Very soon, beside a relatively open stretch of sludge flatland carved out by the convergence and collision of several gigantic black rivers, he "saw" them. Three familiar, powerful currents of demonic power coiled upon that filthy mudflat, like three hidden reefs hurled into dead water, churning the surrounding chaotic foul currents.
The Ice Chi, a hundred zhang long, lay coiled in the deepest part of the Mud Pond. Its bone‑white scales were stained with foul black sludge, yet the chill around it remained razor‑keen, freezing the mud around its body into an Ice Ocean, boiling up fog of piercing cold.
Its enormous head drooped slightly; within its icy vertical pupils lingered a terror and dread that would not disperse, but more than that was exhaustion, as if it were resting to heal its wounds.
The Golden Roc chose to alight upon the peak of a lone black crag, its rock face riddled with rot and holes.
Its once resplendent golden feathers now looked somewhat dim, having lost that edge that could rip through the firmament. It stood one‑legged atop the peak, hawk eyes half‑closed; its sharp gaze swept warily across the filthy surroundings, yet could not conceal the regret and the faint, suppressed fear deep within its divine light.
The Golden Roc clan were extremely fond of cleanliness, and so it was profoundly disgusted by this filthy environment, occasionally shaking its wings to fling off the slick, clinging waterweeds.
The most irritable of the three was the Fire Flood Dragon.
It clearly did not fit with this place. The originally berserk scarlet Scale Armor on its body had been corroded by the foul water vapor, its color darkened, and even its Demon Fire had withdrawn a great deal.
Most of its massive body sank beneath the black water, only its ferocious dragon head and a small portion of its spine breaking the surface. Under the dark water, dark red flames rolled and roiled, resisting the erosion of filth.
It was abnormally agitated, its tail covered in bone spikes lashing the turbid water every so often in violent irritation, raising sky‑high black waves stinking of blood and rot. Its giant maw opened to let out one deep bellow after another, laden with venomous hatred; the dark red radiance at its wounds flickered in and out, clearly showing that its fire‑poison injuries had not yet healed and were now being harassed anew by this filthy water element, making it unbearably uncomfortable.
The state of the Three Fiends was poor.
The fall of the Earth Ant, the furious scolding of the Heaven‑Burning Ancestor, and the deep psychological shadow left by that terrifying Human Clan brat all weighed heavily upon their hearts.
Especially the fact that the domain they considered themselves most proficient in—their combined assault—had been broken head‑on. The psychological trauma brought by this sense of defeat far surpassed their bodily wounds.
Now, being in this foul land that was particularly ill‑suited to the Fire Flood Dragon, made the entire atmosphere all the more depressed and taut. Though they were adjusting their breath, they were like startled birds, outwardly strong but inwardly weak.
"Once we return this time, I fear our situation will not be good."
The Ice Chi’s voice was low.
Hearing this, the Fire Flood Dragon grew even more furious at heart and said, "Just what great opportunity is that Human Jiang Shu harboring? How long has it been since he first attained Daoist Venerable? By rights he should have only just begun comprehending the Space Dao, yet somehow he..."
Halfway through, the words stuck in its throat; its heart surged with rage, tinged with sheer disbelief.
None of the four were of weak bloodlines. Long ago, they had been selected by the Emperor Palace to form the Four Fierce Array, cultivating combined‑strike Skills. Even a Mixed Cave Realm Daoist Venerable might be trapped for a time by them.
One could not break through their trap defenses in a short moment.
Yet Jiang Shu had delivered them a head‑on blow.
The Golden Roc said nothing, only looking with disdain at the environment around it.
Without the perfect combined formation of Demon Venerable Middle Stage power, without the oppressive shroud of Heaven‑Burning, and without even the heavy pressure of the Earth Ant acting as adhesive, the three fiends before him—even working together—might not necessarily be any weaker than an ordinary Mixed Cave Realm Middle Stage Daoist Venerable.
At this point, the Three Fiends had also drawn back their Divine Senses, focusing on nourishing themselves.
Terrified that at any moment, another great battle would descend upon them.
Jiang Shu lay silent within the shadows for a moment, like the finest Hunter, calculating the shifting of light and shadow, observing their habitual movement patterns.
The Fire Flood Dragon lashed its tail in irritation once more, whipping up a vast sheet of black water. Droplets splashed everywhere, just enough to obscure part of its sideward line of sight toward the cliff wall.
The Golden Roc was startled by the commotion, its gaze sweeping toward the Fire Flood Dragon in displeasure.
At that precise instant when the spray rose and the Golden Roc’s line of sight shifted, Jiang Shu moved!
"Hum... hum... hum..."
Silent tremors reverberated through the complex canyon Water Dao channels, like muffled thunder rolling beneath the earth.
When Jiang Shu had arrived, he had already picked out several spatial weak points in Thousand Streams Creek—naturally formed by the circulation of water veins and the corrosion of foul qi—as his marks. Now, detonating them all at once, he instantly shattered the footing of the Three Fiends.
The space above the lone black crag where the Golden Roc stood abruptly collapsed inward, forming a twisted vortex that tugged at the already loosened rock beneath its single foot.
All around the Ice Ocean where the Ice Chi coiled, the frozen mud that had been hard as ice suddenly split into countless hairline cracks like spiderwebs, and the foul black water below surged upward, as if alive, in a frenzied backlash.
In front of the Fire Flood Dragon, the black water curtain it had just churned up had yet to fall when the space behind that curtain bizarrely folded and stretched, twisting a portion of the murky water veil into a brief, turbid spatial mirror.
This sudden spatial anomaly instantly shattered the façade of vigilance the Three Fiends had been maintaining.
"Jiang Shu!"
"Be careful!"
The Golden Roc cried out in a sharp mix of shock and fury; it was the first to sense Jiang Shu’s strike!
Strands of Great Dao surged violently around its body.
Its twin wings burst with blinding golden light, forcibly stabilizing its form and tearing apart the suction of the collapsing space.
On one side, the space around the Ice Chi froze in an instant.
The frozen space naturally formed a zone of defense.
Its cold vertical pupils shrank abruptly, instinctively driving deeper, more profound cold to try and refreeze the surging filth, while its massive body sought out Jiang Shu’s location.
The irascible Fire Flood Dragon reacted in the most direct way. It had already been driven to the brink of madness; now that the water curtain before its eyes suddenly turned grotesque and indistinct, and the space under its feet seemed to grow unstable as well, its furious mind was instantly ignited.
Without a thought, it let out a hysterical roar at that twisted curtain of watery space, the pent‑up dark red poison fire in its maw bursting forth like a breached flood, heedlessly spewing toward that patch of blurry Chaos ahead.
The flames, woven of scorching heat and fetid stench, swallowed the spatial mirror and a vast stretch of filthy water in an instant!
At the very moment the Fire Flood Dragon poured out its poison fire at full strength, at the side of its massive head and vulnerable neck—precisely where the torrent of its own flames provided the thickest cover—a space rift less than a foot long silently opened.
Within the rift, no light leaked out at all, only the deepest void.
A hand sheathed in a Flowlight gauntlet shot out of that void like lightning!
That hand appeared far too eerily, far too precisely—exactly at the instant when the Fire Flood Dragon’s weakest point was laid bare.
On the gauntlet, motes of light from Space Runes flowed, like the tracks of leaping stars.
The five fingers spread, gathering no blinding radiance, only a layer of dusky gray mist, like the vapor of heaven and earth in the dawn of creation, when Chaos had yet to split.
Within that gray mist was contained the terrifying Daoist Rules of all things returning to their Origin.
Taichu!
That palm gently pressed against the Scale Armor on the side of the Fire Flood Dragon’s neck, armor bristling with hard bone spikes.
Poof!
Like a scalding blade slicing into congealed fat.
The Fire Flood Dragon’s tough Scale Armor, able to withstand attacks of its own realm, under that palm wreathed in Taichu vapor, became like ice shards dropped into hot oil, silently softening and dissolving.
The Taichu Aura instantly invaded deep into its flesh, blood, tendons, and bone. Everything the aura touched—substance and demonic power alike—began rapidly collapsing back into their earliest, most fundamental state of energy particles!
The gray mist spread with speed; the neck bones, meridians, and even the berserk demonic power flowing through them at the point of contact all swiftly lost their original structure and vitality.
"Urgh!"
The Fire Flood Dragon screamed in agony; its frenzied bellow had barely burst from its throat when the sound cut off in a bizarre instant.
For the very throat through which it spewed poison fire had, under the scour of Taichu Aura, begun simultaneously undergoing an irreversible "reversion"!
Its massive body convulsed violently, struggling with all its might, dark red poison fire spraying out of it uncontrollably in all directions,
yet it could not halt in the slightest the rapid expansion and spread of that mortal breach at its neck under the erosion of the Taichu Dao.
Its Life Force was pouring out like water from a burst dam!
Chapter 1219: 650: Picking Chestnuts from the Fire! The Momentum Is Mine! (Part 2)
9 min read