Chapter 102: Lockdown

"Damn, I almost died there."

The young master imprisoned within the massive palace shuddered, the sword above him almost pierced through his head when he tried to inspect the Plagued Cultivator's body.

It was a man with so many secrets, especially the puppet, well not the puppet but where it had come from. The young Master clearly saw that the puppet had emerged from the Plagued Cultivator's chest, and not from any pouch, there was no space distortion or anything of the like, not to mention his flying treasure that was definitely belonging to the old monster, the Poison God.

Could the plagued Cultivator really be the inheritor of the Poison God's knowledge? If so, then this child will definitely rock waves in this world. But, as a matter of fact, the moment the plagued child entered the Forbidden Celestial City, he was already doomed to die.

The inscriptions, defensive formations, and Deadly Formations were too much for even an ascendant to survive. Not to mention a weakling at the Core Formation level. Not only that, the Plagued Man was wise enough to turn away from the City the moment he saw the formations, but the Golden Kajang apes were too powerful for any man less than a Soul Formation level to survive. Not to mention a whole group of them.

Yet, this cultivator showed great deceit and cunning, he used a movement technique to split in two, to distract the apes then was able to poison them using explosive materials. Even the weapon in his hand, though crude and could only shoot projectiles in straight lines, felt that it was pretty powerful if the projectile was to connect. 

Also, what the heck was up with that puppet, it was clearly in the Soul Formation Stage, pretty high compared to the owner, probably a gift from someone, but the moment the Young Master used his divine sense on the puppet to inspect it, he had the same futile resistance the plagued child had, it dared to try and show the young master scenes of torture, though they were very creative, they were tortures that only mortals and those who have yet to sever their mortality would feel terrified of, or even have there will shake at their sights.

These tortures were the same as the young master had experienced when he inspected the plagued child the first time and his eye tried to fend off his divine sense, such rude behavior.

Now, what will the plagued child do? In front of a Silver Back Kajang, a much more fearsome foe than the golden ones. The Golden Kajang could be categorized as sub immortal sixth level creatures, and the Silver Back one is a true Seven Level Sub-Immortal creature, a far more dangerous foe.

The young master was bored since he was stuck in the same place for years, and this plagued child, though weak, pitiful and his life could be snuffed with nothing more than a sneeze, is now providing this young master with entertainment.

The young master watched as the child struggled.

****

"Damn, this is seriously bad!" I cursed as I turned and used as much power on my sword to escape.

The silver ape roared as its skin color reddened and it bounded after me, appeared above me in a fraction of a second with both hands gripped in a hammer fist as he clubbed down.

"Poison Escape!" 

My body turned to a thick illusion of poisonous smoke that the ape struck against while I managed to avoid the blow by teleporting a small distance away from him.

Yet the ape wasn't affected by the poison, there was a shimmering barrier around him that pushed the gas away, and it jumped again at me, only to have X stand in front of it.

X had only one hand right now, the other was still skittering forward trying to reconnect with the main body, but even with one hand, X was still my greatest creation as of yet.

The silver ape struck at X's hand, and immediately tore it from its socket. Or so he thought, the arm had already latched onto the silver ape's face like the monsters from Alien. The hand gripped tightly on the ape's ugly face and straightened up. Then a second later, six consecutive bone-rattling blasts echoed against the ape's face.

The ape staggered and fell down, then it ripped the hand sticking to his face.

Squished bullets dropped from his thick face, they didn't do more than cause it a nose bleed, and definitely made it angrier.

X performed a roundhouse kick at the still dazed ape, then immediately switched and struck with the next leg to the same spot.

Explosive echoes of energy blasted from the ape's face, but they still didn't seem to be doing any damage.

The ape went for a grapple, but X jumped slightly back, causing the ape to miss his grab, then X held his bent knee forward, and it opened up revealing a loaded canister.

The canister shone bright, rotated until all the inscriptions within it aligned with each other, and in one motion the canister shot forward right into the ape's face and it blew up.

The ape screeched from pain as his face was now bloodied, but he didn't seem to be heavily damaged only angrier.

"X, we're no match for it!" I called and dove forward from the jaws of the ape to the jaws of death itself as more restrictions began to flare up. If I were to make a single mistake I'll be engulfed in the inscriptions that were littering the city, but thanks to my meager inscription skills I was able to deduce the least dangerous of paths.

X followed after me, jumped and I took him into my book. There was no way we'll win a battle against this ape, I still need upgrades, but my damned inscription skills are still too low to compete with something as strong as this ape.

The ape bounded after me, disregarding the barriers that began to flare to life, and outright crashing into them. The destructive powers of the formations were unable to threaten the silver back's life, and it followed after me with a wretched vengeance.

This is really bad because right now, I'm navigating through the city, going right through Formations that are still flaring to life, and avoiding ones that are already standing and ready to fight back. I was thankful for the fact that these formations had been dormant for a long time, otherwise, I'll not be able to even break through them, but soon, I'm sure that I'll meet a fully functioning formation and that will be the end of me.

As for the ape behind me, it was just breaking through them, thanks to that, the formations are already designating it as a primary target to their assaults and I'm able to escape unnoticed, at least for now.

Not more than half a minute later, I was stuck as in front of me, besides me, above me and now behind me were fully functioning formations, and once the ape breakthrough the ones that woke behind me, I'll be stuck in this death cube. What to do?!

I began by gathering poison Qi within me then blasted a powerful poison breath, strong and thick enough that it covered me entirely. The ape would not be stopped by this poison, it's skin was too thick to be blistered, and it already was coating itself with a QI barrier to prevent the poison to seep into its internal organs. But I only needed to deceive the ape's sight.

Suddenly, the ape bore through the barriers, and was upon me, only to see me escaping right through the formations without activating any one of them.

The ape roared and charged through more formations than it should, inflicting increased damage upon itself as it chased after me.

Many formations fell to the body of the ape, and the ape suffered for each formation he broke as he closed the gap between us, I will soon be in the palm of his hands and it knew it, and it pushed itself far too much, far more than it should have, all of that to avenge his fallen kin.

Soon, it began to slow down, there was a pretty powerful Formation standing right in front of the most central building of the City, it was the palace in the center. If I could rate every formation on the city by danger from 1 to 10. The whole city would have 9 as their formation danger level, but the palace, that's an outright 100. The formations were far too complex and visible from too far away, even the Ape knew that once I get there it will lose me. So, he doubled up and damaged itself even more, going all out, and risking everything, until it reached me and broke my back with one swing. Or so he thought as my image faded in front of him, only for the ape to realize that it was chasing after an illusion. 

The whole plan was concocted the moment I used the poison smoke to cover the ape's eyes, I used the Golden Scripture to clone myself and hid the real body under the ground while the illusion was running away, not even activating the formations as it passed through. If the ape had more intelligence than it had, it would have realized that what it was chasing was no physical as the formations didn't activate, and would have thought that it was being fooled.

Now, the ape is stuck too deep into the city, and it didn't even have the power to return, at least without rest.

But that didn't mean that I was safe, right where I was, more and more formation started rising, coming back to life and shimmering. I would die soon if I stay here.

I turned and thankfully, there was a beautiful house nearby, with a garden and a three-story pagoda for a house inside. It was the only house near me that didn't have its formations fully active, I jumped above the wall and into the garden then stopped, the whole house's defensive formations lit up and I was both safe and imprisoned.

Now, I'll actually need to study for my life. Because if I don't figure out these formations, and how they work, the ape will soon regain his vitality and will come chasing after me. Talk about motivation.