Archfiend

Chapter 186: Danxia Temple (5)

The livyatan finally moved. Looking upon this black light, It carried smidgen of caution in Its large eyes for the first time. Soon after, Its body began to inflate like a balloon!

“This is…” Xu Yangyi looked all around him in shock. Streaks of aqua-blue qi, using a speed that the naked eye found difficult to perceive, entered the giant body at blazing speed! As the black light was on the cusp of nearing the body, a loud boom rang out! From the beast’s head, an immense blue light beam suddenly erupted!

Countless droplets were sprayed along with this light beam as if there was a rainstorm in this place! Like snowflakes of fragmented jade!

“This is…” Zhao Wuye solemnly studied the water beam and gritted his teeth: “An elysial divine ability?” This wasn’t just a lost ancient specimen at the Great Circle of Qi Condensation, but also a giant demon beast that had even awakened an elysial divine ability!

Swoooosh… Oddly, as the raindrops pattered down, the black light actually began to shrink visibly to the naked eye. Like fire meeting water, it was swiftly obliterated! As it reached the front of the giant whale, all that remained was a sliver the thickness of an arm!

BOOM!!!

“ROAAAR!!!” 

Two noises loudly reverberated, arriving without respect to first or last. Following the livyatan’s world-shaking roar, a scarlet mark appeared on Its skin for the first time! And yet… there was still no explosion!

Crash! Sharp pain arrived, and the tremendous body suddenly began to slowly turn over in the water. An enormous fin and tail hoisted upwards to conceal the earth and blot out the sun, ruthlessly striking into the water again! In a twinkling, the lake surface, just tranquil like a mirror, billowed with immense ripples. Shortly, they transformed into a gigantic wave! It was as if a wild tsunami had surged high!

“Command!” The enormous several-meter-high wave faced everyone and struck, yet Zhao Fenglai shouted and a blackish-green cloth scroll unexpectedly flew out! In merely a wink of time, it formed a large hundred-somewhat-meters-wide and a twenty-plus-meters-tall barrier in front of everyone!

In the next second… the barrier was greatly set with red light. As if it had encountered a heavy blow, it trembled without end. Even behind the barrier, the tsunami-like might could be felt!

“We can’t be hit like this!” Zhou Tingting’s anxious voice echoed form behind: “The thickness of a whale’s epidermis reaches several tens of centimeters! Underneath the body, there’s also a fatty layer that goes up to two to three meters! It’s hard for a divine ability to blow open their defense!”

“Then what are we going to do?” Gao Wuguo clenched his teeth. Moments ago, his all-out strike had actually been dissolved into shades by the creature. Concerning this giant demon beast’s strength, he was more understanding than anyone in his heart!

A hard collision of force was difficult to fight out, extraordinarily difficult!

“There are two methods!’ Zhou Tingting said urgently: “The first is internal, but with a Qi Condensation cultivator’s protective qi, I’m afraid that it’ll be melted after entry! The second…” She pointed towards the crown of the giant whale’s head: “Modern whales have two blowholes, but the livyatan hasn’t evolved to this stage. It only has one blowhole! Whales use lungs to breath, not gills! Even the blowhole of the present world’s biggest blue whale is only forty centimeters. The livyatan’s mass is almost triple the size of a thirty-meter-long blue whale! Its blowhole is at most a 1.2 meters! As long as…”

“As long as someone can block it up.” Xu Yangyi turned his head. Back then, he hadn’t driven out Zhou Tingting precisely because he favored her vast and varied knowledge. Right now, it had surprisingly granted him an unexpected delight.

“Then what’re we still waiting for?!” Quan Ningue gasped: “I’ll go, alright? Everyone knows what my body is formed from. I can use my body to expand by over a single fold from what you currently see. It’s enough to block up this demon’s blowhole.”

Any cultivator or demon beast held their own fatal regions. For example, if a human’s brain or heart was pierced, they were still bound to die, no doubts. As a result, the modern cultivation world had a marvelous lineup of demon zoologists. When he was at Heavens Law, Xu Yangyi had also studied these topics.

“It’s not that simple…” Xu Yangyi narrowed his eyes and looked towards small motionless mountain in the lake, licking his lips: “First of all, haven’t you thought that once you stuff up the blowhole yourself, this demon beast will struggle? How great is the qi of the rushing force blasted out from within? If you’re body isn’t sturdy enough, maybe you’ll hold on for no less than twenty minutes.”

“Secondly, if I haven’t remembered incorrectly, a whale’s breath-holding time can stretch up to half an hour. This livyatan, the primogenitor of whales, has such a massive bulk. I figure based on this that Its breath-holding time is over three times. Are you certain you can stay in that creature’s blowhole for an hour?”

Quan Ningyue was stunned. She couldn’t accomplish this.

“Lastly…” Xu Yangyi laughed grimly: “You guys haven’t found out… that It hasn’t taken the initiative to attack at all. Everything’s been a passive defense.” These words caused everyone’s eyes to glimmer. “Its waiting on the Rootless Nine Bends Aqua to ripen.” He said resolutely, his voice chopping nail and slicing iron: “A majority of true spirit-objects generally have a demon beast guarding them at the side. This is common sense in the cultivation world. The demon beast protector of this Rootless Nine Bends Aqua is the livyatan. I fucking bet that for this demon beast’s strength to be so tyrannical, It might only be a step away from Form Transformation. The Rootless Nine Bends Aqua is a supreme water-attribute good. Both sides are water-related. I’ll take a wild guess that this is perhaps the final step to Its Form Transformation!”

“It’s possible.” Cheng Jianfeng was dazed and followed up: “When I achieved Form Transformation back then, and even though my demon form is pretty weak, it still kicked my bloodline up by a notch. After getting to Form Transformation with a heavenly treasure, this demon’s aptitude will rise up to another level.”

“Right now, It’s still more cautious than us.” Xu Yangyi took a step forward and locked his eyes on the giant whale that was silent once more: “It dares not move. There are too many of us humans. Its afraid if someone slips out, they’ll take the flower. On the contrary, Its huge body is Its weakness… A weakness of perspective.”

“Without having achieved Form Transformation, It simply doesn’t understand how to use spiritual sense. Spiritual sense exists in Its body, but it can’t be used. It can only rely on Its eyes and a whale’s sonar organ to probe. Since we’re so many, It’s not attacking but defending right now. Just in case there’s somewhat of a shortfall. It cannot bear this.” He sneered: “Right now, what Its scared of shouldn’t be us but rather… Itself!”

Zhao Fenglai glanced deeply at Xu Yangyi! The speed of this person’s response… truly was not ordinary! Some things would always exist. Merely, no one had discovered Its eyes. So long as this was mentioned, one would discover… such a massive demon form was instead an inconvenience!

“The last two points.” Xu Yangyi laughed and snapped. The livyatan’s enormous gaze motionlessly flickered, yet It didn’t move. He chuckled: “It explained one puzzle for us. Why is the water here so deep?” He smiled: “Everyone saw that divine ability just now. It’s able to take qi and transform it into solid water. And as for what these waters are doing…”

Xu Yangyi lifted his head upwards, and Zhao Wuye couldn’t help but look up, discovering to his shock that through the blue light beam from moments ago, the Rootless Nine Bends Aqua actually wasn’t completely transparent! Rather… a strange kind of red had emerged!

Mao Ba’er energetically sniffed through his nose, and his canine eyes greatly brightened: “It’s b-being w-watered?!”

“That’s right.” Xu Yangyi laughed and said: “It’s using this method to supply the required qi for the Rootless Nine Bends Aqua. But this also demonstrates…”

“It can’t go up!” He still hadn’t finished speaking, but Fang Cheng yelled out in enlightenment: “It’s fundamentally unable to climb the cave like us! It can only use this way! I got it! As soon as the flower matured, It would’ve used a similar method to take it down!”

“No.” Xu Yangyi patted Fang Cheng’s shoulder: “It exposed Its greatest weakness!” Since the beginning of this point, his entire face became more lively as he spoke! “What is It using to water the flower?”

“Out of Its air hole…” Fang Cheng’s gaze twinkled, seemingly thinking of something yet not. He only sensed an answer in his heart, yet nothing would leave his mouth.

“I understand…” at this moment, Jun Man inhaled deeply, glancing at Xu Yangyi with incredible admiration. His commander… The degree of this mental agility… A true fiend!

“Everyone.” He cupped his fist and continued speaking in Xu Yangyi’s stead: “Watering is a verb. As long as the livyatan honestly favors this Rootless Nine Bends Aqua, It absolutely won’t use a 100% of Its spiritual force to ‘water’ this flower. To the extent that the creature is certainly worried about injuring it! Instead, It uses a soft spiritual force that the spirit object can endure to water. And at that time…”

Fang Cheng seemed to have been struck by lightning: “Its greatest weak point! It’ll be e-exposed in front of us! We also won’t suffer a deadly attack!”

As long as It was up above at that time, in that case… to cultivators, the spiritual force that the spirit object was able to bear was like scratching an itch! Furthermore… they could also directly face the creature’s greatest weak point!

“Besides, It dares not allow the Rootless Nine Bends Aqua to go to waste.” Xu Yangyi licked his lips, thirsting for blood.

Dead silence. Everyone was contemplated thoughtfully. After ages, Zhao Wuye deeply cupped his fist towards Xu Yangyi: “Commander Xu, I am convinced. If there is a harvest from this livyatan, I won’t say a thing if the Xingtian Legion takes 90%.” His words were also of his own scheme.

While the price of a demon core that hadn’t achieved Core Formation was high, it wasn’t excessive at all. The crux of the matter was… that he had already seen the Xingtian Legion’s battle strength! What was there to think about comparing to other party in fighting strength with the Zhao Clan’s few big cats and kittens? It would be better for him to first yield a step. The livyatan wasn’t important, what was important was the flower overhead! He could move back a large step for the livyatan. As for the Rootless Nine Bends Aqua… couldn’t he always thicken his face a bit more for a drop?

Apart from the demon core, there’s nothing else to harvest.” Xu Yangyi passionately took a glance at the flower that already carried a smidgen of enchanting red on the cave top, laughing: “The Rootless Nine Bends Aqua is an item I must have!”

“No! No! Commander!” At the back, Zhou Tingting remembered something and shouted loudly: “The demon core isn’t important! A demon core that hasn’t achieved Core Formation is at most regarded as precious! But not famous and valuable! B-but the ambergris! The ambergris! This is an item without market!” [1]

Zhao Wuye gave himself a slap on the spot. The slapping noise was exceptionally crisp. Everyone looked at him bewilderedly. He blushed and gritted his teeth, laughing as the inside of his heart dripped with blood: “N-nothing.”

Not properly studying demon beast biology could kill a man! How could he forget about this?!

“A whale-type demon in itself is incomparably rare. That’s furthermore due to the ambergris of whale-type demons being extremely difficult to obtain! Its other functions aren’t that great, but it can weaken heart devils when assailing each great realm! Calm the spiritual sense! This item… is unlikely to be inferior to the Rootless Nine Bends Aqua by much!”

Everyone’s eyes flashed. A wisp of fiery red even floated up in the eyes of quite a few people. In addition, the Zhao Clan’s tens of cultivators resentfully eyed Zhao Wuye who wished he could cut off his tongue.

Xu Yangyi watched all of this at full attention, finally revealing a wisp of a cold smile: “How many days until it ripens?”

“Three days! At most three days!” Mao Ba’er’s gaze fervently glimpsed at the cave top: “When it ripens, a strange aroma will cover a hundred meters. There’s only fifteen minutes of picking time!”

Xu Yangyi nodded. He said nothing, sat cross-legged, and meditated.

The true decisive battle would be in three days.

[1] Ambergris is a solid, waxy substance produced by the intestines of sperm whales. It is used in perfumes/fragrances. French for “Grey Amber”