Chapter 506 - Leviathan Roars (III)

Chapter 506

Leviathan Roars (III)

Long Tao considered interjecting at many occasions ever since his Master left that alchemy chamber, where the young alchemist caused the Song of Dao. When they were first intercepted by the alchemists, or when his Master was intercepted by the sect's lowly elders outside the alchemy tower, or when the Sect Master took that naive fool into an array that even Long Tao couldn't see through completely.

He stood on the edge, waiting for a singular trace of something going wrong to burst inside and do all in his power to save the man. But he came out unscathed, and the two sauntered toward the center of the sect at a rather brisk pace.

Long Tao was quite confused as to what they were doing and remained so when they stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the sphere. He knew from the onset that there was a bird inside that fire, but the main reason why he didn't pay it much attention was that it was a juvenile.

Unlike most other Divine Beasts who have human-level or above intelligence almost right at birth, phoenixes were different. For most of their adolescence, they were birds. In fact, there actually wasn't even a surefire way to determine if a bird was a phoenix outside of killing it and seeing if it underwent a rebirth.

It wasn't until their rite of passage that they developed plumes of fire and winged terrors of blaze, the hallmarks of a phoenix. The bird inside that sphere was a juvenile who got hurt and ensconced itself in the flames trying to undergo a rebirth. However, it was likely that it was its first rebirth and thus failed, locking itself in a perpetual state of uncertainty.

Though, technically, it was alive, the only way it could survive--

--that was when it dawned on Long Tao and when his jaw turned agape: his Master was going up there to hand over the Dao of Fire. One of--if perhaps not the only--the things that can actually help that juvenile.

He watched the man climb up the stairs and followed; surprisingly, he didn't even have to defend himself against the array, prompting him to frown. Did the bird somehow know that he was shadowing Master? Even though a juvenile, a Divine Beast was still a Divine Beast--talented as he was at hiding, that bird saw him through and through. As it was letting him climb without any resistance... did it have a semblance of intellect?

Impossible, he immediately dismissed the thought. He personally had met and attended to four generations of purebred Phoenixes and even briefly caught a glimpse of the Divine Beast itself and had met countless juvenile mixes, and not once did the beast develop any semblance of intellect before the Passage.

If the bird inside the sphere truly had intelligence, it would be an anomaly on the level of Long Tao having two cores--something that had never been seen before.

He followed in silence and stayed in the shadows even as the Sect Master started to threaten. Then, the impossible indeed happened--his Master asked the bird for help... and the thing responded.

It was a singular plume of fire that drifted from the surface of the sphere, but it was more than enough. Though he would actually be able to defend against it, as the attack itself wasn't powerful at all, the difference was that the Sect Master of this place had likely never interacted directly with Divine Qi.

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As such, he was blown back like an arrow loosened from a bow, flying through the air in a beautiful arc.

"That's not how things work, big buy," his Master's voice echoed out suddenly. "If I leave, you'll stay in this place forever. Once Dao of Fire dies, there will be no saving you. So, tell me: what can you give me for the Fire?"

The man craned his neck and looked up at the sphere as Long Tao looked at him quite oddly. Was he trying to communicate, somehow, with the bird? Did the heat get to his mind and scramble it?

"No, I don't care about any of that," his Master said after a few moments. "Come on, aren't you supposed to be a Divine Beast? You--" he paused suddenly as his eyebrows creased. "Oh? Interesting. Hm. Fine. In exchange for a place, I'll give you the Fire and a method." He nodded a few times after that before suddenly extending his right arm and procuring it--Dao of Fire. "Let's see how all this goes."

Just as Long Tao was going to reach out and grab the man, he vanished.

Panic struck his heart as he looked up at the sphere; his Master was talking with something, but it could not have been a Phoenix. Whoever--or whatever--was inside that thing had likely just cheated him! Worst-case scenario, the man's body might be snatched...

Long Tao, feeling pensive, quickly started drawing a massive array encompassing the entire clearing. He calculated the positions of the lines in his mind as he drew them, layering seven different formations into one; the principle was to entrap whatever came out of there and to help his Master's soul resurface and win over its body.

In the midst of his drawing, the sphere suddenly shook--it was a gentle, minute shake, yet it sent shivers down his spine as he rapidly retreated to the edge of the stairs, looking up at the volatile fire that had begun to roar wildly, sweat coalescing on his forehead.

Suddenly, a thin wave of Qi sputtered out quite gently, washing over Long Tao. It was Divine Qi, and he immediately grabbed as much of it as he could, pouring it into his secondary core; though a human body could not cultivate Divine Qi, there were means of trapping it and utilizing it. Ordinarily, Long Tao--and every other Emperor and Empress--saved Divine Qi as a life-saving measure, meant to heal a lethal wound. However, as he had his Master's art that was almost as good, it would probably best serve as a surprise boost to an attack.

He seldom had the time to properly store it before the world shook--not the material one, but the building blocks underneath it; the sphere of fire erupted at the top as a pillar of golden, divine flames burst forth, dismantling the reality that could not withstand it.

Gritting his teeth, Long Tao took to the sky and immediately started using sword arts to forcibly patch the spatial tears; there were hundreds of them slowly gnawing away at the reality, wanting to devour it.

He suddenly stopped as a woman appeared just beside him, her eyes wide with shock. He was gasping for breath as though he had fought for a week straight but still pressed his fingers into the handle.

"... I won't harm you," she said, extending her hand and casually closing the gaps. Empress!!!

Long Tao's heart stopped. There wasn't supposed to be an Empress in this realm.

"Oh? He he, that man really has gathered the wildest bunch, huh?" she chuckled, looking up at the pillar of fire where the wings of a phoenix stretched out rather beautifully. "Isn't it absolute madness?" she asked. "If he'd taken Dao of Fire for himself, he could have become an Emperor in less than a year. Is he truly that selfless or simply that stupid?"

"..." Long Tao calmed down best he could; it was pointless, the fear. If she wanted him dead, he'd be dead. If she wanted this entire world dead, everyone in it would die. There was no contending against an Empress. "Mostly the former," he replied.

"... hm. There is a child that's come here who needs help," she said. "Once your Master breaks through, tell him to come to the highest peak."

"Breaks through?" Long Tao mumbled. "... wait--" just then, however, the beast roared.

It was a roar so primal that it nearly made Long Tao kneel. Even the woman had a solemn expression as she stared at the hewed flames fading out in the sky. He had no doubt that everyone else who heard it had to bend and break--but, more than that, he realized that he had been wrong.

... the juvenile had intelligence. Was there anything more terrifying in the cosmos?