"I can, but..." Chongyun looked at the vast Cuijue Slope and said nothing more.
Chongyun had never even considered the option of "brute force destruction" for a large formation that used the terrain as its array.
Liyue's formations generally followed the natural order of heaven and earth, especially for grand formations.
Breaking this Nine-Pillar Formation with brute force would likely be as difficult as overturning the entire Cuijue Slope.
"There's no 'but'. Let me show you the strength of a great hero!" Ember smoothed his non-existent sleeves and said excitedly.
It wasn't that he didn't want to protect the ruins; it was simply because there was no other way.
Truly, there was no other way.
Grabbing them by the back of their collars, Ember effortlessly lifted Chongyun and Xingqiu, one in each hand.
Then, with a'swoosh!', a noticeable rift was torn through the mist of Cuijue Slope.
"Crash!"
The mist surged, and countless brokenstones, stirred up by Ember, struck the stone gate, yet left no trace.
This heavily weathered gate seemed so massive that it could keep everything out.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
"Where... where is this?"
As soon as Ember put Xingqiu and Chongyun down, they almost collapsed to the ground.
Fortunately, both were martial artists and eventually stood steadily on the ground.
"The... the gate?!"
"So fast!"
When the two came to their senses, a gigantic stone gate greeted their eyes, leaving them astonished once more.
How long had it been? And they were back already?
The name of a great hero truly lived up to its reputation!
"Are you awake?"
"We are awake."
"Then stand back!"
Ember pushed Xingqiu and Chongyun far away, then began to gather his strength.
Though he called it gathering strength, Ember was actually contemplating which move to use. Glancing around, he noticed the somewhat faded dragon and phoenix patterns on the gate.
Speaking of which, Liyue's dragons were different from the dragons in Ember's memory, and as for phoenixes, he had no impression of them at all.
Recalling in his mind, it seemed there was a place that bore a slight resemblance to Liyue.
"Om—"
A high-frequency vibration sound spread, like the buzzing wings of a swarm of bees, but magnified countless times.
Tiny sand and pebbles on the ground began to leap, so rapidly that it seemed the earth itself was vibrating with the sound.
From a distance, Xingqiu and Chongyun heard this strange sound, and the excess flesh on their bodies also began to vibrate.
Both felt a shortness of breath, and they suspected that if this continued, they might be shaken into a pile of dust.
Fortunately, the sound was brief; after the extreme frequency, there was a noisy, grating friction sound, like sandpaper rubbing rapidly against solid wood.
"Scratch, scratch, scratch!"
Ember raised his hand, raising an eyebrow as he watched the swirling red aura on his arm.
It seemed his martial arts hadn't regressed; he had managed to use this thing he had never used before so quickly.
Qi, a technique from the foreign land of Oakh. Legend has it that Oakh was a gathering place for reclusive cultivators.
This 'Qi' was quite miraculous. It could not only move objects from a distance but also seize a person's life force.
When Qi was shaped into a claw, it could snatch people from a thousand miles away; when Qi was wrapped around a sword, it made the weapon as obedient as an arm.
Alas, this legacy ended with Ember. Who would have thought that someone skilled in the art of 'Qi' would become a Bell Hunter in The Lands Between!
Merchants in The Lands Between were all VIPs that Ember would "invite" back to the Roundtable Hold.
Anyone who snatched a Bell Bearing from Ember was an enemy!
Don't ask; if you ask, it's because Ember wants to build an integrated commercial center.
"Hmph... Qi? It sounds very fitting for Liyue's atmosphere." Ember murmured a few words.
Then he swung his arm forward, and the red "Qi" wrapped around it extended, transforming into a scarlet palm.
The "fingers" of the palm were very thin, enough to penetrate the invisible cracks in the stone gate.
Taking a deep breath, Ember slowly retracted his extended arm.
"Click, click, click!"
The sound of something breaking echoed, but the stone gate remained firm, as if the breaking sound hadn't existed at all.
"Hmph! Fly for me!"
Ember clenched his open hand, and the giant palm formed by "Qi" also contracted tightly, as if firmly grasping the entire stone gate.
With Ember's forceful tug, the struggling stone gate finally could no longer hold out.
"Bang!"
A crack first appeared in the stone gate, then instantly spread across the entire surface. From the appearance of the crack to its transformation into rubble, the entire process took but a blink of an eye.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Before the sound of the stone gate exploding had completely dissipated, the ground behind them shook violently.
Along with the fierce shaking, cracks appeared in the nine gigantic stone pillars standing on Cuijue Slope.
When everything settled, what appeared before everyone was the broken stone pillars, the surging red aura, and... a deep, dark cave entrance.
"Such... such a powerful move!"
"Brute force, it broke it."
Xingqiu and Chongyun were both utterly astonished by the scene before them.
Xingqiu marveled at Ember's never-before-seen move, which was neither martial arts nor sorcery, and certainly not elemental power.
Chongyun, on the other hand, was shocked that Ember had truly broken the greatest formation he had ever seen with brute force.
Looking at the collapsing nine stone pillars, it was clear that the power flowing through the formation's nodes was too great, and the pillars acting as array positions could no longer withstand it.
"Close your mouths; I won't be responsible if you inhale any poisonous gas." Seeing their stunned expressions, Ember kindly reminded them.
He poked his head into the newly revealed cave, sniffed, and noted, "Good, no smell."
"Thump, thump, thump!"
"You scared me!"
One by one, eerie blue lanterns lit up, illuminating the dark cave and startling Ember.
With the light, everyone finally saw that the so-called "cave" was actually a corridor leading underground.
"Are you going?" Ember looked at the dark depths of the corridor and asked the curious Xingqiu and Chongyun beside him.
Ember certainly wasn't afraid of the dark, but Xingqiu and Chongyun might be.
"Yes! Why wouldn't we go!" Xingqiu's eyes were about to gleam again; he had already bounced up and down countless times in place.
A desolate wilderness, a secret cave—Xingqiu already envisioned peerless secret manuals beckoning to him.
Chongyun, however, was not as excited as Xingqiu. He looked at the corridor bathed in the eerie blue light.
The yin energy within it was almost enough to suppress the yang energy on his body.
Facing an evil being, Chongyun felt the urge to retreat for the first time. This level of yin energy was something even the great demons active in the strange tales of the 'the family record of demonic oddities' could never possess.
Chongyun even suspected that what was suppressed inside was not a specific evil being, but an aggregate of countless evil spirits.
"Let's go. This is your only chance to see an evil being." Ember, holding Xingqiu by the collar, waved to Chongyun.
That kid Xingqiu was really a troublemaker; if Ember hadn't been holding his collar, he probably would have already run off.
"See an evil being?" Chongyun looked up at Ember. The image of Ember "forcibly demolishing" the gate earlier flashed in his mind, and his racing heart slowly settled.
With Ember around, what was there to worry about? Even if Ember had no way to deal with the evil being, given the speed he had just displayed, Chongyun estimated that nothing could catch up to him.
At worst, they could just run away!
Thinking this, Chongyun's heart finally settled with a "thump!"
"Coming, but before that, I need to prepare." Chongyun took deep breaths while rummaging through his belongings.
Then, under the astonished gazes of Ember and Xingqiu, Chongyun covered his entire body with glowing talismans.
He had completely transformed himself into a walking light bulb.
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