Chapter 366: Fierce Battle

"Ah!"

The Greed Beast was truly enraged at this moment.

A mere piece of prey, yet it dared to wound it again and again; this was simply an intolerable matter!

Its entire body's demonic power erupted suddenly, rolling like wolf-smoke, surging into the sky, and in the blink of an eye, it dyed the surrounding spiritual Qi, forming a domain of demonic energy that was different from its normal state, as if it were a field on the reverse side of the surface space.

Fleshy, pink-colored, mouth after mouth, tongue after tongue, spreading uncontrollable drool, forever unsatisfied, forever famished—the demonic domain named Greed Beast was its mouth, its belly, wrapping around Du En from all directions and sealing off his escape route.

It is time for a feast! the Greed Beast thought, for it was in a towering rage, had no patience left, and was completely unable to wait.

Countless mouths and countless tongues, carrying a madness that stunned and paralyzed the mind, dragged a great net of bloody demonic energy, directly layering multiple times over him.

An ordinary cultivator facing such a situation would surely die without a burial place, devoured completely by this Greed Beast!

It had tried it before, swallowing thousands of fourth-rank demonic beasts in one wave, and even the aged great demon hidden deep in the cave was easily gnawed to nothing! Then, Du En took a step, each step shaking the ground, directly shattering the demonic domain. He raised his hand to throw a punch, beating it until it stumbled backward, then the War-Stopping Halberd reappeared. He brandished it, incomparably domineering, stirring up a turbulent flow of demonic energy and rapidly tearing the demonic domain to shreds.

Although the Greed Beast felt stunned, not expecting that he would be completely unaffected and could charge over, and still be able to charge over, and dare to charge over, its body had already reacted in time.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Claws and the tip of the halberd collided incessantly, fighting in an inseparable struggle, always retreating upon contact, never giving this Greed Beast a chance to use its mouth, only grinding away its flesh and its strength bit by bit.

It also sensed Du En's intention and wanted to continue to urge the demonic domain, but discovered that the intensity of their slaughter was too high; such a demonic domain could not get close at all and was not a useful or effective move.

In a trance, the look of contemptuous sighing at the moment of death of that great demon, who had previously lived in seclusion deep in a distant cave and had been found and gnawed upon by it, suddenly appeared in its mind.

The demonic domain showing off its might?

It was only capable of dealing with some ordinary opponents. Whenever it encountered someone with actual ability, this kind of "basic skill," just like protective magic power, was entirely icing on the cake, the kind of thing that only played a significant role in a crushing victory! As a half-baked, artificially created, purely wild-path demonic beast, it had absolutely no bloodline inheritance, so naturally, it did not know these things, and thus it was caught off guard at this moment.

"Aargh!"

However, being a great demon of the Greed Beast's caliber, after a sharp roar, it intended to pull away and create distance.

Chain-chain-chain—the sound of chains rattling made it fix its eyes, only to see the War-Stopping Halberd turn into a meteor hammer in the blink of an eye, following closely behind with the chains, growing larger and larger, until finally, it was like a wall pressing over, appearing oppressive and heavy.

Boom! It had no time to think, using both hands and feet, it struck fiercely to force it to a stop, but it also became slightly stiff due to the recoil.

Then it saw the meteor hammer suddenly disappear, and immediately following, bolts of thunder erupted with a roar.

Thunder-Commanding Seal! A realm of thunder expanded violently, and streaks of shocking thunder raged out, directly and incidentally completely destroying and grinding away the demonic domain, while simultaneously transforming into streaks of spears that were projected, fast as a flash of light, and sharp and strong, directly piercing through the Greed Beast's body.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Streaks of thunder pierced through, beating it until it was riddled with holes, and its demonic power became scattered.

However, in secret, it revealed a trace of mockery.

Du En wanted to use the method of rapid penetration to avoid being eaten and adapted to; this was truly a foolish thought, for it could still secretly devour! Thus, instinctively feigning weakness, after enduring the thunder for a while, it shook violently, its demonic power condensed once more, and it had completed the devouring-transformation, able to be immune to the thunder.

The Thunder-Commanding Seal could no longer hurt it!

Then, the white thunder changed color, transforming into streaks of yin thunder, like spheres, directly smashing onto its body, erupting with insidious thunder that hurt the body secondarily, but primarily damaged the spirit.

Caught off guard for a moment, its spirit, already in a precarious state, was truly broken on the spot.

"Roar!!!"

Why?!

From that frenzied roar, it seemed one could hear such words, appearing as if it were exceptionally unable to understand; clearly, it had already succeeded in its devouring-transformation, yet it still got hit and had its defense broken! "With your brain, it is very hard to understand, so I will not say it."

Du En spoke calmly.

In fact, the situation was simple; the previous White Cave Seal was something transformed from his natal dharma treasure. Based on its foundation, it should have been his own natal dharma treasure, but in fact, the War-Stopping Halberd behind it could still chisel open and wound the Greed Beast's body.

Therefore, its devouring-transformation actually had limitations as well.

Or rather, it should be said that its skills were not practiced to a high level, remaining only at a very superficial stage, at most just being familiar, able to skillfully use things on the surface, but it was still far from the small achievement of summarizing its own preliminary conclusions.

Therefore, now that the Thunder-Commanding Seal changed into a thunder realm, containing various types of thunder of yin, yang, and the five elements, it needed to devour each one in order to obtain immunity and strengthening step by step.

There was just one prerequisite, and that was to see if it could live until that time! Du En immediately increased his offensive, closing in to use the War-Stopping Halberd in one hand and the Thunder-Commanding Seal in the other, attacking densely without leaving any gaps; when far away, he used the meteor hammer in one hand and the Thunder-Commanding Seal in the other, still attacking densely without leaving any gaps!

To the Greed Beast, it felt as if it were being drowned by a tsunami of attacks; no matter what it did, there would be high-frequency, tide-like attacks wrapping around its entire body! Pfft—crack—boom! Blood splattered, bones broke and tendons snapped, and thunder crashed down.

Du En fought with such pleasure, while the Greed Beast endured with such frustration.

Thus, it also gradually realized that its innate demonic arts were actually not omnipotent, and that demonic power which had once seemed like an ocean was rapidly evaporating and drying up under Du En's stormy offensive, now only thirty percent remained, and it was still dropping.

Once there was no demonic power to support it, no demonic art could be used! It seemed it was already doomed! "As if!"

Accompanied by a delicate voice, Du En's dense offensive was suddenly broken.

The meteor hammer shattered, the thunder dispersed, and a figure had already closed in before him.

The contours of the brows and eyes resembled Lou Miyue, but it was also seemingly similar yet different, more like multiple faces stitched together—delicate and charming, smiling brightly, the greed in its eyes still burning intensely, and its whole body permeated with strange demonic power.

"You can guess what is going on with me now."

"The combination of evil nature and demonic power, just the same old routine."

Du En spoke lightly, not feeling surprised.

Lou Miyue and the clique she gathered, unsurprisingly, must have all consumed the spirit paste and been permeated by the Spirit Mother's evil nature, although they should have subsequently switched to cultivating orthodox methods and produced what appeared to be normal magic power.

"Appeared to be normal"—this description naturally had its purpose.

This underground world, or rather, the territory of the Queguang Sect that worshipped the Spirit Mother, was now basically permeated with polluted spiritual Qi. The magic power cultivated by absorbing this kind of Qi was problematic and abnormal from the very beginning.

That was why Chang Lingfeng's Spirit-Filtering Method made Du En feel it had quite a bit of ingenuity; he was worthy of being a natural genius, relying on his own talent to figure out the problem of solving evil-natured pollution.

Of course, it also had to do with Luo Heng's consistent efforts; otherwise, that kind of pollution would not have been so simple to handle.

In short, Lou Miyue and her group clearly had not handled it, so the Greed Beast born because of them was naturally not going to be any normal, pure great demon.

To be precise, it should be an evil demon, or a demonic evil.

Thus, when the normal state of the outer shell could not win, naturally, it would reveal its true face and shed its shell. The female form before him, smiling like a flower, looking delicate, yet with a whole body presenting a blood-pink color like jelly, was the true face under its outer shell, and what it could unleash were naturally more evil and strange means.

Therefore, Du En's previous offensive was dissolved in an instant! Therefore, now it had closed the distance to his face; as long as it reached out and touched him, it would finally be able to eat this piece of excellent meat! Therefore, it was frozen!

Transformation, Eternal Frozen Ice Coffin! This transformation was quite different; it was a secret method of manifesting through an artifact, and itself was a form of transformation, so it was a transformation of a transformation. Caught off guard, it directly sealed the Greed Beast within it.

Then, Du En did not look back, turned around, and was about to leave.

"Want... to... run..."

"Don't even think about it!"

Boom! The Greed Beast naturally would not let the meat that had run onto its chopping block escape just like that, directly using a method of self-damage to forcibly break through the Eternal Frozen Ice Coffin.

At this moment, Du En had already run to the tunnel he came from, still a short distance away from the Floating Stone Nether Abyss.

Behind him, that creature which lunged near like a streak of evil light, splitting open from the midline of its bloody body to transform directly into a giant maw—the Greed Beast—was already close at hand.

Nine-Foot White Silk!

Samadhi Treasure Pagoda!

Two types of transformations were unleashed again; the former bound and strangled, the latter suppressed and sealed, both applied simultaneously... It was useless! "Hahaha! I already said it was useless! Why do you still not believe it!"

The Greed Beast's giant maw let out a strange laugh, mocking Du En's ignorance and savoring the seasoning of his self-inflicted fear; it had already smelled the most delicious top note! And then.

Clang, clang, clang—from the left, right, above, and below this tunnel, countless refined steel pillars suddenly shot out, skewering and propping it up just as it was about to bite Du En.

It was the Earth-Wood Sacred Refining! Du En had long since permeated the surroundings with his magic power, quietly refining these fifth-grade spirit ores into controllable magical artifacts; luring the Greed Beast here at this moment was precisely to make it step into the trap itself!

The plan was successful!

"You!"

It could not help but widen its eyes, not expecting such a situation; the tide had turned and reversed once again!

"A very normal situation, isn't it? You clearly possess the demon art of Devouring Transformation, yet you leave the ores covering the ground here uneaten. Looking at how the Spirit Mother's barrier is permeated and disintegrated by the refined steel ore veins, these should be things that can restrain your evil nature. Combining the two, it seems quite logical, doesn't it?"

Du En turned around, a small knife appearing in his hand. As he spoke, he waved it twice in the air, appearing leisurely and carefree, his calculations having succeeded, just thinking about how to process the Greed Beast before him.

It wanted to dissect him to unearth the mysteries he hid! This was normal; after all, this Greed Beast was a product successfully created from a strange, chaotic mixture of human, demon beast, evil nature, and even various types of cultivation methods.

As long as one had a normal brain, one would certainly want to analyze and obtain all its secrets, so as to select usable parts from them to gain benefits for oneself.

This kind of behavior is called: Greed! Thus, just as Du En was leisurely preparing to take action, the Greed Beast's giant maw, which should have been skewered and restrained, suddenly disintegrated and flowed, turning into a mass of viscous pink liquid that enveloped him—completely caught off guard!

"Hahaha~"

The liquid transformed back into the previous evil form of the Greed Beast, a delicate and tender female form, emitting a laugh like silver bells. "That is indeed correct, my nest is exactly my weakness, but this was intentional on my part, because, whether human, demon, devil, or Buddha, all have human hearts, and all have greed!"

Greed Beast, Greed Beast; its essence is greed, a great demon that is the manifestation of greed!

The Devouring Transformation is merely an appearance; the giant maw form from just now, and the female form now, are also merely appearances! As long as people have greed in their hearts, it can follow the scent, and it can quietly devour them. It had already, unknowingly, made Du En food in its belly! That is why, just now, Du En's life-bound magical treasure was suddenly useless.

"Hitting oneself with one's own hand"—how could that ever be useful?

Therefore, although refined steel ore can restrain its evil nature, that is all it does; it has no major impact at all!

How could a physical object that only possesses the form truly restrain greed, which is formless and impermanent?

So...

"As something also impermanent, can you withstand this?"

Du En suddenly asked.

?!!

The Greed Beast was greatly alarmed, suddenly looking up to see Du En.

"You..."

"I just consumed a little magic power to mold a lump, then used Primordial Spirit coercion to forcibly make you admit your mistake. No need to be so surprised; these are all very common and normal operations."

What is Primordial Spirit coercion? In essence, it is an influence effect formed by the Primordial Spirit interfering with and driving the external world! The most common form, naturally, is making people feel a heavy pressure upon them, even being able to directly crush their consciousness and flatten their physical bodies.

However, as long as one operates it well, by coercing the mind, one can create an effect similar to a hallucination. With the shell molded from a lump of magic power, it was natural for the Greed Beast to mistake it for his true self.

After all, this is an unorthodox path!

Listening to Du En's words, although he remained calm, the Greed Beast seemed to hear this intentional emphasis invisibly and was suddenly furious, but immediately following that was panic.

Because the wind of impermanence was erupting within its body! What Du En had transformed just now was precisely the Impermanence Blade!

It was not using the blade body to stir the wind, but using it to summon the wind—that wind of impermanence! Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—Du En's hair suddenly fluttered, and his robes whipped about.

"Could it be..."

"Correct. What blows from that Floating Stone Nether Abyss is the wind of impermanence, or rather, a diluted version of it. I just let it draw it out again from the source."

The wind of the nether, impermanent and formless, not bound by common logic.

In other words, it can also be called evil wind or treacherous wind.

Because it is elusive, and because it is bizarre and lacks substance.

With internal and external echoing and meeting in one place, the Greed Beast was suddenly blown into a swaying and miserable state.

He had already found the weakness of this great demon!

(End of chapter)