Chapter 377

Chapter 378: Leak

Immortal Yuan Ling sensed something was wrong, and his figure blurred into a streak of spirit light that looked ready to fly toward the Demon Suppression Tower. But before he could leave, Yu Sheng reached out and pulled open The Door at his side, and the view beyond showed the core Containment Zone of the Demon Suppression Tower.

“This way is faster,” said Yu Sheng as he held The Door.

Immortal Yuan Ling stepped out of the light, staring at the passage Yu Sheng had opened straight into the highest-level Containment Zone. A flood of feelings flashed through him in one second, but he knew this was no time to argue over “technical details.” The instant The Door opened, the tiny details in that view told him something inside the Demon Suppression Tower had really gone wrong, so he strode forward and spoke quickly to Xuan Che and the others beside him: “Xuan Che, hurry to Parted Clouds Palace to organize the Mountain Guarding Disciples and check each formation node of the mountain ward. Yuan He, help seal Spirit Mountain’s perimeter and do not let anything filthy get out. Eldest senior brother…”

He stood at the threshold of The Door and looked at Immortal Yuan Hao, and before he finished, the other man gave a small nod: “Do not panic. Although I have been caged for years, I have not let my fighting skills rust. If something comes out that the juniors cannot handle, I will block it.”

“Good. I can feel the tower’s inner veins turning unstable, yet the alarm has not sounded. That is very strange. Everyone, be careful!”

Immortal Yuan Ling tossed out those words and rushed through The Door.

Yu Sheng flipped his hand and opened another Door that led to the Grand Hall of Parted Clouds Palace, then waved to the already-levitating Xuan Che: “Use this one, it’s faster.”

Xuan Che had no time to chat. He cupped his hands and ran into The Door. Immortal Yuan He, eyes wide, watched this, then blurted out: “Is there a Door to Mountain Guard Pass? It’s beside Ten Directions Pavilion.”

Yu Sheng thought a moment and waved quickly: “Never been there, don’t know it. You’ll have to run.”

Immortal Yuan He blinked, turned into rosy clouds, and flew into the depths of the sea of clouds.

On Cloud Viewing Terrace, Irene craned her neck, watching the glow as Immortal Yuan He left, then glanced at the direction Zheng Zhi had pointed earlier. She hesitated and said: “Will there really be a problem? Everything still looks fine right n-”

She had not finished when a low, strange rumble rolled out from the mountains, like something huge was slowly moving through the sea of clouds and grinding against the peaks. With that weird thunder came a tremor from deep underground, mixed with a behemoth’s breathing and the noise of a thousand buzzing voices.

Irene almost leaped off Yu Sheng’s shoulder: “Oh come on… it’s actually going bad!”

Almost at the same time, a half-transparent rift flashed into view between heaven and earth like a streak of black lightning. This time not only Zheng Zhi saw it; even Irene and Foxy clearly saw its outline.

The rift flickered in the air like a faulty illusion arts effect, as if some other dimension had split open one of the high peaks of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.

Zheng Zhi’s eyes went wide. He fixed on the lightning-branch edges of that rift: “Brother Yu, something is crawling out of it… and things are coming out from inside the mountains too!”

The sea of clouds boiled. Even without Zheng Zhi’s reminder, Yu Sheng saw what was happening all across Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain: the mist that wreathed the sacred peaks churned like boiling water, and countless hazy shadows darted through the “boiling” fog like prowling, hungry ghosts. Smoke rose from many spots in the mountains, as if rifts were opening everywhere. Then the urgent warning bells pealed over the ridges.

A crushing pressure fell from midair. Yu Sheng looked up toward it and saw a rift appearing out of nothing. A vicious beast with a skull-like carapace was forcing its way out, a thing of bones and rotting flesh, chaos and horror in every inch. Runic Chains from the Demon Suppression Tower still bound its body, and Talismanic Runes on the chains burned fiercely.

The next second, the chaotic beast roared and even spoke human words: “Yuan Ling, you old rascal! Your grandfather crawled out of that tower!”

In a blink, countless Talismanic Runes burned away and the Demon Suppressing Chains snapped apart inch by inch. The beast forced the rift wider and lunged straight for Cloud Viewing Terrace.

What greeted it was a sudden burst of Black Threads, spreading like a spiderweb.

Irene raised her hand, and countless strands of spider silk wove out to wrap the skeletal beast layer by layer. At almost the same time, Yu Sheng caught Immortal Yuan Hao making his move.

The legendary elder senior uncle took a single step and stood in midair. Something slipped soundlessly from his sleeve, a square object, neither metal nor wood, blazing red and chilling to the eyes. As it left his hand, wind and thunder boomed across the sky. It was, unmistakably, a spirit brick.

Bound in midair by spider silk, the hideous beast heard a rush of wind. It looked up and saw the spirit brick was already inches from its face. Out of the corner of its eye it also saw Immortal Yuan Hao standing in the air. The pressure pouring down made its whole body shake, and it gave a furious, unwilling scream from its throat: “It’s freaking Yuan Hao, you old rascal-”

Bang. The “spirit brick” slammed square into the beast’s face. What looked like a terrifying body shattered into drifting smoke, then was purified and scattered in an instant by the red-glowing brick.

Yu Sheng, who had been about to act, froze at the sight. He stared at the white-browed, white-haired, immortal-looking old hunk standing with hands behind his back in midair-and at the spirit brick floating by his side-and could not help blurting: “Your weapon is a spirit brick?!”

Immortal Yuan Hao almost fell out of the sky. He looked ready to tear his hair out: “This is the Ten Directions Heaven Suppressing Ruler! A Heaven-Suppressing Ruler! I just forged it a bit short!”

Yu Sheng blinked. He had no idea what a “Ten Directions Heaven Suppressing Ruler” was, but from Immortal Yuan Hao’s tone he could tell more than one person had said this weapon looked like a spirit brick. [Not the time to argue about whether a handsome, tragic, cool immortal dad using a spirit brick makes sense.]

Because while that beast died, countless rifts of all sizes popped up from the sea of clouds around Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.

“This is a huge mess, seriously!”

Irene gasped at the spreading rifts and had to weave even more spider silk, trying to bring the entire Cloud Viewing Terrace under a protective spiderweb. Foxy dropped to all fours without a word, turned into a giant nine-tailed silver fox, and aimed her equally enlarged eight gate fox howitzer at the nearest rifts for a blanket barrage. Fox fire surged up, then four or five volleys of fox carrot missiles howled out and exploded across the cloud sea.

A rift formed right above Cloud Viewing Terrace. With tooth-aching crackles, a mass of black dust swarmed out. The Runic Chains behind it were cut by the rift’s power, and their Talismanic Runes burned to ash in a blink. From the smoke crawled a monster with a rough human outline. Then more rifts like it opened above the terrace, and a flood of strange things poured through.

Everything was in there-not only fierce beasts and demonic cultists captured and suppressed by Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, but also evil path cultivators who had fallen into the demonic way, vicious criminals of the immortal realms, and bizarre artifacts and runaway entities that had been stored in the Demon Suppression Tower over the years. Some barely looked human, some barely looked like beasts, and some had no clear shape at all. The misty sea roared with shrieks and howls, nothing but chaos.

A flash of gold flickered at the edge of Yu Sheng’s vision. Rapunzel stepped in with a golden great scythe and cut the human-shaped monster in half. As it struggled and turned into black smoke, the girl hopped lightly back half a step. Her scythe flowed into a long spear, and she stabbed a meatball covered in eyes and limbs that had crept up to ambush her. Then gold poured like a waterfall. Streams of light nearly shredded the countless “offspring” that split off after the meatball fell apart.

Yu Sheng’s naked eyes almost could not follow Rapunzel’s movements. The girl who usually seemed unreliable now showed deadly skill and a fighter’s instinct clearly honed through many brushes with death. It left him stunned.

In a blink Rapunzel cleared the space around her. Noticing his gaze, she shook the grime from her hair, looked up, and flashed a carefree smile: “Bro, am I awesome or what?”

“…Awesome,” said Yu Sheng as he swung his spiked mace to swat a noisy winged demon out of the air. He nodded with real respect: “I knew you could fight, but I didn’t know you could fight this well.”

“It feels like the things coming out here are the easy kind, at least they’re solid and you can destroy them,” said Rapunzel. The magical golden hair behind her spread, rippling like a bright, living pool that reached out across the whole Cloud Viewing Terrace. From it grew countless swords, scythes, blades, spears, halberds, and spikes, and they seemed to have a will of their own as they shredded anything hostile that entered the hair’s reach. “If it has a health bar, I can kill it. And these are easier than the demons inside the tower.”