Chapter 941 The True Might of the Old Swindler
In the huge vortex now swirling overhead Mimameidre, Lu Ye caught sight of something green-bluish. Then he saw it. A set of azure doors that looked like if it opened, it could engulf all of Mimameidre whole slowly emerged from the thick spinning plumes of the vortex.
“Is that it?! The portal to the Battlefield of Chaos?!”
Li Mu could feel his heart throbbing with antic.i.p.ation.
“Get into this portal and I would get inside the Battlefield of Chaos?!”
He gave Silly Dog a nudge with his foot and signaled to keep up, he was going to rush for the portal.
And he would have, if not for a hand that suddenly held his shoulder.
A real hand.
A real severed hand without a forearm.
“The severed hand of the fox G.o.d?!” Li Mu looked around and spied Bi Yan standing not far away, flanked by six of her mutant champions. She furtively shook her head at him.
“This portal is just a one-way ticket,” her voice rang in his mind telepathically. “Go through it and you’ll forever be trapped in a Time-s.p.a.ce rift with no way back.”
Li Mu peered at his shoulder.
The severed hand leaped off his back and glided away, landing back on Bi Yan’s shoulder.
“O Almighty G.o.d! Hear your humble servant’s plea! May you reach down and grace our unworthy selves with your holy presence! Let your sacred radiance wash this corrupt and tainted earth anew!”
His face lit with exhilaration and zeal; the Caucasian channeled more of his powers into his golden staff.
The cross on the staff was working like some sort of key, for when the Caucasian waved the golden staff, the roiling gossamer strands that spiraled around the azure set of doors mirrored the staff’s motion. Ethereal sparkles danced around the portal then all of a sudden, what appeared to be the wings of a bird popped out of the vortex.
“Wings!?”
Li Mu, who had been following the development with interest, was surprised.
But the shock and amazement were rising. One wing. Then one pair. Then a third wing, followed by a fourth… until eight pairs of wings stretched out of the vortex. Wide, large, and yet white, the wings glowed with a pale milk-white luminescence.
Next, something round and large—a ball almost two meters in diameter—slowly emerged through the doors
Li Mu watched quietly.
In the meantime, the Caucasian’s frenzied chanting was only beginning its climb to a crescendo.
“O Almighty G.o.d! You have arrived!” The Caucasian howled with warm tears trickling down his cheeks.
s.h.i.+ning with such a blinding effulgence that even eclipsed the sun, the orb cast a brilliant sheen across everything in its presence, engulfing everything around it in a blanket of white.
Next, it broke open like an egg, revealing a humanoid figure wrapped in several large sets of wings. Slender of build with long arms and limbs, the golden-maned figure exuberated a commanding presence that only just accentuated his das.h.i.+ng and handsome looks. At his back were ten sets of wings with wingspans of almost thirty meters in full length.
No one would fail to recognize what he was.
“An angel?!”
Li Mu gasped, articulating the same astonishment that everyone around him was feeling.
“The so-called ‘Almighty G.o.d’ that this moronic Caucasian had summoned from inside the Battlefield of Chaos is none other than a twenty-winged archangel?!
“So what most people commonly believe as the mere contrivances of Western esotericism are actually real beings and they come from the Battlefield of Chaos?!”
Li Mu really was surprised.
“Hahahahah!”
The skies tremored with the boisterous laughter of the archangel.
“At longeth lasteth, I’ve finally setteth foot on the origin world of the legends! alloweth this lodging beest the site where Eden returns and may the raceth of angels regain its former glories and ruleth supreme once more!”
A voice speaking in an ancient tongue reverberated through the skies.
Li Mu could recognize it
He watched grimly.
The presence of this twenty-winged archangel was terrible enough to remind Li Mu of Lazulum. The air he emanated was enough to cause even the air to distort and roil.
“What a monster…”
There was no way he would be able to defeat it alone.
Li Mu reckoned as he tried to think of ways to deal with this new enemy.
But what about Bi Yan? No, unless she had grown stronger and more powerful.
“I heareth the calleth of mine own subject.”
The archangel peered with a gaze that looked like it could emit a pair of golden beams, staring at the Caucasian man kneeling on the ground with the golden staff in front of him. With a loud and imposing voice, he boomed, “Are yond thee?”
The Caucasian excitedly bobbed his head, showing how he too, could understand that ancient tongue.
“Very well. From this day hence, thy nameth shall wend in history as the first subject of mineth, I am Archangel Colombo and thee hast mine own blessing.” A ray of light descended from the sky at his call and shone down on the Caucasian.
The Caucasian shuddered as he felt it—a strange and uncontrollable power growing like a beast inside him. He scrambled to his feet and flung his arms wide, roaring very loudly, “ARRGGHH!” A pair of wings, both as white as snow and as long as an albatross’s, spouted out of his back.
Every other Cultivator around him withdrew at once in horror.
The newly-inducted Angel emanated a powerful and intimidating presence.
“I’ve done it! I’ve done it! HAHAHAHAH!” The Caucasian howled jubilantly, “Let the Conquest begin!”
He spun around to address the crowd of oriental Cultivators now staring at him like he was a monster. “Did you see that? This is the Almighty Archangel Colombo from the realm of the G.o.ds! On your knees, you simpleminded Easterners! Prostrate yourself before him and submit yourselves to him or—”
Before he could even finish, a gigantic hand made of thick and voluminous plumes of clouds swooped down from the sky and closed its fingers around the stately and grand Archangel Colombo like it was catching a bug.
“Just what I need: your power. So that I can unlock the portal to the Battlefield of Chaos.”
An elderly man with an obscene-looking appearance materialized in mid-air. He closed his fist and the gigantic arm mimicked his every movement, drawing Colombo closer. Glowing trails of glyphs and runes drifted around this ma.s.sive fist, pulsing with intermittent radiance. Li Mu could not believe it. The twenty-winged Archangel Colombo wielded powers similar to Lazulum—that of the pre-Emperor Cla.s.s now looked with every semblance of a helpless bug, trapped and powerless to escape.
“T-That’s Old Swindler?! Is he really so powerful actually?!”
Li Mu could feel his face twisting and contorting with apprehension and astoundment.
It really was a surprise.
He had known for a long time that Old Swindler was no pushover, but not as powerful as this! Old Swindler’s display of power during the Immortal-Devil a.s.sembly was amazing enough, but it was nowhere close to this. With such ease, he had held in restraint a pre-Emperor Cla.s.s being! That means Old Swindler was at least an Emperor Cla.s.s ent.i.ty!
“Is that it?! Is Old Swindler actually an Immortal Emperor?!”
He felt like a child—a naïve boy who could barely comprehend what the world is all about.
“Woof?!” Silly Dog gawked with his jaws hanging wide. The Huawei Mate100 in its grasp fell to the ground and its screen shattered. But the Husky ignored all that. The ridiculous old man who never once won a mahjong game now exhibited the terror and presence of a demonic leviathan! Were all those mahjong games a way for him to improve?!
But they were not the only ones amazed; even Bi Yan and her champions were surprised.
Although the hint of astonishment on Bi Yan’s face subsided as quickly as it came.
“Is this his true might?! Has he recovered to such levels?! But surely his display of might today is not only to just unlock the portal for Li Mu?”
Bi Yan contemplated quietly.
Down on the ground, the Caucasian who was just demanding the surrender of all Eastern Cultivators froze with a blank gaze like a rat that had just seen a cat. Rooted to where he was standing with a pallid and daze countenance, even the wings on his back looked as if they had lost their radiance.
“H-HOW?!
“That the great and almighty Archangel Colombo is now being manhandled like a worthless ragdoll?!
“But he only just descended amongst us!
“And who is this hunchbacked old man?! A monster?!”
“T-That’s impossible! This is a realm long abandoned! There should be no one with such might here! That’s impossible! That an Imperial Lord—” The twenty-winged Archangel Colombo writhed and floundered like a fish struggling to break free, but the glyph-embellished fist of clouds just held fast. He couldn’t get out at all.
In the end, the pre-Emperor Cla.s.s vanished, reduced into just a golden ma.s.s barely the size of a bowl of swirling energy by Old Swindler.
“Go.”
Old Swindler performed a hand seal. Lines of minuscule runes emerged from him and circled around the swirling golden ma.s.s, acting like a conduit and funneling the golden energy toward Mimameidre’s trunk. The monstrous tree absorbed the golden energy like water sapped up by roots.
The boughs of the tree began to s.h.i.+ne with a rich aureate l.u.s.ter.
Flower buds began sprouting all around its crowns, spreading a fragrance that left all who smelled it enchanted.
“That’s…”
Li Mu gasped, his eyes widening.
Flowers of pure white bloomed upon the boughs now glowing with pulsing gold. Each and every one of the petals s.h.i.+mmered with the most immaculate moonglow that the world has ever seen, to say nothing of its sheer size. The pistils of each flower reached almost two meters at least and it was these humungous blossoms that had been releasing the fragrance into the atmosphere.
Bi Yan and her six mutant champions sprang into action. They soared up and flew towards the flowers.
All seven of them landed on seven different flowers.
Next, they sat on the flowers and began channeling their power.
“What’s going on?!”
An incredulous Li Mu broke his silence at last.
“The portal is opened, foolish brat! What are you waiting for!? Go!” Old Swindler peered down and barked at him.
“Wait, so those flowers are the portals?!”
Li Mu recovered quickly from his astonishment.
He gave Silly Dog a light kick to indicate that they should be moving, then he leaped into the air. He selected another unoccupied flower and landed on it, sitting on the flower like all the images of Buddha sitting on a lotus. So did Silly Dog, falling gently upon another separate flower.
In the meantime, figures all around the reservoir took into the skies, shooting towards the remaining flowers like comets.
There were twenty-one flowers that bloomed on Mimameidre but the Cultivators now contesting for a chance to get on the flowers numbered up to forty-five.
“HMPH.”
Old Swindler let loose what seemed at first a harmless but disdainful snort.
But it created an invisible force that slammed more than thirty off the sky like flies swatted into dis...o...b..bulated oblivion, leaving only twelve that managed to land unscathed on the remaining flowers.
Among them, Li Mu spied some familiar faces.