Chapter 551

Linghu Qingqing did not move.

The four Elders did not move.

Hu Tu and the others did not move.

Wu Tie was very obedient; lying on the ground, he naturally remained motionless.

Everyone was like a flock of frightened chicks, while Ao Chi was like an eagle circling high in the sky; no one dared at this moment to make any move that might provoke Ao Chi to attack prematurely.

Linghu Qingqing and the others were busy recovering their injuries and restoring their mana. Perhaps, with the aid of a secret treasure, once they recovered to peak condition, they might still have a slim chance to escape. But if Ao Chi launched an attack now, everyone would surely die.

Wu Tie secretly calculated that, if he could use the connection between the true form and avatar of the One Qi Transforms Three Purities, he could directly teleport to the side of the Yin-Yang Daoist and the Five Elements Daoist to flee. Thus he wasn't worried about escaping; the Yin-Yang Daoist and the Five Elements Daoist were now heading in two different directions, fleeing at full speed into the territory of the Great Jin Divine Kingdom.

Having finally secured a decent identity beside Old Master Hu, Wu Tie didn't want to run away for no reason, nor did he want to suffer needlessly at Ao Chi's hands.

Ao Chi raised his right hand, hovering silently in the air, with one hundred and eight Canghai Divine Pearls hovering beside him. He looked down upon everyone, his right hand emitting light a hundred times more intense than the sun. The void twisted, the earth melted, and the light on his right index finger grew ever stronger, amid the terrifying heat a low thunderous rumble arose.

"I possess many divine abilities, many indeed," Ao Chi's voice suddenly rang out.

"After all, within this heaven and earth, there are three thousand Great Daos and eighty-four thousand heterodox paths, while the Canghai Divine Pearls contain a complete set of one thousand two hundred ninety-six heavenly Great Daos. In ancient times, the total number of Great Daos I mastered was also possessed only by a handful of top experts."

"But thinking about it really puts me in a bind; what means should I use to crush you?"

"With so many methods, letting you die too quickly and easily wouldn't be worth it."

"So, shall I give you a little bit of petty harassment, making your deaths a bit more miserable and tragic?" Ao Chi suddenly seemed to turn into a nagging old matchmaker, chattering away in midair.

The power gathering on his finger grew stronger and stronger, and the one hundred and eight Canghai Divine Pearls continuously emitted blinding light that condensed onto his finger.

The ground split open with deep fissures; Ao Chi's power even twisted the laws of heaven and earth within a radius of tens of thousands of li. In the cracks, tiny stones and sand slowly rose into the air, these stones and sand continually exploding into strands of yellow vapor during their ascent, then, under an invisible immense force, condensing into chunks of rubble.

Rubble of all sizes continually shattered and re-aggregated, the mass of the stone blocks growing ever larger, within which gradually appeared lumps of gold, silver, copper, and various gemstones condensing out of thin air.

Whether metal veins, gems, or crystals, these objects are treasures born of the earth's veins.

At this moment, Ao Chi not only twisted the laws, but also forced the laws to deduce the principles of postnatal creation.

Such divine power left the four Elders of the Linghu clan in the Divine Realm stunned, their eyes wide as they fixedly stared at that single finger of Ao Chi, continuously sensing the surging, dense, precise, and all-encompassing Dao resonance emanating from his finger.

They were in the Divine Realm, and in their conception, the Divine Realm was the strongest, supreme realm.

Yet, though they were also in the Divine Realm, Ao Chi's strength surpassed theirs by an unknown margin. If they were a drop of water, then Ao Chi was an endless ocean, the gap between them so vast as to be despair-inducing.

Or perhaps they merely stood at the foothills of the Divine Realm, while Ao Chi had already ascended to heights of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of li, the scenery he could see being utterly different from what they could see.

They spied on Ao Chi's move, perhaps hoping to glean from it a hint of a profound principle that would bring them immense benefit.

Ao Chi slowly, bit by bit, pointed his right-hand finger downward; as he acted, he said leisurely, "Um, I will let you experience all the divine abilities I know and possess."

"Not only bodily pain, but also spiritual pain… um, let you, from childhood onward, gradually watch your companions be killed one by one by me, slowly."

"Heh heh, despair, wail, beg, then die!"

Hmm, rest assured, this process will be rather long; you will fully enjoy the pain, despair, and sorrow I bestow upon you.

Hmm, hmm, rest assured, I will take my time; I won't strike too quickly.

Ao Chi's finger pointed at an ordinary outlaw master within the Five Elements Secret Treasure protective circle.

This outlaw is about twelve feet tall, truly a Qing Miao fang; he has the appearance of a man-wolf, utterly hideous. Yet on his back he bears a pair of blood-red wings, with a bloody gloom shimmering on each feather, sticky and giving an extremely filthy, foul feeling.

This bastard is not of human bloodline, but a mutant of another race—a mutated wolf warrior—and he possesses peak Womb Storage realm cultivation.

Ao Chi's finger pointed at him, and the outlaw's body jerked; the pair of wings on his back burst open with a pop.

Immediately, strands of lightning sprayed from the outlaw's pores, accompanied by a piercing 'hiss' as his body violently trembled. The pair of wings on his back burst open, leaving two blood-filled holes the size of sea bowls on his back; then countless tiny currents splashed out, and the outlaw's body continually developed bean-sized bloody wounds.

The electricity exploded, and each strand of electricity that exploded would blast out a tiny mist of blood.

The outlaw was like a victim of death by a thousand cuts, screaming hysterically, his whole body violently trembling; within just three or five breaths, he lost control of his bowels and bladder, and a foul stench caused Linghu Qingqing and the others to cover their noses simultaneously.

"Damn... bastard..." Hu Tu cursed.

"Despair?" Linghu Qingqing's eyes flickered as they looked at Ao Chi, not knowing what he was thinking.

"This bastard, why does it feel like he's stalling for time?" Wu Tie suddenly said: "Sir Hu, gentlemen, this bastard feels like he's stalling for time... He's not unwilling to kill us; he wants to use the pretense of torturing us to stall for time!"

Wu Tie slowly rose to his feet, cautiously hunching his body, trying as much as possible to avoid becoming the most conspicuous person in the crowd.

"But what is he stalling for time for?"

Wu Tie narrowed his eyes and muttered softly: "Back then, when we brothers did business and took hostages, we would use the hostages as bait to lure government officials into loss and deception... This bastard..."

Linghu Qingqing's complexion suddenly changed; he glared fiercely at Wu Tie, pointing his right hand at him: "Boss, remember this kid's name—good, good, he's a talent... stalling for time, stalling for time... What does this primeval demon want to do?"

In the high sky, a point of seven-colored divine light suddenly appeared.

Afterward, this point of seven-colored divine light, located at an extremely high altitude, swiftly and straightly fell from the high sky toward this place.

The seven-colored divine light moved too fast to describe; from the moment it appeared at the top of the extremely high heavens, only a short dozen breaths later, the man-wolf outlaw still had half his breath left, yet in his field of vision he had already shrunk to fist size, and continued to rapidly enlarge.

"What is that?" Wu Tie murmured.

"Gods, descend!" Linghu Qingqing stared at the cluster of seven-colored divine light in disbelief: "Gods descending? Back then, back then, six thousand years ago, during the imperial city's great turmoil, the false Crown Prince Sima Sheng rebelled, which brought about the descent of the gods... the three imperial clan gods who beheaded Sima Sheng to serve as a barrier."

"This time, have the gods come, have they come, have they come to slay the demon?"

Linghu Qingqing's body trembled slightly as he suddenly recalled what Wu Tie had just said.

Ao Chi is stalling for time; why is he stalling for time?

He could have easily killed Linghu Qingqing and the others long ago in an instant, then dusted himself off and vanished without a trace.

Why is he stalling for time?

This bastard, this bastard...

A low 'hum' came from the high sky, and a terrifying gust of wind accompanied the seven-colored divine light as it swooped down from the high sky, causing everyone's eardrums to ache fiercely; even the protective circle formed by the Five Elements Secret Treasure could not fully offset this gust, leaving Wu Tie and the others unable to hear anything for a moment.

The five-colored divine light rushed nearer and nearer, its brilliance growing ever brighter, filling the vast expanse of space for tens of thousands of miles with splendid light.

Amidst a 'hiss', fine electric sparks appeared on everyone's bodies; Wu Tie's hairs stood on end, with countless minute electric lights flickering at their tips, he felt his body sink, then become light as air, involuntarily floating up several feet.

The seven-colored divine light suddenly dissipated.

Dozens of beings clad in heavy armor, surrounded by various divine lights, with extraordinarily mighty auras, varying in height and build, appeared out of thin air. They hovered at a thousand-li altitude, the nearest being less than a dozen li from Ao Chi, the farthest no more than about a hundred li.

These individuals precisely formed a loose encirclement, whose core was indeed Ao Chi.

A giant nearly a hundred zhang tall, its body suffused with seven-colored divine light, the flesh exposed outside its heavy armor clear and crystalline like a flawless gem, raised a crystal longsword and pointed it fiercely at Ao Chi.

Kill!

The giant let out a loud, high-pitched roar from its chest.

But before the word 'Kill' was even finished, Ao Chi's right index finger, which had been gathering energy for a long time, struck like lightning at the forehead of the handsome youth nearest him, whose back bore twelve pairs of dazzling silver-light wings shaped like butterfly membranes.

From the fading of the seven-colored divine light to these people suddenly appearing, from the crystal giant's half-shouted 'Kill' to Ao Chi's sudden attack, teleporting before the handsome youth and then striking his forehead with a finger, everything happened almost simultaneously.

Everything seemed as if Ao Chi had long known these people would appear, even knowing exactly where they would appear; even in Wu Tie's perception, he moved his body a fraction earlier than the handsome youth's appearance, strangely advancing ahead, and at the instant the handsome youth just appeared, Ao Chi's finger was already touching his forehead.

With a tremendous bang, the handsome youth's helmet shattered completely.

Afterward, hidden beneath his helmet, a thumb-sized, wholly silver-white teardrop-shaped gem hanging between his eyebrows burst forth a halo of holy light that encircled his skull; but as soon as the holy light erupted, it was utterly shattered beneath Ao Chi's fingertip, and the gem was blown to ashes.

The handsome youth finally came to his senses, letting out a hoarse scream, and the twelve splendid pairs of butterfly wings on his back violently flicked forward.

In the void, countless fist-sized silver vortices sprang into existence, quickly blanketing a hundred li of emptiness.

These silver vortices felt immensely dangerous, as if they could utterly shred, annihilate, purify, and assimilate everything.

But Ao Chi's index finger thrust forward firmly; the silver vortex exploded with a boom into fragments, his finger heavily contacting the handsome youth's brow skin, and in the next instant a cluster of intense light burst forth from his fingertip, as if ten thousand suns had simultaneously appeared in the sky.

The handsome youth's entire upper body was instantly vaporized.

But within him, a cluster of astonishingly bright silver holy light shot up into the sky, forming a huge sword that came down upon Ao Chi.

With a tremendous bang, fine cracks split the imperial robe on Ao Chi's body, the nail of his right index finger was shattered, the holy-light-forged giant sword sliced across his palm, then exploded violently near his wrist.

"A bit formidable." Ao Chi chuckled, then spat a mouthful of blood; his imperial robe tore with a grating sound, breaking apart bit by bit to reveal the dragon-scale soft armor he wore underneath.

With a booming 'Peng' sound, the crystal stone giant that had just been brandishing its longsword and roaring at Ao Chi let out an inhuman wail, and behind it appeared a youth clad entirely in golden armor, stepping on auspicious clouds, wielding a three-pointed double-edged blade.

The youth's three-pointed double-edged blade pierced the crystal giant's chest; that booming sound was precisely the noise of the blade cutting through the giant's armor and thick chest.

Countless electric arcs crackled wildly on the three-pointed double-edged blade; terrifying explosions echoed continuously from within the crystal giant's body, large shards of crystal spraying out, and its body rapidly shrank.

At the same time, among the dozens of divinities descending from the seven-colored divine light, another seventeen were almost simultaneously severely wounded.

Clad in various armors, their aura so mighty it suffocated, moreover ancient, their armor and weapons exuding an antiquated Daoist resonance, these men appeared as if out of thin air; they ambushed the seventeen gods without any reaction, each heavily wounded, hovering in midair screaming hoarsely and crying out.

These men struck with extreme cruelty; their weapons either sprayed electric arcs or various thunder, fire, dark ice, and gale winds, and in just a few blows they shattered the bodies of a total of eighteen divinities.

Wu Tie, Linghu Qingqing, and the others suddenly realized.

This is a trap.

Ao Chi delayed precisely to wait for these divinities to descend; the trap they had laid was meant to hunt and kill these divinities.

But Wu Tie's brain just wouldn't turn the corner.

How could Ao Chi and them know that divinities would suddenly descend today, at this time, in this place?

How did they manage to lay such a trap here?

Unfathomable, utterly inconceivable.