Chapter 843: Unease on All Sides

The disciple controlling the lamp spirit looked ready to cry, while the others found the whole thing inconceivable. Fu Liang could not help asking, “Master, can a lamp spirit avatar really be... stolen?”

“A lamp spirit avatar is neither real nor unreal, neither soul nor spirit. It exists somewhere between the firmament and the mortal realm. If a god understands its nature, taking it is not difficult.” Hé Jing glanced at him. “Put it away. Your lamp spirit was the weakest, which is why it chose yours.”

What did that wild god want with the lamp spirit’s essence? Why’d it forcibly steal it from a Heavenly Palace envoy?

Hé Jing’s heart felt heavy. “Tonight really is lively. Every manner of chaos has decided to show itself.”

There’s actually another faction inside the city that can invoke a divine descent?

The struggle over the Generous Pot is every bit as fierce as expected.

Worst of all, Hé Jing knew he no longer had a choice.

If the avatar of some other god seized the Generous Pot, the gods of Lingxu absolutely could not tolerate it. If the Heavenly Palace learned that he had stood right before the Panlong Ruins but had been too afraid to enter, thereby handing the Generous Pot over to someone else, divine wrath would surely descend upon him!

And lately, the gods had not exactly been in a good temper.

Hé Jing struggled with the decision several more times before finally letting out a faint sigh and deciding to enter the city and retrieve the pot. “Come. All of you, follow me into the secret realm!”

He stepped onto the land bridge first and faced the towering southern gate of Panlong City.

Now that the avatar of another god had arrived, even if Panlong City were a dragon’s pool or tiger’s den, he had no choice but to enter.

“The secret realm?” Everyone was astonished. One disciple asked, “Are we going to charge into the pillar of red light?”

The Heavenly Palace attendants might all be fearless in the face of death...

But doing something like that’s still... a little too courageous, isn’t it?

Hé Jing shot them a look of exasperation. “You still haven’t figured it out? The moment we pass through the southern gate in front of us, we’ll already have entered the secret realm! These Panlong Ruins are themselves a secret realm disguised as reality!”

Otherwise, why was the city deafeningly noisy inside yet utterly silent outside? Why were que beasts rampaging everywhere throughout the ruins, yet none ever charged out into the desert?

The reason was simple: the entrance to the secret realm was the southern gate itself! Every faction had entered without even realizing it.

The Heavenly Palace attendants followed Hé Jing in long strides through Panlong City’s southern gate.

Many murmured prayers under their breath. “May the gods protect us. We fear nothing!”

Their voices grew louder and louder.

Hé Jing glanced at them out of the corner of his eye but said nothing.

In truth, before this journey to the Panlong Desert, the gods of Lingxu had already given explicit instructions: do not invoke the gods.

Even if they tried, the heavenly gods would not descend.

They had already learned their lesson last time.

In the blink of an eye, the Heavenly Palace party crossed the last of the southern gate’s three gates and, just like everyone else, vanished without a trace.

Several breaths later, the pillar of red light rising from Panlong City also ceased.

The Panlong Ruins stood alone beneath the desert night, with nothing around them but the howling wind.

* * *

Lightning flashed and thunder roared as Zhao Qinghe suddenly said, “There’s something up there!”

Everyone looked up and saw what appeared to be a tiny point of green light moving rapidly through the clouds. At such a great distance, it looked no larger than a firefly.

Yet every time lightning flashed, the green light reflected down across the city.

He Chunhua raised his head, his entire face washed green.

He knew that light should be Naluotian’s avatar, but why was it merely circling in the sky instead of descending?

Looking more carefully, he saw the divine avatar repeatedly try to charge downward, only to be stopped by something unseen.

It’s almost as though the sky itself is a transparent barrier, keeping Naluotian’s avatar outside. The instant that thought occurred to him, cold sweat broke out all over He Chunhua’s body!

Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong here!

He stared blankly around him. The Panlong Ruins looked no different from before, still desolate and ruined, with only a few plants quietly growing in scattered corners.

Why can’t the heavenly venerable’s avatar descend? Could it be...?

Just then, the point of light in the sky abruptly stopped moving and no longer tried to strike the invisible barrier.

Its color also gradually shifted from green to a golden-red, like sunlight... or perhaps candlelight.

It flickered twice more, then it disappeared.

“Look over there!” Qiu Hu pointed toward another part of the sky.

The clouds were thinner there, and something seemed to be moving within them.

Several flashes of lightning illuminated its outline. It resembled an enormous whale.

Qiu Hu murmured, “Could that be a kun[1]?” Those were colossal monsters from the Ancient Era, capable of swimming through seas of cloud. Yet the shadow above did not seem to have fins.

No one could tell whether it was truly the silhouette of some gigantic fish or merely a mass of drifting cloud.

It appeared to move slowly, yet covered ground with astonishing speed, heading toward where the green light had been.

However, the green light had already disappeared. The enormous figure seemed unwilling to give up and circled the area twice, searching for it.

He Chunhua could scarcely believe his eyes.

What’s that colossal shadow? And why does it dare chase after the heavenly venerable’s avatar?

He Lingchuan’s expression was equally grave.

The idol in He Chunhua’s hand glowed green in response to the light above, so that light really was Naluotian’s avatar descending in answer to his summons, right?

He Lingchuan had set up such an elaborate scheme and acted opposite He Chunhua for so long precisely so that he could “receive” Naluotian’s avatar inside the Panlong Secret Realm.

But before the giant red figure even appeared, why had Naluotian’s avatar disappeared?

Did the Generous Pot do that?

It didn’t seem like it.

A thread of unease crept into He Lingchuan’s heart. Events were beginning to diverge from his plan.

Then there was the giant red figure. This was the second time he had seen it appear in the sky above the Panlong Secret Realm.

The last time the giant red figure appeared at the very top of the sky, He Lingchuan had assumed the Generous Pot had been trying to simulate his conversation with Naluotian’s avatar and that the figure had appeared because of some glitch.

But now, it seemed the Generous Pot had begun subduing its lid long ago.

That thing was probably no easy opponent. The Generous Pot had expended an enormous amount of energy dealing with it, which was why flaws had started appearing.

Now, on top of the pot lid, it also had to contend with an avatar of the “god of fate,” while the secret realm itself was still full of cultivators and monsters running everywhere.

The Generous Pot was probably being stretched rather thin.

When Naluotian’s avatar struck the boundary of the secret realm earlier, the impact had been nothing like a fly tapping against a glass cover.

In fact, every collision sent a flash of azure light across the sky, followed by rolling thunder that shook the entire secret realm as though heaven and earth were trembling.

He Lingchuan had not expected Naluotian’s avatar to possess such tremendous force.

He had seen the Generous Pot—the black dragon—devour the nameless god’s avatar from Nian Songyu. He had also seen the Generous Pot swallow the Hundred-Faced Nightmare.

But this time, he had not personally seen the giant red figure devour Naluotian’s avatar.

Where’d that damned thing go?

If it manages to break through the barrier and descend... I’m dead.

Besides, he could tell that the Generous Pot itself was still a divine artifact in the process of perfecting itself, far from complete. Against a true god like Naluotian, was its defensive boundary truly unbreakable?

No matter how carefully He Lingchuan had planned, unknown variables were bound to make him uneasy.

As expected, this is nowhere near as simple as I thought it’d be.

At that moment, He Chunhua stared at He Lingchuan, his forehead covered in cold sweat. “What did you do?”

“You’re asking me?” He Lingchuan instantly suppressed the turmoil in his heart and answered indifferently, “Weren’t you the one who invoked the god through the rite of divine recompense?”

“Why can’t the heavenly god’s avatar descend?” He Chunhua looked from him to the sky, his eyes widening. “C-could it be... Could this place already be the secret realm?”

The Panlong Ruins were a supernatural place. The last time, the god summoned by Sun Fuping had lost an avatar here. He Chunhua had witnessed it firsthand, so the memory remained vivid. But Naluotian had discussed the matter with him several times, and it said that as long as the divine descent ritual was conducted outside the secret realm, then it would be able to control the situation.

Last time, the entrance to the Panlong Secret Realm had been inside the pool at the Temple of Mitian. This time, the pillar of red light had likewise appeared from that same pool, and even the snow-white beasts had emerged from it to wreak havoc.

So whether by habit or by the evidence before him, He Chunhua had naturally assumed the pool in the temple was still the entrance to the secret realm. He believed that as long as he stood outside that pool and summoned Naluotian, neither the evil ghost possessing He Lingchuan nor the Generous Pot would be able to do anything to them.

Only now did he finally realize that he had already been inside the Panlong Secret Realm all along!

When did I enter?

His mind immediately went to the southern gate mysteriously closing, the strange thick fog beneath the walls, and the soldiers who had been unable to escape even after jumping down...

Why hadn’t I realized it sooner?

Right, it’s because Chuan’er was doing everything possible to stop me!

The harder He Lingchuan tried to stop him, the more He Chunhua had subconsciously assumed they were still in reality, outside the secret realm!

Otherwise, why would He Lingchuan have bothered interfering?

At that thought, He Chunhua finally understood. “You were stopping me because you didn’t want me contacting the god? You didn’t want the god to discover that something was wrong here?”

So this evil ghost’s constant interference had never been about interrupting the divine descent ritual.

It had been about preventing me from communicating with Naluotian!

We were already inside the Panlong Secret Realm! Who knew whether or not I’d even be able to contact Naluotian from here? If I couldn’t, then I’d obviously immediately realize that something was wrong.

And even if I did manage to contact Naluotian, once it sensed the abnormality, it might cancel the divine descent altogether.

This evil ghost had deliberately kept pestering me so that I’d never get that opportunity, forcing me to invoke the god directly instead.

And now, Naluotian had answered my summons and sent down an avatar, only to find itself blocked outside the secret realm!

Faced with the accusation, He Lingchuan gave only a brief response, “You’ve gone mad.”

Evidence? Heh, without evidence, I’m not admitting anything.

He Lingchuan ignored him after that and simply said toward his collar, “Tao Ran, do it.”

Tao Ran was a Rongshan disciple specialized in archery who had remained behind at Panlong City’s southern gate. Earlier, He Lingchuan had secretly left an eyeball spider with him, allowing Tao Ran to hear his commands.

The moment He Lingchuan finished speaking, Tao Ran, far away atop the southern gate, drew a signal arrow and fired it toward Liren Street in the west.

It was an explosive arrow He Lingchuan had given him. It would detonate only after striking the ground, and its arrowhead had been dusted beforehand with a small amount of wind-stilling pearl powder so the gale would not affect its flight.

Before He Lingchuan followed He Chunhua down from the wall and headed east, he had instructed Tao Ran to closely watch the hiding place of the Minister of War’s party, namely Yuezheng Qing and his men.

If they were going to screw someone over, it might as well be that group.

In Panlong City’s pitch-black darkness, the assignment had originally been somewhat difficult, and Tao Ran had remained tense the entire time.

Fortunately, flashes kept lighting up the sky one after another, frequently illuminating the city.

From what Tao Ran could tell, Yuezheng Qing and the others should have been hiding somewhere near Liren Street.

That area lay directly opposite the east, making it perfect for diverting trouble westward.

Tao Ran’s bow possessed a long-range property.

He raised it and fired in a high arc.

The arrow pierced through the swirling wind and, sure enough, landed precisely atop the tallest pavilion on Liren Street.

A resounding boom followed.

BOOM!

Debris exploded outward, black smoke billowed into the sky, and the blast delivered the full spectacle of sound, light, and destruction.

In a Panlong City packed with que beasts, an explosion on this scale was practically a dinner bell.

Atop the southern gate, everyone immediately turned and retreated into the hollow chambers within the city wall.

1. This is a mythological fish that’s said to span thousands of kilometers, and it’s the one that can transform into a Peng, which is a giant mythological bird. ☜