Chief Duyun Emissary's thick brows knitted tightly. This sudden crisis striking the Heavenly Palace had come completely out of nowhere.
Words appeared upon the Celestial Book once more:
"The spider demon wields the might of a demi-immortal; Xiaori is no match for it. Quickly prepare the vessel for Baizhan."
Bai Ziqi spoke up immediately. "Heavenly Venerable Baizhan? That vessel might not be entirely suitable for Heavenly Venerable Baizhan..."
Chief Duyun Emissary waved his hand to cut him off. "Go prepare it at once!" At a moment like this, what did it matter if it wasn't suitable? As long as it worked, it would do!
"Understood."
Chief Duyun Emissary added, "Contact the Emperor. We need more origin power bestowed upon us!"
These formidable foes were no joke. A rock-fire colossus that had broken free, and a spider demon—both were at the demi-immortal level.
Immortals had vanished for more than two thousand years, yet now two had appeared all at once!
The Heavenly Palace was fighting a hasty battle without adequate preparation, so they had to play to their strengths.
Beijia was mighty, and its abundance of origin power was virtually unmatched in this world. If not now, when else would they use it? Yet within Lingxu City, the ones who could freely allocate origin power were not the Heavenly Palace, but the Emperor and the Four Great National Preceptors.
Tonight's sudden upheaval on Mount Xu had awakened all of Lingxu City, and the Emperor would surely dispatch troops here posthaste.
***
The moment Zhu Erniang emerged, she headed straight for the teleportation formation. With her towering height and long legs, she arrived in just two strides. The nearby guards attempted to attack her, but the body of a demon immortal was far too tough; no matter how desperately they swung their blades, they couldn't even sever a couple of bristles.
Braving their assault, Zhu Erniang scraped viciously across the teleportation formation on the ground, marring it until reinforcement troops down below could no longer make their way up.
There were now more than thirty Heavenly Palace guards upon the star ring. Unable to hold out alone, He Lingchuan simply took shelter beneath the giant spider's abdomen. If anyone wished to attack him, they had to get past Zhu Erniang's eight long legs first.
Those eight legs were like oversized spiked clubs capable of shooting steel needles as well; nobody wanted to get anywhere near them.
Yet as the saying went, enough ants could bite an elephant to death. Coming under focused fire from dozens of streams of origin power made Zhu Erniang deeply uncomfortable. Her plump, thick abdomen sank downward, depositing a white egg sac.
"Whoa!" Fortunately, He Lingchuan dodged swiftly, or he would have taken a direct hit to the head.
Ever since transmigrating into this world, he had been exceptionally wary of falling objects from above.
Seeing the egg sac bulging and squirming as though something inside were fighting to get out, he seized a fleeting gap in the combat to slash it open with Fusheng.
A burrow spider burst out from within. Without pausing to rest, it lunged straight at an enemy flanking him from behind.
Though this egg sac was only the size of a round dining table, it acted like an assembly line machine. One burrow spider after another scrambled out valiantly, each as large as an adult wild boar. The writhing swarm was an absolute nightmare for anyone with trypophobia.
By He Lingchuan's rough count, over two hundred burrow spiders poured out in succession! Each was marked with vivid patterns, possessing thick legs and razor-sharp chelicerae—clearly custom-bred, enhanced variants.
The methods of these ancient demon immortals truly defied comprehension. Yet he had once accepted Zhu Erniang's blood amber; if a single piece of amber could transform into three Bloodfang Guardians or over a dozen spider guardians, summoning an entire army of spiders from one egg sac didn't seem too absurd, did it?
With this spider army joining the fray, the thirty Heavenly Palace guards were instantly thrown at a disadvantage, besieged at a ratio as high as seven to one. Even with origin power, two hands could hardly fend off fifty-six claws.
Slaughter and agonizing shrieks erupted all around. Zhu Erniang looked down at He Lingchuan. "Well done. You actually carried out my request!"
Her request back in the swamp had been nothing more than a long shot. She had never imagined this youth could truly seize her immortal husk, and right under the Heavenly Palace's layered restrictions at that!
"Fortunately, I didn't fail you." He Lingchuan flicked the blood from Fusheng's blade. "The crisis isn't over yet. It's not time to leave."
Zhu Erniang glanced around. The Heavenly Palace guards were being wiped out by her spider army. Two guards recklessly charged at He Lingchuan, only for Zhu Erniang to flick a leg and send them hurtling down the mountain.
"What else needs doing?"
"Wait for the hare to run into the tree!" He Lingchuan scanned his surroundings. "I hope my deduction is wrong."
Fang Canran had once mentioned to him that five years ago, an elderly collector had approached Dun Garden wanting to auction a rare treasure, which also bore a naturally formed star chart.
Renowned auction houses like Dun Garden maintained frequent communication with high-ranking officials, nobles, and collectors of rare treasures, facilitating the circulation of treasures within elite circles.
Fang Canran had been waiting for the treasure to be brought in for appraisal, only for the other party to suddenly back out of the sale while remaining completely tight-lipped about the reason.
Fang Canran remembered the incident vividly, and upon hearing of it, He Lingchuan had paid close attention as well.
Where had that treasure gone? Could it be...?
"Where is the hare?" Zhu Erniang urged. "Time is precious. You don't plan on waiting here all night, do you?"
Even having reclaimed her demon immortal body, she had no confidence she could take on all of Lingxu on her own.
Moreover, there was a time limit on using this shed husk.
What she ought to do right now was flee Beijia as swiftly as possible.
Mount Xu lay to the north of Lingxu City. If she ran fast enough, she might manage to escape before Lingxu's grand army converged here. Having finally regained her immortal husk, she didn't want to exhaust all its power in one go.
The eyeball spider leaped back onto her, beginning an intimate communication with its original master.
A fierce gale suddenly whipped up around them. Caught unawares, over a dozen spiders and several guards stationed near the edge of the star ring were swept straight off the precipice.
He Lingchuan drove his saber into the star ring to anchor himself against the howling wind.
His hair was blown into a disheveled mess, but his expression grew exceedingly grave. "Not good. Something is emerging from the void."
***
The suppressing ring around its neck was already webbed with cracks. Without exerting much effort, Juju gave a light flex, and the ring shattered into fine powder!
Juju let out a long roar, heart brimming with exhilaration.
Suppressed beneath the Spirit Gathering Grand Formation for over a decade, it was finally free tonight!
Its form abruptly expanded several times over, until standing upright nearly brought it level with Tianshu Peak. The guards inside Zhaixing Tower blanched in terror, taking several involuntary steps back.
This was its true form: a monster born of Mount Xu's subterranean fires, a colossus of rock and flame wreathed in surging blazes.
Normally, it shrank its body and slumbered through the years to reduce unnecessary energy consumption.
Tonight, however, it intended to go all out and pull off something massive.
Juju and He Lingchuan had forged a covenant before the Shackles of Oaths: if He Lingchuan helped it break free, it would help him bombard the Heavenly Palace and seize the divine artifact.
Now that He Lingchuan had flawlessly completed his task, the baton was passed into Juju's hands.
At this moment, the bells of Mount Xu tolled rapid and loud, yet they posed no further threat to it.
The days of being suppressed, ordered about, and bullied were finally over!
The guards across the peak unleashed volleys of arrows and divine abilities at the rock-fire monster. Though none were fatal, the origin power coating them pricked Juju like needles, stinging with no small amount of pain.
These tiny pests were constantly bounding over its head on regular days, and Juju had long despised them to death. Sweeping a palm horizontally across, it leveled half the mountain crest.
Under its overwhelmingly brutal might, the structures large and small upon the mountain were swept aside like pieces of cake.
Pavilions, solid rock, shattered timber, and flaming men tumbled rustling down the precipice.
The spectacle was at once magnificent and horrific.
Zhaixing Tower stood directly atop the volcanic crater. As Juju went berserk, it triggered a violent eruption of magma, blasting tens of thousands of tons of molten rock and pyroclastic debris high into the air, igniting the pitch-black night sky with sweeping crimson brilliance!
The Heavenly Palace guard battalion from the Garrison Palace rushed over from beside Chongyang Hall, but the magma spewing from the crater fell like artillery shells. Across a mountain path spanning merely dozens of zhang, bombardment rained down so intensely that not a soul could force their way upward.
Fortunately, they possessed origin power to shield their bodies; otherwise, the toxic fumes brought up by the volcanic eruption would have felled crowds of them instantly.
The mountain spirit of Mount Xu had come for vengeance, and the consequences were dire.
The eruption atop Tianshu Peak illuminated the entire night sky, visible even to residents in the northern reaches of Lingxu City.
Rumbling booms shook the earth.
This was the very picture of mountains crumbling and the earth splitting asunder.
The entirety of Lingxu City awakened from slumber. Terrified citizens rushed out of their homes to see what was happening, only to witness a northern sky ablaze with red light, as though returning to the night of the great earthquake over a decade ago.
Bathing in the pool of magma, Juju's body glowed with an even fiercer crimson. The moment it rose, it drove two heavy fists directly into the teleportation tower beside Chongyang Hall, detonating it into rubble!
The teleportation array connecting the base and summit of Tianshu Peak was utterly scrapped.
If the garrison camp on the ground wanted to reinforce the Heavenly Palace, they would have to rely on their own legs to climb up.
Only after severing the Heavenly Palace's reinforcement route did Juju turn around to bombard Zhaixing Tower.
What earthly abode of the celestial gods?! It had despised this wretched tower for ages.
Yet Zhaixing Tower did not shatter to pieces like the guard camp on Kaiyang Peak. In fact, before Juju's fist—more than five zhang wide—could even strike a single roof tile, a faint sheen of light flared outside Zhaixing Tower, forcefully stopping that terrifying blow in its tracks.
A barrier.
How could the grandest architectural marvel in Lingxu City lack protection?
"Hmph!" Juju had anticipated this all along. Swinging left and right, it unleashed more than a dozen meteor punches within two breaths!
Its fists were colossal flaming boulders. Every blow crashed down like a giant celestial meteor, carrying enough force to flatten a mountain peak. What was more remarkable was its blistering speed; the strikes blurred past onlookers' eyes in a rapid flurry of afterimages.
Yet despite swaying and rippling, the barrier before it ultimately weathered all the attacks. Zhaixing Tower stood tall and unyielding as before.
Beijia's origin power was immensely potent; withstanding an assault from a great demon like Juju seemed only natural.
The very purpose of origin power's existence had always been to confront great demons head-on.
Seeing its attacks fail, a glint of cunning flashed through Juju's eyes, and it threw another punch.
This time, its target was not Zhaixing Tower, but Tianshu Peak beneath it!
When it had hammered down those dozen-odd punches earlier, the barrier had remained intact, yet the ground outside Zhaixing Tower had cracked.
The barrier protected only the structure, not the entire mountain peak.
This design made perfect sense, as intruders typically attacked the grand hall itself; who possessed the ability to shatter an entire mountain peak?
Yet today, it was Mount Xu's own mountain spirit that had rebelled.
The barrier dispersed its force, transferring it onto Tianshu Peak to absorb.
However, the power of a mountain spirit was uniquely attuned to stone.
The resonance it induced through the mountain's bedrock made all of Tianshu Peak tremble violently.
With two sharp cracks like the sound of tearing silk amplified countless times, the northwestern corner of the crag upon which Zhaixing Tower stood sheared away.
Juju laughed gloatingly and smashed another fist into the mountain's roots.
Anyone with discerning eyes could tell: it intended to shatter the rocky peak beneath Zhaixing Tower and shove this entire abode of the celestial gods into the pool of magma!
When that time came, in a world of scorching heat and subterranean fire, how long could Zhaixing Tower possibly endure?
Whatever barriers, formations, or restrictions guarded it, all would inevitably succumb before the boundless erosion of subterranean flame.
Chapter 688