Chapter 3156: An Unthinkable Plan!

The sentries on the city wall all saw it and their forehead veins twitched.

This avatar, specially sent by the Earth Mother to the Great Square Vase, possessed formidable power; after all, it knew that battle in the Boundless Realm was exceptionally fierce, and it wished to provide the Red General with as much useful assistance as possible.

Yet such an avatar was instantly slain in a single move by the newcomer, and the reason was simply that it had blocked the opponent's path!

The Red General had already leapt out from within the city, sweeping horizontally with her spear in one strike, clearing all the strange beasts attempting to cross the gate, while the remaining ones were knocked into the water, to be dealt with by the divine puppets like Xuan Du.

However, her move was not yet exhausted; just as she shattered the little stone man, the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void came rushing over like a cannonball, and the two powerhouses collided head-on without any flourish!

With a deafening "Boom!", the Red General was flung backward, caught by the city wall of Panlong City.

But the sturdy city wall was dented inward by the impact, forming a hole five chi deep, with a diameter reaching an astonishing three zhang, and the surroundings were covered in spiderweb-like cracks. She braced her arm against the wall, trying to rise. This single motion made her eyes see stars, her meridians felt like tearing, and she couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of blood. In the very first clash, she suffered severe injury under the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's furious blow, her internal organs displaced.

At least she could confirm: this was indeed the true form of the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void!

The disparity in strength between the two sides was obvious, and the Red General also suffered greatly from the decline of her elemental power.

Meanwhile, the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void on the opposite side retreated three steps, his voice unusually carrying the fury of heavenly fire:

"You have immense audacity, daring to tamper with my divine essence in this way!"

The snow on the city wall melted rapidly, and a huge crystal orchid sprouted from the brick crevices beside her. This orchid was at least ten times the size of its ordinary counterparts, plump and full, its angry blossoms covered in black and red spots, appearing extraordinarily dangerous.

Yet the Red General glanced at it not at all, plucked it, and swallowed it.

This was the deathly power absorbed by the Great Square Vase, now a potent supplement for her.

Just after swallowing the crystal orchid, her complexion greatly improved, and the pain in her internal organs also lessened.

The Red General wiped the blood from her lips, leapt down from the breach, and said while doing so: "You just said only mortals would grow angry from impotence?" returning her own words.

The reason for the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's fury was also very simple

The Red General was currently controlling the Great Square Vase, fully drawing upon the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's life divine essence!

After obtaining the Great Square Vase from the Great Shaman, Sun Fuling discussed a plan with He Lingchuan that sounded mad, but its execution was even madder. "We should find a way to eliminate the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void within the Boundless Realm." The Red General had said to He Lingchuan at the time, "He is the God of Life; if he truly slips into the mortal realm, who knows how many avatars or seeds of the Life God he might leave behind. Even if we could defeat him, afterward would be endless poison." Among the demons, there is an eccentric deity named Xin Rong who can bury his avatars in the human subconscious, lying dormant for decades while the host remains unaware. Even gods can do this, so the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's methods are myriad; once he enters the mortal realm after the 'Spring Wind and Rain' phase ends, who knows how many forms he might evolve into, taking root in the mortal world, making it nearly impossible for humanity to truly eradicate him.

This is what is truly called a calamity that lingers for a thousand years.

Therefore, the best time to eliminate the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void is within the Boundless Realm.

But how can this be achieved?

Sun Fuling also proposed a solution:

The Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void, like her, has bound the divine artifact forged from the world's heart-core to his divine essence, forming a state of unity among true self, divine essence, and divine artifact.

The reason for doing so is that no physical body can exist within the 'Boundless Realm'; here, only 'laws' should operate. Thus, the first step of the Black Dragon God's merging with the Dao was to dissolve his own body, finally entering the Boundless Realm as 'Chaos', becoming part of the Heavenly Dao. But the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void clearly does not wish to merge here, nor to follow the Dragon God's path of merging with the Dao. He needs to be able to enter and exit the Boundless Realm, so he uses his divine essence as a bridge, employing the world artifact as a vessel, enabling temporary passage in and out of the Boundless Realm.

Strictly speaking, this is a bug.

Whether the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void or the Red General, both are exploiting this bug to enter the Boundless Realm.

Moreover, the world artifact, in every moment and every breath within the Boundless Realm, suffers rejection and compression from the Boundless Realm itself, causing significant self-consumption. While they fight each other, they must also control the artifact to resist the Boundless Realm's compression—exerting both effort and mental strain.

Therefore, the 'divine essence' is precisely the firm bond between the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's true self and the world artifact. Once the divine essence encounters trouble, he cannot freely control the world artifact.

Of course, once others reason their way to this point, they cannot proceed further.

The Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void has long held the Life Divine Essence, and the depth of its bond with him is beyond ordinary imagination. To make his divine essence malfunction would be as unrealistic as expecting the sun to rise in the west tomorrow.

Yet it is precisely the owner of the Death Divine Essence, the wielder of the Great Square Vase, the Red General, who harbors this skewed thought!

Among the two realms, only the Red General possesses the qualification to entertain ideas about the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's divine essence—not even He Lingchuan can do so!

This matter has a precedent. In the past, He Lingchuan set a trap, luring Naraluo Tian's avatar into the Great Square Vase, but it triggered unforeseen consequences: namely, the Great Square Vase actually drew away the Fate Divine Essence through Naraluo Tian's avatar.

Although Naraluo Tian's Fate Divine Essence was originally incomplete, and although the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void had not fully assimilated the Fate Divine Essence for his own use, the Great Square Vase nonetheless succeeded in seizing the divine essence from the hand of a major demon's avatar.

The reason it could achieve this is first, because it possesses a powerful world heart-core, enabling it to take a superior position in divine essence struggles. Second, chaos also contains a portion of Mi Tian's death divine essence, and the most fundamental trait of death divine essence is extraction and deprivation! So, if we follow the same gourd-painting method and extract the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's Life Divine Essence in the same way, what consequences would follow?

Both parties are certainly aware that the difficulty of seizing the Life Divine Essence is not on the same scale as seizing the Fate Divine Essence.

First, the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void has long been deeply fused with the Life Divine Essence, and according to his own understanding of the laws, he has re-interpreted the Life Divine Essence. It can be said that his comprehension of the two characters 'life' likely long surpassed that of the ancient Life Gods.

The Red General's attempt to fully seize the Life Divine Essence via the Great Square Vase has a possibility that approaches zero infinitely.

However, here we must say 'but' again: they possess another advantage, namely that the fusion between the Red General and the Great Square Vase far exceeds that between the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void and another world artifact, the Ark.

Speaking solely of the artifact itself, the Great Square Vase was forged through the combined efforts of dozens of top masters over two generations, and having once merged with the Dragon God's soul, it grew into a unique world artifact.

Whereas the Ark in the Holy Lord of the Spiritual Void's hands was recently cast, and its refinement had a single goal: to traverse the Boundless Realm.