Chapter 897: An Ancient Curse

Huo Wu had fled in panic, but Ao Buzun, Lord Xiansheng, and the others caught up with him and pestered him in the air, making it difficult for him to move. He was surrounded by figures, and he could only resist the enemy’s attack painstakingly while retreating to the camp one step at a time.

Suddenly, a long roar came from a corner as Xiang Yu and Huhai charged out on their respective mounts. Xiang Yu rode his dark horse and carried a black steel pike while Huhai was riding a black lion, holding a strange-looking, seven feet long mace in each of his hands. The two of them had blocked Huo Wu’s path of retreat to the camp.

Xiang Yu cried out loudly, “Hey you, the dog with his tail between his legs, come over here and let me stab you eight hundred times! If you live after that, I’ll let you go today!”

Huhai whistled peculiarly, then slammed his maces together like a madman and made them thunder. “Let me beat you three thousand times! If you live after that, I’ll let you go today! Haha, haha!” His eyes glowed with blood as the rivers and lakes within a thousand miles began to boil amidst his wild laughter while the mountains and hills that had never moved wobbled like water.

In the thick of things, Huo Wu glanced back at both men, and he almost fell into convulsions. Two more foes of Primordial level! Although their weapons were of poorer quality, their cultivation bases were not. In the realm of Primordials, the suppression of the higher-tier experts over the lower-tiers was not as distinct as in the realm of Gold Immortals and Heaven Immortals. If not careful, even a first-tier Primordial expert could suffer at the hands of a ninth-tier junior. Even Huo Wu himself, an eighth-tier Primordial Immortal, was being beaten up by a group of lower-tier demons. How could he have the courage to take on these two new foes?

Even though he had looked over his shoulder for only a brief moment, Yuan Qing had taken the opportunity and smashed him eighty-eight time on his right calf. Huo Wu hissed and howled miserably. There were so many cracks in his calf bone that it was almost smashed to pieces. He hurriedly injected a stream of his natal energy essence into the leg and forcibly healed the broken bone. But, that made him lose a portion of his already heavily exhausted energy essence.

While roaring furiously, Huo Wu waved his hands, causing numerous fire clouds and fire-thunders to pour out in all directions. Masses of purple lightning about the size of human heads could be faintly seen hiding among the fire clouds. They were called the ‘Nine Rotations Fire Thunders’, which were a kind of defensive weapons Huo Wu had begged a Grandmaster of artifact refinement in Heaven to craft for him, using the essence of thirty-nine different heavenly fires he had gathered from the sky.

As they were crafted by a Primordial Immortal, each of these thunders could explode with the power as strong as the attack unleashed by a ninth-tier Primordial Immortal with all his might. And right now, Huo Wu had thrown out thirty-six of them to save his life. Each one had taken him tens of thousands of years to collect the essence of heavenly fire and cost him a lot of resources to beg someone to craft. After throwing them out, he felt his heart bleed. Today’s battle had cost him too much.

But, as soon as he threw the fire-thunders out, Ao Buzun and Lord Xiansheng burst into laughter. At the same time, both of them transformed back to their true forms of the dragons and opened their mouths wide to pour out boundless waves of water. Blocks of dark blue icebergs collided with each other in the dark, stinking water, sending a chill that scattered Huo Wu’s clouds of fire. It was the principle of heaven and earth that water suppressed fire. So, even though Huo Wu was an expert of fire, he was completely restrained by both dragons.

Thirty-six Nine Rotations Fire Thunders drifted in front of the crowd and were about to explode when Lord Xiansheng stabbed them with Illusion-breaking Halberd. Purple streaks of light enveloped them, and they were suddenly gone, only to reappear across Huo Wu’s body in the next instant. Immediately after that, thirty-six explosions erupted from the stunned young general’s body.

Together, Ao Buzun and Lord Xiansheng each sprayed out a great plume of cold air, turning it into a cold light shield one hundred miles in diameter and wrapping Huo Wu firmly inside. Fearing that the explosion would cause too much damage to Pangu Continent, Yuan Qing, Gold Horn, and others hurriedly cast spells, adding plenty of runes to the shield.

Whenever those immortals sent the outer heavenly realms back to Pangu Continent, they were bestowed with a great deal of virtues. Based on that, it was conceivable that if too much damage was done to the continent as a result of their doings, they would certainly be entangled in boundless negative karma. Everyone, including Ao Buzun, had tasted the benefits of virtues, and they could not afford to let Huo Wu wreak havoc on Pangu Continent and eventually bring them misfortune.

Even Xiang Yu and Huhai rushed to help. Xiang Yu spilled a sea of blood and covered the shield while Huhai launched a loud cry and made the water in hundreds of nearby rivers rise into the air and weaved it into a web of water, blanketing it over the shield.

Muffled explosions kept coming out of the shield as it expanded and then shrunk back to its original size, over and over again. Everyone trembled and swayed like fallen leaves in a storm, their souls shivering with the terrible force of explosions; the shield was nearly blown to pieces several times.

The force of the explosion was equal to thirty-six Primordial Immortals attacking with all their might at the same time. Even though Ao Buzun and others had strong cultivation bases, it was too much for them. With the shield about to crumble, Wu Qi finally made the move. He brought the light screen that protected the fleet down, merging it with the shield Ao Buzun and others were struggling to support. With his help, the shield finally stabilized.

In a tent in the middle of Huo Wu’s camp, several men in black cloaks, their faces covered, watched the whole process of Huo Wu being beaten through a mirror. They shook their heads lightly and mumbled something in a low, vague voice. When Huo Wu’s fire-thunders were returned to him by Lord Xiansheng, they gave a few jeers and quickly went about their business.

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A small sacrificial table, about three feet wide, was placed in the middle of the tent, on which stood a black devil carved out of an unknown wood. Three blood-colored incense sticks were lit and floating in front of the statue. Wisps of smoke, faint but as red as blood, drifted out slowly, surrounding the hideous devil and making it look like it was floating in a sea of blood. Meanwhile, its eyes shone with a fierce and violent green light.

A little figure carved out of ordinary cork wood was placed before the statue. The few men in black knelt down in the tent and kowtowed a few times to the devil. Then, they stretched out their left hands together, which were black and looked like bird’s claws, and cut themselves on the wrists with the knives in their right hand. Thick, black blood trickled slowly down from the cuts into a large black bowl in front of them, which looked as if it was made of leather.

When the bowl was half-filled with blood, the three-inches-tall cork figure jumped up and plunged into it. Slowly, the devil statue opened its mouth, and a plume of blood-colored smoke gushed out of it, shooting like an arrow into the bowl. The dark blood began to swirl rapidly, forming a small whirlpool that trapped the cork figure in the middle.

After just stepping in to help Ao Buzun and others imprison Huo Wu, Wu Qi’s body swayed briefly, and he smelled a faint whiff of blood that seemed to come from nowhere. It was mixed with the earthy smell of various poisonous insects, making him feel greasy and uncomfortable. He frowned and waved his hand. A breeze swirled around him for a while, but there was also this strange smell of blood in it.

The men in the tent moved quickly. They jumped to their feet and began dancing around the sacrificial table and the leather bowl on the floor. Their movements were eerie, like a few monkeys who had just evolved but not got used to their new forms. With wrists and ankles bent, they danced and jumped in the tent, muttering incantations that no one could understand.

One of the leaders suddenly took out a sword case about the size of a palm and threw it into the air. The case was made of thin human skin, measuring several inches long and wide, and no more than the thickness of leek leaves. Inside, it contained a row of nine small flying swords.

As the incantation rang out, nine swords the size of matchsticks soared into the air. Seven of them shot very fine black beams of light at the cork figure’s seven orifices. Amidst a deep humming noise, the figure fell to its knees. The remaining two swords circled the figure three times, and then one pierced through the top of its head while the other went straight through its groin into its abdomen.

Wu Qi was telling Ao Buzun to release Huo Wu carefully and make sure he was properly killed when everything suddenly turned dark before his eyes. He swayed and nearly fell to his knees on the deck. He grunted, his hands grabbing around like a drowning man, but he caught nothing.

Before he could figure out what had happened, he felt a sharp pain in the top of his head. A terrible chill plunged straight through his head into his body, freezing his mind and damaging his body. Standing near to him, Huang Liang and others saw a black line running straight down his brow toward his belly, while sensing a cold air run straight up from his lower abdomen to his forehead.

Suddenly, from inside Wu Qi’s stomach came the crisp clang of two swords clashing against each other. His body twitched and then fell back as black blood poured out of his pores, turning into ice debris on the deck.

At the sight of this, Huang Liang cried out with fright, “Come here quickly, my lady! My lord has been cursed by someone!”

Looking around, Huo Wu suddenly jumped up and pointed at Huo Wu’s small camp as he roared, “All Dong Hai warriors, attack with all your might!”

At his order, the decks on the bows of thousands of huge flying ships suddenly flipped open, revealing countless large weapons. While his voice was still lingering in the ears, thousands of giant bolts and lightning bolts shot out of the ships, blanketing the mountain range below.

Meanwhile, more than one hundred thousand Oracles flew into the sky. They chanted incantations, communicated with the gods and spirits of heaven and earth, and borrowed an enormous power to gather dark clouds and hurricanes. They then turned them into monstrous attacks of frost, snow, thunder, fire, and meteorites that swept toward the target.

Hundreds of towering mountains shattered and Huo Wu’s little camp was torn apart in a flash.

The few men in black in the tent were preparing to use the last step of the curse to cut off the cork figure’s head and wipe out Wu Qi’s life force when they suddenly heard Huang Liang’s roar. In the blink of an eye, everything around them turned int chaos. Heaven seemed to fall and ground shattered while all kinds of elemental attacks rained down like a fierce storm. They cried out in panic and hurriedly flew up to the sky so that they could flee. As a result, the devil statue was blown to pieces, the three incense sticks were broken off, the leather bowl was smashed, and the little cork figure was nowhere to be found.

Wu Qi, who looked lifeless a moment ago, suddenly opened his eyes. He took a deep breath to regain his strength, then rose to his feet with a gloomy face and flew in the direction of the camp.

“Wicked men, surrender your lives at once!”