Given the choice, Qing Han wasn’t the sort to attract attention to himself. When Lu Yun and the rest had been stirring up a storm, he was calmly observing from the sidelines without joining in.
But this time, Lu Yun was determined to make his friend put himself out there.
Ever since Qing Han learned the truth about the poison plaguing him, dark emotions had been accumulating in his heart. Without a way to vent this negative mix, he would probably die from the poison before Lu Yun could fix the antidote.
Qing Han might look resolute on the surface, but he was in fact very fragile deep down. He also knew Lu Yun was doing this for his own good, so he took a position at the forefront and imitated Lu Yun’s tone, jeering at the palace.
……
“What? How dare they have the nerve to come back?!” In the midst of tending to his wounds, Beigong Chonglou shook when he heard Qing Han’s voice.
Over the past three days, the monster court had mobilized all available manpower in the North Sea. Monster soldiers, ordinary monster spirits, and spirits who’d yet to transform into human form… even the most mundane wandering creatures had become the court’s eyes and ears.
They’d turned the entire seabed around the capital upside down, but still couldn’t find the beginning of a clue about the group’s whereabouts. Subsequently, they’d enlarged the scope of their search to outside the imperial seas, but still to no avail.
Beigong Chonglou had been almost entirely certain those weak cultivators had realized they were in over their heads and left the North Sea.
…but then they’d come back!
What gives them the courage to do so?!
“Admiral Turtle, deactivate the formation and slaughter them all!” Without any hesitation whatsoever, he promptly decided on committing to a sortie this time and ordered the peerless immortal admiral to charge out with his men.
……
“Here they come, get ready!” The instant before the formation was disarmed, Lu Yun stuck several talismans on those around him.
Hum…
As soon as the formation opened, the illusory image of an enormous sea beast appeared in the sky, baring its fangs as it threw itself in their direction. This was a battle formation assembled by the monster spirit soldiers.
Last time, Hongxiu had destroyed a similar battle formation before it’d even taken shape, cutting right through it like a hot knife through butter. So this time around, the thousand soldiers had waited for it to be completed before sallying forth.
“Eh? Where are they?” Standing on the head of the incorporeal sea beast, Admiral Turtle’s green bean-sized eyes blinked in astonishment.
The human cultivators had been swaggering about right over there just a second ago, but now they were nowhere in sight. They’d all vanished into thin air from right beneath his nose, just like that!
“Did they run off again? How do they do that?” Admiral Turtle rubbed his eyes fiercely, then scanned the sea region with his formidable consciousness. He couldn’t find their trail at all, as if they’d never existed in the first place.
“Loathsome punks, how dare you show such irreverence to this admiral! Men, keep searching, you will locate these human cultivators no matter what!” he raged, kicking up a fuss.
……
Meanwhile, Lu Yun and his companions had shrunk to the size of dust motes, quickly making their way past the formation’s barrier of light and infiltrating the monster palace.
Death art: Size Manipulation!
Thanks to Xuanxi’s assistance, Lu Yun could now imbue his death arts into talismans. That would’ve been impossible with her former talisman proficiency, but after becoming Lu Yun’s envoy, her talent had been strengthened day after day by the Tome of Life and Death.
She’d been a talisman grandmaster in the first place, one who could conjure talismans out of nothing. And prior her death, she’d been fully invested in researching how to integrate combat arts with talismans.
Now, by borrowing power from the Tome of Life and Death, she’d finally achieved this magnificent feat. Both the previous shapeshifting talisman and the present size-altering talismans were her masterpieces.
Naturally, Xuanxi grasping this ability also meant that Lu Yun acquired this power. On top of shapeshifting and size-altering, the governor had also infused his other death arts into talismans, but those arts were too heaven-defying to so easily expose.
“We’re in, we’re really in!” All the dust-mote troublemakers were visibly excited.
“Keep it down!” Lu Yun jumped in fright when he heard their voices and hastily transmitted, “My talismans can hide us from ordinary immortals, but not from a dao immortal’s consciousness!”
Ordinary immortals couldn’t perceive the specks of dust floating in the water, but such a feat would be effortless for a dao immortal’s tremendous consciousness. Of course, those immortals weren’t so idle that they’d scan the water with their consciousness all day long; that is, as long as this bunch of fools made sure not to attract their attention.
Hearing his warning, the youngsters immediately shut their mouths.
Convinced that Lu Yun and the rest had run away, the monsters were conducting another fruitless search in the imperial sea. Not for a second could they imagine that the group had already slipped inside the palace.
If he’d tried the same size-altering strategy the first time around, without establishing a pattern of behavior, the palace probably would’ve been on high alert and already spotted them.
“What do we do now? Kill Beigong Chonglou?” The usually loud Deaf Prince asked carefully via voice transmission.
“Kill Beigong Chonglou? No, his death would raise the alarm. They’ll activate all the restrictions and boundaries here, and it’d be very hard for us to do anything.” A smile floated onto Lu Yun’s lips. “We’re going to the Dragon Palace’s treasury!”
Aware of his plans, Aoxue immediately pivoted in the proper direction. Though it was now the North Sea Monster Palace, for Aoxue, it remained the Dragon Palace she’d grown up in.
The blackwater snakes had remodeled the place since then, but most of the buildings and formations had remained roughly the same. These were the legacies left behind by the ancient dragons. To alter them was beyond the current blackwater snake emperor’s ability; he also didn’t want to alter them in the first place.
“The treasury!” The profligates all lit up at Aoxue’s words. Although each of them was wealthy and possessed a great mountain refined from immortal crystals, one could never have too many riches.
More importantly, the treasury contained not only items from the blackwater snakes and the monster court, but also a sea of artifacts left behind ten thousand years ago by the dragons.
“But raiding the place won’t be that easy.” Thanks to Aoxue’s memories, Lu Yun was aware of the many formations protecting the treasury. Even if he could break them, the moment they failed, the palace’s powerhouses would instantly be alerted.
They were inside the heart of the enemy’s lair. It wasn’t realistic to expect he could swagger in and out unopposed and kill whoever he liked with just the few people by his side.
The blackwater snakes had dethroned the dragons, which was proof they weren’t to be taken lightly. Not to mention, what they faced wasn’t just one blackwater snake or two. The palace was well-protected by the entire North Sea’s monster tribe.
Without delay, Lu Yun furtively released the Scaled-Dragon King. Along with Beigong Yu, the two of them disappeared without a sound. “Xiaoxiao, go support Beigong Yu and the Scaled-Dragon King. Use poison if they start losing ground!”
“Understood!” Su Xiaoxiao slowly drifted apart from the main group and disappeared together with Beigong Yu and the Scaled-Dragon King.
“Hehe, there’s a legend on Earth about the Monkey King wreaking havoc in the celestial palace…. Let me have a go at turning the monster palace upside down!” A wide grin spread across Lu Yun’s face.
The palace treasury lay right in front of him. surrounded by innumerable formations of every kind. Killing formations, traps, ambushes, illusions… he counted one hundred and eight formations making up a single whole.
The hundred and eight interlinked formations all complemented each other, whether attacking or defending, and setting off one of them would cause a widespread domino effect. Furthermore, even more formations waited behind them, sealing off the entire space around the treasury.
Just like the treasures inside, the ensemble composed by the hundred and eight formations was also a legacy from the ancient dragons.
Patrols traveled the paths around the treasury, each soldier a golden immortal at a minimum. There were even arcane immortals thrown into the mix. Using golden immortals as mere soldiers to protect the place clearly demonstrated this location’s importance to the monster court.
“Get ready. Once we break through the formations, I need you six peerless immortals to start killing!” Lu Yun transmitted his voice to Hongxiu and the others after taking a deep breath.
The six profligates inclined their heads. They had some misgivings, but they didn’t object. Meanwhile, their eyes burned brightly with excitement as they stared at the treasury.
Boom!
Boom!!
BOOM!!
Three massive detonations rang throughout the entire palace as three halls exploded toward the sky.
“Enemy attack! We’re under enemy attack!”
“Deploy full emergency measures!” The peaceful palace boiled over into action like a beast startled awake from its slumber.
One after another, formations and prohibitions began glowing. A forbidding aura soon permeated the enormous palace hall, and blood-curling war cries bounced off the walls.
However, the intruders seemed very familiar with the place. Before the monster immortals could even sniff out a trail, more palace halls detonated with a vengeance.
Following that, an army poured down from the heavens like a flood and immediately assembled into a fearsome battle formation. A battle image coalescing in the sky, Gonggong’s giant avatar started rampaging through the monster palace, engulfing it in utter chaos.
……
“Attack!” Lu Yun quietly commanded.
Aoxue made several consecutive hand seals, shaking the formations in front of the treasury before they dramatically broke apart. Meanwhile, the treasury’s heavy gates slowly creaked open.
“What’s going on?” The palace’s defenders blanched. Why had the formations disappeared at this crucial moment?!
Before they could react, six beams of sword light shot out of the void and erupted in a series of mighty combat arts that butchered them all. The combined ambush from the six profligates’ peerless immortal bodyguards had left those golden immortals no opportunity to strike back.
“Charge into the treasury! We’re short on time, so take whatever you see!” Lu Yun took the lead and dragged the still dumbfounded Qing Han along as he charged inside.
Whooping with excitement, the six profligates followed closely behind.
“Wait, someone’s raiding the treasury!” some monster immortals cried out in alarm when they realized what was going on. Flinging caution to the winds, they rushed at the vault in an attempt to close the gates.
Hum…
The fabric of space twitched; endless mountains of corpses and a boundless sea of blood slowly came into view. Diexi had gone into action. Although she’d become a true, living creature, she still retained the talents of a zombie king. Any place her gaze rested on could morph into a scene of carnage.
Caught in this world of blood and corpses, the monster immortals racing in their direction… started massacring each other.
