The fiery mantis struck rapidly at the mirrored tower, its forelimbs swinging from right to left and then back again from left to right. A single swing of its arm struck the tower twice with its bladed ‘hand’. With its two arms swinging rapidly, the tower was shaking from the number of hits, rocking from side to side from the accumulated force.

On the outside world, Chu Shuai had realized the danger from these glowing stones. Even with eight of himself there to defend, the lava had dripped down onto the ground and released the flames that assaulted him all at once. Now that the secret was revealed, the two Heavenly Materials combined their strength to attack Chu Shuai again and again. Molten lava from the Heart of Eruption splashed over the area after the rocks were intercepted and destroyed by the fiery chains. Then the orange fire of the Samsara Flame burst out from the lava and spread further. The multi-layered attack forced Chu Shuai to give up his ambush plans and retract the chains that had spread through the ground. The loops of chain acting as a defense were not enough to flawlessly protect against the attacks.

With the ends of the chains free of the ground, they swept through the air, intercepting the stones long before they reached Chu Shuai. Instead of them breaking overhead they were smashed apart fifty to a hundred yards away, splattering onto the rocky ground of the plateau without putting him in so much danger. Despite the much more effective defense, Sage didn’t let up. In fact, he put even more effort into his attack, throwing the molten rocks even faster than before. That’s because the more pressure he could put on Chu Shuai on the outside, the more difficult it would be for him to defend on the inside.

Once the assault had escalated, the fiery mantis paused in its attack. The wings on its back were flapping rapidly to hold it at the side of the mirrored tower. Of course, as a mental attack it didn’t really need wings to fly, but it was an automatic reaction. This place appeared like a sea, so he naturally acted as if he was flying over a sea. The mantis body flew upwards, ascending the tower and moving up towards the spire at the top. The tower of mirrors narrowed as it grew taller and the mantis used this to its advantage, moving to the very top. There, it extended the two forearm blades and wrapped them around the peak. It landed on the tower, legs balancing on opposing sides of the tower and pinning the spire between two sets of forelimbs like two pairs of pliers.

Feeling this was it, the fiery mantid’s large blades burned fiercely as they contracted, expending much of his remaining mental energy, and pulled away from each other. With both arms crushing between the blade and forearm while simultaneously pulling in opposing directions, the narrow, and weakest part of the tower finally ruptured. There was a loud creak and then a cracking sound as one of the mirrors finally shattered from the pressure. One of the mirrors breaking didn’t seem like much, given how many of them made up the tower, but it was all part of a unified whole. As soon as the first mirror cracked, the tower showed its weakness. The big mantis flew down and started smashing its arms into the mirrored sides of the tower.

The tower of mirrors showed its strangeness, as the mirrors near the peak and the cracked one remained unharmed. Yet, after the mantis flew up and down the tower striking mirrors he found one that was weak. It cracked with just a single strike. There was some hidden and twisted logic to where the weakness was spread, but the mantis wasn’t deterred. Sage smashed those large blades up against every one of the hundreds of mirrors until he found the next weak point. Each time one of them smashed apart, it made the next one even easier to find. There wasn’t much strength left in the mantis, but the tower was in even worse condition. It didn’t take long before the majority of the mirrors had shattered and suddenly the tower reached a point of no return.

There was a loud creaking and crackling noise as the tower suddenly swayed and then toppled slowly over. The remainder of the mirrors shattered apart as the huge tower fell off the side of the island in the center of Chu Shuai’s Spiritual Sea. With this obstruction destroyed, all the clones on the outside world were instantly weakened. Somehow this strange mental cultivation had combined with the man’s law power to create such an impressive cloning technique, but now that it was destroyed the power of the clones suddenly dropped.

In the center of the wreckage, Chu Shuai flew out and fiery chains clashed with the fiery mantis. The purpose of the mental cultivation was to protect the soul after all. Now that it had been destroyed, Sage’s Mind Invasion, in the form of a giant mantis, could now directly face off against Chu Shuai’s Nascent Soul. The mantis was much weaker than it had been when it first entered the Spiritual Sea, but it was still able to fight with the Nascent Soul.

It was just too bad that the damage had already been done. In the outside world, the clones were suddenly weakened and that gave the Purple Mist Sect members the advantage they needed. The strongest of them realized the change first and signaled the others. Their battles moved closer to each other and they diverted some of their attacks at the last moment to combine strength with their teammates. They took the chance to switch opponents and combine attacks to overpower the weakened clones.

Just as before, the clones started to break down and dissolve, and the energy that made them up started to move towards the others. It was too bad that Sage had already seen them do this and communicated with the Purple Mist Sect members earlier in secret. This was also why they coordinated their attacks to defeat the clones at the same time. While most of the energy was still floating through the air, they rushed over to join Sage and activated their Formation Armor to combine their strength and strike at the eight Chu Shuais battling in the center. Sage worked together with them to overwhelm the fiery chains that were frantically trying to defend. All eight of the Purple Mist Sect members released their poison miasma and Sage joined them, completely immersing them in the soul affecting poison.

The miasma assisted the battle of the fiery mantis in Chu Shuai’s Spiritual Sea, breaking down the man’s resistance even further and making up for the weakening strength of the mantis. The crack of the tower of mirrors had led to a chain reaction. The poison miasma weakened the Nascent Soul of Chu Shuai enough that Sage was able to push one of the clones to step into a puddle of lava, allowing more Samsara Flame to spread onto Chu Shuai’s body. The flames burned fiercely, passing into his body and strengthening the weakened mantis.

Fighting on two fronts, Chu Shuai was constantly weakened. He was able to recover some of the strength from his other defeated clones, but it was not enough to make up for how much damage he’d taken in the process or help him overcome the battle on the outside that was now being fought nine against eight. The man’s fiery chains finally shattered apart and he was wrapped up with silk tougher than steel. The clones were now noticeably weaker than the main body and they were picked out and easily destroyed, leaving Chu Shuai alone and facing a terrible interrogation.