He Is Not Alone

Still, He Lingchuan couldn't figure out how it had managed to communicate with the pot's lid in the first place. "The Qianling Treasure Lid is an independent ancient divine artifact, while the Dafang Pot originally had no lid. They were never meant for each other, merely forced together. Heh, not even the gods of Lingxu know this secret." Master Sanshui's longsword began to glow. "The treasure lid grants me shelter and allows me to merge with Master Sanshui to deal with the Dafang Pot together." As for the boy before them, neither the Qianling Treasure Lid nor he took him seriously at all. The cause and effect—He Lingchuan finally understood everything. So the Que Beast King had stayed by General Red's Cenotaph all along because it was waiting for its nemesis to emerge from the pot! The Dafang Pot's wearing down of them had gone on for a long time. It relied on persistent, grinding patience to slowly dismantle the lid's resistance. For a clash between divine artifacts, it was an astonishingly peculiar form of combat. And these Que beasts, born of the treasure lid's will and ancient remnant souls, were hostile to every moving thing inside the pot. They were not true flesh and blood. Nailuotian's avatar had merely merged with the Que Beast King and borrowed the power of Master Sanshui, which didn't count as a true divine descent. Yet this adaptability—the ability to pull a divine object and a remnant immortal into a united front in an instant—was likely not something just any deity possessed. No wonder Nailuotian had taken barely over a century to leap from a mere wild god to one of the divine realm's foremost titans. As for the Que Beast King, no wonder it could deploy so many subtle and unique divine abilities, with such uncanny mastery over combat timing. Part of it had originally belonged to Master Sanshui, a great immortal of the ancient era! He Lingchuan looked at him and shook his head. "For someone who boasts of being the God of Fate, your luck is truly awful. You only arrived after the battle on the ground was already over. This is the realm of the Dafang Pot—this is my turf!" Otherwise, had Nailuotian's avatar descended into the Que Beast King just one step earlier and teamed up with any of the factions, the rest would have been no match for them. He drew Fusheng in a reverse grip, tilting the blade slightly as killing intent rolled outward. Pulses thrummed through the blade with irrepressible excitement. Ever since Nailuotian's avatar appeared, the saber's battle lust had grown so fierce that it had materialized from the void on its own. Slash! No matter if what stood before him was the Que Beast King, Master Sanshui, or Nailuotian's avatar. Cutting him down meant cutting down this tedious, laughable destiny! "It's useless," Nailuotian's avatar chuckled softly. "Did nobody ever tell you? Since my mark is planted in your sea of consciousness, you cannot strike at me. A vessel cannot rebel against its master, just as a magic artifact cannot betray and slay its lord!" This was the true source of his composure as he stood alone in the Panlong Realm, completely unruffled. So what if this brat had turned Lingxu City upside down? So what if he had gotten so thick with the Dafang Pot? Before his true master, wasn't a mere vessel bound to grovel on the ground and bow in worship? Bound to submit to the arrangements of fate? Sure enough, the moment he aimed his blade at Master Sanshui, He Lingchuan felt his body turn heavy and his limbs fill with lead. The divine imprint in his mind had taken effect, forbidding him from raising a hand against his "master." He forced his wrist up, but his hand trembled like a leaf in the wind. Facing such a formidable enemy while his body refused to obey—how was that any different from a death sentence? Just as Nailuotian's avatar took a step forward, a third voice rang out across the scene: "Says who?" A woman's voice, cold and contemptuous. The Gale Army mark on He Lingchuan's wrist burned with heat and light, and the soft rustle of armor plates shifted beside him. The motionless armor of General Red suddenly turned half around and clamped firmly onto He Lingchuan's wrist! In that instant, it seemed to come alive. Immediately after, the entire suit of armor dissolved into streaming light, flowing over onto his body. In the blink of an eye. He Lingchuan straightened his spine and discovered that his entire body was now completely covered in crimson scale armor— Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that one day he would don General Red's battle armor! He Lingchuan was taller and more broadly built than General Red, so the armor's cut was noticeably different from when she wore it, yet it fitted seamlessly, as though custom-tailored for him. No, it would be truer to say it was as if it had grown straight out of his body. The armor had also shed its weathered battle scars, turning majestic, splendid, and brand-new, utterly out of place on this bleak, ruined battlefield. The ghost-face mask formed last, and he finally gained General Red's perspective. So this was how she had always looked at the world. An inexhaustible surge of power suddenly welled up within him, flooding every meridian, every bone, every strand of muscle, even every hair on his head! It was a vast, all-conquering might he had never experienced before, as if a single punch could shatter the stars and a single stomp could crush the earth. Was this the strength General Red had lent him? Could a human truly possess such power? Most importantly, through the Gale Army mark on his wrist, his mind was linked in complete harmony with the armor. With just a single thought, the armor would move in flawless coordination, executing his will to perfection! The will alone was enough. The divine imprint Nailuotian had left on him could only restrict his physical body; it could not shackle his thoughts. As long as he willed it, he could strike! Surging with fervor, He Lingchuan could not resist letting out a long roar. In a split second, he closed the distance before Nailuotian's avatar, crimson flaming saber-energy arcing like a rainbow— This slash could cleave not merely raging waves, but an army of thousands! How could his speed be merely ten times faster than normal? His sudden shift was completely without warning, leaving not even an afterimage behind. Deft as Master Sanshui was, he couldn't dodge in time. Before he could unleash the sword incantation he had primed, He Lingchuan was already upon him, slitting his throat! Of course, he would not die so easily. Not a drop of blood spurted from the opened throat; with a splash, his entire body liquefied into running water and reformed into human shape several zhang away. Truly worthy of his title, Master Sanshui. Except his expression had finally turned grim. Beside his feet, a small puddle of clear water squirmed as though alive, yet failed to coalesce. After being sliced by the Fusheng saber, even clear water could no longer keep its form. What surprised Nailuotian's avatar even more was that the vessel had attacked him so cleanly and decisively, entirely unaffected by the imprint. How was this possible? "How did you..." Just as the words left his mouth, Nailuotian's avatar let out a long "Oh." "Mitian, you really aren't dead!" Both he and He Lingchuan had heard that woman's voice. To He Lingchuan, it was General Red. But to Nailuotian's avatar, it was Mitian! It was Mitian at work, stopping him from claiming his vessel. In his eyes, the attack had been executed entirely by General Red's armor. The armor protected his quarry completely, covering him from head to toe without a single gap, leaving Nailuotian's avatar without the slightest opening to exploit. And for He Lingchuan, Zhong Shengguang's promise to him had now been taken up by General Red. His ability to attack Nailuotian was restricted? No matter—the power from General Red would suppress the divine imprint mark for him. If he could not fight, it would fight through him. If he could not resist, it would help him resist. Even for He Lingchuan, challenging destiny alone was far too daunting. But with General Red's full support, he was no longer fighting on his own. "Surrender, and you won't suffer," He Lingchuan's voice rang out from beneath the ghost-face mask, even as red light flared along the Fusheng saber and from General Red's armor. "Keep struggling in vain, and your end will be far worse than Master Sanshui's!" He wasn't bluffing. This was the Panlong Realm. This was inside the Dafang Pot. It was General Red's home turf, and by rights, his turf as well. "I truly don't understand what is so bad about becoming my vessel. You won't lose your life, and I can fulfill every wish you and your father have!" Nailuotian's avatar snapped his fingers as he spoke. Ever since their earlier clash, rain and snow had been drifting through the air, fluttering down. With that snap of his fingers, the water droplets hovering around He Lingchuan exploded one after another. Every droplet was a miniature bomb, yet packed over a hundred times the force of ordinary explosives! In comparison, the explosive arrows Tao Ran had fired earlier did not possess a hundredth of their power. To unleash extreme, paradoxical destructive power from the gentlest water was Master Sanshui's signature specialty. He Lingchuan raised his arm, and the soul-snatching mirror turned into a round shield directly in front of him; dense true force coursed over the armor, solidifying into thick gangqi that deflected most of the blast damage. Even so, the soul-snatching mirror wailed in agony, "Aaargh! It hurts! It hurts so much!" An immortal... No, the mirror judged that this Master Sanshui was merely a remnant soul, and the Que Beast King into which he had morphed had been worn down by the Dafang Pot for so long that his strength had to be far below its peak. Still! Using it to block a demi-immortal's attack—wasn't that overestimating what it could take? Only then did the mirror realize with a start: "Wait, are you even my master?" The power radiating from the armor felt far too foreign to it. He Lingchuan didn't bother humoring the chatterbox, retorting only to Nailuotian: "I don't understand either—what's so bad about staying inside the Dafang Pot? You won't die, you'll just swallow a few mouthfuls of seawater!" With a thought, he turned into a crimson beam of light and closed in on Nailuotian's avatar once more. Through the swirling mist, three water pythons materialized out of thin air, coiling around him before he could strike. One was reddish gold, one pitch black, and one pale blue, each thicker than a water bucket. These were forged by the immortal from the water essences of three great rivers. At their peak, the serpents were as massive as hills, crushing enemies with the collective might of three rivers. The most terrifying of them was the black snake Xiliu. In non-human legends, this Xiliu River pierced between reality and the void, leading to the netherworld; no living being or soul that fell into its waters could ever float, only to be sealed forever at the riverbed and turn into river stones. The python refined from Xiliu river stones could not only unleash resentful dead spirits to devour human hearts, but could also pass straight through armor to strangle the soul itself. With three pythons of such girth constricting him, He Lingchuan was nearly buried beneath their coils. The resentful spirits unleashed by the Xiliu black snake probed for every crack and seam, but the crimson armor on He Lingchuan radiated a dense glow. The instant the spirits slammed into it, they were burned out of existence, not even ashes left behind. The ferocious flame upon the armor was terrifying to behold. Nailuotian's avatar leapt into the air, driving his sword downward with unreasonable speed. The two entwined pythons immediately parted enough to expose a narrow gap at the nape of He Lingchuan's neck, clearing a path for his attack. This precious sword had also been forged with Xiliu stone, allowing it to shift between the corporeal and incorporeal. If Nailuotian's avatar drove it into the nape of He Lingchuan's neck, it would wound only his soul without harming the vessel. After all, he still intended to use this body; he couldn't damage it too much.