222: Chapter 222 Life or Death

It was indeed trapped in an illusion, and because of the illusion's influence, it truly could not see the reality of the scene.

However, the vomeronasal organ of the flood dragon species was particularly well-developed, and its sensitivity to scent far exceeded its vision.

Qin Ce had just touched the Vicious Beast egg with his fingers, and his body was already stained with the egg's unique energy aura.

Therefore, rather than saying the Dark Nether Flood Dragon was looking with its eyes at this moment, it would be more accurate to say it was smelling with its sense of smell.

That aura was too close.

It was right there in its nest, right next to its child.

Although the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's pupils only saw the imaginary enemy within the illusion, the information transmitted back by its vomeronasal organ told it—"That thing that stole its child is right there."

The aura of the Dark Nether Flood Dragon grew increasingly intense.

It was not the intensity of a battle state, but the intensity of burning its Origin.

The energy within its body was already less than thirty percent, its Meridians were fractured in many places, and its life force was continuously draining.

But at this moment, it no longer cared about those things.

It began to burn its own Origin.

Like a candle lit at both ends, the flame was brighter than before, but the time until it extinguished was also shorter than before.

Its aura was climbing, surging upward from Star-Glow Medium Grade.

Star-Glow Medium Grade Peak, Star-Glow High Grade, Star-Glow High Grade Peak—that was a reckless climb, one paid for with its life.

Qin Ce's pupils constricted sharply.

He could feel that the already fractured Meridians inside the Dark Nether Flood Dragon were shattering inch by inch, the little energy remaining was evaporating bit by bit, and the life force that was already draining was vanishing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

But it no longer cared.

Its gaze bypassed the influence of the illusion and stared straight at Qin Ce.

The vomeronasal organ told it the location, instinct told it the direction, and the power brought by burning its Origin allowed it to briefly break free from the shackles of the illusion.

It could not see Qin Ce's face, nor could it see Qin Ce's form, but it knew—"That thing that stole its child is right there."

Then, a jet-black ice energy began to accumulate in the mouth of the Dark Nether Flood Dragon.

Qin Ce did not know what kind of existence he appeared to be within the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's illusory vision.

But looking at the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's charging motion, it was clearly preparing for a Vicious Beast of Bright Moon Level or higher. The degree of energy compression, the time spent charging, the intensity of the condensation—every bit of it was aimed at instantly killing an opponent of the same Rank.

How could Qin Ce be worth such treatment?

A Silver Rank human, a Silver Rank bird, a black iron rank young beast—in the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's normal state, it could swat them to death with a casual flick of its tail.

But at this moment, the Dark Nether Flood Dragon was dealing with him as if he were an enemy of the same Rank.

As the Dark Nether Flood Dragon accumulated energy, the Origin on its body burned brighter and brighter.

Cracks began to appear on its dark black scales, and a ghostly blue light seeped out from the cracks; that was the glow of its burning life force.

Its body began to shatter due to the excessive overdraft of energy.

First, the postpartum wound on its abdomen tore open even wider, and dark red blood flowed down along its scales; then, the scales on its tail fell off one by one, revealing the withered flesh and skin beneath; then, the bone spurs on its back snapped off one by one, with black energy dissipating from the broken ends.

But its aura was still climbing.

Star-Glow High Grade Peak.

Such immense pressure, like an abyss or a sea, weighed down on Qin Ce.

It was not the oppressive feeling of a Gold Rank Vicious Beast saying "I can defeat you," but the lock-on feeling of a Star-Glow Rank Vicious Beast saying "I want you dead."

The pressure was like an invisible hand squeezing in from all directions, pressing him until he couldn't breathe, pressing him until the blood in his veins felt like it was about to solidify, pressing him until he couldn't even move a finger.

He wanted to summon Qingluan, but his finger was pressed against the tattoo, yet he couldn't even mobilize the energy to activate it.

He wanted to tell Tianlu to dodge, but he couldn't open his lips, and he couldn't even make a sound.

He wanted to turn and run, but his legs were like they were nailed to the ground, motionless.

A life-overdrawing strike from a Star-Glow Rank was an existence that could solidify space for a Silver Rank.

It was not a skill, not a talent, but a pure, crushing disparity in power.

Cold sweat streamed down Qin Ce.

The despair of certain death surfaced in his heart.

He had never been so close to death.

In front of the Dark Nether Flood Dragon, his Wind Core, Shadow Sight, Phoenix Dance Nine Turns, and Flowing Cloud Wave Roll, which he prided himself on, were all meaningless.

It wasn't that the skills weren't strong enough; it was that the disparity in Rank was too great.

Between Silver and Star-Glow lay the Gold Rank, a major tier; that was a qualitative gap that could not be bridged by technique.

The jet-black ice energy in the mouth of the Dark Nether Flood Dragon was still condensing.

The energy ball had been compressed from the size of a fist to the size of a human head, and then from the size of a human head back to the size of a fist.

With each compression, the color of the energy ball deepened by a shade, from dark black to pure black, and from pure black to a gloom that swallowed light, something that could even suck in one's vision.

Qin Ce couldn't even close his eyes.

However, while the Dark Nether Flood Dragon was locking onto Qin Ce and exhausting all its strength to prepare the attack, it did not notice that its pressure on other things around it had instantly decreased significantly.

The Dark Nether Flood Dragon's entire Mental Energy was focused on Qin Ce, and all its energy was concentrated on the energy ball in its mouth.

It no longer paid attention to the rocks on the island, the sound of the wind on the lake surface, or the movements in the distance. Its world had shrunk to two points—itself, and that thing that stole its child.

Tianlu, which had been trembling and completely afraid to move, suddenly twitched its toes.

Then its claws, then its legs.

It stretched its body, which had been stiffened by the pressure, bit by bit. Its movements were very light and slow, like a small animal waking from hibernation, cautious and making no sound at all.

It opened its small claws that were covering its eyes and quietly looked up at the Dark Nether Flood Dragon in the sky.

The Dark Nether Flood Dragon did not notice it.

Tianlu looked at Qin Ce again.

Qin Ce was still frozen there, his hand pressed against the tattoo, his lips slightly parted, his eyes staring at the energy ball in the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's mouth.

There was no fear on his face, no despair, only a kind of... unwillingness.

Tianlu's small chest heaved.

It didn't know where its courage came from. It was only black iron rank, while the opponent was Star-Glow Rank.

It couldn't even withstand the pressure of a Gold Rank Vicious Beast, let alone a Star-Glow Rank one.

But it saw that Qin Ce couldn't move, saw that Qin Ce was about to die, and only one thought remained in its mind: it could not let its Boss die.

An unprecedented ferocity ignited from the bottom of its heart.

Tianlu's long-standing timid personality underwent a fundamental change.

Tianlu closed its eyes, and the nine-colored light on its antlers suddenly flared up.

It was not the weak, occasionally flickering light from before, but a bright, blazing light, like a flame that had been ignited.

As if something had awakened.

A flash of fire shot out from Tianlu's antlers.

Lumeng.

The color of that rune was completely different from before.

The previous Lumeng was nine-colored, carried a faint halo, and flew out lightly.

But this one was crimson-red, like a ball of flame compressed to the extreme, moving so fast that it left a burning trail in the air.

This was not a skill that a black iron rank young beast should be able to release.

This was a strike released by Tianlu, as if it had opened up all its Mental Energy, all its energy, and all its life force, an over-spec release.

The over-spec Lumeng shot toward the Dark Nether Flood Dragon.

However, just as the Lumeng was about to touch the Dark Nether Flood Dragon, the Nine-Radiance Spiritual Wisdom on Tianlu's head suddenly flashed rapidly a few times.

Qin Ce did not know what Tianlu's Nine-Radiance Spiritual Wisdom had sensed in that instant.

Was it Tianlu's own fortune, the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's fortune, or something of a higher level that he could not understand.

But the flashing of the Nine-Radiance Spiritual Wisdom was rapid and violent, like someone desperately ringing a bell.

Then, the spiritual energy environment around the entire lake island collectively underwent a fluctuation like an energy tide.

That fluctuation did not originate from Tianlu, nor from the Dark Nether Flood Dragon, but from the world itself.

The lake water, rocks, air, mist, seven-colored gas—everything, at the same moment, was stirred by an invisible hand.

The spiritual energy surged, churned, and swirled like a tide, forming a huge, invisible vortex.

The Lumeng, which was originally shooting straight at the Dark Nether Flood Dragon, was pushed by this tidal wave of spiritual energy, causing its direction to veer and its trajectory to deviate. It slid away from the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's head and stuck onto the rapidly compressing dark-type ice energy ball in the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's mouth.

The base attributes of Lumeng were light and fire.

The killing move currently being charged by the Dark Nether Flood Dragon was dark and ice.

The two sides were completely mutually antagonistic.

But even the Lumeng released by Tianlu, which had transcended its limits, was far behind in terms of energy Rank.

black iron rank versus Star-Glow Rank, with Bronze, Silver, and Gold, three major tiers in between.

It was like a matchstick hitting an iceberg; it didn't even count as a scratch.

Therefore, when the Lumeng collided with the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's accumulated energy, it was instantly dissipated and neutralized.

The crimson-red rune flashed on the surface of the black-blue energy ball, and then, like ice and snow meeting fire, it disappeared without a sound.

It left no trace at all.

However, it wasn't that there was absolutely no trace.

On that rapidly compressing dark-type and ice-type energy ball, a gap as thin as a hair appeared.

It was not a crack, not a notch, but a tiny anomaly in the energy structure—like a tightly woven net that had one thread snapped by the tip of a needle.

If you didn't look closely, you couldn't see it at all.

Qin Ce did not know if this was the effect of the Lumeng energy cancelling out consumption, or the effect of the third stage of Lumeng affecting Luck.

But he saw that gap.

Within this illusion, Qin Ce had kept Nine-Star Insight active the entire time.

The forms of all living beings and energy were not colors and shapes in his eyes, but information—an abstract representation of energy density, energy structure, and energy flow trajectories.

On the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's energy ball, that gap was extremely clear in the vision of Nine-Star Insight.

It was not clear visually, but clear in terms of information—the energy density at that position was a fraction of a percent lower than other locations, and the stability of the energy structure was half a degree worse.

It was infinitesimal, but it did exist.

Qin Ce stared fixedly at that gap, with Nine-Star Insight running at full power, concentrating all his Mental Energy on that hair-thin anomaly.

Information flooded into his brain like flowing water, appearing, sorting, filtering, and matching line by line.

The result was actually...

If one could trigger intense emotional instability in the Dark Nether Flood Dragon, then that dark-type and ice-type Fusion energy ball, compressed to the extreme, would self-detonate.

Qin Ce's eyes instantly lit up.

Just at this moment, an explosion rang out from the South, in the direction of Wang Zhuo and the others.

The sound of the explosion traveled from dozens of miles away, reflecting back and forth in the basin, dull and heavy, like someone beating a giant drum deep underground.

Immediately following that, a black light shot up into the sky from that direction, exploded in the air, and turned into countless tiny black specks of light, like a reverse rainstorm, scattering from the sky to the ground.

Qin Ce's Nine-Star Insight sensed the nature of that energy fluctuation.

It was the Space-Locking Chain.

That black chain that had previously bound his wrists had exploded.

It was not destroyed by external force; it was detonated voluntarily.

Wang Zhuo had detonated that Space-Locking Chain.

The Space-Locking Chain was a Gold Rank Magic Treasure, one of Wang Zhuo's trump card treasures.

Its value was no less than that armadillo, and perhaps even higher—because it was not a one-time use item.

Once the armadillo exploded, it was gone, but the Space-Locking Chain could be used again after being used.

But at this moment, Wang Zhuo had detonated it.

Qin Ce did not know exactly what had happened on Wang Zhuo's side, but his Nine-Star Insight could sense the energy changes.

The energy rules that formed after the Space-Locking Chain exploded were like a huge net, covering down from the sky and locking up half of the Gold Rank Vicious Beasts on the battlefield.

Those Vicious Beasts covered by the Space-Locking Chain's energy became sluggish in their movements and dull in their reactions, as if they were being pressed down by something.

Their speed slowed, their strength weakened, and even their attack frequency dropped.

And after that half of the Gold Rank Vicious Beasts were locked up, Wang Zhuo, who was disheveled and covered in bloodstains, was finally able to free up his hands to kill the Vicious Beasts.

His Silver-Patterned Peacock traced a silver-white trajectory in the air, and the three-colored light of the Three Absolute Swords flashed frantically among the Vicious Beast pack.

He no longer needed to worry about flank attacks, no longer needed to worry about sneak attacks from behind, and no longer needed to worry that those Vicious Beasts would interrupt him the moment he struck.

They were locked up and couldn't move.

He only needed to fly over and kill one with each sword strike.

The first one, the golden liquid rose by a small amount.

The second one, it rose by another small amount.

Qin Ce's energy had already surpassed his, but he was catching up, and catching up very quickly.

At this rate, he only needed to kill two more Gold Rank Vicious Beasts to fill up to ten percent, to surpass Qin Ce, and to take first place.

Qin Ce withdrew his perception from the distance, and his attention returned to the Dark Nether Flood Dragon once again.

There wasn't much time left.

Qin Ce gritted his teeth.

At this moment, the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's energy had finished accumulating, and its Mental Energy had locked directly onto Qin Ce along its gaze.

That jet-black energy ball rotated slowly in its mouth, ready to be released at any moment.

Once released, everything within hundreds of meters would be razed to the ground, and Qin Ce wouldn't even have any remains left.

Qin Ce bit his tongue hard.

The sharp pain spread like an electric current from the tip of his tongue to his entire mouth, and from his mouth to his brain.

That sharp pain briefly broke through the control of the Dark Nether Flood Dragon's pressure; his fingers could move, his lips could open, and his consciousness could function.

But he did not immediately summon Qingluan and run away.

Instead, he pressed his hand back onto the Vicious Beast egg.