Martial Arts Crossover: The Sweeping Monk of Wudang? That's our patriarch!

"My goodness... this pit is way too deep! Want to live? I'm afraid it's unlikely."

Instinct drove him to desperately try to break free, but his hands and feet felt like they had been doused with molten iron and remained motionless.

Want to activate a spell? No way.

Spellcasting requires hand seals, none of which can be omitted; the more proficient one is, the simpler the hand seals become. However, there are only a handful of people in the entire cultivation world who can truly summon lightning with bare hands and break formations without hand seals—Lin Daochen is one, but Yang Kai? He's still stumbling at the very beginning.

Just as consciousness was about to be extinguished by darkness, a warm breath quietly spread out, like the rising sun piercing through the clouds, its warmth seeping into the bones.

The suffocating heaviness around me slowly receded like the tide.

Yang Kai subconsciously opened his eyes, and a strikingly handsome face suddenly came into view.

"Holy crap, that's so handsome!"

He blurted it out, but before he could finish speaking, that face was already lightning close, its lips almost touching the tip of his nose—as if it were trying to breathe into him!

Yang Kai was terrified and raised his hand to slap, but his palm struck an invisible barrier with a "thud".

He jolted awake, his eyes widening in shock, and he finally came to his full senses:

Isn't this person in front of him his unreliable master?

"Holy crap! Master, your face... how did you suddenly become so handsome? I almost punched you thinking you were a stranger!"

What's wrong? Isn't Master always so elegant and graceful? Alright, stop lounging around. You were almost buried alive by quicksand and suffocated, and you started talking nonsense and seeing ghosts—if I hadn't pulled you out in time, you would be a stiff, dried-up corpse by now.

Yang Kai glanced down at his body. Fortunately, he hadn't injured any bones or muscles. However, the violent spiritual pressure that had just crushed his skin and flesh made his pores feel like they were being pricked by needles, causing a burning and itchy sensation, but it wasn't a big deal.

"Stop rambling. While you can still breathe, steady yourself. We still have important business to attend to in this godforsaken place. If you collapse halfway, I'm not going to bother collecting your corpse."

After confirming that he was alright, he jumped up and looked around—this was no tunnel at all, but clearly a secluded grotto buried deep in the earth.

The walls were all made of sand, yet it was eerily suspended in mid-air, completely still, as if the entire space had been frozen in place.

The grains of sand, like insects encased in amber, were still, translucent, and showed no sign of falling. Yang Kai subconsciously reached out and poked at them, only to find his fingertip touching something as hard as black iron, even though it was clearly floating three feet above the ground in mid-air—this defied all logic!

Lin Daochen's deep voice rang out: "Don't waste your energy. This place is engraved with a spatial restriction law, and the rules are locked—the sand doesn't move not because it doesn't want to fall, but because time in this world is frozen."

"We are protected by spiritual energy within our bodies, allowing us to move freely; however, once you release your spiritual energy and it comes into contact with these sand grains, the prohibitions will be awakened. At that time, all the sand will resume its downward momentum and crush us into mincemeat in an instant."

Yang Kai felt a chill run down his spine, and the hairs on his neck stood on end—what a ruthless scheme! The person behind this had set up such a killing formation that even the escape route had been crushed to dust.

The two moved deeper and deeper into the dark passage. The passage was crooked and twisted, and the stone walls were rough and uneven, clearly carved out hastily. It was probably a gap dug out to escape after a fierce battle years ago.

The Celestial Immortal of Tianshui clearly suffered a great loss when he made his move here back then, with countless experts risking their lives to stop him. However, those old scores are no longer relevant to them.

A few minutes further on, the space suddenly opened up before us—a vast, empty hall stretched out before us, its walls bare except for hundreds of deep, dark openings, like the gaping mouths of a giant beast, silently grinning.

Want to get out? You can only choose one path. But each path is like the entrance to a maze; one wrong step and you're trapped in an eternal cycle.

Lin Daochen frowned slightly; there were only two paths ahead:

Firstly, blindfolded, choose a hole and force your way in;

Secondly, they could forcefully tear apart the restrictions here with their spiritual power—but once the ground collapses and the sea of ​​sand pours down, they would be boiled alive on the spot.

He took a deep breath and suppressed the thought for the time being. Although he could withstand the impact, he couldn't figure out how many feet he was buried under the sea of ​​sand.

If he were really thousands of meters underground, the sheer pressure of the rock layers would be enough to crush him into a thin pancake.

Yang Kai's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice dry: "Master...did we make a mistake with this move? This place is eerily gloomy, maybe...we should retreat the way we came?"

Lin Daochen's fingers paused, a cold glint flashing between his brows—retreat? Easier said than done. He was already trapped in the cage of rules; unless he forcibly shattered the prohibitions or escaped by following their patterns, even turning around was difficult.

"How about it?" He turned to look at Yang Kai, his tone indifferent. "Try picking a cave entrance? At worst, we'll trigger a few traps. It's better than being trapped here to die."

Lin Daochen spoke casually, but he dared not be complacent in the slightest. While they were indeed cultivators, wielding immense power, their opponent was no ordinary foe either—the Heavenly Water Immortal was already a powerful figure with unfathomable abilities. The fact that he could set up a killing formation condensed from the power of rules indicated that he was not fighting alone; there was likely a higher-level figure secretly supporting him.

Just by looking at the Myriad Souls Banner in Youming's hand, one can tell the truth: the one who can forge such an evil weapon must be a top figure in the "Module" whose stomp can shake the three realms. Only those in the Module can understand the meridians of the soul and comprehend the restrictions of heaven and earth, and only they can forge thousands of living souls into a banner, making it come alive, move, and keep an eye on you.

Lin Daochen didn't bother to delve into the extent of Tianshui Immortal's involvement with the module. He only cared about one thing—he had to clean up this mess himself.

"Alright, enough dawdling. Just pick any cave entrance. Yang Kai, you go through the left one, I'll go through the right. If you encounter danger, don't try to fight it head-on, just crush this talisman—I'll be there in the blink of an eye."

Yang Kai's face fell. He thought to himself, "Good heavens, are they using me as a stepping stone? It's practically suicide." But he swallowed his words. After all, Lin Daochen always kept his word. If he really got hurt, his master would be the first to kill him.

"Tsk...sigh, what a miserable life it is to have such a heartless master! Letting me go and test the waters is a good solution—after all, I can be reincarnated after death, and I'll be reborn into a wealthy family next time, so I won't have to serve you anymore!"

Before he finished speaking, he dragged himself toward the cave entrance, his shoulders slumped as if a tendon had snapped. Lin Daochen shook his head, watching his retreating figure: This kid, he's up to his antics again.

In truth, he knew perfectly well that Yang Kai wasn't really afraid; he was just making a scene to get his own satisfaction.

The two entered a cave, one on the left and one on the right.

As soon as Lin Daochen stepped over the stone steps at the cave entrance, the light and shadow in front of him suddenly tore apart, and when he looked again, the world behind him was completely different.

"Interesting... They actually buried a spatial teleportation array. The moment my toes left the ground, the laws of the surroundings were rewritten—I was still in the same place, but the world had changed."

He looked around. The trees were crooked and gnarled, with murky eyes embedded in their trunks and sunken noses protruding from their branches—they looked like a group of living corpses covered in tree bark. An eerie atmosphere hung in the air, cold, heavy, and carrying the stench of decaying earth and rust—completely unrelated to the earth.

Lin Daochen's heart sank: the Heavenly Water Immortal was willing to invest so much; he was definitely not aiming for a small-scale operation. He must be extremely insane to dare to cause such a cataclysmic event here.

He lifted his foot and stepped forward, the dry leaves crunching under his feet. The forest seemed silent, but in reality, it was full of eyes—every tree was slowly twisting its body, its eyes all locked on him, even the wrinkles in the bark undulated slightly with his steps, as if the entire forest was holding its breath, counting the intervals between his heartbeats.

Worse still, a faint but palpable killing intent swarmed in like a spiderweb, clinging to his clothes and pressing against the back of his neck, clearly waiting for him to relax even slightly before pouncing and biting through his throat.

Lin Daochen's brows furrowed, and his anger flared up. Being schemed against was one thing, but being made a fool of was quite another.

He leaped into the air with a light touch of his toes, arms slightly outstretched, a low whistle escaping his throat. In an instant, golden flames erupted from his body, like molten gold being poured out, exploding with a resounding boom—

boom!

The raging torrent swept through, and wherever it passed, the strange trees crumbled, with wood chips mixed with black blood flying everywhere, turning into dust in an instant.

Lin Daochen landed, dusted off the dust from his sleeves, and finally looked a little relieved.

"It's quiet now. These things with eyes actually have some intelligence; that one was baring its teeth at me just now... but now? Not even ashes left."

He looked up and gazed ahead—a black stone castle pierced the mist, its jagged peaks like fangs, its deep windows like empty pupils. A vampire's lair? Perhaps not. But the answer was most likely hidden behind that rusted iron gate.

Just as he was taking steps toward the castle, Yang Kai on the other side found himself in a completely different predicament—he had fallen into a frozen wasteland, but strangely enough, the snow beneath his feet was as hot as a branding iron.

Yes, it was scalding hot. Frost billowed in white mist, and the soles of your feet felt like they were stepping on a red-hot iron plate, sizzling loudly. On Lin Daochen's side, everything was calm and peaceful. If he were to stumble upon this hellish place, he could simply raise his hand to conjure a shield of frost and leave no trace in the snow.

...But Yang Kai doesn't have that ability.

The biting heat seeped into his feet through the soles of his shoes, forcing him to keep moving and hopping and leaping as he fled for his life. The reason he was running so desperately was because a dense swarm of dark shadows was tearing through the snow and chasing relentlessly behind him.

"Good heavens! What is this thing? Isn't it hot? My shoes are practically smoking!"

Yang Kai gritted his teeth and sprinted away. But the faster he ran, the hotter the snow became—and even more chillingly, the snow was melting away, revealing a dark and deep void beneath. There was no water, no rock, only a bottomless abyss, as if the heavens and earth had been forcibly cleaved open.

Once you slip and fall, you'll be plunged into the void, shattered to pieces.

Yang Kai choked, almost laughing out loud—what else could he do? Curse the heavens? Beg for mercy? At this moment, even breathing was difficult, so he could only grit his teeth and tough it out.

As he ran, he kept looking back. He saw that the dark figures had closed to within ten steps, their claws almost scraping the back of his neck. Just then, a familiar figure suddenly appeared in the snow ahead: Lin Daochen.

Yang Kai was startled and overjoyed. He immediately shouted at the top of his lungs and waved his hands frantically:

"Master! I'm here! Help me! These bastards are going to skin me alive! If you had been even a fraction later, I would have been lying there helplessly at their mercy!"

As if hearing the cries for help, Lin Daochen strode over expressionlessly, his long sword suddenly drawn from its sheath with a clang.

Yang Kai's heart sank – so what if they come? Why draw their sword?

Could it be... that he's going to attack himself?

But he was his mentor, how could he turn against him?

His brows furrowed, and though he didn't stop walking, he subtly tensed his calves, his fingertips already gripping the talisman, ready to block or retreat at any moment.

—This person is fake. He's not Lin Daochen at all.

Sure enough, just as he took three steps closer, "Lin Daochen" suddenly swung his blade, the cold light flashing as it struck him, nearly slicing off half his head! If he hadn't leaned back and shaken his head, he would already be decapitated.

Yang Kai's expression turned cold. As he uttered the incantation, a surge of purple light erupted around him, and a thick barrier burst open, barely blocking the three subsequent slashes. He drew his sword in a backhand motion, the blade slicing through the air, a sharp arc of light cleaving straight at his opponent's chest.

Swords clashed, sparks flying. As the battle raged on, Yang Kai's lips curled into a cold smile:

"If Zhen Lin Daochen were here, he could pin me to the snow with a single move—you imposter, you've got some nerve."

His gaze was sharp as a blade—if Lin Daochen knew that someone dared to impersonate him and deceive him, he would probably snap the imposter's neck on the spot and tear him apart alive.

The fake Lin Daochen ignored everything and suddenly spun around, slashing horizontally. His blade energy fiercely cleaved through the air, creating visible ripples, like water tearing through silk.