Li Qingshan’s figure suddenly swelled, turning into his ferocious, ox-horned, iron-hooved, tiger-clawed, and tiger-tailed daemon form. He growled viciously, which smashed against the cave walls and echoed endlessly.
Stalagmites fell down from above, landing in the channels of magma and creating red-hot splashes.
Li Qingshan had sealed up the river, so the red-hot magma had already taken over the entire interwoven network.
Lolth laughed. The more the prey struggled, the faster they would die. Her poisonous whip was not something that could be broken out of with brute strength, but in consideration for Li Qingshan’s constant, miraculous performance, she gripped the whip firmly and channeled in daemon qi endlessly to subdue Li Qingshan’s struggle.
In the blink of an eye, Li Qingshan had already risen to over three meters tall, but not only did he fail to snap the whip, but the whip dug into his body deeply instead. His bones were exposed as the toxins ate away his body. He had been thinned to the bones.
He bore no resemblance to a human at all anymore. Instead, he was a vicious, wound-ridden monster putting up a desperate fight.
Even at a time like this, the vicious sneer across his face did not vanish. The pain from the invading venom only riled up his fighting spirit. He used his large hands that had been reduced to bones to grip the whip firmly before wrenching it like a tug-of-war.
“Get over here!”
Lolth responded immediately. She pushed against a thread of spider silk as thick as a wrist that stretched across the entire cavern.
The thread bent like a bowstring, contending with Li Qingshan’s strength.
She would not strike rashly. She would only deliver a final blow the moment the venom had sapped all the life from his body.
Li Qingshan sniggered and suddenly let go. Lolth felt her hand slacken as she was set flying by the long thread of spider silk. She thought, Oh no!
Taking advantage of the moment when she lost her balance, Li Qingshan’s figure suddenly shrunk, turning back to human size. He unfurled his wings of wind, and with a swish, he flew upwards.
The whip twisted about below like a venomous snake.
Lolth was not overly disappointed by how Li Qingshan had managed to break free, as he had already sustained extremely severe injuries. If he did not use his daemon qi to suppress the venom, death would be certain for him, but how would he ever earn that opportunity before her?
Fortunately, I’m not unprepared! Li Qingshan understood that too and exhaled gently.
Under Lolth’s gaze of disbelief, the horrific wounds on his body actually recovered at a visible rate, and not even a shred of daemon qi on him had been depleted.
“That’s impossible!”
Lolth cried out involuntarily. Let alone a Daemon General, even a Daemon Commander could not recover from her venom so easily.
“Nothing’s impossible. You can never kill me. No matter how sharp your claws and teeth are, no matter how potent the venom you refine is, none of it can kill me, while I will grow stronger and stronger. There will be a day when you bow down before my whatchamacallit. Hahaha!”
Li Qingshan laughed wildly. The venom in his body had vanished into thin air, and the remaining wounds obviously recovered in the blink of an eye without the interference of the venom.
However, he thought inside, I never thought I’d be forced to use my first trump card so quickly. If it weren’t for this, all I can do right now is make a strategic retreat. The mirror clone can’t last much longer either!
At the bottom of the smaller lake on the island in the centre of Moon Court lake, Li Qingshan’s mirror clone sat with his legs crossed. He placed the Warmirror disc that rippled with light on his knees, reflecting his appearance.
Suddenly, horrific wounds appeared on his body one by one, along with pitch-black poison, as if an invisible beast was mauling away at his body viciously. When the mauling stopped, his mirror clone was on the brink of shattering. The mirror clone seemed like it would collapse completely very soon under the invasion of the toxins.
Li Qingshan seemed like he had been prepared a long time ago. He had prepared many items like recovery medicines and detoxification pills in his mirror clone’s hundred treasures pouch. He grabbed handfuls of them and shoved them into his mouth violently. Only then did he barely manage to keep the venom at bay.
Li Qingshan used the hint of divine nature from the spirit turtle to unlock an ability in the Watermirror disc that even Liu Zhangqing had failed to discover.
Apart from surveillance, the Watemrirror disc had another function, which was “reflection”. It could store the user’s reflection in the Watermirror disc, and when the original body was injured, they would be directly reflected in the water’s “reflection”.
Although the amount of damage it could sustain was extremely limited, it was enough to save lives at certain crucial moments. All that could be said was the Watermirror disc truly lived up to its reputation as an arcane artifact ancient cultivators forged. The ability was truly powerful and strange.
Originally, probably two lashings from Lolth’s poisonous whip would have been enough to reach the limit of the reflection. However, Li Qingshan also happened to possess the ability of the Watermirror’s Image, which was a match made in heaven with the Watermirror disc.
When Li Qingshan used the Watermirror disc to conjure his mirror clone, his mirror clone would become his “reflection”, while the mirror clone that possessed a portion of Li Qingshan’s original daemon qi could probably endure more than a hundred times more than the regular reflection.
As a result, Li Qingshan moved all of his poisoned wounds to his mirror clone in a single breath, which was why this strange sight of self-recovery had occurred. He basically had an extra life.
Of course, he did not mind using this to cut down on Lolth’s confidence, but he had never expected Lolth’s offences to be so great. Li Qingshan’s original plan had been even better than this.
Originally, his plan was to reflect all of the injuries the Spider Queen inflicted onto his mirror clone, and then use daemon qi for his mirror clone to recover while replenishing daemon qi with the Water God Seal. This would form a perfect cycle and essentially turn him into something unkillable. He would have definitely been able to battle Lolth until she reached despair, kneeling over and basically asking to be conquered.
But now, while the pills did have some effect, they were unable to heal him completely. They could only make him last a little longer at most and help Li Qingshan endure a few more wounds.
However, Lolth had no idea what was going on. The feeling that she experienced when she clashed with Li Qingshan last time appeared once again, as if he could stand up again no matter how many times he was knocked down, dragging it out and whittling her down until she was utterly exhausted.
She shook her head and discarded this thought. She stared at Li Qingshan coldly. “I will never lose this battle!”
The whip began dancing wildly like a venomous dragon, whistling and roaring as it struck.
While Li Qingshan did manage to win one round and cut down Lolth’s confidence, she was still a tough nut to crack. He had no idea how to defeat her. If she struck him, he would be poisoned. If he struck her, he would also be poisoned. If he were poisoned a few more times, the mirror clone would definitely collapse. Something as common as poison had become a trump card that could be used for both attack and defence in her hands.
And, once the whip entangled him again, breaking free would not be so easy.
As a result, the choice that Li Qingshan made was to retreat! He retreated without the slightest hesitation, directly backing into the surging water behind.
When the frenzy of the tiger demon and the endurance of the ox demon were useless, he required the spirit turtle’s patience.
Li Qingshan crossed his legs in the water and sat like a meditating monk. The spirit turtle’s figure appeared around him once again.
Like a venomous dragon squirming, the whip lashed, pierced, wrapped, and surged in thousands of different ways, attempting to enter through any hole available. It was like a black storm. It tore apart and pushed back the river, landing directly on the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell.
Rumble! The entire world seemed to shake, but Li Qingshans’ eyes were extremely tranquil. He thought to himself, Seventeen!
The black venom constantly spread and ate away at the shield, but whenever it was about to eat its way through, Li Qingshan would condense another layer of the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell.
Without a doubt, this depleted his daemon qi rapidly. Fighting until now, he had already used up around thirty or forty percent of his daemon qi, while Lolth had placed great emphasis on conserving her physical strength and daemon qi with the experience of her battle with Li Qingshan last time.
With how she caught her breath several times, she had not even used up ten percent so far. As long as she had a bit of time, she would be able to make a full recovery again very quickly.
Thirteen. Li Qingshan continued to count down. The Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell was being stripped layer by layer as the whip approached his body very quickly.
Lolth flicked her hand, and the whip wrapped around the thin, final layer of the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell around Li Qingshan. Once she tore through that, the whip would wrap around him again, but this time, she would never give him the opportunity to escape.
When Li Qingshan had only counted down to seven, the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell cracked and the whip came for him. Lolth arrived before him with a single step and reached viciously towards the top of his head with one hand.
Fucking hell, this isn’t how the script goes!
Li Qingshan grumbled inside. He raised his left hand and blocked Lolth’s arm while grabbing the arm that stabbed towards his chest with his other hand. He felt his body tighten; the whip had entangled him again. And, it did not coil around him in a snake-like fashion like last time. Instead, it tied itself into knots and binded Li Qingshan, containing all of his strength.
Lolth opened her mouth and spat out a strand of silk that shot straight towards Li Qingshan’s head.
Li Qingshan also opened his mouth and exhaled, knocking away the silk.
The Tiger Demon’s Breath was useless against the whip, but it was still very effective against this move.
However, Lolth seemed like she was completely ignorant of that fact. She spat out silk endlessly as her eight legs began to dance. They did not stab at Li Qingshan, instead weaving the scattered silk together and wrapping it around Li Qingshan.
The highly-adhesive spider silk wrapped around Li Qingshan layer upon layer, turning him into something like a cocoon.
Meanwhile, the whip continued to tighten, injecting him with venom.
The mirror clone in Moon Court lake shattered loudly, having reached its limit. The Watermirror disc sank to the bottom of the lake.
From that moment onwards, Li Qingshan was forced to endure these wounds alone.
In the blink of an eye, Li Qingshan had become completely immobilised, like an insect that had accidentally walked into a spider’s web, like it was his end.
Seeing how the prey had finally landed in her web, Lolth’s heart eased up, but she refused to pause with what she was doing. She constantly increased the thickness of the web in an extremely patient manner.
However, just when Li Qingshan had been immobilised, losing all ability to resist, his eyes had already become filled with calmness and confidence, which Lolth found highly unpleasant. She plunged two fingers towards his eyes.
In a daze, the scene gave him a feeling of déjà vu again.
“I’m going to blow up my daemon core! I’ll take you down with me!”
Li Qingshan roared furiously as he opened his mouth, and the daemon core shaped like a turtle shell flew out. It turned into a streak of blue light and arrived before Lolth, dyeing her face azure, which then rapidly became a silvery-grey. She raised her defences to brace for the possibility.
“I’m just saying. Huu, it’s finally made it in time!”
The Water God Seal in Li Qingshan’s body suddenly lit up and gained the pattern of another water flow. Li Qingshan had finally extended his control over the waters to Lolth’s Cobweb city.
Surging waves crashed over from the river behind Li Qingshan like a roaring dragon of fury.
