The battle between Zhao Fusheng and the Peacock Buddha Mother was like heavenly thunder igniting earthly fire, escalating to the absolute peak in an instant.
A great axe had appeared in Zhao Fusheng's hand, while his dharma idol was unexpectedly a painted scroll, its contents a blur that defied identification.
Fist in his left hand, axe in his right, his attacks came with flashing wind and thunder, ever shifting as he repeatedly probed the Peacock Buddha Mother for weaknesses. Yet whether molten rock, flowing fire, drifting sand, or thunderbolts, all were mere auxiliary support—his formidable physical body and intrinsic dharmic power were the true core.
The Peacock Monk, on the other hand, shifted in bizarre, eerie ways, dodging at the precise moment an attack would have landed. Whenever dodging proved truly impossible, he would leave behind the phantom of a golden-bodied Bodhisattva where he had stood. This golden body was half-real and half-illusory, requiring a full-power strike from Zhao Fusheng to shatter.
From time to time, the Peacock Monk would flick out a finger, its tip conjuring a five-colored halo. Zhao Fusheng held this in deep wary regard; every time the monk thrust a finger his way, he invariably dodged, unwilling to take it head-on.
Every gesture and movement from both combatants carried immense might, and from time to time, a patch of the surrounding rock and ground would suddenly vanish. Such was the overflow of power from their attacks, annihilating the mountain rock upon contact.
On the whole, however, the force of both sides' attacks remained extraordinarily concentrated, rarely straying more than a foot from each other's bodies, not wasting a single scrap of dharmic power.
The dozen-odd cultivators converted by the Peacock Monk received orders at this moment and began walking toward the captured flying marten. Zhao Fusheng was furious, but he could not spare a hand, forced to keep his eyes on the monk and attack with all his might.
The cultivator atop the rocky hill, who had previously been shivering in fear, suddenly stepped backward and leapt into a long-prepared fortification. He then set up a multi-barrel flying sword cannon. As the barrels spun rapidly, countless flying swords sprayed down upon the cultivators below in a torrential barrage!
Though an individual flying sword lacked great power, they were overwhelmingly numerous and dense. Moreover, guided by divine sense, no matter how fast the cultivators dodged, they could not outrun the miniature swords. In the blink of an eye, blossoms of blood burst across the crowd as they were battered black and blue. Though each was merely a minor flesh wound, accumulated hits would inevitably turn into severe injuries.
When had these cultivators ever seen such a weapon? Flustered and at a loss for what to do, they raised defensive magical treasures one after another to shield their bodies, only then pressing slowly up the hill against the rain of swords.
Seeing this from afar, Zhao Fusheng's eyes lit up. He burst into hearty laughter, his offensive turning into a raging tempest, determined not to let the Peacock Monk go to their rescue under any circumstances.
The monk remained outwardly calm, though a hint of malevolence flickered in his eyes. He suddenly let out a shout—a strange, ancient cry like a great bird screeching across the sky. Above his head manifested a gigantic peacock whose amber eyes locked onto Zhao Fusheng before spewing forth a torrent of five-colored radiant mist!
"I've been waiting for you to do that!" Zhao Fusheng laughed long and loud. From the painted scroll rushed a bizarre beast with a human head, a snake's body, six arms, and four legs, each hand gripping a different magical implement.
Initially, it used four arms to block the five-colored mist, but in the blink of an eye, the implements in its hands began showing signs of melting. It was forced to deploy all six arms to hold back the peacock's blast.
On the rocky hill's battlefield, another cultivator appeared on the opposite side, likewise wielding a rotary flying sword autocannon. In an instant, an overwhelming barrage of flying swords rained down!
The two streams of swords formed a crossfire, leaving the cultivators with virtually nowhere to hide, forcing them to charge head-on against the barrage.
Just then, a deep, somber roar erupted. The cultivator charging in the very lead suddenly froze as a severed thigh flew from his body!
Despite suffering such a grievous injury, the smile on his face never wavered as he continued pressing forward into the sword torrent. But with his protective art shattered, his dharma body was shredded by the swordstream in the blink of an eye.
Another roar rang out, and a rogue cultivator in the middle of the group suddenly developed a gaping hole in his midsection, nearly blasted in half. The intersecting torrents of flying swords instantly converged upon him, tearing his dharma body to pieces!
Under the three-way crossfire, the entire battlefield had virtually no blind spots. Wei Yuan's shots possessed devastating power, breaking defenses with a single hit, followed immediately by the torrent of flying swords moving in for the kill. In a flash, six or seven cultivators had perished on the spot, while the rest were suppressed so heavily they could not mount any charge at all, left only to crawl upward through this kill zone under the sword rain.
Although the miniature flying swords were only equivalent to a strike from a Mortal Tier Dao Foundation—hardly painful or irritating under normal circumstances—while an ordinary dharma idol cultivator could shrug off dozens of hits, taking one or two hundred was a different story. Combined with Wei Yuan picking them off one by one, the group of dharma idol cultivators suffered disastrous casualties.
Before the Peacock Buddha Mother and Zhao Fusheng, locked in their distant battle, realized it, a third of the cultivators had fallen, including two from Qiongshan Immortal Island. Both were astonished. In less than half the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the ambushers had already unleashed two to three thousand flying swords. What kind of magical treasure could be so formidable?
The Peacock Monk suddenly chanted a Buddhist invocation in a soft voice, and the giant peacock manifested above him once more. This time, instead of spewing five-colored mist, it spread its tail!
A resplendent fan of feathers several tens of zhang across appeared, and swathes of five-colored radiance instantly manifested throughout the subterranean space. Everyone's body felt rusted stiff, their movements slowing to an excruciating crawl—and Zhao Fusheng was no exception.
Zhao Fusheng did not panic. The painted scroll above his head spun faster and faster, letting out continuous bursts of desolate roars from within, as if some primeval behemoth were about to charge out. With every surge, large swathes of the five-colored radiance vanished.
Zhao Fusheng possessed seasoned discernment and knew that a grand divine ability like this took an enormous toll on dharmic power and could not be maintained for long. The harder he struggled, the sooner he would break free of the restraint.
The Peacock Monk recited a Buddhist phrase and moved to seize the flying marten. To his surprise, a roar suddenly erupted from the flank, and a tremendously powerful bullet came hurtling toward him!
The monk shifted a step sideways, dodging the shot. But an odd sensation immediately struck him. Tracing the bullet's trajectory with his gaze, he saw the projectile slam squarely into the back of Zhao Fusheng's head!
With a bang, the warhead crumpled into a twisted wreck and fell to the ground. As for Zhao Fusheng, a handful of his hair was torn away, and his skin was slightly grazed.
Yet the impact was immense, leaving his head swimming, dizzy, and his vision dark. Zhao Fusheng gave his head a vigorous shake, fury surging wildly within him. Unfortunately, still bound by the peacock's divine ability, turning his body felt like it took an entire year.
Pensive, the monk's figure flickered, appearing at the foot of the hill. But two torrents of flying swords swept in from either flank, forcing him to flash back to his original position. His expression finally shifted slightly. These three ambushing cultivators were actually unaffected by his innate divine ability!
What the monk did not know was that Wei Yuan and the two dragon guards were indeed finding it difficult to move. But aiming and firing hardly required much movement; shifting the muzzle by a mere hair's breadth changed the point of impact by dozens of zhang. Besides, the flying swords could be guided with divine sense, so strict physical aiming was not even necessary.
As the monk frowned, another roar reached his ears.
The sound of this magical treasure was distinctly different from the flying sword autocannons. It fired only a single shot each time, yet every blast shook heaven and earth like a thunderclap, and the incoming bullet carried immense power equivalent to an all-out strike from a dharma idol cultivator, incomparably superior to the tiny flying swords.
This shot struck Zhao Fusheng once again. Because he had been struggling to turn his head, the bullet hit right where his temple met his eye socket. Instantly, his head was knocked back the other way, followed by a swelling bulging high where it struck!
Zhao Fusheng was beside himself with rage. He turned his head once more, only to see a flash of fire in the distance. He ducked instinctively, but another bullet slammed into his left brow bone, obliterating half his eyebrow and causing his entire eye to swell shut.
Three shots in a row, every one landing square on Zhao Fusheng. Even the Peacock Monk was dumbfounded, thinking to himself: *Could this person share a feud over a stolen wife with Zhao Fusheng? Otherwise, how could one explain such vicious, ruthless strikes—aimed deliberately at the face, no less?*
Wei Yuan was equally shocked. Two direct hits to the face, and it hadn't even broken the skin? The sheer toughness of this dharma body could practically rival his own!
He urgently assigned the task of figuring out how to increase lethality, but this time, the Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains was packed with nothing but armchair tacticians; they offered hundreds of strategies, yet not a single one was of any use.
By the time the third shot struck, Zhao Fusheng was utterly incensed. Squinting through the narrow slit of his swollen left eye, he unleashed an earth-shattering roar. From the painted scroll, a colossal dragon head suddenly thrust forth, opening its jaws to spew a wave of pure white flame.
The peacock dharma idol, its tail still unfurled, let out a mournful wail as white flame ignited across its tail feathers, scorching many of them to cinders in an instant!
The monk's face turned deathly pale, and he violently spat out a mouthful of blood. When the blood hit the ground, pure white flames ignited upon it as well, burning it to nothingness in a flash.
The monk's expression finally transformed. Recalling his dharma idol, he turned and left without hesitation, and all the cultivators he had converted departed alongside him.
Zhao Fusheng was in poor shape as well, his aura plummeting drastically. Yet the moment he regained his freedom, he did not pursue the monk—instead, he charged straight for the ambusher.
Chapter 398