Chapter 4718 — Run!

"To break the Heaven-Thunder Formation, you have to strike the Five-Thunder Tribulation Arch in a very particular way—with martial techniques of all five basic spiritual-root attributes at once, and with each of those five attacks at or above the Nascent Soul stage in power, roughly matched to one another," Huo Yudie explained.

"So that's it. I knew there had to be a reason you insisted on dragging a total stranger like me into this as your teammate—it was all for this step." Wei Zhao nodded in sudden understanding, then added, "But then why not bring five people? Nascent Soul cultivators with all five basic attributes shouldn't be hard to round up at your academy. Why insist on me?"

"Are you stupid? Five people means splitting the take five ways. How much would be left for me?" Huo Yudie shot him a glare.

At that Wei Zhao gave her an odd look. "Even split five ways, you'd still get twenty percent. Right now with just the two of us you're also only getting twenty percent—what's the difference? Don't tell me you've forgotten. We agreed on an eighty-twenty split..."

"Uh..." Huo Yudie choked on her words, and only after a long pause did she retort indignantly, "Who knew you'd be this greedy! Besides, my master specifically warned me that the search for the Thunder Mystic Vine has to be kept absolutely secret—the fewer people the better. Too many mouths and the word slips out sooner or later. And what's trickier than that: if along the way one of them takes a fancy to the treasure, we'd be in real trouble. We could end up at each other's throats, fighting to the death. I don't want to be the tragedy in that story. Even if it's still just twenty percent, two people beats five."

"Heh, but there's only the two of us now. Aren't you afraid I'll get greedy and not even give you that twenty percent?" Wei Zhao said with a teasing smile.

But Huo Yudie was not the least bit afraid of him. She eyed him sidelong, challengingly. "Go ahead. Come on then—it's just rob first, kill after, isn't it?"

"..." Wei Zhao could only stare speechlessly at the heavens. This girl hadn't been nearly this brazen when they first met—so after ten days together, she had no fear of him at all now. Just look at that smug expression as she said it, and she was even wearing a ripped-up denim tracksuit. She was a regular little street punk from the mortal world now. How had a proper classical beauty turned into this? Wasn't that a bit of a leap?!

At that moment Wei Zhao felt something close to guilt, as though he really was the damned culprit. If she hadn't been following him these past days, Huo Yudie would still be that ice-and-snow lotus of a classical beauty. At the very least, she definitely wouldn't be a street punk of the mortal world...

"Forget it. Let's get back on track and start breaking this formation." Wei Zhao had no choice but to change the subject, turning his gaze to the Five-Thunder Tribulation Arch ahead.

"There's one difficulty, though. You have all five attributes, yes, but to break the formation you'll need to unleash martial techniques of all five attributes within a single breath. Most people can't do that—but I believe in you," Huo Yudie warned. If she hadn't witnessed Wei Zhao's astonishing strength before, she wouldn't have such confidence in him. After all, unleashing five attributes of martial technique at once was absolutely not as simple as it sounded.

Never mind full power—they only needed to reach the Nascent Soul level—but the entire sequence had to be completed within one breath. That was essentially one mind managing five tasks, when one mind managing two was already hard enough for ordinary people. Five was unthinkable.

Wei Zhao gave a wry smile at that. Without the fortuitous encounter back when he'd left the Five-Poison Swamp, hearing Huo Yudie say this would have left him truly without a trick to play.

The Five-Element Eight-Trigram Palm he had learned earlier also carried all five attributes at once. But that technique capped out at the Heaven Rank Great Perfection and had no further progression afterward—a far cry from the Nascent Soul level.

As for his other techniques, no matter how proficiently Wei Zhao could unleash them, bringing them all out within a single breath was still very hard. This girl hadn't thought things through before coming to find him. Was this sort of thing something a normal person could do?

For an ordinary person, unleashing one martial technique in a breath was already quite good. Two was impossible!

Fortunately, Huo Yudie hadn't thought this point through carefully—otherwise the Thunder Mystic Vine would likely have had nothing to do with Wei Zhao at all.

Seeing Wei Zhao's strange expression, Huo Yudie realized belatedly that she had been a bit too optimistic, and scrambled for a remedy. "This... I know unleashing five techniques at once isn't very realistic, but with your strength, unleashing four should be doable, right? I have a metal-attribute spiritual root, so I can work with you on the metal technique. The other four will have to be up to you. How about we practice together first and see... if that doesn't work, I've also got a wood-attribute spiritual root in my body. With some practice I should be able to manage that too..."

"No need for that." Wei Zhao shook his head, and at the Five-Thunder Tribulation Arch directly ahead he simply loosed a bolt of five-element killing qi.

Huo Yudie nearly jumped out of her skin. It was too late to stop him now. The Five-Thunder Tribulation Arch was the formation's eye—it didn't care whether they had practiced together or not. Striking it could yield only two outcomes: either the formation broke cleanly, or it summoned a frenzy of heavenly thunder. There was no third possibility.

Huo Yudie had been thinking that hard as this was, with Wei Zhao's ability and her own coordination, perhaps a few dozen practice runs would build up enough rapport, and only then would they dare attempt it. Who could have imagined Wei Zhao would just casually blast it?!

Rumble! The moment the five-element killing qi sank into the Five-Thunder Tribulation Arch, the earth shook and the mountains swayed. In the blink of an eye, dark clouds packed the sky overhead, countless bolts of lightning flickering faintly within them—a fearsome sight, as though the end of the world were at hand.

"Run!" Huo Yudie was scared out of her wits. She grabbed Wei Zhao's hand and made to flee—after all, by any measure this situation looked bad. Thunder was clearly brewing, and likely the most powerful sort of heavenly thunder at that!

Wei Zhao's feet did not move, though gazing at the terrifying spectacle overhead, he couldn't help feeling a pang of unease. Could it be that five-element killing qi couldn't be used to break the formation?

From what Huo Yudie had said earlier, he had assumed that as long as the attack carried all five attributes simultaneously, it didn't matter whether it was one technique or five. But if even five-element killing qi wouldn't work, did that mean it had to be five separate techniques?

"Run!" Huo Yudie couldn't budge Wei Zhao and grew frantic. It was only because she was so small—otherwise she likely would have hoisted him onto her shoulders and carried him off. (The second day of the School Beauty drama's release! Word is the response has been explosive—absolutely must-watch! Everyone get to iQiyi! Follow Yuren on WeChat at yuren22.) (To be continued.)