Nine Nether raised his enormous axe and brought it down toward the Bull Demon King. Blood-red light blazed across the blade, forming an axe phantom a thousand feet long that tore through the void in pursuit of him.
Just as the axe phantom was about to strike the Bull Demon King, a sudden disturbance came from aboard the ship.
The dark red runes covering its hull lit up one after another. The three-tiered ring-shaped Magic Formation suspended beneath it revolved with a rumble, and a black pillar of light erupted from within.
Boom!
A deafening roar shook the entire sky as the black pillar struck the blood-red axe phantom and abruptly exploded.
An immense shock wave burst from the center of the explosion, splitting into two savage blasts of pressure that surged toward the heavens and the earth.
Below, Nine Nether was pinned down by that tremendous force, unable to take a single step. Above, the enormous warship was thrust straight up to an altitude of a hundred thousand feet.
In that same hairbreadth instant, Shen Luo wound the Gourd-Gold Rope around the Bull Demon King's waist and hauled him aboard.
The moment the Bull Demon King landed on the deck, the Jade-Faced Princess plunged into his arms. Red Boy, the Ten-Thousand-Year Fox King, and the others gathered around as well.
"What happened here?"
Seeing that everyone who had escaped was safe and sound, the Bull Demon King could scarcely believe his eyes.
"A fellow Daoist from Heavenly Mechanism City saved us," the Ten-Thousand-Year Fox King explained.
"Wasn't Heavenly Mechanism City destroyed by the Demon Clan long ago?" The Bull Demon King froze for a long moment before murmuring the question.
Just then, the sound of rolling wheels approached. The crowd parted of its own accord, leaving a passage down