Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan’s eyes were sharp as ever. “There’s no blood! It shouldn’t be dead!”

Besides, every creature here seems to have some way to automatically and completely recover. Why would it be any different for the black flood dragon, even if it’s an artifact spirit?

As if to answer his skepticism, smoke burst from the black flood dragon’s shattered head. In the blink of an eye, a new jaw regenerated. The scattered parts on the ground liquefied into black sludge, slithered back, and rejoined the tail to reform its body.

This was its home turf, after all. The very laws of this space favored the black flood dragon.

And so the cycle began anew, and another round of brutal combat ensued. The black flood dragon lashed out with ravenous fury, determined to swallow Nian Songyu whole, while the latter, unbound and unrelenting, fought back with even greater ferocity than before.

Most astonishing of all was the brilliant azure glow now radiating from Nian Songyu’s body, a sign that his command of the Qiankun Coin[1] had reached its peak.

Clearly, the illusion’s suppression on him had lifted.

Now cloaked in white light, Nian Songyu seemed to have turned on cheats. He shattered the black flood dragon’s body twice in quick succession, though each time, it reformed just as swiftly. Its resilience was truly astounding. Still, even when demon apes and sand leopards surged in to assist the black flood dragon, Nian Songyu swept through them all, leaving carnage in his wake.

This defied all logic. Primordial Power came at a steep cost. After a few dozen seconds of unleashing it, Nian Songyu should have been drained and gasping for air. His legs should have been unsteady, and his vision should have been dark. Although he might not have weakened to the point of stumbling off a cliff, he was certainly not supposed to have even been in any shape to duel He Lingchuan thirty rounds.

And yet here he was, launching a second offensive, seemingly stronger than before. He Lingchuan knew the culprit was that white light now possessing him, not that he envied it. Nothing in this world comes for free. To forcibly wring that much power from one’s body meant sacrificing sinew and marrow, as well as squeezing out the blood essence. He Lingchuan could almost be certain that the backlash that Nian Songyu would suffer after this would be absolutely devastating.

However, none of the combatants cared about that right now.

The battle surged on.

“You’re too weak. Is that really all you’ve got?” Nian Songyu sneered, the tip of his blade resting on the ground. “I came all this way for this? What a waste.”

He Lingchuan could hear it clearly. There was genuine disappointment in Nian Songyu’s voice. This made his heart skip a beat.

He did not know exactly how the God-Summoning Spell worked, but in all of history, there had only been three recorded times when divine descent succeeded. This event would mark the fourth. Clearly, allowing a god to descend was no easy feat.

Disappointment implied the payoff had failed to match the effort. But why be disappointed if the artifact spirit was weak? Would that not make it easier to seize the Generous Pot?

The black flood dragon, unfazed, let out a low laugh. “I can keep this up for three to five years straight. Can you?”

It had just been sliced into three pieces again, yet already the parts were flowing back together, its body recovering to its original state in mere seconds. Around them, even the demon apes obliterated by the cleansing light were reforming, preparing themselves for another attack.

Endurance was king. So what if the opponent was ferocious? The body that the white light was borrowing was riddled with flaws. It was patched together, hollow at the core. With time, victory would inevitably favor the flood dragon.

Nian Songyu did not bother responding. He bit his fingertip and began sketching runes midair.

Blood trickled from the wound and hung suspended, forming crimson symbols.

His movements began sharp and fluid, but slowed rapidly as though he was drawing with a mountain on his back. He only managed to finish the last few strokes just as the black flood dragon’s rebuilt form lunged toward him once more.

Then, he let out three roars.

Each roar carried a distinct syllable, each in an eerie, ancient tone. And each triggered one blood rune to ignite and release blinding red light before shooting straight for the black flood dragon.

With a blinding flash, three blood-red chains appeared, wrapping around the black flood dragon.

These chains appeared to have no corporeality to them, seemingly being in the form of projections, but the black flood dragon crashed to the ground under their weight as if it had been made to bear the weight of three massive mountains.

Now, each step the black flood dragon took forward seemed to cost it three to five times more effort than before. As a result, it had become much slower, and every single one of its movements seemed labored and strained.

The onlookers atop the city walls turned pale. How could the black flood dragon be suppressed to such a degree in its own domain?

Is this the “god” Sun Fuping had gone to such great lengths to summon? It really is monstrously powerful.

“This is a mimicry of the Word-Spirit Spell. I’ve inflicted you with three effects, namely weight, sluggishness, and fatigue. With this, even your recovery should slow down.” Creatures afflicted by a Word-Spirit Spell became sluggish, their bodies feeling heavy and clumsy, and their combat strength being dulled. Nian Songyu smiled faintly and asked, “What’s wrong? Can’t break free?”

The black flood dragon did not reply. It simply stared at him in silence, crawling forward with grim determination, inch by inch.

“If you can’t break it...” Nian Songyu’s voice trembled with excitement, “Then you are not the true master of this world!”

He Lingchuan’s brow furrowed. Even the master of this illusion could not possibly have absolute control over everything, could they? If that were the case, the black flood dragon could have crushed all of us with just a flick of its finger. Why would it have even bothered to drag things out like this?

Still, there was something deeper behind Nian Songyu’s words. From his fervent tone and shining eyes, it seemed as though he had just hit the jackpot.

The moment He Lingchuan thought of the price of the God-Summoning Spell, and of He Chunhua, a sharp pang lanced through his chest.

The pain felt rooted in the very memories of this body.

Now that the divine descent had occurred, chances were high that He Chunhua was dead.

He Lingchuan quickly pushed the thought away. The dead could not return. What mattered now was what he would do next.

Ever since that white light had tried to possess him, he had been suffering pounding headaches and a foggy mind, with an overwhelming urge to collapse into sleep for three days straight. Based on what he had just experienced, he knew that he had been harmed, and it was possibly worse than he first realized. That shadow-formed sand leopard had nearly gutted him.

He had checked himself immediately upon waking. Aside from having some bruised ribs from being crushed by a boulder, his skin was pretty much completely undamaged.

Is the damage internal then? Could there be something wrong with my head?

He Lingchuan forcibly set aside the discomfort, steadying his breath and mind.

After having fired at the two with the defensive artillery atop the city wall, there was no salvaging his relationship with Sun Fuping and Nian Songyu. Now, he had no choice but to side with the black flood dragon and fight against the two.

But could the black flood dragon really be trusted?

Even if they managed to eliminate Sun Fuping and Nian Songyu, who was to say that the black flood dragon would not immediately turn around and swallow the rest of them whole? It was the guardian of the Generous Pot, after all. In its eyes, they were just as much invaders as those two.

Just then, all the people on the city wall were leaning over the battlements, wholly absorbed in the battle below, too distracted to notice anything else.

He Lingchuan’s eyes flicked back and forth, and suddenly, a strange idea popped into his head.

It... might actually work. It should be worth a shot, at least, right?

* * *

Afflicted by the Word-Spirit Spell, the black flood dragon’s attacks lost their former ferocity. Where it had once moved with the fluid grace of a dragon, now it was slow as a crawling snail.

Even someone like Zeng Feixiong could probably roll up his sleeves and take a swing at it.

Nian Songyu stabbed his changdao into the flood dragon’s skull and once again began drawing a blood rune in midair.

This time, it was a single rune, but writing it seemed to strain him much more than any of the previous runes. His fingers trembled, struggling to maintain control.

If the black flood dragon had not been so thoroughly hindered, there was no way that he could have completed the spell in time.

Nian Songyu’s face flushed red, then drained to pale white. After finally finishing the rune, he shouted the incantation only to cough up a mouthful of pitch-black blood immediately.

Chunks of torn flesh were mixed in, and these chunks were probably parts of his internal organs.

And yet, this word’s effect appeared to be far more potent than those before it.

The blade wound on the flood dragon’s head began to frost over. White frost spread outward from its crown, creeping down its massive form.

Wherever the frost reached, the beast’s movements came to a halt, freezing completely in place.

Clearly, Nian Songyu had discovered a viable strategy. He planned to encase the black flood dragon entirely in ice, thereby halting its seemingly endless recovery once and for all.

The only flaw in this plan was that he had to keep chanting to maintain the freezing process. However, that was only to be expected. After all, word magic was never supposed to be something that anyone could wield easily.

1. Should be the same as Yuan Coin. ☜