Chapter 2019

The woman raised her right hand, making a gesture of scattering rice grains, and the bat demon puppet suddenly decelerated, shifting from meteor-swift to oxcart-slow. Stagnation Art!

This divine art shared the same marvelous effect as the immortals' Slowing divine ability, but it did not make the enemy's movements themselves sluggish; rather, it altered the spatial density around them. However fast the bat demon puppet flew through air, once it entered water or mire, its speed of movement had to slow.

"This demon puppet is interesting." As she spoke, she crooked a finger, and the bat demon puppet, as if drawn, involuntarily slid horizontally toward her.

Just then, the west side wing-room suddenly exploded — or rather, was burst open from within; something pried apart the beams and pillars, revealing a brownish shell —

This colossus's bulk was more than the wing-room could contain.

"Snail-Toad!" The corner of the woman's mouth curved slightly; she had indeed seized the right man.

The scoundrel inside the room was none other than Dong Rui, companion of the Nine Nether Great Emperor and a demon puppet master!

The monster inside the room was the demon puppet Snail-Toad he had stitched together.

Hateful that during the Bega period he neither showed his face nor revealed his hand; otherwise he would have been seized back then, and how much trouble would have been saved afterward!

The wing-room collapsed, and one could clearly see the Snail-Toad knock its head against the ground and bounce a few times, yet it failed to dive underground!

The ground was as hard as rock; the Snail-Toad could earth-escape, but could not rock-escape.

Since the woman had come to seize Dong Rui, she had to guard against his escape; this Petrifaction Art was applied at just the right moment.

But she suddenly withdrew her hand, and her person also shifted two zhang to the right.

The next instant, a ball of fire-mist erupted from the ground where she had been crouching, two sharp claws swung cold light, and then a ferocious head poked out of the fire-mist, baring fangs at her.

Had she been a second slower in moving, she would now have been disemboweled.

But she was extremely sensitive to spatial disturbances and had anticipated this ambush in advance.

This newly appeared monster was, of course, Number Sixty-Six.

The Snail-Toad tried again — no good; it could not drill in; the ground was still hard as stone.

The divine art's effective duration had not yet passed.

It did not waste time either; it turned and leapt outward.

Petrifaction Art always has a range limit, doesn't it? Just leave the circle and it's fine?

But the Snail-Toad had just lifted its leg when it suddenly sank heavily again, as if an invisible giant hand had violently pressed it to the ground.

The more it tried to climb up, the greater this force became.

The Snail-Toad's four limbs bracing against the ground trembled; after a few breaths it could no longer support itself and slammed heavily onto the ground.

By comparison, the bat demon puppet and Number Sixty-Six, though they also sensed their bodies had grown several times heavier, could still move freely, merely slower than before.

This is the pressurizing effect born of the large-area Petrifaction Art, exceeding a thousand jun.

Within the Petrifaction Art's effective range, the heavier a creature's own weight, the greater the pressure it endures. With the Snail-Toad's bulk, it truly would be pressed immobile. It had, after all, undergone Dong Rui's continuous upgrades and modifications; if it were still the primitive, elementary version from the Bega demon-catching days, its five viscera, six bowels, and blood would have been squeezed out through its mouth in one go.

The Snail-Toad could not carry Dong Rui to escape; he would have to come out of the toad's mouth and flee on his own.

Compared to his demon puppets, Dong Rui's personal combat strength could be ignored.

The woman was waiting for precisely this process; otherwise, after cleaning up the two demon puppets, she would still have to go open the box herself.

But the skin on her face and hands began to chap, like cracks appearing on ice, starting to seep blood, yet she herself did not care in the least, as if the injury were on someone else's body.

Although Divine Nectar had just descended and the world's spiritual qi was temporarily dense, this God-Descended Body was not all that good; the divine power it could bear was limited. She had to control her exertion carefully, lest she accidentally burst it.

Tsk, still too fragile.

But just then, the Snail-Toad suddenly retracted into its shell.

The angle was bizarre; thus the back shell, harder and thicker than steel, rumbled rolling toward the woman like a giant wheel stood on end.

The Snail-Toad could not shrink its size when carrying a person, so Dong Rui ordered it to withdraw into its shell.

The Snail-Toad's shell itself was a supreme treasure of the Qinggong, named "Mud Palace," containing an inner space. Once the Snail-Toad retracted, it entered the "Mud Palace's" inner space, unaffected by the outside world.

Number Sixty-Six had already launched a fierce attack on the woman, and the giant shell came crushing toward her head-on.

If this were aimed at her true body, a wave of her hand could shatter it to pieces, but as things stood, hindered by the frailty of the possessed body, she could only turn into a gray rainbow and flash aside to dodge.

The snail shell rolled along toward the street center, intending to leave the Petrifaction Art's range and then earth-escape away. As long as Dong Rui hid in the safe underground, he could command the several demon puppets to slowly play with this celestial god.

He saw at a glance that this celestial god had not descended into an immortal's body, so His remaining time and power in this world were certainly limited.

But the trouble was, tonight there would be Divine Nectar!

When the Nectar descends, the concentration of heaven and earth's spiritual qi becomes extremely dense in a short time, which is quite favorable for powerful immortals and demons. Elder Xutu personally verified that during the previous period, Divine Nectar erupted for seventeen consecutive nights; by the later nights, the qi density had nearly caught up to the Overturned Sea before the war.

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In such an environment, Elder Xutu could fight without the slightest scruple, without needing to worry about the aftereffects of divine abilities and techniques.

Of course, after dawn the qi concentration would drop back.

Tonight's Nectar, though not comparable to that time, indeed could make the great powers feel much more at ease.

Otherwise, the woman's use of a large-area Petrifaction Art would have damaged her physical shell far more than this.

The snail shell rolled past her side; she abruptly stretched out her hand, a talisman flashing gray light in her palm.

This was the character "Seal" engraved in Ancient Demon Language, carved deep into the bone.

Since the "Mud Palace" was an old Qinggong collection, Qingyang had naturally emphasized its properties and usage to the celestial god. Once the Snail-Toad retracted into the Mud Palace to evade the "pressure exceeding a thousand jun" trait, the woman would seize the moment to seal it, making the Snail-Toad able to retract but unable to extend.

But the next instant, Number Sixty-Six flashed into existence right before her palm, a claw striking at her wrist.

This tiger-shaped monster was considerably formidable; if it connected solidly, the possessed body's wrist would fracture, so the woman retracted her hand swiftly.

And after this one pounce, Number Sixty-Six also froze in place, faint gray light wandering over its whole body.

It had blocked this collateral disaster for the Snail-Toad, but was itself sealed.

This divine art could seal its power and also functioned as an immobilization curse.

The woman flew into a rage, because the talisman in her palm had dimmed and could no longer emit light.

Though the Sealing Curse's power was great, it was pre-inscribed; this possessed body could only use it once.

She was about to slap a palm onto Number Sixty-Six's crown when a faint light flashed before her eyes — the bat demon puppet pounced into view.

It had not enlarged, only maintained its small form to attack, precisely fearing the celestial god would stagnate it again. If the woman ignored it, it could pierce through her head.

The snail-toad raced with wind and lightning, rolling toward the gate, not even pausing when it crashed into the courtyard wall, and charged straight into the heart of the street.

The woman dodged the bat demon puppet's lunge, was about to leap and pursue, when a shadow flickered nearby, and immediately a large net shot out from behind the broken wall.

(End of Chapter)