"Such a massive... coffin of flesh and blood..."
The Beastkeeping Commissioner let out a hair-raising laugh, a sound like a hissing viper that sent a chill down the spine. "If I can just pry this shell open, the feast of flesh and blood inside will be more than enough for me to reforge my Golden Body..."
In the next instant, the three Foundation Establishment Divine Spirits moved as one, forming a pincer attack with perfect, unspoken coordination.
The Black Iron Mace. The Corrosive Dragon Breath. The Bone Whip.
Three auras of apocalyptic power locked onto the Lingma Mountain God under Chu Bai’s control.
’This is bad.’
Chu Bai’s heart sank.
The Divine Body did indeed possess the terrifying might to move mountains and fill seas, and its tangible aura of power was no illusion.
However, only after truly taking control of this behemoth did Chu Bai realize its fatal flaw—the body was appallingly clumsy.
It was like a gigantic, rust-covered mech; every command was plagued by a massive delay.
Before he could even fully adjust to the ponderous, mountain-like shift in perspective, the Night Patrol God, renowned for its slaughter, made its move.
As a Divine Spirit holding the station of a Military Officer, tasked with enforcing nighttime curfews and purges, it wasted no time on flashy opening moves.
It stomped hard on the empty air with a foot forged from black iron. The air cracked with a sonic BOOM, and its entire body shot upward like an ignited black meteorite, trailing a screaming plume of Evil Qi.
Fast! Unbelievably fast!
The pitch-black Iron Mace, wreathed in the wails of countless tormented souls, left a heart-stopping black afterimage in the air.
It didn’t attack the torso. Instead, with calculated, veteran cruelty, it brought the mace crashing down on the Lingma Mountain God’s right knee—a knee that had just been raised and had not yet found its footing.
’Block it!!’
Inside the Underground Palace, Chu Bai’s eyes flew wide open. His Divine Thought surged like a tide as he desperately tried to mobilize the vast ocean of Earth Element Spiritual Power in the Divine Body’s right leg.
In his mind, all he needed to do was release this Spiritual Power to instantly form a protective shield at the knee, just as he always did when casting Magic Techniques.
Reality, however, dealt him a heavy blow.
The intricate Divine Light Shield he envisioned never materialized.
The immense Spiritual Power, under Chu Bai’s direction, merely pooled sluggishly beneath the rock-like skin, a stagnant pool that refused to construct any Defense Technique according to his will.
It was, after all, a borrowed shell, completely different from his own flesh and blood. Those refined "Skills" simply couldn’t be circulated or invoked within this massive Divine Body!
This was the fundamental difference between "Skill" and "Power," an insurmountable chasm.
BOOM—!!!
An earth-shattering BOOM, as if two great mountains had collided on a plain, sent ripples through the very fabric of space for miles around.
The Black Iron Mace, with no flourish whatsoever, landed a solid blow on the side of the Mountain God’s knee.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still.
Then, a visible white shockwave erupted madly outwards from the point of impact. The ruins on the ground were instantly pulverized by the blast, sending a cloud of dust and debris soaring thousands of feet into the air.
CRACK!
The crisp, loud crack traveled directly through the Divine Body’s rock-and-bone structure into the Underground Palace, ringing with absolute clarity in the ears of every candidate and shattering the hope that had just begun to bloom.
The Mountain God’s Dark Gold knee—supposedly indestructible, forged from Golden Essence and rock—had cracked open under the mace’s blow, revealing a terrifying fissure several yards deep!
Fragments of stone flew out, raining down like a torrential storm.
Its support lost, the thousand-foot-tall body was sent staggering by a blow from an opponent of vastly different size, and with a muffled boom, it crashed down onto one knee!
The earth quaked violently. Inside the Underground Palace, everyone was thrown off balance, and many of the Cultivators with weaker Cultivation were shaken so hard that blood trickled from their mouths and noses.
And this was only the beginning of the nightmare.
On the altar, Chu Bai felt a terrifying recoil surge back up through the Array, slamming violently into his chest.
"Pfft!"
He spat a mouthful of blood across the White Jade Throne. With no time to wipe it away, he slammed his hands onto the trembling Array Core, his Divine Thought frantically flooding the Mountain God’s Spiritual Power circuits in an attempt to reconstruct the defense at the shattered knee.
’Move... damn it, move! I have to find a way to construct a usable Magic Technique... quickly...’
But the Divine Body gave no response.
It was like a completely necrotic corpse; aside from obeying the most primitive commands like lifting a hand or taking a step, it ignored any complex constructions of Spiritual Power. The vast Spiritual Power rampaged within it but could never coalesce into a proper form.
"Lord Envoy! It’s useless! Stop trying to cast a technique! Just use the raw Spiritual Power to fight back!!"
At the edge of the altar, the Clay Soil Land God watched the giant knee shatter on the light screen. He collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down his aged face, his voice shrill with utter despair as he wailed:
"This is a Divine Body! Not a Magical Treasure! And it’s certainly not your own flesh and blood!"
"The reason Divine Spirits can command heaven and earth and manipulate the rules isn’t the amount of their Spiritual Power, it’s [Authority]! It’s the [Decrees] bestowed by the Celestial Dao!"
The Land God desperately slapped the ground, pointing at the empty void above. "The Commanding Officer is dead, and the Mountain God’s Great Seal has long since shattered and dispersed. This body now only contains the power of an empty shell, without the rules to command that power!"
"You are like a three-year-old child who has never learned Swordsmanship, holding a Supreme Divine Sword! Besides wildly swinging it around or using the flat of the blade to block, there’s nothing you can do!"
The Land God’s words were like a bucket of ice water, brutally extinguishing the last embers of hope in Chu Bai’s heart. They also sent every Cultivator in the Underground Palace who heard them plunging into an abyss of despair.

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