Breaking the Formation, Shaking the Facade

“How about this,” Hu Yue said, a flicker of embarrassment crossing his face as he hurriedly pulled Han Li into the equation. “If Fellow Daoist Han and Fairy Shi manage to break the grand formation, the two of you can each choose one item first. We’ll divide the rest afterward.” This at least smoothed over the immediate tension.

The tall, gaunt cultivator surnamed Jian had been standing to one side, his expression calm and unreadable, without uttering a single word. Han Li found him somewhat difficult to read.

“Fellow Daoist Hu, why not take Brother Han and Fairy Shi to see the formation first?” Jin Qing suggested with a gentle smile. “Let’s see if they can actually break it. If not, everything else is moot.”

“Right! This formation is quite sinister. Fellow Daoist Jin and I once spent a whole day and night attacking it with full force, but we couldn’t breach it by sheer power. We only ended up exhausting our own magical power completely.” Hu Yue slapped his forehead in enthusiastic agreement.

With no objections from the others, and under their gaze—which held more anticipation than curiosity—the group urged their magic tools forward, flying toward the belly of the earthen hill. They soon stopped near an inconspicuous gentle slope.

“Fellow Daoists, look there. The area covered by that yellow mist is where the formation lies.” Hu Yue pointed to a spot on the slope and spoke solemnly to Han Li and the others.

He needn’t have pointed. Han Li had already seen it clearly. A yellow mist, a full li in circumference, lay not far below them, crouched like a massive, silent beast. It exuded a deep, unfathomable, eerie sensation.

“Oh? It looks like an earth-wind dual-attribute formation. Interesting.” Shi Die’s eyes lit up with excitement the moment she assessed it.

Prompted by her words, Han Li glanced at her before focusing his attention. Soon, his expression turned serious.

The formation was indeed as she had said—a wind and earth attribute array. With his current level of skill, breaking it would be quite troublesome.

At that moment, Shi Die slowly descended from the air to the edge of the formation. Full of enthusiasm, she pulled out some strange instruments and began testing.

First, she produced a disc-shaped device. Holding it in one hand, she shot a beam of green light toward the yellow mist. The beam disappeared without a trace, like a clay ox sinking into the sea.

Frowning, she then produced a fiery red crystal ball, polished it a few times, and cast it into the yellow mist. But this tool, too, flashed a few times before being swallowed by the thick haze.

Now, her face flushed slightly. Feeling that her reputation was on the line, she pulled out seven or eight more different instruments to probe the formation.

Except for a single yellow bronze mirror, which caused the mist to churn wherever it shone, the rest had no effect at all.

Seeing this, Hu Yue and Jin Qing exchanged glances. Unable to resist, they flew up to the slope and walked up behind her.

“Fairy Shi, would you allow me to give it a try?” After watching for a while, and seeing that she seemed ready to pull out yet another instrument, Han Li sighed inwardly and asked gently.

“Hmph! If Fellow Daoist Han has a method, go right ahead. Little me certainly won’t stop you.” It was clear that Fairy Shi Die was now somewhat embarrassed and angry, and she gave Han Li no face.

Han Li was mildly irritated.

But, being one who never let his emotions show on his face, he revealed no displeasure. Instead, he calmly patted his storage pouch. A dozen small flags of various colors flew out, circling him lightly.

“Formation flags!” Jin Qing’s sharp eyes were the first to call out as he spotted the pennants.

The others showed surprise, wondering why Han Li was pulling these out instead of directly attacking the formation.

Ignoring their stunned gazes, Han Li pointed at the flags.

Immediately, a dozen streaks of light shot up. The formation flags flew to the area above the yellow mist and arranged themselves in a specific pattern, hanging in the air in what faintly resembled the Big Dipper.

“The Big Dipper Two-Circuit Formation?” Shi Die seemed to recognize the pattern from the flag arrangement, a flicker of shock crossing her face.

At that moment, the flags emitted a low, humming sound. A dozen light pillars shot out from these small pennants, converging in mid-air into one thick beam that shot straight into the mist below, vanishing without a trace.

Witnessing this startling scene, the cultivators, including Shi Die, hurriedly looked toward the yellow mist. But it remained heavy and still, with no unusual reaction.

“Brother Han…” Jin Qing was about to voice his doubt when the change finally happened.

The once-dead, silent yellow mist suddenly filled with a low, rumbling drone. Then, like boiling water, the mist began to churn violently, as if a dragon was stirring up a tempest within. It came alive.

Jin Qing swallowed the words that had reached his lips.

At that moment, Han Li’s eyes gleamed. Without hesitation, he cast several more hand seals toward the floating flags.

Immediately, the colorful light pillars from the dozen or so flags began to fire continuously.

Soon, a startling scene unfolded.

The rolling yellow mist began to oscillate in a rhythmic, patterned way. One after another, large, dome-like bulges pushed up from within, growing larger and higher.

It was as if some monster was trying to force its way out.

The other cultivators felt a chill in their hearts and instinctively backed away.

Shi Die’s expression changed dramatically. She hurriedly retreated more than ten zhang before stopping and turning her head to look back.

Boom! Boom!

A series of ear-splitting explosions erupted from within the thick yellow mist.

Even though the cultivators had been somewhat prepared, they were still thrown off balance by a violent blast of gale-force wind that followed. They quickly activated their defenses, steadied themselves, and looked toward the mist.

Except for Shi Die, who had some expectation, the others were startled.

The once-impenetrable, persistently lingering yellow mist had now completely dissipated, becoming crystal clear. Everything it had been hiding was now laid bare.

Hu Yue and the others were overjoyed. Jin Qing quickly walked over to Han Li, beaming.

“Brother Han! I didn’t expect you had such skill. Has the formation been broken?”

“Broken? Brother Jin, you’re underestimating the ancient cultivators’ formation mastery. I only managed to dispel the outermost illusionary technique.” Han Li’s mouth twitched, and he gave a wry smile as he explained.

“Haha! That’s fine. We still have time. We can wait for you to slowly unravel this formation. Now, I have great confidence in breaking it.” Jin Qing was a bit disappointed, but before he could say anything, Hu Yue, who had walked up behind him, spoke happily.

“Right. As cultivators, we won’t be short on time, will we? I was too impatient.” Jin Qing was taken aback by the words, then quickly concurred with some embarrassment.

At this point, Shi Die, her arrogance completely gone, approached and bowed deeply to Han Li, speaking with sincere earnestness.

“I was truly a frog at the bottom of a well. I never imagined Senior could use a formation to break another formation. It was a real eye-opener. I hope Senior Han can guide me a little in the way of formations in the future.”

Han Li was somewhat surprised by her words and returned the bow. His impression of her changed somewhat.

“It’s nothing. Just a minor trick. In truth, my own understanding of formations is not that high.” Han Li replied with his usual calm expression.

This was the truth.

If she had not first identified the formation as being of wind and earth attributes, Han Li would have been at a loss for how to even begin breaking the illusion array.

His twenty-odd years of formation study were still quite limited, and he had only a superficial grasp of most formation principles.

The reason he had been so confident in using this set of “Big Dipper Two-Circuit Formation” flags was solely due to his trust in Xin Ruyin, the formation prodigy.

In the insights on breaking formations she had gifted him, she gave examples of clever methods for deconstructing all kinds of arrays.

Han Li, without delving too deep into the theory, simply applied them directly.

And yet, it had worked wonders.

This one move had thoroughly impressed the others.

But, his words were clearly taken as modesty. The others showed him even more respect.

Han Li gave a faint smile and offered no further explanation. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the formation’s true form, now that the illusion had been broken.

After the mist dissipated, what was revealed was a faint yellow light barrier, covering an area of about a hundred zhang in radius.