"Watch out below!"
Yu Tianming cried out suddenly. Serpentine scales surfaced along her slender neck, and her pupils narrowed into two vertical slits.
Without warning, the ground split open in a web of cracks. Hundreds of metal tentacles wrapped in azure lightning burst from beneath the earth. The thickest were as large as palace pillars, their surfaces covered in spinning saw teeth.
A Peerless Genius from the Nine Universes Merchant Alliance failed to dodge in time. A tentacle swept across his right leg, tearing through his protective Dao Rhyme like thin paper.
He screamed as he fell, only for another tentacle to pierce his chest in midair.
Strangely, no blood spurted from the wound. Instead, it rapidly turned metallic, silvery-white matter spreading along his veins throughout his body.
"Your Highness, save me!"
The genius reached out to Jiang Shu in desperation. Before their eyes, his fingertips had already turned into cold machinery.
Without hesitation, Jiang Shu swung his halberd and severed the tentacle. Primordial Dao Rhyme poured through the wound into the cultivator's body, stopping the mechanization from spreading. Then the Laws of Desolation and Devouring manifested and swallowed the Metal Law whole, allowing the genius to snatch his life back.
"Watch out for attacks from below!"
Jiang Shu's voice rang across the battlefield, amplified by Dao Rhyme.
He curled his left hand into a fist. Thirty-six bolts of purple lightning shot from the Chaos Thunder Pool, striking the metal tentacles with pinpoint accuracy.
Ripples spread across the surfaces of the struck tentacles. They actually absorbed and transformed the lightning, swelling another size larger.
Zhan Yun suddenly appeared beside Jiang Shu, swinging the Bronze Battle Axe to cleave apart two mechanical flying bugs that lunged at them.
"Brother Jiang, look at the center of the vortex!"
She pointed the axe's