Chapter 843: The Desert Dao Lord, Caught in a Trap

Ding Huan stared in surprise at the two before him; the woman he recognized was Wu Jiena.

What startled Ding Huan wasn't their current state, but how blind could Wu Jiena possibly be?

After stripping naked, the Desert Dao Lord looked like a sphere.

Even an irregular sphere.

Wu Jiena was frozen in fear; the Desert Dao Lord was clearly a seasoned veteran—he didn't reach for his clothes first, but grabbed the brown vine before him.

But Mengchuan Woman had already summoned her green bamboo, which instantly transformed into endless green bamboo vines, locking the space around the Desert Dao Lord.

Three killing rays shot through these vines, striking directly at the Desert Dao Lord's purple mansion and dantian.

The aura of death sealed the Desert Dao Lord; at this moment, he had only one choice: abandon the brown vine.

Otherwise, he would die without doubt.

The Desert Dao Lord clearly valued his own life—he must have realized his situation, and detonated his eighteen Desert Pearls.

Open.

All eighteen Desert Pearls became a vast desert, wrapping around Mengchuan Woman's green bamboo vines.

Meanwhile, the Desert Dao Lord swiftly burst out of the space locked by the green bamboo vines.

Ding Huan did only one thing.

He stepped forward to the brown vine, seized it, and stored it in his world.

Wu Jiena had already dressed, staring at Ding Huan and the others in terror.

In contrast, the Desert Dao Lord calmly put on his clothes and made no move to flee.

His expression showed even little fear.

Ding Huan knew this man didn't care about Wu Jiena—he cared about the brown vine he'd just retrieved.

"Desert Dao Lord, return my belongings, or today is your death day."

The bamboo vines formed from Mengchuan Woman's green bamboo slowly swayed in the air, as if ready to lock this space again at any moment.

The Desert Dao Lord glanced dismissively at Mengchuan Woman, then turned his gaze to Ding Huan:

"Friend, we don't know each other, and have no grudge.

You interfering in my affairs with Mengchuan Woman seems rather excessive."

His tone carried disdain and arrogance, but his heart was brimming with caution.

The defensive arrays he'd set up—even a Creation Realm expert couldn't cleave them open with a single slash of Dahan Yi Dao.

Yet this young cultivator, clearly not yet at the Creation Realm, had torn through all his protective arrays with one cut.

His array cultivation far surpassed his own.

"You can't take that tree—it's my father's! If you take it, my father won't let you live!"

Wu Jiena finally snapped out of her shock and screamed wildly.

No one paid her any attention; here, she was less than air.

"Watch this guy—I'll handle it…"

As Ding Huan spoke, his Pojie Dao slashed upward.

Dao intent condensed into a blade-space, locking the Desert Dao Lord within.

Blade rays crisscrossed.

The Desert Dao Lord sneered; Ding Huan, a mere Saint below the Immortal Realm, was no different from an ant in his eyes.

No matter how strong Ding Huan's blade momentum, he paid it no mind.

Eighteen Desert Pearls orbited him; in his view, shattering the space of a non-Immortal Saint like Ding Huan was merely a thought away.

He could leave anytime.

No binding array could trap the vortex formed by his eighteen Desert Pearls.

Right now, he cared only about Mengchuan Woman and the other two.

If he hadn't misread, both were severely wounded.

But one of them was extraordinary—his Dao resonance suggested he surpassed Mengchuan Woman.

Had his vine not been taken by Ding Huan, he would've left long ago.

"Meng…"

The Desert Dao Lord had barely uttered one syllable when his expression changed abruptly.

A deathly aura, seeping into his soul, locked him in place.

Worse, the domain that had posed him no threat moments ago now crushed his own domain outright.

No good.

At this moment, the Desert Dao Lord was certain: Ding Huan had concealed his true cultivation. This was no ordinary Saint.

This young cultivator's power far exceeded his own.

Such overwhelming Dao domains and spatial locks—if he didn't flee immediately, he'd die.

At this moment, the Desert Dao Lord no longer cared about Mengchuan Woman—he detonated his eighteen Desert Pearls.

Endless sand and stones erupted violently into the void, as if a roaring desert sea had been torn open, surging toward Ding Huan.

Boom!

Ding Huan's Pojie Dao curtain slammed into the exploding sand and stones; infinite spatial laws shattered, leaving fine cracks across space.

"Spurt!" Blood exploded from the Desert Dao Lord's third eye—he ignored his wound entirely, his movements showing not a hint of hesitation.

His eighteen Desert Pearls formed a vortex, engulfing him—and in the next instant, he vanished into the desert vortex.

He didn't even bother retrieving his eighteen Desert Pearls.

Crack!

Ding Huan's Calamity-Breaking Blade tore through the dao resonance of the eighteen Desert Pearls of the Great Desert Dao Sovereign.

The eighteen Desert Pearls fell to the ground; with a sweep of his hand, Ding Huan gathered them up.

"He got away?" A flicker of disappointment crossed Mengchuan Nu's eyes.

Although the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's eighteen Desert Pearls had been taken by Ding Huan, the next time she met this fellow, she would no longer fear him escaping again.

But this opportunity was truly hard to come by.

With such an opportunity wasted and the Great Desert Dao Sovereign having escaped, encountering this person again in the future would likely not be so simple.

Ding Huan chuckled: "He can't escape."

Ding Huan had long believed the Great Desert Dao Sovereign could not break his spatial transfer.

If the Great Desert Dao Sovereign could even break the transfer space he had set up, then the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's comprehension of the Laws of Space should have surpassed his own.

That was not very likely.

Moreover, Ding Huan sensed that within the transfer space he had set up, the Great Desert Dao Sovereign had not broken out.

Sure enough, just as Ding Huan's words fell, the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's wretched figure tumbled down right in front of Ding Huan and the others.

He had been teleported back once more by the transfer space Ding Huan had set up.

The next instant, several Saint Domains locked down the Great Desert Dao Sovereign.

The Great Desert Dao Sovereign's face went pale; he understood he had lost his best chance to escape.

Add to that the loss of his eighteen Desert Pearls, and escaping from Ding Huan now was nothing short of a fool's dream.

He could hardly fathom how Mengchuan Nu had found such a formidable helper in the Lesser Heaven Ruins.

Just now, trapped inside Ding Huan's transfer space, he had tried countless methods and held out for at least a dozen breaths.

In the end, he still could not break free, and was dumped by the transfer space right in front of Ding Huan.

"Friend, I am willing to agree to all your conditions, just let me go." The Great Desert Dao Sovereign's heart was filled with despair; he knew he truly could not leave this time.

Mengchuan Nu had not expected the Great Desert Dao Sovereign to truly fail to escape; she stepped forward and slapped the Great Desert Dao Sovereign across the face.

The Great Desert Dao Sovereign opened his mouth and sprayed out streams of blood-mist, every tooth shattered.

This was only because Mengchuan Nu had not struck to kill; otherwise that slap would have smashed the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's head into fragments.

"Great Desert Dao Sovereign, do you not know how many tens of thousands of years I spent refining the Great Dream Desert? How wonderful for you—just as I was dissolving the Violent Dream, about to finish refining it, you snatched it away outright. You shameless thing…"

Mengchuan Nu wished she could vent every ounce of hatred from her Three Rivers and Five Seas—

—all of it out.

Only, she had not yet gotten the item in hand, so she dared not strike to kill.

She had no ability to open the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's world.

"Dao Friend Meng, I admit defeat in this matter, and I will offer compensation and apology. In a moment I will take out the Great Dream Desert and give it to you; I only hope you can let me off this once."

Hearing the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's words, Mengchuan Nu excitedly looked toward Ding Huan.

The Great Dream Desert was her lifeblood.

She was well aware that if the Great Desert Dao Sovereign was unwilling to hand over the Great Dream Desert, she had no power to take it from him.

Because she could not open the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's world.

If the Great Desert Dao Sovereign was willing to hand over the Great Dream Desert, she would do anything.

Ding Huan chuckled.

This fellow assumed that once something was tucked away inside his world, no one could take it, did he?

Before Ding Huan could speak, the Great Desert Dao Sovereign said again: "Dao Friend, I will produce the Great Dream Desert right away; just let me go, and return my eighteen Desert Pearls to me."

"Are you still half-asleep?" Ding Huan mocked, then suddenly raised his hand and wove streaks of the Laws of Space through the void.

The Great Desert Dao Sovereign's face changed instantly.

He felt his own world being peeled away layer by layer, while he was bound by the other's Laws of Space. He could only watch helplessly as Ding Huan stripped his world apart, utterly unable to resist.

Where was there any need for his consent?

"Dao Friend, I know a way to the Higher Cosmos…"

The Great Desert Dao Sovereign was terrified; he nearly roared the words out.

Ding Huan did not stop; he kept on peeling apart the Great Desert Dao Sovereign's world.

Feeling his world's Laws still being torn open layer by layer, he watched as his world was about to be fully opened by Ding Huan.

Where did the Great Desert Dao Sovereign have even a shred of confidence left?

"Dao Friend, I truly know, I'm not deceiving you. You should know that to reach the Lesser Heaven Ruins one must pass through the Cosmic Wall, right?

The Cosmic Wall is very hard to cross without a Cosmos Pearl; I was able to cross because I know a way…"

At this moment the Great Desert Dao Sovereign realized—the fellow before him who could peel apart his world was definitely one of the "Two Huan of Heaven Ruins," whose fame was at its peak in the Lesser Heaven Ruins.

He had been wholly focused on proving his Dao of Eternal Life, and had paid no attention to such things.

Even without paying attention, he had still heard of the name "Two Huan of Heaven Ruins."

If that was the case, then Guan Huan was also here.

The Two Huan of Heaven Ruins had even annihilated the Qu Clan Dao Court—how could they fail to annihilate a mere Great Desert Dao Sovereign like him?

If he wanted to live, he had to offer something of value.

Hearing these words, Ding Huan stopped.

The Great Desert Dao Sovereign let out a breath of relief and hurriedly said: "The reason I came to the Middle Cosmos was to prove my Dao of Eternal Life here, and then go to the Higher Cosmos…"

"What's so special about that? I know it too." Mengchuan Nu, worried Ding Huan might be swayed by the Great Desert Dao Sovereign, quickly spoke up and cut him off.

The Great Desert Dao Sovereign ignored Mengchuan Nu and looked at Ding Huan: "Dao Friend, perhaps the paths to the Higher Cosmos are not limited to one, but the one I know is definitely the most reliable.

I don't need you to promise me any conditions; just let me go, and I guarantee I will tell you everything I know."

Ding Huan said calmly: "First return Dao Friend Meng's Great Dream Desert to Dao Friend Meng, then sit down and we can talk slowly."

"Yes."

Grand Desert Dao Sovereign barely hesitated for a moment before grabbing out a miniature desert and tossing it to Mengchuan Nü.