Even in the heat of battle, Nailuotian's avatar kept a clear head. Merging with Master Sanshui was merely an expedient measure. If it truly wished to escape with its life and claim the Dafang Pot, it had to rely on a suitable vessel to bring out its genuine divine might!
Yet this was inside the Dafang Pot, deep within enemy territory. The clash had to be ended swiftly; every second dragged out worked against it.
The three giant pythons hadn't managed to crush General Red's battle armor to pieces, but they pinned He Lingchuan firmly in place, leaving him unable to advance an inch.
The Xiliu black snake opened its jaws to strike. A bone-chilling cold welled up from the depths of He Lingchuan's soul; facing its fangs, he felt entirely bare and defenseless.
To make matters worse, Nailuotian's avatar pressed its own attack. With his arms bound, He Lingchuan had to fight one against four, and the pressure mounted sharply.
Suddenly, the two beast-head ornaments perched upon the armor's pauldrons flared with crimson light and sprang up. One of them, shaped like a golden toad, leaped straight into the wide maw of the Xiliu black snake.
With a squelch, it slid down the throat. Even the serpent itself seemed stunned.
Yet within its translucent body, countless red threads immediately surfaced, as if parasites were hatching inside. The black snake convulsed as though tossed into a boiling vat of oil, twisting in agony until its pale underbelly showed. How could it spare any thought for pouncing on He Lingchuan's soul now?
In less than two or three breaths, the black serpent turned red, even its eyeballs gleaming blood-red.
The other shoulder-perched beast lunged at Nailuotian's avatar, swelling rapidly with the wind. It had protruding eyes, a gaping maw, flared ears, a lion's body, a long tail, and a pair of wings sprouting from its back. He Lingchuan recognized it at once—it was the beast atop the Dragon-Torture Pillar. He had no idea what creature it was, though it looked somewhat like a Qiongqi and somewhat like a Chaofeng beast. In the blink of an eye, it spanned two fathoms in length, opening its bloody maw at a bizarre angle as it charged Nailuotian's avatar, as if ready to swallow man and sword whole.
Controlled by Nailuotian's avatar, Master Sanshui hung suspended in midair, yet he managed to kick back against empty space. The tip of his sword pressed against the beast's lower jaw, pushing hard and propelling him over fifty feet away.
He Lingchuan had seen Zhu Daniang use this technique of shifting midair. It seemed to be standard repertoire for immortals.
At the same time, the avatar hurled the precious sword in hand, transforming it into a streak of light that still shot straight toward the back of He Lingchuan's neck.
In that split second, the red snake suddenly sprang up to shield He Lingchuan, and the sword plunged right into its body.
The blade possessed the power to slay gods. Slaying the vengeful spirits bound inside the Xiliu snake was like flooding the Dragon King's own temple. The giant serpent severed in two where the blade struck; the rear half disintegrated, but the front half whipped around and continued forward to cause trouble for Master Sanshui.
Freed from the serpent's binding, He Lingchuan flicked his wrist and sheared off the head of the red-gold water python with a single stroke.
Water was formless by nature, but the Fusheng blade was their natural bane, preventing the python's head from regrowing for quite some time.
As the final blue python coiled toward General Red's helmet, He Lingchuan raised his mirror shield and smashed it against its head, barking, "Draw!"
The blue python was actually sucked inside.
The mirror screamed in horror, "Ahhh, don't mess around!"
Its interior formed a miniature pocket realm of its own, but it had only been repaired less than six months ago. It didn't want a blue python stirring up chaos in there all over again.
Regardless, the threat of the three pythons coiling around He Lingchuan was completely neutralized.
With the armor's aid, he kept his composure, neutralizing and countering blows until every shred of trouble was kicked back at Master Sanshui.
In truth, this was a contest between the forces of nature and the power of mortals.
In the outside world, nature might hold the upper hand, but here inside the Dafang Pot, within the Panlong Realm, Nailuotian's avatar could gain little advantage beyond its initial ambush.
Yet even as it fought, it attempted to sway He Lingchuan:
"You are still too young to understand what a crushing burden the Dafang Pot truly is. Master Sanshui crafted it with his own hands, yet he wished for nothing more than to destroy it. A divine artifact feared even by gods and immortals is never something you can control!"
He Lingchuan found that amusing. "And you can?"
Nailuotian's avatar didn't lose its temper, asking instead, "You can't command the Dafang Pot at all, can you?"
He Lingchuan gave it a cold smile. "And yet there are still those who could wield it. Zhong Shengguang, for instance. Or—"
"Mitian? Ha! Look at their fates! Look at the fate of the Yuan Kingdom!" Knowing He Lingchuan was linked to the Dafang Pot, it was no surprise he knew Panlong's past. The avatar said, "To say nothing of those further back—not a single one met a good end. Such is the power of destiny."
He Lingchuan scoffed. "Was their tragic fate and heroic end caused by the Dafang Pot itself? Wasn't it because of celestial gods like you, slaughtering everything in your path, wiping out kingdoms and massacring cities at a whim? Wasn't it because you gods suck dry the flesh and blood of common folk to nourish yourselves, and then shamelessly call it 'heaven's grace'?"
Nailuotian's avatar paused briefly before asking, "You place such trust in the Dafang Pot, but do you even know what it wants you to do?
"Do you know what it wants to do to you?"
He Lingchuan remained silent, aware the avatar was dodging the crucial point. With the fight raging so fiercely, he didn't care to waste effort on a retort.
He didn't know, nor did anyone else, because the Dafang Pot barely communicated with anyone.
"Then how can you be certain you won't follow in your predecessors' footsteps?" Nailuotian's avatar seized the moment to press further. "You know nothing of the Dafang Pot's true power. I tell you once more: a divine artifact like this is beyond your mastery.
"Those who cannot master a divine artifact will be ruined by it. So it was for the King of Yuan, so it was for Zhong Shengguang, and you will be no exception.
"Besides, how much do you truly know about Mitian? Do you think it lent you power and helped you fight me out of pure goodwill? Naive!" Nailuotian's avatar spoke rapidly. "Mitian failed long ago! Yet its hatred and madness will still drag you into eternal damnation!"
He Lingchuan pressed along the opening. "Why on earth would Mitian do that?"
He asked no specific question and pointed to nothing directly, asking only why it would do "that." What "that" meant was left entirely to Nailuotian's avatar to interpret.
Sure enough, it replied, "The feud between Mitian and Lingxu runs deeper than the sea. Everything it does is not merely for revenge, but to force the other side's submission. Whether inciting Panlong City or inciting you, it is all for its own selfish gain. You are nothing more than innocent sacrifices."
He Lingchuan asked, "And you? Do you have a feud with Lingxu as well?"
"I do not."
"Then why are you opposing the gods of Lingxu behind their backs? Don't tell me that isn't for your own selfish gain?"
Nailuotian's avatar laughed in irritation.
It hadn't engaged in conversation while fighting out of some charitable desire to answer questions; its purpose was to sow discord.
It had realized that He Lingchuan could perform so brilliantly in the armor only because of his profound resonance and mutual understanding with it.
This was the enemy's home ground, and the youth possessed the armor's empowerment, seemingly holding every advantage. Yet Nailuotian's divine imprint mark was still there, unextinguished. That proved He Lingchuan wasn't as mighty as he appeared!
More importantly, Mitian's true self, the presence it dreaded most, had yet to show itself.
From what it knew of Mitian, the deity rarely waited until the dust settled before appearing. So was it unwilling to show up, or unable?
After merging with Master Sanshui, it had learned that the Panlong Realm also operated by strict rules.
Hmm... so Mitian's true self had no way of appearing at all and could only lend its power to this boy?
At this thought, Nailuotian's avatar grew confident. This vessel was not even twenty years old—an age of rashness, restlessness, and fleeting convictions. So long as it swayed He Lingchuan, planting even a sliver of doubt and suspicion toward Mitian in his heart, the mental link between He Lingchuan and Mitian's armor would snap, and he would no longer be able to wield that boundless divine might so smoothly.
No matter how formidable Mitian's battle armor was, someone had to wear it to unleash its might.
Yet it never expected that despite expending so much breath, the boy remained completely unmoved.
This kid's resolve was either hard as bedrock, or he was so thoroughly bewitched by Mitian that he was utterly beyond reason—a stubborn fool through and through.
Among the devout followers of celestial gods, such people did exist.
What it didn't know was that the one who had lent the armor to He Lingchuan wasn't Mitian, but General Red.
And He Lingchuan's trust lay with General Red alone, not Mitian.
Nailuotian's avatar had been digging at the wrong foundation all along; no matter how hard it dug, the wall would never fall.
While they spoke, the battle never ceased.
Facing an ancient immortal and the avatar of a celestial god, this was the first time He Lingchuan had challenged foes of such caliber. He did not lack battlefield experience, but he lacked the tempering that came with clashes at this supreme tier.
If nothing else, Master Sanshui's combat methods exceeded the realm of ordinary comprehension. He possessed a Cleaving Technique: with a single stroke of his Xiliu sword through the air, he could tear open two rifts at once—one beside him, and another anywhere within thirty feet.
Master Sanshui could slip into one spatial rift and, in the next instant, step out right behind He Lingchuan, thrusting the longsword straight toward his spine!
In this post-immortal era where divine abilities had waned, only the Lesser Mountain Moving Technique yielded a similar effect, yet it could not be opened and closed at will, and the toll was steep.
Fortunately, the bizarre shoulder-perched beast had switched from offense to defense, lingering beside He Lingchuan and defusing crises for him several times.
After shaking off his initial fluster, He Lingchuan fought with growing ease. While he had yet to master the armor's deeper uses, wielding such refined, pure power differed little from fighting on a mundane battlefield, save that his movements were outrageously fast. Had Master Sanshui lacked the Cleaving Technique, he would have struggled just to keep up.
Moreover, the destructive force unleashed by both sides was... staggering. The ground here was pitted and cratered, looking as though it had undergone concentrated carpet-bombing.
Master Sanshui pushed his Cleaving Technique to its absolute limit. On one occasion, the shoulder-perched beast followed him in a pounce through a spatial rift. Master Sanshui simply wiped the rift shut, and the invulnerable beast had half its hind leg and half its tail sheared clean off by the closing space.
This was the true meaning of "cleaving," not merely a passage for instant teleportation. It was a stroke of luck that He Lingchuan had never pursued him through a rift, or he might have been the one sliced to ribbons.
Faced with such authority over natural laws, how much protection could General Red's armor truly grant him?
The shoulder-perched beast felt no pain. It whipped around to bite Master Sanshui, but with only three legs, its leap lacked agility. Two sword thrusts struck it in the eyes, and it dissolved into a wisp of red light, returning to General Red's shoulder armor to resume its perch.
Taking advantage of the opening, He Lingchuan drew a longbow and took aim at Master Sanshui.
Two arrows shot forth together, yet sounded with only a single swish.
Master Sanshui retreated into a spatial rift, but the arrows followed close behind; when he veered aside, the arrowheads curved right along with him.
Chapter 849