Chapter 1819: Thousand Illusions Take Action

Seeing this, the Heavenly Palace army couldn't help but cheer. As expected of the Goddess Miaozhan, her attack was devastating, scattering the opponents, who either died or fled! It was truly decisive and satisfying.

However, True Lord Cangxi paid them no further attention. Instead, he turned to look at a small hillock hundreds of feet away, by the shores of Inverted Lake. The once lush forest had long been destroyed by the divine fire and meteor strike, leaving the hilltop a desolate mess.

As Dong Rui leaped out of the Haoyuan Golden Mirror, he accidentally stepped on a broken, slippery log and nearly fell. He looked back and saw a startling change at the bottom of the meteor crater: where he had stood was now a deep chasm, and a ball of light floated above the surging floodwaters. Was that... a person?

Just as Dong Rui was about to take a closer look, the person waved their hand, severing the small Dao-seeking tree, and then suddenly turned to face him. His gaze locked onto Dong Rui. Dong Rui immediately felt the sky darken. His companions and the smoking remnants of trees around him vanished, leaving only True Lord Cangxi, who was staring at him from across the distance.

The next instant, True Lord Cangxi himself disappeared, and in the darkness, only a pair of incomparably enormous eyes fixed on him. Compared to these eyes, his figure was as tiny as an ant next to a watermelon. Dong Rui instinctively took two steps back, but found his legs paralyzed. The colossal eyes drew closer and closer, cold and sharp, not only intending to see through him from outside to in, but also to seize his mind. "Gaze of Death"—he finally understood the weight of those two words.

Just then, a shadow suddenly appeared between him and the colossal eyes. More precisely, this shadow suddenly blocked his view, intercepting the giant eyes' gaze aimed at Dong Rui. The figure wore black armor, but golden light shimmered across it, intensely dazzling and causing Dong Rui to instinctively close his eyes. Then, he came to his senses and saw He Lingchuan standing in front of him with one hand raised high.

"Holy crap, it found me! It's staring at me with its giant eyes!" Dong Rui blurted out in fear. "Run, run!" The two to three hundred Illusion Sect disciples below had been vaporized; Goddess Miaozhan certainly wouldn't mind cooking him too.

He Lingchuan calmly lowered his hand. Dong Rui had just been struck by Goddess Miaozhan's divine ability, which was very similar to a technique He Lingchuan encountered in the Heavenly Palace years ago, where his soul was almost dragged away for judgment. To a Great Heavenly God, cultivators are like pigs and dogs to humans—to be dragged around and killed at will. However, He Lingchuan gave him two strong shoves, and Dong Rui's soul returned, so He Lingchuan refrained from delivering the two slaps he was about to give. The Ghost Ape chittered twice, grinning to reveal its gums. A voice nearby said, "Don't worry, someone has them occupied." Only then did Dong Rui realize that Granny Zhu had also returned.

The mobility of a Heavenly God was astonishing, and rushing to this hilltop was trivial for them. However, a major event immediately followed at Inverted Lake, one significant enough to alter the course of the war. At this point, Goddess Miaozhan likely had no time to spare for them. The meteor crater on the west side of the lake suddenly darkened. Its fire was extinguished. The surrounding golden threads consequently broke off one by one.

Dong Rui was overjoyed: "Excellent!"

He Lingchuan, however, murmured, "Goddess Miaozhan made a mistake." It turned out that Xiao Wencheng had taken advantage of the fierce battles raging on the east and north sides of Inverted Lake to dig open the meteor crater on the west bank. Although Goddess Miaozhan had transformed the Great Eye Array into a smaller one, reducing energy consumption, its fault tolerance was significantly lowered. If even one array foundation was extinguished, her plan to seize Inverted Lake would be nullified.

She clearly knew that her side was inferior in strength to the opponent on both the immortal and mortal planes. Therefore, this time, it was a race against time: if she could seize control of the Inverted Lake region first, she could force open the two-realm passage and capture True Form Thousand Illusions! However, the premise for this was that she had to continuously supply energy to all seven array foundations without a moment's pause. But True Lord Cangxi was forced to directly intervene here, seemingly neglecting other areas and relaxing his control over the other array foundations. Thousand Illusions and Xiao Wencheng immediately intensified their assault, directly eliminating one array foundation. Seven eyes became six, and the array failed. Goddess Miaozhan had lost the struggle for the Inverted Lake region.

True Immortal Thousand Illusions, using He Lingchuan and all the members of the Illusion Sect as bait, finally lured Goddess Miaozhan into launching a direct attack. In this confrontation between a True Immortal and a Righteous God, whoever couldn't endure and made the first move would suffer greatly!

Dong Rui asked, "So now what do we...?"

"Just watch," He Lingchuan said soberly. "If I'm not mistaken, Thousand Illusions should be making an appearance now." As he spoke, he looked behind him. Moqifeng stepped forward and reported in a low voice, "My Lord, we've lost two people. A-heng and A-yi didn't make it." He Lingchuan nodded. From his warning to Goddess Miaozhan's deadly strike, the group had less than two breaths to react. That area was chaotic, yet most of the Black Armored Army managed to follow, demonstrating their rigorous training. Battlefields are full of surprises and variables; no one knew why those two couldn't keep up immediately. Inverted Sea was perilous everywhere; one wrong step could lead to eternal doom.

Goddess Miaozhan indeed did not pursue them, because as He Lingchuan and Moqifeng were speaking, the clouds above stirred, suddenly parting to reveal several golden beams of light that streamed down into the meteor crater. A colossal, winged shadow swept across the ground. Everyone couldn't help but look up, True Lord Cangxi included. From his perspective looking up, that sudden streak of sunlight was particularly dazzling. He naturally didn't care about the light, but the giant shadow in the sky arrived with it. One moment it was circling high above, the next it was upon him. During this process, only a bolt of lightning struck from the clear sky. The Haoyuan Golden Mirror couldn't even capture it, but fortunately, He Lingchuan and his group, observing from higher ground with their naked eyes throughout, could barely piece together what happened: The Wind-Thunder Beast had arrived.

That monster, resembling a bat yet also a monkey, with a pointed mouth, sunken cheeks, and a thunder god's beak, along with a pair of large wings, covered a distance of over a hundred feet in a mere instant, launching a fierce assault on True Lord Cangxi! "Granny guessed correctly." Back when He Lingchuan and his group, along with the Illusion Sect team, rushed into the secret hall to evade the divine fire and meteor strike, they saw a pair of guardian beasts at the entrance. One was a colossal python, and the other was this Wind-Thunder Beast. At that time, Granny Zhu had speculated that this might be the form of Thousand Illusions' second external Dharma Aspect. And so it was. While the colossal python was much larger than the stone guardian beast, this Wind-Thunder Beast appeared to be a one-to-one replica, balancing agility and attack power.

As it swooped down, it brought with it ten thousand bolts of thunder. Instantly, the meteor crater was filled with wildly dancing electric light and lightning serpents, casting a pale green hue upon everyone's faces. This was the sheer power of Thousand Illusions' first public move! Furthermore, this thunderous attack had a massive range, essentially covering more than half the meteor crater—targeting both True Lord Cangxi and his Heavenly Palace entourage. Mortal beings facing such divine might could only feel an endless surge of awe and despair from the depths of their hearts. Bai Ziqi's hair on his forehead even stood on end, and his entire body tingled as if electrified.

However, a split second before the lightning struck the ground, it inexplicably changed direction, and a thousand lightning serpents all hit the enormous meteor instead. Scorching smoke billowed out. It was truly worthy of being the core of a star; it absorbed the Wind-Thunder Beast's thunderous blow without shattering on impact. Instead, its fiery glow intensified, and countless lightning bolts coiled around its surface! True Lord Cangxi diverted the lightning away, then with a wave of his hand, unleashed two golden rays directly at the Wind-Thunder Beast's face. The Wind-Thunder Beast folded its wings, deflecting the golden light. Its wing bones were harder than refined gold, akin to divine weapons, and even possessed cutting ability, making them flexible, versatile, and immensely destructive. He Lingchuan looked at those wings and likely realized the inspiration behind Dong Rui's modifications to the bat demon puppets. Nevertheless, True Lord Cangxi's power was not to be underestimated; the Wind-Thunder Beast itself was pushed back over a dozen feet.

True Lord Cangxi did not pursue, because directly in front of him, from the deep chasm he had just blasted open, another colossal figure suddenly leaped out. The torrents on the ground had all flowed into the chasm, turning it into a river, but True Lord Cangxi could not have anticipated something leaping out from within the river. Water splashed, but even faster than the sound of the water was a colossal trident hurled by this figure. The distance between them was already close, and the trident hit its target almost immediately after being thrown, plunging deeply into True Lord Cangxi's lower back!

Thousand Illusions' external Dharma Aspect, the colossal python, stood over three zhang tall, and the trident in its hand was exceptionally large. However, as it flew towards True Lord Cangxi, it automatically adjusted and shrunk to precisely hit its target. True Lord Cangxi indeed became like a skewer, much like the previous victim, King Yao. But he backhanded the trident from his lower back, turned, and engaged the lunging Yin Python in combat! Meanwhile, one of the golden rays that had struck the Wind-Thunder Beast shattered, falling to the ground as charred remains. Evidently, Cangxi had transferred the damage from the trident's strike onto this magical artifact.

In less than three breaths, Thousand Illusions' two great Dharma Aspects appeared one after another. He Lingchuan observed this scene and murmured, "Thousand Illusions finally couldn't hold back anymore." Goddess Miaozhan had grandly invaded Inverted Sea, partly coveting Thousand Illusions' physical form, and partly raising a butcher's knife against the Illusion Sect disciples, wreaking havoc in Thousand Illusions' dwelling. As one of the few ancient True Immortals of Spirit Mountain, how could Thousand Illusions have a gentle temperament? He had endured until now simply for the sake of his own strategy. Now that Goddess Miaozhan's Divine Fire Array had failed, the two-realm passage was finally safe. For Thousand Illusions to act now was akin to "closing the door and beating the dog"! Goddess Miaozhan could no longer leave, and she had expended a great deal of energy over the preceding dozen hours. How could she possibly be a match for Thousand Illusions, who had been conserving strength? After the entire Inverted Sea had endured a cataclysmic ordeal, its master, True Immortal Thousand Illusions, was finally about to emerge and reap the fruits of victory.

At this moment, both the Heavenly Palace and Illusion Sect armies were rapidly evacuating the meteor crater. Seeing two great immortals and demons battling to the death, it was best for cultivators and armies not to get close, lest the previous tragic fate of the Illusion Sect serve as a grim lesson. Bai Ziqi led his subordinates back over two hundred feet, only slowing down upon reaching the upper rim of the meteor crater, where he ordered a headcount. Such a simple command proved difficult to execute because it couldn't be effectively relayed—the battle hadn't lasted long, but a total of seven leaders, both major and minor, from the three armies combined had died. These were crucial figures for command and coordination. With their deaths, the Heavenly Palace army's overall efficiency would drop by more than half. Helpless, Bai Ziqi had to make temporary appointments. The final count showed that the entire army had only just over four hundred people remaining.

"Retreat, retreat further!" He ordered the entire army to withdraw three li away.