He possessed innate Herculean strength as well, shattering the massive bed midair into splintered fragments.
Yet no sooner had the bed cleared his view than another figure, expanding rapidly before his eyes, closed in on him.
Nian Songyu barely managed to raise his shield to block before a deafening crash blasted him thirty feet away.
Scrambling to his feet, he finally saw that his ambusher was a black demonic ape. Even hunched over, it stood seven feet tall, its body packed with exaggerated muscles that looked ready to burst.
Red light gleamed in its small eyes. It had no fur; its body seemed encased in a shell of black rock, with fissures of varying width through which flowed a dark red liquid resembling magma.
Not yet satisfied, the demonic ape lunged toward Nian Songyu on all fours. Closing the distance, it swung both arms overhead and brought them smashing down.
Nian Songyu crouched and planted his greatshield firmly in front of him.
The ape's fists followed immediately, crashing right against the shield.
With a loud clang, the shield collapsed—and nobody was behind it.
Having suffered once already, Nian Songyu was not about to be caught again. He had already sidestepped behind it and swung his blade with a backhand slash, taking off its head!
The strike was swift and clean, a killing art honed on the battlefield that wasted not an ounce of unnecessary effort—even Nian Songyu was pleased with it.
Whatever the monster, man-made or natural-born, its vital spot almost always lay in the head.
The headless demonic ape stumbled two paces, but did not fall. Instead, it bent down, scooped up its head, and set it right back onto its neck.
Magma coursed up and down its neck, and in mere two or three breaths' time, the head was reattached, red light flaring to life in its eye sockets once more.
This creature couldn't be killed?
Then Nian Songyu heard Sun Fuping call out to him: "Careful! Fall back!"
One demonic ape after another shoved through the rubble and charged forward.
Nian Songyu decapitated two more. This time a faint azure glow edged his blade—he had clearly drawn upon his State Token. As a commanding general, his dynastic fortune was sufficient to directly suppress evil spirits and demons, and even dispel many supernatural arts.
Once beheaded or cleaved in half at the waist, the demonic apes suffered noticeably longer delays and moved more sluggishly, yet they still eventually retrieved their heads and returned to fight him for another three hundred rounds.
With his usually invincible State Token actually being suppressed, Nian Songyu finally sensed that things were going awry. "National Preceptor, we cannot keep fighting like this!"
He was wounded as well. A deep gash on his left arm exposed bone, the peeled-back flesh charred black. The apes' claws were exceptionally sharp and scorching hot as branding irons.
Back when the first demonic ape was pummeling him, Sun Fuping had already scattered a few beans onto the ground. By the time the other apes moved to cause trouble, those beans had grown into ten-foot-tall golden-armored soldiers. In sheer strength, these hulking figures were a match for the demonic apes, and shielding him in their midst bought Sun Fuping considerable time.
Yet just as Nian Songyu said, the demonic apes could regenerate endlessly to grind intruders to death; dragging this out was no viable solution.
To make matters worse, the chief adversary was perched atop the city gate, leisurely watching the show.
A droplet of water condensed in Sun Fuping's hand. As he finished chanting a lengthy incantation, the bead swelled from small to large, finally settling into the size of a duck egg.
He hurled the water sphere at the feet of one demonic ape before speaking calmly: "The rules of this world differ from reality. Your dynastic fortune and my divine arts are both suppressed here!"
In the real world, the water sphere he conjured would have been at least twice the size of an ostrich egg, but here it had drastically shrunk.
Chanting the incantation had consumed twice as much true energy, and that was only possible because this space had caught the rainwater from the well-pool of the realm above; otherwise, he could not have conjured it out of thin air at all.
Fortunately, the moment the water sphere hit the ground, it burst open, unleashing over a dozen dark red water serpents that each darted straight for a demonic ape.
They were truly serpents of water, made entirely of liquid. Howling in fury, the demonic apes tried to yank them off to no avail; instead, the snakes slithered up their skulls and drilled into their seven orifices.
Nian Songyu heard a continuous sizzling hiss from inside their bodies. As copious plumes of white steam billowed forth, the magma flowing across their stony skins dimmed and solidified.
A dozen-odd breaths later, they could no longer maintain their forms, crumbling with a clatter into a scattered heap of charcoal.
Only now did Nian Songyu find the time to produce an emerald-green medicinal pill, chew it to bits, and smear it over his wound.
A mass of pale green foam immediately bubbled from the wound, and Nian Songyu exhaled a long breath. This medicine drew out fire poison; if the venom were allowed to ride the bloodflow into his heart, disaster would follow.
Naturally, the medicine also stopped the bleeding. He tested his left arm and found his tendons intact. Once the medicinal power took full effect, it would heal in about ten shichen.
Provided they made it out of here alive.
With the National Preceptor at his side, he remained relatively reassured, though his thoughts inevitably drifted back to those two bastards who had deserted.
That little mongrel named He—which corner was he hiding in right now, gloating over the show?
Once they returned to the real world, he would crush every single bone in that bastard He's body piece by piece, slice off his fingers one by one, and force him to cook and eat them himself!
Dwelling on this, the pain from his wound lessened considerably.
Taking advantage of the fallen demonic apes, Sun Fuping turned toward the black flood dragon atop the city gate and called out, "My King is determined to claim the Dafang Pot! Buried in the desert for all these years, you have long become an unowned divine artifact. Why not leave with me to devour flesh and blood and return to your zenith?"
When all was said and done, a divine artifact was still a magic artifact, requiring regular and meticulous upkeep. After Panlong City fell, Zhong Shengguang hid the Dafang Pot in the desert. Left unmaintained for so many years, its divine nature was bound to erode bit by bit. It was just that a century or so was too brief for a divine artifact; left abandoned for thousands or tens of thousands of years, even it would eventually degrade into scrap metal.
A divine artifact had a spirit, and instinct alone would urge it to escape such a plight.
"Well said," the black flood dragon laughed, its raspy chuckles echoing in everyone's consciousness. "Once outside, what do you intend to do?"
"I will lead you to quash bandits, purge border threats, and reestablish heavenly majesty for our Great Yuan!" Sun Fuping proclaimed loudly. "Both you and the Three Corpse Worms will have ample room to display your might."
The black flood dragon tilted its head to look at him, and only after a long pause did it utter chillingly, "I do not believe you."
Sun Fuping frowned. "Why?"
"You are unworthy." The black flood dragon spoke with disdain. "You call yourself a National Preceptor and claim at every turn that you seek to save your country, yet why do I not sense even a trace of dynastic fortune entwined about you?"
Before Sun Fuping could react, He Lingchuan, standing not far off, was the first to change color.
What did that mean?
Sun Fuping was one of the three National Preceptors, responsible for channeling and distributing Great Yuan's dynastic fortune. Barring the Son of Heaven, not a single official among the hundreds held a greater share than they did. Yet the black flood dragon claimed he possessed no dynastic fortune at all?
The black flood dragon glanced at Nian Songyu, then back at Sun Fuping. "Dynastic fortune cannot hide from me. He has it; you do not."
Nian Songyu's reaction was calm, nowhere near as shocked as He Lingchuan. Sun Fuping sighed. "I keep my word; only my allegiance has shifted. You are merely an artifact spirit, whereas I can borrow the methods of the gods. Since you are bound to concede defeat in the end, wouldn't it be better if I spare you the suffering of the steps leading up to it?"
Chapter 58