Chapter Ninety-Three: A Stalemate

The gravel slid from the body of the giant warrior, and the moment he opened his eyes they were blazing with wrath. The three-zhang vajra staff in his hand swept straight toward Su Yuanbai nearby.

Bang.

Su Yuanbai met it with a bare fist. This time, however, the outcome was beyond his expectation: he was knocked flying by the staff, his knuckle bones aching.

The giant’s face wore a grin as one hand reached out at a distance.

Though Su Yuanbai had been hurled hundreds of miles away, for some reason he appeared within the giant’s golden palm. The palm clenched.

Even with his indestructible body, Su Yuanbai still felt as though sinews were being torn and bones broken.

"No good!"

Seeing this, Su Bufan’s red dragon scales rippled along his cheek. He spat out a blaze of fire, driving it straight toward the giant standing in the seawater.

The flame struck the giant’s body and only raised a wisp of pale gray smoke.

The body of a diamond warrior was not something Su Bufan’s dual-flame fire could damage; even Ao Ning’s dual-flame fire could not leave so much as a scratch on that giant body.

Still, the fire drew the giant’s attention. He turned his head, swept his vajra staff toward Su Bufan and Ao Ning, and at just that moment the loosened grip of his other hand let Su Yuanbai slip free.

Now the giant’s eyes grew even fiercer. His mouth twisted into a curse, and the vajra staff in his hand surged with golden radiance as Buddhist runes rolled and stirred.

Su Bufan tried to carry Ao Ning away from the staff’s reach, but in moments like this, the instant the thought rose, the three-zhang vajra staff was already upon them.

No matter how they fled, they could not escape its range.

Suddenly, the waters of the Vast Sea turned unbearably hot. The flowing sea, once colorless and formless, now became crimson.

The wound on Su Bufan’s shoulder, which had stubbornly refused to heal, was washed over by the red seawater and began to mend on its own.

Clang.

The water churned.

A spear shaft plated in golden dragon scales, appearing without warning, blocked the attack of the three-zhang vajra staff. Red light flashed at the spear tip, and Buddhist runes writhed within the staff.

For a moment, the two weapons were locked together in stalemate.

"Are you waiting to die?"

Ao Chi’s cold voice sounded by Su Bufan’s ear. Only when Su Bufan’s eyes adjusted to the dazzling radiance of the staff did he see a tall figure with a dragon tail and a human body standing before them, holding a golden spear of dragon scales.

"Second brother!"

Ao Ning cried out, her eyes bright with delight.

"I’ve told you that humans cannot be trusted. If you had spent even a little less thought on that human and a little more time cultivating, would you have ended up in such a state?" Ao Chi’s form suddenly swelled to ten zhang as well, and the golden-scaled spear in his hand lengthened to more than five zhang. With one thrust he knocked the vajra staff aside, then looked back at Ao Ning and said coldly.

"Second brother, it’s all because of this rope. It has some strange power that keeps me from using any strength at all," Ao Ning said, aggrieved.

Ao Chi lowered his gaze to the golden rope binding Ao Ning, and his scarlet eyes narrowed. His expression grew grave. Before he could ask anything, the vajra staff struck again.

Ao Chi raised his spear to meet it.

At the same time, lightning began flashing within the crimson sea, striking the ten-zhang giant not far away.

The giant’s face suddenly shifted into a smile again. Smiling, angry, and cursing expressions all seemed to appear at once upon his countenance. Above his head, a celebratory cloud appeared—several zhang high, eight-sided, hung with pearls and ornaments, guarding the crown of his head.

The lightning scattered throughout the sea could no longer affect the giant in the slightest. Holding the vajra staff, he struck with overwhelming weight and force.

"Neither bodhisattva nor diamond warrior—you’re only a fake diamond warrior."

Seeing this, Ao Chi actually laughed. His golden-scaled spear moved like countless golden dragons stirring the sea, and every scale he struck landed upon a single point of the vajra staff.

Ting.

A clear chime rang out.

A black dot, as small as a needlepoint, appeared on the vajra staff. Yet that tiny black point spread like a plague, rapidly crawling over the giant’s entire body.

The golden light dimmed, and the Buddhist runes flowing within it turned sluggish.

The celebratory cloud above the giant’s head dispersed, and all the red lightning flickering through the crimson sea struck down upon the supposedly invincible giant.

"So his guardian vajra has manifested. It seems that the array master from Mount Qingzhou is dead. What route should we take now?"

A deep voice suddenly sounded above the crimson water. Then the sea began to boil and churn, and a fire crow, its entire body blazing red, descended in flight from above the waves.

A Taoist in a pale blue robe stood upon the crow’s back. Looking at the ten-zhang giant before him, now dimmed and stripped of its Buddhist radiance by the red lightning, he rubbed his chest.

"Since we’ve already been exposed, let’s just ride back on this second prince of the Vast Sea Dragon Palace."

A delicate, effeminate man walked slowly up from the depths of the sea. His autumn-colored robe was cinched with a jade-green dragon-patterned belt, and the left side of his face was swollen high as he looked toward Ao Chi, whose body towered ten zhang tall.

"You’ve wounded the lives of my Vast Sea sea folk. Then leave your lives here!"

Ao Chi said coldly.

Just as the golden-scaled spear in his hand moved, the Taoist in the pale blue robe standing on the fire crow spoke softly:

"Go."

At once the crimson sea returned to normal, the red lightning within it vanished completely, and Ao Chi’s ten-zhang body was suddenly bound fast by the golden rope, unable to move.

"As expected, it’s the Dragon Binding Cord. Where did you get such a thing?" Ao Chi’s body shrank and swelled repeatedly, and the golden rope changed with him. No matter what art he possessed, he could not break free.

For he was a dragon, and the Dragon Binding Cord could bind all the dragons under heaven.

"You need not know too much about that. In the end, we will return all these things to their rightful owners."

The effeminate man had just started toward Ao Chi to pick up the golden-scaled spear in his hand when he suddenly stopped, looking at a figure floating in the sea.

Su Yuanbai.

The effeminate man was wary of him. If not for the excellent protective treasure on his body, that single punch would likely have left him dead beyond recovery.

"He’s still alive! The guardian vajra didn’t kill him?"

The Taoist in the pale blue robe also went pale. His protective heart mirror had been shattered to pieces by that punch, and he himself had nearly been unable to draw breath.

Thus, both men felt lingering fear at Su Yuanbai’s sudden appearance in the water.

"What exactly do you want?" the effeminate man asked slowly, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Su Yuanbai in the immortal crane red robe.

"The Pearl to Calm the Seas."

Su Yuanbai’s dark eyes fixed on the effeminate man, whose left cheek was swollen high, then lifted to glance at the Taoist in the pale blue robe standing on the fire crow.

"That item won’t do," the effeminate man said, placing his hands behind his back and looking at Su Yuanbai with narrowed eyes.

The quiet seawater flowed on.

The Taoist in the pale blue robe looked slightly grave. His left hand had already formed a protective spell, and his right hand held a defensive talisman. As for the long sword he might have used to attack, the Taoist had already put it away.

He sought not to fight, only to live.