A Hair's Breadth

An elder of the Azure Ocean Sect stepped forward and voiced his thoughts in an almost sarcastic manner, "Oh? And why should we do that?"

The old woman from the Moonlight Sect merely smiled, clearly having prepared excuses beforehand.

"We've been exploiting the sealed space many times now, and the resources and qi have naturally thinned. I say we close the realm for double the time this time in order to let it recover"

The various sect representatives glanced at each other and spoke through voice transmissions. While what the Moonlight Sect elder said was reasonable and could potentially bring greater benefits, no one voiced their support for this endeavor.

"Ahem"

The old woman cleared her throat lightly and gathered everyone's attention.

"I know that this is quite sudden and might cause some losses. How about this, we can keep the formation open for 3 days. 3 days is more than enough time for everyone in the sealed space to get out"

Indeed, this swayed a few of the elders while the ones who thought otherwise couldn't think of a reason to refuse.

"Alright"

Everyone turned to look at Elder Jian who spoke up just now.

He stepped forward, "We'll open the formation now and send an aura fluctuation throughout the sealed space. Then we'll keep the formation open for 3 days"

After a few moments, everyone nodded and flew up into the air. 7 people took out 7 keys and each shot a ray of light at the dome sealing the trial grounds.

Gong!

A wave of qi spread both out of the dome and inside it too. The solid looking dome turned ethereal and various places inside it lit up.

The disciples inside the trial grounds immediately felt the spatial fluctuations of the many teleportation formations around the outer region, signifying the ending of the trial.

"Caw!"

A beastly aura exploded out as soon as the sealed space was opened, sending shockwaves everywhere. The various elders looked in shock as a seemingly endless tide of purple feathers came rushing out in all directions.

Thankfully, the elders of the 7 sects experienced countless trials and tribulations to get to where they are today, and had rich combat experience.

"Battle Formations!"

The seniors stationed to guard the trial grounds quickly flew into different positions. 7 battle formations in various shapes formed and met the tide of Purple Corpse Vultures as well as shielding any disciples coming out.

At this moment, the rest of the sects knew that the Moonlight Sect had known about this surge of Purple Corpse Vultures and purposefully proposed to end the trial early.

A group of Moonlight Sect disciples rushed out of the trial grounds. Their sect quickly identified them and quickly rushed to the rescue.

The old woman looked at a veiled woman who came out and checked her condition. Besides a few scratches, she was fine and only then did she sigh in relief and let her go.

The other sects also did the same for their disciples, though their numbers are far less than the group from the Moonlight Sect.

Meanwhile, Bai Hu was still underground despite feeling the fluctuations of the opening restrictions.

He smiled wryly, sensing countless auras belonging to Purple Corpse Vultures rushing out like a tide above him.

If he were to go out now, the only outcome would be a bloody mess featuring his brutally mangled body which does not sound appealing in the slightest.

Bai Hu took out a dozen Earth Burrowing Talismans from a spatial pouch by his side. As long as he could get closer to the teleportation formation, he could jump out and enter it immediately.

He stuck one to himself and began moving in the direction of the nearest formation.

One hour later…

Bai Hu wiped the sweat off his forehead as the yellow glow faded from his body. He'd used his last Earth Burrowing Talisman and was not only 10 meters away from the formation. 10 meters may not seem like much, but when every inch of the surface was covered in Purple Corpse Vultures, this distance was still quite dangerous.

He could have gotten closer had the ground become harder the closer he was to the formation but now he could only take this risk.

After recovering most of his qi, Bai Hu took out all the magic treasures he'd refined and burst out of the ground.

Boom!

Rocks flew in all directions and Bai Hu frantically made hand seals while moving towards the formation.

The gourd flew up and a river of fire roughly 3 meters wide was spat out while Bai Hu held the mirror to form illusions. Illusions worked best on unintelligent beasts and Bai Hu easily cleared a path to the formation.

Suddenly, an oppressive aura filled the entirety of the trial grounds. Bai Hu didn't need to turn around to know what it was and hurriedly willed every single defensive treasure behind him.

A red silk and a scale shield enveloped his back just in time for a destructive force to collide into him.

Bang!

"Cough!"

He was sent flying while coughing up blood, though thankfully, was in the direction of the formation.

Whoosh!

"There's another one! Quick!"

Bai Hu barely felt himself being picked up by an unknown force. Through his half closed eyelids, he saw several of his seniors fighting off a large flock of vultures before blacking out.

…

"Gasp!"

Bai Hu woke up and started breathing heavily. A healer came over as soon as she saw that he woke up.

"Here, take this"

Bai Hu uttered his thanks as she gave him a healing pill. Quickly checking his condition, he found that nothing was missing on him, though the black scale shield had many cracks and the Fire Silk Scarf was torn in several places. It would take a few months of effort to nurture them back into shape.

Looking around, he found that the battle was still going on. The seniors were still in battle formations and the elders were high up in the air and killing huge swaths of vultures. It seems that he has only been out for an hour at most.

"Caw!"

A huge Purple Corpse Vulture rose into the sky bearing killing intent. It was the Purple Corpse Vulture King that Bai Hu had seen before and likely the one who had attacked him.

It eyed the many elders with great vigilance and seemed reluctant to leave the sealed space. It seemed to know the difference between it and the elders who were mostly at the Gold Core stage and above.

"Humph!"

Elder Hai unleashed his aura, directly killing hundreds of beasts in an instant. The other Nascent Soul elders followed up with their own auras, killing thousands of beasts and alleviating the pressure of their disciples.

The vulture king staggered with the increased pressure. Even if the elders couldn't go into the space to kill the beast, they can still suffocate it with their aura.

The combined aura of several Nascent Soul elders was truly terrifying, and the Purple Corpse Vulture King plummeted to the ground.

"Screech!"

Seeing as it could not escape, the vulture called for its remaining underlings and rushed for a teleportation formation. The smaller Purple Corpse Vultures shielded their king from the pressure as it neared the formation.

The Moonlight Sect representative's eyes constricted, "Shield the disciples! The beast is self-detonating!"

Each elder waved their hands and cast a barrier over their disciples. The Purple Corpse Vulture King exited the sealed space and immediately expanded like a balloon.

BOOM!

Sharp purple feathers flew in all directions but were stopped by the barriers erected just in time. A purple crystal fell to the ground and a tiny wisp tried to get away.

Whoosh!

A giant gold hand reached out and grabbed at the wisp, crushing it completely.

With the perpetrator gone, any remaining Purple Corpse Vultures were easily killed and the injured were tended to.

The one who lashed out with the giant gold hand was Elder Jian, and he unceremoniously picked up the purple crystal off the ground.

"I'm sure no one has any objections," he said.

Naturally, no one would create tension over the core of a mere Purple Corpse Vulture King, and so they let him take it.

3 days later, the representatives split up into 7 groups, all standing in a circle.

"We'll go through each disciple and see which sect has the most gains this time around"

The first sect that went up, the Crimson Valley, only had 3 dozen survivors out of the original 300. This made the elders quite depressed and told the disciples to hurriedly take out their gains so as to not humiliate themselves.

Their gains could be considered half descent, and the other sects quickly followed up with their gains.

When it was the Moonlight Sect's turn, it was evident that they had the most people.

Their disciples stepped forward and turned over their spatial pouches, revealing dozens of sets of medical ingredients and rare treasures.

"Woah!"

"Those are Energy Spirit Fruits!"

The various disciples immediately broke out into a clamor after seeing the Moonlight Sect disciple's gains in the sealed space.

"Silence!"

Everyone shut up after an elder unleashed a small portion of his aura.

Now, everyone turned to look at the Spirit Sect who had not yet revealed their gains.