Chapter 255: 248 Capturing the Thief

"Lightning strike!"

Another bolt of thunder descended, brilliant, deafening, and... useless!

Lightning raged in all directions, like mercury spilling onto the ground, nearly turning the earth into a sea of thunder. Countless electric snakes burrowed into the ground and emerged from other directions, turning the once non-conductive soil into a liquid conductor, a paradise for lightning. The thunder snakes danced wantonly, electrocuting and incinerating everything above and below the ground. It was a hellish scene where grass and trees turned to charcoal and soil and stone were ground into dust.

Only, it could do nothing to the massive Heavenly Demon Bone.

The lightning was pervasive, yet it could not penetrate the wide gaps of the skeleton; the lightning was unstoppable, yet it could not leave a single scar on the stark white bones. In the end, the massive lightning almost formed a waterfall, flowing down from the sky, while the Heavenly Demon seemed to be bathing in the waterfall, at most having its movements distorted by the impact, unable to open its eyes, yet remaining composed.

Of course, it could not do anything to Jiang Shenyi either.

Because Jiang Shenyi's position was in the sky, his wings spread, covering a hundred feet in an instant, possessing an absolute high-altitude advantage, making him almost impossible to attack. And that massive Heavenly Demon Bone had strength and defense so powerful they were inconceivable; its fists striking the ground could nearly trigger an earthquake and unleash powerful area-of-effect attacks, yet it simply could not affect the sky.

The yin energy on its body steamed upward like flames, also burning toward the sky, just like a wild beast roaring at the heavens, its sound shaking a hundred miles, yet it could not reach above the clouds.

What's more, half of that Heavenly Demon giant's body was still beneath the soil, destined to be unable to leave the earth.

However, it was rising.

Although the interference of the lightning made its movements slow and arduous, it was always rising bit by bit, like a person trapped in a quagmire, struggling to pull themselves out of the pit. At this moment, its upper body was completely off the ground, the pelvis had already reappeared bit by bit, and further up were the legs...

"I say, can you stop now?"

Standing on Jiang Shenyi's wing, the girl who looked like a lingering spirit behind him couldn't help but speak: "If you keep striking like this, no amount of lightning will pierce these dead bones. How much lightning do you have left? Why are you locking horns with it?"

Jiang Shenyi's face was dyed grim by the thunder light, and he said: "It's inexhaustible. I may have nothing else, but I have plenty of thunder light."

Feng Zhilie stared at the lightning wings behind him, those wings acting like the source of a great river, pouring out electric light incessantly, as if truly bottomless, and continued: "Even if you are carrying a Dharma Artifact for storing lightning, it is ultimately your usual accumulation, so why waste it for nothing? The point is it's useless, stop showing off, can you let me have one last flourish?"

Jiang Shenyi pointed his Trident, and another thick thunder snake struck down, binding the Heavenly Demon's bones like a rope. The two sides exerted force, and the lightning rubbed against the bones, emitting a "hissing" sound.

Hearing Feng Zhilie's urging, he said indifferently: "Don't be impatient—it's almost time."

"Almost time my ass!" Feng Zhilie cursed: "Don't you see it's about to crawl out of the dirt? It's currently buried in the dirt and being beaten one-sidedly, but once it crawls out, who knows, it might even be able to fly. By then, it might come up to the sky and slap you to death. You might not even last until Shi Yu and your junior brother come to reinforce..."

Jiang Shenyi, who was twisting the lightning around his arm like a rope, circle by circle, was startled and alert: "My junior brother? He's here?"

Feng Zhilie said irritably: "Naturally he isn't here. Who knows where he is?"

Jiang Shenyi breathed a sigh of relief and tightened the lightning further. The lightning rope bound the Heavenly Demon Bone, at least in form, like a crab, and he said: "You scared me. If he were here and saw this big guy, wouldn't he charge up recklessly? That would ruin my grand plan. He is usually smart, but at critical moments, he just acts blindly..."

With you like this, you're talking about others?

Feng Zhilie was helpless and wanted to remind him that he didn't have much time left, but he saw Jiang Shenyi say: "It's now! Get out of the way!"

He reached out and tossed, and the Long Bow, along with Feng Zhilie's Spirit Image, was thrown upward. With his other hand, he pulled the lightning rope upward, and a surge of lightning began to spread from the rope to his arm, immediately swallowing his body. In the blink of an eye, he too was bathed in the thunder light, becoming a God of Thunder!

At the same time, all the frolicking thunder snakes around seemed to have received the horn of a charge and lunged at the giant; in an instant, the thunder light became ten times stronger!

Those thunder snakes did not climb the Heavenly Demon's body in a chaotic manner as before, but as if they had received an order, they twisted together one by one, forming ropes, and then, centered on the rope in Jiang Shenyi's hand, they quickly wove together to form a large net.

The lightning formed a net, and that Heavenly Demon Bone was the fish in the net. In all directions, there was nowhere without thunder.

"The Thunder Net is vast—"

"A very powerful move—but what is he trying to do? Lightning cannot paralyze the Heavenly Demon; isn't this turning a long-range harassment into a close-quarters struggle? And he's even pulling the enemy upward?" Feng Zhilie frowned.

A struggle—that was the Heavenly Demon's specialty!

Sure enough, the Heavenly Demon Bone suddenly reached out, dismantled two of its own ribs, and black energy surged throughout its body, wrapping around the ribs like two black blades.

Touch—

The black blades held against the electric net; although they could not cut the net ropes, they held back the lightning's shrinking momentum, truly presenting a stalemate.

The electric snakes kept burrowing into the black blades, destroying the black energy on them. That was death energy mixed with yin energy. Originally, lightning was the ultimate counter to these yin energies, but whether it was the blessing of the dead Spirit Official or not, the yin energy confronted the lightning head-on; it was only slightly timid and did not collapse. The East Pillar of State within the Heavenly Demon Bone kept urging, and the surrounding yin energy all wrapped around the black blades, the black energy becoming more and more intense.

The thicker the black energy, the greater the power of the blades. The thunder net emitted a hissing sound, seemingly on the verge of breaking.

Suddenly, Jiang Shenyi smiled: "It's now!"

The thunder light shone brightly, and Jiang Shenyi's figure Disappearance!

The next moment, his figure appeared inside the chest cavity within the Heavenly Demon Bone's ribs!

"Teleportation?!"

Feng Zhilie exclaimed.

No, this was not teleportation, but after stimulating his body and mind with lightning, his speed reached the extreme, supplemented by the special movement technique "Heavenly Travel Guide," covering a hundred feet in an instant, surpassing the limits of human visual reaction, making it look like teleportation!

Jiang Shenyi had always been able to use this extreme-speed movement technique, but firstly, the activation conditions were harsh, requiring lightning to bathe his whole body to reach a peak state before it could be activated, and secondly, the place he wanted to go still had a layer of yin energy obstruction, which very likely could not be passed through.

That was inside the Heavenly Demon's chest cavity.

He never intended to tangle with the bones on the outside from the beginning; his true goal was only to invade the demon bone and seize that crucial dead Spirit Official. The Heavenly Demon Bone was difficult to destroy, so why not just not destroy it? A skeleton that had been dead for who knows how many years, why grind away at it? As long as that East Pillar of State was captured, that ghost thing would turn into bones in a grave in no time.

Shoot the horse to shoot the rider? It was exactly the opposite; don't shoot the horse, only shoot the rider.

Therefore, he wrestled with the Heavenly Demon Bone, using a large amount of lightning as bait to attract more yin energy power to come out and resist, feinting to the east while attacking in the west, and finally found the flaw.

"Got you!"

Inside the chest cavity, Jiang Shenyi saw the East Pillar of State.

At this moment, the East Pillar of State's figure had become very strange; there seemed to be lines flowing on the surface of his body, as if blood vessels had turned inside out and were still circulating incessantly. Jiang Shenyi felt slightly disgusted and struck like lightning, reaching out to grab him.

Seeing Jiang Shenyi's sudden approach, the East Pillar of State was also startled, but then smiled: "You cannot catch me."

Following his words, Jiang Shenyi's hand, coated with Qi, passed through him as if passing through a layer of light.

Hmm?

Can't catch him?

Can't a Phantom be caught by Qi?

It had undergone a qualitative change again.

Jiang Shenyi was startled, then immediately reacted—was it some other inheritance from the Turtle Bandits?

The methods of a Spirit Official were inherently the most bizarre.

Immediately after, Jiang Shenyi also smiled and said: "Then try this move?"

With a backhand grab, the blue-white Qi in his hand suddenly became solid and calm, as if it had also undergone a qualitative change into an existence of another dimension.

Touch—

"Ah!"

The Heavenly Gang Qi was like iron pincers, fiercely clamping onto the High Minister's neck and hoisting him up.

"This... this is..." The High Minister was filled with horror, unable to fathom how he had been caught.

Jiang Shenyi could not be bothered with nonsense and said, "This is the skill of a grandfather catching his grandson."

This was the Freedom Heavenly Gang!

Jiang Shenyi had received the training method for the Freedom Heavenly Gang from Zhang Rong while in Yunzhou, and he had been pondering it the entire journey. Unlike Tang Zhao, who had many affairs—lecturing today and researching tomorrow—he had quite a bit of time. Moreover, he did not intend to become a Sword Guest, so he had to put double the effort into his Heavenly Gang Qi, which was why he had started practicing the Freedom Heavenly Gang early on.

His natural talent was astonishing, and under dedicated cultivation, he had already fused a sliver of his will, successfully cultivating one part of the Freedom Heavenly Gang. Although it was not yet as powerful as the Heavenly Gang refined over many years, he could already call upon it at critical moments. Furthermore, the Freedom Heavenly Gang transformed the Heavenly Gang Qi from a material with purely "fire" properties into a material possessing both "fire" and "wind" properties, which happened to restrain the High Minister, who used "etherealization" to escape this material world.

In truth, that High Minister's martial arts were exceptionally high, and his Heavenly Gang Qi was not inferior to Jiang Shenyi's. If they had fought on equal footing, he would not have feared him, and perhaps his chances of winning would have been even greater. However, he was already dead, so his martial arts were useless. He had been in a hurry to solidify his Spirit Image to save his life, so he had urgently activated a secret technique. In such a state, his body could not move at will, and his method of etherealization had also been broken, causing him to fall into Jiang Shenyi's hands.

As soon as Jiang Shenyi lifted him, he took out a Mirror container and, without a word, pressed him into the mirror surface. This instantly severed his inner and outer connections, and the surrounding black Qi suddenly dimmed, showing signs of fleeing. He carried the Mirror and drilled out from the ribs, only to see that the Heavenly Demon Bone was already teetering on the verge of collapse.

Feng Zhilie watched from above, seeing the power that had previously suppressed the rivers and mountains dissipate bit by bit, and the black Qi gradually vanish. He could not help but feel a sense of relief in his heart, and his figure grew a few shades fainter.

Time... is almost up.

Jiang Shenyi casually used a large amount of lightning to wash away the Yin Qi. Without the blessing of the dead Spirit Official, the Yin Qi was like water droplets cast into a raging fire, evaporating into nothingness in the blink of an eye.

Ignoring the Heavenly Demon Bone that had collapsed with a boom, Jiang Shenyi took out the High Minister and shouted, "Quickly tell me the method to make a Spirit Image last for a long time, and I might still spare your life. Otherwise, I will have your soul extracted and your spirit refined, so you shall never be reincarnated for all eternity."

The rays of light flowing on the High Minister's body had already changed from blood vessels into meridians, connecting to each other and forming a self-contained cycle that covered his entire body. The beautiful female face wore a very serene expression as she said, "It is too late. What if I tell you? This Spirit Phase Pulse Planting Technique must be practiced from childhood, with years of accumulation, to be able to condense the meridians and blood vessels of the whole body with the body of a Spirit Image, supporting the Spirit Image to last forever. And I have already finished transforming my pulses; I will surely live forever and never die. He has no hope. While Feng Zhilie still has his last bit of time, listen to what his last words are."

Jiang Shenyi turned his head. The shadow of the little girl in red was already so thin it was nothing but a layer of mist, yet her voice remained steady: "This old man has no wife and no children, and no attachments. If I had any... it would be that I wanted to be a true great hero. I didn't become one when I was young, and now there is one last chance. Use me as an arrow to shoot him dead, so that this life of mine may come to an end."

That High Minister was not afraid at all and laughed, "Good. Let us, one official and one thief, one righteous and one deviant, go to Huangquan together."

Jiang Shenyi's emotions were turbulent, and he was on the verge of cursing out loud, but he did not know who to curse, only saying, "Enough of your nonsense..."

He reached out, intending to grab the High Minister to force a bit more information out of him, when suddenly a Sword Light came from beyond the sky, cutting across horizontally, slicing through both Feng Zhilie and the High Minister's Spirit Image at once—

"Sword Art—Plucking the Peach!"