Chapter 324 — The Poisoner and the Divine Physician
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
The dragon qilin's scales, too, turned to wood in an instant, becoming wooden shields that clattered to the ground one by one; the fat dragon was flabbergasted, its great belly pressed to the earth — originally the dragon scales covering that belly had kept it from sagging too badly, but now that the scales were gone, the loose flesh drooped down uncontrollably. "Hierarch.
. .
" The dragon qilin had utterly lost its head, and turned in panic to look at Shen Mu standing on its back.
Shen Mu had meant to drive his eight thousand swords forward in slaughter, but on seeing this he at once stayed his hand.
The Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl of True Heaven Palace was truly uncanny and unfathomable.
Though the dragon qilin's cultivation had not reached the Heaven-Human realm, its strength was not far from that realm, and its hide was thick and its flesh tough.
Back in the battle of Tianbo City, when the avatar of Demon King Dutian descended and fought a great battle with the Dragon King, a stray ripple of the attack had grazed the dragon qilin's rump and merely broken its scales; the dragon qilin's injuries had not been grave, which showed how strong the defense of those scales was. And the two white bats were stronger still, certainly at the peak of the Heaven-Human realm, and their hairs were not a thing they would use lightly. Yet who could have thought that their treasures, meeting the green light of the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl, would all turn to wood and all lose their control!
Had Shen Mu's eight thousand swords flown over, likely only the Worry-Free Sword would have escaped woodification; all his other flying swords would have become timber.
Xiong Xiyu gave a muffled groan; her dharma power was no match for Yu Bochuan and the others, she could not wrest the pearl from them, and the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl flew toward Yu Bochuan and his people.
Just then the earth suddenly shook violently, and countless root tendrils surged up from underground, dancing through the sky, and with a shua shua shua they knotted themselves into a great cocoon of dark wood, wrapping the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl about and dragging it down into the earth.
Xiong Xiyu and Yu Bochuan and the rest were caught off guard; neither side had time to reclaim the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl before the root-tendril monster had snatched it away! Yu Bochuan said in a stern voice, "The Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl is the treasure of my True Heaven Palace; the true soul of the azure dragon is sealed within it.
This old monster cannot swallow it down! " Suddenly the quaking beneath the ground grew fiercer, and everyone's footing turned unsteady; the earth beneath their feet shook without cease and was still swelling upward, as though some colossal thing below were burrowing up.
Hong long — mud and stone flew apart in all directions, and a mass of green welled up from underground, lifting them up, higher and higher.
The dragon qilin hastily leapt aside as the crown of a great tree, covering dozens of mu, surged out of the earth and rose up beside them.
The two white bats hurriedly flew up, then, remembering they were bare and shiny, hastily covered their privates with both hands and came tumbling down, plunging headlong into the dense foliage.
The two white bats were briefly startled: this great tree was still growing madly, its crown larger and larger, its trunk taller and taller, and before long they saw snowy white clouds drifting past the edges of the crown. The air grew cooler and cooler and the sunlight fiercer and fiercer, and the two white bats began to find it hard to breathe; they hastily flew up and dove down out of the tree crown. Only in flying did they realize how long the journey was; the crown of this tree was immense and thick, and though they were swift, it still took them a good while to fly out of it.