Chapter Ninety-Three: South Mao and North Ma Take on the Heavenly Fiend

No wonder: after being blown apart right before their eyes, dozens of their brothers had been reduced to dust. Even if the enemy was a god, such humiliation could not be endured.

The remaining forty-odd Death Gods burned with fighting spirit. Though wild winds around them made it hard for anyone to stand, their hats never lifted, as if nailed in place.

Clack-clack-clack.

The leader of the Death Gods rattled off a few harsh sounds; no one knew what he was muttering. Only a moment later, the Death Gods swarmed forward and threw themselves into battle with the Fiend-Star woman.

“Hmph. Overreaching fools.”

A trace of cold disdain curved the Fiend-Star woman’s lips. Such a smile did not belong to any tender, stunning beauty, yet on her face it looked indescribably eerie.

Meanwhile, I was still hailing a cab somewhere in City Z. Strangely enough, every taxi today seemed cursed; one would stop, and it would already be full.

Then I remembered the taxi driver who had once given me his card, so I took out my phone and called him.

He was straightforward enough. Without a word of complaint, he asked for my exact location and drove over at once.

By then, the sky was already past six in the evening, and the lofty sun would not remain much longer before setting.

To the southeast of City Z, the violent fluctuations of battle still had not weakened, and there were even signs of rising ferocity. It seemed both sides were fighting with all they had.

By now, half the Death Gods in the air had fallen. White bones rattled down from the sky, then turned into ash and vanished into the wind.

It seemed that with Carter’s current strength, the Death Gods he summoned could not compare to those he had called forth in his Blood Emperor days. To have held on this long was already impressive.

More than twenty Death Gods still remained in the air, but the flames of soul-fire in their eye sockets had almost burned out. With the unwilling roar of their leader, a cry filled with rage and fighting spirit, all the remaining Death Gods turned to ash and scattered away on the wind. Even their black death scythes shattered into fragments.

In an instant, all control of the skies fell completely into the hands of the Fiend-Star woman.

Uncle Mao and the others were now at a loss. The ultimate spells of the Southern Mao and Northern Ma schools were, to this fiend, no more than a child trying to fight an adult.

At this point, Carter was already exhausted. Summoning one hundred Death Gods had been his absolute limit. After all, he had not yet advanced to the Blood Emperor level, so calling forth such a terrifying force with merely duke-level strength had drained every last trace of his power. Now he could only revert to his true form, lying on Uncle Mao’s shoulder and being cared for by his son Te, utterly unlike the imposing Western man he had been before.

“Giggle, giggle, giggle. Fools, humans and other races alike, do you really think you are so powerful? Haven’t you heard the saying that when you meet a calamity star, death is your only fate? Today, every one of you is doomed!”

The Fiend-Star woman’s coquettish laughter now sounded strangely eerie. The lightning gathering around her was slowly taking shape, poised to strike at any moment.

If that column of lightning as thick as a bucket truly crashed down beside Uncle Mao and the others, they would surely die without question, body and soul obliterated.

Uncle Mao and the others were the last able-bodied force left. If they died too, then the dozens of people hiding in the green tents would become nothing but lambs waiting for slaughter.

“Heaven and earth bear yin and yang; the eight trigrams return to the Great Ultimate. Great Ultimate Diagram, manifest!”

“The five elements unite heaven and earth; within ten thousand miles all return to the same source. Soldiers, fighters, all formations stand before me. Godslaying Art!”

Uncle Mao and Uncle Ma both recited the supreme incantations of their respective Southern Mao and Northern Ma schools. It seemed they were preparing for a final struggle before death.

Lian Yu and Wang Sheng, limited by their Dao power, were forced to withdraw from this battle zone. Even if they unleashed their full strength, they would not be able to touch even the hem of the Fiend-Star woman’s robes.

The Great Ultimate Diagram and the Nine-Character Godslaying Art ranked among the foremost Daoist techniques of the Southern Mao and Northern Ma schools. According to their records, the Daoist forebears of those schools had once relied on these two arts to slay fiends from the heavens.

The Great Ultimate Diagram was a giant eight-trigram formation five meters across. The Godslaying Art was a golden phoenix roaming between heaven and earth.

In truth, the Southern Mao school also possessed a Godslaying Art. Only, theirs took the form of a golden dragon. If the two could be combined, their power would multiply tenfold.

Regrettably, the Southern Mao school’s Godslaying Art had long since been lost.

“Oh? Not bad. I didn’t expect these two old men to have some real skill after all. I thought the Southern Mao and Northern Ma schools had already declined.”

As the Fiend-Star woman spoke, the bucket-thick lightning came crashing down.

Fifty meters.

Twenty meters.

Ten meters.

...

Rumble!

The torrent of lightning collided with the Great Ultimate Diagram. Inside the diagram where Uncle Mao stood, fierce winds surged in every direction. Even the upper half of his robe was torn to shreds, exposing the muscular chest beneath and his towering, imposing figure.

The Great Ultimate Diagram truly deserved its reputation as a Daoist treasure created by the Daoist forefather himself. Its defensive power was astonishing; even that extraordinary heavenly thunder was blocked outside.

“Old Ma, what are you waiting for? Attack now while you can!”

As he spoke, Uncle Mao intensified the light surrounding the Great Ultimate Diagram even further.

“An immortal bird crosses yin and yang; limitless phoenix of yin and yang, the Godslaying formations are all in place, with the art of the mystic gates lending aid!”

After reciting the spell, Uncle Mao bit his fingertip, drew a copper coin sword from his bag of ritual tools, smeared the blood from his finger along the blade, then pointed toward the golden phoenix and said, “Charge toward the light and meet great fortune!”

At that moment, the Fiend-Star woman was fully focused on hammering away at Uncle Mao’s great turtle shell with heavenly thunder. The Great Ultimate Diagram had split into numerous smaller diagrams, each resisting the tiny currents severed from the bucket-thick lightning.

The Great Ultimate Diagram was originally meant for offense, but now it had been forced into defense. Uncle Mao pinned all hopes of attack on Uncle Ma’s golden phoenix.

The incantation Uncle Ma had chanted earlier now gleamed around the golden phoenix. One after another, five-element formations flickered in and out of sight beside it, while the golden phoenix quietly advanced from behind the Fiend-Star woman. She was entirely absorbed in battering Uncle Mao’s shield-like defense and had no idea that danger was closing in from behind.

...

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