Chapter 397

Chapter 397: An Unexpected Enemy

In that instant, Yu Sheng gained a far deeper appreciation for Zheng Zhi’s “eyesight.” But there was no time to reflect on it.

Yu Sheng snapped his head toward where Zheng Zhi pointed. Rain fell in woven threads under the dim daylight. Lightning split the sky, and for a moment it looked like nothing at all was there.

But Yu Sheng could finally sense it—where that gaze was coming from.

“Foxy!” he shouted, tucking away the tetanus staff as he took off toward the distance. “Give me a tail!”

A bright flare burst out at once. A silver-white fox tail howled in from afar.

With Irene—darksteel turret body—still on his shoulder and Irene—Rebar—in hand, Yu Sheng ran on instinct, vaulted onto the tail, grabbed a fistful of fur, and shot into the sky. Foxfire drove the tail like a rocket, carrying him toward the spot Zheng Zhi had indicated.

Thunder crashed overhead. Pale lightning lit the curtain of rain, and the clouds churned as if some vast power was gathering. Yu Sheng felt arcs crackle along his skin, and then a bolt speared down—unnaturally precise—striking straight at his back.

A blue radiance flared around the fox tail. The protective spiritual aura Foxy had left on it slammed into the lightning and detonated in midair.

The explosion at that range was deafening.

Yu Sheng didn’t care. He leaned forward and accelerated, blasting upward through the storm like a cannonball.

More thunder pooled above. Electric light writhed like frantic silver snakes. In the dense lightning and howling wind, Yu Sheng felt the crushing weight of killing intent—

Two beasts burst from the clouds, flanking him. A masked black-robed cultivator streaked in with a sword, the blade spilling cold light as if wind and thunder were trapped inside it. The storm itself twisted into a vortex around the man, intent on intercepting and killing Yu Sheng in the sky.

Thunder filled the air. Wind screamed. Rain lashed. Beasts roared.

And at the center of it all was a brute with two dolls dangling from him, riding a fox tail spewing thruster flames straight through the clouds.

On the ground, flute still in hand, the jade-faced golden fox stared up in disbelief. Her dao heart and worldview shook together as she murmured, “…Great-Uncle, I think I finally understand what you meant by ‘immortals fighting.’”

In the collapsed factory ruins below, the six-tailed highland fox finally managed to open his eyes under Immortal Yuan Hao’s treatment. The first thing he saw was that scene in the storm. With a strangled cry of “My life is over!” he fainted again on the spot.

Yu Sheng knew none of that.

A near-death sensation gripped his heart. He could smell the bloody stink in the beasts’ mouths. He could feel the cold, razor-edged intent pouring off the masked cultivator trying to cut him down. He could feel power gathering again and again—like the world itself was trying to kill him.

He could even feel that he might die at any second.

And it filled him with immense, long-missed joy.

The same joy he’d felt when he tore flesh from the entity called Hunger.

Black spider silk burst outward in the sky, snaring the diving beasts. Soul-piercing cold seized their minds; they convulsed as they fell, and halfway down, two fox-carrot missiles detonated through them, blowing them apart in midair.

Scorching beams lanced through the rain. Irene clung to Yu Sheng’s shoulder, pointing at the masked cultivator ahead. No matter how the man dodged like a swift shadow, the light kept sealing off his angles until one beam punched straight through his chest and abdomen and sent him tumbling with a scream.

Yu Sheng set Irene—darksteel—down on the fox tail and made her sit tight. Then, swaying on the soft, fluffy fur, he rose into a stance that was equal parts stupid and fearless.

He grinned, delighted, and reached into empty air.

His fingers met something.

A boundary. A barrier. A hidden screen between two dimensions.

“I found it,” Yu Sheng said, bright with certainty—and shoved with both hands, like pushing open a door.

A terrible roar erupted, as if the structure of space itself had been forced aside. Half the sky collapsed like a shattered mirror, cracking and splintering in a bizarre pattern.

Within the broken sky, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man hovered in the storm. He wore a white cloak traced with gold patterns and held a black leather tome aloft. He stared at Yu Sheng in stunned disbelief—like he couldn’t understand what he’d just seen.

Yu Sheng stared right back.

White-and-gold religious cloak instead of a cultivator’s robe. Black leather ritual tome instead of a magic treasure or jade jue. Stern face, deep-set eyes. And the power spilling from him wasn’t spiritual energy at all, but pure, violent thunder radiance. Fine lightning crawled over his skin and hair, his muscles carved like stone through wind, rain, and thunder.

Like a demigod statue stepped out of marble.

After a breath of shock, the man raised a finger toward Yu Sheng. Lightning filled his eyes, his hair flaring as thunder gathered. “You… what are you?!”

Yu Sheng snapped his own finger up, pointing at the emblem on the man’s cloak. “That’s Holy Revere Hermitage?!”

He didn’t get to say another word.

A blur surged up from the ground. Rain tore open into a channel as a figure shot skyward—cold light flashing from blades.

Luna stepped through storm-shadow with swift, weightless steps. Her nun’s skirt spun as her fingertip blades stabbed straight at the priest.

Yu Sheng saw it clearly: she avoided his heart. She had aimed for it at first, then forced the angle away at the last instant.

She was trying to take him alive—or, more accurately, she knew Yu Sheng wanted him alive.

Luna moved faster than any human could track. To Yu Sheng, it looked impossible to dodge.

And yet the white-robed priest reacted instantly.

It was as if he sensed her before she even arrived. He twisted into an unnatural angle and slipped past the blades. Then lightning flared—countless bolts appearing out of nowhere and raining down on Luna.

Twelve shadowspawn manifested in the air, catching the thunder from every direction. Luna halted midair, shifted without hesitation, and lunged again.

She missed again.

Fine sparks always circled the priest’s body. Each time Luna closed in, he seemed to read the electric field and predict her path, dodging ahead of time. Even Irene’s spider silk and scorching beams were avoided again and again.

Then the priest frowned. “Soul attack?”

His gaze fixed on Luna. For a moment his expression went distant, as if he’d been pulled inward—then he snapped back. Thunder burst outward, sealing Luna’s routes, and he retreated hard, widening the distance between himself, Luna, and Yu Sheng.

“There were reports that an artificial saintess broke away from the cognition network for unknown reasons…” he said, voice heavy. He looked at Luna, then shifted his gaze to Yu Sheng. “It seems… while I was busy working, quite a lot happened ‘outside.’”

“I’m surprised too,” Yu Sheng said coldly. “You people are like cockroaches. Wherever there’s a dark corner, you crawl right in. What do you even want—and how are you ‘cooperating’ with local cultivators?”

The priest didn’t answer.

The prickling pain returned across Yu Sheng’s skin. He saw lightning gathering overhead again, and below, the black-robed cultivators seemed to receive a command. They turned their weapons and surged in.

The beasts they drove howled through the storm, flooding the sky in waves.

Luna wanted to press the priest, but she had to cut down the enemies swarming around her. Foxy’s foxfire barrages swept the air—bright fireballs weaving into a net that looked ready to ignite the rain itself.

The priest summoned thunder and lightning, making it impossible to close in.

The battlefield, already chaos, erupted into something worse.