He Lingchuan was startled, a lingering dread gnawing at his heart. Sun Fuping had very nearly played them all for fools on this journey; if fortune hadn't favored their side, this day next year would have marked the death anniversary of both father and son He.
Still, he wasn't worried about Sun Fuping turning the tables anymore. The old man had cast spell after spell and suffered injury upon injury—he should have burned his wick down to nothing by now, right?
Situ Han added, "Coordinating with the black flood dragon, we've nearly driven Nian Songyu to spit blood in rage."
He Lingchuan glanced down, and sure enough, the tide of battle below had turned. The Gale Army, fighting in tandem with the black flood dragon, had Nian Songyu thoroughly suppressed. Up on the battlements, the Blackwater City troops would loose a few ballista bolts every now and then to assist.
"Is that even still a flood dragon?" He Lingchuan noticed the creature's transformation as well. "That's a dragon, isn't it?"
When he had left earlier, though called a "flood dragon," it had looked more like a giant horned serpent. Seeing it again now, it had actually sprouted four legs, the sharp horn on its head had branched like tree boughs, and a long dorsal fin had emerged along its spine.
In short, it was an outright dragon!
Even having crossed over into this other world, He Lingchuan had never expected to lay eyes on a dragon in his lifetime.
Such creatures supposedly dwelt deep within sacred mountains and great marshes, and no one had encountered one for nearly a thousand years.
"How did it change like that?"
"The Gale Army merged into its body—a full thirty thousand soldiers in all, before and after," Situ Han said, scratching his head. "And then it turned into this."
Having transformed into a dragon, the serpent's body was actually a size smaller than before, appearing all the more agile.
Yet its primary role was no longer to dive into hand-to-hand combat. Instead, it chanted incantation after incantation, stacking various divine buffs upon the Gale Army troops besieging Nian Songyu and the summoned demonic apes.
Some made allies light as swallows, some granted boundless strength, others thick, impenetrable hides... Halos of light flashed across the field, sending individual combat strength soaring. Soldiers who previously could only take on one opponent could now easily fight three.
And remember, their opponent was only a single person. As one side rose, the other waned; for Nian Songyu, every passing second dragged like a year.
This slick display left the living spectators atop the city gate utterly dumbfounded.
Situ Han couldn't help muttering, "Isn't it stealing the National Preceptor's job?"
On a battlefield, wasn't that pretty much what a National Preceptor did? Such mass buffing spells were known as the "Grace Technique." The more people they covered, the more mana they drained. Even in his prime as National Preceptor, Sun Fuping would have been thoroughly exhausted after casting three or four, and that was covering only a thousand-man unit.
How could that compare to this black dragon, which cast spells as easily as drinking plain water, boasting virtually limitless magic?
Looked at from this angle, while Nian Songyu was caught in dire peril and stretched thin on all sides, He Lingchuan truly admired him. If he were down there facing such an onslaught from the Gale Army, he would probably have been trampled into mincemeat beneath hooves in a single clash, right?
Yet Nian Songyu had maintained this high-intensity combat for more than a quarter of an hour, unleashing all manner of unfathomable methods—whether martial arts or divine powers, no one could tell, but the spectators on the wall were left dazzled.
The ground of the South Gate plaza had been blasted into a crater nearly ten feet deep, whether by one side alone or as the cumulative outcome of their clash.
Nian Songyu himself was drenched in blood, wounds of all sizes bubbling with red across his body, yet he was still forced to fight furiously. Earlier, a casual wave of his hand could heal Sun Fuping's wounds, but now he couldn't even use such power on himself; clearly, the grueling combat had drained the avatar's last drops of reserve strength.
The black dragon was currently urging him, "Your skin-bag is on the verge of collapse. You might as well step out and surrender to spare yourself further torment."
With a backhanded blow, Nian Songyu shattered a giant demonic ape, gritting his teeth. "So it was a trap all along! You intended from the start to lure us into sending down an avatar."
The words had barely left his mouth when the commander of the Gale Army lunged forward with a single blade and lopped off his left arm!
Blood gushed like a spring. Nian Songyu staggered back two steps, his vision swimming, managing to stay upright only by leaning on his saber.
He had been fighting dual-wielding blades; now, with an arm severed, his combat strength had plummeted by far more than half.
At this point, he was like a carved gourd leaking blood, having lost more than half his blood volume. Let alone continuing the fight, even if he lay down for immediate emergency care, his life couldn't be saved.
Nian Songyu's body was ruined. Its gaze swept over the living people atop the wall, but not a single one was viable. The bodies of these mortals were far too fragile; even if it forcefully possessed one, the vessel would disintegrate within dozens of breaths, to say nothing of sustaining such high-intensity combat.
Then, it spotted He Lingchuan.
This one wasn't even worth considering. Its gaze didn't linger, shifting directly back to the black dragon. "Do not assume your scheme was flawless. Had I not suffered two severe injuries in succession when I descended, our situations would certainly be reversed!"
The black dragon looked down upon him. "There are no 'ifs' in battle."
"Forget it." Nian Songyu cast his weapon aside and threw up his hand in resignation. "I truly never imagined that I would concede defeat to a mere artifact spirit!"
He surrendered with utter decisiveness, sitting down cross-legged as though nothing were the matter, oblivious to the blood pouring from him.
After all, this was never its body to begin with.
The black dragon, on the contrary, remained extremely wary. "Drop your wicked schemes. Even with wings, you could not escape this place."
In the outside world, a heavenly god might be able to leave just as easily as it arrived, but this illusory realm was like a sealed jar; unless the black dragon lifted the lid, no one could get out.
Nian Songyu's face was as pale as a corpse's—in fact, he wasn't far from death—yet his expression grew ever more tranquil. "You surely know what I want to ask. Since I am dying, what is the answer?"
The black dragon paused for a few seconds. "There is no answer. We uphold the last wishes, and we desire only vengeance."
Nian Songyu asked, "Do you know who I am?"
"I don't know, nor do I care." The black dragon slithered closer, lowering its massive head. "Do you have any last words?"
"I do." Nian Songyu suddenly turned his head toward the city wall. "He Lingchuan, this is on behalf of the vessel: you are not far from death, and he will wait for you on the road ahead. And the rest of you—"
He was speaking to the living spectators: "Only when the black dragon dies can you leave. Did you know that?"
The onlookers recoiled in shock.
Maotao cried in disbelief, "How could that be? Weren't we told..."
Hadn't the black dragon promised to let them out of the illusory realm?
Before he could finish, his eyes suddenly glazed over. Reaching out, he snatched the saber from He Lingchuan's waist and slashed violently into the battlement!
This sudden turn erupted so close at hand that no one had time to react. Maotao had already hacked three times in rapid succession before He Lingchuan barked, "Stop!" The soldiers behind Maotao lunged forward and pinned his arms tight.
Only then did everyone realize that Maotao had turned the blade around and struck with the spine; even so, he had carved several gouges into the rammed-earth battlement, the deepest exceeding three inches.
He had truly exerted every ounce of his strength, tearing the webbing of his hands from the recoil. Any ordinary person would have been unable to hold the blade.
Maotao's eyes were bloodshot as he panted heavily, thrashing desperately so that even two or three men could hardly hold him down.
He swung the precious saber with one hand, and the others, wary of its lethal sharpness, dared not step in to seize it.
Over on the plaza, the black dragon opened its bloody maw, swallowed Nian Songyu in a single gulp, and even gave him two vicious chews.
Chapter 71