The Grass Sea was about thirty li from Tianji Peak. At Zhu Erniang's running speed, they could reach it in no time.
Looking back over his shoulder, He Lingchuan saw the two formidable masters in hot pursuit, moving faster than galloping steeds.
"Didn't you say Baizhantian was poisoned? It doesn't look slow in the slightest." Was it because origin power dampened the poison?
Earlier, he had been drooling with envy over Lingxu City's origin power.
Now? Heh heh.
Blood kept dripping from Lu Shishi's mortal vessel, but Baizhantian seemed not to care at all. The god hurled several spears and cast multiple divine abilities at Zhu Erniang, all dodged by the spider immortal.
Zhu Erniang's fleshy, bulbous body repeatedly wove into sensuous S-curves.
Sneaking up on a spider demon whose eyes could see behind it was no easy feat.
With a dark expression, Baizhantian splayed a hand toward the spider demon's back and twisted it viciously to the right.
Divine art: Two-Phase Fold.
A black hole unfolded simultaneously before Zhu Erniang and Baizhantian, pitch-black within yet radiating a powerful suction.
The instant Zhu Erniang entered, she would appear directly in front of Baizhantian—meaning she would instantly be thrown back two to three hundred zhang.
If Baizhantian stepped into it, on the other hand, one step would bring the god right in front of Zhu Erniang for close-quarters combat.
If both stepped in at the same time, well, it would be a mutual rush toward each other. Fortunately, National Preceptor Qingyang was also on this end.
This was no martial technique, merely a short-range teleportation spell, yet it proved extraordinarily effective here.
Zhu Erniang nearly plunged headlong into the black hole.
Fortunately, her agility was wildly mismatched with her bulk. Tapping into the skills of a jumping spider, she sprang off all eight legs, leaping high into the air to bound straight over the black hole.
Thanks to He Lingchuan gripping a nearby spider spike tightly, he avoided being thrown off.
Baizhantian stepped into the black hole and emerged beneath Zhu Erniang the next second, hurling the spear with a flick of the hand before clapping both palms together with a low bark:
"Zha!"
Midair, Zhu Erniang pulled off some unknown trick to dart upward once more, causing the fine-steel spear to miss completely.
But the spear suddenly exploded, its shards covering nearly half the spider demon's body.
Baizhantian clapped both hands together with a sharp slap. The swarm of shards instantly gathered and collapsed inward toward a single point.
Divine art: Spatial Compression.
Within the area enveloped by the spear shards, all matter would be compressed into a tiny dot by the divine art.
Only Zhu Erniang's rear half was covered by the shards, which meant she was very likely to be torn in half by the spell.
Her immortal molt was exceedingly tough, so steel shards alone might not breach it. Baizhantian had deliberately used this tactic so she would savor the agony.
With a faint whir, the spear shards collapsed into a tiny metallic sphere, no larger than a waxberry.
Zhu Erniang, however, did not share its fate.
Just as the divine art took effect, she flashed away in a sudden flicker, reappearing forty zhang in the distance!
A teleportation.
No matter how the space behind collapsed and compressed, it had nothing to do with her.
Right after, National Preceptor Qingyang also stepped through the black hole and loosed three arrows in a single motion.
The three arrows landed in a triangular formation, enclosing an area hundreds of zhang across that trapped Zhu Erniang right in the middle.
Demarcated by the three arrows, emerald light flickered across the triangular zone. With every step Zhu Erniang took, she felt as heavy as a thousand jun—
Qingyang's spell had abruptly multiplied the gravity within the zone by sevenfold!
Adapting to such gravity was not difficult for the spider immortal, but instantly resuming her light, graceful strides amidst the frantic pace of battle was the real challenge.
And the two banes of their existence were right beside them!
Without hesitation, He Lingchuan reached into his robes, pulled out a special-effect light-body talisman, and slapped it onto Zhu Erniang with a smack.
This was a treasure left over from his time in the Fu Realm, capable of negating fourfold gravity for twenty breaths.
Though it could not completely dispel the effects of National Preceptor Qingyang's spell, it greatly relieved the strain on Zhu Erniang.
"Hold on tight!" Zhu Erniang's voice sounded in his ear at the same time.
Putting everything into a forward leap, she retracted all her sharp bristles and eight legs at once. The fleshy spider turned into an enormous round ball and rolled forward a hundred-odd zhang!
It happened to be a downhill slope, and she picked up considerable speed.
If she couldn't run, rolling worked just fine, didn't it?
When fleeing for her life, she had no pride as a spider immortal to uphold.
National Preceptor Qingyang and Baizhantian could only watch helplessly as she rolled away.
In an instant, she rolled clear of the emerald light.
Immediately afterward, eight legs sprouted from the giant ball once more, and it scuttled forward with bizarre, swift strides.
Baizhantian's furious voice bellowed from behind:
"Zhu Erniang, after three thousand years you still only know how to run! Not an ounce of progress! Have you given up on avenging your elder sister?"
Zhu Erniang turned a deaf ear, keeping her head down as she ran the long-distance sprint.
If she could escape, she would be the ultimate victor. Why bother fighting? Her mind was crystal clear.
He Lingchuan steadied his spinning head and glanced back. Baizhantian and National Preceptor Qingyang had once again been left two to three hundred zhang behind.
After that brief clash, it was as if nothing had changed.
No wonder Zhu Erniang had vowed so confidently back in the Demon Nest, saying that once he found the immortal molt, all he had to do was blow the spider xun and leave the rest to her.
Erniang was truly a master of this craft.
Perhaps such divine arts consumed too much energy, for Baizhantian also quieted down, swallowing its temper and pursuing in grim silence.
National Preceptor Qingyang glanced at the god, secretly lamenting that the celestial god had misjudged the situation yet again.
She could tell that Baizhantian's descent to the mortal realm was primarily aimed at Juju. This celestial god possessed ferocious combat strength, and with Chenyuan assisting from the sidelines, it would have been more than enough to give Juju a hard time.
Who could have guessed that Juju's spine would be so supple, prostrating at the first sign of trouble? Baizhantian's target had thus shifted to the spider immortal and the intruder.
While this spider immortal's combat strength could not match Juju's, her knack for fleeing was second to none. With one trick after another, she truly lived up to her reputation as an ancient monster who had survived to this day.
Baizhantian excelled at real, direct combat, but chasing down a target was simply not the god's forte.
In this chase, both sides had covered nine li. He Lingchuan shot another firework into the sky.
This one was called "Concentric Rings," bursting into a pattern of concentric circles, four or five nested inside one another in different colors.
"Even with origin power dampening it, my venom isn't that easy to endure. These celestial gods don't cherish their vessels; it's merely using the 'Blood Boil' divine ability to suppress the poison in its body." Zhu Erniang surprisingly still remembered their earlier conversation. "Besides, that vessel doesn't seem quite suitable to me. Just wait; it will erupt in less than half an hour."
"What happens once it erupts?"
"What else? The vessel drops dead, and the celestial god's avatar returns to the divine realm. Most of our peril will be resolved." Zhu Erniang vaulted over a giant boulder, her eight long legs working steadily. "Assuming we haven't escaped by then, that is."
He Lingchuan guided her along shortcuts.
Juju's rampage on Mount Xu and the volcanic eruption had caused such a colossal commotion that squads of Lingxu City's elite forces were likely rushing from the Grass Sea to reinforce defenses. He had no desire to run head-on into them on the main road.
He also seized the moment to ask, "What makes a vessel suitable?"
Zhu Erniang swiveled an eye specifically to look at him. To keep asking questions even in a life-or-death crisis—truly no ordinary man. "A body that allows a celestial god to unleash greater power without collapsing quickly would be considered suitable, I suppose. As for the specifics, I'm not clear either. But looking at Baizhantian's current body, it clearly won't do."
Watching Lu Shishi, He Lingchuan thought of General Red.
Comparisons were startling. Baizhantian had descended only a short while ago, yet Lu Shishi's body was already showing signs of breakdown. What about General Red, then?
Mitian's descent had seemed to impose no burden on her whatsoever.
Besides Zhong Wuhan's body being exceptionally suited for divine descent, could it also have been due to the Dafang Pot?
In the blink of an eye, Zhu Erniang raced across several more li, and He Lingchuan fired another firework.
This time, however, before it could reach the heights of the sky, an emerald arrow arrived from behind, shooting down the command arrow he had launched.
National Preceptor Qingyang, unwilling to let it continue, had intervened.
He Lingchuan looked back and saw the two pursuers' faces frozen like frost.
So be it. He shrugged. Those who were meant to receive the signal should have received it by now.
……
The opening of the Grass Sea hunt had been immensely grand, packed with surging crowds, and nobles from every prominent family had attended in splendid finery.
Half a month later, the hunt was nearing its end. Compounded by the turning of the weather to cold and the further withering of vegetation, even the previously magnificent reed marsh had largely shed its plumes, leaving behind mostly bare stalks. Consequently, very few idle bystanders remained here; almost all who lingered were the logistical support staff of the participating teams and the Grass Sea garrison guarding the planar boundary.
Mortal powerhouses could travel to the Fu Realm through the Eye of the Storm, and naturally, monsters from the Fu Realm could also cross over. Thus, during the hunt every year, the garrison was placed on high alert to prevent them from rampaging into the mortal world.
Because they only mobilized once every two years, this garrison was formed by drawing proportional contingents of elites from the Imperial Guard, the Tongxin Guard, and other forces, beginning their training three months prior to each opening of the Fu Realm.
Both ends of the Eye of the Storm—the entrances in the mortal realm and the Fu Realm—were guarded by elite troops.
In the first ten days, the garrisons on both sides dealt with nearly a hundred Donao beasts that forcibly breached the eye of the storm. A few actually managed to cross through the Eye of the Storm and surge into the mortal realm, but they were eliminated by the guards here.
As time went on, fewer and fewer Donao beasts broke through. This was because most of the beasts around the spatial-temporal fissure had already been slaughtered by the participating teams.
With hunting activity dwindling, spectators placing bets thinned out, and the garrison's duties grew leisurely, allowing them to rest their feet, chat, and grab a bite from time to time.
But today was different.
The Grass Sea lay close to Mount Xu. Just moments ago, everyone had witnessed the eruption of Tianshu Peak, heard the deafening roar of the blast, and felt the earth trembling beneath them.
Was that nightmare earthquake from more than a decade ago about to repeat itself?
Then, in the blink of an eye, towering flames and booming explosions also erupted in the direction of Lingxu City.
Everyone was dumbfounded, having no idea what was happening on either side.
Immediately following this, order after order flew into the Grass Sea. Following the principle of proximity, the Emperor mobilized the elites stationed here to rush to Mount Xu and Lingxu City respectively.
Putting out fires on both fronts.
Between both ends of the Eye of the Storm, the garrison originally numbered around six thousand men; now, five thousand were redeployed in one fell swoop. The Grass Sea hunting games had been held for hundreds of years, and Lingxu City knew the habits of Donao beasts like the back of its hand; experienced soldiers could handle them with their eyes closed without making a mistake.
In any case, with the hunt drawing to a close, there was little need to keep so many elites stationed at the Grass Sea.
By comparison, the security of Lingxu City and the Heavenly Palace was far more vital. Thus, the defensive forces here were scraped down to the very bone in an instant.
Chapter 700