Xu Fu stepped forward and placed the Heavenly Dao Purple-Veined Ganoderma atop the statue's head.
The moment the ganoderma touched the statue, it seemed to find fertile soil. Its mycelium took root instantly and grew at a frenzied pace!
More Heavenly Dao purple qi gushed forth, nearly enveloping the entire Altar Plaza.
Chen Jin's sense of danger reached its peak.
I can't wait any longer! I have to act now!
He discreetly shifted his stance, his muscles coiling like compressed springs, his target the golden ganoderma.
Yet just as he was about to spring into action, a celestial omen appeared!
The sunlight shifted at a strange angle, and the shadows of the three thousand children connected with the Emperor's shadow, forming a net.
At that very instant, Xu Fu struck without warning, stabbing the Emperor beside him!
Now!
A sharp glint flashed in Chen Jin's eyes!
Xu Fu had made his move, drawing everyone's attention. This was the instant chaos began, and his only chance!
"Traitor!"
Almost as soon as the First Emperor, Ying Zheng, spoke, space warped around him. Vast quantities of mercury surged from the void, instantly transforming into nine sinister, dark-scaled mercury dragons that circled him, roaring as they flew.
The nine dragons lashed their massive tails in unison, whipping them toward Xu Fu, who had just launched his attack.
Xu Fu seemed to have expected this. He slid backward like a ghost as several golden talismans shot from his sleeve, colliding violently with the mercury dragons in a deafening blast.
The shock waves rolled outward, hurling several nearby court officials who had no time to dodge.
"Law Eye, execute the traitor!"
The First Emperor spoke four more words, and his command became law.
High in the sky, the countless indifferent Law Eyes gazing down suddenly changed.
Deep within their originally pitch-black pupils, something seemed to writhe and struggle frantically.
The next moment, their pupils suddenly contracted, transforming into curled-up Black Bird chicks, while the parts that had been their whites rapidly solidified and calcified into enormous white stone eggs.
Crack... crack...
A steady stream of brittle cracks rang out. Countless fissures split the stone eggs, and searing blue flames poured from within.
At last, countless Black Birds wreathed in eerie blue flames broke free of their shells. Their soul-piercing shrieks rang out as they swooped down like a rain of fire, blanketing Xu Fu and the children and Alchemists under his command.
And that wasn't all! The First Emperor stood at the "sun" formation's eye, resonating with the entire territory of Great Qin.
He raised a hand and clenched it in the air. "Twelve Golden Men, where are you?"
In an instant, from the foot of Langya Mountain and even farther away, beyond the reach of sight, came countless metallic hums and the whistle of objects cutting through the air!
Points of cold light streaked in from every direction. They were weapons flying in from across the land: bronze swords, halberds, crossbow bolts, and even shattered fragments of armor from the Six Kingdoms.
They gathered into streams of metal, converging and frantically assembling atop Langya Terrace.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Amid deafening metallic clashes, twelve bronze giants, each over ten zhang tall and radiating an aura of war, rose from the ground.
Their forms were archaic, their faces indistinct. Only the blue flames burning in their eyes, born of the same source as the Black Birds, stood out. With steps that made the earth tremble, they began clearing the "idle, rebellious traitors" from Langya Terrace.
Faced with the heaven-and-earth assault unleashed by the First Emperor, Xu Fu showed no despair. Instead, a sinister smile of triumph crept across his face.
"Your Majesty, try this 'Ten Thousand People Praying for Longevity' gift I prepared for you!" he shrieked, abruptly changing the hand seal he held.
The three thousand boys and girls kneeling on the ground all shuddered at once!
Strange expressions appeared on their faces, and their bodies swelled rapidly as if being inflated.
"Destroy the tyrannical Qin!"
With one distorted, fanatical shout after another, the first child suddenly sprang to his feet. No longer afraid of the mighty Emperor, he became a human cannonball and hurled himself fearlessly toward the First Emperor, who stood at the center of the formation.
Boom!!!
The guards had no time to react. When the child was still ten paces from the First Emperor, he exploded with a roar!
There was no spray of flesh and blood. Instead, he burst into a dark red mist, tangled with resentment and life essence.
The mist was intensely corrosive and penetrative. Even the mercury dragons circling the First Emperor let out a hiss, their light dimming slightly.
And this was only the beginning.
Like the first domino falling, the second, the third... the tenth, the hundredth... the children threw themselves forward one after another, like moths rushing into a flame. They charged frantically at the First Emperor, then exploded at varying distances.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—!
The ceaseless explosions sounded like firecrackers. The entire Altar Plaza was engulfed in a dense, blood-red mist.
The mercury dragons thrashed wildly, continually wearing away at the mist, but they couldn't withstand its endless assault.
More unsettling still, each time a child exploded, the shadowy thread connecting his shadow to the First Emperor's would shudder, sending an invisible curse straight to him.
"Cough!"
The First Emperor's body swayed almost imperceptibly. One of the magnificent patterns embroidered in gold thread on his dark imperial robes, depicting the sun, moon, stars, mountains, seas, and strange beasts, snapped.
A beautifully embroidered Black Bird seemed to lose its spirit, turning dim and dull.
It meant that part of the destiny he bore had been forcibly stripped away by this sinister ritual.
Almost at the same time, a roar like the crashing of mountains and seas came from the foot of the mountain.
The people of Langya City, who had once been influenced by the "Spirit Rain," now had blood-red eyes. Like a tide, they poured out of the woods and the streets, carrying hoes and wooden clubs or even fighting with bare hands, and charged madly at the regular Qin Army troops forming ranks and preparing to climb the mountain.
They paid no heed to death, battering the iron defenses with their bodies. The Qin Army at the foot of the mountain was temporarily held back by the chaotic sea of people.
"Bastard!!!"
The First Emperor's roar of utter fury came from the clouds, and all of Langya Mountain trembled with his rage.
He had clearly never expected Xu Fu to dare—and to be able—to use the destiny and the three thousand children he had bestowed to perform such a vile sorcery, one that directly threatened both his state and himself.
"Xu Fu! I strip you of your rank and stipend, revoke your title, erase your merits, and condemn you to eternal reincarnation!" The First Emperor's voice was like thunder from the highest heavens. Golden lightning appeared from nowhere and struck Xu Fu, seeking to sever him completely from the destiny of the Qin dynasty and reduce him to what he had once been.
Xu Fu, however, burst into unrestrained, wild laughter:
"Ha ha ha! Your Majesty, it's too late! It's all too late!"
The five-colored radiance of Great Qin's destiny that had surrounded him peeled away the instant the golden lightning struck. In its place emerged a strange luster of ashen gray intertwined with luminous white, exuding a cold aura belonging neither to the living nor to ordinary dead.
"By relying on the fortune and merit of your Great Qin, I have reversed yin and yang and completed my transformation into a Corpse-Dissected Immortal! I have broken free of the constraints of flesh and blood and escaped the Three Realms and Five Elements! The laws of humanity and the shackles of imperial authority are now like a breeze passing my ears—neither can bind me anymore! Your Majesty, your age must come to an end!"
Laughing wildly, Xu Fu's body grew somewhat insubstantial, as if he existed somewhere between being and nonbeing—a strange state freed from the constraints of humanity's laws.
—The Corpse-Dissected Immortal had been born.
At the same time, beneath the cliffs on the seaward side of Langya Terrace, the waves exploded with a roar!
Hundreds of Shark Person warriors leapt from the water, wielding tridents formed from flowing currents. They summoned towering waves, turning them into massive waterspouts that crashed fiercely into the Black Birds flying through the sky.
The Alchemists displayed their varied abilities: lightning arts, talismans, toxic mists... Spell lights of every color collided frantically with the power of imperial authority. The summit of Langya Mountain seemed to transform into a vast furnace, with the storm tearing at everything.