Tao Chen felt his blood run cold!
His instincts screamed at him: *Something’s gone terribly wrong!*
No artisan, whether affiliated with the Association or the Profound, would ever launch a battle lightly without preparation. In any non-encounter battle, an artisan would painstakingly make every arrangement, ensuring victory was guaranteed before the fighting even began.
To that end, he had combed through every record and dossier on Ji Jue, sizing him up and preparing countermeasures with estimates even more exaggerated than those used against Ye Xian in the past.
He had cleared all mechanical creations from the wasteland, suppressed barehanded transmutation and Ye Xian’s spiritus transmutation via his domain, minimized the destructive power of phlogiston weapons through the Lord's Masterwork while stripping away external interference, and devised countless defenses against the Ye clan's Nine Forms. Disgraceful as it might sound, no matter how foully Tao Chen cursed with his mouth, in his heart he truly treated Ji Jue—who was more than a full tier below him—as an equal opponent, dedicating everything to countering him!
He had even paid a tremendous price to deploy a flawless Time-Blending Vortex along Ji Jue’s route using a blessing relic of the Eternal Gate, intending to completely freeze time within it upon activation and crush every threat with overwhelming force.
In the end, not a single damn preparation had proved useful.
Every scrap of intel was hopelessly outdated.
All of it was wrong!
Under the dual suppression of the domain and the Shadow of the Tower, he should have neutralized Non-Offensive and completely banned every transmutation aligned with Supreme Goodness. Yet this bastard’s corruption alchemy was somehow slicker than his own!
His Fluid Alchemy theory was also entirely different, sporting two additional variations—
In a single split second, classical alchemy and modern alchemy, Embers and Stagnant Rot, Supreme Goodness and corruption—different systems, different versions, different formats and theories—spun before Tao Chen's eyes like a revolving lantern. He couldn't ban them fast enough!
Even more terrifying was the sheer volume of operations occurring simultaneously!
It was as if he had suddenly plunged into the boundless primordial darkness of the cosmos—under his spiritus perception, countless brilliant flashes erupted from within his domain at the exact same instant!
Like a galaxy ablaze.
Each flash was a minuscule transmutation, utterly trivial, something that could be wiped away with a mere breath. But when ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, or even more than a hundred thousand transmutations occurred at once, everything became completely different!
Amidst the uncountable transmutations, Tao Chen felt suffocated.
In the blink of an eye, the sky filled with howling Chunjun swords. Each streak of light followed a completely distinct trajectory, as if wielded by an invisible hand, guided with total concentration.
Filaments of razor-thin, microscopic phantom light converged and separated ceaselessly in midair, drifting without form, uncanny and agile. They even pulled off feints and delayed strikes!
They easily tricked layer upon layer of spectral light barriers, engulfing Tao Chen. Defensive relics triggered one after another, producing an endless, scalp-numbing din of collisions.
In sheer terror, Tao Chen’s form abruptly burst apart and recombined in midair. An ancient mirror appeared in his hand, billowing clouds and surging frost that erupted outward!
In an instant, half of the Chunjun swords were utterly annihilated.
Yet the sight only made Ji Jue laugh.
"Backing down already?"
Admittedly, matching quantity with quantity was fine, but the crux was—you’re an Exaltation who doesn't dare match micro-operations with a Regeneration, resorting to a raw output race instead? How humiliating!
Especially when you're an Embers. In an infight between the same path, where the higher tier held an absolute advantage, you didn't dare test your control against a lower-tier opponent?!
What kind of artisan are you, then?!
To make such a mess of a total stomp—if word reached the Profound, Kanemoto would laugh himself silly!
By contrast, what Ji Jue cared about even more was...
Why had that bastard been clutching that scepter from the very beginning, unwilling to loosen his grip in the slightest even now?!
Under the insight of the Mirror of Contained Forms, every subtle flow of spiritus was laid bare. From the start until now, vast quantities of spiritus had been channeled continuously into the scepter in his hand without a moment's pause.
Yet after consuming so much spiritus, the outward effect of a dignified Masterwork had only been to dispel Supreme Goodness while conjuring endless mud wraiths to harass them...
Something was wrong!
In a brief moment of daze, he heard wailing descend from the heavens.
In the dark sky, putrid bloody rain fell like a downpour. Within the hazy curtain of rain, thick darkness surged as an uncanny, ferocious silhouette slowly expanded. It possessed six wings and nine heads, craning its necks to cry out in a voice like a weeping infant, as a mountain of countless children’s skulls rose high.
The half-decayed monstrous bird threw back its heads and shrieked.
The piercing sound rippled outward like a blade, shredding eardrums. All life and blood vitality surged forward, drawn by the wailing call.
More lethal still, it threw Ji Jue’s consciousness into an instant haze, plunging him into a stupor.
Within the spectral light, an eerie phantom gleam flashed.
Surging streams of spectral light wrapped in bizarre flames pierced forward, only to splatter outward amidst Zhanlu’s lightning.
Blocked!
How could it not be blocked?
What did it matter if Ji Jue fell into a daze? He had someone else at the wheel!
Isis wasn't susceptible to such tricks. In fact, with Ji Jue no longer babbling beside her, her operational efficiency skyrocketed. Countless seas of flowers withered once more, and within the quicksilver sword, the radiant glows of Chunjun and Zhanlu intertwined.
Vapor Alchemy turned back around to siphon power from the domain and the Lord's field, launching a counterattack against Tao Chen.
Still holding their ground.
Yet Ji Jue’s heart sank to rock bottom.
Because the monster bird hadn't appeared for him—
*"Sir, should we fall back to defend?"* Isis said impassively. *"Diverting a portion of our suppressing compute can alleviate the situation."*
"Don't bother!"
Ji Jue abandoned his teammates without a second thought: "As long as you keep that piece of trash suppressed, that’s enough. Everything else is off the table!"
Dividing their focus now would be suicide!
Skill was skill, but raw capability was capability. A full tier’s gap was an insurmountable chasm. Against an Exaltation artisan, giving everything they had was already courting death—how could they afford to look over their shoulders?!
*"Understood."*
At that moment, Isis’s control took over completely. As an unfinished Matrix Relic, she usurped her master, turning around to seize control of everything he had and boldly launching a fierce assault toward Tao Chen in the distance!
Countless pale blossoms coalesced out of thin air, weaving into a floral crown high overhead.
Discarding all outer perimeters, she established a ten-meter field around Ji Jue sufficient to resist the domain's suppression. Wherever the flowers were, Isis's hands could reach. Uncountable palms now gathered around Ji Jue, tracing an invisible boundary.
Reckless and abandoning all else.
Pressing the assault on Tao Chen!
This time, neither the Lord's Masterwork nor the domain could suppress the operation of Three-Phase Alchemy any longer. Wherever hands could reach, all fell under Beckoning!
"Ha, looks like we’ve been treated as discarded pawns."
Inside Little Niuma’s carriage, Tong Shan laughed softly, utterly unfazed.
If Ji Jue had abandoned his hard-won advantage now to turn back and help, that would truly have betrayed his trust. From the moment they fell into the trap, everyone should have prepared themselves for death.
Well done!
*Snap!*
Flying Light flared once more in An Ning’s hand, severing one of the grotesque bird's heads. The bird screeched as blood gushed like a geyser, but its ferocious malice only grew more savage.
It regenerated rapidly.
Flying Light hadn't worked?
An Ning froze for a fraction of a second.
"That is the Lord’s creation of disorder—woven from the law of aberration. It is not a living creature, much less capable of dying. As long as the Harmonious Lord remains, it can regenerate without limit,"
Tong Shan replied calmly, blood steadily seeping from his nose and mouth.
Streams of viscous blood wound through the air, gathering toward the monstrous bird. Amidst the bird's frenzied shrieks, the cries of infants drew closer, yet remained indistinct—a monstrosity born from the deaths of countless infants and children, the beast of disorder, [Gu Huo]!
Within Tong Shan’s perception, countless translucent, pale infants had already surrounded them like wild beasts, constantly crawling into the carriage to test their defenses.
Yet under the suppression of telekinesis, they ruptured, dispersed, and reformed once again.
Flying Light burst forth once more, not toward the distant avian monstrosity, but toward the ground beneath Little Niuma. Thick darkness boiled like liquid, and a spiteful screech surfaced from the churning black water. Ghastly pale faces emerged like drowned ghosts, glaring fixedly at them.
An Ning said, "There’s more than one."
Beneath the curtain of bloody rain, a withered, hunched figure emerged from the corpse of a Transmutation Wolf, its face crisscrossed with scars and stitches.
A single eye stared coldly at Tong Shan.
"What an extravagant display..."
Tong Shan sighed softly. "The Stitched-Face Tax Collector, the Water Ape, and the Gu Huo. In such a short time, three disorder objects have already been catalyzed... Worthy of a Harmonious Lord Masterwork."
Rooted in the White Nation, a land long soaked in blood and death, that scepter continued to draw endlessly upon countless deaths and resentments, catalyzing and strengthening the disorder objects it had forged. As long as the White Nation existed, the centuries of suffering accumulated across this land would provide them with a never-ending source of power.
What was more, a formidable enemy lurked in the shadows.
The ancient parchment map in his hand remained rolled up, but the bloodshot eyes inside were trembling violently, darting in all directions.
Yet wherever they looked, the space was empty; there was nothing to be seen.
Only a spine-chilling coldness clung to his side from beginning to end—
Like an invisible enemy.
Watching him!
For a moment, Tong Shan’s expression grew complicated.
He had actually been targeted as the weak link to breach. By using him, the enemy intended to tie down the others, or even force them to expose a flaw.
And so, without hesitation, Tong Shan reached out his hand!
Chapter 639