Like an all-seeing eye, he could see the Dao Realm practitioners closing in on the dragon as it dived toward the mountain. He could see Wang Ping holding his junior tightly. He could see cultivators flying from the caves toward them. He could see everything happening, and from his observation, it was impossible for them to reach that mountain range without dying. They were simply too close.
"We have to take a hit."
Then, with another flicker of his dark green eyes, the fleeting enlightenment ceased. The descent of the Dao practitioners instantly resumed, all of them unleashing lethal strikes.
"We won't be able to make it," Wang Ping muttered, closing his eyes as they drew inevitably closer.
"Use your body to shield the attack!" Mo Lingtian yelled to the dragon. It immediately coiled its massive body around Mo Lingtian, Wang Ping, and his junior, using its physical bulk to shield them from the lethal strikes of more than a dozen Dao practitioners.
It couldn't even last five seconds. The sheer brutality of the concentrated Dao Realm strikes shredded its scales, tearing its flesh and forcing the massive beast to uncoil in roaring agony, leaving them completely exposed. Ignoring the two of them, the Dao Realm practitioners flew straight past Mo Lingtian and Wang Ping, greedily reaching for the plummeting dragon.
"Perfect!" his voice resounded with a sinister satisfaction. Mo Lingtian dashed past the dozens of Dao Realm practitioners, appearing in front of them in seconds. Blue lightning blazed all over his body as fragments of his clothes were scorched by the sparks traveling over his physical body.
"Wang Ping, it's up to you now," Mo Lingtian said before falling unconscious in the sky. Wang Ping immediately dashed toward him and the dragon while holding his junior brother.
The Dao Realm practitioners just stood mid-air trying to figure out what had happened. They searched their bodies trying to find traces of any hidden cuts or slits, but they could find none, and they snarled in anger, realizing they had just been distracted. They instantly resumed their pursuit, dashing ferociously toward Wang Ping.
Seeing the cultivators from the caves and the Dao Realm practitioners getting closer to him, Wang Ping knew that with his current speed, they wouldn't reach the mountain range in time. So, he made up his mind to abandon... himself.
Channeling every ounce of his spiritual power into a highly condensed palm strike, he slammed his hands directly against the dragon's thick scales. The explosive force blasted the beast and Mo Lingtian downward into the secluded mountain range, violently thrusting Wang Ping in the opposite direction, upward toward the approaching ambushers.
The Dao practitioners and the cultivators yelled as they flew past him, stopping a few meters away from the secluded mountain range. The dragon beast they were after, together with its companions, had fallen into the dangerous death zone; they couldn't go any further.
"This is all your fault!" one of the Dao Realm practitioners yelled, stretching his hands. Wang Ping immediately got pulled by an invisible force toward him, moving swiftly past the other cultivators. The Dao Realm elder grabbed him by the neck, brutally strangling him.
Then suddenly, a tiny red hole formed on the forehead of the Dao practitioner. Blood began to flow from the puncture until his entire face was painted red with bloodstains. His grip on Wang Ping's neck immediately weakened as his lifeless body fell from the sky.
Everyone gasped in disbelief as they looked at Wang Ping suspiciously.
"Was his body laced with poison?" they thought to themselves, because how else would a Dao Realm practitioner instantly die just from touching the physical body of a Qi Refining cultivator?
While they still glared at him suspiciously, another Dao Realm practitioner suddenly felt something oozing down his head. He touched it, and it turned out to be blood. His forehead had also been punctured; a tiny hole had been forced open on his head, and just as instantly as the first, he died, dropping like a shot bird in the sky.
And then the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth... all the Dao Realm practitioners present dropped from the sky one by one with the identical tiny hole punctured in their foreheads. Some of them fled the scene, thinking it was a colorless, lethal poison killing them one after the other, but they still couldn't escape. They dropped dead while fleeing.
"What's going on?" the other cultivators who had later joined the turmoil asked amongst themselves in a panic.
"The young boy struck them after all. They just didn't notice it in time," a voice echoed from one of the caves in the mountain. It belonged to a Dao Realm practitioner.
All the cultivators subtly gave way as a middle-aged man slowly ascended from one of the mountain caves. His hair was silvery black, and his robes looked richly adorned; they were plain and simple yet exuded an elegance like those belonging to powerhouses of the major sects in the Wilderness.
"Fellow Daoists, I am Tu Xin from the confederation, may I..." The Dao Realm practitioner was immediately cut short by one of the cultivators present.
"Please, please... you don't need our permission. Take your time, sir," he said to this mysterious Dao Realm practitioner, bowing deeply, well past his shoulder region. The show of courtesy was driven more by raw fear than basic respect.
"Alright then. Thank you very much," the Dao Realm elder said as he took hold of Wang Ping, who was now unconscious. He carefully carried him back to the cave he was residing in, opening the barrier he had previously set over it.
"You should be careful of that young man in the future if he survives the death zone. Even if it were me, I wouldn't have escaped that strange technique of his unscathed," Tu Xin, the mysterious Dao Realm practitioner, said to the bowing cultivator before entering his cave and sealing its entrance.
"Hey!" one of them said, roughly tapping the cultivator who was still bowing down.
"What's with you and that elder? Do you know him from somewhere?" he continued, his hands still resting on the cultivator's shoulder.
He slowly lifted his head, seeing that the Dao Realm practitioner had entered his cave, and nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders away from the man's grasp.
"That man... he is an important figure from the Lunar Region," the cultivator said emphatically, causing all of them to widen their eyes in disbelief.
"If someone like that gives us a warning, we had better heed it," one of them murmured upon hearing this.
"I'm heading back to my cave. The sole reason I came here was to hunt for celestial artifacts, and before the death zone opens, I am not getting involved in any conflict that'll make me easily lose my head," the cultivator said as he swiftly dashed back down to the mountain. They all murmured amongst themselves in agreement, following him back to their caves.
"He is probably just exhausted from too much energy consumption," Tu Xin said, wrapping the final bandage on an unconscious Wang Ping.
"Who would have thought I would find an opportunity to wager with the Eclipsed Sun sect while hunting for treasures," he said, chuckling.
"And those two," Tu Xin added, referring to Mo Lingtian and the dragon beast. "They could be quite worth the effort."