Chapter 284 – I Want Your… (2/2)
Under the cover of the berserk flames of the sea of fire, Xu Yourong lifted Chen Changsheng up and turned into an after-image. In a flash, she arrived at the cliff outside the forest.
This was the one place Bai Hai’s flame palms could not block, and it was also a place that she had already taken note of. If the cliff was solid, she naturally could not enter it, but this part of the cliff had a cave.
Before this sinister dialogue had even begun, she had already noticed the cave and made her plans. If she could not seize the decisive moment in the battle, she had already prepared for herself a path of retreat.
This cave was her path of retreat, but it was not an escape.
Bai Hai pierced through that chaotic sea of fire, and with a grave expression, attacked once more.
Those innumerable palm images carrying those dark flames suddenly combined themselves into a perfectly straight lance of fire, which rumbled towards Xu Yourong's back. This Setting Sun Sect elder knew what sort of person this young lady that he wanted to kill was, so he did not dare to spare any effort, nor did he leave himself any path of retreat. When he attacked, he used his most powerful Setting Sun Palm and expressed the sum of his entire life of cultivation.
Xu Yourong turned around and saw that lance of fire which contained a terrifying power, but her expression was as serene as ever. With a flip of her wrist, she thrust the Tong Bow into the ground.
The surface of the cave was very sturdy. With a crack, inch by inch, the ground gave way. The Tong Bow was thrust deep into the earth, and yet it was still taller than her.
In a flash, countless branches rose out of the Tong Bow, and numerous leaves sprouted from those branches. In that space warped by the heat of that lance of fire, it seemed a little ostentatious. It brought a very fresh and clean odor that permeated the entire cave entrance.
The course of events was very hard to describe with words.
A long stretch of time was compressed into these few moments.
For a hundred-year-old tree, how many years would it take to construct it into a palace?
This was the growth of a lonely wutong tree, and it was also the construction of a palace.
The Tong Bow had become a wutong tree, and it also had become a Tong Palace. Yes, this was the Great Zhou Imperial Palace's Tong Palace, the palace that had served as Chen Changsheng's jail for one day and one night.
The Wutong, as the unique and unmatched pair of divine artifacts on the Tier of Legendary Weapons, had also possessed this sort of wondrous use. The previous Holy Maiden of the South Stream Temple had actually attached the Tong Palace to the Tong Bow.
The Tong Palace was an array of sorts. For imprisoning enemies, it was extremely powerful. For protecting others, it was incomparably tenacious.
There was a boom. This was the sound made as fire rapidly expanded, as well as the sound made as the wave of fire dashed itself against a stone wall.
At the cave entrance, the fire blazed to the heavens, and it seemed like the verdant leaves of the wutong tree were about to burn, yet that lance of fire could not take one step past that wutong tree.
This was the wutong in which the Phoenix dwelled. Its blood was fire, its body was fire; the Phoenix was fire incarnate. Over the course of tens of thousands of years, the wutong tree had been imbued with the essence and spirit of fire, so how it could be afraid of flame? The flames of the Setting Sun Palm were no match; even if the longbow was directly thrown into the Setting Sun Sect's ravine of earthfire, it still would not be damaged in the slightest.
The green branches stretched out, turning the cave and the outside into two worlds, barring the fierce earthfire and Bai Hai from entering.
Separated by the flames, Xu Yourong gazed at Bai Hai, silent and calm.
Bai Hai had a very solemn expression, but he had none of the sense of defeat that should have resulted from the inability of his flames to break through the Tong Bow's defense. He said to her, ”My Setting Sun Sect was founded in a remote volcano valley. Besides the terrifyingly hot earthfire, the most abundant thing there is miasma. The miasma and earthfire feed off each other, so I would very much like to know if this longbow can withstand their combination.”
With these words, he withdrew his Setting Sun Palm and stepped in front of the wutong tree, then he unhesitatingly gave it another slap.
This time there were no intense flames, only a faint and bizarre Qi accompanied by countless tiny particles shot out of his palm. They blanketed the wutong tree's trunk and leaves.
In an instant, that fresh and green wutong tree looked like it had spent several years in the blustering sands of the north. It was now covered with a thick layer of dust, no longer expressing its former exuberance.
The dust was formed of the tiny particles, and each of those particles was the essence of the fiery miasma that Bai Hai had breathed in and out and collected over his several hundred years in the remote volcano valley.
For the outer surface to darken was not important, but what was even more frightening was that the particles were corroding the body of the Tong Bow at this very moment. The green leaves of the wutong tree were already beginning to show many thin specks of grey, and those grey specks were growing larger by the second. The bark was similarly beginning to show many horrifying cracks which were continuing to deepen.
If this was in a normal situation, relying on her boundless true essence, Xu Yourong could have prevented the Tong Bow from being contaminated with this dust, to say nothing of the absurdity of her true Phoenix blood being contaminated by such a trifling poison.
But now, she could only rely on the Tong Bow to protect her body from this fiery and poisonous miasma that originated from deep in the earth. How long could the Tong Bow hold on?
Separated by the wutong tree's leaves, she looked at that elder from the Setting Sun Sect and calmly asked, ”Why are you doing this?”
Bai Hai replied, ”All those who enter the Garden of Zhou do so for their own benefit, and I am no exception.”
Xu Yourong said, ”You believe… that the benefits you will obtain from my body exceed the risks that you will face?”
Bai Hai smiled. ”I believe it with all my heart.”
Xu Yourong indifferently replied, ”I could give you endless benefits, benefits that you could not imagine.”
There were currently numerous sects on the continent, each of them with their own precious secrets, and for a strange sect like the Setting Sun Sect, this was even more the case. But she definitely had the status to say those words, and in addition, her opponent had no choice but to believe her.
Bai Hai replied, ”To earn the gratitude of both the Holy Maiden Peak and the Zhou Dynasty is naturally difficult. Sadly, if I had not forced my lady into such desperate straits, how could I have possibly obtained such benefits?”
Xu Yourong asked, ”Did you know who I was this entire time?”
”Yes, venerable Heavenly Maiden… did I say it wrong? I heard that all the sects under Holy Maiden Peak, whether it is the Gentle Stream Monastery or the South Stream Temple, all refer to you in this manner.”
Bai Hai smiled at her. ”Last night I was at the bottom of the Sunset Valley, and I saw my lady unfurl her wings of fire.”
Xu Yourong said, ”You know who I am, but you dare to show such disrespect? You've cultivated for more than two hundred years, but could it be that you can't even control your own greed, so much so that you've gone mad!?”
As she said these words, her expression was still calm, as if she was not angry at all, but possessed a sort of disdain from on high.
Bai Hai calmly replied, ”Greed does make one go mad, but I have not gone mad. If this were outside the Garden of Zhou, I would definitely be kneeling at my lady's feet, kissing the ground beneath your shoes, but… this is the Garden of Zhou, and my lady has already been heavily injured by the Demon Princess. If I were to miss this opportunity, I would definitely incur the wrath of heaven.”
Xu Yourong gazed at the leaves before her eyes and calmly asked, ”What do you plan to gain from me? This divine artifact? Or something else?”
A creepy smile appeared on Bai Hai's elderly face. ”I… I want… I want my lady's blood.”