Chapter 36: Waters of the Celestial River
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Zhang Peng and Qing Mei quickly dodged apart, widening the distance between them. The three of them stared at one another warily.
“You truly have no idea how to cherish a woman. To strike with such ruthlessness and show no mercy at all—now you’ve made me angry.”
As Qing Mei played her pipa, she danced as well, twisting her body and openly displaying her graceful figure.
Her afterimages multiplied until Zhang Peng and Battle Bear, standing in the center of the arena, could no longer distinguish the real one from the illusions. Their entire bodies grew unbearably feverish, and their limbs ceased to obey them. Following Qing Mei’s rhythm, they began to dance and gradually sank into her spell.
This strange method of attack was truly difficult to deal with.
“Yin-Yang Fish, go!”
Black, viscous liquid began to flow from Zhang Peng’s body. It dripped continuously, then transformed into a fish that swam across the ground, coating everything in its path with the sticky substance.
The battlefield instantly became Zhang Peng’s domain. He could merge completely with the liquid and move through it. In the blink of an eye, he locked onto Qing Mei’s path.
Zhang Peng moved one step ahead of her. The viscous liquid gathered into the shape of his body, and his left hand shot forward, seizing Qing Mei by the throat.
Qing Mei struggled in agony. She threw down her pipa, drew a dagger from her waist, and viciously plunged it toward Zhang Peng’s heart.
But when the dagger passed straight through his body, Qing Mei was stunned. Zhang Peng’s form was made entirely of black, viscous liquid, and the dagger could not injure him at all.
At the place where his heart should have been, the sticky liquid writhed incessantly. It slowly spread from the dagger onto Qing Mei’s arm.
“No, you can’t kill me!”
Her final plea was utterly useless. In moments, Qing Mei was completely engulfed by the black liquid.
Battle Bear, who had been standing nearby, regained consciousness. The sight before him filled him with dread.
That strange black water was exceedingly troublesome. Battle Bear cultivated the physical body and relied on overwhelming force to defeat his enemies. Against Zhang Peng in his present state, he had not the slightest chance of victory.
“Battle Bear, come back. Let Thunder Sky take the field.”
The Han Emperor issued his command.
Before long, a man wreathed in lightning and wielding a hammer leapt down from the flying vessel.
When Thunder Sky smashed the hammer into the ground, lightning exploded outward and rapidly made contact with Zhang Peng’s black liquid.
“Not good!”
Zhang Peng’s expression changed dramatically. As he swiftly restored his form, he abandoned part of the black liquid so that it would not be caught in the lightning.
“A fourth-realm thunder cultivator—Thunder Sky enters the battle.”
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Qing Mei’s death enraged Crown Prince Zhao Jie of Song.
“Radiant Sun, burn him to death with your undying flames!”
“I obey the Crown Prince’s command.”
A woman dressed entirely in red suddenly transformed into a scarlet bird. It plunged downward, breathing torrents of blazing fire.
Zhang Peng dodged frantically, relying on his speed to evade the attacks of the two opponents. Even so, he could not avoid being touched by a wisp of flame.
The fire clung to him like a parasite burrowed into his bones. No method could extinguish it. Zhang Peng hardened his heart and tore off the arm that had caught fire.
“Ahhh!”
The heart-rending scream made everyone nearby feel their scalps prickle.
Right Minister Zhang Cang looked especially grim. He had just begun to activate the ancient treasure in his hand when Zhao Yuan stopped him.
“You may pity your son, but you must choose the proper moment. The instant you intervene, this will become a general battle. Hold yourself back.”
Zhao Yuan firmly pressed down on Zhang Cang’s arm.
Zhang Cang withdrew his hand and let out a helpless sigh.
“What a calamity!”
“Who is willing to take the field on behalf of my son?”
Zhang Cang looked toward the younger generation of Wei.
Many hot-blooded youths wanted to charge forward and relieve Zhang Peng, but their elders transmitted warnings to them one after another.
“Do not act recklessly. Do not seek to show off. Staying alive is what matters most.”
“Ah…”
Zhang Cang stared helplessly at the unmoving crowd and said nothing more.
At that moment, all the soldiers stationed outside the city of Wei were watching the cultivators battling in the sky, with bursts of astonished cries rising from them now and again.
“Senior Brother, let’s flee quickly. I have a terrible premonition. Something even more terrifying may happen. If we don’t leave now, it will be too late.”
Liu An sat beside Sword One, eating the provisions they had been issued and chattering incessantly.
“Junior Brother, don’t be hasty. Let’s watch a little longer. If we miss such an entertaining spectacle, we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives. Oh—Junior Brother, look! That Zhang Peng has been burned into a blackened corpse.”
Seeing Sword One’s shameless delight in watching the spectacle, Liu An almost knocked him unconscious and dragged him away.
“Why didn’t you call me when you two started eating?”
A voice like silver bells reached the ears of Sword One and Liu An.
“Bosses, we must flee at once! I’m an auspicious beast, and I can clearly sense a terrifying energy fluctuation building up. It will be complete very soon.”
Hearing that the Four-Unlike Beast shared his thoughts, Liu An pulled it into his arms and gently stroked its fur.
“My precious little one—you thought of exactly the same thing I did. But Senior Brother refuses to leave. What can I do? How about we vote on whether to stay or go?”
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“I vote to leave, and the Four-Unlike Beast votes to leave. Senior Brother votes to stay. Excellent—two to one. Leaving wins.”
Liu An quickly declared the result of the vote.
“Can’t you see that I’m standing right here, a perfectly living person? Are you blind?”
Lin Yiyi puffed out her cheeks angrily and waved her fist at Liu An.
“Stop making trouble. You aren’t traveling the same road as us. You must have your own destination. We’ll each follow our own path from here on. The world is wide enough for us to go our separate ways.”
Liu An spoke with complete seriousness, without the slightest trace of joking.
Sword One remained silent throughout, paying no attention to the conversation between Liu An and Lin Yiyi.
By then, the battlefield of the cultivators had devolved into a chaotic melee among the younger generation. All three sides had fought themselves into a frenzy, and young cultivators from every nation were falling one after another.
The most eye-catching development was that the supreme cultivators holding their respective trump cards were about to enter the battle.
“They’re all dead. The younger generation of Wei is gone. It is time for us to fight to the death.”
Zhao Yuan roused the mid-level forces of Wei behind him—the cultivators of the sixth and seventh realms.
“Invite the hidden powers forth!”
An old man lit a stick of incense. As it steadily burned, the sound of rushing water began to echo through the air.
“Where is that sound of water coming from?”
Whether they belonged to the Crown Prince of Song or the Han Emperor, everyone listened carefully, trying to locate the source of the water.
“Grow larger, tortoiseshell! Grow larger!”
Another old man of Wei soon began forming hand seals before a mottled, cracked tortoiseshell.
“Quickly, everyone get inside! Enter the tortoiseshell!”
A moment later, a river descended from the vault of heaven, crossing both time and space. It poured down and engulfed the flying vessel and the Golden-Winged Roc in the sky.
When the water from above struck the flying vessel, every drop seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. The vessel plummeted at an astonishing speed.
The situation on the Han Emperor’s side was the same. The Golden-Winged Roc shrank and transformed into human form. Beside the Crown Prince of Song, Minister Ji held aloft a red umbrella, shielding everyone on their side beneath it.
Yet even that could not withstand the weight of the falling water. They continued to descend.
“This is the heavy water from beyond the Nine Heavens. Anything it touches will be dragged to the bottom and be unable to escape. Why has it appeared here?”
The Han Emperor revealed the origin of the water, his voice filled with fury.
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