The lamp-bearing disciple looked ready to weep, while the rest were struck with sheer bewilderment. Fu Liang could not help asking, "Master, can even a lamp spirit clone be... be seized?"
"A lamp spirit clone is neither solid nor illusory, neither soul nor spirit, suspended in the Azure Void. If a deity understands it, seizing it is hardly difficult." He Jing glanced at him. "Put it away. Yours was the weakest, which is why it was singled out."
What did a wild god want with lamp spirit essence forcefully plundered from Heavenly Palace emissaries?
A heavy weight settled on He Jing's chest. *Tonight is truly lively. All sorts of bizarre things have shown up.*
Could there be another faction in the city capable of summoning a divine descent?
The struggle over the Dafang Pot was every bit as fierce as expected.
Worst of all, He Jing knew he had no choice left.
If an avatar of some other deity took the Dafang Pot, the gods of Lingxu City would never tolerate it. If the Heavenly Palace learned he had stood before the Panlong Ruins without daring to enter, handing over the Dafang Pot on a silver platter, their thunderous wrath would certainly descend upon him!
Lately, the gods had not been in the best of tempers.
After weighing his options back and forth, He Jing finally gave a soft sigh and resolved to enter the city and claim the pot.
"Move out! Follow me into the realm!"
He stepped onto the land bridge first, facing the imposing South Gate of Panlong City.
Now that an avatar of another god had arrived, he had to go in, even if Panlong City was a dragon's pool and a tiger's den.
"The realm?" The others were taken aback. A disciple asked for instructions, "Are we supposed to charge into the red pillar of light?"
Though acolytes of the Heavenly Palace were utterly fearless of death, such a reckless move felt... a bit overly brave, didn't it?
He Jing shot them a look that betrayed his exasperation at their incompetence. "Haven't you figured it out yet? The moment we cross this South Gate before our eyes, we have stepped into the realm!"
"These Panlong Ruins are themselves a realm disguised as reality!"
Otherwise, why would the city be in such an uproar while the outside remained dead silent? Why would the Que beasts rampage throughout the ruins yet never charge out into the desert?
The reason was that the entrance to the realm was at the South Gate itself! Every single group had entered without even realizing it.
The Heavenly Palace acolytes strode after He Jing through the South Gate.
Many murmured prayers under their breath: "Under the gods' protection, we know no fear!"
The chanting grew louder and louder.
He Jing glanced at them from the corner of his eye, keeping his silence.
In truth, before this expedition to the Panlong Desert, the gods of Lingxu City had given strict instructions:
Do not petition the gods.
Even if they prayed, the celestial gods would not descend.
Last time, they had learned their lesson.
In the blink of an eye, the Heavenly Palace party passed through the last of the South Gate's triple portals, vanishing without a trace just like all the others before them.
A few breaths later, the sky-piercing red light inside Panlong City died down as well.
The Panlong Ruins stood solitary in the desert, surrounded by nothing but the howling night wind.
Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled across the sky. Zhao Qinghe suddenly called out:
"There's something up there!"
Everyone looked up and saw what appeared to be a speck of green light moving rapidly among the clouds. From so far away, it looked like a firefly.
Yet every time lightning ripped across the sky, its glow was cast down into the city.
He Chunhua tilted his head back, his face washed in green light.
He knew that had to be the avatar of Heavenly Venerable Nailuo. But why was the green light merely dancing in the sky instead of descending?
Looking closer, he saw the Venerable's avatar repeatedly try to dive down, only to be blocked by something unseen.
It was as though the canopy of the heavens was a transparent protective barrier, shutting Nailuotian's avatar out. The moment this thought crossed his mind, a cold sweat broke out all over He Chunhua's body!
This wasn't right. Something here was terribly wrong!
He looked around in bewilderment. The Panlong Ruins appeared unchanged, desolate and dilapidated, with only a few sparse plants quietly growing in the corners.
Why couldn't the Venerable's avatar descend?
Could it be...?
Right then, the point of light in the sky came to an abrupt halt, no longer attempting to ram the firmament. Its green glow shifted into a pale golden-red, like sunlight... or candlelight.
It flickered twice, then vanished.
"Look over there!" Qiu Hu pointed toward another part of the sky.
There the clouds were thinner, and something seemed to be swimming through them.
A few bolts of lightning outlined its shape, resembling a giant whale.
Qiu Hu muttered, "Could it be a kun?" That was an ancient giant monster capable of roaming seas of clouds. But this shadow in the sky did not appear to have fins.
No one could tell whether it was indeed the form of a massive fish or simply a drifting cloud. It moved with a speed that seemed sluggish yet was remarkably swift, heading toward the spot where the green light had been.
Yet the green light was already gone. Not ready to give up, the colossal thing circled the area twice searching for it.
He Chunhua was dumbfounded. *What is that giant shadow, and how does it dare pursue the Heavenly Venerable's avatar?!*
He Lingchuan looked equally solemn.
The statue in He Chunhua's hands was glowing green, resonating with the sky. That meant the speck of light just now was indeed the avatar of Nailuotian descending in response to the summons.
He had laid such a grand trap and played along with He Chunhua for so long precisely to "receive" this celestial god's avatar inside the Panlong Realm.
Yet why had Nailuotian's avatar vanished before the colossal red silhouette even arrived?
Was it the Dafang Pot's doing?
It didn't look like it.
A seed of worry sprouted in He Lingchuan's heart. Things were diverging from his plan.
As for the colossal red silhouette, this was the second time he had seen it appear in the sky of the Panlong Realm.
The last time it had manifested high above, he had assumed the Dafang Pot had suffered a glitch while trying to simulate a conversation between Nailuotian's avatar and himself.
Looking back now, the Dafang Pot had likely begun subduing the lid long before that. That thing was probably not easy to handle either, forcing the pot to burn a tremendous amount of energy and creating flaws in the process.
Now, the Dafang Pot had to deal with an avatar of the "God of Fate" on top of that, not to mention a whole swarm of practitioners and monsters running wild inside the realm. It had to be feeling the strain.
When Nailuotian's avatar had slammed into the realm's boundary moments ago, it was nothing like a fly tapping against a glass cover. In reality, each impact triggered a flash of cyan light across the heavens followed by rolling thunder that shook the entire realm to its foundations.
He Lingchuan had not expected an avatar of Nailuotian to pack such tremendous force.
He had seen the Dafang Pot's black dragon devour the avatar of the nameless deity on Nian Songyu, and he had seen the pot consume the Hundred Faces Nightmare, but this time he had not witnessed the colossal red silhouette swallow Nailuotian's avatar with his own eyes.
Where had that cursed thing gone? If it breached the sky barrier and descended...
His hour of death would be at hand!
Besides, he could tell the Dafang Pot was still an artifact perfecting itself, far from flawless. When pitted against an orthodox god like Nailuotian, was its defense truly impenetrable?
No matter how meticulously he had planned, facing unknown variables inevitably left He Lingchuan on edge.
As expected, this matter was never going to be as simple as imagined.
At that moment, He Chunhua glared at He Lingchuan, cold sweat dripping from his brow. "What did you do?"
"You're asking me?" Suppressing the turmoil in his heart in an instant, He Lingchuan replied flatly, "Weren't you the one offering a sacrifice and petitioning the god?"
"Why couldn't the celestial god's avatar come down?" He Chunhua looked from him to the sky, eyes wide with shock. "C-could it be... Could it be that we're already inside the realm?!"
The Panlong Ruins were an uncanny place. Last time, the deity Sun Fuping had invited had lost an avatar here. Having witnessed it firsthand, He Chunhua remembered it vividly. But Nailuotian had conferred with him multiple times: so long as the divine descent ritual was held outside the realm, the deity could maintain control over the situation.
During the previous expedition, the entrance to the Panlong Realm had been inside the pool-well of Mitian Temple. This time, the red pillar of light had also appeared at the pool-well, and those pure-white beasts had crawled out of it to wreak havoc on everyone.
Thus, whether by habit or empirical observation, He Chunhua had naturally assumed the temple's pool-well was still the realm's entrance. So long as they stood outside the pool-well to summon Nailuotian, the vengeful wraith possessing He Lingchuan and the Dafang Pot would be powerless against them.
Only now did he realize he had been inside the Panlong Realm all along!
When had they entered?
He immediately recalled the South Gate shutting for no apparent reason, the bizarre thick fog beneath the portal, and the soldiers who couldn't escape even after leaping from the walls...
Why hadn't he realized it sooner?
Right—because his eldest son had tried so hard to stop him!
The harder He Lingchuan tried to stop him, the more his subconscious became convinced that this was reality, that they were outside the realm!
Otherwise, why would He Lingchuan bother trying to hold him back?
With that realization, He Chunhua finally understood. "You held me back because you didn't want me contacting the celestial god! You didn't want the celestial god to notice anything amiss here!"
This vengeful ghost hadn't been trying to interrupt the descent ritual at all; it had been preventing him from communicating with Nailuotian!
They were already inside the Panlong Realm. Who knew if He Chunhua would even be able to reach Nailuotian? If he couldn't, he would have realized something was wrong.
Even if he could, the moment Nailuotian sensed something off, the deity might have called off the descent.
He Lingchuan had entangled him continuously to deny him that chance, forcing him to skip straight to summoning the god.
And now, the celestial god Nailuotian had answered the call and sent down an avatar, only to be barred outside the realm!
Faced with the accusation, He Lingchuan gave only a curt reply: "You've lost your mind."
Where was the proof? Without evidence, he wasn't admitting to a thing.
Paying him no further attention, He Lingchuan spoke toward his collar: "Tao Ran, do it."
Tao Ran was the Mount Rong disciple stationed at the South Gate, an expert archer. He Lingchuan had secretly slipped him an eyeball spider earlier, allowing him to hear the command.
The moment He Lingchuan finished speaking, Tao Ran, stationed atop the distant South Gate, drew a command arrow and aimed toward Liren Street to the west.
This was an explosive arrow given to him by He Lingchuan that detonated only upon impact. Its tip had been pre-coated with Wind-Fixing Pearl powder to shield it from the gale.
Before He Lingchuan had descended the wall with He Chunhua to head east, he had instructed Tao Ran to keep a close eye on the Grand Marshal's troops—specifically the hiding spot of Le Zhengqing and his men.
If someone had to be thrown under the bus, it would be them.
In the pitch-black Panlong City, this order had originally presented a challenge, keeping Tao Ran on edge the entire time. However, frequent flashes across the sky lit up the city, allowing Tao Ran to determine that Le Zhengqing's group was hiding near Liren Street, more or less without error.
That was directly opposite the eastern sector, making it the ideal spot to redirect the trouble westward.
His bow possessed special attributes granting superior range.
Tao Ran raised his bow and loosed a high arc shot. The arrow pierced straight through the whirlwind and struck with pinpoint accuracy on the highest pavilion along Liren Street.
A deafening roar erupted immediately. Debris sprayed everywhere as dense black smoke billowed skyward, cranking the sound, flash, and shockwave to the absolute maximum.
In a Panlong City swarming with Que beasts, an explosion of this scale was practically a dinner bell.
Up on the South Gate, everyone spun around and slipped into the wall's interior cavity to hide.
Chapter 835