Chapter 128: Swamp of Balur

As I stood like an indomitable mountain in front of the nineteen Nascent Soul Cultivators, the group hesitated. For them, it was unthinkable that a Core Cultivator was able to take down a Nascent Cultivator head-on and kill him in one attack.

But for me, though I had the tools and means to kill them, I worried about one thing. The same method that the Second Prince Wu had, when they died, an image is sent back to where the life jade slip was. And if I were to use Y, it will bring unwanted attention. X can handle a few of these Cultivators but not all, so I'll need to scare them shitless or run away.

After gathering their wits about them, the group began moving at the same time. They must have discussed a strategy using divine sense.

I felt a ripple behind me and ducked as a sword passed right where my neck should have been. A cultivator had teleported behind me, an annoying nascent soul ability.

"X, come out!" I said and the puppet shot out from my book. The puppet immediately grabbed at the cultivator's sword and punched his head off of his chest.

I didn't have the time to go and completely wipe the Nascent Soul cultivator's soul. There were still eighteen coming my way.

"Thousand Sword Formation!" one called and above me, numerous glowing swords manifested and came down.

They weren't planning on cutting me, but they fell down locking the space around me. Creating an offensive prison barrier, that will send a sword my way if I were to move.

"He is trapped inside my formation kill him!" the user of the sword formation said as he made a single prayer hand gesture.

X shot forward and toward the incoming cultivators as many of the glowing swords came down at him. But they all shattered the moment they touched X's body.

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"Damn it, he has a Quasi Soul Formation puppet, be careful!" the user of the sword formation said, and the group spread apart avoiding X's hunt.

I wasn't going to wait for the group, I took a deep breath and spat a gout of poisonous gas forward that blinded the eyes. But these cultivators didn't waver and forced their way through my poison as they coated their bodies with QI.

Idiots.

The moment my improved poison breath touched their Qi, it inflicted them with the Breath Sealing Poison, causing the Qi around them to break at an incredible rate and the poison to infect their bodies and begin a nasty case of body deterioration.

Two of the cultivators lost their lives to the poison but the rest evacuated away and pulled several pills that they consumed, greatly slowing down the poison's effects on their bodies.

"Curses! What kind of poison is that!" one of them shouted as he was eating pill after pill to slow down the poison inside him.

"Be careful, he is a poison Cultivator, they're wicked and evil. We must kill him in one blow. Brothers, follow my lead." One of the cultivators said as he raised his hand and struck down in an open palm.

A massive palm manifested in the skies above me, and soon the rest of the cultivators all followed with their own powerful abilities.

There was no way I'll survive this if I didn't pull out Y, but at the same time, they've forgotten one small detail. They believed that this sword formation could trap me, but compare this to even the simplest of Master Rain's formation, this was nothing other than a sandcastle compared to a forteress.

I pulled my brush and moved out toward the swamp. The swords noticed my movement and began shooting towards me.

"Fool, you'll suffer a fate worse than death now that you moved within my formation!" the man with the prayer gesture claimed.

I grinned as I waved my brush a few times causing the Formation to break on one side and enabling me to leave, dodging all of the massive spells that fell down on nothing but empty air.

"Let's go, top speed, sword," I said as did a grabbing motion, calling X back to me and placing him back into the poison god's book.

As I ran away, I used the Doppelganger Golden Scripture art. Splitting into three clones. The three of us turned above our sword and all spat a Poison Breath. Though the quality of the poison Breath from the clones was far less than mine, it was enough to add to the collective power of my poison breath.

The vast poison cloud blinded the eyes, and caused the cultivators to hesitate. It gave me enough time to spread my clones and each went in a different direction.

"Shit, where is the real one?!" one of the cultivators shouted as he managed to go beyond the poison cloud using expensive treasures.

"Let's split up. Go!" the man that used the sword formation called.

The group split. Five on each clone. Which worked perfectly with my plan. Thanks to the perfect recreation of the Golden Scripture the clones cannot be told from the real unless you stab through them. And I used that fact to thin their numbers.

As I moved about, I pulled the map, reading through it, and found the best route to take, it was next to a massive pond where a giant seventh-tier beast lived. The Swamps of Balur weren't feared for nothing, as the creatures inside are strong enough to kill Nascent Soul Cultivators with ease.

For me, I'll be killing them using a borrowed knife. As I didn't need to hide anything from the creature in the pond if I dared attack, I could easily pull Y and kill it, but it the demonic beast kills the cultivators for me, then I'll not have my secrets revealed.

The idea to send a final image of the preparator and killer of a person is rather annoying, I'll need to find a way to stop this, in my future.

As I dodged through the low trees and various swamps and tall brushes of the area, I heard explosive sounds behind me. The Nascent Soul cultivator speeds were far greater than I could match, and they would easily catch up to me.

I threw several Green Sun Pills behind me, that created explosions and coated the low-hanging trees in a green fire that emitted poisonous smoke.

The whole swamp was going to wail in pain as I went through it, and the cultivators adamantly continued chasing me.

The pond with the Seventh Tier Creature was near, and I won't make it if I were to slow down even for a bit.

"X, stall for time!" I said as I zipped through the low-hanging trees.

X came out once again and headed toward the cultivators. In less than ten seconds, loud explosive noises once again rattled the swamp, and due to this loud noise, I heard the roar of the creature I was closing in on.

Suddenly, from within the nearby pond, a massive creature that could easily fit a whole elephant in its mouth emerged from the pond.

The creature looked like an oversized ogre, with tons of algae growing all over his body making it a deep shade of green. It had a muscular frame, the edge of both of its elbows protruded a massive razor-sharp bone, and his fingers looked to be the most delicate of all of its features. But they weren't weak, they ended in claws that looked to match the greatest sword in sharpness.

The creature's height was that of a giant, and it opened its massive mouth to screech, revealing three rows of sharp teeth.

"Shit, this thing is probably as strong as that Silver Ape." I cursed, as I was about to pull Y, another ripple in space manifested as a cultivator appeared in front of me.

I pulled Creeping Demise and used, Tiger-Stinger. The sword came at the cultivator's manifesting body, but he blocked the tip, the moment his lips were about to transform into a grin, the second redundant effect of m skill manifested, creating a delayed shock that shot into the now less cautious cultivator and blew him back.

A powerful jet of poison Qi shot to follow up and infected the cultivator. But he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

As he was being flung away, he thrust his palm towards me in a palm attack that struck me in the chest.

I flew from the force of the blow and skidded atop the pond's surface until I crashed into the nearby shore.

"Fuck!" I spat as a surge of blood poured from my mouth. Even with my robe's defenses, taking a direct hit from a Nascent Soul Cultivator wasn't easy.

Understanding finally began to dawn on me. I'm weak, way too weak, my ability and power is good and everything, but I'm relying a lot on the element of surprise, once they know what's going on, I'll be dead in no time.

My cultivation level is too low, my skills aren't as honed as theirs, and they outnumber me. The fact that I didn't use Y is stupid, I should worry about my life now instead of the risks of the future. If I die now, I won't even have the luxury of worrying about tomorrow.

In that blow, I lost Creeping Demise, it fell into the pond, and the massive ogre-like creature was still shirking.

The explosive echoes closed on us a lot, X was fighting at a retreat and he would soon be here. I'll need to kill this cultivator before his friends join.

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Immediately, I felt my connection to one of the clones disappearing, one of them had died.

Fuck, they will come here and reinforce the cultivator.

Suddenly, the massive creature finished shirking and began to assess the situation around him. He looked around and realized that his territory was being invaded.

He then did the unthinkable, he turned towards me and howled.

Shit, it seems that everyone wants my head….