Dragon Pupil Divine Art

*Drip, drop—* A wet drop landing on his palm pulled Xu Yuan's thoughts back from the ghost city below. Looking up, he could not help but freeze. At some point, the swarm of shadow insects that had been perched upon the physical canopy, barred from entering the city, had vanished. In their place fell a cold rain. The rain poured in a dense scatter, carrying a bleak, desolate chill. The reconstructed ghost city canopy had crushed the insect swarm, grinding it into an endless rain of blood that plummeted down into the city. *Hum—* With a flick of his hand, Xu Yuan conjured an umbrella-like barrier to shield himself and Li Junwu from the downpour. Squinting his eyes toward the Insect Saint's hiding place, he murmured with a chuckle, "Sacrificing your own people for the sake of your offspring is hardly the conduct of a qualified king. Then again, your whole family seems to have possessed this exact virtue from the very beginning." Standing beside him, Li Junwu stared grimly at the falling tide of blood. "Changtian, this rain seems to possess corrosive and burning properties. We can't let it touch the ground." Almost all the citizens within the city were ordinary mortals, and the shelters provided by the prominent clans largely lacked defensive array patterns. No matter how weak the corrosive nature of this insect demon blood rain might be, once it hit the ground, ninety percent of the living beings below would be wiped out. Glancing at the armor-clad woman beside him, Xu Yuan said quietly, "I see it. Mu Xingyi sacrificing the insect demon clan for his offspring's awakening is none of our business, but wanting to bury the entirety of Zhenxi Manor along with it truly crosses the line." Li Junwu's brow knitted slightly, and she said quickly, "You know where that Insect Saint is? Why didn't you... Never mind. I can still mobilize the city's ordinary arrays. I need to conjure a barrier first to protect the people." Xu Yuan pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked, "I remember you saying earlier that the array was being eroded by that illusory ghost formation?" Li Junwu bit her lip and answered hurriedly, "We can't worry about that now! The city defense formation exists to protect the people. Dead men can't be brought back, but a destroyed array can always be rebuilt—" "That would play right into that fellow's hands," Xu Yuan interrupted. "Do that, and the people will die, and the array will be destroyed as well." Mu Nuo had already constructed half of the ghost formation, but the city-protecting array operated as a single whole. As long as the array core was not reconfigured and the ghost formation lacked the key to activate it, it remained nothing more than a decoration. Only Li Junwu could manipulate the city-protecting array. As these thoughts flashed through his mind, specks of starlight began to gather in Xu Yuan's palm. The single droplet of blood rain instantly evaporated, replaced by a pure white sphere of light roughly an inch across. Glancing at the armored woman at his side, he said softly, "I had you hold back on the array not out of fear that it would be damaged, but out of fear that Mu Nuo would seize control. A city defense formation controlled by a Saint might leave some room for us to maneuver, but for the common folk in the city, it would be an inescapable dead end." Li Junwu stared blankly for a second. A look of dejection surfaced in her clear, beautiful eyes as turbulent thoughts churned within her. Clenching her fists, she dispersed the array and whispered, "...I'm sorry." "A minor matter. Leave it to me." Xu Yuan smiled faintly, shook his head, and sent the condensed orb of light drifting toward the ground. Even if Zhenxi Prefectural City's array had deteriorated considerably from its peak days as a border bastion, it still barely met the baseline for Great Yan's first-rate standard. One should not underestimate this first-tier gatekeeper array. The reason its performance in this battle had been so abysmal largely came down to Li Junwu. If the two veteran generals whom Xu Yuan had personally purged—Zhan Xian'an or Lu Baizou—had been at the helm, disregarding wear and tear, they would have had a real chance in a one-on-one confrontation to heavily wound or even kill a powerhouse on the level of the White Emperor. Unfortunately, he had purged both men before the fighting started. Experience truly was vital. For Li Junwu's first time operating a city defense formation, managing not to drag them down was already commendable. Even so, it was best if a formation of such immense power never fell into Mu Nuo's hands. Turning his eyes past Li Junwu's apologetic, crestfallen face, Xu Yuan watched the sphere of light slip past the falling curtain of rain to reach the low sky above the city. Then, he made a grabbing motion toward the empty air. *Hum—* A sudden, piercing hum instantly reverberated through the entire city. The tiny orb abruptly expanded to ten feet across, but a closer look revealed it was merely a spherical halo encasing the wildly roiling Source Qi trapped inside. Through the link with his intent soul, a vast amount of Xu Yuan's mental energy was rapidly consumed. The wave of dizziness that surged forth made him frown involuntarily. Enduring the discomfort, Xu Yuan narrowed his eyes, and his pattern-covered right hand snapped shut. With that motion, the surface of the spherical halo in the lower air began to violently vibrate and collapse inward, compressing into an ink-black sphere in the blink of an eye. Watching the technique take shape below, Li Junwu's lovely eyes widened slightly. "This is..." "A weapon designed to counter atmospheric phenomena." The moment the words left his lips, the black sphere cracked open. Boundless radiant light burst forth as gale-force astral winds poured out. At that moment, gravity near the ground seemed to vanish entirely, and the falling blood rain began to reverse, surging upward into the sky. Seeing this, Xu Yuan waved his hand to erect another barrier before the two of them and remarked, "The gadget Fourth Sister cobbled together really is handy. Not only does it have military applications, but when turned into a technique, it can even slay enemies." "Xu Xinyao... you mean the Cloud Qi Bomb from the war against the Barbarians?" Li Junwu asked instinctively, watching the phenomenon unfold below. "Isn't that an array-patterned heavy ordnance?" Now that the technique was established, the pressure on Xu Yuan eased dramatically. Manipulating the wild air pressure below with one hand, he explained casually, "The essence of the array patterns on the Cloud Qi Bomb's surface is compressing Source Qi and stabilizing it. With my current special constitution, replicating it isn't difficult at all." At this point, a smile touched the corners of Xu Yuan's lips. "Though I've found that rather than serving as heavy ordnance, turning the Cloud Qi Bomb into a technique gives it a much wider range of uses." The instant the Cloud Qi technique had formed, Xu Yuan had suddenly realized he could actually control these astral winds, which felt almost like the power of a wind god. Once he returned to the Imperial Capital from this journey, he would have to pay that little girl at least a hundred taels of silver in copyright royalties. As he thought this, the astral winds surging from the cracked black sphere swept up the torrential blood rain, spiraling upward. Within a few breaths, a roiling hundred-zhang sphere of blood took shape directly above Xu Yuan and Li Junwu. Naturally, this sight did not escape the notice of the distant White Emperor. A flash of surprise appeared in his draconic eyes, laced with a faint trace of wariness. He could distinctly sense the formidable power churning within that hundred-zhang blood sphere. For a Body Integration junior who had merely obtained the power of a Saint, this son of the human Chancellor seemed almost excessively powerful. As the dragon watched, he saw the young man look toward him. After an instant of eye contact, Xu Yuan's smiling voice drifted lightly over: "Rest easy, Dragon Emperor. This thing is meant for that old man. I plan to help my maternal uncle finish him off first; you just focus on dealing with this ghost infant." "..." The White Emperor offered neither affirmation nor denial, remaining silent. Yet through the actions of Xu Yuan and Mu Xingyi, a few pieces of intelligence regarding the ghost infant registered in his mind. For instance, the Fengdu Ghost City conjured by the ghost infant was not invincible; it required vast quantities of living beings and flesh as sacrifices to sustain and expand itself. Had Xu Changtian not stepped in to halt the descent of that blood rain, then once it wiped out the town below and dragged the city's worth of human corpses into the ghost domain, this unyielding ghost infant's strength likely would have surged even further. Currently, the upper limit of those who could be resurrected within the ghost domain was merely the Body Integration realm. But if enough flesh and living souls piled up, perhaps even Saints could be revived within it. If the hidden Insect Saint was not eliminated first, the creature would likely keep scheming of ways to provide 'nourishment' for this unyielding ghost infant... Glancing at Mu Nuo, who remained in a state of suspended stasis, the White Emperor slowly turned his aloof, slitted dragon eyes toward the ground of the prefectural city. With a broad sweep of his senses, he had already detected hundreds of the Insect Saint's auras underground. Only one was the true body, while the rest were phantoms, yet the Insect Saint possessed the ability to shift illusion into reality. The survival arts of ancient beasts truly were peerless in this world. Still, it was not entirely insurmountable. As long as the Insect Saint was struck dead in a single blow before it could react, even the swiftest transition between illusion and reality would be rendered useless. Wisps of golden light began to converge around the White Emperor's dragon eyes. The moment Xu Yuan saw this, he recognized what technique the other was about to unleash. The Dragon Pupil Divine Art. In *Cangyuan*, it had manifested by stunning the player for one second. More importantly, when players used phantom skills such as afterimages or illusory doubles, it bypassed the decoys and locked straight onto the player's true body. In other words, the White Emperor was capable of pinpointing Mu Xingyi's true form. *Should I stop him?* The thought flashed through Xu Yuan's mind. He had no doubt that with the White Emperor's methods, he could instantly obliterate useless trash like Mu Xingyi. To find him was to kill him in an instant. Without this power bank, if Mu Nuo failed to hold back the Lord of Guyuan... If the brat couldn't hold him off, then Xu Yuan would have to fight the White Emperor himself. The White Emperor wouldn't hold back like Tianyuan had. Going up against him was guaranteed death. Realizing this, Xu Yuan abruptly recognized that what he was contemplating was completely beyond his capabilities. *Stop the White Emperor?* *With what?* The Cloud Qi blood sphere was certainly potent, but at the White Emperor's speed, it would never hit. At most, it would delay him for a fraction of a moment. Mu Xingyi was going to die anyway. That good-for-nothing fool who bungled everything he touched—why couldn't he just stay obediently underground and act as a power bank instead of showing off before the White Emperor? Cursing under his breath, Xu Yuan held one hand toward the heavens and swept it violently downward. Enveloped in astral winds, the mountain-like blood sphere hurtled toward the White Emperor, churning a rushing river of blood across the sky! Yet right at that very moment, those slitted dragon pupils glowing with golden light cast a casual glance at him. "..." Xu Yuan froze. *Rumble—* A deafening roar erupted within Xu Yuan's mind. From that single instant of eye contact, intense dizziness slammed into him. A single glance from a supreme Saint had nearly wiped him out. By the time he rubbed his brow and looked up, the White Emperor's figure had already bypassed the blood river, streaking toward the ground like a beam of light. Seeing this, Xu Yuan could only endure his physical agony and forcibly redirect the blood river, sending it toward the Burning Flame Dao Domain outside the city to provide cover for his maternal uncle. Yet within that fleeting spark between flint and steel, another sudden change erupted within the city. The moment before the White Emperor plunged underground, a youth materialized directly in his path. Mu Nuo had awakened. Pitch-black eyes devoid of whites radiated an ominous dark haze. Watching the dragon-man afterimage hurtling toward him, the youth slowly raised his left hand.