276: Chapter 276 One Sword Breaks the Formation, the Empress's Handiwork

Gu Hongchen was stunned in mid-air, the unnatural flush on her exquisite face lingering for only a moment.

She took a deep breath, her full chest heaving violently. As a core True Immortal of the Gu Family who had lived for countless ages, she possessed extremely powerful mental control. In the blink of an eye, Gu Hongchen suppressed that trace of extremely strange emotion she had felt toward Su Xuanchen.

Her face returned to its usual coldness and calm.

“Old Ancestor Su is right to lecture me.” Gu Hongchen put away the biluo emperor sword and looked at Su Xuanchen quite frankly, her tone no longer containing the previous irritability. “This Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Array creates its own world where spiritual energy flows endlessly; it truly cannot be broken by brute force alone.”

She spread her hands quite freely and admitted, “I concede that I cannot break it. If even you, Old Ancestor Su, are helpless against this Formation and cannot break it, then we can only return home today, treating this trip as merely coming to the Chaos Sea to see the scenery.”

As these words left her mouth, even Gu Hongchen herself was slightly stunned.

She keenly sensed that the moment she completely let go of her obsession with the Heavenly Court's divine treasury and frankly accepted failure, her state of mind became incredibly clear and unhindered.

“Buzz!”

An extremely mysterious fluctuation emanated from within Gu Hongchen. That True Immortal Realm Bottleneck that had troubled her for countless years and remained stagnant actually showed a faint sign of loosening and progressing under this clear state of mind!

A flash of pleasant surprise crossed Gu Hongchen's eyes, but she quickly concealed it.

Faced with Gu Hongchen's frankness, Su Xuanchen stood up from his soft couch quite lazily.

“Return home?”

A confident and arrogant cold smile curled at the corner of Su Xuanchen's mouth. He patted off non-existent dust from his clothes and strode toward the massive Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Array.

“In my dictionary, the words 'return home' have never existed. Since we're here, I'm definitely entering these gates of the Heavenly Court today!”

Su Xuanchen stood before the Formation's light barrier with his hands behind his back. He did not rush to draw a weapon for a brute force attack like Gu Hongchen had.

“Buzz—!”

Su Xuanchen's eyes suddenly narrowed as two extremely brilliant beams of Immortal Qi, which seemed capable of seeing through all the world's illusions, burst forth from his pupils!

This immortal light pierced directly into the ever-flowing Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Array. In Su Xuanchen's vision, the indestructible light barrier was instantly deconstructed layer by layer, turning into countless dense and extremely complex spiritual energy patterns. The movement trajectories of the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise, as well as the Yin and Yang alternating spiritual energy nodes, were all laid bare before his eyes.

Gu Hongchen and the Ice Spirit Snow Ape King held their breath, staring intently at Su Xuanchen's back, not even daring to breathe loudly.

After observing for only a moment.

Su Xuanchen quite casually extended his right hand and hooked his finger toward Gu Hongchen without looking back.

“Lend me your sword.”

Without any hesitation, Gu Hongchen flipped her wrist and tossed over the biluo emperor sword, which was radiating supreme imperial might.

“Snap!”

Su Xuanchen caught the hilt firmly.

The moment he gripped the hilt, his entire aura completely changed!

“Get out here!”

Su Xuanchen shouted as golden light exploded under his feet. He pushed the 'Xing Character Secret' of the Nine Secrets to its absolute twelve-fold limit!

“Swish—!!!”

Su Xuanchen's figure actually vanished into thin air before everyone's eyes!

Gu Hongchen's pupils suddenly contracted to the size of pinpricks. She was a genuine True Immortal Realm Expert! Yet at this moment, she was completely unable to track Su Xuanchen's movement! This speed was terrifyingly fast, to the point where even a True Immortal's Divine Sense could not keep up!

“Clang clang clang clang clang!”

In the next second, extremely dense sounds of metal clashing erupted like a violent storm against the light barrier of the Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Array!

Su Xuanchen turned into thousands of extremely blurry afterimages, launching a high-frequency, frenzied assault around the massive Formation! Every strike of Sword Qi was precisely aimed at the intersection points of the Formation's spiritual energy flow!

He wasn't using brute force to destroy it at all; he was using his freakish speed and vision to forcibly disrupt the internal balance of the Four Symbols' flow within the Formation!

In just a few short minutes.

“Buzz!”

The Formation's light barrier suddenly let out a piercing wail. The originally flawless spiritual energy cycle actually showed a tiny moment of stagnation!

“Found you!”

In mid-air, the thousands of afterimages instantly merged into one.

Su Xuanchen's figure suddenly appeared directly above the Formation. He gripped the biluo emperor sword tightly with both hands, and the power of the Myriad Tribulations Indestructible Primordial Demon Body and the Chaos Immortal Bone within him erupted without reservation!

“Rumble!”

The vast and boundless immortal and demonic qi poured into the biluo emperor sword like the Nine Heavens' silver river bursting its banks. The sword's blade erupted with a blindingly brilliant light, and a terrifying Sword Intent capable of splitting Chaos and suppressing all eternity surged wildly at the tip of the blade!

“Break for me!”

Su Xuanchen let out a roar that shattered the heavens. Like a falling world-ending meteor, he held the sword with both hands and thrust it majestically toward that tiny weak point on the light barrier below!

“Bang—!!!”

The terrifyingly extreme immortal and demonic Sword Qi transformed into a physical pillar of light tens of thousands of feet long, crashing into the Formation's barrier!

Two world-destroying forces ground against and collided with each other in the Void Realm!

“Crack...”

An extremely crisp sound of shattering, yet one that sounded like heavenly music, suddenly rang out in the deathly silent Void Realm!

Immediately following, with the point where the sword tip struck as the center, countless cracks as dense as spiderwebs spread frantically in all directions!

“Boom!”

That ancient Formation, which was claimed to be indestructible and which Gu Hongchen had failed to leave even a mark on after half an hour of full-strength hacking...

Was actually forced open by Su Xuanchen's domineering and peerless sword strike, creating a massive black hole dozens of feet wide that allowed everyone to pass through!

The entire area fell into a deathly silence.

Gu Hongchen stood frozen in place like a rigid statue, her beautiful eyes staring fixedly at the large hole that had been blasted open, her mind a complete blank.

“One sword... just like that, it was broken with one sword?”

Gu Hongchen gasped, her exquisite face filled with extreme shock and disbelief. She felt as though her worldview had been completely crushed at this moment. That was the endlessly self-sustaining Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Array! Such heavenly methods of easily breaking a Formation were simply more ridiculous than the legends of an Immortal King!

The Ice Spirit Snow Ape King, lying at the bottom of the cauldron, was so scared that its knees went weak on the spot.

“Great Immortal is invincible! Great Immortal is simply the number one Divine Being of all eternity!”

The Snow Ape King kowtowed frantically, its scalp tingling. Back then, it had barely survived to escape from this Formation, yet in Su Xuanchen's hands, it hadn't even lasted a few minutes!

“What are you still standing there for? Waiting for the Formation to heal? Let's go!”

Su Xuanchen quite casually threw the biluo emperor sword back to Gu Hongchen. With a wave of his hand, he directly controlled the myriad things mother qi cauldron, turning it into a streak of light that charged through the blasted hole.

Gu Hongchen and the Snow Ape King snapped back to their senses and quickly followed behind him.

“Swish!”

Just as they rushed into the hole, the massive Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Array behind them flashed violently, and the giant black hole instantly closed, returning to its previous impregnable state.

“We're finally in! Heavenly Court treasury! phoenix true blood! Here I come!”

Ji Luanxi shouted with excitement, fully expecting to see the Lingxiao Treasure Hall filled with Immortal Treasures after passing through the barrier.

However.

Before the joy in everyone's hearts could fully dissipate.

The myriad things mother qi cauldron came to a steady halt. When everyone looked up, the smiles on their faces instantly froze.

What appeared before them was not at all the magnificent, Immortal Qi-shrouded Ancient Heavenly Court they had imagined.

There were no jade palaces or immortal pavilions here.

In all directions, there was only a grey, extremely thick Chaos mist! This mist was incredibly eerie; even Divine Sense could not penetrate it in the slightest. Up, down, left, and right were completely indistinguishable, as if they were in an absolutely sealed cage.

“This... what's going on?”

Gu Hongchen gripped her long sword, her face instantly turning extremely grim. She scanned the surroundings warily, her voice filled with deep alarm and doubt, “Where are the Heavenly Court's palaces? We clearly passed through the sealing Formation, so why would we come to this kind of place?”

The Ice Spirit Snow Ape King was also completely bewildered as it scratched its large head: “That's not right. When this little monkey escaped back then, I clearly remember that inside the Formation was the square of the Lingxiao Treasure Hall. Why has it all turned into mist?”

Everyone was filled with uncertainty as an extremely oppressive aura of danger quietly spread through this Chaos mist.

It turned out that Su Xuanchen's sword strike just now had only broken the outermost defensive barrier of this ancient Formation. They hadn't entered the true Heavenly Court Ruins at all; instead, they had accidentally entered the extremely perilous world within the Formation!

Just as everyone was filled with doubt and extreme vigilance.

Chang Xiyue, who had been standing inside the cauldron with an extremely solemn expression, finally spoke in a low voice.

“Everyone be careful, do not move recklessly.”

Chang Xiyue's cold voice rang out in the deathly silent mist, carrying an unprecedented level of seriousness and wariness.

Her beautiful eyes stared fixedly at the swirling mist as she spoke the truth of this place in an extremely heavy tone.

“This is not the true Heavenly Court Ruins; we are trapped in the world within the Formation. This place is the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Array, which hides many fatal dangers like heavenly thunder and divine fire within the Formation!”

Hearing the words “Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Array,” both Gu Hongchen and the Snow Ape King gasped.

However, the words that shocked everyone even more were still to come.

Chang Xiyue turned her head and looked at the endless mist, an extremely complex expression appearing on her cold face.

“The prototype of this mysterious and terrifying sealing Formation actually came from the hands of the Ancient Empress, Yun Lingxiao. Back then, the Empress only had a rough concept; I didn't expect that someone would eventually perfect it to such an extent.”