Chapter 586: The Grand Elder Truly Has Quite the Method!

The negotiations between the Human Alliance and the demon alliance, held during the day, had ultimately failed to reach any agreement.

As for the several conditions the Human Alliance had put forward, the demon alliance simply felt the Human Alliance was being utterly unrealistic, dreaming in broad daylight.

Both sides had erupted into fierce argument at the negotiating table, nearly coming to blows.

Fortunately, Gui Ning had stepped in just in time to steady the situation.

Seeing that further discussion was impossible for the day, both sides had no choice but to pause the negotiations for the time being.

However, neither side had spoken in absolutes, each leaving some room for further discussion.

Xiao Mo felt it only natural that the peace talks had failed.

What surprised Xiao Mo was that, throughout the entire day, he had not once caught sight of Tushan Jingci.

By rights, for such an important occasion, Jingci, as the Holy Woman of the Tushan clan, ought to have been present.

That night, following the day of negotiations.

Moonlight, clear as water, fell quietly upon the mountain peak.

Xiao Mo sat in the courtyard, meditating with his eyes closed.

Suddenly, ripples of spiritual energy, visible to the naked eye, spread slowly outward in every direction from above the Tushan clan's lands, so strong that even the grass and trees in the courtyard trembled faintly.

"Xiao Mo, look..."

Within the courtyard, Gui Junmeng extended a slender, jade-like finger, pointing toward that bright moon hanging high in the night sky.

"Mother, look, the moon is so bright in the sky tonight..."

"Father, why is the moon so red?"

"What's happening with the moon today? Why does it look so unusual?"

"Could something bad be about to happen?"

At the same time, throughout the Tushan clan's lands, more and more of the fox clan raised their heads, looking up at the night sky.

That bright, clear moon grew ever more radiant, its moonlight pouring down, blanketing the entire Tushan clan's territory but before long, the color of that moon grew ever deeper, ever redder, gradually transforming into a blood moon.

"BOOM!"

The next moment, with an earth-shattering roar, the entire Tushan clan's lands shook violently, as though some great earth-dragon had turned over in its sleep, the mountains trembling.

Points of spiritual light and the clear moonlight intertwined, condensing ceaselessly in the air, at last forming a barrier that enveloped the entire Tushan clan's territory within it.

The cultivators of the Human Alliance rose to their feet one after another, looking up at that barrier, their expressions grave.

"Grand Elder of the Tushan clan, what exactly are you doing?"

Before the Human Alliance's cultivators could even voice their questions, the head of Hanshan Academy, Cun Caiguang, had already flown up into the air, demanding an answer directly from Tushan Meng.

According to the prior agreement between both sides, the Tushan clan's great formation array was not to be activated during the peace talks yet now, the Tushan clan had not only activated the great array, but had even completely sealed off the world within from the world without.

Even a fool could see what this meant.

"Tushan Meng, come out and give us an explanation!"

At the same time, Gui Ning, too, flew up into the air, calling out loudly to Tushan Meng.

"There's nothing to explain."

Tushan Meng's voice was icy cold.

"For the sake of my Tushan clan's thousand-year enterprise, and for the sake of the demon race's future, I simply need all of you to lend me a small hand, that's all."

As Tushan Meng's words settled, that Moon Spirit Tree upon Moon Spirit Peak suddenly began growing at a frenzied pace, as though it meant to pierce through the very night sky.

In less than half an incense stick's time, the Moon Spirit Tree had already grown to a full hundred zhang or more in height.

Right after, thick, sturdy vines spread outward from the Moon Spirit Tree's branches, like countless spirit serpents, lashing out fiercely to bind the Human Alliance's Upper Three Realms cultivators.

"Not good! Go!" Daoist Master Yun Xi's expression changed at once, immediately sending word to everyone through voice transmission.

Xiao Mo and the others quickly gathered together, flying swiftly toward the edge of the Tushan clan's territory.

To Daoist Master Yun Xi and the others' minds, even with this formation array now activated, their combined strength should still allow them to escape unharmed.

It was only that a faint doubt had begun to stir quietly in Daoist Master Yun Xi's heart.

Tushan Meng surely knew as well that this formation array alone could not trap a group such as theirs.

So why would she still go through with this?

Could it be that she had some other trick up her sleeve?

When everyone arrived before that transparent barrier, Daoist Master Yun Xi swung the whisk in her hand, attempting to force open a breach in the barrier.

The whisk in Daoist Master Yun Xi's hand was an immortal weapon, possessing the extraordinary property of "dissolving all methods, breaking all restrictions."

Before long, Daoist Master Yun Xi managed to forcibly tear open a breach in that barrier.

Xiao Mo immediately chanted an incantation, and the River of Yin and Yang flowed slowly around them all, sheltering everyone within it as they passed together through that breach but just as they believed they had finally escaped the Tushan clan's territory.

Everyone suddenly realized that they were, in fact, still within the Tushan clan's lands.

They had merely been shifted from one direction of the Tushan clan's territory to another.

"How could this be?"

Daoist Master Yun Xi's willow-shaped brows drew tightly together, her heart filled with shock and suspicion.

She immediately sent out a wisp of her spiritual consciousness, carefully probing into that barrier, attempting to discern how this formation array operated but before long, a look of deep bewilderment flickered through Yun Xi's eyes.

Yun Xi had cultivated since childhood, and her understanding of the way of formation arrays was extraordinarily deep and thorough.

Across both realms, those who could surpass her in mastery of formation arrays could probably not even be counted on two hands.

Had it not been for this, she would not have felt confident enough to come to the Tushan clan's lands herself, to attend these peace talks and yet, this formation array before her now, she had never encountered anything like it in her thousands of years of cultivation.

The patterns of this array were extraordinarily obscure and difficult to decipher, and every inscription was written in characters used by neither the present-day demon race nor the human race and yet those unfamiliar symbols seemed, somehow, to hold within them the power of Heaven's Dao itself.

"Ha ha ha... the Grand Elder truly has quite the method!"

Not far off, the voice of a demon alliance cultivator rang out.

"We really did think the Grand Elder had invited us here to negotiate with the Human Alliance." That person gave a cold laugh. "Who would have thought that the Grand Elder was, in fact, luring us into a trap, shutting the door to beat the dogs within!"

The Serpent clan's chieftain and the others flew up into the air one after another, looking down upon Xiao Mo's group from above, their eyes full of mockery and killing intent.

Though they, too, had no idea of the true origin of this formation array, that it could possibly trap cultivators of the Upper Three Realms such as Yun Xi.

And, moreover, Tushan Meng seemed entirely unconcerned that, should so many Upper Three Realms cultivators come to blows, the entire Tushan clan's territory might be reduced to rubble but that hardly mattered either way.

This was not their own territory, after all. What did it matter if it were smashed to pieces?

"Elder Tushan, allow us to lend you a hand!"

One demon alliance cultivator, unable to restrain himself any longer, had long coveted Gui Junmeng, who looked exactly like Tushan Jingci.

If he could harvest her essence, perhaps he too might have a chance at breaking through into the Ascension realm!

However, he had flown no more than a hundred zhang.

From the Moon Spirit Tree, a thick, sturdy vine suddenly tore through the air.

"Splat!"

A searing pain spread through his chest, and he suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, his body freezing in midair.

He lowered his head, looking down at his chest, and saw that vine had already pierced clean through his heart, blood trickling down along the vine, drop by drop.