Chapter 153: Battling the Mechanical Serpent

Unable to voice one's grievances—such a feeling was truly agonizing.

The yin-cold aura pressing down from behind paralyzed Song Nianqiang, leaving him too terrified to make the slightest movement. He feared that the very second he moved, he would instantly forfeit his life; this sensation was excruciating indeed.

He cast a subtle glance toward the big-bellied man. Instantly, the hefty man's eyes snapped wide open, his face registering a look of utter disbelief. The two of them had lived together since childhood and had gradually grown to understand everything about one another. Now, catching Song Nianqiang's gaze, the big man immediately grasped the gravity of the situation.

Swallowing hard a few times, the fat man forced as calm an expression as he could muster, while his hand instinctively slid into his pocket. Then, he slowly shuffled toward Song Nianqiang. As the distance between the big man and Song Nianqiang closed, he, too, gradually began to perceive that bone-chilling, piercing cold.

The layers of fat on his face quivered, and his legs started to tremble. Under this oppressive chill, even Song Nianqiang had nearly been brought to his knees, so for the big man to hold on this long was already quite a feat. Upon reaching Song Nianqiang's side, the heavy man suppressed the dread gripping his heart, whirled around sharply, and hurled the Blazing Sun Talisman in his hand toward the rear.

"Puff..."

It sounded no more consequential than a passing fart, and the Blazing Sun Talisman fizzled out with nothing to show for it. Yet, the ghostly shadow paused for a split second, and seizing this window of opportunity, Song Nianqiang abruptly spun around, his hands moving in a blur to form seals as he instantly unleashed the Five Thunders Incantation.

Five blue lightning bolts suddenly materialized in the space, one of which struck squarely upon the head of the phantom. While the entity merely staggered for a beat, Song Nianqiang seized the opening and bolted forward as fast as he could—the further he got from this phantom, the better.

"Fatty, pull out some heavy-duty talismans! Are you really going to hoard your stash now?!" Song Nianqiang roared as he sprinted. Roused by the shout, the big man snapped to his senses and swiftly retrieved a blue talisman from his breast pocket. This was the hefty man's signature talisman, belonging to his most lethal tier of offensive charms.

The Soul-Exterminating Talisman was a class of upgradable talismans, with the baseline starting at blue. If one's cultivation was high enough, the Soul-Exterminating Talisman could even rank among the formidable golden talismans. Although this particular one was merely blue, its destructive power vastly surpassed that of ordinary yellow talismans.

"Go to hell, you bastard!" The big man squinted to aim with the talisman before hurling it fiercely forward. The talisman traced a rapid arc through the air and plastered itself directly onto the phantom. However, the entity did not appear to be a ghost at all, but rather a profoundly unique form of energy body, for the big man's talisman failed to inflict any significant damage upon it.

Naturally, blue talismans possessed negligible effect against advanced specters anyway; entities surpassing the third rank of ghosts were essentially immune to blue talismans. Yet, the phantom before them completely lacked any aura of gloomy dread or ghostly miasma, which was why Song Nianqiang dared to assert with certainty that it was no ordinary spirit.

Running ahead, Song Nianqiang glanced back and was scared out of his wits—the phantom's velocity had suddenly spiked dramatically, drastically closing the distance between them.

"Isn't this fucking Li Runze brat's ultimate technique?! How on earth is this bastard wielding it?!" Song Nianqiang ran blindly while his mind raced, desperately trying to deduce what was happening. His train of thought was abruptly cut short, however, because there was no road left ahead.

"Crap!"

Left with no choice, Song Nianqiang had to halt, turn around, and face the phantom head-on. Fortunately, the entity did not lunge at him, instead coming to a halt three meters away and fixing its green-flaming eyes entirely upon him.

"Fatty, go help the others! Get them to finish their fight quickly and come back to rescue me!" Song Nianqiang had no other option; the big man was of zero use here, so he might as well assist the others in concluding their battle first and then return with reinforcements.

"Understood!" Acknowledging the order with a shout, the big man dashed toward Li Runze's battle circle. Though the hefty man's cultivation was humble, his utility at critical moments remained remarkably high. To Song Nianqiang's astonishment, the phantom made no move to pursue the big man, letting him depart unhindered. *Could it be that this monster holds a personal grudge against me?* Song Nianqiang could not help but wonder, yet he had never laid eyes on the creature before in his life.

It was true that Song Nianqiang had never seen the phantom, but his old man certainly had. Furthermore, this very entity was captured from the netherworld by his father and left stationed here. Back then, his father's might was already unmatched across the entire earth, rendering the phantom utterly incapable of offering any resistance. His old man had engaged in a massive clash with the master of this realm—though calling it a clash was generous; it was merely a one-sided bullying session inflicted by Song Nianqiang's father.

The phantom remembered it clearly: that man had deployed a divine avatar while he himself wisely chose to clear out and mind his own business. The master of this domain was an ancient monster boasting a millennium of cultivation, a formidable overlord in his own right within the earthly realm. Yet, what terrified the phantom was that the man's avatar had obliterated the realm's master completely with a single strike.

To this day, the phantom vividly recalled the aura emanating from that man, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the youth standing before him. In truth, what the phantom recognized was the lingering signature of soul-manipulation secret arts. Across the younger generation of this world, probably only Song Nianqiang wielded such formidable esoteric arts.

Wary of the terrifying prowess displayed by that man years ago, the phantom refrained from acting rashly. Instead, it locked its aura firmly onto Song Nianqiang, reducing the young man's existence to a waking nightmare.

To put it mildly, that oppressive aura alone made his entire body writhe with discomfort. Without absolute certainty of success, Song Nianqiang dared not make a reckless move; thus, he waited, biding his time for the conclusion of the other two battles. Uncomfortable as every fiber of his being felt, compared to keeping his own skin intact, this misery was trivial.

With the big man joining the fray, the pressure on Li Runze and Old Niu eased significantly. Given that their individual combat prowess already slightly surpassed that of the mechanical serpent, the addition of the big man tipped the scales decisively in their favor. Before long, Old Niu managed to grab a firm hold of the serpent's tail. Li Runze sprang into the air, his gloved fist smashing down violently onto the mechanical snake's head.

Nevertheless, the toughness of the mechanical serpent's body far exceeded everyone's expectations. Although Li Runze's punch gouged a crater into its skull, the serpent refused to perish outright. Instead, it coiled rapidly into a tight circle, hoisted its head high, and glared at the three of them with its blood-red eyes.

"I'll act as the bait, you guys attack!" Panic had set in for the big man, who had personally experienced the bone-chilling aura radiating from the phantom. Fearing that any delay might jeopardize Song Nianqiang's life, he made a reckless, death-defying proposal.

Without waiting for Li Runze and Old Niu to voice their objections, the big man charged straight at the mechanical serpent, roaring at the top of his lungs as he ran, "Hey, little snake! Come devour your daddy! If you can't finish me, I'll boil you into snake soup!" His booming voice successfully hijacked the serpent's attention. Glaring fixedly at the big man with its bloodshot eyes for a fleeting moment, the elevated serpent head lunged forward to bite him.

"Mommy!" The mechanical serpent moved with lightning speed, completely beyond what the big man could hope to dodge. Just as he was about to be swallowed into the beast's gaping maw, an iron rod whistled through the air, piercing straight into the snake's head. The sheer kinetic force carried by the rod yanked the serpent's head violently to the side.

"Aargh—!"

Howling in agony, the mechanical serpent unleashed a piercing shriek that made the big man's ears ring incessantly. Seizing the moment, Li Runze delivered his primary assault upon the beast. "Bang!" This time, Li Runze held nothing back; while this blow lacked the devastating punch of a secret technique, its brute force was immense, fracturing the mechanical serpent clean in half right down the middle.

Meanwhile, Old Niu drove the remaining half of his iron rod deep into the ground, pinning down the lower half of the serpent's body. He then sprinted over to the other severed section, wrapped his massive arms around it, and strained every muscle. A series of loud cracking sounds erupted from the serpent's torso before it finally burst apart with a resounding explosion—Old Niu's raw physical strength had literally wrenched the mechanical serpent apart until it ruptured.

"Run!" Li Runze yelled, looking up to see the entire carcass of the mechanical serpent glowing with an ominous red light. Recognizing the imminent danger, he barked the warning to the big man—though shouting was hardly necessary, as the hefty man had already taken to his heels and was fleeing wildly into the distance.