The Earth Vein that Lu Changsheng had just spent eighteen hundred years repairing shattered inch by inch once more in the wake of these Primordial Unity Golden Immortals' battle.
Even the poisonous fire beneath the earth was forced out, transforming the land into a sea of flames.
"Laozi's road! The road Laozi worked so hard to repair for eighteen hundred years!"
Watching the wounds in heaven and earth that he had stitched back together with countless hours of painstaking effort get utterly destroyed by this pack of bastards in the span of a few breaths, even causing the Nameless Low Mountain in the distance to start shaking again,
the fear in Lu Changsheng's heart was, in that instant, completely ignited by unprecedented frustration and fury.
What did those who followed the Dao of Cowardice fear most?
Trouble.
But what if trouble had already climbed onto your neck, was smashing up your home and destroying all your hard work, leaving you nowhere to run?
"Whatever! I've got the Mysterious Yellow Shield and the Great Dao Origin! I refuse to believe you idiots, with your minds clouded by karmic sin, can break through my turtle shell!"
With nowhere left to retreat, Lu Changsheng's persecutory paranoia transformed completely into the attitude that as long as he was tough enough, the other person would be the one left embarrassed.
He stopped running.
He even straightened his back.
Lu Changsheng took a deep breath and suddenly thrust both hands overhead.
"Everlasting Mysterious Yellow, impervious to all arts! Open!"
With his furious shout, he poured all the power of a peak True Immortal into the Innate Merit Mysterious Yellow Shield floating above his head.
"Vumm—!"
The Mysterious Yellow Shield erupted with dazzling light.
All twelve innate restrictions activated at once.
The Mysterious Yellow curtain of light, originally only three feet thick, expanded outward by a full hundred zhang in the blink of an eye, transforming into an inverted golden bell-shaped dome.
It protected Lu Changsheng and the tiny patch of intact Earth Vein beneath his feet.
The instant the light curtain took shape,
"Roar—!"
With a dragon's cry full of despair and unwillingness,
one of the most grievously wounded Golden Dragons, whose body had nearly been burned in half, finally ran out of strength and crashed down onto the ruins directly in front of Lu Changsheng.
"Rumble!"
The earth trembled, and an endless cloud of dust mixed with dragon blood surged into the sky.
The enormous dragon body carved a trench thousands of li long through the ground, sliding all the way to within fifty zhang of Lu Changsheng's Mysterious Yellow curtain before finally coming to a stop.
And just then,
the Divine Phoenix in hot pursuit arrived as well.
This early-stage Taiyi Golden Immortal Divine Phoenix had blood-red eyes. The Tribulation Sha Qi of the Tribulation of Measure had completely clouded its mind, leaving nothing but the pure instinct to kill.
It didn't even bother to look closely at the tiny figure below, standing amid the ruins and holding up the light curtain.
It abruptly spread its wings.
"Die, vermin!"
The Divine Phoenix let out a piercing cry and opened its enormous beak, large enough to swallow a mountain.
A streak of Southern Bright Separation Fire origin, pure white and condensed to its utmost, descended from the sky, shooting straight toward the fallen Golden Dragon.
By sheer coincidence,
the Southern Bright Separation Fire attack covered an enormous area. It engulfed not only the Golden Dragon, but also Lu Changsheng, who was very close to it, along with his Mysterious Yellow Shield.
"Fuck you, you dead bird! You're just throwing out skills without even looking!"
Standing within the light curtain, Lu Changsheng watched the pure white flames descend from the sky, hot enough to burn a black hole through the void, and felt his scalp go numb.
All he could do was grit his teeth and drive his power to the limit, desperately keeping the Mysterious Yellow Shield running.
"Boom—!!!"
The Southern Bright Separation Fire crashed down.
The grievously wounded, dying Golden Dragon began to melt and disintegrate at a visible speed the instant it came into contact with the Separation Fire, without even letting out a scream.
When the terrifying flames, powerful enough to make even a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal retreat, spread toward Lu Changsheng,
they slammed into the hundred-zhang-wide Mysterious Yellow curtain.
Silence.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, no sorrowful cry as the light curtain shattered.
The overbearing Southern Bright Separation Fire touched the Mysterious Yellow Qi and was like a raging tide crashing against an ancient, everlasting divine mountain.
The Mysterious Yellow Shield merely rippled faintly across its surface, completely keeping the scorching laws of fire at bay. Not so much as a spark managed to get through.
"It held!"
Lu Changsheng's eyes lit up, and his heart settled.
As expected of a top-grade defensive Innate Spirit Treasure! With all twelve innate restrictions activated, it had withstood a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal's attack without even breaking a sweat!
However, Lu Changsheng thought the matter was over. The Heavenly Dao didn't agree.
The instant the Divine Phoenix's Separation Fire spell touched the Mysterious Yellow curtain and brushed against the faint trace of Great Dao Merit radiating unintentionally from Lu Changsheng within,
it was as if the Primordial Land had hit pause.
The battlefield, which had been filled with the Divine Phoenix's shrill cries and the Dragon Clan's mournful wails, suddenly fell into an eerie, hair-raising silence.
"Vumm..."
A supreme will, transcending all living beings and all laws, descended without warning over the ruins.
Above, the churning blood-red clouds of the Tribulation of Measure seemed to encounter the most terrifying presence imaginable, surging wildly to either side like a receding tide.
The sky split open.
But not because some mighty being had torn it apart. The Heavenly Dao itself had opened a cold, merciless Eye of Heavenly Punishment, brimming with the will to destroy.
"That is..."
In the sky, the other two Golden Dragons, still desperately resisting, and the remaining Divine Phoenix all halted their movements at once.
They raised their heads and stared at the Eye of Heavenly Punishment that had suddenly appeared. Feeling that terrifying heavenly might, powerful enough to erase every existence in the world, their eyes filled with unprecedented horror and despair.
"Purple Heaven Divine Lightning... How can Purple Heaven Divine Lightning have descended?!"
The Divine Phoenix that had just spat out that mouthful of Southern Bright Separation Fire had regained a moment of clarity. It stared blankly at the sky, its whole body trembling like a sieve.
During the Tribulation of Dragon and Han, killing intent filled heaven and earth. The Heavenly Dao had originally allowed the three clans to slaughter one another to dispel their karmic sin.
Unless someone committed an unforgivable act that defied heaven or utterly angered the Primordial Origin, the Purple Heaven Divine Lightning would never descend of its own accord during a Tribulation of Measure.
"I... What have I done?"
The Divine Phoenix, a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal, lowered its head in bewilderment and looked down.
Its gaze passed over the Golden Dragon that was nearly burned to death, finally settling on the tiny figure who stood beneath the Mysterious Yellow curtain, safe and sound.
The insignificant cultivator had no powerful fluctuations of energy, nor any murderous aura soaring into the sky.
All he had was that faint, yet utterly pure, aura of... Great Dao Merit!
"G-Great Dao Merit?!"
The Divine Phoenix's pupils shrank to pinpoints, and its heart felt as if an invisible, icy hand had clamped down on it.
It finally understood what a stupid thing it had done.
That mouthful of Southern Bright Separation Fire it had just spat out had actually hit a manifestation of Great Dao Merit!
In the Primordial Land, harming a manifestation of Great Dao Merit was the same as slapping Great God Pangu across the face and tearing out one of the Heavenly Dao's load-bearing walls! This wasn't merely defying heaven. It was asking for death!
"No! It was a misunderstanding! Lord Heavenly Dao, this was all a misunderstanding!"
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