Starting with a Super Five-Star Hotel-Chapter 548: Stabilize One End (Part 6)_1

The elder seemed to have control over the temporal rules of this place. With a press of his hand, all attacks came to a halt in midair.

Meanwhile, something even more terrifying happened! The skin on the elder’s body flaked off in patches, turning him into a mummified corpse. His stature suddenly grew immense, reaching three meters tall! A horrifying, heart-stopping aura spread from him!

"Everything here shall serve me!"

As the elder’s voice echoed, a powerful oppressive force filled the air.

Gongsun Miao Tong and the others shuddered as blood began to seep from their pores, soaking into the ground beneath their feet.

If Su Xuan could fly high into the sky and look down with his altered vision, he would surely see a blood-red web continuously forming! Runic symbols flashed across the web!

"He’s not human!"

"He’s a monster from underground!"

Outside the massive sinkhole, the First Elder and the others exclaimed in shock upon seeing the old sect master’s transformation. They immediately began to attack the grand formation with all their might! If they could break the formation covering the sinkhole, they might still be able to save Su Xuan and the others. But their attacks couldn’t shake the formation in the slightest, and they couldn’t help but feel their hearts burn with anxiety.

"Oh, I nearly forgot about you all," the old sect master, still inside the sinkhole, said with a smile as he looked up at those outside. "Don’t be anxious. I’ll let you in soon enough."

The old sect master sat down cross-legged, his hands constantly forming various intricate hand seals. Before long, the blood-red web from beneath the ground floated to the surface, solidifying in midair into a blood gate! Runic symbols flowed across the gate’s surface, exuding a mysterious and grim aura. The gate was still connected to the ground by threads as fine as capillaries, drawing blood from the fallen disciples as well as from Gongsun Miao Tong and her companions. At this point, Gongsun Miao Tong and the others were ashen-faced, clearly suffering from excessive blood loss.

"To think it would be this simple in the end!" the old sect master’s eyes gleamed as he stared at the gate. "To think it would be this easy to open the door!"

He suddenly raised his hand and knocked on the air.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Do you want to come out?" he asked. "To see this new world?"

As his question hung in the air, a rumbling came from within the gate, as if something was trying to break out. A sliver of an opening even appeared in the gate’s seam! But it couldn’t open any further.

"Just a little more," the old sect master muttered, a smirk curling his lips. "Just a little bit more."

It was at that very moment that a voice suddenly spoke beside his ear, "A little more of what?"

"Ngh!"

The voice nearly made the old sect master leap from the ground in fright. He was, in fact, about to jump up, but a hand pressed down on his shoulder. Su Xuan had appeared out of nowhere beside the ancestor, his hand on the old sect master’s shoulder. "Why don’t you take the gate back?" Su Xuan said. "It’ll save me the trouble of beating you up, how about it?"

"Uh..."

The old sect master’s mouth twitched.

Take the gate back? He had waited countless years just to open such a gate! How could he possibly retract it? And Su Xuan wanted to beat him? How arrogant! In this sinkhole, he was invincible!

"You truly have..." The old sect master looked up at Su Xuan’s face. "You’ve really impressed me! I should have killed you back in Hua Shui City!"

"It’s too late for that now."

The hand Su Xuan had on the old sect master’s shoulder began to vibrate with a peculiar rhythm, pulsing seven times with each vibration. Then, Su Xuan suddenly floated backward, positioning himself in front of Gongsun Miao Tong and her companions. He pushed a hand forward, sealing the space.

BOOM!

The cross-legged old sect master exploded! A rolling cloud of smoke and dust spread out from the blast, but it didn’t harm Gongsun Miao Tong or the others.

After the explosion subsided, Gongsun Miao Tong and her group found they could move again. The bleeding had stopped as well.

"Did he succeed?"

"Is he dead?"

They stared at the center of the explosion, their faces filled with anticipation. Though they had been immobilized, they had seen everything and knew that this so-called ancestor was an impostor.

As the dust settled, looks of disappointment washed over their faces. The skinless old sect master wasn’t dead; even his Daoist robe was unscathed. He was no longer sitting cross-legged but was standing in the same spot. The eerie gate, which had been cracked open a sliver, was now completely shut.

"You dare ruin my grand design!" the old sect master roared, pointing a finger at Su Xuan. "I will make you suffer a miserable death, your very soul shattered! Don’t even think you’ve foiled my plans. I will use your blood to open the Gate of Reincarnation!"

"The Gate of Reincarnation?"

Su Xuan blinked, paying no mind to the elder’s threat. But the aura around him surged, surpassing the Longevity Realm and entering the highest realm of the cultivation world: the Observing Appearance Realm!

In truth, during his seven days in the Enlightenment Pavilion, he had already broken through the Longevity Latter Stage Great Completion and entered the Observing Appearance Realm. He had simply been hiding his true cultivation all along. This was why he had been unaffected by the elder’s restrictive arts earlier. An expert of the Observing Appearance Realm could command their own space, unbound by anyone else’s power.

"No wonder!" The elder’s expression shifted to one of understanding upon seeing Su Xuan’s true cultivation, but his voice turned frigid. "If we were outside, I might have to be wary of you. But in here, you stand no chance!"

The elder took a step forward and threw a punch at Su Xuan across the distance.

"Everyone, get back!" Su Xuan yelled to Gongsun Miao Tong’s group. He, however, did not dodge. Instead, he stepped forward and threw a fierce punch of his own.

A DEAFENING BOOM! A shockwave rolled out in all directions. Gongsun Miao Tong and the others, who were already retreating, were sent flying by the powerful blast wave generated by the clash of Observing Appearance Realm experts. They tumbled into the distance, some even fainting on the spot.

WHOOSH!

Before the dust could settle, Su Xuan had already slid back a hundred meters, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. But a golden light suddenly radiated from his body, and the blood seeped back into his skin. With a flicker of movement, he clashed with the elder once again.

"What do we do? What do we do?"

Watching the intense battle at the bottom of the sinkhole, the faces of the First Elder, Second Elder, and the other elders were grim with worry. They wanted to help, but they couldn’t get in.

「Meanwhile, a streak of light rose from the direction of the Yu Xian Sect, flying straight toward the Immortal Mountain’s sinkhole. A long-haired woman stood atop a sword that seemed carved from white jade, her presence as ethereal as an immortal’s. It was Su Pei from the Yu Xian Sect!」

「Inside the sinkhole.」

Su Xuan, who had been repeatedly repelled by the elder, suddenly unleashed the System-awarded technique: Xuanmen’s Finger.

But this one finger, which carried all his hopes, merely poked a hole in the elder’s body. It failed to inflict a fatal wound.

Enraged by this, the elder opened his mouth and swallowed the surrounding black qi. His body swelled again and again, finally growing to the height of a five-story building. The elder looked down on Su Xuan as if gazing at an ant, his voice thundering, "Human! Even if you have reached the Observing Appearance Realm! In my eyes, you are still nothing but an ant!"

Su Xuan looked up at the towering elder and pursed his lips. "So, we’re competing on size, are we? You think I can’t get bigger than you?"

Su Xuan then sat cross-legged, placed the Wishful Sword across his knees, and muttered softly, "I ask the Bodhisattva why it sits with its back to us... I sigh for the mortal masses who refuse to turn around..."

A six-story-tall illusion of a Bodhisattva soared into the sky, decisively towering over the elder