Chapter 245: He Luo Fish

Mu Yi's perception frantically warned him to leave the spot, his intuition fed him an extremely strong danger alert.

The enemy appearing before him was a very dangerous creature; against such an enemy, the best solution is to run away!

Fear erupted fully in Mu Yi's mind.

In Mu Yi's mind many terrifying scenes floated up: mountains of corpses, seas of blood, piles of white bones, as well as various cruel and horrifying images.

Yet in the next instant, Mu Yi suppressed all those images with his will; after sending so many souls to reincarnation, his will was already as firm as rock, and such a small fear could not shake it.

In just a fleeting moment, Mu Yi returned to normal.

"You are affected by the Death Fear spell!"

"Will check triggered… Successfully passed the death‑fear spell lethal check… Successfully resisted lethal effect… Successfully resisted fear effect…"

Lily, La Ge Na and the others' wills were also unquestionable; they only staggered briefly before recovering.

But the remaining Rebellion Army soldiers were not so easy to use; although they were seasoned warriors, facing a being like He Luo God, their wills were far too small.

They stiffened in place, faces showing fear, as if something terrifying pursued them, and they began to flee in panic in all directions.

Some even fell over with a bluish pallor, terrified to death by the fear.

"Stay awake! The enemy isn't that terrifying!"

Lin Jie shouted in pain; companions he lived with day and night had already fallen in the recent battle, and now it was close to total annihilation.

The long‑standing pressure had already crushed these Rebellion Army warriors; otherwise they wouldn't have sought divine power, but merely chasing power while refusing to practice in the Buddhist Sect left a hidden will issue.

Normally they were fine, but at this moment all of them were triggered by fear.

He Luo God had only just revealed his true form, yet it caused these warriors to collapse instantly.

"Everyone, wake up!"

Mu Yi bellowed; the war decree was activated, but this time its effect was not as immediate as before.

"Trouble!"

Mu Yi had no time to tend to the scattering Rebellion Army soldiers; with a great enemy before him, he couldn't spare time to rescue them, and a mishandling could lead to total extinction.

Every cell in his body warned him to stay away from the He Luo God before him, as if he had seen a mortal enemy.

A chilling aura began to spread through the underground palace, corroding everyone's skin, senses, even souls.

At that moment, some wandering spirits began to appear before them.

"Ying…"

Their forms still retained parts of their former states; distinct features revealed their origins—some human, some Jia Xian, even some marine creatures themselves.

Mu Yi ignored them, like a tiger's ghost or a hungry ghost of the hungry ghost realm; they were all minions of He Luo God's power.

"Roar!"

Frenzy‑filled He Luo God gave them no time to adapt; having lost reason in pain, He Luo God launched an attack,

A ten‑bodied size became the best way to strike at this moment.

A tail like tentacles pounded wildly, and the entire underground palace began to collapse under He Luo God's violent outburst.

"Immovable as a mountain!"

Mu Yi raised Cloud Energy as a shield, thus avoiding being crushed to death by the collapsing palace.

The massive He Luo God leapt out of the underground palace.

"Roar!"

Under everyone's gaze on the ground, the terrifyingly huge head lifted and roared in anger.

Leaping out of the palace as if a Fish Leaps Dragon Gate, He Luo God's appearance no longer resembled its original form, but now bore some draconic aura.

The originally Frenzied posture seemed to calm as it saw daylight again.

He Luo God's gigantic head, with an apparently endless body, flew out of the palace and hovered over the sky, its cold, sharp eyes overlooking the entire imperial city.

The old monk stared blankly at the sky.

"How is this possible? It actually swallowed the dragon vein!"

"Where is the Qing Emperor? Send someone to find the Qing Emperor quickly!"

Watching He Luo God's shape, the old monk was baffled; he had no idea why such a change occurred.

The dragon vein is almost inseparable from the Court; the dragon vein being devoured, and the Qing Court Emperor, who is most linked to the dragon vein, apparently knows nothing—truly the biggest absurdity under heaven.

"Transformed again?" Mu Yi, with a great army, stood beneath the palace and looked up at the He Luo God in the heavens; in the blink of an eye, the opponent had changed appearance.

At this moment, looking up at the infinitely extending, awe‑inspiring massive monster, one could not discern its former shape.

"It now has a dragon's aura!" La Ge Na squinted at He Luo God, insisting it hadn't been there a moment ago—what's happening?

Whatever the cause, at least it can now be put to use.

When dealing with non‑dragon beings, its combat power is almost nonexistent; if it weren't for Bi An also having dragon blood, it might have been cut down outright.

"Careful, it's coming!"

Mu Yi shouted low, the Thousand‑mile Eye had already discerned He Luo God's movement.

Before he could finish speaking, the huge head high in the clouds locked its icy gaze on him and suddenly swung its tail down toward the ground.

He knew exactly who the chief culprit of its grievous injury was.

Amid the overwhelming assault, the snarling tail, bearing unsettling power, crashed from the sky onto Mu Yi.

"Immovable as a mountain!"

In an instant, the heavy tail struck the massive peak; unlike the Snake Immortal's futile return, this attack clearly succeeded.

After just one strike, the massive peak became illusory.

"Sever!"

La Ge Na timed his jump, landing on the massive tail amid flying shards.

The Dragon‑slaying Sword, shining with silver light, fell, tearing the dense scales on the tail and cleaving the still‑extended tail of He Luo God.

It seemed as if there was no pain at all, and another tail swatted like shooing a fly, striking at La Ge Na.

La Ge Na rolled to dodge, leapt back into the army formation, furrowed his brow, and watched the tentacles rapidly regenerating.

As soon as his blade withdrew, the original wound immediately began to contract, rapidly healing, returning to its original appearance.

"How?"

Without turning to look at La Ge Na, Mu Yi asked.

"It's tricky! The effect of the Dragonslaying Stone is poor, and the silver energy has no effect."

La Ge Na looked at the tail that had returned to its original state, recalled an enemy he had once faced, and answered truthfully.

"That's truly a despair-inducing answer! This is the Legend!"

Mu Yi smiled narrowly as he mobilized the Cloud Energy; the next wave of attacks from He Luo Shen was about to come.

However, before the aerial attack arrived, the tail that La Ge Na had severed instead writhed wildly, twisting together like flowing water into a mass of flesh; as the surface of the mass turned pallid like a deformed monster, a deformed creature two to three times the size of a normal person appeared before everyone.

"Damn it!"

Mu Yi's face darkened; after the deformed monster appeared, it ignored them entirely and charged toward the monks and civilians chanting scriptures in the city.

"Now we're in trouble!"

Although it was unclear how effective souls were against He Luo Shen, recalling how He Luo Shen had previously taken the form of a landlady to gather souls everywhere, Mu Yi knew that this was absolutely a potent tonic for it.

They had barely managed, through a series of maneuvers, to cripple He Luo Shen's state; even so, they were still at a disadvantage, letting the enemy fully recover its strength, and they would rather slit their own throats and die than continue.

"Chang Haoran, take your people and kill it for me!"

Mu Yi hastily threw out his most mobile heavy cavalry from his hand.

But before he could issue further commands, He Luo Shen's tail lashed down like raindrops.

"Stand firm like a mountain!"

The heavy mountain peaks reappeared once more, blocking He Luo Shen's attacks.

Mu Yi was completely suppressed and unable to move, only able to watch helplessly as He Luo Shen, with its eight tails, continuously launched attacks against the army, while the remaining two tentacles began sweeping through the monks and civilians in the city.

Even though He Luo Shen was in a half-crippled state and lacked world-shattering power, relying solely on its massive size, it could still easily unleash devastation, dragging everything in sight into destruction.

He Luo Shen's ferocious head was clutched at the center by its tails, its mouth gaping wide like a bottomless black hole, incessantly devouring everything around it.

Constantly, souls slain by He Luo Shen turned into blue specks of light that flew toward the vortex in the sky.

Mu Yi could only watch helplessly as the Six Paths barrier was shattered by He Luo Shen; restoring it would take time, and unable to mobilize the cycle of reincarnation, even relying on the position of the Yin God, he could not engage in a tug-of-war with the opponent.

After devouring souls, He Luo Shen's body became even more ferocious and terrifying, countless dark red eyes opening on its body, their icy gazes fixed upon the living beings on the ground, devoid of any emotion.

Accompanied by a roar, a rift split open in the void.

Within the rift, the howls of aberrant creatures echoed.

In Mu Yi's incredulous gaze, the crack slowly opened, forming a massive door.

Within the enormous door, a white torrent surged forth—a tide composed of countless aberrant creatures.

The aberrant creatures that had been blocked outside the imperial city by the Court's army were summoned by He Luo Shen into the city's interior.

Without any command, they roared as they burst from the door, gaping their maws wide at all flesh and carrying out wanton slaughter.

Each of them was far from being mere fodder; even though there were some elites among the monks, they were still vastly inferior to these aberrant creatures.

The unstoppable pallid tide left the entire imperial city in a state where it could be slaughtered at will.

"We can't go on like this—prepare to counterattack!"

Mu Yi let out a loud shout, and He Luo Shen's condition began to recover at a visible pace; if they delayed any longer, they would truly have no chance of victory.

"Invasion like fire—spirit of the Vermilion Bird!"

The heavy mountain peaks transformed into a soaring Vermilion Bird, flames mixed with the fire of blazing ashes suddenly flaring up from within the imperial city; like molten lava, the intense fire swept all who dared approach the aberrant monsters into it, reducing them to ash.

The blazing fire flying across the sky seemed to illuminate the darkness of the apocalypse, as the Vermilion Bird flapped its wings and released a flame tornado hundreds of meters long.

The flame tornado swept over the pallid surge on the ground, and the soaring flames burned a blank space where the aberrant creatures poured out of the massive door.

Finally, the Vermilion Bird transformed into a piercing arrow aimed at He Luo Shen's head, but a swaying tail blocked it.

He Luo Shen slapped its tail trying to extinguish the flames, yet the fire infused with the Vermilion Bird's will was not so easily put out.

When the flames dissipated from lack of further energy, one of He Luo Shen's tails also turned completely into charcoal.

The charcoal, still radiating intense heat, detached from the flesh and fell to the ground, becoming a pile of ash glittering with sparks.

However, after the charcoal fell away, He Luo Shen's tail nonetheless began to recover at high speed.

"That's not right—it doesn't seem to be mere physical regeneration!"

Lily, who had been observing He Luo Shen all along, finally realized the issue: He Luo Shen was not of the ultra‑fast‑regenerating type like Xi Liu.

"Could it be the power of time?"

This discovery made Mu Yi's heart sink even further; he had already learned some information about Bi'an's fate through reincarnation.

Bi'an had sunk in the endless cycle of reincarnation; this endless cycle was not the life‑and‑death reincarnation that Mu Yi experienced, but a cycle of time and choice.

If that is the case, He Luo Shen could indeed possibly wield the power of time.

And the power of time, aside from causality, is usually the force that inspires the greatest fear.

"Now things have become even more troublesome!"

The imperial city collapsed rapidly amidst the rampage of He Luo Shen and the tide of aberrant creatures.

During this time, He Luo Shen controlled its tail and fought against the army led by Mu Yi.

Mu Yi severed He Luo Shen's tail in various ways, but each time the effect was unsatisfactory; whenever the attack ceased, the damage He Luo Shen suffered would rapidly recover.

Moreover, from He Luo Shen's movements one could not tell how great the cost of this temporal regression was for it.

The only thing they could be certain of was that the imperial city was doomed.

Any severed tail, as long as it was not completely destroyed, would turn into a powerful aberrant creature on the ground, join the pallid tide, and slaughter all living beings within the imperial city.

He Luo Shen was also evidently a vengeful aberrant beast; whether the Three Flowers on its head were shattered by wrathful thunder or it was pierced by Buddhist chants, it came to bear a deep hatred for monks.

They even cast Mu Yi, this great enemy, aside, and did everything possible to persecute all the monks in the imperial city.

The old abbot's heart bled; their Buddhist Sect had grown to this day, and he did not know how much effort had been spent, yet now they died one by one before his eyes.

Om mani padme hum!

He turned the prayer beads made of relics in his hand and loudly recited the Six Syllable Great Bright Mantra.

The Six Syllable Great Bright Mantra was no ordinary chant; empowered by the relic, it spread almost throughout the battlefield, penetrating Helo Shen's ears and actually causing Helo Shen to writhe in pain.

Before everyone's eyes, Helo Shen, which had been a ten‑headed existence resembling an octopus, instantly transformed into a bird.