious angles, ice blades stabbed in. He could not hold for long.
In the end he chose to self destruct the body and flee as a Yuányīng, but he had underestimated the fused Domains' force.
Yun Chen's great palm changed from slap to squeeze, crushing flesh and bone so he could not explode. Han Lian's ice blades flashed and sliced the Nascent Soul into pages of ice. He did not even manage to self destruct.
A single scream echoed over Huaxian Gate as their Domains withdrew.
In the next breath, a gigantic hand thrust again from the other end of the passage, reaching for Yun Chen and Han Lian.
Yunxi and Xun Kun, who were reaping through evil cultivators, sensed it at the first instant.
Yunxi stared at that familiar hand and decided to settle new and old scores together. Last time this very thing had cost her three life-saving treasures and almost smashed her to death. If not for her body cultivation, she would have fallen on the spot. Back then she had not passed the Divine Transformation tribulation and had no strength to strike back. Now it was different.
"Han Lian, Yun Chen, Xun Kun, lend me strength. This time I am tearing off a piece of him."
She blinked to their side and flung the Seven Stars Soul-Shattering Staff into the air. Thunder spirit power surged from her, and the staff swelled longer and thicker. A thread of purple-gold ghostlight crawled along its black shaft as it drove for the center of the colossal palm.
"Thunder Shines Across the Nine Heavens!"
As Yunxi's thunder spiritual power roared, thunder split the skies above Huaxian Gate. In the blink that followed, palm and staff collided.