Where Immortals Once Walked

If he could not think of a way, he would die here even more miserably than a turtle trapped in a jar.

At that moment, Juju’s avatar was also roaring on his shoulder, “Smash open the glass dome! Don’t you have a way?”

The bell tolls were shaking it half to death.

If this surprise attack failed too, the Heavenly Palace would definitely deal with it mercilessly afterward!

Under normal circumstances, Juju might have immediately switched sides and thrown He Lingchuan into the Heavenly Palace to protect itself. But right now, it was bound by the Chains of Oath, so it could only pray that He Lingchuan truly had some way to cripple this array eye.

In any case, before the array eye was damaged, it could not lay a finger on any of Mount Xu’s structures. With the situation so chaotic, it could only stare anxiously, unable to exert any strength at all.

“I’m thinking!” He Lingchuan ground his molars together. “You’re so experienced and knowledgeable. Can’t you give me a suggestion?”

“If I weren’t being suppressed, I could smash this lousy dome apart with one slap!”

“Nonsense! Can you say something...” He Lingchuan dodged another ambush from an aberrant creature. “...useful?”

Zaifu Kua, the Deputy Director of the Public Works Department, had only said that the glass dome was incomparably hard. He had never mentioned that there was such a troublesome barrier outside the spider molt. He Lingchuan estimated that this was something added later.

More than ten years ago, before the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array was completed, a small “flaw” appeared: during autumn and winter, the array eye could not escape into the void, leaving it at risk of exposure. Perhaps the gods later devised many new methods to raise the array eye’s security level.

Of course, He Lingchuan understood very well that even if he had prepared everything thoroughly, there was no guarantee that nothing would go wrong.

Accidents could come at any moment.

Normally, the way to open this transparent dome was to use the mother-and-child spheres.

The large dome itself was the mother sphere, while the Chief Cloud Envoy held a child sphere, which served as the key. Whenever the array eye needed inspection or repair, the Chief Cloud Envoy would personally come up and open the dome.

He Lingchuan could not obtain the key, so he could only try to break it by force.

Just then, a glass aberrant creature sprang from the surface of the star ring and pounced straight at He Lingchuan.

It seemed to know the principle of capturing the leader first.

The spider guard bounced aside and dodged.

The glass aberrant creature slammed into the dome, yet it was neither repelled nor shattered by electricity. Instead, it melted directly into the surface.

“Huh?” Are they made of the same material?

He Lingchuan’s gaze sharpened.

He took out another frost talisman, secretly activated the incantation, and the patterns on the talisman began glowing pale blue.

Li Qingge had said that if used properly, this mere frost talisman could freeze nearly half a mountain peak without difficulty.

At that moment, the spider guard beneath him was trembling nonstop, its body growing shorter and shorter. It was almost unable to hold on.

The other spider guards were fighting with all their strength, but more and more enemies kept coming. They were disappearing one after another.

He Lingchuan knew that in at most another ten breaths, they would all vanish.

That was also the countdown on his life.

He had swapped himself in using the ghost-shadow cicada shells, and that divine technique could not be used again so soon. To him, the array eye was a sealed space.

If he could not think of a way to break open the dome, then this date next year would be his death anniversary.

Especially since He Lingchuan could see red light flickering in the distance, several lamp guardians had rushed in, each holding a burning candle.

They held white candles, sprinkled faintly with gold.

He had seen them in Bai Ziqi’s hands before. They were the candle spirits[1] of the eternal lamp.

With those things joining the battle, where would he find any chance of victory?

Another small glass shark leaped out of the star ring and charged at him.

These aberrant creatures were simple-minded, and their attack patterns were monotonous, but their numbers were terrifying. Even enough ants could bite an elephant to death, let alone these huge creatures whose bodies carried intense heat.

This time, He Lingchuan did not dodge. He swung the mirror shield in his left hand and shouted twice, “Grow! Grow!” Then he forced it straight into the mouth of the glass shark that was lunging at him.

After fully digesting the imperial nectar, the mirror shield had evolved further in form. It could now transform into a four-cornered heavy shield more than half a man tall. It could be carried on horseback and used for defense on foot, offering its master far greater protection.

It expanded inside the glass shark’s mouth and immediately prevented it from closing.

Before the glass shark could shake its head, He Lingchuan took the frost talisman with his other hand and slapped it into the gaps between the shark’s teeth.

A surge of cold swept over him, and He Lingchuan hurriedly pulled his hand back.

The glass shark’s huge mouth froze into an ice sculpture, no longer able to clack its teeth in fury. The freezing spread from inside to out, from mouth to tail. In only two breaths, even its fluttering fins were frozen solid.

The mirror shield shrieked from inside the shark’s mouth. “Ah, it’s so cold! Hurry up! I can’t hold out for long!”

A layer of hard ice formed over the shield’s surface, but the cold did not spread behind the shield, nor did it injure its master’s arm. That was the result of the mirror resisting with all its might.

He Lingchuan grabbed the handle behind the shield again, poured strength into one arm, exhaled sharply with a shout, and actually lifted the glass shark by sheer force!

This thing had to weigh about five hundred kilograms.

Good thing he usually wrestled with Jiao Yu for fun. That fierce tiger weighed about the same.

He Lingchuan forcefully rammed the glass shark’s tail into the dome.

Since both were made of glass, the two fused as before.

And the frost talisman in the shark’s mouth was neither repelled nor shattered.

Immediately afterward, the frost talisman unleashed its power. The power of frost spread all the way to the shark’s tail, and then—

It passed onto the dome.

White frost stained the transparent dome. He Lingchuan watched frost spread on the dome with his own eyes, growing thicker and thicker.

This could work!

He patted the dome and found that the frozen portion no longer reflected attacks. He immediately took out several more frost talismans and stuck them directly onto the glass shark’s tail to strengthen the effect.

As he lightly patted the dome, lightning flashed continuously across its surface, but it simply could not electrocute him.

He Lingchuan was carrying a lightning-warding plaque.

It was made from the hide of the Giant Thunderclap Beast. That lord-level giant beast could unleash lightning powerful enough to shake heaven and earth, yet was not injured by it, all because of the powerful insulating force of its skin.

Although the lightning pool defense system within the array eye was formidable, it was still a little weaker compared to the innate ability of a lord-level duonao beast.

Otherwise, He Lingchuan would long since have been blasted into charcoal.

Everyone before the Splendid Mountains and Rivers Diagram found this scene unbelievable.

In only a few breaths, the large section of dome before He Lingchuan had frozen solid. Because it had been frozen too quickly, cracks even appeared across the dome’s surface.

Though the cracks were extremely fine, in He Lingchuan’s eyes, they were a source of enormous hope.

This could really work!

As everyone knew, glass was prone to cracking when rapidly cooled. He Lingchuan decided to help it along.

He pulled a large forged iron hammer from his storage ring and smashed it hard against the frozen dome.

Clang!

The array’s counterattack still did not appear. Had it been frozen along with the dome?

That put him at ease, and he offered it a storm of enthusiastic blows.

Clang, clang, clang, clang! Seven more blows landed in succession, each heavier and more forceful than the last, until the entire array eye trembled.

This iron hammer was also a magical artifact Fang Canran had found for him. It could triple its wielder’s attack power for fifteen breaths, making it a useful aid for short bursts of violent assault.

At this critical moment between life and death, both of He Lingchuan’s dantians began to operate. True energy violently surged through his meridians, no less fierce than when he had refined imperial nectar at Three-Heart Plain.

Had he not conserved and built up his strength for more than a month precisely to unleash it in one burst?

More than half a year ago, when he had struck the waters of the Han River, he had drawn his blade and cut seven falling raindrops in succession. Now, smashing the great hammer seven times in a single breath was nothing.

All seven hammer blows struck the same cracked point in the ice.

At this moment, he erupted with unprecedented strength.

On the seventh blow, the hammerhead sank inward.

He had actually pierced the dome!

He Lingchuan was overjoyed. The sound of shattering glass was no different from heavenly music to his ears.

By now, the final two spider guards had been badly damaged. With a pop, they turned into two drops of blood and fell.

There was no longer any obstruction between He Lingchuan and his enemies.

Two arrows were loosed toward him, one aimed at his left eye and the other at his heart, moving fast as meteors. Clearly, what he had done was unforgivable to the other party.

Without looking back, He Lingchuan raised his shield with one hand to block them. With the other, he wildly swung the hammer and struck three more times.

Between life and death, he had to use everything he had. There was no room left to hold back.

Fortunately, now that a hole had appeared in the dome, further destruction was much easier.

Clang, clang, clang! With three ringing blows, shards of frozen glass dropped like sleet. The hole widened to more than a third of a meter across at its broadest point. With a final clang, the large iron hammer’s handle snapped.

At that moment, the enemies charged in.

The situation in which dozens surrounded one had already formed!

In the face of danger, He Lingchuan grabbed something and threw it forward.

All the Heavenly Palace guards felt their vision suddenly go pure white, as if they had looked straight into the midday sun. The intensity was so strong that even closing their eyes did no good.

In that instant, all creatures with flesh and blood either grew dizzy or felt their hearts and minds violently shaken beyond control. Their attacks stopped.

This was the Soul-Shocking Lightning he had extorted from Fang Canran. Its effect was to stun enemy souls and paralyze them immediately.

The one or two breaths it stole were incredibly precious for He Lingchuan at this moment. He grabbed the giant shield, drove all his true energy through his body, and smashed it directly against the edge of the hole.

Once, twice.

The hole widened from a third of a meter to more than two-thirds of a meter.

His vision blurred. A lamp spirit flew over, arriving first despite moving later. It had somehow mimicked an aberrant creature whose face could open like flower petals, then two long tongues shot out from the center of its face like a frog hunting prey.

He Lingchuan had already witnessed its power at Baishajue and had no desire to meet it head-on now.

He slapped his mount. The final spider guard sprayed a sheet of webbing at the lamp spirit, blocking its mouth. Then it reared upright and pounced forward, barely managing to stop the lamp spirit’s first attack.

After only two clashes, the spider guard dissolved into a drop of blood and fell.

It had already exhausted all its energy and reached the end of its life.

But it had completed its task perfectly, because He Lingchuan seized the opening and shot straight through the hole in the dome!

The enemies outside were a dense, surging mass, but the gap in the dome was only so large. Apart from the glass aberrant creatures, how many of them could squeeze in?

At that moment, Juju’s stone man also strode over. It crouched down and directly blocked the gap in the dome.

It did not dare touch the lightning pool and could not actively attack the opponents, but there was no problem with acting as a roadblock to stop most of the pursuers.

At this point, the lightning pool defense system on the dome became He Lingchuan’s helper instead. Two guards outside were immediately charred black, and the rest no longer dared to attack the dome forcefully. They could only shove and strike at the stone man with all their strength.

Seizing this chance, He Lingchuan pulled out the xun and began playing it, fighting for every breath!

Zhu Erniang’s furry chelicerae were only three meters away. They were so close they almost poked him in the face.

At such a close distance, surely no one could claim that playing the xun would fail to summon reinforcements!

A hissing sound echoed through the entire array eye.

1. Honestly, probably just the lamp spirits from back then. ☜