102: Chapter 94 One Punch Shatters the Formation, A Mortal Breaks the Divine Scheme

Pei Duo knelt on one knee on the completely still steel conveyor belt. The black jade pendant wrapped around her right knuckles dripped dark red blood—one drop, two drops—splashing onto the cold steel plate with an extremely faint sound.

Deprived of the sesshōseki's restrictive suppression, the three originally arrogant High-Ranked Red Oni fell into a stupor.

They stared with their bulging eyeballs at the shattered divine object, forgetting how to attack.

In mid-air, the Chinese Heroic Spirits that were sliding toward the bronze meat grinder stopped their movement.

They lowered their heads, watching the invisible shackles breaking inch by inch on their bodies, and faint light gradually gathered in their hollow eyes.

"Bang! Bang!"

Lin Sa and Xu Mo leaped down through the kicked-open ventilation shaft, landing steadily beside Pei Duo.

Xu Mo quickly scanned the surroundings. The deafening explosion of jammed bronze gears indicated that this perpetual motion furnace, which had been devouring their brethren, had completely shut down.

Immediately afterward, a piercing array self-destruction alarm echoed throughout the entire lower level.

Losing its power balance, the massive boiler room began to shake violently. Steel pipes overhead snapped one after another, high-pressure steam sprayed everywhere, and the entire structure became extremely unstable.

"Roar!"

The three High-Ranked Red Oni snapped back to their senses.

The terror of the formation core being destroyed caused them to let out furious roars. They brandished the obsidian long spears burning with ghostly green toxic fire, stomped their thick legs hard on the ground, stirring up a gust of foul wind, and rushed madly toward the trio of Pei Duo.

Simultaneously, the demon tower’s backup defense mechanism activated.

Obsidian gates carved with Japanese runes on all four walls descended with a "rumbling" sound, the heavy friction echoing in the hall.

The enemy intended to completely seal off this lower level, suffocating everyone and every soul to death in this collapsing desperate place.

S-Rank fierce ghosts attacking from the front, with dead ends closing in from all sides.

Pei Duo did not retreat a single step.

She slowly straightened her body, clenching her right hand, which was wrapped with the blood-stained jade pendant, into a fist. Her eyes held the fierce resolve of preferring to shatter than remain intact. Since her magic was sealed, she would confront them with her physical body.

The long spear wreathed in toxic fire stabbed down with a piercing wind howl.

At the moment between life and death, an unexpected change occurred.

On the conveyor belt, in the dark corners all around, countless ghostly blue soul fires converged wildly.

The tens of thousands of fragmented Chinese souls who had just regained their freedom did not choose to scatter and flee.

They rushed toward the burning toxic fire and stood directly in front of Pei Duo.

The Old Ghost in Zhongshan Suit and the one-armed Ming Dynasty veteran soldier charged at the very front.

Their tattered soul bodies suddenly swelled, burning with dazzling ghostly green light. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of fragmented souls instantly formed a wall of fiercely burning ghosts.

"Boom!"

The three obsidian long spears stabbed fiercely into the ghost wall, sending sparks flying.

The soul wall vibrated violently but did not retreat an inch.

The soul body of the Old Ghost in Zhongshan Suit had half of it burned away by the toxic fire, but he gripped the spear shaft tightly, the muscles in his shriveled cheek twitching, stubbornly holding back this fatal strike.

The three Red Oni were filled with astonishment.

They looked at the 'fuel' that should have been slaughtered at will, their eyes filled with disbelief.

The logic of High-Ranked Shikigami could not comprehend why these weak, fragmented souls dared to resist absolute power.

Although the soul bodies of the myriad Chinese Heroic Spirits were extremely weak, their accumulated resentment and obsession to protect their compatriots transformed into an unshakeable torrent.

The Old Ghost in Zhongshan Suit turned his head back.

The half-remaining side of his face pulled into an ugly smile toward Pei Duo, his dry, hoarse voice overriding the mechanical roar filling the area: "Take the children home!"

Following this roar, the soul wall suddenly exerted force and pushed back.

The majestic ghostly blue soul fire blasted onto the Red Oni, actually forcing the three massive monsters to stagger backward repeatedly.

Pei Duo did not speak. She looked down at the wall of people burning with ghostly green soul fire, looked at the Old Ghost in Zhongshan Suit whose face was only half there but who was still holding on, and then abruptly turned her head away.

"Xu Mo! Find a way!" Her voice was hoarse, but not a single word wavered.

Xu Mo's gaze swept rapidly between the descending gate and the snapped pipes, locking onto the exhaust skylight in the very center of the boiler room—which was still slowly closing. That was the only structural opening in the entire lower level not controlled by the array, because its function was heat exhaustion; sealing it meant blowing up the entire furnace.

"Up! The skylight gate has seven seconds left. That is the only path to life!"

Tens of thousands of ghostly blue soul fires responded instantly. They gave up entangling the Red Oni and transformed into a giant tornado spiraling upward.

The ferocious soul fire storm swept through the entire lower level.

The three S-Rank Red Oni, which had just managed to get up, were directly suppressed by this torrent of souls. Their massive bodies were pinned tightly into the scrap metal pile at the bottom of the furnace, unable to move even a single finger.

The middle section of the tornado transformed into solid steps and a violent upward current. Pei Duo, Xu Mo, and Lin Sa were steadily lifted by this power, ascending rapidly toward the skylight exit.

In the upper passage, dozens of Japanese Shikigami that were rushing to provide support were preparing to jump down the skylight.

Across the wide skylight opening, they saw the scene of these ten thousand souls flowing upward against the current.

The surging ghostly blue light illuminated the entire dark space.

The Shikigami, usually arrogant, froze in place. Fear overwhelmed their orders, and they retreated step by step.

"Kaka-ka..."

At the base of the Deer Terrace, lacking the continuous injection of soul fire fuel, thousands of bronze giant wheels completely jammed.

A series of metal-snapping explosions came from the outside, one after another, like the skeleton of some behemoth breaking apart section by section.

This mobile fortress, which had been speeding across the land, suddenly lost speed in the bloody sea mist off the Yomi Hirasaka coast. The immense inertia caused the entire structure to tilt violently forward, leading to large-scale collapse of internal bricks and timber.

The skylight gate overhead closed rapidly: five meters, three meters, one meter.

The soul fire lifted the trio in a final dash.

"Swish!"

In the last tenth of a second before the skylight gate completely sealed, the trio of Pei Duo rushed out of the steel dome.

They crashed heavily onto the ruined terrace of the top floor.

Having escaped the confinement of the lower level, the surrounding air suddenly became thin. That suffocating sense of barrier shield completely vanished.

At this moment, the exterior of the fortress underwent a drastic change.

As the power core failed, the "Yin Shang Deer Terrace" camouflage covering the exterior peeled off in large sections.

The bronze patterns turned into black-painted wooden structures, and the upturned eaves and dougong brackets transformed into dense torii gates and sacred shimenawa ropes.

The true face of this fortress was thus nakedly exposed in the bloody sea mist of Yomi Hirasaka—it had never been an Immortal Palace of the Yin Shang Dynasty, but merely an Eastern prison cage draped in a Chinese facade.

On a surviving corner tower high above, Tamamo-no-Mae stared intently at the churning ghostly blue soul fire below, gripping the five-colored feather fan so tightly her knuckles turned white.

It wasn't that she hadn't seen the weak overcoming the strong, but those instances always relied on divine artifacts, on laws, on some hidden trump card—yet that girl had nothing. She merely wrapped a stone around her hand and jumped down.

This unreasonable fighting style gave Tamamo-no-Mae the first feeling of an indescribable chill.

It wasn't because she lost, but because she couldn't understand it.

Pei Duo ignored Tamamo-no-Mae high above.

The moment she completely escaped the suppression of the demon tower's array, she keenly sensed the abnormality in her right hand.

The black jade pendant wrapped around her knuckles, stained with blood, suddenly flashed with a faint dark light.

The inside of the jade pendant emitted fine crackling electrical sounds, like a circuit that had been broken for a long time was gradually reconnecting.

The instant communication was restored, a lazy voice came from inside the jade pendant.

"Hello? Duo Duo?"

It was Pei Fei.

"Why is the wind so loud over there?" Pei Fei muttered on the other end, followed by the muffled sound of heavy objects smashing rock.

"Brother is busy taking down the plaque of Takamagahara over here. These short guys' wood is quite hard; it takes some effort."

In the background noise from the jade pendant, the roar of collapsing buildings and several piercing screams of Eastern deities could faintly be heard.

Pei Duo lowered her head. She tightly gripped the black jade pendant, listening to the voice within.

The ghostly blue soul fire filled the sky, circling above her head, illuminating her face covered in dust and bloodstains.

She stood under the liberated Chinese soul fire and heavily exhaled a breath of frustration she had held in for a long time.