As the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief’s voice rang out, Meng Hao’s eyes flashed, and an ineffable sense of deadly crisis abruptly rose up inside of him.

Meng Hao did not retrieve the Ninth Mountain, but rather, left it there towering above the land, emanating incredible pressure.

The Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief pointed up at the sky and down toward the ground. A bolt of blue lightning suddenly appeared, piercing Heaven and Earth….

Some distance away from the battlefield was an area that had previously been completely cloaked, but was now suddenly visible. It was as if a curtain had been pulled back to reveal… an enormous cage!

Inside the cage was a monkey, its body completely covered with magical symbols, and its eyes as red as blood. It seemed to be filled with a madness that could consume the Heavens.

As soon as Meng Hao caught sight of the cage and the monkey, his mind reeled. Even he… had been completely unable to detect the existence of the cage.

That indicated that the intense power of the cage exceeded Meng Hao’s cultivation base by a huge amount!

Right now, even a false Immortal would be incapable of completely evading Meng Hao’s detection. Thus, it indicated that the cage… was comparable to a true Immortal!

Furthermore, the Imperial Bloodline Clan would never use anything less powerful as their ancestral statuary!

It was a precious treasure formed from countless years of collected qi reserves.

The cage slowly rose up into the air, surrounded by lightning which stretched from the ground all the way up into the sky. The Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief immediately dropped to his knees in wors.h.i.+p, raised his hands into the air, and began to chant a bizarre spell.

The air suddenly filled with the music of a great Dao. It sounded like the chanting of countless voices, droning dully in a way that made it impossible to hear clearly. However, the surrounding cultivators who did hear it were shaken mentally. The peak Dao Seeking Patriarchs up in midair looked on with shock.

Meng Hao took a deep breath. The sense of deadly crisis had reached a pinnacle inside of him. He lifted the Lightning Cauldron up, and lightning spread out to cover his entire body. He suddenly switched places with a cultivator close to the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief. He flew up into the air, performing an incantation gesture that caused the Blood Demon Grand Magic to appear as he sped toward the clan chief.

He could not allow the man to continue to perform his magic; the strange, ancient cage was something that filled Meng Hao’s heart with fear.

BOOM!

His divine ability slammed into the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief, who didn’t do the slightest thing to evade. He knelt there in wors.h.i.+p just as before, the spell’s words pouring from his mouth. As Meng Hao’s divine ability reached him, it was blocked by some invisible power, and then… dissipated.

Meng Hao’s face fell.

It was at this point that, inside the cage, the monkey’s eyes suddenly flickered. The countless magical symbols on its body began to squirm and wriggle, and then flew into motion across the surface of its body. Golden light emanated off of the monkey, along with an aura like that of an Immortal Divinity.

Meng Hao’s scalp went numb, and his sense of deadly crisis rose even higher. Seeing that he couldn’t attack the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief, he began to back up, preparing to leave this area of the battlefield and the terrifying cage.

However, even in the moment that he began to back up…

The Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief looked up, and his expression was one of madness. “Ancestral statuary,” he cried out in a loud voice, “please slaughter this person!”

Lightning descended to dance around the cage, making it like a sun of lightning in midair.

The magical symbols on the monkey’s body began to move even faster than before. Then, all of the magical symbols on its right arm suddenly vanished, scattering to other parts of its body.

The magical symbols were like seals that kept it under constant suppression. Now… the right arm had been unsealed.

Next, one section of the cage in front of the monkey rippled and twisted into an opening!

A ferocious gleam appeared in the monkey’s eyes, and it suddenly roared: “The world of Immortals is the root of all evil! Immortals… must be suppressed!”

As its voice echoed out, it stretched out its right hand, pa.s.sing through the gap to appear outside the cage as it reached toward Meng Hao.

Meng Hao’s scalp was numb. The Lightning Cauldron crackled, and he vanished, reappearing some distance off, where he immediately transformed into a shooting star that sped away.

In the instant that he took to flight, however, the arm stretching out of the cage began to expand. In the blink of an eye it was three hundred meters long. Another blink, and it was three thousand. Then thirty thousand!

An enormous hand shot after Meng Hao. It was huge, filling up the sky, blocking the light, exceeding mountains and rivers as it closed in on Meng Hao.

It was impossible to tell exactly what type of divine ability was involved. Meng Hao was astonished, as were the peak Dao Seeking experts.

Meng Hao spat out a mouthful of blood as he pushed himself forward at indescribable speed. However, the enormous hand seemed to have no limits. It was like a continent unto itself as it shot after him. It spread out to completely encompa.s.s him. Up ahead of him, what looked like five gigantic mountain peaks were descending from up above!

Meng Hao’s eyes went wide from astonishment regarding this ancestral statuary. However, a cold gleam then appeared in his eyes, and the image of a roc appeared on his forehead. He burst forward as the image of a fish appeared in the air around him, its flapping tail shattering the air around him as he propelled himself forward. [1. Don’t forget that rocs, or “kunpeng,” start out their existence as a fish.] The war chariot appeared, and he circulated the qi of Immortal Shows the Way. Rumbling filled the battlefield as he shot forward.

Utilizing the power of the war chariot, he was able to pa.s.s through one of the gaps between the five descending mountains.

Behind him on the battlefield, the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief spat up a mouthful of blood. Immediately, the magical symbols reappeared on the arm of the monkey in the cage. The chief was enraged; how could he ever have imagined that the ancestral statuary would be incapable of capturing Meng Hao?

“Dammit, this is unbelievable!” The Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief bit the tip of his tongue and spat some more blood out. Then he took out a skull fragment, which he pushed down onto his forehead. His body began to tremble, and rumbling sounds could be heard. A boundless radiance shone out from him, and countless voices spoke in unison.

“Ancestral statuary, please seal this person!”

As the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief’s roar echoed out, the monkey’s eyes flickered. No longer did they glow with red light; instead, they began to darken, as if the flame of its life force were burning out. It was at this point that the monkey transformed into a stone statue.

When that happened, the cage began to s.h.i.+ne with brilliant light, simultaneously increasing in size. Then, it abruptly vanished.

Meanwhile, Meng Hao was speeding off into the distance, utilizing all the possible power of the war chariot. In the blink of an eye, he was far, far away. He turned to look behind him, and when he could see no enormous hand, he sighed with relief. Then, killing intent flickered in his eyes, and he was about to return to the battlefield, when suddenly, his mind reeled with shock.

Everything around him was flat and drab. The whole world looked peaceful and calm. In fact, there seemed to be no life present at all.

He looked up, and could see a mountain range off in the distance.

“Considering the power of the war chariot, and how hard I pushed it just now, I should be able to see the Milky Way Sea from here….” His mind spun, and a bad feeling welled up in his heart. Eyes flas.h.i.+ng, he sped forward toward the mountain range he had just seen. Then, his face fell.

Those… were no mountains! Instead, they were enormous pillars!

Meng Hao’s scalp tingled. He turned again and, shockingly, found himself looking up at a gargantuan statue.

It was a statue of a monkey, and the expression on its face was one of derision.

A thunderous roar filled Meng Hao’s mind. If by this point he didn’t understand what had happened, then he wouldn’t be Meng Hao.

“I’m inside that cage!” he thought with disbelief. He had just employed the top speed he could muster, and had clearly outrun the monkey’s palm. Panting, he again sped off into the distance. It only took a bit of flying around for him to determine that he was definitely not in the lands of the Southern Domain, but rather, a square-shaped world.

In each of the four directions, he ran into pillars. In the center of all of them was the gigantic stone monkey. Finally, Meng Hao’s face fell.

It was at this point that chanting sounds began to pulse toward him from all directions. The voices seem to contain some unspeakable power. As they floated about, the world began to tremble. What happened next was clearly visible to Meng Hao. The entire world… began to shrink!

At the same time, a shocking pressure weighed down.

The more the world shrank, the more intense the pressure became. It was a suppressing force that made Meng Hao tremble; it felt as if a mountain were crus.h.i.+ng down onto him.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, Pill Demon, Patriarch Song, and the others hovered above the battlefield, shaken. Down below, the cultivators of the Southern Domain looked hopeless.

Everyone could see that the cage up in midair, which was covered by countless lightning bolts, now contained a figure inside that was Meng Hao!

However, he seemed to have been shrunk down to a tiny size, and was being suppressed by some power within the cage.

A ruthless gleam appeared in the eyes of the Imperial Bloodline Clan Chief. He put away the skull fragment, then spit out a mouthful of blood. His body aged visibly; manipulating the ancestral statuary in the way he just had came with a steep price.

“This campaign has been fraught with setbacks. However, Meng Hao has finally been suppressed. At long last, the war of the Southern Domain shall end. The Northern Reaches will now control this territory!

“The Immortal destiny will definitely appear within a Northern Reaches cultivator!” He lifted his head up and laughed. The heavy price he had paid was worth it considering that the result was that Meng Hao was suppressed.

Killing intent flickered in his eyes as he shot up into the air, heading directly toward the battle with Patriarch Song and Pill Demon. After killing them, the battle would be completely in hand.

Down below, the Southern Domain cultivators were in a state of hopelessness, whereas the Northern Reaches cultivators were enlivened. Roaring, the Northern Reaches cultivators charged in attack; in the blink of an eye, the Southern Domain suffered heavy casualties, and were pushed back. The only thing they could do now was fall back behind the protection of the spell formations.

The spell formations were strong, but not strong enough that they could block an entire army of hundreds of thousands of maddened cultivators. The enormous golden door was once again hoisted up by tens of thousands of cultivators. The fourth spell formation was destroyed, then the third. Although some Northern Reaches cultivators died in the process, the second spell formation was also broken.

The Ninth Mountain still hadn’t faded away. It remained there, emitting rumbling sounds, as if someone was inside trying to break out!

The Southern Domain was in a huge crisis!

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This chapter was sponsored by Michael Gibson, Peter Manolov, Nightrunners, and Bjorn Jeune