Chapter 709: Pack it up and take it away

This thing was the fire seed of the Ju Ju. Once it hit the ground, it worked diligently, growing into a giant python as thick as a bowl in just two breaths. Without a word, it tightly coiled around the monster from head to toe. Previously, the Ju Ju had been bound by the grand array and could not directly attack the enemy. Now that the eye of the array was broken, it and its fire seeds were capable once more.

How many things in this world could withstand the burning of the Earth Core True Fire? Even this monster with its copper skin and iron bones could not. The fire snake tightened its grip, searing the monster until it hissed, and He Lingchuan immediately smelled the scent of burning flesh.

A few breaths later, the small monster collapsed, no longer moving.

Its vitality had already reached its end; having spent its last breath, it perished.

Only then did He Lingchuan climb back onto the top of Zhu Xiuer's head and shout to the Ju Ju, "The Spirit-Gathering Array is broken; the rest is up to you!"

The Ju Ju chuckled, "Rest assured, I will fulfill my promise!"

Having finally gained the upper hand, there was no time to lose; they would not give the Tiangong any time to react.

Zhu Xiuer left the eye of the array and jumped into its palm.

The Ju Ju burrowed into the ground, its massive form and sky-piercing flames vanishing in an instant.

Only the raging flames on Kaiyang Peak remained to bear witness to its rampage.

The Ju Ju was a mountain-marsh spirit, walking through Mount Xushan without being bound by space.

With the eye of the array gripped in its hand, the rock-fire monster controlled its temperature with precision. Despite the raging flames surrounding them, He Lingchuan and Zhu Xiuer only felt a slight warmth.

He looked out from between the rock-fire monster's fingers. Everything around was pitch black, and occasionally they waded through magma—they were traveling through the belly of the mountain.

He Lingchuan could not care about anything else; he swallowed several elixirs in a row and focused on regulating his breath.

The series of fierce battles and accidents just now were merely the prelude; the action that followed would be the main event of his night! A few breaths later, they saw the light of day again.

The Ju Ju had arrived at Tianchu Peak and emerged from the magma pool of the Star-Plucking Pavilion!

After a declarative laugh, it grabbed the eye of the array as a weapon and smashed it hard against the Star-Plucking Pavilion with a series of loud bangs.

It is worth mentioning that the lightning barrier on the outer layer of the backup array eye never disappeared, because it did not rely on the Spirit-Gathering Array for power in the first place.

The Ju Ju used it to strike the barrier of the Star-Plucking Pavilion, a case of using one's own spear to attack one's own shield; both were proud creations of the Tiangong.

It remained to be seen which was prouder.

For a moment, lightning surged across the barrier of the Star-Plucking Pavilion, illuminating the entire pavilion and casting light on the ashen face of the Chief Envoy Du Yun.

The surprise attack tonight had gone through many twists and turns, with two reversals, but in reality, less than the time it takes to brew a cup of tea had passed.

The reinforcements under Tianchu Peak hadn't even reached halfway up the mountain, and it was hard to say if the main army of Lingxu City had even begun to assemble.

How had the situation at the Star-Plucking Pavilion become so critical? The Ju Ju, meanwhile, was in high spirits.

The Map of Shanhe had completely dimmed, indicating that the Spirit-Gathering Array was utterly destroyed. Its greatest hidden danger was removed, and it could finally stretch its limbs! In a good mood, its smashing and looting became even more vigorous.

It smashed and struck another seventeen or eighteen times, and the lightning barrier of the array eye crackled twice before stopping.

It was unclear whether the energy was exhausted or the barrier had been broken.

What encouraged it was that the layer of the Star-Plucking Pavilion's barrier, which had been impossible to pierce no matter how it was struck, now swayed like a soap bubble and collapsed!

Now, there was nothing between it and the elites of the Star-Plucking Pavilion.

"As expected, the Tiangong's things are the easiest to use." The Ju Ju threw away the eye of the array, laughed loudly, and reached its giant palm toward the Star-Plucking Pavilion.

According to its original intention, it did not want to completely fall out with the Tiangong; after all, they were neighbors who couldn't be moved away. However, it had a contract with He Lingchuan, and it had to seize the item in the shrine.

If these guys had just obediently let it take it, why would things have become so embarrassing?

The mountain-marsh spirit of Mount Xushan, having completely broken free from its shackles, transformed into a combat form nearly eighty zhang (over 260 meters) tall—the largest monster He Lingchuan had seen since arriving in this world.

Such a size was simply unimaginable in the present day.

A monster nourished by the Earth Core True Fire, still blessed by the heavens in this era of waning spiritual energy, was truly uniquely gifted.

Although its energy consumption was extremely high, there were great advantages to being big, and its strength increased exponentially.

The Tiangong guards kept firing arrows at it. These arrows themselves caused minimal damage to the Ju Ju, but they were imbued with primordial power, and each strike felt like a hornet's sting, with the primordial power drilling deep into its body along with the pain.

An ordinary person might die after being stung by a swarm of hornets dozens of times. While the Ju Ju wouldn't go that far, the primordial power invading its body was as stubborn as bee venom and not easily dissipated.

For now, it could still endure it, not only because the number of opponents was limited, but also because the Tiangong guard team had stopped grouping together after being ambushed by it earlier, scattering to act individually.

There was no need for the Ju Ju to deal with them one by one, and doing so would play right into the Tiangong's hands.

The troops guarding the palace were still climbing the mountain, while it had already sent out several small fire people to conduct Mobile Corps Commander warfare, aiming to slow their ascent as much as possible.

The Ju Ju decided to vent all its anger on the Tiangong. That punch was like a falling meteorite—fast, fierce, and explosive—causing the crowd inside the Star-Plucking Pavilion to scatter and dodge.

The flaming fist was almost as big as the roof. Who would dare to easily take its brunt? It had to be said that the construction quality of the Star-Plucking Pavilion was extremely solid, and there were countless arrays operating on their own inside. The Ju Ju's punch had only smashed half the roof.

Unconvinced, it struck a dozen more times like a pile driver, finally destroying most of the building!

This pavilion, which looked like a fairyland and was worshipped by thousands every day, was now in shambles under its violent dismantling. This scene actually possessed a kind of cruel beauty.

But dozens of divine abilities flew out from within the Star-Plucking Pavilion, heading straight for the Ju Ju.

The activation of the backup array eye earlier had suppressed the Ju Ju again, buying the Tiangong dozens of breaths of buffer time. Experts from the palace had rushed over from other peaks, so the defensive strength of the Star-Plucking Pavilion was even more formidable than when the attack first began.

As the Ju Ju pushed aside the collapsed roof to grab the shrine, Chief Envoy Du Yun pointed to the dozen or so archers behind him. The latter immediately went to guard the lamp-tending envoys, dipping their arrowheads into the candlelight.

When the roof collapsed, seven or eight lamp-tending envoys had sacrificed themselves to protect the eternal lamps beneath them. However, four or five eternal lamps were still preserved in the main hall. Once the arrowheads were dipped in, they were immediately stained with a faint blue light.

Then, the archers drew their bows and shot at the Ju Ju.

With such a large target, there was no reason to miss, especially since the Ju Ju didn't dodge or evade at all, heading straight for the shrine.

This so-called shrine was a structure within the hall, resembling a niche but without a roof, standing a zhang higher than the third-floor floorboards, second only to the statue of the Lingxu Holy Venerable. The lamp-tending envoys had to climb a ladder to worship the shrine.

The shrine housed two things: the Map of Shanhe, and the divine object He Lingchuan had been longing for—the lid of the Great Fang Hu.

Seeing this scene, the divine envoys' expressions changed drastically.

Earlier, no matter how much the Ju Ju had caused trouble under the instigation of outside invaders, it could still be called an internal contradiction among their own people. After all, they all knew the Ju Ju couldn't leave Mount Xushan, and no matter how much they fought, they would eventually reconcile.

Now, however, the Ju Ju had reached its hand toward the divine object! What did this mean? Its target this time was clear: it was after the Great Fang Hu lid! It also meant that the invaders were related to the Great Fang Hu.

Anything related to the Great Fang Hu was the reverse scale of the Heavenly Gods. The Ju Ju had truly poked a hornet's nest this time.

Those dozens of arrows soaked in the tears of the eternal lamps all struck the back of the Ju Ju's hand.

With the point of impact as the center, blue frost spread rapidly. In just three breaths, the Ju Ju's palm had frozen into a blue block of ice!

The raging flames on the surface of its fist were suddenly replaced by frost.

"Awoo, awoo, it hurts, it hurts!" It hated the power of the Heavenly Gods the most, followed by human primordial power! The Ju Ju was also surprised. Usually, it fought relying on earth fire and could draw infinite geothermal heat; how could it be affected by this mere frost?

But this frost was surprisingly stubborn, making it feel its hand freezing.

It directly used its frozen palm to sweep across the entire shrine.

Who knew that a black light would flash on the shrine.

It wasn't the shrine that shattered, but the Ju Ju's fist! The rock-fire giant roared. Although its palm was frozen stiff and lacked its previous power, the barrier on the outer layer of this shrine was simply too overbearing.

It had no idea this thing existed.

The Tiangong and the gods truly managed their lair to be harder to attack than a turtle shell! It hadn't suffered such a heavy injury in a long time; if it hadn't taken an oath, it would have wanted to retreat now.

Just then, He Lingchuan's voice rang in the Ju Ju's ear: "Dig it out and pack it up to take away!"

Hmph, he was quite good at bossing it around!

The Ju Ju muttered to itself, but the kid was right—the barrier could only protect the shrine, not the stone wall behind it.

These methods were top-tier defenses for conventional enemies. If it were He Lingchuan or other great demons coming in person, they would be considering how to break or deceive the barrier to steal the divine object inside.

But the Ju Ju was clearly not an ordinary monster; it had plenty of brute-force methods.

It reached out a hand toward the stone wall behind the shrine, easily stripping the entire shrine from the wall as if digging through tofu. The bedrock behind was thick, and the barrier couldn't hurt it.

By this time, the Ju Ju's severed hand had regrown, and it held the entire shrine carefully in both hands.

During the time it had broken free from its shackles and displayed its might, Bai Ziqi had not been idle, turning and rushing toward the Tiangong's prison—

The Yang Palace.

The guards came to meet him, but Bai Ziqi ignored them, rushing straight into the deepest part of the dungeon.

National Master Qingyang was leaning against the wall, looking out. From her angle, she couldn't see how the Ju Ju was rampaging, but the firelight from the rock-fire giant illuminated the entire Tianchu Peak; how could she not notice?

"Qingyang." This was not the time for pleasantries. Bai Ziqi was direct, "The Emperor has issued a decree to temporarily restore your position as National Master to resist the foreign enemy." With that, he threw a token over.

National Master Qingyang turned and caught it.

This was the token she had handed over when she was imprisoned, and she had received it back at this moment, her heart filled with mixed emotions.

In Lingxu's moment of crisis, the Emperor still thought of her first.

"Let's go." Bai Ziqi opened the cell door, and she didn't say another word, following closely behind as they rushed out. "Has the Ju Ju rebelled?"

Otherwise, why would the sky be filled with fire? The last time such a scene appeared in Mount Xushan was more than a decade ago, before the Spirit-Gathering Array was completed.

"Yes. The Ju Ju was instigated by foreign enemies to attack the Tiangong." Bai Ziqi was concise, "It broke free from the Spirit-Gathering Array's shackles, and the Emperor has already issued a decree stripping it of its position as mountain-marsh spirit!"

Thanks to everyone's support, May has finally come to an end.

See you in June!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 710 =====