Chapter 237: A Hearty Meal

“I’ve given you a chance, but since you don’t value it, don’t blame me.”

Taotie let out a furious roar, shaking the entire Dragon Slaying Ancient Battlefield. A violent aura expanded wildly, sending countless millennium-old bones buried around the blood-stained temple flying in disarray. The scene suddenly became exceptionally chaotic.

“I will protect your safety. You only need to do one thing: gather your strength and, at the appropriate moment, unleash the strongest illusion of your Cold Moon Art. Right now, only you can temporarily neutralize Taotie’s domain power. Only when the domain is broken can I rescue them.” Xu Yang conveyed his plan to the Empress through a soul transmission.

The Empress was incredibly intelligent; she had long realized that breaking the stalemate and rescuing the little ones from Taotie's grasp was key. Only by making Taotie lose its leverage could they regain control of the situation.

It was well known that the aura of a Primordial-level ancient beast like Taotie was far beyond that of ordinary spirit beasts or demonic beasts. In an era where divine beast bloodlines like dragons and phoenixes had vanished, Primordial spiritual species could, in a sense, represent the continent's apex beast-kind combat power.

As time passed, Taotie's roars had completely invigorated the atmosphere of the entire ancient battlefield. It did this not merely to intimidate its opponents, but to unleash its divine abilities to their fullest extent.

The most powerful instinct of the Taotie lineage was spirit devouring. Within the limits of what its physical body could bear, a Taotie could devour an almost infinite amount of spiritual energy. The moment its maw opened, the spiritual essence accumulated within all living beings in its vicinity would instinctively be swallowed by its massive mouth.

The spiritual energy it consumed was partly used to launch attacks and destroy opponents, while the rest remained within its body to be refined. As a top-tier Primordial spiritual species, Taotie's only method of cultivation was devouring, much like humans digesting food for energy. Thus, this creature could possess unparalleled strength simply by eating and sleeping.

Naturally, this adult Taotie ancestral beast had existed for a million years, accumulating terrifying power that had brought it close to the bottleneck of peak cultivation. This was why it so desperately desired the True Dragon Source. Only by devouring the power of the Dragon Source to further enhance its bloodline to a divine level could Taotie achieve the ultimate transformation into the Divine Completion Realm.

The human body could not withstand a complete Dragon Source, but Taotie's body had no such restriction. The bloodline enhancement from a single complete Dragon Source was enough to help it complete its final transformation on the path to becoming a divine beast. Once it achieved divine beast bloodline status, even Xu Yang might not be able to stop Taotie's miraculous domain.

Within the ancient battlefield, an endless supply of spiritual energy began to surge wildly, and the bloodline essences that had been sealed away by time were reactivated.

The formidable Primordial-level pressure, combined with the sweeping fluctuations of Taotie's domain, caused countless skeletons within the temple to constantly disintegrate. The essences of the fallen experts from the Qingtian Dao Sect and the Ghost Shadow Asura lineage, who had perished over six millennia ago, all drifted in the void, awaiting their fate of being consumed by Taotie.

Finally, this tremor reached its peak. Xu Yang disregarded the chance to counterattack and immediately moved in front of the Empress, shielding her with his sturdy chest. Everything around them was crushed and shattered, yet the small space protected by Xu Yang remained the only sanctuary the Empress wished for.

“Focus your mental energy, gather your strength, and be ready to counterattack at any moment! Remember, Taotie's only weakness across its entire body is its eyes! This lineage of Primordial spiritual species possesses incredibly powerful physical talent, but mental strength is their sole vulnerability. If you perfectly unleash your strongest illusion, I have a ninety percent chance of breaking through its domain and completing the rescue. But there will only be one chance!”

“Understood!”

The Empress, sheltering against Xu Yang's chest, completed their final exchange. As the waves of rampant aura swept past, Xu Yang and she remained unmoving.

As for Mu Qingtian, who was meditating beside them, he remained in a state of spiritual self-recovery. Protected by the power of a complete Dragon Source, not even Taotie's aura could disturb him.

“You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit! Today, I shall swallow all of you whole to pave my path to divinity!”

Finally, its massive maw opened, and all the spiritual essence that had been forcefully shattered and activated began to surge madly into the enormous beast mouth in a swirling vortex. With each absorbed spiritual essence, Taotie's physical body expanded slightly.

In the blink of an eye, Taotie, originally over three meters in circumference, had expanded to more than double its size!

“Oh my gods, is this the powerful talent of a Primordial ancestral beast bloodline? I can feel it; the more it eats, the more distinctly its own attributes grow! Its combat power now is probably even stronger than before, surely it has reached its peak!”

The little Dragon Python poked its head out, looking at the scene with immense terror. Although a Dragon Python's bloodline, when fully awakened to its ancestral roots, could transform it into a true dragon divine beast, it was still in its infancy. Its foundation and strength were worlds apart from the mature Primordial ancestral beast before them.

If one were to look down from Taotie's perspective at this moment, all buildings and traces within several kilometers of the Dragon Slaying Ancient Battlefield had vanished. Only Xu Yang, in his white robes, shielding the Empress, and Mu Qingtian, meditating not far away, remained as the sole flecks of color on this vast, ocean-like expanse.

“Hahahaha! Taotie, did you truly believe I would let you succeed so easily?”

Suddenly, a voice that made everyone tremble descended once more.

Xu Yang and the others looked up to see that Tuoba Hong had, unbeknownst to them, already entered the battlefield area. At this moment, his appearance was extremely sinister, his entire body enveloped in chilling green light. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he looked like an even more malevolent demonic Ghost Shadow Asura. No one knew what kind of cultivation technique this guy had unleashed.

The only certainty was that the current Tuoba Hong's overall combat power was approaching the peak of Divine Infant Great Completion, and he was in his prime fighting state. This was truly terrifying!

In fact, Xu Yang was also nearing the end of his tether, with less than thirty percent of his stamina remaining.

First, he had tangled with Tuoba Hong and his group for half a day, then he had fought a fierce battle against Mu Qingtian and the peak-state, enhanced Ghost Shadow Asura. Immediately after, he had directly confronted Taotie's immense pressure. Now, with Tuoba Hong reappearing in his evolved form, even a being like Xu Yang could not endlessly sustain peak confrontations. What kept him from falling was solely the grave responsibility of protecting the Empress and rescuing his disciples.

For Xu Yang, as long as he could complete the rescue and escape the danger successfully, even if he couldn't obtain the Dragon Source within Mu Qingtian, it wouldn't matter.