Where Immortals Once Walked

The Chief Cloud Envoy’s thick eyebrows drew tightly together. This wave of crisis striking the Heavenly Palace had truly come out of nowhere.

New writing appeared upon the Heavenly Tome: “The spider monster has half-immortal power. Xiaori is no match for her. Prepare Baizhantian’s skin-sack at once.”

Bai Ziqi immediately said, “Venerable Baizhantian? That skin-sack may not be very suitable for Venerable Baizhantian...”

The Chief Cloud Envoy raised a hand and cut him off. “Prepare it at once!” At a time like this, what did suitability matter? As long as it could be used, that was enough!

“Yes.”

The Chief Cloud Envoy then said, “Contact the Lord Emperor. We need more origin energy support!”

The powerful enemies this time were no joke: one liberated rock-fire giant, and one spider monster. Both were at the level of half-immortals.

Immortals had vanished for more than two thousand years, and yet the moment they appeared, there were two of them!

The Heavenly Palace had been forced to respond in haste, without sufficient preparation. At a time like this, they had to use their own strengths.

Beijia was immensely powerful, and its origin energy was abundant in a way rarely seen in the present age. If they did not use it now, when would they? However, in Lingxu City, those who could freely allocate origin energy were not the Heavenly Palace, but the Lord Emperor and the Four Grand State Preceptors.

With such a shocking change at Mount Xu tonight, all of Lingxu City had awakened. The Lord Emperor would also send troops rushing here.

* * *

The moment Zhu Erniang emerged, she charged straight toward the teleportation array. She was tall with long legs and reached it in two steps. The guards beside her wanted to attack, but unfortunately, her monster immortal body was far too hard. No matter how desperately they swung their sabers and chopped at her, they could not even cut off two bristles.

Zhu Erniang simply endured their attacks and viciously scraped the teleportation array on the ground beyond recognition, preventing reinforcements on the ground from coming over again.

There were now more than thirty Heavenly Palace guards on the star ring. He Lingchuan could not hold them off alone, so he simply hid beneath the giant spider’s abdomen. If anyone wanted to attack him, they first had to get past Zhu Erniang’s eight long legs.

Those eight legs were like eight oversized wolf’s fang maces, and they could also fire steel needles. No one wanted to get close.

As the saying went, enough ants could bite an elephant to death. Being focused down by dozens of streams of origin energy also made Zhu Erniang feel very uncomfortable, so her thick abdomen sank downward and laid a white egg sac.

“Hey!” Fortunately, He Lingchuan dodged quickly, or he would have been struck squarely on the head.

Ever since crossing into this world, he had been especially wary of falling objects.

He saw that the egg sac was bulging and writhing inside, as if something was about to emerge. So amid all the chaos, he slashed it open with Fleeting Life.

A burrow spider rushed out from within. After emerging, it did not pause to rest but immediately pounced toward the enemy behind and to his side.

Although this egg sac was only the size of a round table, it was like an assembly-line machine. One burrow spider after another bravely crawled out, each roughly the size of an adult wild boar. That dense, crawling mass was simply the nightmare of anyone with trypophobia.

He Lingchuan did a rough count and found that over two hundred burrow spiders had crawled out one after another! Every one of them had mottled colors across its body, thick legs, and sharp chelicerae. They were clearly specially adjusted and enhanced versions.

The methods of these ancient monster immortals were truly impossible to fathom. But He Lingchuan had received Zhu Erniang’s blood amber before. Since a piece of amber could transform into three bloodfang guards or more than a dozen spider guards, then perhaps summoning a spider army from one egg sac was not too outrageous, right?

With this spider army joining the battle, the thirty Heavenly Palace guards on the other side instantly fell into a disadvantage. They were surrounded at a ratio of up to 7 to 1. Even with origin energy, two hands could hardly contend against 56 legs.

Fighting and screams broke out everywhere. Zhu Erniang lowered her head and looked at He Lingchuan. “Very good. You actually fulfilled my request!”

Her request back in the swamp had only been a tentative attempt. She had never expected this young man actually to seize her immortal molt, and from under the Heavenly Palace’s many layers of restrictions no less!

“I was fortunate not to fail your trust.” He Lingchuan shook the blood from Fleeting Life. “But the crisis isn’t over yet. It’s not time to leave.”

Zhu Erniang looked around. The Heavenly Palace guards were being encircled and slaughtered by her spider army. Two of them recklessly charged toward He Lingchuan, and Zhu Erniang simply lifted one leg and swept, flinging them straight down the mountain.

“What else do we need to do now?”

“Wait for the rabbit by the stump!” He Lingchuan looked around. “I hope my deduction is wrong.”

Fang Canran had once mentioned to him that five years ago, an old collector had contacted Dun Garden, wanting to auction off a rare treasure. It, too, had a naturally formed star map.

A well-known auction house like Dun Garden usually maintained contact with many high officials, nobles, and collectors of rare items, helping treasures circulate back and forth among the upper circles.

Fang Canran had been waiting for the treasure to be sent over for appraisal, but the other party had unexpectedly decided not to sell it and refused to explain the reason.

Fang Canran remembered the matter vividly, and after hearing it, He Lingchuan paid close attention as well.

Where had that treasure gone? Could it be?

“Where’s the rabbit?” Zhu Erniang urged. “Time is precious. You’re not planning to wait here all night, are you?”

Even though she had now recovered her monster immortal body, she had no confidence in fighting all of Lingxu by herself.

Besides, this molt had a time limit.

Her main agenda now was to escape Beijia as quickly as possible.

Mount Xu was north of Lingxu City. If they ran fast enough, they might escape before Lingxu’s army arrived. After finally retrieving her immortal molt, she did not want to exhaust all its power in one go.

The eyeball spider jumped back onto her body and began communicating closely with its original master.

Suddenly, fierce winds rose all around them. More than a dozen spiders and several guards standing at the edge of the star ring were caught off guard and blown off.

He Lingchuan stabbed his saber into the star ring to anchor himself so the gale would not sweep him away.

His hair was blown into chaos, but his expression was extraordinarily grave. “Not good. Something is coming out of the void.”

* * *

The suppression ring around Juju’s neck was already covered in cracks. Without much effort, it only had to strain lightly before the ring shattered into dust!

Juju let out a long howl, its heart filled with relief.

After being suppressed by the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array for more than ten years, it was finally liberated tonight!

Its body suddenly expanded several times over. Once it straightened up, it almost stood shoulder to shoulder with Tianshu Peak. The guards inside Star-Plucking Tower were so horrified at the sight that they instinctively retreated several steps.

This was its true body: an aberrant creature born from the earthfire of Mount Xu, a rock-fire giant wreathed in flames.

Usually, it shrank its body and slept year-round to reduce unnecessary energy consumption.

But today, it was going to put all its strength into doing something truly big.

Juju and He Lingchuan had made a pact before the Chains of Oath. He Lingchuan would help it escape, and it would help He Lingchuan bombard the Heavenly Palace and seize the divine object.

Now that He Lingchuan had completed his task perfectly, the baton had been passed to Juju.

At this moment, Mount Xu’s bells rang urgently and loudly again, but they no longer posed any threat to it.

Its days of being suppressed, ordered around, and bullied were finally over!

The guards on the peak released volleys of arrows and divine techniques at the rock-fire aberrant creature. Though not fatal, the origin energy attached to them pricked Juju like needles, and it hurt badly.

These little things usually hopped back and forth over its head. Juju had long hated them to death. Now, it swept a palm across, and half the mountaintop was flattened.

Under its incomparably tyrannical strength, buildings of all sizes on the mountain were like cakes, scraped apart in an instant.

Towers, hard stone, splintered wood, and people on fire all tumbled down the cliff together.

The sight was both magnificent and tragic.

Star-Plucking Tower was originally located atop the volcanic crater. Once Juju went berserk, it triggered a violent eruption of lava. Tens of thousands of tons of lava and volcanic debris shot high into the air, painting the pitch-black night a blazing red!

The Heavenly Palace guards of the Defense Palace hurried over from beside the Hall of Worship, but the erupting lava from the crater fell like cannon fire. Along the short stretch of mountain road only about a hundred meters long, explosions rained down so fiercely that no one could force their way upward.

Fortunately, everyone still had origin energy protecting their bodies. Otherwise, the poisonous gases released by the volcanic eruption would have knocked down a great swath of them at once.

The guardian spirit of Mount Xu was exacting its revenge, and the consequences were severe.

The eruption of Tianshu Peak lit up the entire night sky. The residents of the northern part of Lingxu City could see it clearly.

The rumbling shook the earth.

This was perhaps a perfect depiction of the phrase mountains collapsing and earth splitting[1] open.

All of Lingxu City woke from its dreams. Terrified people rushed out of their homes to see what had happened, only to see the northern sky filled with red light, as if they had returned to the night of the great earthquake more than ten years ago.

Bathed in the lava pool, Juju’s whole body glowed an even more intense red. The moment it climbed up, it threw two heavy punches, directly blowing apart the transmission tower beside the Hall of Worship!

The teleportation array up and down Tianshu Peak was ruined.

If the ground garrison wanted to support the Heavenly Palace, they would have to climb up on foot.

After cutting off the Heavenly Palace’s reinforcement route, Juju turned and went to smash Star-Plucking Tower.

The gods’ earthly residence? This lousy tower had offended its eyes for a long time.

However, Star-Plucking Tower did not break apart like the guard camp on Kaiyang Peak. In fact, before Juju’s fifteen-meter-wide fist could even strike the tiles, a thin layer of light appeared around Star-Plucking Tower and forcefully blocked that terrifying blow.

A barrier.

How could the greatest building in Lingxu City possibly have no protection?

“Hmph!” Juju had long expected this. It swung both fists, unleashing more than a dozen meteor-like punches in two breaths!

Its fists were enormous chunks of flaming rock. Every blow carried force like a giant meteor descending from the heavens, enough to flatten a mountain peak. What was rarer was that its speed was astonishingly fast. The barrage was so rapid that onlookers could hardly track it, seeing only a field of afterimages.

Yet although the barrier before it swayed unsteadily, it ultimately blocked every attack. Star-Plucking Tower still stood tall and unfallen.

How immense was Beijia’s origin energy? Resisting an attack from a greater monster like Juju seemed only natural.

The existence of origin energy had originally been intended to directly resist such greater monsters, after all.

Despite seeing its attacks fail, a sly gleam flashed in Juju’s eyes, and it threw another punch.

This time, its target was not Star-Plucking Tower, but Tianshu Peak beneath it!

The dozen-plus punches it had thrown earlier had done nothing to the barrier, but the ground outside Star-Plucking Tower had cracked.

The barrier protected only the building, not the entire mountain.

This setup was very reasonable because intruders would usually attack only the grand hall. Who would have the ability to smash apart the mountain peak itself?

Yet today, the guardian spirit of Mount Xu had betrayed them.

The barrier dispersed Juju’s strength and transferred it to the entire Tianshu Peak to bear.

But the problem was that the power of a mountain spirit was different from anything else.

The resonance it created within the mountain made all of Tianshu Peak tremble.

Crack, crack.

The sound was like tearing silk magnified countless times. The mountain rock on which Star-Plucking Tower stood split open at its northwestern corner.

Juju laughed proudly and smashed another punch against the mountain rock.

Anyone with eyes could see it. Juju actually wanted to break off the rock peak beneath Star-Plucking Tower and send the entire divine residence down into the lava pool!

When that time came, when it was plunged into a world of extreme heat, how long could Star-Plucking Tower hold out?

Whatever barriers, arrays, or restrictions it had would all fail beneath the ceaseless corrosion of earthfire.

1. The phrase here, 山崩地裂, commonly just refers to cataclysmic events or catastrophes. Of course, in these novels, it’s typically used quite literally. ☜