Chapter 800: Beware of Penglai (I)

Seeing the iron-eating beast halt in its tracks because of a spirit plant, Tan Qingfeng’s eyes bulged with fury and he shouted, "Supreme Harbinger of Doom, what are you doing?!"

He had been overwhelmed with the grand emotions of realizing his life’s dream and making his ancestors proud when the Supreme Harbinger of Doom stopped attacking just for a spirit plant!

Inwardly, he screamed,

This is the resurrection of our god! And you stopped just to glance at that foolish plant?

Of course, we don't have any now, but once you help our God Jiuli return to life, won’t you have all the treasures nature can offer?

This is a day that will reshape the course of human history for millennia, and you can't hold off for just once?

At Tan Qingfeng’s shout, the iron-eating beast turned back, letting out a soft, pitiful growl. "Grrr..."

The expression in its eyes seemed to say,

It was our friendship that stopped me.

Seeing that, Tan Qingfeng was even more furious.

You’re drooling, and you expect me to believe it’s because of friendship?

However, he could see that it was unrealistic to have the iron-eating beast strike at Chu Liang. The beast had no trouble attacking Xu Ziyang and Jiang Yuebai, but when it came to Chu Liang, it held back. Though they hadn’t known each other long, their “friendship” was built on rare treasures of nature.

Tan Qingfeng immediately changed his orders. "Block his access to the Nether River!"

In the time that was lost, Chu Liang had already absorbed a substantial portion of the Breath of the Yellow Springs from the Nether River. Since retrieving what had been absorbed was not possible for now, the only thing left to do was stop any further loss.

Without hesitation, the iron-eating beast followed the command. It threw its head back in a mighty roar before leaping forward, swinging its massive paw.

Boom!

The Nether River, which had been steadily flowing into the Azure Wave Lamp, was suddenly interrupted by a massive palm strike.

Then, Tan Qingfeng took control of the enchanted formation and commanded the river to surge into towering waves. One part of it blocked Jiang Yuebai’s sword qi, while the other continued its relentless rush toward the rift.

The Eye of the Nether River had been prepared by High God Jiuli as a contingency. Needless to say, the formation was incredibly powerful, and Chu Liang and Jiang Yuebai were unable to stop it.

At that instant, another piercing sword qi descended from above!

Like a swimming dragon, the sword light curved through the air and struck Tan Qingfeng in the back. He cried out in pain before quickly reversing the Nether River’s flow to shield himself within its waters.

As the sword qi dissipated, Xu Ziyang appeared behind it!

After hearing the Bronze City’s artifact spirit’s tale, he quickly stored away the chunk of divine bronze that had been forged by enduring a great tribulation. Then he rushed over to Tan Qingfeng’s location.

Now, at this defining moment, he struck without hesitation.

However, when it came to Xu Ziyang, the iron-eating beast showed no mercy.

Upon hearing Tan Qingfeng’s agonized cry, the Supreme Harbinger of Doom let out a thunderous roar and charged forward, leaving afterimages of its immense form. The power and force it unleashed were terrifyingly intimidating.

Having already taken a heavy blow from it once, Xu Ziyang wasn’t about to repeat the mistake. He immediately leapt backward, riding his sword at high speed to dodge the pouncing iron-eating beast.

The iron-eating beast was powerful, but there were three of them from Mount Shu.

This time, Jiang Yuebai was the one to strike. She invoked the immortal art Five-Lightning Heart of the Sky, and her attack instantly shattered Tan Qingfeng’s defenses. Sword qi spread through the air like a violent storm.

Tan Qingfeng, severely wounded, sat beside the Eye of the Nether River, barely able to maintain control of the formation or fight back.

The iron-eating beast roared in fury once more and turned to chase after Jiang Yuebai. Yet, she activated her stealth traversal art, vanishing in the blink of an eye. She dissolved into the stone wall, leaving no trace behind.

Then it was Chu Liang's turn. He unleashed the Sword Strike of Severing the Void!

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Tan Qingfeng let out a long, anguished cry toward the heavens.

The strategy that the Mount Shu Sect members had come up with turned out to be rather effective. In terms of cultivation power alone, he undoubtedly surpassed any of them individually. With the berserk iron-eating beast at his side, defeating these three should not have been an issue.

However, his severe injuries had never fully healed, and after Xu Ziyang’s repeated sword strikes pierced him, he was on the brink of death. He could no longer unleash his full strength and had become a burden to the iron-eating beast.

Without exchanging a single word, the three disciples of the Mount Shu Sect coordinated flawlessly. They took turns luring the iron-eating beast away while attacking Tan Qingfeng, executing their plan to isolate their opponents with flawless precision.

With Chu Liang's deadly sword strike closing in, a look of grim determination appeared in Tan Qingfeng’s eyes. He flipped his palm and leapt into the air, landing a powerful blow on his own chest.

Boom!

While in midair, he severed his coronary arteries!

Thud.

Tan Qingfeng’s body plunged into the Nether River, and the Breath of the Yellow Springs came to a sudden stop. The three remaining humans and the iron-eating beast stood frozen, shocked that Tan Qingfeng had taken his own life with a palm strike.

Chu Liang was the first to realize what he was trying to do. Immediately, he shouted, "Watch out!"

As the final word was on the tip of his tongue, the Nether River suddenly erupted in a violent surge. A ferocious figure shot out like a thunderbolt, charging at Jiang Yuebai!

It was Tan Qingfeng, surrounded by a murderous aura. When he emerged again, his expression was cold and his eyes looked lifeless. In his right hand, he wielded a Jiuli weapon shaped like a short halberd. The power of a seventh-realm cultivator surged forth, unleashed to its fullest extent.

He had decided to take his own life moments ago because he knew his heavily wounded body had become a burden, making it impossible to complete the grand task of reviving God Jiuli. So, he made the immediate decision to end his life. He knew that when his corpse fell into the Nether River, infused with the Breath of the Yellow Springs, he would be resurrected instantly.

The revived version of him appeared as though he had been reset, completely healed from his previous injuries.

Of course, the price for this was enormous. Once the Breath of the Yellow Springs keeping him alive ran out, he would immediately die. Unless he could absorb every bit of the Breath of the Yellow Springs here and have enough to sustain him for countless years, he would definitely die.

However, the Breath of the Yellow Springs here was meant for the resurrection of the High God Jiuli, not to prolong his life. What he could take for himself was limited.

His death had simply been postponed. In exchange for this immense sacrifice, he only gained a temporary return to his peak form. Such an action was sheer madness.

...

Tan Qingfeng, at his peak, was a powerful seventh-realm cultivator, further enhanced by Jiuli secret arts and a divine weapon. Jiang Yuebai did not dare confront him head-on. Her figure flickered as she used Dimension Compression to retreat over ten zhang in a flash before merging into the stone wall again.

On the other side, Xu Ziyang was still being chased by the iron-eating beast, and it was already a struggle just to stay alive in that brief moment. He couldn't be bothered with what Tan Qingfeng was doing.

At this point, Chu Liang was the only one who could stop him.

Slash!

Chu Liang didn’t retreat in the slightest. Even as he warned the others to be careful, he charged straight into Tan Qingfeng’s murderous aura. With his Demon-Slaying Sword flashing through the air, he unleashed another Sword Strike of Severing the Void.

Tan Qingfeng swung his short halberd, sending a surge of force through the air. His attack collided fiercely with Chu Liang’s sword qi, and the shockwaves that followed exploded across the canyon, gouging deep ravines into the bronze mountain walls.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

In the blink of an eye, they clashed several times. Tan Qingfeng, a master at the seventh realm, was up against Chu Liang, who had only recently ascended to this level. Yet, with the strength of his two golden cores, the double amount of foundational qi of the five elements, and his two transcendent forms, Chu Liang’s cultivation power was far greater than what was typical for someone at his cultivation level.

In this fight against Tan Qingfeng, he showed no signs of faltering.

Unfortunately, Tan Qingfeng did not carry demonic blood within him. Otherwise, with the enhancing effect of the Demon-Slaying Sword against demons, Chu Liang would have gained a tremendous advantage.

Under normal circumstances, this stalemate would not be favorable for the three disciples of Mount Shu. The iron-eating beast was too powerful for Jiang Yuebai and Xu Ziyang to defeat together. Meanwhile, Chu Liang couldn’t disengage and stop the iron beast, as doing so would give Tan Qingfeng the perfect opportunity to reactivate the formation and unleash the Nether River.

Yet, Tan Qingfeng was the first to display signs of distress and impatience. It seemed as though he was worried about something and did not want to continue his fight with Chu Liang.

His weapon danced through the air, releasing chaotic bursts of force that temporarily pushed Chu Liang back. Then, he leaped backward and suddenly shouted toward the sky, "Arubaaaa!"

Chu Liang had heard this incantation before. It was the curse that a Jiuli priest had used to drive Jiuli warriors into a berserk frenzy.

In this place, his curse could only have one target.

As expected, when he muttered the curse, the iron-eating beast, which had been in a heightened state of aggression earlier, let out a roar. "RAAAAAARRRRR!!!"

The roar reverberated through the walls of the bronze mountain, shaking the air and leaving those nearby dizzy and deafened!

The Supreme Harbinger of Doom grew even larger, the crimson glow in its eyes turning into a blazing inferno. Its movements became faster, deadlier, and completely merciless. With a single leap, it closed the gap and caught up to Xu Ziyang’s flying sword.

Boom!

With one powerful swing of its massive paw, Xu Ziyang was sent flying, crashing into the mountain wall with a resounding metallic clang.

The curse incantation likely harmed the target, which was why Tan Qingfeng had not been willing to use it. But as time slipped away, he could no longer hold back.

Seeing that his allies wouldn’t last much longer, Chu Liang refused to continue dragging out this fight with Tan Qingfeng. As the saying went, a man with shoes feared a man with nothing to lose. Chu Liang couldn’t risk watching Jiang Yuebai and Xu Ziyang be killed and then revived in the Nether River.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

With a burst of Dimension Compression, Chu Liang launched himself forward, streaking through the air in three flashes of light. He caught Xu Ziyang in midair as he fell.

Tan Qingfeng, on the other hand, ignored them completely, heading straight for the Eye of the Nether River. For him, that was the only thing that mattered.

The Supreme Harbinger of Doom had descended into madness, letting all its vicious instincts take control. It attacked Chu Liang without hesitation, completely losing all rationality in its frenzied state.

At this moment, even a master of Heaven’s Origin wouldn’t dare take this iron-eating beast head-on, let alone Chu Liang.

In the split second before impact, Chu Liang formed a hand seal with his right hand, and an invisible radiance surged through the cavern. In an instant, his position swapped with Tan Qingfeng’s.

He used Inversion of the World!

Chu Liang and Xu Ziyang appeared at the Eye of the Nether River, while Tan Qingfeng took their spot, right beneath the iron-eating beast’s descending fist.

Boom!

Previously, Baize had gifted Chu Liang the Yin-Yang Seed. The days spent studying earnestly were not without reward. Though he couldn’t reverse life and death like Baize, the Dao Master of Yin and Yang, he had at least mastered the art of inverting the world within the boundaries of illusion and reality.

This technique would have been hard to execute successfully if Tan Qingfeng had been wary of it happening. That was why Chu Liang had only used it this once, and as expected, it caught Tan Qingfeng off guard and worked perfectly.

“

Roar!

”

The iron-eating beast’s fist came crashing down. When it lifted its paws up again, it realized that the figure beneath had been Tan Qingfeng, who was now a mangled pool of blood and flesh. The crimson light in its eyes flickered, and it let out another roar.

If Tan Qingfeng had been alive, this blow would have certainly killed him. But since he had already died once, he could not die again. The Breath of the Yellow Springs still sustained him, though his body was a mangled mess, unable to move.

Gritting his teeth, he shouted, "Supreme Harbinger of Doom! Guard me inside the formation!"

Despite being in a frenzy, the iron-eating beast obeyed Tan Qingfeng’s command, showing just how deep their bond truly was. It leaped once more, crashing heavily onto the Eye of the Nether River.

As for Chu Liang, he had already expected this, quickly retreating along with Xu Ziyang before the beast could reach them.

Now, the iron-eating beast stood guard over Tan Qingfeng, not moving an inch. If this had been a battle, Tan Qingfeng, having died twice, would mean that Chu Liang and his fellow disciples had technically won. But if victory meant stopping his plan, then this would be a defeat, as it seemed almost impossible to stop him now.

Just as the Nether River began to surge again, an overwhelming pressure, carrying the aura of the primordial wilderness, suddenly descended upon the battlefield.

Boom!

Not only did Tan Qingfeng fall to the ground, but the iron-eating beast too was immobilized by an unseen force, completely unable to move. An eighth-realm existence had descended!

...