Chapter 396

Chapter 397: An Unexpected Enemy

In that instant, Yu Sheng gained a deeper respect for his big nephew’s “eye.” This was not the time to admire it, though.

He snapped his head toward where Zheng Zhi pointed. Rain fell like threads. In the dim light, a bolt of lightning cut the sky. The rain there looked empty.

But he finally sensed the source of that gaze.

“Foxy!” Yu Sheng put away his Tetanus Staff and sprinted for the far end as he shouted: “Send me a tail!”

Before his shout finished, a bright flare rose. A silver-white tail howled in from far away.

Yu Sheng had Irene (darksteel) on his shoulder and an Irene (rebar) in hand. With practiced ease, he ran, vaulted onto the tail, grabbed the fur, and rode the Fox Fire thrust straight up toward the place Zheng Zhi had pointed out.

A peal of thunder tore the sky. Harsh white light lit the packed rain. Clouds churned as if the air was brewing strong power. Yu Sheng watched tiny sparks snap across his skin. A lightning bolt dropped from high above as if guided by a hand, aiming for his back.

Right then, the air around the tail flashed blue. The Protective Spiritual Aura Foxy had woven into the tail crashed into the lightning and exploded in midair.

The near-at-hand blast was deafening.

Yu Sheng did not care. He only sped up, shooting through the rain like a cannon shell.

More Thunder gathered overhead. Electric light crawled through the air like wild silver snakes. From the spread of current and booming Thunder, Yu Sheng felt huge surprise. At the same time, two beasts burst from the clouds, one on each side, diving to pinch him. A Black-robed Cultivator wearing a Weird Mask flew in with a sword. Chilling Light whipped from the blade like the cry of wind and thunder. The power was so strong that wind and rain swirled around him into a giant vortex. Man borrowed wind, wind borrowed man, and he swore to cut Yu Sheng down here.

Thunder rolled. Wind screamed. Rain hammered. Beasts roared. In the middle of the huge scene, a brawler hung with two Dolls rode a Fox tail with rocket thrust through the sky.

The Jade-faced Golden Fox with the Iron-colored Long Flute stared, her Dao heart quaking with her worldview as she murmured in the storm: “Great-grand-uncle, I think I finally understand what you meant by ‘Immortals fighting’…”

In the collapsed factory ruin, the huge six-tailed Highland Fox finally opened its eyes under Immortal Yuan Hao’s healing. Its first sight was that stunning scene in the sky. It groaned “My life is over,” and flopped back into a faint.

Yu Sheng knew nothing of the ground below.

A strange, near-death feeling gripped his heart tight. He could almost smell the bloody stink from the beasts’ mouths. He could feel the cold killing intent pouring off the Black-robed Cultivator who moved to intercept him. He sensed power building in the air. Everything around him seemed to be trying to kill him. He felt like he could die at any moment. The killing will in the air was strong enough to crush his fragile flesh.

But all this filled him with a fierce joy, a wild joy he had not felt in a long time.

It was like the joy when he tore a chunk of flesh off the Hunger Entity.

Black Spider Silk spread fast across the sky and bound the diving beasts. A soul-chilling cold froze their minds. They spasmed and fell. Foxy blew two of them apart mid-drop with twin Fox Carrot Missiles.

Lines of blazing Scorching Ray carved the rain. Irene clung to Yu Sheng’s shoulder and pointed at the Black-robed Cultivator in midair. No matter how the man dodged like a frightened bird, the bright beams with crushing power boxed in his moves until one ray punched through his gut and dropped him screaming toward the ground.

Yu Sheng set Irene (steel) down on the Fox tail and told her to hold on tight. Then he did something extra risky. He stood up on the tail.

Fur underfoot was soft and slippery, and his body wobbled, but Yu Sheng still grinned. He reached out into empty air.

He felt himself “touch” something.

A border. A wall. A screen laid between two layers of space.

“I found it!” he said, delighted. Then he pushed with both hands, like shoving open a Door.

The air boomed like a structure of space got knocked down. With the thunderous roar, half the sky suddenly showed a mirror-like collapse and fracture.

In the shattered sky stood a broad-shouldered man in a white robe traced with gold. He held a Black Leather Tome in both hands and hovered in the storm, staring in shock at Yu Sheng, who had just smacked a space barrier to pieces with his bare hands.

Yu Sheng stared back at the one who had been hiding in another space and directing the battle.

A white gold-trimmed robe with a religious air, not the robes of Cultivators. A ritual Black Leather Tome, not a treasure or Jade Jue. The middle-aged man had a stern face and deep-set eyes. The power from him was not the immortal force of a Cultivator but raw, violent Thunder Radiance. As he stood there, countless small bolts played along his skin and hair. His muscles looked carved from stone and glowed in the rain and lightning.

Like a half-god statue stepped out of marble.

After a brief shock, the man raised a finger at Yu Sheng. Bright white lightning filled his eyes. His hair and beard flared in the Thunder as he shouted: “What are you?”

Yu Sheng pointed back, reacting at almost the same time. He jabbed at a big emblem on the man’s robe and said: “You’re with the Holy Revere Hermitage?!”

Before his words ended, the air cracked with a blast.

Without looking back, Yu Sheng saw a shape dart up from the ground. The packed rain tore open into a path. A blade flashed with Chilling Light from the gloom. Luna raced up the shadows that lay everywhere in the storm. Her nun’s skirt spun as her Fingertip Blades stabbed for the Hermitage Order Priest standing in midair.

Yu Sheng noticed she avoided the man’s heart. She had aimed there at first, but at the last moment she forced her blade to shift.

She wanted him alive. Or rather, she knew Yu Sheng wanted him alive.

The Artificial Saintess moved faster than a Human could react. To Yu Sheng, her ghostly strike should have been unavoidable.

Yet even this sudden, angle-perfect strike failed. The white-robed priest reacted in an instant. He sensed her before she reached him, twisted at a strange angle, and slipped the stab. Lightning flashed. A swarm of bolts popped into being around him and crashed down at Luna.

Twelve ghostly afterimages bloomed in the air and met the Thunder from every side. Luna’s body halted midair, then she changed direction without a heartbeat of doubt and lunged again.

Her next strike still missed.

Tiny sparks always danced around the priest. Each time Luna closed in, he seemed to read the field through the electric charge and dodged early. He even slipped Irene’s Spider Silk and her Scorching Light Beam several times in a row.

Then the priest frowned: “A soul attack?”

His eyes fell on Luna. For a breath his gaze went hazy, but he snapped back. A storm of Thunder blasted out, blocking Luna’s way forward, and he pulled back fast to open distance from Yu Sheng and Luna.

“There was a report about an Artificial Saintess breaking from the cognitive network for unknown reasons,” the Hermitage Order Priest said, staring hard at the nun-like figure standing in midair. Then his eyes locked on Yu Sheng, and his tone grew heavy: “It seems a lot has happened ‘outside’ while I was busy at work.”

“I’m surprised too. You lot are like roaches. Any crack, any hidden corner, you squeeze in,” Yu Sheng said, eyes fixed on the priest, nerves stretched tight. Even from that brief exchange, he knew this man was not easy to handle. He felt stronger than the Sage Yu Sheng met on the Pillar of Order, and the storm of wind and lightning here was clearly his home field. “What are you even after? And how did you end up ‘working’ with the local Cultivators?”

The priest was not going to answer honestly.

Even as Yu Sheng spoke, his skin prickled with a forest of needle stings. He saw Thunder massing again in the sky. Down below, many Black-robed Cultivators who had been fighting Foxy, Yuan Hao, and the others suddenly turned as if receiving a command and rushed up to surround them.

The beasts driven by the Black-robed Cultivators howled in the rain and swarmed the sky in waves. Luna wanted to keep pressing the priest, but she had to clear the enemies first. Foxy’s Fox Fire barrage swept the air and stitched a net of bright fire through the rain. The White-robed Priest was Summoning lightning so thick that no one could get close. A battlefield that had already been chaos reached a new peak of chaos.