Chapter 843: Success

"Boom—"

A loud bang!

The entire Shen Zhi Ta shook, as if gripped by a giant hand, swaying twice.

At the top of the tower, Tang Zhao, who had been resting with his eyes closed, woke up with a start and stood up from the giant book page. The page swayed along with the movement, then immediately steadied.

"What's going on? Is there a battle outside? Someone is actually taking action here?" Tang Zhao felt a bit strange, then immediately thought of something and hurriedly looked at his wrist.

On his wrist was a Bracelet, which opened to reveal a tiny Mirror; it was a bracelet-style Contact Mirror that Tang Zhao had newly developed.

As soon as he opened the Mirror, sure enough, it was densely packed with contact messages. They were all messages sent to him by the several Sword Saint Emperors, and naturally, he hadn't replied to a single one. Because he had just entered a state of deep focus, he hadn't noticed them at all.

Could it be that he had lost contact, and the several Emperors were angry and had started fighting outside?

That shouldn't be.

Tang Zhao felt a bit guilty, but immediately felt puzzled as well.

Tang Zhao had run out in private, and with the environment and the situation outside, it would naturally cause unease. It was understandable that the several Emperors would make trouble because of this. But he had "Disappearance" active, which meant everyone should have forgotten about him, and they wouldn't have thought to contact him; nothing he did should have caused a ripple.

But then he found the answer himself:

The Sword Manual had actually dimmed.

"Ah?"

This was a situation that had never happened before; had the energy of the Sword Manual been exhausted?

Tang Zhao had just been pushing the progress bar by guiding the direction, pushing it line by line, step by step. Some succeeded, and the progress soared; some failed, and it regressed instead. He had spent a massive amount of energy, and in the end, he simply used Restraint on all external forces, maintaining only the minimum level of Disappearance for self-protection, and stayed honestly on the book page, concentrating his energy to coordinate with the Glasses. Finally, reaching a certain stage, he had completely articulated his train of thought and felt that the path ahead was cleared, with no fear of failure anymore. The progress bar only needed time to be slowly filled, so he even stopped thinking, saving his strength to supply the Glasses entirely to contend with this unprecedented "upgrading material."

In the end, he had become a bit muddled. Until he was suddenly startled awake.

He had just discovered that the Glasses had been running continuously, and the power of the Sword Manual had been almost completely drained. As for himself, he was fine; although most of his energy and Sword Essence had been drained, the Jingxing Sword had still preserved the Sword Essence he used daily for him, and it remained completely untouched. He only needed to find the Jingxing Sword to provide feedback, and after a moment, he would be a lively, healthy man again.

However, the power of this Sword Manual was indeed drained. Since it was drained, the page for the Honghu Sword dimmed, and Disappearance must have failed. No wonder it had become chaotic outside; it turned out he could no longer hide.

However, was it a success here?

Tang Zhao stood up. The Luse mud outside barely reacted; clearly, it did not consider him an intruder. And he was not in "Disappearance."

This was a success, right?

Thinking this, Tang Zhao tentatively stepped down from the book page.

There was no reaction from the Luse mud, let alone the "devouring" or "spreading" that should have been triggered. Of course, this Luse mud was merely an accessory; the true main body was the tentacle within the Luse mud.

He walked over, stepping on the Luse mud that everyone avoided, and easily arrived beside the tentacle. He reached out and pinched it, peeling off the Luse mud that had been unbreakable and required the "Substitution" technique to cut through before, revealing the tentacle.

Now, he could see the tentacle clearly. It was about the thickness of a forearm, like a rubber hose, thick at the top and thin at the bottom, branching at the very end to form what he had initially thought was a hand. But now, holding it in his hand to examine it, he found it was far from a hand. It was not a hand; there were no palms, only three branched fingers, each with a suction cup at the tip. The suction cup seemed to be able to open, and there were other structures inside.

He held the tentacle, and the tentacle let him hold it without any reaction, just like a left hand holding a right hand. There were no affectionate or docile movements.

In reality, there couldn't be. Because Tang Zhao's modification strategy just now was not to make it recognize him as a Master or a friend, but to recognize him as the same entity.

In other words, this monster recognized Tang Zhao as itself.

Tang Zhao became a clone of the monster, and the monster became a clone of Tang Zhao. Both sides could command the other without obstruction, just like the brain commands an arm, without feeling that anything was wrong. Of course, if the arm didn't listen to the brain, the brain would think the arm was broken, at most feeling a bit frustrated. However, in general, the arm would listen to the brain, so the monster would listen to Tang Zhao, while Tang Zhao could choose not to acknowledge any of the other party's commands.

"Whew... it's a success." Tang Zhao let out a sigh of relief, then hurriedly held the tentacle and said, "Brother, we have to stop this dispute."

If he hadn't successfully modified this tentacle, he wouldn't necessarily have stopped this great battle. Those Heavenly Demons were devious in their thinking, calculating against Humans time and time again. If the Humans hadn't been lucky and encountered lucky stars repeatedly, they would have been swallowed skin and flesh long ago. Now, using Tang Zhao's "Changle" as a pretext to tear off their masks and make a scene, it would instead let the Heavenly Demons see some color; anyway, the Heavenly Demons didn't dare to tear off their masks completely now. After the battle had a result, Tang Zhao could just come out to finish things off at the end. If the Sword Saints had the upper hand, he would come out late; if they were at a disadvantage, he would come out early.

But now it was different; Tang Zhao had already finished modifying that "Evil God." Although it was different from the taming he had envisioned before, the result was equally good. In this situation, was a chaotic battle needed? Of course not; what was needed was to make a fortune in silence.

It would be best to gloss over today's events, let the Heavenly Demons completely fail to discover that he had already tamed their reliance, and wait for a critical moment to launch a strike from the center, giving them a head-on blow.

This critical moment could be this world-ending crisis, or it could be some critical moment in the future, or perhaps it should be saved to meet that larger Evil God—if one existed. In short, this trump card had to be saved to exert its greatest effect.

Then he had to go out now, stop the battle first, and don't let it get out of hand.

Tang Zhao had wanted to let the Luse mud roll him up and throw him out, but then he thought, low-key is low-key, but he didn't say he had to suffer a loss, right?

Why couldn't he show off a bit without causing suspicion?

No sooner said than done.

Tang Zhao first put away the Sword Manual, took out the Jingxing Sword again, ruffled his hair, messed it up a little, and rubbed his clothes with the Luse mud, staining them with a bit of green, and then—

Using all his strength, the Sword Light gathered on the blade, and he slashed out!

"Sword Technique—Golden Tiger!"

A golden tiger almost filled the entire top floor, slamming fiercely into the wall and breaking through it!

Boom!

This strike was almost the limit of a Sword Hero's power. Tang Zhao rode the light energy and rushed out from outside the wall!

The light shone brightly!

Outside, it had already turned into a battlefield.

The Sword Saints who had ascended the tower now broke out of the tower simultaneously, occupying the Bagua positions, looking like a formation. Before, they had followed the Heavenly Demons' arrangements and walked up the Gaota step by step; that was just to give face to their nominal allies. Once the masks were torn off, they broke through directly from the tower body and placed themselves in the spacious area of the Great Ship.

This was just the first step. If they really fought, any Sword Saint could pierce through the Great Ship, letting this ship, which was touted as unsinkable, sink in the harbor.

It was just that the fighting hadn't started yet, or rather, they had already reached the battlefield but the horn of attack hadn't been blown. That tremor just now was the Kun Sword giving the Heavenly Demons opposite a greeting gift. Once the Great Ship was broken, it would be a fight to the death.

At this time, the various High Priests had also long been lined up on the opposite side, also eight of them; there were originally nine, but now they had lost one member. Of course, it was the Songtian High Priest who had led the way before.

When they couldn't contact Tang Zhao, several Sword Saints attacked together, launching a surprise attack on him without hesitation.

This was both the several Sword Saints attacking in anger and a strategy discussed beforehand. Once Tang Zhao was in danger, there was no need to confirm; they would directly rise up and injure someone. They had to cripple one in the first wave. If Tang Zhao was indeed unfortunate, killing one would be a life-for-a-life; secondly, in case subsequent attacks followed, taking one out first could also strive for a relative balance of eight against eight.

Of course, if Tang Zhao returned safely and the facts proved it was a misunderstanding... then it was a misunderstanding. Sorry, hahaha, didn't we not kill him? The situation just now would naturally invite misunderstanding. The Sword Saints are elders, and it was unexpected that they would lose their sense of proportion due to sudden anger over their junior. This was also an accident; no one could have expected it. Do you think we were aiming to stage a scam?

We'll give you some money, hoping for forgiveness. If you say you don't forgive, then we'll part ways. You can sail your Great Ship yourselves, and the war will reignite on the Qianxian. After fighting for so many years, who is afraid of whom?

Sure enough, Songtian was now lying on the ground, unconscious. The other High Priests remaining outside were shocked and angry, and they fought back one after another. The Haotian High Priest pointed at the Qian Sword, about to open his mouth to question.

The Kun Sword was feeling angry and wanted to interrogate first, but the Zhen Sword snatched the lead before everyone else, took a deep breath, and roared with a voice that truly shook the mountains: "Despicable and shameless Heavenly Demons! You actually kidnapped Changle! Hand him over quickly!"

Haotian stuttered slightly, and the Hutian High Priest beside him shouted: "Nonsense, who touched Changle? We didn't touch him!"

The Zhen Sword roared in a tone of grief and indignation: "You are telling lies with your eyes open! Is there any justice left? Just now, right before our eyes, a perfectly fine child of ours was sucked away and swallowed by your monster tower! Openly robbing in broad daylight, what else can you not do? Stop the nonsense, hand over Changle, or we'll all perish together!"

The Hutian High Priest was still shouting: "Nonsense!", but the Haotian High Priest thought of the winks Songtian had been making repeatedly before, and felt that this matter might really have been done by him, only he hadn't been clean in his actions and was caught in the act, resulting in his own misfortune. He didn't know if that child had been kidnapped or killed directly, but at this time, he had to deny it to the death, strike first to gain the initiative, and immediately shouted: "You say Changle was kidnapped, that's only one side of the story, no one saw it, but you relied on having more people to attack Songtian, we all saw that! Who is the one breaking the agreement by taking action?"

"Very well, not only do you refuse to admit it, but you also turn around and accuse me?"

"What 'turn around and accuse'?" Haotian said righteously, "You all say that child is missing, but who knows if you hid him yourselves? Who saw..."

Boom!

With a loud bang and a flash of golden light, the very top of the Divine Tower exploded, and a figure darted out, shouting in mid-air, "Your Majesties, save me!"