Chapter 414: Zishu Concedes Defeat? The True Power of Dragon Breath

Therefore, with this ebb and flow, the Zishu Clan's defeat is certain!

And as time goes on, they will only grow more and more wretched, weaker and weaker, unable to resist.

On the contrary, the Zishu Clan's most powerful weapon—Plague Fire, which is virtually unsolvable for other Ancient Immortals—Baichuan handles with extraordinary ease. Whether it is his own 【Embrace Yin, Bear Yang】 or the Mycelium Sovereign's 【Life-Death Seal】, both to a certain extent perfectly counter the opponent.

The former directly balances the dynamic forces of yin and yang; the moment his power is downgraded, the next moment he can upgrade it back. Even if his lifespan essence is burned away by it, the dynamic balance can restore it.

For the current him, to defeat him, one must either instantly erase him in a single breath with power exceeding his upper limit, or possess a special 【Principle】 that directly strikes at the essence, like his dragon flame.

After all, this was a power that, even before he had completed its refinement, had to some extent weakened one of the Four Spirits of Heaven—Xuanwu—at the (Remnant/Immortal) realm in the past.

And Xuanwu's standing is normally higher than that of the Twelve Earthly Branches. Even though this Xuanwu was not a pureblood Xuanwu, merely an ordinary-blooded turtle that ascended by chance, Baichuan today is no longer the fool of days past.

The latter is even more terrifying. Not only does its nature share great similarity with the Zishu Clan—both concerning the power of life and death—but its original wielder, the Blood Worm, is a mysterious existence whose details Baichuan still does not fully understand to this day.

All in all, although these two abilities have still not reached the LV6 Xian tier, under his continuous refinement they draw ever closer, just one final push away from stepping into that tier. After all, he is no longer the weak True Immortal of the past who wasn't even an Ancient Immortal.

Looking down from above, as long as he has enough Essence Stone, he can rapidly transform and sublimate his abilities. Combined with Ancient Immortal power, he can here completely discard the influence brought by the opponent's power.

Rather, if not for these two abilities of his still not having reached the Immortal tier, he could even be directly immune to the opponent's attacks, completely countering them to death. This is the suppression of power attributes, like a higher-positioned power facing a lower subordinate branch of power.

Even though the former is incomplete, it can still easily crush the opponent!

Ancient Immortals—precisely such a group of existences powerful enough to suffocate. In the eyes of those at the Ancient Immortal realm, those not of the same tier are all mortals, ants—even True Immortals are the same.

The gap between the two cannot be described even by the difference between heaven and the abyss!

And by the same logic, the gap between an Ancient Immortal possessing powerful 【Principle】 and an ordinary Ancient Immortal is greater than the gap between an ordinary Ancient Immortal and those below the Ancient Immortal tier.

At this moment, even the Zishu saw it clearly in his heart: if the battle continued, what awaited him was only a wretched defeat with no face left.

Thinking this, retreat had already taken root in his heart.

Defeat either way—better to keep the situation within a range he could accept, minimizing the loss of face. As for falling in battle, he had not even considered it.

After all, in this universe, aside from certain special circumstances, everyone is of the same realm. So what if you can easily crush others of the same realm?

If you push them to desperation, unless you possess a powerful means to keep an equal-realm being in check, or there are three or more equal-realm beings joining forces—unless you are a lone wolf with no ties, no existence would want to face an Ancient Immortal constantly thinking of perishing together with you.

Once one reaches the Immortal realm, whether True Immortal or Ancient Immortal—

Their true spirit carries a trace of the concept of indestructibility. No matter what situation they encounter, their power completely gone, their body no longer existing, they can still leave behind a wisp of remnant spirit to wait for the passage of time, and thus return once more.

Only thus can one be called an indestructible, imperishable Immortal.

Therefore, after yet another clash and separation, he, with a cold face taut, retreated a few more steps, signaling concession. Then he cupped his hands and said:

"Old Dragon Ancestor, today I, Zishu, admit my loss… the Lingneng Clan shall henceforth be at your disposal; I shall no longer interfere…"

His words sounded pleasant—appearing to yield—but secretly he was treating Baichuan as some undying old fossil among the dragon race who had survived countless ages and, by virtue of sheer time, pushed his Principle to its limit to bully the young.

An elder bullying a young one. After all, among the Twelve Earthly Branches, he, as the current Zishu, had seen the current young Branches before—and none of them were as powerful or bizarre as this dragon before him, whose body was covered in azure scales with hints of gold.

Therefore, he was naturally unwilling to accept it.

And after speaking thus, he, Zishu, became a contemporary prodigy powerful enough to hold his own against the old-generation powerhouses. Once this spread, his face would not only suffer no loss, but would further rise by stepping on the other's dignity.

In an instant, Zishu's voice—carrying a trace of resentment, seemingly abandoning the Lingneng Clan—echoed throughout the entire Subspace.

"No! Ancestor… why have you abandoned us?!"

The first to react was the leader of the Lingneng Clan below, letting out a wail of grief. He immediately fell to his knees in anguish, attempting to beg the other to retract the decree. No one had expected that a routine, ordinary tribunal meeting—where they had tried to uphold the dignity of a Star Domain Banzhu—would, within a single day, encounter an upheaval unseen in tens of thousands of years!

One voice rose, stirring a thousand waves. Wails of grief spread one after another, and the intense sorrow infected the many beings who had come to attend the tribunal—some empathizing, some watching coldly as spectators, some feeling pity.

"Admit your loss?"

"At my disposal?"

"Heh~~"

The sound of derisive laughter rang out from the clouds, transforming into rolling thunder, and for a moment drowned out the wails from below.

Zishu's thinking was quite clever. Under normal circumstances, unless the matter involved something too great—already implicating those great existences who had transcended the Time Changhe—or a great clan possessing sealing methods and prepared to fight to the death—

Otherwise, any existence of standing in the universe who encountered such a situation could only stop here, at most using the opportunity to extract massive benefits.

Unfortunately, what he ran into was Baichuan—a being who defied common sense, who had risen to prominence in such a short time, completely unaware of these common-sense rules known to all who reached a certain realm in the universe—a "stubborn fool"!

For him, having been provoked and forced into fleeing in disarray several times, having swallowed a bellyful of anger—now that an opportunity had come, how could he let you, with a few lofty, condescending words of charity, make him give up?

What he wants, he will naturally take with his own hands—no need for charity from others.

As long as the enemy is slain, everything of the enemy's becomes his.

He, Baichuan, will not be the dragon who comes just to take a beating!

From beginning to end, throughout his journey, when has it ever been otherwise? When has he ever considered paying attention to the rules set by other existences?

Rather, what Baichuan loves most is telling those self-righteous fellows "no," flipping the table! And making other beings abide by his rules.

As for being undying?

The Ancient Immortal-realm Xuanwu he killed in the past—its ability works quite smoothly now!

Therefore, upon hearing the other's yielding attitude that carried an indelible trace of condescension, Baichuan was so angered that he laughed back in response.

His dragon eyes, already burning intensely, seemed as if endless raging fire was bursting forth from within.

"Old Dragon Ancestor, what more do you want?"

Hearing that tone of disdainful derision, Zishu also furrowed his brow. In his cold eyes, which carried a trace of anger, impatience also appeared.

He only felt that the dragon before him was far too aggressive and endlessly greedy—he had already yielded this much.

"What more do I want?" the dragon suspended high in the sky murmured, then laughed loudly. The hearty laughter caused ripples to spread across the rain curtain one after another. Finally, just as the other was about to flare up in anger, he suddenly opened his dragon maw, and another lethal dragon flame swept across.

"This is too much!"

Being treated thus, Zishu also flew into a rage. Born of the Golden-Furred Jade Mouse Clan, when had he ever suffered such grievance?!

In an instant, the great battle erupted once more.

However, this time there was no longer any stalemate. There was only Zishu, somewhat wretched as he dodged the lethal dragon flame, occasionally attempting to counterattack.

Yet, amid his repeated evasions, he had no time to attend to the raindrops that kept falling and striking him—rain he had been too focused on dodging the dragon flame to avoid—and the rain beads that had sublimated into water vapor which he had absorbed.

The rain grew ever more bleak and hazy.

The rain imbued with the power of the Northern Xuanwu, one of the Four Spirits of Heaven, was continuously absorbed by it.

One must understand that Baichuan's ability was no longer like before—that turtle which had swallowed true Xuanwu bloodline yet could not develop or wield it—but rather a complete evolution that thoroughly converted the power into his own use!

Like an extension of his own arm; calling him a true incarnation of a Xuanwu descendant would not be an exaggeration!

The next moment, within the white mist that could obscure an Ancient Immortal's gaze for a brief spell, a wisp of cold seeping out from the depths of his marrow quietly Burst forth!

It was a cold that ignored everything, erupting from within a living body!

Ice Frost of a ghostly blue hue condensed inch by inch upon Zishu's body. The man resembling a banished immortal froze in an instant—eyebrows, hair, clothes, skin, every exposed part, every unseen interior—all became coated with a thin layer of Ice Frost, causing him to pause.

Even though this pause was extremely brief, less than a second.

But this was precisely what Baichuan wanted. As the most distinctive characteristic of dragon-kind, Dragon Breath was not simply a matter of spitting fire like a lizard—that would be a Western beast, not an Eastern giant dragon renowned for its divine abilities and Daoist principles.

Dragon Breath was, to a certain extent, a power representing one of the strongest attack methods of dragon-kind!

Unlike the previous black-purple luster of dragon flame, light once again ignited from deep within Baichuan's wide-open dragon maw—a piercing green that made Zishu feel both familiar and uneasy!

He sensed a dense, familiar aura from within that green radiance.

This was the ultimate Burst of Baichuan's Dragon Breath, or rather, the true form of Dragon Breath.

The initial burning that imprisoned space particles was merely the prelude to this lethal Burst.

When enough particles had been imprisoned upon the opponent's body, his dragon flame would undergo a second transformation, releasing all the laden imprisoned particles in one explosive Burst and blasting them back at their original owner.

What would happen then?

Baichuan knew in the next instant.

As mentioned before, an Ancient Immortal was an unreasonable existence akin to having an infinite health cheat. In Baichuan's understanding, this meant that every single particle composing its body shared some kind of connection, or rather, carried the "information" belonging to its master.

This embedded "information" was precisely what allowed it, no matter what injury it suffered or how it scattered, so long as the imprisoning force was not destroyed... to return to its original position in the next second without needing to be controlled.

And the lethal point of Baichuan's dragon flame exploited exactly this. By imprisoning away the opponent's "mass," during its continuous Regeneration and recovery, a surplus of "mass" appeared to a certain extent. If the imprisoned "mass" were never released, the opponent would naturally be fine, merely feeling weakness from its own deficiency, with little impact.

But once he released it, and it struck the original target, the scene—

Would spiral out of control!

Like a lethal poison-fire that could not be extinguished until it burned the target to ash!

Baichuan gazed at the man within the flames who, for the first time, had lost his usual matchless elegance, and thought as much.

At this moment, Zishu, burning within the green dragon flame, could no longer attend to himself. Unable to maintain his human form, he began to twist and distort, because a massive influx of complex information poured uncontrollably into his consciousness, overwhelming his processing and reducing him to something like an indescribable monster!

Because particles imbued with the same "information" all wished to return to that one position, yet there was only one position. If the particles at that position were still missing and had not regenerated, the laden particles would simply return there. But if regeneration had occurred, the laden particles would collide with the regenerated ones, and the laden particles returning to the deficient position would add to the chaos.

Either type alone was already a lethal "poison" to an Ancient Immortal; combined, even a powerful Ancient Immortal could gain no advantage whatsoever.

Therefore, at this moment Baichuan exploited Zishu's momentary pause, preventing him from hard-blocking the Dragon Breath, and struck him head-on.

However, faced with this killing move that left absolutely no path to survival for ordinary beings, for an Ancient Immortal it was merely enough to briefly strip him of resistance and inflict excruciating pain.

Because what an Ancient Immortal possessed was not merely the undying nature of infinite health, but also a powerful "self-purification" force—or rather, the information within anomalous particles was, under the Ancient Immortal's true origin, that immortal Spirit, slowly expelling all foreign powers that did not belong to it.

Like a computer system that keeps crashing due to problems—simply reset it to the stable state from before the problems appeared.

Without a power capable of altering the immortal Spirit, any negative state would eventually recover; the only difference was how much time it took, and time was precisely the most worthless thing to an Ancient Immortal.

And if one wished to alter the immortal Spirit, he felt it would be simpler to consider how to devour the immortal Spirit itself and thereby destroy the opponent.

At the very least, Baichuan possessed such a method.

Facing Zishu, who had lost all resistance and was falling from the heavens to the earth's surface, the dragon with its elongated form hidden among the clouds finally descended for the first time before Zishu, who was emitting a series of pained groans within the dragon flame.

As if sensing some aura, Zishu, already twisted beyond human recognition beneath the poison-fire, seemed to notice something and looked over.

His gaze was filled with hatred, but his inner pride prevented him from letting out a single howl of weakness before this terrifying enemy; only the occasional pained groan revealed just how much agony he was suffering.

Baichuan could feel it...

(End of this chapter)