Three Seconds! The Divine Tortoise's Only Fatal Weakness!

Iron Wall's roar exploded before its body even moved.

Ten Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bears charged out of the western passage like heavy tanks unleashed from a gate. Their massive paws crushed the rocks along the lakeshore as they lined up beside the water, forming a dark-golden line of death.

Su Chen stood behind the wall of flesh and blood they had built, his gaze piercing through three hundred zhang of dim mist as he locked onto the center of the lake.

That Seventy-Thousand-Year Ancient Black Tortoise was crossing the lake.

It was not fast.

Yet every time one of its feet stepped onto the rocky lakebed, the entire underground space let out a deep, muffled tremor, as though the earth itself was beating in welcome of its sovereign's arrival.

Its immense body tore a savage V-shaped wake across the water's surface.

It was not traveling.

It was inspecting its territory—and the invaders within it who were about to die.

The forty-two tortoises arrayed on either side parted like the most loyal guards, opening a straight path for their king.

"Distance: two hundred zhang." Ling Shuang's trembling mental message sounded in Su Chen's mind, carrying a trace of fear even she had not noticed.

Su Chen raised a hand and issued a cold command.

"Thunder Eagles."

Ten Purple Lightning Thunder Eagles soared upward in reverse, circling beneath the underground vault as violet lightning danced at their wingtips. The ceiling here was too low for them to execute a perfect death dive, but for a lightning bombardment, it was enough.

"Ten Thousand Thunders Descend."

In an instant, ten violet lightning pillars as thick as water barrels ripped through the darkness and crashed down, all striking the colossal tortoise shell with absolute precision!

Boom boom boom boom boom—!

The flash of lightning instantly illuminated the entire underground lake as brightly as day!

Violent arcs of electricity scattered through the air like serpents. The lake erupted into towering columns of water dozens of zhang high, while rolling steam instantly filled the entire space.

Su Chen had not expected anything.

Sure enough.

When the steam dispersed, the old tortoise's steps had not been disturbed in the slightest. The thick mineral crystals covering its shell had become the most perfect insulator, channeling the Ten-Thousand-Year Thunder Eagles' full-force attack entirely into the lake.

The tortoise guards in the water suffered instead. Several young tortoises floated belly-up after being electrocuted, only to be knocked back over by their companions moments later, looking utterly miserable.

"The Thunder Eagles are ineffective." Su Chen's voice did not waver. "Shift targets. Clear the tortoise herd. Don't let the small ones come over and get in the way."

The Thunder Eagle flock immediately shifted its fire, beginning an indiscriminate barrage against the tortoise herds on both sides.

"One hundred and fifty zhang." Ling Shuang's warning was taut with tension.

"Iron Wall, enter the water. Engage it."

"Roar!"

Iron Wall let out a thunderous battle cry and was the first to step into the lake, with ten Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bears following close behind.

The water reached their bellies.

Their heavy bodies made them as steady as mountains in the shallows. Dark-golden claws sliced through the water, throwing up two white waves as they charged straight at the approaching moving mountain!

Iron Wall was the first to make contact.

Sky-Rending Claw!

Su Chen's strongest close-combat unit unleashed its most powerful single-target attack at that moment!

Dark-golden light gathered to its limit around Iron Wall's right claw, forming a sharp blade of light that seemed capable of tearing space itself apart before it slashed down with explosive force!

Screeeech—crack—!!!

A metal-grinding screech that made everyone's teeth ache to the marrow, mixed with an explosive shriek, rang throughout the cavern!

Sparks sprayed out like a torrential rain.

That ancient tortoise shell did not move an inch.

Iron Wall's Sky-Rending Claw had only left a laughably shallow white mark upon the black shell.

The old tortoise had not even lowered its proud head to glance at Iron Wall.

It merely continued forward.

One step.

The aftershock of that single step sent the Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast Iron Wall flying back three zhang, its enormous bear paws gouging two bottomless trenches across the lakebed!

Su Chen's breathing stopped for an instant.

It could not be penetrated.

The Sky-Rending Claw of a Ten-Thousand-Year Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear could tear open space itself, yet it could not break this old tortoise's defense.

That was not mere hardness.

It was devouring on the level of laws.

The tortoise shell had "eaten" Iron Wall's attack power.

"Ten bears, form up! Switch to a combined attack and stop it!" Su Chen's command followed immediately.

The ten Fearclaw Bears instantly shifted positions, forming a circular Dark Golden Iron Wall battle formation. They abandoned their useless attacks and instead focused all their power on defense, trying to use the formation to halt the old tortoise's advance.

With the defensive enhancement of a fifteenfold legion buff, the barrier could withstand a Titled Douluo's ninth soul skill head-on while on land!

However, when the old tortoise crashed into them, Su Chen finally understood just how terribly wrong he had been.

It did not use any skill.

It simply walked.

Thud.

A dull sound rang out.

It did not resemble a collision. It was more like an inescapable physical law descending upon them. The Dark Golden Iron Wall formation began collapsing from the front. Five Fearclaw Bears were pushed uncontrollably to the left, while the other five were squeezed to the right.

The entire formation fell apart instantly, like a crushed biscuit.

Iron Wall, which had taken the impact head-on, was sent flying outright. Its massive body became a cannonball that smashed brutally into the distant rock wall along the shore, sending shattered stones raining down!

Little Gold let out a shrill cry of grief.

"Shadow Leopards, flank it!"

Ten Nether Shadow Leopards silently leaped out of the shadows, their nimble forms trailing black afterimages through the air.

But they had miscalculated.

Shadow Leopards were the kings of darkness on land, but this was water. The moment their paws landed on the slick tortoise shell, they slipped, and their bodies immediately lost balance.

Three Shadow Leopards barely managed to cling to the side of its shell, their claws frantically scraping against it, yet they could not leave even the faintest white mark.

"Fall back!" Su Chen gritted his teeth.

The Shadow Leopards were his sharpest blade, but that blade could not cut down a mountain.

One hundred zhang.

The old tortoise was only one hundred zhang from the entrance to the western passage.

Then, it stopped.

Su Chen's heart suddenly clenched.

Not because it had been stopped.

But because it was about to attack.

That savage head covered in rock-like skin extended fully from the shell. Its cloudy eyes, nearly pure white, slowly closed.

The next second.

With the old tortoise at its center, a ring of pitch-black ripples silently spread in every direction.

Black.

A pure black that could devour all light, devour all hope.

The lake water was changing.

The originally dark-green water was being assimilated by the black ripples at a visible speed, turning into a deeper, thicker, colder, and more bizarre liquid.

Netherworld Water.

"Everyone! Get off the water!" Su Chen's roar exploded in everyone's mind.

Too late.

The five Fearclaw Bears still struggling in the water became the first sacrifices.

The instant the Netherworld Water touched their legs, their prized dark-golden fur turned dead gray.

It was not frostbite.

Their life force itself had been forcibly erased, reversed into death!

The movements of the five Ten-Thousand-Year Fearclaw Bears instantly froze, as though they had sunk into a swamp of time. Even struggling became incomparably slow, and they could only watch helplessly as death spread from their legs to their entire bodies.

"Yan Wuji!" Su Chen bellowed.

Yan Wuji had already pressed both palms to the ground. His Profound Ice Forbidden Domain erupted at full power as he tried to freeze the surface from the shore and stop the black death from spreading.

The ice advanced three zhang.

Then it stopped.

Web-like cracks appeared across the ice, and black liquid seeped upward through the fissures with hissing sounds, corroding and devouring Yan Wuji's profound ice inch by inch.

Yan Wuji's face turned pale as paper.

His Profound Ice Forbidden Domain had actually been suppressed in reverse!

That was not water at all!

That was the Seventy-Thousand-Year Black Tortoise's domain! Within this body of water, it was the law itself!

"I can't freeze it!" Yan Wuji retreated three steps, the webs between his thumbs and forefingers already split open and dripping with blood.

The Netherworld Water Domain did not stop expanding.

Before long, the entire underground lake had completely transformed into a silent black abyss.

Jiang Tieyi roared as he rushed to the water's edge. Ignoring everything else, he reached out to drag the two Fearclaw Bears nearest the shore onto land.

Sizzle!

The instant his right arm entered the black water, his flesh let out a scorched hiss. His entire forearm instantly turned charred black, as if it had been viciously branded by red-hot iron.

"Fuck!" He gritted his teeth and forcibly dragged the two half-dead Fearclaw Bears ashore, while his entire right arm had already blackened from his fingertips to his shoulder.

Chu Yao rushed over and scattered handful after handful of precious antidote powder onto his wounds.

It was useless.

The black corrosion continued to spread.

She switched to a second medicine, then a third...

Finally, the spread was barely contained, but the necrotic portions could never recover.

"What about poison mist?" Mo Qianye asked urgently.

"Why don't you try blowing some over that water?" Chu Yao's face was frosty. "The vapor from the Netherworld Water will turn your poison mist into an even more widespread death miasma. All of us will be affected!"

A dead end.

Physical attacks could not break through. Energy attacks were nullified. Their domains were suppressed. Poison could not be used.

"Is there really nothing that can hurt this damn thing?!" Jiang Tieyi clutched his half-ruined arm, veins bulging across his forehead.

Su Chen did not answer.

He was not looking at Jiang Tieyi's injuries, nor was he looking at the dying Fearclaw Bears.

While everyone else was retreating, rescuing people, cursing, and despairing, Su Chen's eyes remained fixed on the old tortoise from beginning to end.

They had not moved for even a second.

His brain raced beyond its limits, breaking down, analyzing, and reconstructing every image and every detail from what had just happened!

The Thunder Eagles' attacks.

Iron Wall's charge.

The trajectory, speed, and energy fluctuations of the Netherworld Water Domain's expansion...

Then.

He caught it.

At the instant the Netherworld Water Domain spread out from the old tortoise's body, there had been one nearly undetectable detail that lasted less than three seconds—

The old tortoise's head and limbs had contracted ever so slightly.

At that exact moment, a tiny gap had opened beneath the lower edge of its mountain-like heavy shell.

Through that gap, Su Chen saw it!

At the junction between the tortoise shell and its plastron was a ring of dark-brown core scales.

During the three seconds when the Netherworld Water Domain was released, those scales opened like fish gills, wildly drawing in and expelling dense black energy!

Three seconds later, the scales closed, the gap vanished, and its defense became flawless once more.

"Entire army—fall back!"

Su Chen gave the command at that moment. His voice was not loud, but it carried an unshakable coldness.

Everyone immediately retreated deeper into the entrance of the western passage.

All eyes of the Abyss Seven Generals gathered on him.

"We... can beat it?" Jiang Tieyi's voice was hoarse, filled with unwillingness.

"We can."

Su Chen crouched down and used his finger to draw a circle in the dusty ground, representing the tortoise shell.

Then, at the very bottom of the circle, where its belly would be, he forcefully pressed down a single point with his fingertip.

"When it releases its domain, the core in its abdomen is exposed."

Everyone's breathing froze at once.

Su Chen slowly rose to his feet, his gaze passing over each of his most trusted companions. Cold flames burned in those pitch-black eyes.

"It only gives us three seconds of weakness."

"And I," Su Chen said, his voice brimming with endless killing intent and confidence, "only need those three seconds."