Chapter 542: Thunderbolt Stronghold

Chapter 542: Thunderbolt Stronghold

The sharp cry of a bird pierced through the air. "Keeew!"

A shadowy creature loomed over a hillside, descending toward it at the very next second.

Four disciples of the Thunderbolt Stronghold were sitting on that hillside, deep in a discussion.

Their team leader was, of course, the Thunderbolt Stronghold's eldest disciple of the current generation, Du Wuhen. He was dark-skinned, tall, and slim with limbs as long and agile as an ape's, giving him a rather unusual appearance.

At this moment, Du Wuhen stood up, his hands almost reaching his knees. He raised his arm, and the shadowy creature shrank in midair, landing on his arm.

"Misty Waters City is filled with people from the Penglai Supreme Sect. There's no way the Mount Shu Sect team is there," Du Wuhen said quietly.

Right then, the shadowy creature's true appearance was finally revealed. It was a spirit bird with feathers that were colored a deep shade of azure and covered in intricate patterns. The beautiful spirit bird had a pair of lively and animated eyes like those of a human. Despite being the average size of an ordinary bird, the spirit bird exuded the arrogant air of the mighty.

This was Du Wuhen's tamed beast, the Azure Mysterious Wind Bird.

In the Assembly of Immortal Sects, restrictions were applied to members of beast-taming sects like the Thunderbolt Stronghold, greatly reducing their combat power. The assembly rules only allowed tamed beasts that were bound by a soul contract to participate in the competition.

A soul contract was a method that beast tamers used to control their beasts, similar to how a Soul Subjugator controlled the souls under their command. Limitations were imposed on the target to ensure their obedience.

There was one key difference between the beast tamers' soul contract and the Soul Subjugators' soul control—the parties in a soul contract shared the benefits and drawbacks. The death of the beast tamer would result in the death of the soul-bound tamed beast. On the other hand, the death of the soul-bound tamed beast would result in damage to the beast tamer's soul.

Additionally, their cultivation journeys were mutually complementary. If one party made a breakthrough in cultivation, the other would benefit from it too.

Initially, there were no issues with this rule. Without it, everyone would just take their sect's guardian celestial beast into the events.

The problem was that many of the spirit beasts of the Thunderbolt Stronghold's beast tamers were not controlled through soul contracts. This was because a person's soul could only accommodate a limited number of soul contracts—typically three and at most five or six as they raised their cultivation level. The beast tamer would be unable to bear any more soul contracts than that.

Moreover, soul contracts could not be easily removed. They could only free up a spot when one of their soul-bound tamed beasts died. However, the death of a soul-bound tamed beast would permanently damage the beast tamer's soul.

Therefore, beast tamers were extremely cautious when imprinting their souls with soul contracts. They only formed soul contracts with spirit beasts that met their high standards of talent and combat ability.

There were limitations for soul contracts. Usually, a tamed beast could not exceed its master's cultivation level by more than half a realm, at most a full realm. Otherwise, the soul contract could not be formed.

Therefore, the disciples of the Thunderbolt Stronghold relied more on emotional bonding to tie their tamed beasts to them. They helped their tamed beasts cultivate by giving them sufficient resources. In turn, the tamed beasts would aid their tamers in combat. The beast tamers treated their tamed beasts the same way they would a friend or family member, rather than depending on the traditional method of soul contracts.

For spirit beasts with long lives, they did not mind spending decades accompanying a genius cultivator in exchange for resources they might not find even after searching for several hundred years.

This was one of the reasons why the Thunderbolt Stronghold was stronger than any other beast-taming sect in history.

For example, Huang Ling'er once commanded a Mammothdagon to stomp the young master of the Inferno Devil Valley to death. However, that Mammothdagon was actually her father's tamed beast and had followed Huang Ling'er around as her pet. Under the rules of the Assembly of Immortal Sects, she wouldn't be allowed to bring it in.

Fortunately, the Thunderbolt Stronghold also placed great focus on the cultivation of the beast tamers. Even if the core disciples could not take their tamed beasts into the events, they would still have high combat power, and that had allowed the sect to perform well in the past Assemblies of Immortal Sects.

Consequently, the Thunderbolt Stronghold had high hopes for this year's Assembly of Immortal Sects as well. The three core disciples representing their sect this year were all exceptionally talented and had great reputations among the younger disciples of the immortal sects. Their tamed beasts had been training with them since they were young children, allowing them to have outstanding combat power and perfect synergy.

Du Wuhen's Azure Mysterious Wind Bird, Wei Tiandi's Purple-Lightning Divine Turtle, and Deng Yixiao's Five-Fire Divine Ape—all of them were spirit beasts of extremely powerful bloodlines.

Those spirit beasts were all sitting beside their masters, painting quite a lively scene.

...

"We searched all the way from the northern coast to here. There is an area of plains to the west of Misty Waters City that is a forbidden area in Penglai. If the Mount Shu Sect hasn't been eliminated yet, that is probably where they are," Du Wuhen surmised.

Deng Yixiao replied, "The Mount Shu Sect's team isn't weak. Jiang Yuebai, Chu Liang, and Xu Ziyang are among the top in strength. It's very unlikely they would die right after landing."

Wei Tiandi frowned. "I think so too, but those hilly plains are huge. It will be difficult to search for them."

"Let's be patient for a little longer. We still have six days anyway. We'll find them eventually," Du Wuhen said calmly.

"Why do we have to find the Mount Shu Sect's team? Can't we just advance without doing that?" Huang Ling'er asked, sounding quite bored.

Clang.

The sound of colliding metal rang out.

The child leaped back several times to create some distance between him and Du Wuhen, before lastly doing a somersault and landing on the ground.

The only child in this Competition of the Hundred Sects was, of course, the Penglai Supreme Sect's Qi Lin'er.

After landing, he twisted his left leg slightly, revealing a shallow bleeding wound on his calf.

Both Qi Lin'er and Du Wuhen were surprised by the clash.

Du Wuhen was astonished that his scythe, which had an extremely sharp blade, hadn't severed Qi Lin'er's leg.

Qi Lin'er, on the other hand, was surprised because he had rarely been injured to the point of bleeding. He was quite astonished that Du Wuhen's weapon could break through his defense.

Nevertheless, before Qi Lin'er could think much about that, the attacks of the other two members of the Thunderbolt Stronghold team were already upon him.

Wei Tiandi's Purple-Lightning Divine Turtle moved extremely quickly, appearing as a streak of lightning as it rammed into Qi Lin'er.

He could not react in time to block the attack. Blinded by the flash of light, he had quickly raised his left arm to block, but what followed were stabs of sharp pain. The Purple-Lightning Divine Turtle's fangs sank several inches into Qi Lin'er's forearm.

Meanwhile, the Five-Fire Divine Ape arrived with a whoosh, shrouded in raging demonic flames.

Seeing that, Qi Lin'er let out a strange laugh, "Hah! You've got more people. I won't fight you. I'll just take one of your soul crystals as a toll!"

Then he drilled into the ground and fiercely struck the Purple-Lightning Divine Turtle's head with his right palm. He pried it off his left arm, causing a stream of blood to spurt out. Shockingly, the blood wasn't red but gold!

"You think you can leave?" Du Wuhen said, turning his hand over and folding his fingers into a hook-like form as if beckoning something.

Whoosh.

A fierce gust of wind flipped over the surface of the ground, and countless wind blades danced wildly on the ground, revealing Qi Lin'er.

Even though they found Qi Lin'er quickly, he escaped underground just as swiftly. The three members of the Thunderbolt Stronghold chased after him.

In the blink of an eye, they arrived at the outskirts of Misty Waters City, where they could see the towering city walls in the distance.

"If you dare, come and chase me!" Qi Lin'er shouted.

"Stop! Don't chase him," Du Wuhen yelled, waving his hand to call off his two junior brothers.

"Why?" Wei Tiandi asked urgently, "I was just about to catch that brat!"

"He's from the Penglai Supreme Sect," Du Wuhen said quietly.

"So what if he's from Penglai?" Wei Tiandi replied angrily. "He killed our junior sister. Aren't we going to avenge her?"

"Our priority is to take down the Mount Shu Sect team. Let's not complicate things."

"But..." Wei Tiandi uttered frustratedly.

He glanced at Misty Waters City, unwilling to let Qi Lin'er off.

Deng Yixiao tried to persuade Wei Tiandi as well. "Second Senior Brother... the Penglai Supreme Sect is powerful. If we clash with them, it might not end well for us. We could end up ruining the plan for our sect. How about we deal with the Mount Shu Sect team first? We can just come back later to avenge Little Junior Sister later."

Wei Tiandi glared at the city walls. "Hmph. Fine, we'll settle this later. We'll come back for what they owe us in a couple of days."



GLTD Alternate Universe's Thoughts

Translator: LD