Chapter Ninety-Four: Just in Time

The Golden Phoenix struck in silence, catching the Heavenly Killer Star completely off guard. By the moment she sensed the danger at her back, the Golden Phoenix was already less than half a meter from her.

Realizing there was no escaping it, the Heavenly Killer Star simply abandoned the thunderbolt she had been hurling at the Taiji Diagram and met the Phoenix’s charge with her own chest.

This brazen act startled Uncle Ma badly. He had never imagined the Heavenly Killer Star could be so arrogant as to try a head-on clash of brute force. One had to remember that in days past, the Golden Phoenix, Northern Ma’s treasured relic, had been feared even by the gods themselves.

A shrill cry rang out as the Golden Phoenix plunged into the Heavenly Killer Star’s body. She let out a piercing scream and was driven thirty meters backward through the air before she finally steadied herself, a trace of dark purple blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

When Uncle Ma and Uncle Mao saw this, their mouths dropped open in shock. They had never expected that the once-renowned God-Slaying Art of Northern Ma would only manage to injure the Heavenly Killer Star woman internally, without succeeding in killing her.

“Hahahaha, hahahahaha! So the spells of the Southern Mao and Northern Ma have fallen to this level? How regrettable for your Taoist Ancestors. Children, you are all going to die!” the Heavenly Killer Star laughed.

As she spoke, her hands formed a series of seals. Her long hair whipped about behind her like a demon’s mane, and from her slender hands condensed a colossal dark-purple palm of energy, which she sent crashing toward Uncle Mao’s Taiji Diagram below.

Liu Chuanmin, Wang Fugui, and the others in the tent were drenched in cold sweat as they watched. In their entire lives, they had never witnessed anything like this. Before today, who among them had ever seen someone fly, let alone wield mystical power?

Watching that dark-purple giant palm descend slowly from the sky, everyone below clenched up in dread, terrified that Uncle Mao’s Taiji Diagram would be unable to withstand such a monstrous blow.

And indeed, Uncle Mao was staring at the giant hand descending from the heavens, larger than his own Taiji Diagram, on the verge of tears. In desperation he shouted to the sky, “Damn it, I only used a little Taiji Diagram. Do you really need to bring out such tremendous power for this?”

At last, the giant palm and the Taiji Diagram collided. After several minutes of deadlock, the Taiji Diagram began to crack with a series of sharp snapping sounds.

Then came a thunderous impact.

The Taiji Diagram was smashed to pieces by the fiendish female Heavenly Killer Star’s palm. The violent shockwave hurled Uncle Mao and Uncle Ma dozens of meters away, and both were sent crashing into pillars before it stopped. Had that giant palm landed squarely upon them, the two of them would almost certainly have died, perhaps even flattened into meat paste.

Uncle Mao and Uncle Ma both clutched their chests and spat out mouthfuls of blood. Then they lowered their heads, utterly drained and unable to summon even a shred of strength. This was the price of invoking a Taoist treasure: all their vitality had been burned away. If they tried to use it again, they would likely lose their lives.

“Heaven has never cared about the deeds of us fiends. Your luck is only temporary. Now you can die in peace. No one can save you anymore!” said the Heavenly Killer Star.

With that, she once again unleashed her divine power, and another palm, much smaller than the first, came sweeping down toward Uncle Mao and Uncle Ma.

Tee and Cat had no hope of resisting such power. Charging in would be nothing more than suicide. So after Uncle Mao unleashed the Taiji Diagram, the two bats had long since hidden far away, hanging upside down in a small grove a mile off, watching the fluctuations from a distance.

At that moment, on the road southeast of Z City, a taxi was hurtling toward the place where Uncle Mao and the others were. The man behind the wheel was none other than the same fellow who had handed me his business card that day.

Since it was already past seven in the evening, the checkpoints along the road were empty, and the way was completely open.

From far away, we could already see a dark palm slowly descending from the sky.

The burly driver got excited and said to me, “Hey, brother, look at that. Isn’t that cloud shaped like a hand?”

I said nothing, only urged him to drive faster, telling him that no matter what he saw up ahead, he had to keep his mind steady and not be too shocked.

The driver seemed not to understand me. He just stepped on it again, adding another twenty horsepower, and the car was nearly flying now, moving at an unbelievable speed.

“Brother, we’re there!” the driver shouted.

As soon as he pulled over, I left a stack of hundred-yuan bills, then quickly said, “Thanks, brother. I left the money in the car. I’m taking off first.”

With that, I opened the door, spread my wings, and leapt into the sky, speeding toward the destination at light speed.

I do not know what expression the driver had at that moment. All I know is that he did not even have time to check whether I had paid him. He just froze there, staring at my departing figure, and screamed, “A ghost!”

Then he drove his taxi back at full speed, as if fleeing.

Beneath the giant palm, two middle-aged men covered in blood stared helplessly as the hand in the sky came down toward them, accompanied by the Heavenly Killer Star woman’s eerie, sinister laughter in the night air.

At that moment, beneath the world shrouded by the giant hand, the two of them exchanged their final words.

“Old Ma, I never thought our lives would end like this,” Uncle Mao said with a bitter laugh, then turned to look at Old Ma.

“Yes,” Old Mao replied with a wry smile. “But you’ve got it worse than I do. The fated one of your Southern Mao has not even been found yet, and you’re already going to the underworld.”

After saying this, Old Ma also gave a bitter smile and looked at Old Mao. Then the two of them exchanged a helpless glance, closed their eyes, and felt the giant hand, only five meters away, descend toward the crowns of their heads.

Yet none of them could have imagined that I would arrive at that very instant. With both hands, I braced myself beneath the energy palm with all my strength.

At this moment, the giant hand was still about one meter from Uncle Mao and the others, and the fierce gusts from it stung the skin of their faces.

“Hey, you old geezers, why aren’t you moving? Do you want me to invite you to stand here and enjoy the wind?” I said, and then I poured my power into both arms and hurled the Heavenly Killer Star’s energy palm far away.

When Uncle Mao and Uncle Ma saw me arrive, they were so excited they could not speak. After struggling for a long while, they finally managed to say, “Xiaodong, that thing up there is a fiend. Its strength must not be underestimated. Be careful.”

After saying that, the two of them supported one another and staggered back toward the tent.

The massive palm of energy was flung into a grove of trees. With a deafening boom, a whole stretch of trees thick with green leaves was instantly reduced to dust, as though no plants had ever grown there at all.

“Hm, the demon corpse clan is joining the fun too. What day is this, exactly? On the very day I break free from my seal, I even run into the legendary Demon Corpse King, and a rare Golden Corpse King at that. Is this fate, or a calamity?” the Heavenly Killer Star’s voice rang out like brass bells across the deserted construction site.

With one graceful flash, I rose instantly into the night sky a hundred meters high and confronted the Heavenly Killer Star head-on.

My silver hair swayed in the wind, my crimson eyes gleamed with an otherworldly light, and golden talismans circled my body. It was clear from this display that I was about to fight this fiendish Heavenly Killer Star woman.

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