Chapter 1377: The Unpredictability of the Heavenly Dao

Gu Huojin merely shook his head with a faint smile upon seeing this, then raised his hands to the heavens, and two waves of golden light surged out of the palms of his hands toward the sky.

With the injection of golden light, the beam of gray light released by the chaotic vortex became even more formidable, and the five-colored light barrier was completely overwhelmed as it began to steadily shrink.

Everyone was forced to huddle up closer and closer to one another, but that was only going to delay the inevitable.

Li Yuanjiu heaved a forlorn sigh. Ultimately, all of his efforts had proven to be for nought.

Right at this moment, the space behind Gu Huojin suddenly began to ripple, and a massive, silver rune emerged, immediately following which a gate of silver light abruptly appeared.

Gu Huojin's brows furrowed slightly upon sensing this, and he withdrew a hand before thrusting his palm behind himself, sending nine radiant, golden wyrms racing toward the silver gate.

A burst of dark red light erupted out of the silver gate to clash against the nine golden wyrms, and a resounding boom rang out as the gate exploded, leaving behind a huge black hole that lingered in the air.

At the same time, two figures abruptly emerged, one behind Gu Huojin and one in front of him, both of which lashed out at him in unison.

Unable to take evasive measures, Gu Huojin conjured up a layer of golden light over his own body to withstand the attacks, and the golden light erupted outward in all directions with tremendous power, forcing back his two assailants to hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

As golden light faded away, it was revealed that a trail of blood had trickled down from the corner of Gu Huojin's lips, and for the first time in this entire battle, he had been injured.

He continued to power the array with one hand while wiping the blood from his lips with the other as he mused, "So the two of you were alive all along..."

The pressure on Li Yuanjiu and the others was instantly significantly lessened, and they hurriedly turned to see who it was that had entered the fray.

To their astonishment, the two new arrivals were none other than the Devilish Monarch and the Reincarnation Palace Master, who were supposed to have already perished by Gu Huojin's hands.

Each of them had a layer of light enveloping their bodies, warding off the effects of the array to prevent any loss of law powers.

"You don't seem surprised by our return," the Reincarnation Palace Master remarked as he raised an eyebrow.

"There are three paramount laws in this world. Neither of you have reached the pinnacle of your respective laws, but you are still the two closest to me in power in this world, so I would've been sorely disappointed if it had been so easy to dispose of you. However, I must say that you used some very impressive decoys to fool me," Gu Huojin said with a composed smile.

"I have a brother by the name of Shi Kongjie, and he stands at the pinnacle of the laws of puppetry. He integrated our law powers into a pair of puppets, to create the perfect decoys, so it's no surprise that you were fooled," the Devilish Monarch explained.

"I see. I had always thought that you two were at each other's throats and that you had already killed him, but it seems like I fell for nothing more than an act," Gu Huojin said with an enlightened expression.

......

In the Devil Realm, most of the once majestic Night Sun City laid in ruins.

The war between Daoist Xie and the Devilish Monarch's forces had been an extremely brutal one, and no one that had witnessed the war would've thought that it was an act.

In reality, in the beginning, it hadn't been an act. The two sides had truly been trying to eradicate one another in earnest, and it was only the arrival of one man bearing a piece of astonishing news that put an end to the war.

That man was naturally none other than the Reincarnation Palace Master, and he had informed the two brothers of Gu Huojin's secret plot.

At this moment, Daoist Xie was seated on a cushion in a secret chamber, and he was looking very much worse for wear.

What was most astonishing of all was that the left side of his body, from his shoulder to his lower abdomen, was nowhere to be seen, clearly a result of assimilation from the Heavenly Dao from excessive usage of his puppetry law powers.

Shi Chuankong was standing nearby with a concerned look on his face.

He had been present while Daoist Xie had created those two puppets using the law powers of the Reincarnation Palace Master and the Devilish Monarch, and at the time, he had also suffered from the effects of assimilation, but to nowhere near this severe an extent.

Not long ago, Daoist Xie had been meditating when he suddenly sustained severe injuries, and as a result, the effects of assimilation had been significantly exacerbated.

A short while later, Daoist Xie exhaled as he opened his eyes, and Shi Chuankong immediately approached him with a concerned gaze.

"There's no need to worry about me, I've only suffered some backlash from the destruction of my puppets," Daoist Xie reassured.

"How are things going over there, Uncle?" Shi Chuankong asked.

"It's... difficult to say," Daoist Xie replied with a shake of his head.

Right at this moment, a burst of peculiar energy fluctuations suddenly swept through the air, and their law powers began to seep out of their bodies in the form of translucent threads.

"What's going on?" Shi Chuankong exclaimed in an alarmed manner.

"Gu Huojin has activated the array. Things must've taken a turn for the worse..." Daoist Xie replied in a grim manner.

......

In the Extraheavensphere.

Han Li and Jin Tong were racing through the boundless expanse of darkness.

They had originally planned to enter an immortal region through one of the spatial rifts before traveling to the Middle Earth Immortal Region via teleportation array, but they had discovered that all of the teleportation arrays leading to the Middle Earth Immortal Region had become dysfunctional for some reason.

Hence, they had no choice but to travel toward the Middle Earth Immortal Region through the Extraheavensphere.

Right at this moment, their law powers began to flow out of their bodies before vanishing into thin air.

"What's going on?" Jin Tong exclaimed as she hurriedly stopped cold in her tracks.

"I don't know, but something must've happened in the Heavenly Court," Han Li replied with a grim expression, then attempted to seal in his own law powers with his immortal spiritual power, but his efforts proved to be futile.

"What do we do? At this rate, we'll run out of law powers before we even get to the Heavenly Court!" Jin Tong exclaimed.

As soon as her voice trailed off, a burst of green light suddenly appeared over Han Li's chest.

The green light was emanating from none other than the Heaven Controlling Vial, and he hurriedly pulled it out from beneath his robe.

The green light emanating from the vial enveloped Han Li's entire body, and the outflow of law powers instantly ceased.

Han Li immediately extended a hand toward Jin Tong upon seeing this, releasing a burst of light in her direction to forge a connection between the two, and the law powers in her body were also sealed in again.

"Looks like the Heaven Controlling Vial can keep us safe, but I don't know if the effects are permanent, so we have to get to the Heavenly Court as soon as possible," Han Li said with a grim expression.

Jin Tong nodded in response, and the two of them continued on their way.

......

Middle Earth Immortal Region, Heavenly Prayer Continent.

The Rising Dragon Peak of the Heavenmend Sect was still as peaceful as ever, but for some reason, all of the peace trees on the mountain summit had been stripped of their flowers and leaves, as if they had been ravaged by a storm.

Without the cover provided by the canopies of the peach trees, the entire mountain summit was made to appear very bare and exposed, and the octagonal stone altar was fully revealed.

All that remained of Chen Tuan was half of his face, while the rest of his body had already been claimed by the black vortex hovering over the altar.

His lone, blind eye peered arduously into the distance before looking up at the heavens, and there was a concerned and hesitant look on his face.

"So be it. I've clung onto this pathetic existence of so many years, and now, all that's left for me is one final, half-divination. As for whether this half-divination will be able to yield an outcome, that'll be up to the heavens," he murmured to himself with a wry smile.

He didn't want to know the outcome of the Bodhi Banquet anymore. Instead, the only thing that he was curious about now was Gu Huojin's fate.

He began to chant an incantation, and a film of blood suddenly appeared over his blind eye, following which it disintegrated into a streak of translucent, crimson light that vanished into the space ahead of him.

The space there warped and collapsed to form a black vortex, which sucked in the streak of crimson light to form a crimson bridge between Chen Tuan and the vortex.

However, he was already a spent force, and the bridge was only able to remain intact for less than twenty seconds before crumbling away.

The black vortex flew toward Chen Tuan, then fused with the existing black vortex behind him to slowly devour what little remained of his body.

"How surprising..."

Those were Chen Tuan's final words.

All of a sudden, all of the peach trees on the entire Rising Dragon Peak erupted into flames, sending large columns of black smoke rising up into the sky.