Chapter 1059: 御,困,杀

As soon as Fushan Lie saw He Lingchuan appear, he immediately followed. He Lingchuan leaped to the middle of the city wall in a few bounds and flipped him the bird.

The demon didn't understand the specific meaning of the gesture, but that didn't stop him from sensing He Lingchuan's provocation. He turned his head to the strange insect: "Pilou, go!"

The strange insect transformed directly into a swarm of shadowy bugs, flew onto the city wall, and then lunged at He Lingchuan. It could advance, retreat, defend, and even escape; it had complete freedom of movement. Without eliminating the main insect, the battle would likely never end. This creature gave He Lingchuan more headaches than Fushan Lie.

In an instant, the three were entangled in combat again. The terrain here was narrow, primarily consisting of alleys and steps. Even when compressing its body, the strange insect still fought uncomfortably, while only Fushan Lie and He Lingchuan were in their element. Steps built by humans, of course, were most suitable for human movement.

Two torches still burned above the city wall, their flames flickering with the evening breeze. Fushan Lie glanced at the torches, his eyes also glinting. He Lingchuan had just dodged an attack from the strange insect and stood on the steps. In the torchlight, his shadow stretched long.

Fushan Lie vanished in a flash.

As He Lingchuan resumed battling the Pilou demon, his Floating Life Blade had just swept out when his body suddenly stiffened. It felt as if he had plunged into a bottomless mire, unable to control his movements in any direction. Shadow Binding Art!

In a battle between experts, there's no room for error. The Pilou demon sensed his delay and delivered two sharp jabs straight to his skull. In reality, He Lingchuan, with all his treasures, would have easily broken free from this deadlock. But in the Panlong world, he had to rely solely on himself.

Just as the Pilou demon's scythe-like leg was about to strike its target, a figure suddenly appeared out of nowhere, blocking the fatal attack. Upon closer inspection, it was a second He Lingchuan. He quickly launched two attacks, forcing the Pilou demon back, then threw a boomerang toward the top of the wall.

With two soft thuds, both torches were extinguished. Without the torchlight, there were naturally no shadows. Without shadows, He Lingchuan's true body was no longer bound.

Fushan Lie's move was quite subtle. Although He Lingchuan had primal energy protecting his body, he was still delayed for several breaths. From falling into the ambush to finding a solution, it should have taken at least a few more breaths, right? With the battlefield so chaotic, how could He Lingchuan have known it was his own shadow holding him back? By rights, those few breaths would have been enough for him to die four or five times over.

Unfortunately for Fushan Lie, He Lingchuan had already witnessed the Shadow Binding Art when he fought Fushan Yue previously, and he also knew how to break it. If the son knew it, the father likely did too. He Lingchuan was prepared in advance, and Fushan Lie's second sneak attack ended in failure again.

He Lingchuan regained his freedom and forced Fushan Lie off the city wall with two slashes. Fushan Lie jumped back into the barbican, with He Lingchuan hot on his heels.

At this point, Meng Shan, who was atop the city wall, finally felt the bell tower loosen. He mustered his strength and slammed into it again with a shout, "Hah, break!" Accompanied by a crisp cracking sound, the bronze bell, along with the entire tower, rumbled and tumbled down!

Below, directly beneath it, was the barbican. The giant bell descended from the sky, and with over two hundred West Ji traitors crowded inside the barbican, there was no escaping it. More than twenty people were crushed into paste without even a single scream! It was no different from a stone mill grinding soybeans, except the paste here was red.

The massive bell couldn't be stopped and rolled back and forth a few times. Even the Yuheng army hastily retreated, fearing decapitation. The remaining West Ji traitors fled, most retreating out of Yuheng City through the South Gate.

Meng Shan, atop the city wall, had just poked his head out to admire his masterpiece when he heard He Lingchuan's command: "Meng Shan, get down to the barbican!"

"Get down, then get down." He stretched his aching arms. Going down was much slower than coming up.

At this moment, He Lingchuan was again battling the two enemies. The Yuheng army rushed into the barbican, reclaiming lost ground. The West Ji traitors gradually retreated as they fought. In at most a dozen more breaths, Fushan Lie and the Pilou demon would also fall into the Yuheng army's encirclement.

Thus, the situation reversed, and He Lingchuan was now using all his strength to hold back the two opponents, preventing their escape. The Pilou demon could leave at any time simply by transforming into a swarm and flying away, so it stayed to help Fushan Lie escape.

At this point, the Yuheng army's flying blades and arrows striking it produced a scattering of insect corpses. The Pilou demon's body was now two full sizes smaller than when it first appeared.

"Hurry, go!" it urged Fushan Lie.

It wasn't that Fushan Lie didn't want to leave. Normally, he could perform an Earth Evasion technique and instantly escape fifty paces away, easily getting out of danger. However, this was the barbican! There was an array here that prohibited evasion techniques! To escape, he would have to walk step by step through the South Gate, just like the West Ji traitors.

At that moment, with a resounding thump, Meng Shan finally leaped into the barbican. "Ouch, my soles hurt."

Suddenly, a figure emerged from behind the bronze bell, constantly moving its hands, and called out to him: "Come and hit the bell!" Meng Shan looked closer and saw it was He Lingchuan's clone.

While his main body battled the two great demons, his clone wiped off the blood and flesh clinging to the great bell, then dragged over a corpse, dipped a finger in the wound's blood, and drew runes on the bell's surface. "Huh, this rune..." It looked familiar.

Wasn't it the blood rune Wen Daolun had just drawn on the great bell at the East Gate?

He Lingchuan's clone moved his fingers swiftly, yet still managed to ask, "This is a Demon-Suppressing and Evil-Expelling Rune. It's taught in the Panlong City Rune class. Didn't you learn it?"

"Uh..." Meng Shan scratched the back of his head. He only liked hacking people with an axe, not doodling with a pen, believing such studies were useless. So, he had, ahem, always skipped those academic classes. Anyway, he was never alone on missions; usually, a teammate knew how to draw runes.

Amidst his busy work, He Lingchuan's clone found time to say, "Once this battle is over, go back and catch up on your lessons!" Meng Shan's face immediately fell. "Yes, sir."

In the blink of an eye, He Lingchuan's clone had finished. This was actually a rune array composed of four talismans: a Sound Amplification Art, a Soul-Seizing Technique, and, of course, the Demon-Suppressing and Evil-Expelling Rune. "Listen to me, in a moment, you'll do this and this..." He quickly gave Meng Shan a few instructions. "Understood?"

"Understood!" This time, the command was simple enough for him to grasp instantly.

"Good, hit the bell!" With no large log at hand, Meng Shan inverted his axe and began to strike the bell, clang, clang, clang.

The sound vibrated for ten miles, demonic music piercing their brains! The explosive sound source was right inside the barbican, and its bare walls amplified the echo, creating a surround-sound effect. Both the Yuheng army and Fushan Lie's remaining subordinates couldn't help but raise their hands to cover their ears. "I-I'm going deaf!"

The primal energy caused the surface of the giant bell to glow with a dark red light, making the sound even more potent than Wen Daolun's bell strikes. The Pilou demon bore the brunt of it; not only were its moves disjointed, but it couldn't even stand steadily on its six legs. It staggered in place a couple of times, and its body even appeared to have a double image. The black beetles that formed its body couldn't withstand the primal energy-infused sonic attack, and if this continued, it would revert to its true form.

The Pilou demon made a decisive move, shrieking as it turned and charged toward Meng Shan. "Stop him! This noise attack must be stopped!"

Unfortunately, a characteristic of the bell's sound was its lingering resonance; in such a confined space, it could even circle around. Even if Meng Shan stopped, the sonic attack wouldn't disappear immediately.

As the Pilou demon charged close, He Lingchuan's clone, who was waiting nearby, shimmered and dashed, knocking it a few steps to the side, then unleashed a combo attack.

With a formidable enemy before it, the Pilou demon instinctively counterattacked even in its agony. While He Lingchuan's clone entangled it, Meng Shan, with a mountain-toppling display of strength, suddenly lifted the giant bell!

His arm muscles bulged high. With a thunderous roar, he slammed the bell down fiercely on the two combatants. The Pilou demon knew instantly this was bad and immediately transformed into flying insects to escape. However, stunned by the bell's sound, the swarm's movements were delayed. Only a small group managed to escape; the main body remained trapped under the giant bell!

Immediately afterward, Meng Shan dropped to his knees, panting heavily and unable to speak. He Lingchuan pointed at several Yuheng army officers: "Hit the bell, quickly!" These officers stepped forward and began relentlessly striking the bell with sticks and clubs.

There was no aesthetic rhythm to their strikes, but with primal energy reinforcement, it was enough. Trapped inside the bell, the Pilou demon couldn't maintain its form and thus couldn't break free. This most elusive creature was finally captured by He Lingchuan's design.

With the Pilou demon trapped, Fushan Lie also wanted to rescue it, but He Lingchuan unleashed his full power, making it impossible for Fushan Lie to spare a clone to help. If this continued, Fushan Lie himself would be trapped in the barbican.

Fushan Lie gritted his teeth, gave the giant bell a regretful glance, and turned to retreat. As the two men fought, their respective trusted elites also clashed, fighting with desperate ferocity.

As Fushan Lie leaped back, a bull demon fearlessly charged at He Lingchuan, using its over two-thousand-pound body to shield Fushan Lie. The next instant, seven streaks of cold light pierced through the bull's thick, door-like body. The demon let out a shriek, and blood and internal organs spilled out.

Bolang Slash. Even the three or four Bega elites behind the bull were not spared; they were all struck by the blade. The unluckiest one had a line of blood precisely cut through the center of his brow by the blade's energy. His eyes and movements instantly froze, and two breaths later, his head was separated from his body. Such was the lingering power of a single blade strike!

The remaining individuals were greatly alarmed and instinctively retreated. Capitalizing on his subordinate's sacrifice, Fushan Lie rapidly retreated a dozen paces away.

The barbican was only so large, yet he moved like a fish, easily weaving through the crowded masses. Moreover, his trusted confidants protected him in the center, struggling to move him toward the South Gate exit.

Just as he was about to exit Yuheng City, Fushan Lie looked back but couldn't find He Lingchuan's figure. Under the torchlight, before the blade's edge, the commander who should have been charging at the forefront of the enemy lines had simply vanished?

Fushan Lie suddenly felt a chill, his hairs stood on end, and his spiritual sense screamed a warning. Surrounded by a hundred guards, he still couldn't feel even a shred of safety.

Enemy attack! Fushan Lie disregarded everything else, lunged abruptly to the side, and simultaneously hooked a nearby person with his backhand, yanking them backward to use as a human shield. If not for the barbican's restriction on evasion techniques, he would already be outside the city.

Sure enough, a figure appeared out of thin air behind him, clinging to Fushan Lie's back like a ghost. Fushan Lie's reaction was undeniably swift, but no sooner had the figure appeared than a faint light flashed in its hand, and it thrust a blade, person and all, directly at his back. Even though Fushan Lie leaped away and dragged another person as a shield, the Floating Life Blade showed no hesitation, changing direction mid-air. It first pierced through the human shield's right lung, then emerged from Fushan Lie's chest!