Chapter 863: A Quake

In the camps of the sects above the Kushao ruins, a group of disciples were heading to a tent.

"Elder, may we come in?" One of the disciples spoke.

"Enter," A voice was heard.

The three disciples lifted the flap of the tent and entered it. In there, they could see a relatively simple interior, with a bed, a table, a chair and a mediation pillow. An elder was currently sitting at the table and reading through a jade slip.

His eyes were closed, but his spirit sense was alert.

"What is it?" The elder asked, while keeping his eyes closed.

"Our progress has been steady and we are expecting to be able to enter the ruins by tonight." The leading disciple spoke.

Hearing this, the elder opened his eyes and gazed at the disciples.

"And the normal opening of the ruins?" the elder asked next.

"We think it might open tomorrow." A second disciple replied.

"Hmm… so we get a day's lead… good! That will be enough for us to gain an advantage." The elder said with a smile.

"Shall we inform the others to get ready?" The leading disciple asked.

"Hmm, get our sect disciples ready first. We will inform the allies an hour before we go." The elder said in a sly tone.

The disciples understood his meaning and cupped their hands in greeting before turning around to leave.

~RUMBLE~

But just as they were stepping out of the tent, the ground started to shake. The sand around the ruins rippled, and it looked like a calamity was about to happen.

"EARTHQUAKE!" 

"GATHER UP! GATHER UP!"

People became startled by the sudden phenomenon and tried to save themselves. Thankfully, this was a desert and there weren't really things that could fall on them and hurt them.

Plus, the sand below them could act as a cushion too. But that was if there was no danger underneath them.

~SHUA~

~SWOOSH~

"AHH! SAVE ME!" A couple of disciples shouted as they started to sink into the sand.

They were merely in the Qi refining realm and thus could not fly up directly. Plus the area that was sinking was rather vast and did not allow them to escape in time. 

"All disciples are to fly up! Don't stay on land!" The elders swiftly gave out their orders. "Those that can fly are to rescue the ones stuck!" 

~shing~ shing~

Various spirit tools appeared in the air as people were rescued from the sinking sand. 

The elder sitting in the tent furrowed his brows and waved his hand.

~HONG~

A wave of energy spread from his hand and the tent was ripped open with ease. The wave of energy spread in an area of two hundred meters around him and covered the people that were present there.

He then stretched his right hand forward and brought the index and middle fingers together before curling them upwards.

"RISE!" He ordered.

The moment he said that, pillars of sand rose up below each person that was covered with his energy and was raised to the sky. The elder then stepped onto the air and rose up to take a look around.

Several more such elders appeared in the sky as well and were looking for the cause behind this occurrence. Thankfully, under their supervision, no one had died yet.

"Elder Xieyan!" A middle aged man approached the elder.

"Elder Ren," Elder Xieyan acknowledged him.

"There seem to be some strange things happening at the ruins. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?" Elder Ren questioned.

"Oh? What are you implying, Elder Ren?" The old man asked.

"I'm not implying anything. I just know that the Sky Precepts sect has the highest chance of unraveling the formation array of the ruins. Thus if anything happened, you are likely to know more." Elder Ren stated.

"Hmm… has the Rainbow pill sect started to dabble in Divination arts too? You have started to predict things now…" Elder Xieyan replied in a straight tone.

His expression was calm as well, but the aura coming from him was a bit turbulent. Elder Ren secretly clenched his fist, but held his ground.

"Regardless, I think this will be a bit of a problem. If the sand has started sinking, it means there are hollow areas underground. Or the quake has shifted things. We don't know how the ruins will be affected." Elder Ren said, trying to change the topic.

Elder Xieyan stayed silent and simply nodded his head.

"Just be ready to act… we might not have enough time this cycle." Elder Xieyan said after a few seconds.

"Of course." Elder Ren replied.

While the people on the surface were somewhat panicking, the same was happening on the fourth floor of the ruins.

"What do we do, Elder Weimin!?" one of the disciples called out anxiously.

Unlike the surface, the floor here was shaking even more intently. They could see runes flickering on the walls and roof, seemingly getting unstable by the second.

"Where is Lin Mu?" Jing Luo asked Little Shrubby.

He knew that something had happened and it was not a good situation for them.

~GRRR~

Little Shrubby gestured towards the floor.

"What?" Jing Luo did not fully understand it.

Little Shrubby furrows his eyes and then thought of an idea.

~SHUA~

In the next second, a stream of fire shot out of his mouth. He aimed it like a circle around him and created a ten meter wide area. Elder Weimin and the rest saw it and were confused, but Jing Luo got the clue.

He looked toward the disciples and shouted, "Everyone, get away from the circle!" 

The disciples that were there didn't question it and quickly moved away. Just two seconds after they did that, an explosion happened.

~KABOOM~

It was as if a ribbon of fire had just erupted from the floor. It was blazing hot and melted the floor and the roof above like it was wax. Red hot molten stone dripped down as the formations reinforcing them broke apart.

The disciples were left with their jaws hanging, and Elder Weimin made a gesture with his fingers.

~Woo~woo~woo~

The disciples that were about to get pelted with debris were quickly yanked away and protected from getting injured.

~BOOM~BOOM~BOOM~

The flaming ribbon pierced through the roof and reached the third floor, before continuing onwards to the second one. It continued doing that until it pieced all the way out of the ruins.

~WEENG~

A figure floated up from the hole that had just been created and pulled everyone's attention.

"Come on! We have to leave right this instance! This place won't last long!" Lin Mu shouted.

The disciples were quick in response and took out their respective spirit weapons and got onto them. Elder Weimin stayed at the back while Jing Luo joined up with Lin Mu at the front.

The group then ascended and left the ruins through the hole that Lin Mu had just made. He didn't even stop for a second there and quickly headed towards the boundary of the ruins. 

Blink!

Lin Mu had a stern expression on his face as he used blink consecutively and reached the barrier before the others.

~CRACK~

He clenched his fist and punched out, shattering the barrier and opening a hole for them to pass through. It was much easier for him than before, as the formations had gotten weaker now.

'Severing the power was enough to weaken the formation arrays by at least 50%.' Lin Mu estimated.

With this done, he turned around to look at the rest that were still on their way here.

"Don't stop! Continue on and keep on heading straight! We have to get away as far as possible. Don't stop even if the other sects or cultivators try to speak." Lin Mu ordered.

"YES SENIOR!" The disciples replied promptly.

Jing Luo gave a nod to them and guided them out of the barrier. His spirit sense spread around and was keeping track of everything that approached them. A few seconds later, all the disciples were out and so was Elder Weimin.

Lin Mu started flying forward again and Elder Weimin came to fly beside him.

"What's exactly happening?" He questioned.

"Beasts! Hundreds of thousands of beasts. Perhaps even in the millions! I may have a made a mistake with a formation array." Lin Mu replied.

He knew that while he had severed the power source to the teleportation array, it had also caused the seal on the strange beasts to get a bit weaker. Lin Mu only found that out after he did that, thus he had no chance but to rush out.

Lin Mu had hoped something like this would not happen and that his mistake would now be causing a lot of problems for everyone.

"What about the teleportation formation? Is it gone?" Elder Weimin questioned.

"Yeah, that is destroyed. But there were a lot of beasts sealed underneath the ruins, they have now been released." Lin Mu answered.

Elder Weimin furrowed his brows and let his spirit sense reach the ruins again. They were still close enough that his spirit sense tendril could reach the very bottom of the ruins. 

With the hope that Lin Mu had made and the weakened formation array,s there was nothing that could fully restrain his spirit sense anymore. 

The moment his spirit sense reached the bottom of the ruins where Lin Mu was before, his eyes went wide. He quickly reeled in his spirit sense as a horrified expression appeared on his face.

"This… how do we stop this?"