Zhang Ruochen came to Sword Saint Xuanji's dead body and took out the Ruyi Treasure Bottle. He then absorbed Half-Saint Xin Feng's saint soul and blood Qi into the bottle.
Half saint's saint soul and blood could be used to form Half-Saint Light. It was considered the relic of a deceased Half-Saint and was definitely an important treasure.
It could be absorbed and definitely should not be wasted.
However, Half-Saint Xin Lei had been engulfed by a spatial crack and entered the Void Space, not leaving any saint's soul behind.
Zhang Ruochen held back the bottle and turned towards Feng Han.
Abyss Ancient Sword was a sensitive sword and could sense Zhang Ruochen's anger. It shivered lightly and the sound could be heard.
Half-Saint Taixi and Half-Saint Xin Yu gathered behind Feng Han. Three of them stayed 100 metres away from each other in a triangular formation.
They emitted Holy Qi and it combined perfectly to form a strong defense. If Zhang Ruochen wanted to attack any of them, the other two could counter-attack immediately.
Half-Saint Taixi was worried and said, "My Prince, the battle just now caused an uproar amongst the crowd and it might trigger the people in Yin and Yang Sect. I think we should bring Taotian Sword back first to avoid any accidents."
Feng Han analyzed the situation carefully. His strength should be able to outmatch Zhang Ruochen, but if he wanted to kill him or take him back alive, it would still be very difficult.
If he got trapped by Zhang Ruochen and couldn't leave, it would be bad for him when people of Yin and Yang Sect came.
After hearing Half-Saint Taixi's words, Feng Han thought for a while and nodded. He said, "Give me the Taotian sword, I will bring it back and pass it to Father myself."
Half-Saint Taixi gave it to him and glanced at Half-Saint Xin Yu, "Xin Yu, cover the Prince, I will take care of this guy."
"Be careful, the power of space that he uses is strangely powerful." Half-Saint Xin Yu said.
Half-Saint Taixi laughed and said, "I have reached Half-Saint Level 2. Even if I can't beat him, I will still be able to retreat safely."
The difference between a Level 1 and Level 2 Half-Saint was like the difference between a monk of Ninth Change and Level 1 Half-Saint; it was worlds apart. Half-Saints Xin Feng, Xin Lei, Xin Yun and Xin Yu would have to work together in order to fight against Half-Saint Taixi.
Of course, the strength of a Half-Saint might differ a lot but there were many ways to retreat. The speed of every Half-Saint wasn't very different. So, even if a Half-Saint's strength was weaker than another Half-Saint, he might still be able to run away as long as he didn't get trapped in the opponent's Saint Soul Territory.
It was not easy to kill a half-saint.
But Zhang Ruochen was a Half-Saint killer. He could manipulate time and space within a certain distance. It was hard for even a half-saint to run away.
"Feng Han, you are a Half-Saint. You don't even dare to fight and you're ready to run away?"
Zhang Ruochen wanted to stop them before they ran away with the Taotian Sword.
"World Locking Formation!"
Half-Saint Taixi stood behind Feng Han and took out a crimson ancient jade disc that was one meter in diameter. He blasted it upwards into the sky. It stopped right above Zhang Ruochen.
Battle formation inscriptions appeared on the disc and spread quickly.
Eighteen long flame pillars flew out from the disc and formed a chain connecting to the ground, locking Zhang Ruochen in the battle formation.
Zhang Ruochen used his spatial manipulation skill and tried to do another spatial move. He wanted to use the skill to escape from the battle formation.
However, he appeared at the edge of the formation and was nearly hit by the flaming pillars.
Waves of intense heat could be felt.
Even in this dire situation, Zhang Ruochen reacted very quickly and used his sword to hold the pillar. The fire pillar clashed with the sword.
Zhang Ruochen was thrown back to the middle of the formation.
The power of the battle formation was too strong and scary. The heat the fire pillar created even caused the Abyss Ancient Sword to turn red, with hot sparks flying off.
You can imagine that, if the chains hit him, even if he was a Half-Saint, he would definitely be severely hurt.
Half-Saint Taixi stood outside the formation and laughed. "Zhang Ruochen, what's the point of having the power of space? The power of the formation can outmatch it in certain circumstances."
"World locking formation is a Sixth Grade Battle Formation, it is very complicated. Even a level 3 half-saint needs to take at least one day to get out of it. It seems like your power over spatial manipulation is very basic; how could you ever overcome this?"
In order to use a Sixth Grade Battle Formation, the difficulty was almost like building a city, a large and difficult process.
Even a master of a Sixth Grade Battle Formation, together with more than 10 assistants working together, needed at least a month to complete one Sixth Grade Battle Formation.
If you wanted to transform the formation into a saint weapon, it would be even harder.
You not only had to find suitable precious materials, but also needed a lot of time to engrave the inscriptions onto it.
A master also required at least 3 years to build one saint weapon.
However, the power of the formation created would also largely decrease and wasn't comparable to a Sixth Grade Defender Formation and a Sixth Grade Guardian Formation.
The only benefit of it was that one could easily use the formation at any time.
A sacred weapon as such was a hundred times more precious than a normal engraved weapon.
Zhang Ruochen didn't change his expression and said, "World locking formation is very strong, but if you intend to trap me inside, it might not be so easy."
"Oh yeah? I want to see how you could overcome it," Half-Saint Taixi sneered, looking relaxed.
If a fish-dragon monk could easily break the formation, then would it be still considered a Sixth Grade Battle Formation?
"It is very difficult to break the formation from the inside, but how about from the outside?" Zhang Ruochen said.
Half-Saint Taixi said, "Good idea, but how do you come out first?"
"If I can, do I still need to break the formation?"
Zhang Ruochen closed his eyes and extended his fingers to form a sword sign. A strong sword intent emitted from his body and blasted into the sky. The blast effect detonated the formation, creating shockwaves to the surroundings.
World locking formation could lock the monks inside but not sword intent that had no form.
Zhang Ruochen had already achieved Human Sword level – the sword and him as one. Thus, the sword intent he conjured was extremely powerful.
All the trees and flowers that had been casted with his sword intent were lit up, shaking. The pointy part of the leaves pointed at the battle formation, all as sharp as the blade of a sword.
Half-Saint Taixi looked around, his expression changed, "Once sword intent is conjured, everything will become sword. This human sword level, how... How is this possible? That should be a sword saint's level already."
If it wasn't, Half-Saint Taixi should be able to sense clearly where the spirit intent had come from, but it was from him.
During the Sword Technique Conference, he used a single hair to kill Half-Saint Xuanlong. This proved that his sword skill was really at a very high level.
Half-Saint Taixi strength was even lower than Half-Saint Xuanlong.
Even if Taixi had the world locking formation skill, Zhang Ruochen wasn't afraid of him.
Taixi felt something wasn't right and didn't wait any longer. He controlled the battle formation and started attacking at the fastest speed to kill Zhang Ruochen.
He pushed his hands forward.
Holy Qi came from his palms and flew towards the ancient jade disc.
The disc turned immediately and a fire pillar formed and attacked Zhang Ruochen.
"Bomb!"
It was just a single attack and a large hole formed in middle of the battle formation, melting the surrounding soil and rocks into volcano larvae.
Luckily, Zhang Ruochen managed to dodge the attack. If not he wouldn't have been able to defend himself from the attack with his own strength.
The ancient jade disc turned again and was ready for a second attack.
Zhang Ruochen squinted his eyes sternly and said, "Imperial sword!"
All the leaves of the trees and flowers flew upwards into the sky and formed black dots all around. All the dots combined and formed a large grey cloud that covered even the moon.
The next moment, a deafening groan could be heard from the sky.
The leaves then poured on Half-Saint Taixi and his battle formation. The speed was extremely fast and, with the help of sword intent, it is very deadly.
A single leaf could cut more than a meter into the ground.
Half-Saint Taixi's strength was strong enough and the battle formation's defense wasn't weak either. All the leaves were disintegrated into powder before they even got close to him.
"Your sword intent is strong but you can't kill a Half-Saint with just leaves!" Half-Saint Taixi shouted.
Zhang Ruochen continued to emit the sword intent and said, "You might not be as strong as you think, and the strength of a leaf might not be as weak as you think."
As time passed, Half-Saint Taixi defenses were getting more pressurized. The leaves finally broke his defense and fell onto him. They cut through his skin and blood vessels.
A moment later, world locking formation created a loud explosion and it was destroyed by the leaves from the outside.
With a loud bang, the ancient jade disc fell onto the ground.