Chapter 376: Floating Stones
If Zen and Rocher took 70 percent of the Devil Phantom essences, and even if the man from Cloud Hall didn't take any, the remaining 30 percent would be divided among four people.
“You two are taking 70 percent? Do you think Frank and I are just foils for you?” Lois asked coldly. The woman was clearly unhappy with the proposal. She strongly believed that the Devil Phantom essences belonged only to Frank and herself.
And Frank made sure to express his displeasure as well. “Zen, I'll give you 30 percent on account that you made some contributions. But I wasn't expecting you to be asking for so much, and wanting to take half of the essences. I am not a pushover, or easily persuaded, I tell you. I'm a tough nut to crack.”
With a sharp look, Zen said, “I don't care whether you're soft or tough, anyway. Rocher and I will take 70 percent, and that's it!”
Frank signed and a long blood dragon appeared on the white spear hilt in his hand. Waving the spear slightly, he directed its point to the ground. Then solemnly he said, “I don't like internal strife. But if anyone in the team tries to stir up trouble and disrupt our harmony, I don't mind teaching him the lesson and making him learn the rules first!”
When he saw that Frank was poised to fight, Zen also took out his Blood Drinking Sword. He shook his head and said, “Frank, you have good strength, but if you think you can become a leader with your strength alone, I can only say that you're too arrogant.”
Once he finished speaking, the consummate sword intent began to gather on the Blood Drinking Sword. The consummate sword intent was like a little spirit that danced happily on the point of Zen's sword.
Meanwhile, Rocher came to stand by Zen and also summoned his consummate sword intent.
'They both have consummate sword intent?' Frank thought. His eyebrows shot upward at the sight of the sword intent on Zen's Blood Drinking Sword. Frank might be arrogant, but he was not a fool. Rocher alone was already a threat to him. And here came Zen, who was even more powerful than Patrick.
It was disconcerting to find out that Zen had the eerie purple black life vitality, and now he also learned the young disciple had the ability to condense consummate sword intent! All this made Frank a little uneasy.
If he had a one-on-one fight with Zen at this point, Frank was unsure that he could definitely beat the young warrior. Now with Rocher thrown into the mix, the situation was tougher.
As Frank continued to hesitate, Lewis went to Zen's side and in his deep voice he said, “I agree with Zen's proposal. If you have any issues with it, we can solve it through a fight.”
There was silence. Since Patrick didn't seem to have any intention of getting into a fight, and the man from Cloud Hall also didn't say anything, the arrogant Frank finally caved in and lowered his head in embarrassment.
Frank had never caved in to anything throughout his life. Though a small concession, it was still difficult for Frank to accept the truth. The real problem was that in this situation, he was at a gross disadvantage. Even if he had taken the entire Devil Phantom essences, they still had to find their way out of this Death Road. It was probably unwise for him to battle three people at the same time.
“All right, I agree!” Frank gritted his teeth. While he nodded, he remained frustrated by the situation.
Quickly, they picked up the Devil Phantom essences scattered everywhere on the ground. They divided the essences according to the proportion agreed upon, with Zen taking half of them.
Watching Zen stuff bunches of Devil Phantom essences into his space ring, Frank could not help but be mad. However, he had no choice but to grind his teeth and accept the situation. Blowing out a breath, Frank thought, 'When I get out of Cloud Road and come back to the Cloud Hall, I will make you pay then!'
His father, Emanuel, was a member of Cloud Hall. It would be a piece of cake for him to deal with these elite disciples who just recently joined the Cloud Hall.
As for the Devil Phantom essences they had taken, Frank would certainly make sure each one of them returned all to him. Every Devil Phantom essence was invaluable, and there were hundreds of it.
After dividing the Devil Phantom essences, Frank turned silent. Suddenly, he was no longer commanding and overbearing as he was earlier. As the group continued their journey, Frank didn't lead the team. He and Lois walked together in front, while others followed behind in silence. If not for the fact that the Death Road was fraught with dangers, the newly established team would have already split apart.
Like the man from Cloud Hall said, this small world came to serve the purpose to cultivate those Dark Devil Phantoms. But except for these apparitions, they didn't meet any other beasts in this small world.
When they came to the end of the road, a vortex appeared. It was red and looked like balls of fire incessantly rotating.
At the sight of the fire-like vortex, the eyes of the Cloud Hall disciple suddenly brightened.
On the other hand, everyone else turned vigilant.
They had entered different worlds since embarking on their journey on Death Road, with each world full of danger. Just now, everyone almost died. Now, with the red vortex in front of them, how could they not be on high alert?
However, since they were already on Death Road, there was no way back. Their only choice was to keep moving forward.
“Hey, what does this red vortex represent?” Zen suddenly asked. He was speaking to the man from Cloud Hall.
The man, who acted mysteriously and didn't want to reveal his true identity, seemed to know a lot of things about Death Road.
From the beginning, his face had no expression. But when he heard Zen's question, all of a sudden, he let out a mysterious laugh and said, “What does it mean? We'll know it when we get inside.”
Before Zen could ask any more questions, the man took a flying leap and jumped into the red vortex.
After the man jumped in, the world they were in suddenly started to shake. Zen raised his head and looked at the sky. There appeared several cracks there. The cracks were similar to what he had seen on Cloud Road. These were signs that the small world was ready to break into pieces.
“Quick, let's get inside!” Zen commanded. He jumped in without hesitating.
Then Rocher, Patrick, Frank, and Lois all followed and leaped into the red vortex.
When Zen got out of the vortex, his head was down as he fell. So it was quite strange that he could see no ground, and he just kept on falling downward!
Swoosh!
The wind whooshed past Zen's ears. Then he saw the Cloud Hall disciple also fall from the air. At the same time, he found the vortex's exit, which was situated above the abyss.
The abyss below was dark and seemed bottomless. Nobody knew how deep it was. But if they continued to fall like this, death would probably be the end of them.
Soon, however, Zen found several stones floating in the air. The objects were irregular in shape. Some were as big as a table, while others were only the size of a fist. No one knew what kind of force would keep them afloat because none of them was affected by gravity at all.
“The stones are only good for jumping on!” the young warrior murmured to himself. As the thought crossed his mind, Zen saw the Cloud Hall disciple suddenly gain momentum in the air through leaping. He twirled his body before being able to stand steadily on a floating stone.
Because of excellent dexterity, the Cloud Hall disciple finished with a fantastic landing. His bodily movement skill was even more perfect than Lewis'.
And Zen followed suit by doing a backflip to change his position in the air. He came at one of the floating stones and attempted to snatch it. Unfortunately, his skills were not as consummate as Lewis. So, the stone began to turn once Zen applied too much force on it. Luckily, however, Zen had grasped a corner of the stone. He followed the stone to twirl around until he could steady himself on top of it.
Raising his head, Zen saw Frank and Patrick both trying their best to catch a stone.
Meanwhile, Lewis slowly resumed his flamboyant manner after getting into the vortex. Taking advantage of his superb technique in bodily movement, he jumped on the floating stones like a dragonfly skimming the surface of the water. Meanwhile, he let out nonstop shrieks to demonstrate that he was affected.
After everyone had a stone and stabilized themselves, the Cloud Hall disciple suddenly pointed his finger above and said, “Look, up there! It's the exit of Death Road!”
When people heard him, they were delighted. They all raised their heads and followed the direction of his finger. They could see floating stones everywhere in the abyss. At the top of the abyss was a bright light. They could even see shattered floating remnants there.
They only needed to get up there, with the help of the stones, to safely leave the Death Road.
Finally seeing the silver lining made them glad. However, there was also a bit of disappointment. They took the risk to brave the Death Road hoping for a bigger reward. But in truth, they were only able to take away a portion of the Devil Phantom essences. And they were far from satisfied with it.
For now, survival was the priority. And coming out of Death Road alive would make them all heroes.
Giggling, Lewis remarked, “It's not as difficult as it seems...” He stepped on a small stone as big as a fist and wiggled his body as if playing in a variety show. What Lewis was doing was showing off his bodily movement skills.
The Cloud Hall disciple gently smiled and said, “Not difficult? The difficult challenges will come soon enough.”
As soon as he finished speaking, they heard several unmistakable booming sounds in the air.
A loud bang, bang, bang filled the air.
“Look down there!” Patrick shouted as he pointed at the black abyss below. A tremendous head was now approaching. It turned out to be the head of a colossal flood dragon!
But why was its head so huge? The head alone seemed to have filled the whole abyss. And there were big chains on the flood dragon's head. The clinking sound everyone was hearing came from the chains.
“It's the flood dragon. Go up quickly!” came a warning shout. At the warning, Frank lifted Lois, and they both jumped up onto the floating stones as they darted upward at lightning speed.
Nothing frightened them as much as the enormous flood dragon. Though not a legendary beast, there were two notable things about the flood dragon: it was related to the genuine dragon, and it had dragon blood.
During the All Peaks Competition, Jacques amazed everyone with the power that emitted from a flood dragon bone in his hand. Now, the creature right below them was a living and grown-up flood dragon, and no one knew how many millennia it had lived. And with merely a howl, that size of a flood dragon was enough to turn anyone into ashes, completely obliterating them.
“Up! Up! Up!” they screamed.
Every person scrambled to safety without a moment's hesitation. To accomplish this, they stepped on the floating stones in the hopes they could get rid of the terrifying flood dragon.
While all this was happening, the Cloud Hall disciple had fixed his eyes on Frank. Then he frowned while thinking. Not long after, he finally shifted his gaze from Frank and settled on Zen.
A chilly smile broke the Cloud Hall disciple's face to indicate his satisfaction after he had identified Zen as his target. Then before the young disciple could react, he was running toward Zen at what seemed like five or six times the normal speed.
What was it like to enhance one's speed by five or even six times?
Even before, the Cloud Hall disciple was already a lot faster than Lewis, who had good bodily movement skills. But now, his speed surged five or six times faster, and that meant one could hardly catch his shadow with the naked eye when he was moving.
Intent on sprinting up to the top, Zen was surprised when he suddenly heard a swishing sound coming from below.
A hidden weapon slicing through the air was the only thing capable of making such whistling sounds. But when Zen turned his head around, he saw that it was the Cloud Hall disciple who came at him.
“Wow! That speed is so incredible! How did he do that?” Zen muttered in surprise. Unable to believe that the man was coming at him, Zen furrowed his brows.
“Is he looking for trouble with me?” he wondered aloud. Right from the start, they had been on guard against this mysterious Cloud Hall disciple. But since he never showed any wicked intentions, they reluctantly allowed him to tag along with them.
Sensing that the Cloud Hall disciple was about to attack him after he stepped on the floating stone, Zen whirled and ended up with his sword pointed at the man.
The movement he executed was downward chop of the basic swordsmanship!
“Since you want to cause me trouble, you'd better be prepared to die!” the young warrior declared.
With the flood dragon in hot pursuit, Zen couldn't afford any mishaps. It was too dangerous, and even a small mistake could mean paying with his life.
Thus, Zen had to go all out to get rid of the people who stood in his way.
The basic swordsmanship move displayed by Zen confused the Cloud Hall disciple. But after a while, he smiled and without hesitation, grabbed Zen's Blood Drinking Sword with his bare hands.
The smile didn't escape Zen, who thought it looked weird. It evoked a feeling of fascination as if a gentle lady was the one smiling at him. But the man standing before him was definitely a man!
However, there was no time for Zen to ponder on this. He didn't expect the Cloud Hall disciple to use a very clever trick in grabbing his sword.
Because of his exceptional strength, even though the disciple was at the beginning level of the Illuminating Soul Realm, Zen was already considered a warrior without a match. He might not be able to thwart Frank's spear attack, but there were other ways to beat him.
Although only at the first grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm, the Cloud Hall disciple was brave enough to grab Zen's sword with his bare hands. The move was so daring. It was incredible.
The Cloud Hall disciple smiled eerily at Zen then said softly, “You're going down with me!” Before Zen could react, he felt his clothes being dragged down by the Cloud Hall disciple until they fell from the floating stone and into a deep, dark pit.
Right below them was the enormous flood dragon, which was rapidly rising, making the situation twice as dangerous.