Chapter 720
Chapter 720
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 720
>Chapter Title: Array
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>“Whoosh!” Li Huowang, tossed into the air by Peng Longteng, crashed heavily into the crowd.
With Li Huowang at the center, a wave of fire erupted. Everything caught in the blaze turned into raging torches alongside him.
At this moment, Peng Longteng, her entire body engulfed in flames, charged forward, her massive halberd sweeping toward the Law Cult followers like a crushing force.
The heavy armor on her body had been scorched a dull red. She cut through the crowd, slaying gods and Buddhas alike in her path.
Numerous attacks struck Peng Longteng. Though she sustained fatal wounds, she refused to fall. The soldiers’ final weakness had been shored up by Li Huowang’s abilities.
“Die! All of you, die for me!!”
Peng Longteng felt the thrill of charging across the battlefield return. She loved this sensation, loved killing, loved seeing living people trampled into pulp beneath her horse’s hooves.
Clearly caught off guard by Li Huowang and Peng Longteng, many of the followers burst into flames and collapsed before they could react.
Yet facing Li Huowang’s ferocious assault, they were evidently well-prepared.
“Qian Crystal Yao Radiance Jade Pool East, Alliance Might Saint commands Azure Child! Hurl fire a myriad li to Kun and Zhen Palaces, Rain Riders swift as mist arrive, Wood Lad Taiyi Three Mountains mighty, Thunderbolt shatters stone, spring source flows! One cry alters the four seas’ gloom, where rain array strikes, rivers flood!”
As three peachwood swords affixed with purple talismans pointed skyward, dark clouds gathered overhead. With their descent came a torrential downpour drenching the flame-wreathed Li Huowang.
Though the deluge from the sky couldn’t extinguish the Bahui-originated fire on Li Huowang, it could at least curb its spread.
Amid the pouring rain, a Wu Cheng wearing a witch-character mask emerged from Li Huowang’s shadow, black obsidian dagger in hand, poised to slash at his calf.
But at that instant, a tentacle lashed out, wrapping tightly around the hand. “You’re not touching my dad!”
The Wu Cheng whipped his head around to see more black tentacles surging toward him.
Slipperier in the rain, the tentacles slipped under the mask’s edge and burrowed rapidly into his orifices.
Once Li Sui swiftly adapted to this new body, she spun around, raising the black obsidian dagger to aid Li Huowang.
Under the onslaught from Li Huowang, Sui Sui, and Peng Longteng, corpses piled up. Yet the distant Taishan Stone showed no urgency, hands clasped behind his back as he silently calculated.
As his fingers flicked rapidly in divination behind him, the Law Cult followers around Li Huowang shifted in a patterned formation.
“This Taishan Stone must be the one in charge! In just a few months, this Great Qi bastard’s climbed so high here!” Li Huowang fixated on Taishan Stone, thinking grimly.
“Killing these cannon fodder is pointless! Take him out first!” With that thought, Li Huowang shot Peng Longteng a glance.
The battle-hardened Peng Longteng understood instantly. She hefted her giant halberd with both hands and swung it in blazing arcs toward Taishan Stone.
Seeing the massive weapon hurtling toward him, an elder beside Taishan Stone flicked his sleeve. Shadowy figures burst from his shadow, lunging at the halberd.
But just as the shadows were about to strike, Li Huowang frowned from afar, and the halberd turned illusory, phasing straight through them.
The now-phantasmal halberd didn’t slow, hurtling toward Taishan Stone at the same speed.
Now, only Li Huowang could see the halberd.
As the illusion neared Taishan Stone’s face, Li Huowang’s gaze locked it, reverting it to solidity.
At such close range, even an immortal couldn’t dodge. The halberd smashed solidly into Taishan Stone.
Yet the fate that befell Jinshan didn’t repeat here. The blow elicited a dull thud no mortal flesh should produce.
Taishan Stone then caught the halberd steadily. Under Li Huowang and Peng Longteng’s stares, he gripped it with both hands. With a creaking groan, he forcibly bent the bowl-thick shaft in two.
Taishan Stone tossed the broken halberd to the ground and stared coldly at Li Huowang. “Form the array!”
At his command, the Law Cult followers around Li Huowang shed their clothes in unison, revealing the dense tattoos covering their bodies.
The tattoos were bizarre, not like ordinary script but resembling strange glyphs formed of varying circles.
In the pouring rain, these masked followers twisted their bodies into motion.
Their contorted forms, along with the tattoos, formed a massive living ritual array, with Li Huowang at its precise center. Unlike the swamp decoy before, this array was evidently grander and more profound.
Strange utterances emanated from their mouths—some scripture, interspersed with sounds nearly impossible for human throats.
“Om nali luo mu duo ma suo ha, Heavenly Gate hence opens; Om ma li duo du luo suo ha, Nether Portal never closes; Om tuo su li duo ma ji suo ha, Flows eternal beyond life and death.”
Gradually, the sounds harmonized, faint crane cries weaving into the chant.
Li Huowang didn’t know their goal, but it was clear that if he didn’t stop them soon, dire trouble loomed.
He drew his spine sword, sending rift-blades slicing into the fleshy array, bisecting the followers who tried to evade.
Yet even this didn’t disrupt them. Dead or not, the tattoos peeled from their skin, hovering midair and reconnecting with the rest.
Muffled crane cries rang in Li Huowang’s ears. He sensed a gaze from above fixing on him.
This familiar sensation plunged his heart. “No way? To deal with me, they’re summoning Yu’er God’s descent?!”
Back in Great Liang’s capital, Li Huowang remembered the Yin-Yang Fighting Matron’s power—and that was merely an avatar. Even Zhuge Yuan couldn’t withstand it.
If Yu’er God truly descended, even as Ji Zai’s heart anchor, he was surely doomed.
Li Huowang knew it, Peng Longteng knew it, even Sui Sui knew it. They butchered most within the array, but the crane cries grew ever clearer.
Li Huowang thrust his sword, severing the floating glyphs. They parted easily, but reconnected once the blade passed.
“Li Huowang, since you spurn the toast and prefer the forfeit, today is your doom!” Taishan Stone bellowed at him, face grim. “You should feel honored! Not just anyone gets to behold Grandfather Shi Du’s true form!”
“Think I’ll just die? In your dreams!” Li Huowang hurled his sword aside, kicked off Peng Longteng’s palms, and leaped skyward.
Inverted in midair, Li Huowang peered down at the living array with his flame-bleached eyes.
Higher vantage revealed more. The twisted array formed a massive “Dian” character.
The crane cries intensified in his ears. With a savage grimace, Li Huowang reached down with one hand to grasp the upper half of the “Dian,” then the other hand for the lower.
(End of chapter)