Chapter 463: Casualty (Patreon)

Yujiao turned around to see the toad dragon’s body floating limply in the Vast Void. Jiaohu’s mouth was still open, as if someone had grabbed his throat, preventing him from screaming, and fear had permanently etched itself into his eyes. However, his eyes had already lost their shine,

He waved his arm, and the soulless corpse disappeared.

Ba Shifang’s sudden revival and Yujiao’s appearance attracted the demon kings and immortal monarch’s attention. Their attacks and maneuvers didn’t stop, but the tempo had obviously dropped—especially Meng Tingfeng. His previous ferocious killing intent directly halved. Joy that could not be concealed shone from his eyes.

Still, he did not let happiness cloud his judgment. The sword monarch continued to pressure Donghai Longzi. Instead of attacking the black dragon, he focused on the red dragon. This forced Donghai Longzi to shield Honglin with his body. Although most of the power disappeared under the black dragon’s defenses, it reduced the frequency of his attacks and prevented him from dodging.

Donghai Longzi roared and coiled around Honglin, forming a spherical barrier with his own body. Although the immortal monarchs didn’t know why he would turn himself into an easier target, it didn’t prevent them from bombarding him with all their attacks.

“Aren’t you going to help him?” Ba Shifang asked, staring at Yujiao.

“He doesn’t need my help,” the humanoid dragon said with a shake of his head. Then, he stared at Ba Shifang with narrowed eyes. “Besides, I feel that blocking you would help him more.”

‘Well, you’re not exactly wrong. If he and I weren’t on the same side, I do have the power to make his situation precarious,’ Ba Shifang thought. However, he didn’t know how Yujiao came to such a conclusion. Was it perhaps a dragon’s intuition? Even if that was true, then the latter had the confidence to block him for a time.

Ba Shifang didn’t waste any more words and attacked. Five different types of qi flowed from his body and formed the five elements: fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. They formed into projectiles and shot toward the humanoid dragon.

Yujiao didn’t attempt to block them head-on. Instead, he evaded as many as possible, but he couldn’t evade all the attacks. For those, Yujiao clenched his hands into a fist and punched them. His punches destabilized the elemental projectiles, scattering them into fragments that only dirtied his robes.

His powerful defense and offense surprised Ba Shifang. It reminded him of Donghai Longzi. “Your actions don’t match your words.”

The projectiles that Yujiao evaded flew past him and struck the coiled black dragon. Still, Yujiao didn’t show any change of expression. He kept his smile and said, “I have confidence in my comrade.”

Ba Shifang’s lips twitched. The gentle smile on Yujiao’s face seemed very punchable in his eyes. Still, his actions didn’t stop. He continued to unleash spell after spell upon the jade dragon. No matter how strong Yujiao’s scales were, he didn’t think the latter could last forever against his bombardment.

Before the scene envisioned by the former clone could appear, the situation on the other side changed.

Donghai Longzi’s body started to rotate. Even in the empty void, turbulent winds composed of gaseous, black qi formed. The spells of the monarchs from the Immortal Court disintegrated upon contact, and the swords used by the monarchs of the Numinous Court could not cut through this black wind. Forget cutting through it, they felt the artifacts deteriorating upon contact with it. A crack even appeared on one of their swords.

Sweat formed on that sword monarch’s brows. The artifact in his hand was at the immortal monarch level. If he had physical contact with the black qi, he could already imagine losing a limb. He wanted to retreat, as did his fellow monarchs, but the black spiraling sphere that was Donghai Longzi exploded, engulfing all of them. Screams of pain belonging to those sword monarchs rang from within.

The monarchs of the Immortal Court were much luckier. They had always kept their distance, so they only got caught on the edge of the explosion.

The monarchs from the Immortal Court glanced at one another. Should they or should they not help the Numinous Sword Sect monarchs? At the end of the day, it was only a tentative alliance to deal with the Demon Clan. The two sides would engage in a war to determine the hegemony of the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System in the future. The weaker the Numinous Sword Sect’s overall power became, the better.

So what was the answer? Naturally to help!

Although the alliance would remain even if those sword monarchs perished, it would cause fractures in the delicate alliance. It was better to wholeheartedly treat the others as allies until the correct time.

So, the monarchs all pointed at the large explosion and unleashed spell after spell to clear the explosion and rescue their comrades. The explosion didn’t last long and soon dissipated to reveal the sad state of those sword monarchs. Nearly all of their defensive artifacts had cracks covering them, and the sword artifact with the crack on it directly broke in half. Blood leaked from all their orifices and wounds littered their body.

The best state among them was Meng Tingfeng. He had donned an armor hidden in his spatial ring the moment the explosion happened, which shielded him from most of the explosion. He had no serious wounds. Still, a few faint cracks appeared on his armor and his hair was in disarray.

He should have retreated in order to heal himself, but he, along with the others, all charged at the black dragon, who had uncoiled himself. Because in his claws were their fellow sword monarch.

Donghai Longzi snorted disdainfully at the charging immortal monarchs. He turned tail and flew into the distance, followed by Honglin. The pressure from his grip never lightened. In fact, quite the opposite. He increased the pressure, intent on killing the sword monarch.

Ba Shifang, who saw this, couldn’t stand by and watch either. He ended his spells and chased after Donghai Longzi. Or, at least, he intended to; had it not been for Yujiao. He narrowed his eyes and unleashed his spell.

Unlike the last time, Yujiao had no intent on avoiding them. A phantom of a silver-white dragon with jade-like horns only a little smaller than Donghai Longzi manifested. Its body was slightly ethereal, but it did not mean the pressure it exuded was false.

The phantom dragon roared, and Ba Shifang’s spells halted in their tracks. A split second later, they started to shake and dissolved back into the immortal qi used to form them.

“I said it before,” Yujiao began. “With me here, you won’t be able to help them.”

Ba Shifang narrowed his eyes. The amount of elemental qi in the surrounding area did not dissipate because of his deliberate actions. He still had over ninety percent of his qi reservoir left, and if he wanted to, he could instantly use a large portion to form the Five Phases Formation, but he felt it was too risky.

He originally wanted to slowly release a large amount of immortal qi so that his expenditure did not overwhelm his qi regeneration. It was true in the Vast Void that an immortal monarch could not regain their qi, but he carried a conduit of Tianyi with him. Through their interaction, Ba Shifang could restore his qi. Although he was Tianyi’s former clone, he still needed to convert the energy transferred to him into his own immortal qi for use.

Of course, he didn’t want to be too obvious about it, hence his previous actions.

But now, it seemed that he needed to take drastic action. Ba Shifang raised his hand, and a black pill exuded a five-colored light appeared between his fingers.

Yujiao instantly became wary. He didn’t even attempt to hide his fearful body language.

Ba Shifang didn’t have time to entertain him and injected a strand of his qi into the pill before flicking it toward the humanoid dragon. The moment it left his fingertips, it exploded in size and quickly expanded until it resembled a fully black planet.

The pill planet’s mass and gravity caused it to attract all things near it, including Yujiao. Yujiao wanted to escape, but Ba Shifang formed several hand seals. The moment he finished, it exploded in size again, emitting a dense aura of the five elements.

Yujiao could not exceed its expansion speed and soon found himself within the black sphere. Within, the gravity increased. Not only that, but gravity multiplied by ten. Had it only been that, Yujiao could have burst out with greater power and escaped from the sphere, but within the domain, spells of the five elements continued to bombard him, forcing him to defend without giving him time to do anything else.

It forced him closer to the core, where the gravity increased and restricted his actions even more.

He roared. It was a bestial roar, one unlike what his gentle demeanor implied. Yujiao’s body shifted. His robes turned silver and merged with his skin. His body lengthened, increased in size until a silver dragon with jade-like horns appeared. Unlike the phantom manifestation, the pressure exuded was ten times greater.

His movement toward the core of the sphere stopped, and he even showed signs of escaping the gravity. However, although Yujiao’s power increased, so did the attraction. Yujiao, who showed signs of escaping the black sphere, started to be pulled toward the center once more.

A golden light appeared in Yujiao’s eyes and the gravitational force around him disappeared, but only for a brief moment. The golden light disappeared and Yujiao came crashing toward the center of the black sphere.

Nine Heavens Art - Planetary Purgatory

From outside, Ba Shifang formed a final hand seal and stayed. His brows twitched, even as he tried to show an indifferent expression.

The pill was the Planetary Purgatory Pill concocted by Tianyi himself. Although it was an alchemical pill, it resembled a talisman even more. It allowed the user to perform the Planetary Purgatory once. However, the user must have at least mastered half of the Law of Fire, Law of Water, Law of Earth, Law of Wood, and Law of Metal. The more they mastered, the more powerful the Planetary Purgatory Pill would become.

Strictly speaking, Ba Shifang could perform it on his own, but the qi requirement was far too high for him to use as he wished. Even if he cultivated the Nine-Five Scripture, this fact did not change. The Five Phases Formation was actually a result of Ba Shifang attempting to perform the Planetary Purgatory using his own method.

He originally thought he could just trap Yujiao with this technique and then chase after Donghai Longzi and rescue the sword monarch, but Yujiao proved more difficult than he expected. He had to maintain a certain amount of focus and distance, otherwise, Yujiao might escape.

Ba Shifang didn’t plan on not chasing Donghai Longzi. Motes of light gathered around him. They clustered into groups colored red, black, yellow, green, and white.

Nine Heavens Art - Stellar Incarnation

Tianyi could easily form thousands, but Ba Shifang only formed a hundred. The hundred incarnations exuded auras of fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. Under his mental command, the hundred incarnations chased after Donghai Longzi. They didn’t use any technique or spells, but directly kamikaze into the black dragon, exploding upon impact.

Soon, spheres of light appeared in the Vast Void, illuminating the empty darkness. Luckily, Ba Shifang held his hand and did not aim for the claws, or else the sword monarch might have perished first. His actions gave his fellow immortal monarch a chance, but only that.

Donghai Longzi persisted, refusing to give up the sword monarch in his clutches. If anything, he increased his efforts to kill the latter. There wasn’t any grand movement or sign. So before anyone realized, the sword monarch died and Donghai Longzi chucked the corpse like some trash.

His fellow sword monarchs grabbed the body, thinking they had forced Donghai Longzi to give up, but that thought only lasted a second upon sensing the missing soul within the immortal body. The sword monarchs roared and gave chase.

Ba Shifang sighed. He hadn’t tried his best, but trying his best would reveal too much about Tianyi, so he didn’t. Instead, he contacted the other immortal monarch. “It doesn’t seem like we can stop those two dragons. Rather than focus on stopping them, we should kill the dragon trapped by me. Even for the Demon Clan, losing that space dragon and a dragon demon king will make them feel an immense loss.”

Although they were seething from  their companion’s death, the sword monarchs could still think rationally. They stared hatefully at the fleeing Donghai Longzi and flew toward Ba Shifang. When they observed the Planetary Purgatory, their expression couldn’t help but become wary.

“With this technique, do you really need our help? I can feel that it is not a bit weaker than a peak emperor’s technique,” one sword monarch said. “The dragon trapped inside should have no hope of living, much less escape.”

Ba Shifang shook his head. “I didn’t create this. It’s something I used by borrowing the Nine Heavens Emperor’s power.”

“I see,” the sword monarch said. “So, what should we do?”

“I think I can kill the dragon, but my intuition is telling me that it’s not that simple. I want to prevent any accidents and stop that black dragon from destroying it.”

The sword and immortal monarchs nodded in agreement. Meng Tingfeng seemed like he wanted to say something, but held his tongue. Now wasn’t the time. As Ba Shifang predicted, Donghai Longzi returned, but without Honglin to accompany him.

The sword and immortal monarchs fought head-on, especially Meng Tingfeng, to stop him from interrupting Ba Shifang.

Within the Planetary Purgatory, Yujiao’s once immense body had shrunk by nearly half. It wasn’t by choice, but because of the immense gravity compressing him. His body trembled as it attempted to resist the pressure. Each shiver caused his bones to grate against each other and the muscle. Were it not for his strong willpower, he might have already screamed out in pain.

He didn’t scream out in pain, but he did shout something that caused Ba Shifang to feel a chill crawl up his spine. “Help me, Empress Bluefeather!”